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The Swallow's Nest
Emilie Richards
Three women fight for the chance to raise the child they've all come to loveWhen Lilia Swallow's husband, Graham, goes into remission after a challenging year of treatment for lymphoma, the home and lifestyle blogger throws a party. Their best friends and colleagues attend to celebrate his recovery, but just as the party is in full swing, a new guest arrives. She presents Lilia with a beautiful baby boy, and vanishes.Toby is Graham's darkest secret—his son, conceived in a moment of despair. Lilia is utterly unprepared for the betrayal the baby represents, and perhaps more so for the love she begins to feel once her shock subsides. Now this unasked-for precious gift becomes a life changer for three women: Lilia, who takes him into her home and heart; Marina, who bore and abandoned him until circumstance and grief changed her mind; and Ellen, who sees in him a chance to correct the mistakes she made with her own son, Toby's father.A custody battle begins, and each would-be mother must examine her heart, confront her choices and weigh her dreams against the fate of one vulnerable little boy. Each woman will redefine family, belonging and love—and the results will alter the course of not only their lives, but also the lives of everyone they care for.


Three women fight for the chance to raise the child they’ve all come to love
When Lilia Swallow’s husband, Graham, goes into remission after a challenging year of treatment for lymphoma, the home and lifestyle blogger throws a party. Their best friends and colleagues attend to celebrate his recovery, but just as the party is in full swing, a new guest arrives. She presents Lilia with a beautiful baby boy, and vanishes.
Toby is Graham’s darkest secret—his son, conceived in a moment of despair. Lilia is utterly unprepared for the betrayal the baby represents, and perhaps more so for the love she begins to feel once her shock subsides. Now this unasked-for precious gift becomes a life changer for three women: Lilia, who takes him into her home and heart; Marina, who bore and abandoned him until circumstance and grief changed her mind; and Ellen, who sees in him a chance to correct the mistakes she made with her own son, Toby’s father.
A custody battle begins, and each would-be mother must examine her heart, confront her choices and weigh her dreams against the fate of one vulnerable little boy. Each woman will redefine family, belonging and love—and the results will alter the course of not only their lives, but also the lives of everyone they care for.
Praise for the novels of Emilie Richards
“I emerged at the last page as a better and more thoughtful person.”
—Catherine Anderson, New York Times bestselling author, on When We Were Sisters
“Straightforward, honest, and uplifting.”
—New York Journal of Books on When We Were Sisters
“Emilie Richards is at the top of her game in this richly rewarding tale of love and family and the ties that bind us all. One Mountain Away is everything I want in a novel and more. A must-buy!”
—Barbara Bretton, New York Times bestselling author
“Richards creates a heart-wrenching atmosphere that slowly builds to the final pages, and continues to echo after the book is finished.”
—Publishers Weekly on One Mountain Away
“This is emotional, suspenseful drama filled with hope and love.”
—Library Journal on No River Too Wide
“Portraying the uncomfortable subject of domestic abuse with unflinching thoroughness and tender understanding...offers important insights into a far too prevalent social problem.”
—Booklist on No River Too Wide
“A juicy, sprawling beach read with a suspenseful twist.”
—Publishers Weekly on Fortunate Harbor
“A multi-layered plot, vivid descriptions and a keen sense of place and time.”
—Library Journal on Rising Tides
“Richards’s ability to portray compelling characters who grapple with challenging family issues is laudable, and this well-crafted tale should score well with fans of Luanne Rice and Kristin Hannah.”
—Publishers Weekly on Fox River, starred review
The Swallow’s Nest
Emilie Richards


To Jessie, my daughter, who has been and always will be a great joy in my life. Thanks for insisting I watch Maleficent.
Contents
Cover (#ueb1794b6-f9d7-5c63-92a1-5632c0bce446)
Back Cover Text (#ub7dfae00-6878-5b29-899c-6f54ac20eff3)
Praise (#uef7044b5-ca01-545a-8cac-52a924abb268)
Title Page (#ud05df68f-712b-533b-ae19-c87393bc386b)
Dedication (#u0ca7011a-9d8b-560c-a4d1-18dcd6cb506f)
PART I (#u2f7f9de1-7092-5eb1-bc43-2e2355bb73c1)
Chapter 1 (#u95dd354f-027e-5199-9a83-378f5a78b373)
Chapter 2 (#ud5c5b64e-73b9-5ade-b6b1-c10a94c63288)
Chapter 3 (#ue31e6631-e987-58d1-9446-9559d8f6929b)
Chapter 4 (#u42643882-2241-5567-a305-7a259292ec5c)
Chapter 5 (#uc85b3c05-80f2-50a2-a799-ae66a95e3bdb)
Chapter 6 (#ue2536010-1899-51d3-9a52-7a070c9ee897)
Chapter 7 (#ufb30d988-5893-5083-a264-f380ca8b3dbd)
Chapter 8 (#u2cd487a5-b88c-576a-9bf6-58e8c6d90ca6)
Chapter 9 (#u66c10649-a900-55e1-880f-5f2bc69f901e)
Chapter 10 (#u7eb8c026-0951-5062-bdfe-24c13d1721a8)
Chapter 11 (#u5df60b59-6bf7-52ac-bc2c-6695d17ca219)
PART II (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
PART III (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
PART IV (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
PART V (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
The Swallow’s Nest Reader’s Guide (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


PART I (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
Choosing the right colony is the first of many tasks for Petrochelidon pyrrhonota, the cliff Swallow. As primary homemaker the female investigates existing colonies before she decides where she and her mate should reside.
Male and female build a nest and raise their young together, but sometimes both mate with others, too.
“Our Songbirds, Ourselves: A Tale of Two Species,” from the editors of Ornithology Today.
1 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)


Feathering your nest with imagination and love
MARCH 3RD:
All of you know how I’ve longed for this day. One year ago, my husband, Graham, was diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma. You’ve been with me as he progressed through treatment, as our spirits soared and plummeted, even with me during my absences here. I can’t count the encouraging emails I’ve received, the suggestions, the promises of prayers. Now, today, we will celebrate the best possible news. Graham’s cancer is in remission, and he is really, at last, on the road to recovery.
Before this I never considered how I would adjust to news as horrifying as a cancer diagnosis, but now, one year later, I know. Life moves on and so do we. Graham and I came through this year stronger and closer, and my gratitude for your support knows no bounds. Mahalo, the Hawaiian word for thank you, doesn’t begin to cover what I’m feeling today.
I wish you could be right here to share every moment of today’s celebration party with us, but watch for photos and recipes. In the meantime, here are the instructions for welcoming a loved one with a flip-flop sign—or “slippahs” as we call them in my home state.
Aloha! Lilia
Lilia Swallow was on speaking terms with reality, but only just. For the past year she had questioned everything she believed in, while trying to make sense of the disasters raining down from above, the way Haimi, the yellow Lab of her childhood, had pawed and rattled coconuts when they fell from palm trees in her family’s yard on Kauai. In the end, unlike Haimi, she had concluded that while life often hides something delicious, too often the best parts remain out of sight and unattainable.
“And Haimi never once cracked a coconut.”
Regan Donnelly was looking on as Lilia painstakingly shot photos of a moisture-beaded glass pitcher nearly overflowing with pineapple chunks, citrus slices and a haze of red wine floating on top of white. At Lilia’s words her friend cocked her head. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Lilia hadn’t realized she’d spoken—or more accurately, mumbled. She had begun talking to herself during the long stretches when her husband was in the hospital. She had been so lonely, she had needed the sound of her own voice.
“Nothing. I was just thinking about happy endings and failures.”
Regan sing-songed in a high-pitched voice. “Lily-ah, Lily-ah, you are being Silly-ah!” She grinned. “Today is your happy ending.”
“I wish I’d never told you my brothers used to say that.”
“But you did.”
Lilia straightened and stretched before she moved the pitcher to the back of the counter where sun from a large window over the sink wouldn’t strike it quite so directly. She turned the handle to one side and took another shot.
“Well, if nothing else, my pineapple sangria is a happy ending. I worked on and off for a week on this recipe. I think you’ll like it. My readers will, too.”
Regan would not be deterred. “Graham’s in remission. His last two CT scans were clear. You’re afraid to be happy, aren’t you? You’re afraid the gods will descend and whack you all over again.”
Lilia sent her just the faintest smile, because as different as they were, Regan knew her inside and out. Although they were the same five foot five and both twenty-eight, Regan was fair-skinned with a collar-length bob the color of butterscotch. Her pale green eyes had been Lilia’s inspiration the last time she had painted this kitchen. In contrast Lilia’s hair was nearly black and waved down her back, and her skin turned a distinctive brown in the sun. She had what novelists liked to describe as “almond eyes,” in her case the color of almonds, although the crease of her eyelids also hinted at whatever Asian ancestor had bequeathed them to her.
She decided the pitcher had finished its moment in the spotlight and stepped away. “I come from superstitious people. This morning I blogged about how happy I am. I don’t want to jinx Graham’s recovery.”
“We Irish can match you Hawaiians, superstition for superstition. But I think you’re allowed to be happy. His doctor told you relapses occur quickly, right? It’s been a year since the initial cancer diagnosis, but he’s here today, having a great time.”
It had been a year marked by nearly insurmountable hills and valleys. Lilia was still too exhausted not to question fate.
“My tutu trotted out an old Hawaiian proverb whenever things went wrong. ‘He ihona, he pi’ina, he kaolo.’ It means we go down, we go up, we walk on a level road. A level road is all I’m asking for. Graham, too.”
“He’s looking so much better. Hair’s appealing on a man, don’t you think?”
Lilia allowed herself to laugh. “We weren’t sure what color it would be after chemo, but I think it looks the way it did before he lost it, only shorter.”
Graham, dark blond hair a couple of inches now, was standing outside their sunroom door with newly arrived partygoers, receiving good wishes. Employees and clients from Encompass Construction, the design-build firm he had created from the ground up, were shoulder to shoulder with neighbors, college friends and some of Lilia’s clients, too. But in the middle of a conversation with another young man, he stopped and turned, looking straight at her, as if he knew she was talking about him. Then he smiled.
For a moment she fell back in time to the first day Graham Randolph had smiled at her. She’d been ten; he’d been eleven. She’d been barefoot, and he’d worn stiff leather loafers with heavy dark socks. Until that moment she’d written him off as sullen and self-absorbed. Then she fell in his swimming pool trying to make an impossible Frisbee catch.
Remembering that now she winked at him, and his smile widened before he turned away.
Graham, even after months of chemotherapy, after losing all his hair and almost twenty pounds, was still easy on the eye. He was handsome in a prep school way, even though he was still puffy from steroids and sported nearly invisible chemo ports in his chest and scalp. Once again his blue-gray eyes were rimmed with dark lashes shaded by darker brows. Despite his illness he was still broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, and today, as usual, he was clad in scruffy jeans and a T-shirt—the more or less official dress of the Silicon Valley.
Best of all he was alive and hers.
“Do you ever get tired of this?” Regan swept a manicured hand at the pitcher and at a platter of hot and sour wings that Lilia had photographed first. The wings weren’t quite finished, but sometimes food photographed best when it was still slick with sauce that later would darken in the oven.
