36
Doing the Mom Thing
She had dinner—spaghetti Bolognese, because she’d never win the “most innovative home chef” award—simmering on the stove, and she was on the phone. Harlan’s sisters were at their hotel, but coming over for dinner later, and Harlan had gone to the park with Annabelle to practice her batting, which was exactly right, in Jennifer’s opinion. The ball, bat, and mitt were almost the first things Annabelle had grabbed yesterday when they’d been packing, proving that athletic passion ran in the family.
She’d already emailed her boss to say she’d be out for a day, an action that had filled her with terror. She never missed work. Not when she wasn’t at death’s door, anyway. Never. But here she was doing it anyway.
Which was what she was trying to explain to her grandpa now.
“I’m sure you’re a real big help,” he said. “About the best person you could get for the job, probably. You might be getting in over your head with this thing, though.”
She stirred her sauce and turned the heat on under the big pot for the spaghetti, ignored the faint swirl of mingled hunger and nausea that rose in her at the smell of ground beef and tomatoes, and laughed. “I’m so far over my head, it’s not even funny. How do you not be over your head in a situation like this? Who would know how to do this? But you should see Harlan, Grandpa. You should see how this is tearing him up. Poor Annabelle, too. How can I not help?”
“Doesn’t the guy have any friends?” Oscar sounded grumpy now.
“I’m sure he has lots of friends. But this is a rough one.”
“Yeah, I get that. Just not sure why you’re nominated. How’d he do when you told him about the baby?”
“Kind of …” She needed another can of tomato sauce in there. “He was surprised,” she said cautiously.
Oscar snorted and said, “I bet,” and she had to smile.
“But he’s been so sweet to me since then,” she said. “Looking out for me, making sure I eat, that I’m not too tired. To his sisters, too, but even to me. Even though he doesn’t know whether the baby’s his.”
“Uh-huh,” Oscar said. “Yep. Sounds like you’re doing real good at not getting involved.”
“Grandpa.” She dumped the tomato sauce into the pan, managed to splatter a few drops on her new sweater, and thought, At least it’s purple. “I’m realistic, OK?”
“Uh-huh,” Oscar said again. “So when are you coming back?”
“Tomorrow. I have to get back to work, and anyway, Harlan and Annabelle are leaving then. But there’s the bail hearing, and I’m not sure if he wants to go to that. He’ll drop me off with the jet, though, on the way back to Portland.”
“He’ll drop you off with the jet,” Oscar said. “I’m not going to say anything.”
“Well, good,” Jennifer said.
“Seems to me you’ve been hurt enough, is all. Time to find a man who wants to put you first, I’d say.”
“Hey. I thought you weren’t saying anything. Besides, you loved Mark.”
“I was making the best of it. Seeing as how you were determined not to find somebody who’d treat you better.”
“Well, I’m safe from all those legions of caring, attentive men knocking down my door now,” Jennifer said. “Since I’m pregnant. Look, I’ll see you tomorrow, OK? And put Dyma on, would you?”
“That’s going to go well,” Oscar said. “Hang on.”
She tasted the sauce and added more basil, carefully not splashing herself, pulled out the loaf of sort-of-Italian bread she’d bought (North Dakota was even more deficient on the artisan-bread front than Idaho, which was hard to achieve), and started mincing garlic. There wasn’t much you couldn’t improve with garlic butter.
Dyma’s voice, then, over the phone’s speaker. “Mom? What’s going on? Where are you?”
She explained, and Dyma said, “Wow. That’s … wow, that’s about the worst. How are they doing? How’s Annabelle?”
Jennifer said, “First—I love that you said that.”
“What kind of person would I be if I didn’t? Give me marginal points for basic humanity. Seriously, though. How is she?”
“Doing all right, I think, or as well as you could expect. Harlan’s out with her now, helping her with batting practice. Giving her something normal to do. He’s taking her back to Portland to live with him. He’s been very protective. Very sweet.”
