by Dianne Drake
There had been a time when he’d appreciated the sideways glances of the nurses who hadn’t known he knew they were watching. And that obvious flirtation from Michi in Japan...something that had twisted and turned him in ways he hadn’t expected then, and even now. So maybe the looks weren’t going down too badly, but what he saw staring back at him from the mirror was a man who was...resigned to something that didn’t make him happy. Didn’t satisfy him either. Didn’t give him the good, hard feeling of being tired but satisfied that made him sleep well at night. As long as he spent his days behind this desk, doing mediocre work at best, it would always be that way.
“But we keep promising to fix things, don’t we?” he always said to his mirror, ever hopeful that saying it out loud to an inanimate object that wouldn’t criticize him might actually inspire him to go out and find some of that old mojo again. And did he ever need that inspiration. Where and how, though? He didn’t have a clue. But at least all hope hadn’t died. That was something to hang onto. Although sometimes hanging only by a thread.
Once Eric decided he was “Hart-ready,” as his dad had called it, he headed for his office door. And his thoughts—on the woman he’d seen outside. The fairy-tale would have them bump into each other in the coffee shop, then spend hours talking, laughing, getting to know each other. They would make plans for dinner that night—someplace slow and dim, where they could talk quietly and tell secrets. Then they’d go back to his place...and that was where it stopped.
Those days were behind him even though he was only thirty-six, and now he was all about the corporate life where everything ran on fear and promises, and most of those promises were empty, like his social life.
“Sure you don’t want something?” he asked Natalie again, as he headed out the door. The fact that she didn’t even take her eyes off her computer screen didn’t surprise him. Now, as she did so often, she was looking through her gallery of pictures of the only man she’d ever loved. Lost in his world. Reliving the life she’d never had. Sad. But sometimes the choices people made weren’t easily shed. For Natalie, that was his father. For him...trying to please a man who would never be pleased. And now it was too late.
Would that be him someday? Sitting at a computer, looking through reminders of a life he had never had, and an undertaking in which he’d failed so miserably. He sincerely hoped not.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS A cozy little café. Pastries, teas, coffee, flowers, and all sorts of gifty things that were cute, but not practical. And the café was full to overflowing with people. Loud, but nice. Michi had managed to snag the last table available, the one in the corner, the one with the worst view in the shop. But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t in the mood for being social or enjoying views. All she wanted was a tea, and some time by herself to think.
She was worried, naturally. Riku would be in great hands with Dr. Kapoor. She was sure of that. But right now, that wasn’t her biggest concern. It was Eric, and what to do about that whole situation. He had a right to know he had a son. He also had a right to know his son had a heart defect. But hadn’t she tried to contact him early on her pregnancy? Then later, after Riku was born, hadn’t she tried again?
Well, that was the way she pacified herself when she got in the mood. Telling herself she’d tried. That she’d been so overwhelmed that her thinking hadn’t been sharp. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Today it wasn’t even coming close because her motivations were not even clear to herself anymore. Except for one. But that had nothing to do with Eric, and it was something she surely didn’t want him to know: being accused of being an unfit mother.
So, there was that weight she always carried, as well as not telling Eric the truth from the start. And, of course, her default excuse...yeah, right, she’d tried. What of it?
Yet he was right across the street now. Easy, convenient. All she had to do was walk over there—and then what? Would she produce papers proving Riku was Eric’s? Wait, she didn’t have papers. Hadn’t even put Eric’s name on the birth certificate. So, would he simply believe her? Hello, Eric. I had your baby two years ago. Probably not. Then there was always the question of whether he’d want to be an involved father. She knew he’d be a good father, just from the little she knew of him. But would he want that?
There were so many questions with answers awaiting her. Answers she feared. So, for now, she’d sip her tea and hope for an angel or something to drop down from the sky and give her the solution she needed because she sure wasn’t in any state to figure it out on her own.
“Would you care for a refill on your tea?” a young man asked, startling Michi out of her thoughts. “Another tea bag, more hot water?”
She looked up at him and smiled. “That would be lovely,” she said, gazing beyond the server to the table where four women sat chattering away as they ate their pastries. “With a little more lemon,” she added. “And maybe one of those scones I saw earlier when I was at the counter.”
“Happy to oblige, ma’am,” the young man said, then scooted through the tangle of people who weren’t lucky enough to have a place to sit but who obviously weren’t ready to go back outside and face the rest of the day.
Michi leaned back in her chair, trying to relax, but she was too wound up for that, so she simply sipped her tea, ate her scone when the server brought it, and stared out the window at Eric’s building, like that was going to give her some kind of resolution. Intermittently, she flipped through her phone to various photos of Riku and only then did that feeling of despair go away. One perfect little face with such a calming effect. Who would have ever guessed that she could have fallen in love so deeply. But she had, and she would literally give her life for that little boy.
“I hope you like blueberry, because I’ve bagged up one to take with you. You look like you’re in a blueberry kind of mood,” the server said, handing over a bag. “On the house.”