Lilia set down her camera so she could slide the wings back to a foil-lined baking sheet. “As much as I’d like to forget my website this once, I don’t have the luxury. These days my online presence is the largest portion of our income.”
“Didn’t readership grow during Graham’s illness?”
The larger audience had surprised Lilia, but so many people had hung on every word she’d carefully crafted about Graham’s illness. Prayers had been said all over the world. Uplifting emails had flooded her in-box.
“It did grow, but now my readers want a celebration after a year of gloom.”
Regan was still piling up the happy endings. “The Swallow’s Nest will be even busier and more productive now that you won’t be at the hospital so much.”
The Swallow’s Nest had been named after the Tudor Revival cottage in San Jose, California, where they stood. Lilia’s aunt Alea Swallow had always called the house “my nest” and, on her death, had bequeathed it to her niece, who had taken care of her at the end of her life. Now Lilia’s website and blog were devoted to nesting, to creating a snug, beautiful home in a small space like this one, to feeding loved ones and launching fledglings.
That last, of course, was something she wouldn’t be doing, at least not for some time.
She closed the oven door, setting a timer with her voice. At that moment Carrick Donnelly, who’d circled the house to the patio, abandoned his date and came inside through the sunroom, bending over when he reached Lilia to kiss her cheek.
Carrick and Graham had been friends since childhood, and Lilia had known him almost as long as she’d known her husband. He might be Regan’s older brother, but in the sunshine there was only a faint tinge of red in his brown curls, and his eyes were a much deeper and muddier green. He was also as different from Lilia’s husband as the ocean from the shore, lankier and less patrician, but equally as pleasurable to look at.
For just a moment he rested his hands on her shoulders. “Anything you need help with?”
“No, you ought to get back to Julie.” Lilia hoped she had his date’s name right. She’d met the woman once, another associate at Carrick’s Palo Alto law firm, but keeping up with the names of his ever-changing girlfriends wasn’t easy.
“She’s already engrossed in a bitcoin discussion with somebody from Google. She’ll never realize I’m not standing beside her.”
She held out the sangria. “Would you take this outside and put it with the other pitchers and check to see if there’s enough beer and soft drinks in the ice chest? I have plenty in the fridge if there’s not.”
He reached for a dish towel and wrapped it around the bottom of the pitcher where moisture was beading. Unlike the man she’d married, who had grown up with housekeepers and maids, Carrick and Regan had grown up in a family where everybody pitched in.
He inclined his head toward the patio. “Graham looks happy.”
“I invited everybody he loves.”
His expression changed to something less pleasant. “His mother?”
“I did ask Ellen. She sent her regrets.”
“She’s capable of regret?”
This was so unlike him, a man who always struggled to be impartial, that Lilia didn’t know what to say.
He shrugged. “I’ll see about the drinks.”
Regan waited until her brother had gone. “He won’t tell you, but he called Ellen when Graham was first diagnosed. He told her she needed to make peace with her son because if she didn’t, and Graham died, she would regret it forever.”
Carrick hadn’t told Lilia, but he wouldn’t have. She’d had enough on her plate. “Carrick was a guest in their house for a lot of years. He knows Graham’s parents better than I do. I guess he was in a better position to plead with them.”
Of course Carrick hadn’t bothered to speak to Graham’s father. Like any lawyer he understood lost causes.
“Plead probably isn’t the right word,” Regan said. “I think he told her straight out.”
“Maybe the phone call worked. Ellen did visit the hospital at least once. I was there.”
“How did that go?”
Lilia could still see the scene in her mind. Illness hadn’t rested well on Graham’s shoulders. Depression was part of cancer, for reasons nobody had to explain, and too often he had shut out the people who loved him when they tried to help. That morning she had prayed his mother’s visit might turn the tide.
She tried to describe it. “When she walked in and asked Graham how he was feeling, she wrapped her fingers through a long strand of pearls and twisted them back and forth, until I was sure they were going to explode all over the floor. Maybe she wanted me to scoop up a few to help with the hospital bills.”
“Casting pearls before swine?”
Lilia hoped not. “She stayed about five minutes. Then she told me Graham needed his rest and offered to walk me to my car.”
“Did she have something she wanted to tell you?”
“I’ll never know. He needed support more than he needed rest, and she knows our phone number.”
“Well, look at all the people who are here to celebrate.”
Lilia could see the backyard, and in the other direction, all the way through their dining area to the living room. More guests had just let themselves in through the front door. From the looks of things, everybody she had invited might be coming.
“You go and mingle. When they’re ready I’ll take the wings out of the oven and put them on a platter,” Regan said.
Lilia nodded to two sheets of quinoa-stuffed mushrooms she’d made for their vegan friends and already photographed. “Great. And would you put the mushrooms in once the wings are out? I’ll get them when I come back through.”
“Done. Go say hi.”
Outside, the welcome sign she had crafted from spray-painted flip-flops hung from a tree, and three surfboard tables Graham had created from replicas that had once hung outside a surf shop were already groaning with food.
For the past year, instead of enjoying leisurely nutritious meals, Lilia had eaten vaguely edible items packaged in cellophane. Convenience store sandwiches with sketchy expiration dates, salt and vinegar potato chips and cartons of yogurt had been staples. Today she had been too happy to stop cooking. But even if the wings flew away and the mushrooms formed a fairy circle behind the garage, the party would still be a knockout. Relief and joy scented the air.
Guests she hadn’t yet spoken to came to say hello. She greeted them with “Aloha,” and a hug, the way she always did, an expected ritual for those who had been here before. She warned first-time guests they might see her taking photos for her website, and if they didn’t want to be in a shot, to let her know. The Hawaiian sangria and the wings would probably be featured this week.
Carrick, who shared Graham’s taste in music, had put together a playlist of songs about fresh starts and homecomings. By the time Lilia got back to the kitchen to arrange the stuffed mushrooms on a platter, the music was so loud that Graham was able to sneak up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist without warning.
“Another awesome party,” he shouted.
“An awesome reason to have one.” She set the tray on a nearby counter and turned in his arms to kiss him. “You need to eat, Pilikua.”
He brushed a strand of hair over her shoulder, and his fingertips lingered against her neck. She was wearing a turquoise sundress he loved, but it was the neckline he loved most, just low enough to hint at everything it hid. He liked the way the fabric cupped her breasts, or had before she’d lost so much weight. She hoped the dress would fit perfectly again very soon.
“You okay? Not too tired?” she asked.
He kissed her again. “Flying high.”
He looked happy enough, but pale. The scans might be clear, but there had been so many side effects from the disease and the treatment that he was far from recovered. He had spent two mornings of the past week on his latest job site, and both afternoons he’d fallen into bed, so exhausted he hadn’t even taken off his shoes.
Over the hubbub she heard more music, this time guitar chords from the front of the house. Last year Graham had replaced their old doorbell with a programmable one. When Carrick had dropped by yesterday with his playlist, he had uploaded the opening riffs of Steely Dan’s “Home at Last.”
She would probably blog Carrick’s playlist next week.
“I’ll get the door.” She was surprised whoever was standing on the porch hadn’t walked right in. Clearly the party was underway. “You get something to eat, okay? I’ll send the stragglers along to greet you.”
As she went to answer the door, she glanced back and smiled as, outside, he draped his arm over the shoulders of his master plumber, who was politely examining the sangria. Graham pointed the heavily tattooed man toward an ice chest filled with beer.
The front of the house had a slight entry alcove framed in by a narrow bookshelf. Over the past three years as Graham renovated the cottage, she had refused to let him incorporate that space, with its coat closet, boot tray and umbrella stand, into the rest of the living room. She liked the idea of a transition from the porch, a chance for guests to catch a breath, like actors waiting and preparing in the wings for their next big scene.
Stepping into the alcove she opened the door, preparing to prop it open for the rest of the afternoon.
A moment passed before she recognized the woman clad in tight jeans, showy metallic platforms and a formfitting black tank top. Marina Tate, a leggy and unashamedly voluptuous blonde, was an outside sales rep for a supply company Graham worked with. He had introduced them at some company function, and now she remembered that Marina had been to a party here. She tried to think when. Sometime before the world had caved in.
Lilia hadn’t invited her today, but she guessed Graham must have.
She was glad that with everything else going on she remembered the other woman’s name. “Marina, right?” She smiled. “Aloha. It’s nice to see you.”
Something stirred in Marina’s arms. Lilia glanced down, noting several canvas bags at her feet before her gaze lifted to the bundle resting against the woman’s chest. For a moment she fumbled for something to say, coming up with the blatantly obvious. “A baby.” She leaned over, searching her memory for a husband, boyfriend or even a lover. “He’s adorable. How old is he? She?” She looked up in question.
“Toby is three months.” Marina didn’t sound happy, and certainly not like a doting mother. Most of Lilia’s friends with children answered the same question in weeks and days.
She tried a second time for a better look so she could say something complimentary. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know you were pregnant. I would have—”
Marina cut her off. “I doubt you would have. And whether you found out about the pregnancy wasn’t up to me.”
The baby seemed to be asleep, and Lilia couldn’t get a good look because, despite moderate temperatures, he was swathed in blankets. She stepped back and met the other woman’s eyes. Marina’s expression was as hostile as her tone.
She searched for the cause. “I hope you know he’s welcome at the party. There aren’t any other children, but he’s really too young to need a playmate, isn’t he?”
“I don’t think he’ll be welcome, Lilia. But here he is.” Marina held out her arms. “Let’s just see.”
Lilia felt her smile disappear. She had no idea what she was expected to do. “I’d love to hold him, but I’m still taking food out of the oven—”
“You’ll get used to that. Wanting to do other things and not being able to.”
Now she was completely at sea. This time she said nothing. The conversation obviously belonged to Marina.
“Take him.” Marina lifted the bundled baby higher. He whimpered, beginning to wake, but Lilia shifted her weight back and away.
“Take him!”
Lilia knew better than to let this continue. “Let me get Graham, or maybe I can call somebody else for you?”
“You know, I’m glad it worked out this way. I’m glad you were the one to answer the door.”
Lilia stepped back, preparing to slip inside, but Marina tucked the baby against her own chest and grabbed Lilia’s arm with her other hand to stop her. “Take him.”
The baby’s name finally registered. “Toby?”
“Toby. Right. Toby Randolph. After his father. Don’t you think a boy should carry on the family name? Tobias is Graham’s middle name, right?”
Lilia managed another step back, trying to shake off the other woman’s hand, but with no success. “You need to leave right now.”
“Oh, I’m leaving. But I’m leaving Toby here when I go. With you. With his father. I’ve finished my part of this bargain. Now it’s up to Graham to take care of the rest.”
She thrust the blanketed bundle forward so forcefully that Lilia grabbed at it. She had no choice, panicked that Marina would let go and blame the resulting disaster on her.
Satisfied, Marina stepped back and dropped Lilia’s arm. “You’ll have lots of time to think about this moment and what a horrible person I am. But while you’re at it, don’t forget, I gave this baby life. Think about that, Lilia, when you’re feeling superior. I did something you couldn’t be bothered to do. And think about what it was like for me to manage everything on my own up to this point, when I was promised so much more.”