“Oh, no,” Dyma said. “Very sweet? You’re kidding. Mom. Wait. Why were you with him yesterday in the first place? When you said you were going to Portland, I figured it had to do with a job. Something with Blake. You went to visit Harlan, though. Why? After you keep telling me not to get too excited. Owen’s been here, at least. He took me to prom. I thought you were all about your future now.”
“I wasn’t …” She was still mincing garlic. “It was different.”
“Uh-huh. Here’s the thing about casual sex. It’s supposed to be casual.”
Jennifer tried to say something, but she was drawing a blank. Finally, she came up with, “I like him.”
Dyma sighed. “And you think I’m impulsive. I guess I underestimated Harlan’s wow factor. Why didn’t you just tell me what you were doing, then? That you were going to see him? If it wasn’t that you were, you know, in love?”
“I just didn’t want you to think …” Jennifer had to stop. “Well, obviously, I didn’t want to share the truth.”
“Why not?” Dyma asked. “What would have been so bad about it? So you were going to Portland, and you figured you’d hook up with a really hot guy, because he was great the first time. So what? Nobody died. Whoops. I guess they did. But seriously, so what? You were both responsible and all that, right?”
Wait until I tell you I’m pregnant, Jennifer didn’t say as she mixed garlic into softened butter. She knew exactly why she hadn’t done that yet. Probably the main reason. How did you tell your daughter that you didn’t know who the father was? She was waiting until she did know, and then she’d tell Dyma. Call her a coward, but she was waiting.
Eighteen years of being boring and invisible, down the tubes. One reckless night, and here she was again.
The front door opened, and she said, “Whoops. Got to go. See you tomorrow. Love you.”
Harlan and Annabelle came in arguing. Or rather, Annabelle came in mad and near tears, and Harlan came in looking frustrated, beleaguered, and at a loss.
She was familiar with the feeling.
Annabelle said, as she stripped off her jacket, “I can’t just leave forever, Harlan! What about my team? The playoffs are in May. You’d never leave your team in the middle of the season.”
Harlan glanced at Jennifer, and she saw the words like they were written on his forehead. Help me. She said, “Wash your hands, would you, Annabelle, and then come sit up here at the bar and slice this bread for me. You can spread garlic butter on the slices, too. Here.” She grabbed a cutting board and plunked the bread down along with the bowl of garlic butter and a bread knife. “Want a beer, Harlan?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “I do.” He looked weary, which she’d bet happened just about never, but he washed his hands, too, then got himself up on a stool next to Annabelle.
She’d found out a long time ago that there wasn’t much teenage angst you couldn’t make better in a kitchen. Time to see if it worked here. She got him a beer and the opener, turned on the oven, put the teakettle on to boil, wished for a beer herself, and said, “So tell me.”
Annabelle said, “I get that Harlan wants to help. I do. But I’ve got letters of interest from all these schools, and it’s my junior year. It’s my chance.”
“You had a junior season of volleyball already,” Harlan said. “And you can have a senior season of both sports, too. Besides, I told you, you’ve already got a ride to college. From me.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to do it on … on your back,” Annabelle said. “I want to make it myself, and I can. Plus, there are my classes. You can’t just swit
ch schools in April. It’s not third grade. I’m taking two AP classes, and the exams are in May. How’m I going to handle those? Do I just wash out this whole year of work?”
Harlan said, “I … we’ll figure it out,” and Annabelle said, “No, we won’t, because you can’t do that.” Sounding agitated. Sounding nearly frantic.
“That’s a tough one,” Jennifer said, thinking, Let’s lower the temperature here. “You wanted to do your senior year in Portland, though, right?”
“Yes,” Annabelle said. “But I wasn’t thinking now. And I get it that it’d suck to be here. If they let Dad out tomorrow, on bail …” She stopped and said slowly, “It’s going to be so creepy to be here.”
Harlan put his arm around her and squeezed, and she said, “But I can’t … how do I leave? It’s too hard. Every time I try to think what to do … it’s too … it’s too hard.”
She was crying a little, finally, and Harlan’s arm tightened. Jennifer passed over a box of Kleenex, glad she’d thought to buy it, and Annabelle cried for just a minute against Harlan’s chest, then blew her nose and said, “I know this isn’t what’s important. Not with Mom …” Her chin trembled. “But I keep thinking about it, and I don’t know what to do.”