“Thank you,” she said, as she repositioned herself in the seat. “So, tell me—what, exactly, identifies a blueberry mood?”
“Someone who’s worrying or being contemplative. You’ve been in here quite a while and it’s obvious something’s on your mind. Something heavy, judging from all the frowning.”
Was she so transparent that the young man with the scones could identify her mood? He was right—it was definitely blueberry. “Maybe if I come back, I’ll be in a strawberry mood. Would that be better?”
“Yes, because our strawberry scones are one of the most popular and strawberry is a very happy state of mind.”
“Then make sure you save me a strawberry and I’ll work hard on my strawberry mood before I get here.” She took a bite of her blueberry scone, then a sip of her tea, and started to pop back into her photo gallery, but a voice at a nearby table startled her out of her plan.
“Help! Somebody, please, help. She’s choking.”
Instantly alert, Michi jumped up and ran to the table where the ladies she’d observed were sitting. Sure enough, one of them was choking. Sitting up straight, confused, trying to breathe, the woman rolled her eyes up at Michi, and her expression was beyond frightened. She was dying, and she knew it.
“Please, stand back,” Michi yelled to the crowd, as she leaned the choking woman forward and slapped her back five times. She’d hoped that whatever was lodged in the woman’s windpipe would come loose, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.
So, from behind again, she wrapped her arms around the woman’s ribcage, forming a fist with both hands. Then she pulled the woman toward her, giving an upward thrust each of the five times she tried. Still, nothing happened. And now the woman was turning blue. Her lips, her fingernails. Oxygen deprivation, Michi knew as she started the whole procedure over again. “Has somebody called for an ambulance?” she shouted to the crowd.
One deep, smooth voice stood out over the noise of the crowd. “ETA less than five,” he said, pushing himself thr
ough the crowd, then kneeling next to Michi. “And she doesn’t have five minutes left in her,” he continued.
Michi looked over to see who was working with her, and gasped. “Eric?”
“Michi?” he said, as he took over the upward thrusts Michi was doing. One, two—on the third thrust it worked and the woman sucked in a deep breath.
“Stay still,” Michi cautioned her, trying not to think what would happen next, when the ambulance took her to the hospital. “The paramedics will be here shortly, and they’ll take you to the emergency room so the doctors there can run some tests to make sure you’re good.”
Gasping for breath, the woman nodded her understanding as Eric took her pulse again. “Much better,” he said, giving her a reassuring pat on the arm. “You’ve come through the hard part like a champ, and this next part in the hospital will be much easier. And it won’t be happening on a cold cement floor.”
She smiled up at him, drew in a deep breath, then closed her eyes, not from fear but from trusting Eric, who’d taken off his jacket and placed it under her head.
The way Eric was with the poor woman...it nearly brought a lump to Michi’s throat. This was a man who was born to be a doctor. A man who shouldn’t have given it up. And he was Riku’s father, she thought as a swell of pride overtook her. “Paramedics are on their way in,” she said, glancing out the window, not so much to watch for the paramedics as to pull herself together.
Immediately, the onlookers in the café began to move tables and chairs back and push the display shelf of coffees and mugs for sale to the wall to make room for the two paramedics, their equipment and their stretcher. “Her vitals are stabilizing,” Eric said. “So now it’s more about her being frightened than anything else.”
The woman looked up at him again and nodded, and Michi was still amazed by the way not only the woman but everyone in the room responded to him. Even in the middle of a medical crisis his voice was so calm, so reassuring she was impressed by how much she remembered the detail of it. It was the same deep, convincing undertone that had seduced her. The same richness that had enticed her into his bed. Yet now she could hear the edge, the command. And she could see the way people were responding.
“I was actually thinking about you earlier,” Eric said.
There hadn’t been a day gone by since he’d left her that she hadn’t thought about him. She’d sculpted the perfect words to say when she did finally catch up to him. Practiced them. Edited. Practiced. Edited. And now that the moment had arrived, all she could think to say was, “How have you been?” Stupid. Stupid. And she didn’t hear his answer between the noise of people still moving tables back and the mad flurry of the pounding feet of people trying to get out of the way.
“She’s doing better,” Michi said, as Eric bent down again, but this time not as keen to watch the patient as he was to look at her. “Respirations still shallow and fast, but nothing dangerous.”
Ruth, the choking victim, smiled at Eric like he was the only one in the room as the paramedics took quick vital signs, then lifted her onto the stretcher. At that point, Eric took her hand and went with them to the ambulance, and it was only when they had arranged her in the back and were getting ready to shut the door that he let go. Once he did, he slapped the door to indicate everything was good, and the ambulance siren came on, then the vehicle nosed its way into bumper-to-bumper New York traffic.
“She really trusted you,” Michi said, standing behind him.
“I think if you’re in a life or death situation and there’s somebody there to help you, you naturally trust them. Haven’t been in one myself, but it makes sense.”
“How have you been, Eric?” she asked again as they walked back over to the sidewalk.
“Busy. New responsibilities, a new job, a new life.”