She didn’t glance down at her son for a final goodbye. She turned and walked along the flowered brick pathway to the street. She was out of sight almost before Lilia could form another thought.
In her arms the baby stirred. Stunned, Lilia looked down, and the tiny infant opened eyes the china blue of her husband’s. With shaking fingers she pulled back the blanket. What hair the baby had was blond, like Graham’s. But Marina was blond, and surely her eyes were blue, as well.
This was a scam, a horrible, ill-advised prank.
She lifted him slowly for a better view, and then, without a legal document, without confirmation from anyone except a crazy woman, with no proof whatsoever except a vague resemblance that might not even exist, she was 100 percent certain this was no scam.
This child belonged to her husband.
She wanted to drop the bundle and run. She wanted to race after the near-stranger who had just handed off her beautiful baby like a football in play.
But most of all? She wanted to scream right along with Graham’s son, who was now wailing inconsolably in her arms.
2 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
Marina Tate pulled into her private space in the parking lot of the three-story apartment building that had once symbolized how fast she was rising in the world. Her one-bedroom was on the top floor, not exactly a penthouse, but still superior to anything she’d grown up with. The view from her narrow balcony was a freeway, but sometimes at night she sat in a folding chair and watched headlights blooming through banks of fog. She’d sat there many times after Toby was born. She hadn’t been able to get away from his screaming, but closing the door and listening to the roar of traffic had been an improvement.
As she had during the trip home, she wondered again if the baby was okay.
Clearly Graham hadn’t gotten around to telling Lilia about his son. Maybe announcing a love child between one dose of chemo and the next just hadn’t seemed sensible. Maybe in his shoes she would have kept silent, too. After all, if he’d made the announcement, who would take care of him? No man could drop a bombshell like that one and expect even the most supportive wife to spoon-feed him chicken soup, much less clean up his vomit and wash his sheets.
But no excuse was really good enough, was it?
She was still behind the steering wheel, and she drooped forward to rest her forehead against it. She was so tired she wasn’t sure she was going to make it up the stairs to her apartment. She was so tired she considered taking a nap before she tried. In the end, after two cars screeched into the lot with radios throbbing, she pushed away, opened the door and swung her feet to the asphalt.
In the midst of flipping her seat forward she remembered she had no baby to retrieve from the back. For a moment she stood staring at the infant seat. She had considered carrying the baby to Graham’s door nestled inside, but the seat was used and worn, and at the last minute—not blind to the irony—she’d rejected the idea. She had been embarrassed to give Graham and Lilia the car seat, but not the infant.
Tomorrow she would chuck it into the Dumpster.
So many months had passed since she’d had an entire night’s sleep. She couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been sleep-deprived. Even in the weeks before the birth she’d slept fitfully because she was so huge, getting comfortable was a joke. And no man had been around to rub her aching back or get her a glass of water.
One of those nights Graham had called. She couldn’t remember which, but why was stamped on her heart. He wanted her to know he had made the arrangements for a paternity test. She listened to him recite the clinical details, as if he were reading them from a list. At the birth someone would collect blood from the umbilical cord, and a lab would process the results. He confirmed he would not sign the Declaration of Paternity document agreeing he was the father until the test results were official. Without that, she would not be allowed to list him on the birth certificate. When paternity was finally confirmed, she would then have to fill out another form to have the birth certificate amended.
Finally, as if this were a small thing, he said that at that point everything would be official, and she would get the rest of the lump sum he had promised when she agreed to have the baby.
At the time she’d wondered, and still did, if delaying the test and refusing to sign the document were stalling mechanisms. A more expensive but equally reliable test could have been conducted during the pregnancy. Had he hoped these small rebellions would deter her from announcing the identity of the man who had carelessly planted the baby inside her?
Had he thought about it at all? Or had he been so immersed in the present, ensnared in a mass of twisted and unshared emotion, that he hadn’t given the future any real thought?
At the beginning Graham had been so anxious for her to carry the pregnancy to term, but all those months later, had he come to regret it? As his health improved, and the possibility of survival improved with it, had he wished that the baby and the baby’s mother would disappear and leave him to the good life he’d had before his diagnosis?
Whatever his reasons, she’d been given no choice in the matter. After Toby’s birth the hospital had filled out the health department form without Graham’s name. Weeks went by before he was officially the father of record. Then once he was, the money he had promised to give her, the second half of a trust fund he had cashed in to help her through the pregnancy and early months of Toby’s life, had never materialized. Nor had a satisfactory explanation. He’d said she and the baby would be taken care of, and he had promised to find a way to be part of Toby’s life. By now she knew what his promises were worth.
Today there was no more room for lies. Everybody would know Graham was officially Toby’s father. A copy of the baby’s amended birth certificate was among the items she had left in one of the bags at Lilia’s feet.
She started toward her apartment and trudged up the three flights of an open stairwell. For a moment after she unlocked the door she stood on the threshold and drank in the silence. She’d grown up in a noisy home, but the months since she’d brought Toby here from the hospital had been filled with screaming that only tapered off when the baby grew too exhausted for more. At one point the noise had been so overwhelming her neighbors had threatened to report her to the landlord. She had been forced to move his bed to the center of the living room, away from common walls.
By that point she had lowered herself to begging for help. Toby’s pediatrician had insisted the problem was colic. Along the way the woman, fresh out of medical school, suggested different formulas, modeled a baby carrier to keep Toby snug against Marina’s chest, prescribed white noise, swaddling, massage, letting him cry. Finally, at this morning’s visit, after pointed questions about her state of mind and how vigilantly Marina had followed her useless suggestions, the clueless young doctor had decreed that Marina was a first-time mom, and Toby probably sensed her insecurities.
That had been the final straw. Marina had no insecurities when it came to babies. She had raised her younger brothers while her mother worked two jobs or “socialized.” She had a niece named Brittany whom she’d been unable to avoid in infancy, and a short-lived romance with an otherwise perfect man who had just divorced the mother of his newborn. She’d chucked him quickly, but not before managing weeks of diapers and bottles.
Toby was born a nightmare. Or maybe Toby was punishment for trying to steal another woman’s husband, although a year of misery seemed like a pretty stiff sentence.
She flicked on her lights and stepped inside. Her apartment was furnished in leather with chrome accents and neon table lamps. She was a fan of sleek surfaces with no hint of clutter. The walls were mostly blank, and she liked them that way, clean white paint and no memorabilia from a past she wanted to forget. The tile floors were unmarred by rugs. Toddler Toby probably would have cracked his head a hundred times.
No longer her problem.
She wasn’t hungry, but she crossed the living room to the tiny kitchen and searched the refrigerator for beer. She found a tall bottle hiding behind half a gallon of milk, but only one, because that’s how she bought them, one at a time, just enough to split or enjoy alone without temptation to drink another. Her mother, Deedee, was a bartender who had lost at least one job for over-sampling the wares. Her youngest brother, Pete, had lost his driver’s license for two years after his second underage DUI and, judging by his continued drinking, showed no signs the lesson had any impact. She had no intention of following the family tradition.
She tossed the milk carton in the garbage because she couldn’t remember when she’d bought it. Then, using the hem of her tank top, she unscrewed the beer cap and drank half the bottle slouched against the granite counter.
Many people were not going to understand what she had done this afternoon. But Toby Randolph was alive today because she had, against her better judgment, given birth to him. Even after she learned that Graham was likely to die before their baby was born, and if he did, his mega-wealthy parents probably wouldn’t want anything to do with her or the baby. Even after she realized that, whether he lived or not, Graham was never going to make the three of them a real family.
She was too tired to think about Graham.
She left the half-empty bottle on the counter. In the bedroom she kicked off her shoes and jeans and fell facedown on the unmade bed.
Hours might have passed or just minutes when the doorbell buzzed, then buzzed again. She was so foggy-headed she was clueless about time or place. As the buzzing continued she rolled over and sat up, and the world came into focus again.
If Graham or Lilia or, worse, their lawyer friend, Carrick, was standing on the other side, she didn’t want to answer the door. But whoever was waiting was insistent, and she could hardly pretend she wasn’t home. Anyone who knew her would spot her yellow Mustang Fastback in the lot. She pulled on her jeans, walked barefoot to the door and squinted through the peephole.
Silently cursing she unlocked it and stood back to let her mother inside.
“I hated to ring the doorbell, in case I woke up little Toby...” As she spoke Deedee Tate’s voice gathered enough volume to wake every corpse at the Odd Fellows Cemetery miles away.
Marina had dreaded this moment, but now that it was here, she mostly felt annoyed. “If Toby had slept through the doorbell, your shouting would finish the job.”
“Where is he?”
“Safe and happy. Why are you here?”
Deedee looked puzzled, but she never meditated on a problem when she could talk instead. She held out a wrinkled paper bag. “I found some cute baby clothes at a neighbor’s garage sale. You don’t owe me much. They were cheap.”
Marina squinted through sleep-fogged eyes. From photos, she knew she resembled Deedee when she, too, had been thirty. It was a sobering thought. Now her mother was fifty-one. By the time Marina was that age would she resemble the woman standing before her? Deedee made no effort to eat well or exercise. She was overweight, with sagging breasts and a roll of fat that bulged over the elastic waistband of a broomstick skirt. Her shaggy hair was haphazardly dyed an improbable shade of gold, and her graying roots were inches long.
“I didn’t ask you to buy a thing,” Marina said. “I wish you would stop buying things I don’t need and then asking me to pay for them.”
“I’m trying to help. I can’t afford to do much on my own. I’m barely getting the hours at Frankie’s that I need to make ends meet. And your brothers—”
Marina made a chopping motion with her hand. “I don’t want to hear about my brothers.” Both Jerry and Pete, twenty-five and nineteen respectively, still lived at home and never helped Deedee with rent or food.
Her mother lifted her chin proudly. “Well, aren’t you snippy today.”
“Yeah, well, try not getting any sleep for months.”
“I had babies, too, you know.”
“Yeah, you did, and I raised two of them for you.” Marina didn’t sigh as much as force air from her lungs. “Look, I have half a beer I just opened. It’s yours.”
“One of those bombers you like so much?”
“There’s plenty left.”
Deedee followed Marina into the kitchen and watched as she took a go-cup from a cupboard. “So who’s got Toby?”
“His father.” Marina poured the beer and handed it to her mother. Most likely by now it was almost flat, but Deedee wouldn’t balk.
“What? His father’s in the picture all of a sudden? Like that?” Deedee flicked a glittery fake nail against the plastic cup for emphasis.
Marina watched her mother take two long swallows. “Isn’t it about time?”
“What about that wife of his?”
“We can definitely say she’s in the picture, too.” Marina had a sudden flash of Lilia’s expression as she handed the baby to her. She had expected to feel victory followed by the sweet aftermath of revenge. But she had felt neither. Lilia Swallow had never done anything to her except marry the man Marina had wanted for her own, and married him long before Marina even met him. At the one party Marina had been invited to at Graham’s house, Lilia had been a thoughtful hostess. She’d even made a point of introducing Marina to Graham’s best friend, Carrick Donnelly, then backing away, as if she hoped sparks might ignite.