Jennifer said, “You know what? I think school is going to turn out to be the easy part of this. Of course you can’t enroll in a new school for two months of your junior year.”
“She can’t?” Harlan asked.
“No,” Jennifer said. “She’s right. It’s not third grade. Her coursework will be more specific than that. But I’m guessing that you can go see the counselor tomorrow and work out a plan where she finishes remotely. She can take the books and get the homework, and take the tests, too. You can take the AP tests anywhere,” she told Dyma. “They’re standardized, and you’re almost there anyway. It would probably be a good idea to have an adult tutoring you, though. Proctoring your exams, all that.”
Harlan said, “Uh … college was a long time ago. Chemistry? Probably not.”
“Too bad you don’t have any money to hire somebody,” she said sweetly. “Like … a teacher?”
He grinned. “Well, yeah. I could do that. What do you think, Bug? Finish remotely, with a tutor? And then senior year in Portland?”
“Can I do that?” she asked. “Do you think they’d let me?”
“I’m sure they would,” Jennifer said, making it firm. “Stuff happens, and schools want kids to succeed. Plus, of course, they only get funding for you if you’re enrolled, and you’d still be enrolled.”
“OK,” Harlan said. “There you go.”
“What about softball, though?” Annabelle asked.
“You know,” Jennifer said, “I think you might have to let softball go for this season. It’s too much to ask Harlan to live here with you, and it’s too much to ask you to live here. Don’t you think? He wants to keep you safe, but how safe are either of you going to feel here?”
Harlan said, “I can keep her safe. And don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
He wasn’t drinking his beer, was just spinning the bottle around and around, and she wondered how it would feel to question your motives every time you took a drink, to question your stability every time you lost your temper. How much it would make you want to keep your distance, so your emotions never rose into the danger zone.
“I know,” she said. “But there’s such a thing as feeling …” She groped for the word. “Safe inside. Secure, I guess. And you know … maybe there’s another sport you can do in Portland. I looked up athletic scholarships once for Dyma. Not that she cared, but it was back in the days when I thought I could influence her. Long gone. How about rowing?”
Annabelle looked blank, and Harlan said, “Not a lot of rowing in Bismarck.”
“Rowing’s a big one for girls’ scholarships, though,” Jennifer said. “And Portland has a river, right? I’ll bet there’s a team. It’s not like lacrosse or soccer, where you’d have to play for years to be good. You’re just rowing a boat.”
Annabelle said, “That could be cool, I guess.”
Jennifer laughed. “I wish somebody’d told Dyma that. She thought it was the lamest idea she’d ever heard. ‘Mother. Like I’m going to go do sports. I’m going to get an academic scholarship.’ What’s so galling is that she actually did it.” She sighed. “Thanks for entertaining the idea, anyway. That was novel. You so rarely get to be right as a mom.”
37
Stay With Me
Jennifer sat up in the darkness, confused about where she was. The door wasn’t in the right place, and she couldn’t remember where the bathroom was.
Oh. She was in Bismarck. Murder. Jail. Heartbreak.
She heard the noise and realized it was what had woken her. A muffled groan.
Annabelle. She threw the covers back, swung her legs to the floor, shivered in the chill, and wished for a bathrobe. She’d bought a nightgown today, but she was only going to be here one more night, and she had a perfectly good bathrobe at home.
Straining her ears, then, and hearing the sound again. She got out of bed, still fuzzy with sleep, grabbed her phone off the nightstand, switched the flashlight on, and headed across the hall to Annabelle’s room, then stood with her hand on the doorknob and listened.
Nothing.
She heard the noise again. It wasn’t coming from Annabelle’s room. It was coming from the room next to her own. Which was Harlan’s.
Oh, boy. What did she do now?
She couldn’t stand that sound.
Listening outside his door now, then knocking softly once, and again. No response, so she opened the door a cautious couple of inches and called out, “Harlan?”
Nothing. She slipped inside, lit the way to the bed with her phone light, and saw him sit up fast.