“Medicine’s loss,” she said, clearly uneasy. This wasn’t the right place to tell him about Riku, neither was it the right time. But it was circling around her now, the reality of what she was about to face. “My, um...aunt mentioned you’d left surgery to take over your family business.”
“Duty called,” he said. “But that’s life, right? Things happening when you least expect it. Like you. I thought I saw you outside my building a while ago,” he said, following her back through the congestion of people and displaced tables and chairs in the café. “Standing on the sidewalk.”
“I was taking a walk earlier, so you might have.” Since he wasn’t mentioning the baby she’d been carrying, she assumed he hadn’t seen Riku. “I was on my way to order coffee and a scone,” she answered, then laughed. “Which is pretty obvious since we met in a shop where they sell coffee and scones.”
“Good coffee, great scones. So, can I get you something? The blueberry scones are the best, in my opinion.”
Blueberry. That caused her to laugh. Today she must have simply reminded everybody of a blueberry, and that one little scone held so many ramifications, her stomach turned over and all she wanted was to turn around and get out of there, blueberry scone or not. “After what just happened, I’m out of the mood,” she said.
“Well, I’ve got a secretary back in the office who’s expecting delivery service, even though she’ll deny it, so...” He stepped on ahead to the counter, placed his order, then turned back to Michi, who’d taken several steps toward the door. “Not that it’s any of my business but are you in New York for any reason in particular?”
To find him? No. To find herself, perhaps. Mostly, though, for Riku. “Family,” she said. “My uncle and his partner are here, and...” She shrugged as she took another couple of steps backward toward the door. Opened it, then hesitated for a moment. “Look, I need to get going. They’re expecting me.”
“I wish I’d known you were coming. Maybe we could have set aside an evening...”
“Maybe,” she said on a wistful sigh as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Is it too late for that? Since I’m the boss I can juggle my schedule. Maybe something tonight? Dinner?”
That could be the perfect time and place to tell him everything. Which was why she was hesitating. Her fear of what she had to do was finally turning into her reality. “It’s not like we started anything real that night. Then the way you left me... I mean, I didn’t have expectations. But when you do what we did, I should think there’d be a civil goodbye at the end of it.” Except failed contraception had turned that into an impossibility because she had Riku now. And no regrets, except her actions.
But if she did decide to tell Eric, would he have regrets? Well, now wasn’t the time to tell him, and now wasn’t the time to discover the answer to her question. Maybe that angel had dropped down when she wasn’t looking and left her with enough of a solution to get her by for a little while. But only for a little while as she still felt unsettled. “Seven,” she finally said. “At my uncle’s restaurant.” A comfort zone she desperately needed now.
“Which is?”
“Tanoshī Shō, if you don’t mind eating Japanese food. It’s small, quiet, and the chef...they don’t come any better than Takumi. But if you’d prefer a steak, or something Italian...”
“What I’d prefer is an hour or two of your time, Michi. That morning when I left...it never felt resolved. You know, lacking the whole closure thing people talk about today.”
“Waking up alone in bed is closure enough,” she said, even though she felt the same way he did.
“Then bear with me. There are some things I need to tell you, for my sake.”
“You left me,” she said, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “We weren’t...aren’t...anything, and we knew what we were about, so what happened happened.”
“I had a good reason.”
“And the author Jean Renoir once said, ‘The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons.’” She didn’t want to be obstinate, didn’t want to sound so harsh or rejecting sin
ce she too had her reasons. But this was fear bubbling up in her. Pure, raw fear. Everything that had scared her these past nearly three years was finally confronting her, and she had to get it right or too many people would be hurt.
“Look, I don’t want to get into this here. I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes so tonight...”
Michi swallowed hard, then nodded. “Tonight,” she repeated, then managed a smile. “But only if you try my uncle’s peanut amanattō.”
“I don’t believe I know that one,” Eric replied.
“He doesn’t make it for the general public. Mostly for his family.” And in a way Eric was family. “Here, in America, his desserts are a little more Western, but back home this was always a real treat. In fact, there’s a version without the peanuts that Riku loves...” She caught herself before she said anything else. This wasn’t the way to tell him. Not here. Not now. Not a casual mention in a going-nowhere conversation.
“Riku?” Eric questioned. “Who’s Riku?”
“I’ll meet you there at seven,” she said, then scooted around him and headed down the sidewalk, not sure where she was going. But any place away from Eric was good. He’d had such a profound effect on her the first time they’d met that within the first hours she had wondered if their meeting could be the start of something more. Not expecting Riku to be the something more, of course. But everything about Eric was potent and powerful, which was everything she’d needed that night. Someone to push out the reality and offer the fantasy.
And look at her now. All about the reality, and nothing else. But as she thought every time she looked at her son, No regrets. Her medical practice was nearly a thing of the past now, she spent more time in doctors’ offices and doing online research than she’d ever imagined could happen in her life. Every waking minute was fixed on Riku and the next thing she needed to do for him, whether it was bathing him or feeding him, adjusting his oxygen when he required it, or simply cuddle time.