“They’ll give him back, won’t they?” Deedee didn’t wait for an answer before she finished what was left in the cup.
“Deedee, I don’t want him back.” Marina pushed away from the counter. “I never wanted to be a mother. Don’t you think I had enough mothering with Jerry and Pete? You remember who took care of them when you were working and in the wee morning hours when you were off having fun? I gave Petey more bottles than you ever did, and I rode herd on Jerry until he got bigger than me. You think any of that made me want to be a mother again?”
“You were their big sister. I was their mother. You were helping out. Helping is good for kids.”
“It was not good for me. I didn’t have a childhood. I had children. Your children.”
Deedee was angry now. She banged the go-cup on the counter. “Family is important!”
“Yeah, right. You mean like the father you told me was mine, only it turned out he wasn’t? Is that your idea of family?”
“He wasn’t much of a father. You hardly noticed when he disappeared.”
“Right. Maybe I hardly ever saw him, but at least I had a name and a face when I needed them. Until the state went after him for child support and he demanded a paternity test.”
“I told you then, I’ll tell you now. I thought he was your father. I never lied. I thought he was the one.”
“Uh-huh. And by the time you found out you were wrong, you couldn’t remember who else might have been in the running.”
Deedee ignored that. “I was mother and father to you. To all of you.”
“You were gone most of the time. I had no mother, and the boys had me, which was probably worse.”
“You can’t really mean you don’t want your own baby.”
“I do mean it. I left Toby—” she couldn’t admit she’d left the baby with Graham’s bewildered wife “—with Graham, and I walked away. I couldn’t do this another minute. This morning I—” She stopped.
“You what, Rina Ray?”
Marina hated to remember that moment. “I came so close to shaking him. I just wanted him to stop screaming. I was this close.” Her thumb and forefinger were nearly touching. “I took him to the doctor instead. Again. I begged her to help me figure out what was wrong, and she said I just had to tough it out, that things would get better soon. Only she’s been saying that and saying that. It didn’t get better and it won’t.”
“You just have that post-pardon depression thing, like Brooke Shields. I’ve read about it. It’ll go away, you watch.”
“Don’t you get it? I don’t care what it’s called. Postpartum depression or just good sense. I just know now it’s Graham’s turn to listen to him cry and not know what to do. And if by some miracle he does know, or that wife of his knows, more power to them.”
“I can’t believe it. You gave him away? Just like that?”
Marina pushed her short blond hair off her face, raking her fingers through it until undoubtedly it stood on end. “I did. And before you showed up I was finally getting some sleep.”
“Where’s your heart?”
“Protected. Right here.” Marina put a fist to her chest.
“You’ve always been a cold fish.”
Marina knew if she was a fish at all, she was just a fish afraid of getting hooked. She certainly hadn’t been cold the night Toby was conceived. She had acted on impulse when Graham came to this apartment, supposedly for a drink, and they ended up in bed, instead. For once in her adult life she had allowed her imagination to take control. Graham had confessed that he and his wife were deadlocked over having children. He wanted one right away, and Lilia didn’t.
Of course he hadn’t explained that any woman would be hesitant to conceive a baby with a man who might not be alive for its birth. He hadn’t explained there was a cancer diagnosis and lethal chemotherapy he would have to undergo very soon. He’d presented her with a different picture: Lilia, as a selfish career-driven woman who was the wrong wife for a man who wanted a family and a supportive helpmate.
Blinded by hope and a foolish infatuation that she had nurtured since the day she’d introduced herself to Graham Randolph, Marina had imagined she was the right woman. As if in silent agreement that night he hadn’t used a condom, and God help her, she hadn’t asked him to.
She pulled herself back to the conversation. “I’m not cold. I’m just determined. I don’t want your life, Deedee. And that’s where I was headed.”
“You think you need to insult me to make yourself feel better?”
“Not really. I think you got what you wanted. And I plan to do the same.”
“What am I going to tell your brothers? They love that baby.”
“Oh, please! Neither of them loves anybody. Try telling them the truth, that I’m not going to settle for a small slice of life. I want the whole pie. They won’t understand, but tell them anyway.”
“I’m ashamed of you. My own little girl.”
“Look, keep the clothes, and don’t buy anything else. I’ll give you some money.”
“Keep your money. The way you didn’t keep your own flesh and blood.” Deedee turned and stomped out the door. Marina wasn’t impressed. Her mother never stayed angry for long. Without Toby to care for, Marina would be more available whenever Deedee needed her. Everything else would fade. Before long she would tell her friends her daughter had acted heroically to give her son the best possible life.
And who knew? Maybe it was true.
Just as she was pulling off her jeans again to get more sleep the bedside telephone rang. She studied the caller ID and saw that this caller was welcome.
She licked her lips and cleared her throat before she answered.
“Hey, stranger.” She swung her legs to the mattress and propped pillows against her padded headboard.
“Rina, how’s it going?”
Blake Wendell probably thought using a nickname signaled they were closer than they were, like promising an expensive piece of jewelry without making the cash outlay. She was Marina Ray Tate, but only Deedee called her Rina, and then added the Ray for good measure. Even her brothers knew better. Unfortunately she’d made the mistake of confiding the nickname in a long phone conversation. She’d been six months pregnant, and conversations with Blake had been one of her few distractions. At least he’d forgotten the Ray.
“It’s going fine.” She examined her chipped nails. Professional manicures had been impossible with a screaming baby, so she’d taken to doing her own.
He cleared his throat. “You’re okay? It’s been a while since we talked.”
In reality they had talked earlier that week. She envied him for enjoying the kind of life where one day flowed gently into the next. Or maybe, there was an even more positive spin? Maybe he really had missed her.
“We should get together,” she said.
“Would you like me to come over? I haven’t seen your place.”
She realized then how badly she wanted to get away from the apartment where Toby’s presence still hung in the air. “Why don’t I meet you at your place instead? Just give me an hour.”
She hung up after jotting down his address, glad that Blake wanted to see her, although she wished he had waited until she had gotten some rest.
She got up and stretched, hoping a shower would revive her. She would wash and style her hair, do her nails, and choose something sexy to wear.
Halfway to the bathroom she felt something soft under her toes. Glancing down she saw she was standing on a small fleece blanket, the white one she’d always used to swaddle her son. She had wrapped his tiny flailing arms against his body to calm him, and walked in circles around the apartment, crooning the closest thing to a lullaby that she knew. Toby had seemed to prefer this blanket to others, and sometimes swaddling him had even helped a little. But this morning he had rejected swaddling the way he had rejected her and everything she tried to comfort him.
She should have left the blanket on the porch with Toby’s other things.
Should she send it to Graham now with a note explaining it was special? Would anybody understand or care?
She lifted the blanket off the floor and held it to her nose. The fabric still held the scent of baby shampoo and baby powder, along with the indefinable essence of a brand-new human being. Her hand dropped to her side, but she stood in the same spot, holding the blanket for a very long time.
Finally she changed direction and moved to the far corner of her room. She carefully folded it into a square and laid it under a pile of her shirts in the bottom drawer of her dresser.
3 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
The baby was screaming now, a shrieking siren that seemed incompatible with the featherweight human being in Lilia’s arms.
After one examination she didn’t want to look at him. Early in their marriage she and Graham had put off having children, certain they had all the time in the world to start a family. Later when she’d been ready, he had still wanted to wait. Then Burkitt’s had entered their lives. He’d frozen sperm before chemo so that someday, when he recovered so completely they no longer had to worry about his future, they might be able to conceive through artificial insemination. But no baby birds would be hatching in this nest anytime soon, something she had tried hard not to think about.
Now she had no choice.
Instinct told her to set the child down and never pick him up again. Before she hurt him. Before the betrayal washing through her washed over him, too, and caused irreparable harm. But there was no place to lay him, no carrier or car seat. He had arrived in his mother’s arms, and now he was in hers, the only place on the porch even halfway acceptable for an infant.
She’d been raised with other people’s babies. Cousins, nieces and nephews, neighbors. As a teenager, she’d been in demand as a babysitter because she always seemed to know what to do. Yet she had no inclination to rock this one in her arms, to snuggle him against her shoulder or pat his tiny back. She was so angry that every ounce of goodness inside her had already been summoned. She was struggling just to remember that no matter the circumstances of little Toby’s birth, he had not asked for this moment any more than she.
But quite likely his father had.
She knew then what she had to do. Suddenly it seemed simple. She held the infant against her shoulder so she could open the door with her other hand and walk inside, walk through the house she and Graham had so lovingly renovated together, walk through the kitchen where Regan was piling her carefully marinated chicken wings on a platter.
Her friend looked up and smiled. “Hey, who’s that?”
“Where’s Graham, do you know?”
They’d been friends so long that Lilia’s tone wilted Regan’s smile. “Still out back, I think. Mingling. But—”
“He may be calling on you tonight for help. Say no.”
“Lilia, what—”
She stalked into the sunroom and threw open the door to the patio. The music was so loud that even the baby’s screams were muffled. She was aware enough of her own feelings to be sorry that was true. Everybody should get the full benefit of Toby’s misery.
At first she didn’t see her husband, but somehow a path cleared. Friends who had smiled at the sight of her with the baby quickly sensed all was not well and stepped away. She wasn’t surprised. She had learned to cover her despair in the past year, but fury was a different matter. Since she’d never been this angry, not in her entire life, she made no attempt to hide it.
Graham was in the far corner of their yard. He’d set up a dartboard against their tiny garage, and he, Carrick and several others, including Carrick’s date, were playing. She should have gloried in the sight, one that at times, she had worried she would never see again. At the moment her husband was up, darts in hand, and carefully, one after the other, he was aiming at the board. She watched as he scored a bull’s-eye.
Carrick moved to join her, but she waved him away. He paused. “Whose baby is that?” He looked completely baffled, and she wondered if Graham had kept Toby’s presence in the world a secret, not just from her, but from his best friend and attorney, too. Carrick usually saved his acting skills for the courtroom, but until now, she’d never had reason to doubt her husband, either.
She watched as Carrick floundered toward the truth. At that moment Graham finished his turn and turned away from the board. His smile of satisfaction died. His gaze flicked to the baby screaming against her chest, and suddenly, he looked as unwell and frightened as he had during the worst moments of his illness.
If she’d had lingering doubts that Marina had been telling the truth, they fled forever. She expelled a long, harsh breath, and then she lowered Toby until he rested in the crook of her arm, moved closer and held him out to Graham.
“All your best friends are here. I’m sure they want to meet your son, and they’ll want all the juicy details. I suggest you practice telling the truth for once and explain how this happened. They’ll be dying to know.”
When he didn’t step forward, she did, until there was nothing between them except one wailing infant.
“Lilia—”
“Don’t even try to explain. Take your son.”
He was frozen in place, as if the horror of the moment had stripped him of the ability to move.
She spoke through gritted teeth, and only for his ears. “I have managed to carry this baby all the way through the house, but if you don’t take him right this minute, I can’t say that either of you are going to survive unscathed.”
He reached out and grabbed Toby, holding him awkwardly.