“What?” he asked, sounding fuzzy. “What’s wrong?”
About an acre of bare chest and bicep. A long leg sculpted of pure muscle, and the covers not covering enough.
He was naked, and that clearly hadn’t been a nightmare.
She switched off the flashlight fast.
Possibly the most embarrassing moment in the history of moments.
A rustle that was probably Harlan grabbing the blankets, and he said, “Bug? What’s wrong?”
Oh. He hadn’t been able to see her behind the light. “Ah … no.” She was over by the door now, as gone as she could manage to be. “Jennifer. Sorry. I’ll just …”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing. I, ah, thought somebody was having a nightmare.”
“Oh.” A couple seconds, and he said, “Well, it was a dream, anyway. Hey. Come over here.”
“I should go back to bed.”
“Nah. Climb in with me. You’re cold, and I could use some company. Come talk to me.”
That would be stupid. Also crazy. The last time she’d done that, she’d gotten pregnant. She needed to go.
She said, “Just for a minute, then.” And slid in.
When her bare foot touched his, he jumped. She said, “S-sorry. Cold.”
“Yeah.” He rolled over onto his side, got an arm over her, and kissed her hair. “It was nice of you to worry.”
She laughed, and after a moment, he did, too. “It’s not my fault you’re noisy,” she said. “What was I supposed to think? You sounded tortured.”
“I did? It was kind of like that, I guess. And, yeah, it’d probably be more sensitive of me if it was a nightmare. That was a crappy day.”
“Mm. Dinner wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, though. Other than telling them how your mom died, you guys hardly even talked about it. I think it helped having the kids here. Things never seem as horrible with a toddler around, or maybe everybody was just stunned.”
“Uh-huh. You know, I don’t exactly want to pursue this topic.” He ran his fingers over her shoulder and sighed. “This is kind of a thin little nightgown you’ve got on. I like these little straps. Not really up to North Dakota, tho
ugh, do you think? No wonder you’re cold. Tell me it’s white. I have this vision of it being white.”
“It is,” she said, feeling shy. “I thought it was pretty. It wasn’t even … on sale, though.” His hand was moving down her arm now. How could that feel so good?
Because every time he touched you, he did it with such intent, that was why. Because he was always paying attention. “I always buy things on sale,” she explained. “But I needed something pretty today.”
“Yeah?” She smelled his clean scent as he came down over her, like the north woods. Wind and evergreens and the forest floor. He brushed his mouth over hers. “Tell me I bought it for you. Make my day.”
“Ah … no.” How were you supposed to breathe when he was kissing your cheeks, moving his mouth on over to your ear? “You’re not buying my …” She hitched in her breath, because he was kissing her neck now. “Clothes.”
“You haven’t asked me about the dream,” he said, between those gentle kisses at her neck, then another one dropped onto her lips. He wasn’t touching her, though. Why wasn’t he touching her? “I’m pretty sure that’s how this is supposed to go. You come in because I’m having a nightmare, I tell you about it, and it gets better.”
“Uh, yeah. I’m not sure I want to hear this one. Also, we’re not having sex.”
He rolled onto his back and laughed. “Aw, man. Shot down again. Does it help if I tell you that the dream was about you?”
She should get up and leave right now. This was crazy. If the baby was his, she needed the distance. If it wasn’t, things were even more impossible. She said, “I should tell you. Something happened to me after I spent that night with you.”
“Yeah. You mentioned.” Still sounding lazy. Not upset at all. She tried to think, Of course he’s not upset. A baby’s a little money out of his pocket, and that’s all. But she couldn’t get there, not with what she’d seen from him today.
“Not that,” she said. “I mean …” She was not telling him this. She was not. “I started thinking about how I could … change. If I could take some … steps. To be a little more … adventurous.” He wasn’t touching her anymore, and she wanted his hand back. She wanted him to slip that strap off her shoulder and kiss her there, so gently. She wanted to feel him unbuttoning the front of the chemise, and she wanted to feel the brush of the thin cotton as it fell away from her body.
Shame the Devil (Portland Devils Book 3) Page 29