“Just confirm Marina’s story,” she said. “This is your son? And all the months I was taking care of you, working to support us and doing everything I could to make sure you survived, another woman was pregnant with your child? Were you just waiting to tell me until you didn’t need my help anymore?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“He’s yours?”
Graham looked down. If possible Toby was screaming louder, his tiny face screwed up in misery. “Yes.”
“Then I suggest you get used to taking care of him. His mother left and didn’t look back. She doesn’t want him, and as you probably figured out a year ago, neither do I.”
Then she turned and walked back through a parting Red Sea of guests who looked as if they would rather be slaves in Pharaoh’s Egypt than at this party to celebrate Graham’s good fortune.
4 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
From the master bedroom addition over the sunroom Lilia listened as the last of the guests fled. At first she had simply trembled with her back to the door and stared out the windows. But by the time someone called her name from the hallway she had positioned a carry-on suitcase on the Hawaiian appliqué quilt her mother had given her on her wedding day and begun to pack. She didn’t answer, but the door opened, and Carrick appeared in the doorway.
He was the first to speak. “Regan has an extra bed at her place. And you know I have a spare bedroom.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “You should be with your date.”
“We drove separately. Julie’s gone.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m going home.” She was torn between continuing to pack so she could leave faster, or asking him the question she hadn’t outside. The question won. She faced him.
“Did you know, Carrick? About Toby? I hope to God you weren’t keeping Graham’s secret, too.”
“I had no idea.”
She studied his expression. Carrick looked both furious and wounded, but she knew her question wasn’t the cause of either. “Okay.”
“He knew what I would say if he’d told me. Maybe he was trying to use every bit of strength just to stay alive.”
“Don’t make excuses for him!”
“I’m not.”
“He was your best friend before I even met you. I’m not going to ask you to choose. I’ll make it easy. I won’t be here.”
When she turned away he joined her at the bedside where she had begun packing again. He perched on the edge, long denim-clad legs stretched out in front of him, but his posture wasn’t relaxed. Carrick was holding himself like a man walking a tightrope.
“Lilia, these past awful months I’ve been right there with you. I know what you’ve gone through. Days, even nights at the hospital, then home to change clothes and go out to design appointments, or work on the website, or head out to your storage unit to be sure The Swallow’s Nest orders were being processed correctly. Dealing with your employees and doing whatever you could with Graham’s. You hardly ate or slept. Nobody could have done more to keep everything going until Graham recovered. If he did.”
She remembered an evening when Carrick had asked if she was experiencing sympathy lymphoma. He’d offered to shave her head if she wanted to enhance the effect. Then he’d marched her out of Graham’s hospital room for fish tacos and a chopped salad and sat with her to make sure she ate every bite.
Her hands hovered over the suitcase, but she couldn’t force herself to fold the T-shirt she was holding. “How could he have done this to me? To us?”
He touched her shoulder, his fingers warm against her skin, but he removed his hand quickly. He didn’t move closer, aware, she supposed, that she would either fall completely apart if he held her or, worse, she would shove him away. “I don’t know. I really don’t, but you need an answer. I don’t think you can leave without knowing.”
“Do you know what she said to me? What Marina said? She said I might hate her, or something to that effect, but at least she’d given that baby life—” her voice broke “—when I couldn’t even be bothered to have Graham’s baby.”
“Lilia...”
She cleared her throat. “I wanted children. Before he got sick I thought we were ready. Graham was the one who held back. We had that possibility of a television show, and he kept saying the time should be exactly right. Then when it wasn’t, when it was the worst possible time to have a baby, when we had absolutely no idea whether he would live or die, he begged me to get pregnant. Just like that. After the diagnosis and before chemo. Out of nowhere. He wanted me to do everything to keep us going and have a baby, too. And we had no idea if he would even live to see it born!”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Although I guess that question was answered. He did live to see his son, didn’t he?”
“You have to talk to him.”
“No, I’m going home. I stayed in San Jose the whole time he was sick. I missed a wedding, a christening. I need my family.”
“Plan to come back.”
“Are you speaking as my lawyer? Can Graham divorce me for desertion if I leave?”
“Not in California. I’m talking about The Swallow’s Nest, Lilia. You’ve built your whole business on making a home and a happy marriage, and you need to figure out how you’re going to explain this to your readers. If you leave Graham and leave this house, everything crumbles to dust. And we both know your financial situation is beyond precarious. You can’t afford to walk away.”
He was right. The house was her one real asset, but she couldn’t sell it to fund a new life because it was heavily mortgaged, first to pay for renovations and the audition tape she and Graham had made for a potential television series, then refinanced yet again to help with medical bills and the loss of his income. If she sold it now she would be homeless and still in debt.
Then there was her life’s work, her reputation as a designer whom local and internet clients could count on. And what about the readers who loved her website because she shared her own stories to help them gain the confidence to share theirs?
She was too confused to think it through. She spaced her words for emphasis. “I am too angry to talk to him now.”
“Then just listen. Regan has the baby. Your guests are gone—”
“No surprise.”
“Graham’s a mess.”
She hoped it was true. “Apparently I’ve used up my store of sympathy.”
“You don’t have to sympathize. You need facts. After you hear what he has to say you can take time to think this over.”
“What is Graham going to do with that baby? I’ve never seen him hold one. Does he know he’ll have to support his head? Put him on his back to sleep? When he’s with my nieces and nephews he watches them like he’s at the zoo.”
“I guess he’s about to learn fast.”
“Right, or maybe he’ll go back to his baby-mama and ask her to take them both in. A happy little family.”
“I don’t know what Graham was thinking when he slept with Marina Tate, but I do know she’s not the one he wants.”
“Well, I don’t want him. I don’t want a husband who sleeps with somebody else, finds out she’s pregnant and forgets to tell me.”
“He’s been suffering. The depression? The way he pushed us both away at times? He was ashamed and probably torn up about what to do.”
“You’re defending him!”
“No, I’m just struggling to figure it out. And it is a struggle, but then nobody’s ever told me I might only have months to live.”
Still clutching the T-shirt, she met his eyes. Part of Carrick’s nature was to see both sides of every situation, which made him an excellent lawyer. But while he was fair, he was also human, and she heard anger resonating in his voice. Now she saw it shining in his green eyes. And he wasn’t angry at her.
“Will you drive me to the airport? If you feel that’s taking sides, I’ll ask Regan.”
“Of course I will, but do you have a reservation?”
She gave a shake of her head. “I just want to get out of here.”
“I’ll see what’s available and when.”
“I would appreciate that.”
He got up, but he didn’t move away. “Please, take your time making big decisions.”
“It’s too bad you didn’t give Graham that advice, what...a year ago?”
“He didn’t make a decision. He made a mistake.”
“That poor little baby.” Despite everything, Lilia felt a stab of sympathy for Toby, whose entrance into this difficult world had been doomed from the start. A mother who didn’t want him, a father who hadn’t acknowledged him, and a stepmother who until today hadn’t even known he existed.
She was a stepmother. For as long as she stayed married to Graham, her relationship to the little boy who had been dumped into her arms as unceremoniously as a bag of garbage actually had a name. It seemed inconceivable, like everything else that had happened in the past half hour.
Carrick started toward the door. “I’m going to send him up.”
She wasn’t going to stay in the house a moment longer than she needed to, so it was now or not at all. She finally folded the shirt. “You do that. But tell him he only has as long as it takes me to finish packing.”
She was returning from the bathroom with a bag of travel-sized toiletries when she saw Graham had come into their bedroom and closed the door behind him.
He looked as pale as she had ever seen him, paler than the terrible day in the hospital when his heart had stopped, and she had been evicted from his room as hospital staff revived him. His blue eyes were almost startling against his white skin, and his forehead was dotted with sweat. He leaned against the door, as if he was afraid his knees might buckle without support.
For the first time since his diagnosis, she felt no trace of sympathy and no surge of love. She only felt anger, cold and deadly.
He didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I don’t even know where to start.”
She was shaking with emotion, but she managed to hold her head high. “How about this? You slept with Marina and she got pregnant. And you decided to keep that little tidbit to yourself.”
She went to the closet, took down her largest purse and slipped the bag of toiletries inside it. When he didn’t answer she took a deep breath to steady herself before she turned.
“How many times did you sleep with her, Graham, or have you become such a practiced liar you’ll lie about that, too?”
“Once, Lilia. Just once, I swear. The night you and I fought about having a baby.”
“As a kid you probably got everything you asked for. I guess having somebody say no to you didn’t compute.”
“There are no excuses or explanations good enough.”
“Just tell the truth then. All of it. And quickly, because I’m leaving in a few minutes.”
His speech was halting, as if he were dragging the words from a deep well. “I was an emotional disaster. I guess I can’t say ‘was.’ I still am. I saw a black hole instead of a future, and all I could think about that night was that I was going to die and leave nothing important behind. I was going to die and no part of me was going to live on. I latched on to the idea of having a baby as proof I’d been on this earth. Of course you knew better than to go along with me, but that night I couldn’t see how right you were. I went to a bar near a house I was renovating, and Marina was there. We’d gone there together a few times with others from the project. It was a place she liked.”
“What exactly was going on between you?”
“Nothing.” He paused, and then he shrugged. “I liked her. She liked me, but she knew I was married. She even came to a party here and met you. I guess there were a few harmless sparks. It never bothered me and maybe it was kind of nice to flirt a little. I knew nothing was going to happen.”
“And then it did.”
“If I say I wasn’t myself that night it’ll sound like I’m using cancer as an excuse to behave badly. But I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t thinking rationally. She invited me back to her place for a drink. I didn’t want to come home. I was too upset you were refusing to give me the one thing I thought I needed. I went.”
She was shaking; her voice was shaking. “Let me guess. Out of nowhere Marina seduced you. None of this was your fault. You went along for the ride because you were too sick to resist.”
“No. I didn’t try to stop what happened. I guess I knew right from the moment I followed her home how the night might end, but I also knew what was waiting for me in the months ahead. For that night I just wanted to be a man, not a man with cancer.”
“And birth control?”
“She had condoms. At the last minute I didn’t use one, and she didn’t insist.”
“You hoped she would get pregnant?”
“The chances seemed so small. I left it up to the universe.”
She was glad he was standing too far away to slap. “What a strange place to get religious. In bed. You think God wanted a baby to be born into those circumstances? First cancer made you do it, then God?”
“There are no words that even begin to cover how sorry I am or how stupid I was. I know how screwed up the whole thing is.”
“Did you think that she and that baby were just going to disappear? That a woman like Marina was just going to let this catastrophe go on and on and never tell anybody? Were you hoping you could have two happy families and one of them would never know? How stupid could you be?”
“I haven’t thought about anything else. Not since Marina told me she was pregnant. I knew I had to tell you. I knew I had to fix this somehow so I could keep you and Toby in my life, but I couldn’t find a way.”
“You’ve had almost a year to come up with one, haven’t you?” She waited a moment until she had swallowed angry tears. “And in none of that time could you think of any way to tell me what you had done?”
“How could I? I was terrified you would leave. And not because I needed your help. Because I need you. I love you.”
“But the moment I refused to give you what you wanted, you found another woman who would.”
“Please, don’t leave, Lilia. I know it’s asking too much, but please, don’t leave me. From the moment I walked out of Marina’s apartment I’ve wanted to beg you to forgive me. I just couldn’t find a way to say it. Because I was afraid of this, afraid you’d go.”
“Here’s a tip. You can find a nanny in the yellow pages. Or a day care center.”
“I don’t want a nanny. I want you.”
She met his eyes. “I’m going home, Graham. That’s another thing I gave up for you this year. My family. Now I’m going to see them.”
“Please come back.”
“You’ve said what you came to say. I’ve listened, which is all I said I would do. Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
He didn’t answer.
She hadn’t really believed things might get worse, but now she realized that something else was coming. “What about Toby? You don’t know anything about babies. Are you going to ask Marina to take him back? Maybe she just wanted you to acknowledge him.”
He put his hand to his forehead, as if to brush away hair that still wasn’t long enough to be a nuisance. “There is something else. You need to know one more thing.”
For a moment she wasn’t sure she could listen. “Make it fast.”
“Marina didn’t want to have the baby. Especially after she found out I was sick and might not be around to support them both.”
She knew better than to respond. She clenched her teeth and waited.
“I...convinced her to finish out the pregnancy by promising to pay her. A lot.”
He stopped, but he didn’t have to go on, because suddenly she knew. “Your trust fund? The one that tanked the last time the stock market dipped? The one we really needed for medical expenses so I didn’t have to mortgage this house?”
“I lied to you. That money was well invested. But I couldn’t live with myself if Marina hadn’t gone through with the pregnancy. The whole thing was my fault, and an abortion would have been, too.”
“You gave her all of it? At one time the fund was worth, what, almost a hundred thousand dollars?”
“I gave her half and promised to give her the rest when Toby was born. But at the last minute I had to use it for my final round of chemo. Our insurance refused to cover the drug the doctors wanted to try, and they rejected the claim. They called the drug experimental, but my team said it was vital.”
“I know that, but you told me the insurance paid it after you appealed.”
“Because I couldn’t tell you I’d paid the bill myself with money from a trust fund I’d already told you was worthless.”
“What an accomplished liar you are!”
“Marina was furious, as she had the right to be, and that’s probably why she brought Toby here today. But that’s the end of the lies, Lilia. The absolute truth. All of it. One terrible mistake that just kept growing.”
“And now you have a baby to take care of when you can hardly take care of yourself. And nothing to live on.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
She was rarely sarcastic, but nothing stopped her now. “Maybe Marina will take you back. You can tell her how awful I am, like you did the night you used her like a broodmare.”
He winced. “Lilia, Marina won’t be in the picture. She hasn’t wanted Toby from the beginning, and now she’s abandoned him to me.”
A stab of sympathy for the other woman surprised her. “As strange as it seems, maybe I can see her point. She told me on the porch that you had promised her so much more. You lied to both of us.”
“I never promised her anything except money. We never talked about a future together, I swear. She was reading what she wanted into a one-night stand.”
“A one-night stand with a man intent on proving his manhood and his fertility. It’s no wonder she was a bit confused. If she was.”
“I’ve screwed up so many lives. I’m so sorry.”
“As exit lines go, that works. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes, and then you’ll have lots of time to wallow in all the damage you’ve done.”
She thought she was finished, but she realized she couldn’t be. Not yet. Because even though her flash of sympathy for Marina had come and gone, she was still worried about the other person in this drama.
She turned her back to him. “That baby is the biggest loser here, isn’t he? He never asked to be born. And he sure never asked to be born to the two of you. Whatever else you do, make sure he’s taken care of. Toby’s more than your selfish bid for immortality. He’s flesh and blood, and no matter how he came into this world, he deserves better than you wallowing in self-pity and wringing your hands for the next weeks. His mother doesn’t want him, and his self-absorbed father has no clue how to give him what he needs. Find somebody to help you who can act like an adult, and find somebody fast.”
“Please, come back when you’re ready.”
“I’ll have to come back to settle things. Other than that?” She shrugged. “In the meantime if you have any suggestions on how I explain this little upheaval in our perfect marriage to my readers, let me know.”
“Is there anything I can do except tell you again how much I love you and how sorry I am?”
“You can leave. Now.”
A moment later the door closed behind him. She was alone.
She dropped to the side of the bed where Carrick had been and closed her eyes, trying to calm her roiling stomach. Through all the turmoil and terror of his illness, she and Graham had stood together and faced whatever came their way. Now she was alone. When it seemed his chances of survival were slim, she had learned to face a future without him. But she had never expected to face a future without him because he had betrayed her.
No part of her wanted to call him back to forgive him. But a part of her wished it were yesterday, when whether her husband lived or died was her worst problem. Yesterday she wouldn’t have believed how insignificant life and death could seem today.
5 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
No one knew exactly which ancestors had passed their genes to Lilia or her four brothers. From their mother’s side they were Hawaiian, Filipino and Samoan. From their father’s they were Chinese, along with a large dose of the UK. International bloodlines weren’t unusual on the island of Kauai, where she’d been raised. Neither were they atypical in the South Bay area of California where she had moved at age eighteen to care for her aunt.
Now looking at her oldest brother, Eli, who had picked her up from the airport in a four-seater beach buggy, she remembered a game they had played as children. Each sibling had imagined that ancestors long departed had personally chosen him or her as a favorite. Their personal guardian angels.
Eli had always claimed their Samoan great-grandfather had chosen him. He was big-boned and substantial, with the darkest coloring of any of the Swallow siblings, although that was never easy to document because of the hours each child spent in the sun. As a teen he had come home sporting an intricate Samoan shoulder tattoo, and since then he had added to it until now most of one muscular arm was covered.
Eli owned a shop that gave tours and rented buggies, like the one he was driving today, and he swore the more Polynesian he looked, the more business he attracted. Some of his steadiest customers were female. When he’d threatened to knot a lavalava around his waist and show up for work bare-chested, his wife, Amber, had put her foot down. Business was fine just the way it was.
Eli was a man of few words, so Lilia knew he was waiting for her to tell him why she had come home with such short notice. He would never ask outright.
“Do you remember what we used to pretend about our ancestors?” she asked.
“You thought you were descended from some English princess or maybe a Chinese courtesan. I don’t think you knew what that meant.”
“It was all about the palaces. There was a book in the school library with amazing photos. I wanted to live in one.”
“California doesn’t have a lot of palaces.”
“Kai decided he was all Hawaiian, remember? That was the year he borrowed his first ukulele from Uncle Ike.” Kai, who sang and played beautifully, was the second oldest Swallow, followed by Micah and then after Lilia, Jordan. Lilia was the only girl, and for the first five years of her life she had been treated almost exactly like her brothers, including short haircuts, hand-me-down clothes and freedom.
“We had a great childhood.” As she spoke she envisioned baby Toby, whose childhood so far was anything but, and unexpectedly her voice caught.
Eli glanced away from the two-lane road to search her face. “You didn’t say what’s what with Graham.”
She had debated this question since she boarded the plane to Honolulu, and then during the hours she had waited for the final flight to Kauai. She had managed to get home, but not on the best schedule. She was exhausted and still too emotional to trust herself.
“Graham’s last two CT scans were clear.”
“Yeah, I knew that.”
“Our relationship took a bad turn, Eli. I’m guessing it won’t take a good one again.”
He didn’t say anything for miles of tropical foliage and red dirt fields that had once grown sugarcane and pineapples and now nurtured a variety of crops. She tried to focus on distant mountains instead of her pain.
“Marriage, it’s hard.” Eli gave one definitive nod, as if that said it all.
“Yours still good?”
“Oh yeah, she puts up with me, with everything, Amber does. But three kids under ten? Not much time to think about anything else.”
“Would you want something different?”
“Nobody’s life is perfect. Good is a lot to hope for, and we have more than that. We work together, raise our kids, put food on our table. We’re thankful.”
She remembered the teenage Eli, who for a school project had memorized a Samoan grace and made everyone in the family sing it for months before meals. He was the Swallow who attended church most regularly, who faithfully tithed and volunteered whenever he was needed. He was a good man, and Lilia wasn’t surprised he was the one who had volunteered to drive her home.
“Good would be good enough for me. That’s really all I wanted.” She stared out the window. “I never asked for more.”
He continued the conversation, which was a sign he was worried. “Illness takes a lot out of a family. Amber’s brother nearly died in that accident, remember? For a while her mom and dad split up over it.” Amber’s brother had wrapped his car around a kukui tree after too many beers at a graduation party. He still walked with a cane.
“Does illness make a man forget his marriage vows?”
He whistled softly, and that was all she got until they passed through the quaintly scenic town of Kapa’a, ten square miles that were large enough for a few stoplights, a variety of shops and hotels, and stretches of palm tree–lined beaches. In English Kapa’a meant solid, and the solid little town had been built on rice, pineapples and now, tourism.
Out of town Eli followed a winding two-lane road past one-story houses screened by extravagant clusters of oleander and banana trees, along with chain-link or concrete block fences. In the past decades the area had built up steadily, but homes, by mainland standards, were still modest, even though in the islands the most substandard housing was expensive.
Roosters crowed, a familiar sound, and Eli waited patiently at a one-lane bridge until traffic coming from the other direction had crossed. She could see the Sleeping Giant, a mountain that had shadowed her childhood. Her family had owned the land and house they lived on for generations and watched the landscape change to suit new residents. This still felt like home.
“Graham is hard to know,” Eli said at last. “But one thing I always figured? He loves my sister.”
“Words mean so little.”
“You’re taking time to think?”
“I don’t expect anything to change. But that’s why I’m here.”
“Will you move back? If you decide to leave him?”
She had asked herself the same question on the plane. Family surrounding her would be wonderful, and she loved her childhood home. But everything else she loved was in California. Her house, her friends, Swallow’s Nest Design, her small but thriving interior design business. While she could run her website from Kauai, she would be forced to scale down. Her online store and design consultation would be impossible because the cost of travel and shipping would be prohibitive. Opportunities here would be different, but they wouldn’t suit her needs or talents nearly as well.
She put the other reason into words. “I think I was born with island fever. I love the mainland, but I would come home more often. I missed coming home so much this past year. I didn’t think I could leave Graham.”
“Be sure you have all the facts straight, Lilia.”
“I heard the facts directly from him. And saw the proof.” She gave up pretending she could keep what had happened a secret. “He has a son, Eli. He claims it was a one-night stand, but he used the trust fund we needed to pay his medical bills to support the baby’s mother. Then Graham let me nurse him back to health for a year without telling me.”
He whistled again. Then he surprised her. “He was afraid to lose you.”
Anger was white-hot and immediate. “Why would you say that? It’s just as likely he didn’t tell me because he needed me when he was sick!”
“I say it because I’ve seen the way he watches you.”
She couldn’t let that pass, and she told him something she hadn’t told anyone else, because she had always been able to share her secrets with Eli. “Do you remember the last time we came here? Before we found out about the cancer? Graham and I had talked about having a baby of our own very soon. Then he came here and saw little Jonah.”
Jonah was Kai’s youngest son, a particularly beautiful child, who at birth had resembled his Georgia peach mother, rosy-skinned and blue-eyed.
She spoke faster. “Jonah had grown so much and suddenly he looked like an island baby. And Graham was shocked. He didn’t know babies’ skin color deepens, or that their eyes can change colors. Suddenly Jonah looked like our Polynesian ancestors, not his haole mother, and will probably look more like them as he grows up. Graham never said so, but I think he took a look at our beautiful nieces and nephews, with their rainbow diversity, and realized his baby might look like them because, hey, I’m Hawaiian, too. Like the rest of you. Same gene pool, right? So to spare himself that possible calamity, his baby’s mother is blonder than he is!”
Eli slowed because they had almost reached their destination. “I’m not surprised you’re angry.”
“I don’t think you believe me.”
“I believe everything you’ve said, but this man married you when his parents disapproved. He showed every sign of wishing he was Hawaiian, too, not wishing you were more like him.”
“Well, now he has a son who looks like him. And the baby has come to stay.”
He turned into the long unpaved driveway leading to their parents’ house. “The baby’s mama?”
“She dropped that little boy in my arms and announced he was Graham’s, then walked away and left me holding him on my own front porch.”
He surprised her and stopped, turning in his seat to look at her. “I know you hurt. I wish I could make that better.”
“Please, don’t be condescending.”
“It’s just that I understand better than you think.”
“How could you?”
He grimaced. “Amber kept a secret from me, too. Aleki is not my biological son, but nobody else knows it, although I think Mama suspects. Amber was pregnant when I married her. I knew she had been in a bad relationship before we met, but for months before we married she didn’t tell me she was pregnant. Then when hiding it was impossible, I wrestled with the pregnancy, the deception, the responsibility. Everything.”
She was stunned that in a family as close as theirs, this had been kept a secret. “But you married her anyway and never told us?”
“I married her, maybe because of the baby. By then I loved her and didn’t want her to go through that alone. And when he was born I loved Aleki as much as I love our other children. And after a while I didn’t hold Amber responsible for the hard choice I had to make. The whole thing? It made me think about what really mattered.”
Then he surprised her, because Eli was rarely demonstrative. He touched her braid, hanging limply over one shoulder, then he gave it a slight tug. “Maybe that’s what you’ll need to think about, too.”
6 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
Ellen Randolph had been wealthy all her life, so she knew for certain that having money did not automatically make anybody happy or widen their world. Protecting one’s assets was a cheerless, thankless task, and the narrower one’s world, the easier it was to stay at the top of it.
Having lived with Douglas Randolph for thirty-six years, she knew the view from the top was limited, too. Every single day as chairman of the Randolph Group, Douglas acted on his conviction that a wider view was an unnecessary distraction, and every single day he got wealthier and more rigid.
This morning Douglas stood in their designer kitchen, with its custom rosewood cabinetry and enameled lava countertops and pinched his features together in disapproval.
“I don’t quite know what you expect me to do about this, Ellen.”
She had caught her husband right before he headed for his corporate offices in Oakland, and from long experience she knew that this was exactly the wrong time to bring up anything personal. But truthfully there were no good times. Douglas was 99 percent business and only 1 percent father-husband-lover, and mentioning their son’s name at any time of day wasn’t just a distraction, it was an act of treason.
For Douglas, removing Graham from his life had been a business decision, and his business decisions were evenly divided between pragmatic and spiteful. He was not a man to cross, and Graham had crossed him one time too many. The spiteful Douglas would never forgive his son, and Ellen knew better than to ask him to.
But he still had to know the latest news.
Her tone was solicitous, more personal assistant than wife, which was the way he liked it. “I don’t expect you to do anything. I just thought you had to know that apparently we have a grandson.” She played her ace. “In case someone mentions it. I know how you hate to be taken by surprise.”
He made the same noise low in his throat that he made whenever he was skeptical or didn’t want to admit anybody else had a point. “And the person who told you the story is reliable?”
“Jenny Lurfield’s daughter is a friend of Graham’s, and she was at the party to celebrate his better health. She told Jenny about the baby.”
“Well, you have a little spy network everywhere, don’t you? You should have gone into the CIA instead of marrying me.”
“I needed the bigger challenge.” She moved on before he processed that. “I’m going to see Graham this morning. I just thought you should know.”
“Don’t expect anything from me. I don’t want to hear about this again, you understand? This has nothing to do with me. Nothing Graham does has anything to do with me. I thought that was clear.”
“You are the master of clarity. And now that I’ve let you know, I’ll keep the rest to myself.”
“What rest? I would like you to ignore this scandal and hold up your head if it’s mentioned. Can’t you do that?”
“Do you mean am I capable of doing that? Of course I am.”
“Don’t play games!”
She didn’t back away, not even when he stepped forward. At sixty Douglas remained a force to be reckoned with, in full possession of all his hair and a trim waistline, still erect and broad-shouldered, but Ellen had learned long ago that he would never raise a hand to her no matter how loud his voice. He intimidated by attitude and gesture.
She was nearly his height, and now she met his eyes, which were blazing with anger. “I’m just going to visit Graham today and see what I should do next. My head’s always up, but I’m not nearly as adept at ignoring our only child as you are.”
“You coddled him. If you had ignored that boy a little more when he was growing up, then maybe I wouldn’t be so ashamed of him now.”
The problem was just the opposite. She’d spent Graham’s childhood ignoring him. Between her own lack of experience, her inability to dredge up what she thought were appropriate maternal feelings, and her desire to please and placate her husband, hadn’t she ignored her son’s all-too-fragile development until he had finally developed without her and gone in his own direction?
She chose her words carefully. “Your son almost died this year. He’s still not out of the woods, and now he has a child and, as I understand it, his wife has fled. If I could ignore that, then I would be less than human.”
“Watch what you say to me.”
She wondered why. Years of watching every word and placating Douglas had gotten her right to the place where she was standing.
She turned away. “I won’t bother you with whatever I find. I just told you what you need to know.”
“More than I need to know.”
“Douglas, if I were you, I would prepare a response in case anybody else brings it up.” Then despite a lifetime of training she added: “Something between passing out cigars and what you’ve said here.”
The sound of angry footsteps disappeared slowly down the hallway until the door to the garage slammed. Today he was driving himself to work. At the last minute his driver had taken a personal day, and Douglas was fuming about that, as well. She was afraid that between the son in trouble and the absent driver, the driver bothered him more.
When she looked back on her fifty-eight years, after she peeled away the superficial layers that first jumped to mind, deleted all the social events she had helped with for charity, deducted all the money that Douglas had donated to causes that propped up his financial interests? When she did all that, hoping for some sign that deep inside she was a good woman? She found next to nothing.
But today, no matter what Douglas said, she was going to see Graham and the baby.
Upstairs in the master bedroom she stared out the window and considered what to wear. The Randolphs’ house on Belvedere Island had priceless views of Sausalito and the Golden Gate Bridge, but she was too preoccupied to notice. Casual was probably in order, but casual in her closet meant expensive resort wear, nothing particularly baby proof. She remembered how, as a newborn, Graham had spit up on everything until she had asked the nanny to feed and burp him before she picked him up herself.
Had she really been that concerned about appearance and so little concerned about bonding with her son?
She chose gray pants and a matching knit top that she planned to donate to the Tiburon Thrift Shop. These days she needed brighter colors anyway. Her hair was carefully blond, like Graham’s, her face as young as the best plastic surgeon in San Francisco could make it. She still saw inevitable signs of aging.
She wondered if Douglas ever looked at her long enough to see them, too.
The drive to San Jose would probably take at least two hours, unless she waited until well after rush hour. She decided not to wait, and not to call Graham. If he wasn’t home she would settle somewhere and wait. She didn’t want to risk having her son tell her that he didn’t want to see her. She wasn’t sure what she would say to him, but her Tesla practically drove itself, and even in heavy traffic she would have time to plan. She told herself she would be ready.
Two and a half hours later, the drive hadn’t worked any magic. By the time she drove into the Willow Glen neighborhood in the south part of San Jose, she still didn’t have a speech prepared, and worse, she was lost. So much time had passed since she had visited her son and daughter-in-law that she had to pull over and set her GPS to find their house. Two turns and a few minutes later she parked on the right street, but she didn’t get out of the car. She gazed up and down the block.
Willow Glen was charming in a way that the fabulously beautiful Belvedere was not. The houses were small, cozy and individual. She had never studied architecture, but she didn’t need a college course to see that a number of styles and eras were represented here.
Yards were small, most carpeted in flowers or shrubs instead of grass. Graham and Lilia’s house was one of them, asymmetrical beds of roses and perennials, a bench and a birdbath. While she didn’t really like her daughter-in-law, she had to give Lilia credit for making the most of the tiny Tudor cottage she had inherited from an aunt. A brick walkway wound its way up to a brick porch. A vine, probably wisteria, ran from one side to the other along the front. These days the house was painted a subtle pine green. The door was ivory and the trim a bright seashore blue. Everything was too quaint, too picturesque, to suit Ellen. But she could see the appeal.
She blamed herself for Lilia. In a way she had been the one to introduce the girl to her son. Lilia’s mother, Nalani, had been the house manager for the Randolphs’ estate on Kauai’s North Shore. Douglas had bought the seven-acre property as an investment, but he had been in no hurry to sell, hoping for a zoning change that would let him subdivide and make a significant profit. So the family had visited there several times a year, and Nalani had both cared for the property while they were away and acted as housekeeper and occasional cook when they were in residence. She managed other properties, too, and when the house had to be opened in a hurry, her five children often pitched in, a family business of sorts.
On one of those occasions, ten-year-old Lilia was introduced to eleven-year-old Graham. And from that point on, until the year that Douglas forcibly broke up the friendship that had formed between Lilia, Graham and later Carrick—who had often visited the estate with the Randolphs—Lilia and Graham had taken far too enthusiastic an interest in each other.
To this day Ellen wondered if the grown-up Lilia had stalked Graham to renew their “friendship.” Both claimed their meeting years later, at a party in Berkeley where he’d been a student in the architecture department, was accidental. But the heir to the Randolph Group was an extraordinary catch. For all the laid-back, not-the-way-we-do-things-in-Hawaii attitudes that Lilia laid claim to, Ellen still wondered if the girl had known Graham would be at that party and traveled all the way from San Jose to reacquaint herself with the man who could make her life so much easier.
Of course it certainly hadn’t turned out that way.
Ellen had delayed long enough. She tucked her handbag under her arm, got out and locked the car before she started up the street, then the walkway. She’d considered bringing gifts, but that had seemed hopelessly positive. She wasn’t sure if she was here to celebrate or commiserate. Graham had survived cancer and now had an illegitimate son to deal with. Celebration would have to wait for more details.
At the front door she rang the doorbell and heard music. Not chimes, but snatches of a song. She shook her head and waited, trying again when nobody answered the door. She was just beginning to plan where she would wait when it opened.
Graham was so pale, so clearly exhausted, that for a moment she wasn’t sure this was her son.
“Graham?” She stretched out a hand and touched his arm. “Are you all right?”
He raked fingers through hair too short to need grooming. “What are you doing here?”
“Word gets out. I heard about...” She shrugged. “I heard you have a son. I heard Lilia left you.”
“And you swooped right in. Here to gloat?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why?”
“To see if I can help, I guess.”
He faked a laugh. “Cancer didn’t spur you on, but the baby did. I’ll have to think that one over.”
Early in his life Graham had learned to be cool and polite, to combat his father’s sarcasm and criticism with aloof good manners. She had never heard him be so dismissive.
“Nobody knows better than you do why I had to stay away,” she said.
“Actually I don’t know. I figure you’re an adult, and unless I missed something, my father doesn’t chain you to a chair when he’s not around.”
“I didn’t come here to fight or defend myself.”
“So tell me again why you did come?”
“I’d like to see my grandson. If it’s true that I have one.”
“Oh, it’s true. But he’s actually sleeping. For once.”
“You look like you’re going to fall over. Let’s go inside.”
“Please, keep your voice down. He’s upstairs, but God knows what wakes him up and sets him off.”
“You were a monster for your first few months.”
“How nice he inherited that particular trait.” He stepped aside and swept his hand behind him to usher her in.
The house was anything but tidy. Signs of a party were still in evidence. Crumbs on the floor, dishes on the dining room table, a congratulations sign hanging askew. Clearly Lilia wasn’t here. Ellen’s daughter-in-law loved order. Whether Ellen liked Lilia’s design ideas or not, the house was always picture perfect. Never fussy, but comfortable and welcoming. Anything that looked out of place was meant to be.
She followed Graham through the house, through a kitchen piled with dirty dishes, and into the sunroom. She thought the room must have been an addition because she didn’t remember it from her last visit. It was small but flooded with light, and the tropical-style furniture, old-fashioned rattan with a glass table on a coral stand, probably made Lilia feel right at home. She picked up a floral cushion from the floor and placed it on the love seat before she sat.
Graham dropped down to a chair in the corner and closed his eyes. He looked so beaten. She searched for something to say.
“You cried for the first three months of your life. Even a professional baby nurse wasn’t sure what to do with you. And me? I felt so completely inept. It seemed like I should know the magic key, that you should have emerged with instructions. Everybody told me not to worry, that crying was normal, but I was sure it was my own fault. Something I’d eaten in pregnancy, a glass of wine I had before I realized you were on the way. Bad genes.”
At that he opened his eyes. “Really? Bad genes? I thought the Randolphs and the Grahams were perfect in every way, that you and my father thought I was some sort of genetic mutation.”
“Not even close to being perfect.”
“There’s nothing you can do here to help. I have to deal with it. I brought this on myself.”
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Why?”
“Maybe there’s something I can do.”
“Unless you can zoom back in time and keep me from acting on the worst impulse I’ve ever had, then no.”
“You had an affair?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Nothing that interesting. A one-night stand. Right between what sounded like a death sentence and chemo.”
“Oh, Graham...” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Toby is the result. As you can imagine, Lilia is not happy about it.”
“She’s gone?”
“In Kapa’a with her family. I don’t know if she’ll be back for more than packing and shipping.”
She wanted to be angry at Graham’s wife. He was still recovering, and Lilia had abandoned him to handle everything on his own. But how could Ellen fault her? For the past year her daughter-in-law had shouldered every possible burden, with no help from anyone except the long-distance support of her own family.
“Did you really think you could keep the baby a secret from Lilia? Or were you waiting until you felt you could cope with the fallout?”
“I don’t know, Mother. I was trying to stay alive. Half the time I was so sick I couldn’t remember where the bathroom was.”
“And you were ashamed. You’re a good man. You would be.”
“You have no idea what this kind of shame feels like.”
She did, but it wasn’t helpful to admit that now. She was saved from trying, because a wail began somewhere in the distance. She put out her hand when Graham started to rise. “He’s upstairs?”
“A friend gave me some kind of contraption for him to sleep in. He’s in our room.”
“I’ll get him.”
“Do you know what to do?”
“Has it changed that much in thirty years?”
“Did you know what to do then?”
The question should have hurt, but both of them knew that Graham’s childhood had been managed by competent professionals, and she had looked on from the sidelines. “I do know how to change a diaper.”
“I think he looks like me.”
“Then he’s a beautiful baby.”
“He should have dark hair and brown eyes like the mother I didn’t give him.”
“I’ll bring him down. Will he need a bottle?”
“I’ll get one ready.”
The upstairs must have been expanded in her years away because the wail was coming from a room she didn’t remember. She followed the sound, opened the door and saw a small mesh-sided crib beside a queen-size bed. She picked up a beautiful hand-stitched quilt from the floor and folded it carefully, setting it on a chair before she dared go to the baby.
And then it was like looking at the infant Graham again.
She reached down and scooped him up, holding him against her breasts. Time stood still, although the baby didn’t. He arched his tiny back and screamed, just the way his father had.
“Well,” she said when she could speak, “Hello, Toby. I’m your grandmother.”
The baby was not impressed. She laughed. “I know. I know!” She looked around and saw a box of diapers on the floor. She set him carefully in the center of the queen bed, grabbed a baby blanket from the floor and tucked it under him before she stripped off his little footie pajamas, then took out a diaper. He screamed as she changed him, but she hummed loudly, and she thought that the screaming paused from time to time as he listened.
His clothes were dry, so she pulled them back on and folded the blanket snugly around him until he looked like a burrito. She smiled and kissed his forehead. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
Downstairs she found her son with a bottle ready. “When was the last one?” she asked.
“When he was hungry.”
“They always seem hungry when they’re screaming, but overfeeding can cause problems, too.”
“So I’m told.”
“Good. You have help?”
“I have a few friends who are still speaking to me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“The baby’s mother?”
“Is not among them.”
“You haven’t spoken to her?”
“She won’t take calls or texts from me. She probably feels like she’s on vacation.”
He stretched out his arms, but she shook her head. “Let me.” She held out a hand for the bottle. He shrugged and gave it to her.
She settled Toby into her arms, propping him carefully because she remembered being told that keeping the head high might help. Toby sucked at the bottle’s nipple like he hadn’t been fed in weeks.
“He’s beautiful, and yes, he looks remarkably like his father. I never quite knew what to do with you, but I did appreciate what a gorgeous little boy you were.”
“Why did you have me?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
It took her a while to answer. Toby had taken enough formula that she decided to burp him, despite his protests. Frequent burping was something else she remembered. “I wanted to feel connected to somebody. I saw women with their husbands and children and knew they had something I didn’t. Your father was always busy—”
“Not to mention rigid and controlling.”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
“Why start now?” He closed his eyes again.
“I believed having you would make us a real family.”
“Sorry it didn’t work.”
“Graham, I was never sorry you were my son. And that’s the truth. But I’m also not sorry I didn’t give you a brother or sister.” She didn’t go on. She knew she didn’t have to.
After a loud burp Toby settled back to his bottle and opened his eyes to stare at her. She smiled at him. He smiled back, and the nipple fell out of his mouth. He wrinkled his little face to cry, but she slid it back in.
“He smiled at me!”
“Aren’t you the lucky one.” Graham didn’t sound quite as cynical as he had.
“I feel lucky. A baby’s smile is magic.” She looked at her son, although pulling her gaze from her grandson was hard. “This is going to get better. His nervous system is going to mature. Pretty soon he’s going to seem like a real person to you.”
He surprised her. “How can I blame you for having me after what I’ve done?”
She didn’t know how to answer, but Graham’s question almost sounded like absolution, like he might actually forgive her for being such a distant figure in his life. In the end she shook her head. “I wish I could do more.”
“I don’t want help. I’ll manage.”
“And Lilia? Is there any way you can make this up to her?”
“Can you think of a way?”
He didn’t expect an answer; she knew that. But she gave him one anyway. “You know I never really approved of your marriage.”
“Yes, for some reason you didn’t think Lilia was good enough for me. When the opposite was clearly true.”
She knew better than to address that since whatever she said would make her sound racist and undemocratic, although she was sure she was neither. Instead she moved the discussion sideways. “I can’t help you with that. I’ve never felt close to her, and I probably never will. I felt I lost you for good once you found her.”
“What exactly did you lose?”
“And I’ve always felt she prodded you into confronting your father the way you did. He gave you a job, a future at Randolph Group, and instead of listening to him and following his lead, you went out on your own and brought a stain on all of us.”
“I took the truth to the places where something could be done about it.”
“Your father doesn’t forgive easily.”
“I knew that when I did what I had to.”
She wondered, with Lilia out of the picture, if a miracle might happen. “This could be a time, Graham, when Douglas might soften a little. If you tell him you made a mistake and you’re sorry, he might be willing to let bygones be bygones. Toby is his grandson, perhaps the only grandchild he’ll ever have, and even your father has a sentimental streak.”
“I’m not sorry, and I didn’t make a mistake. Not that time, at least.”
“Is it beyond you to say so, even if it’s not precisely true? Is it beyond you to say it to assure this baby’s future?”
Graham was silent so long she thought he might be mulling over the idea. But when he spoke she realized how wrong she had been.
“I hope my son has a long, happy future with me guiding his steps. And if she can ever forgive me, I hope he’ll have a future with Lilia as his mother.” His voice hardened. “But I would apply for food stamps, Mother, I would stand in bread lines before I would allow my father to sink his talons into anybody in my family, especially Toby. I will never humble myself in front of a man without an ounce of humility or goodwill in his soul.”
As if his own words had spurred him to action, he got up and held out his arms for the baby. “Feel free to tell him I said so.”
7 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
Blake’s “villa” overlooked a golf course, which didn’t surprise Marina. The day they’d met waiting in line at a popular restaurant downtown, he had been dressed in a bright blue polo shirt with the Pebble Beach logo. Three months into a pregnancy she regretted, she had started an idle conversation with the attractive older man who had lost none of his graying dark hair and held himself like a soldier. They’d cut their mutual wait time by taking a table together, and she’d learned that Blake was adjusting to being a widower. He had seemed lonely, in spite of admitting to a new romantic interest. Before parting, they’d exchanged phone numbers. “Just to chat.”
In the following months they had chatted occasionally, talking about everything, except her pregnancy. She hadn’t told him about the baby, preferring to pretend to herself, as well as to him, that she was carefree and single. After all, who did it hurt? But a month after Toby’s birth, he had invited her to dinner. The new girlfriend was out of his life, and by then, Graham was definitely out of hers.
The community where he lived was divided into villages sprawling over land where a vineyard and winery once stood, and his village was near tennis courts and the clubhouse restaurant. The villa, while small, was still three times larger than Marina’s apartment, with every possible amenity.
Blake fell into the amenity category.
This morning Marina woke slowly and saw the sun was high in the sky. She could hardly remember days when she had slept until she was ready to wake up, but she was rapidly getting used to it. Even before the baby she’d needed to be at her job early, and weekends had been filled with shopping and cleaning or helping Deedee with some project she couldn’t complete on her own. But this morning no alarm had awakened her, and now Blake stood beside the bed they’d shared for a week with a cup of steaming coffee in his hands.
“Sleeping Beauty,” he said fondly.
She slid up to a sitting position and pulled the top sheet over her breasts before taking the cup. On the evening she had volunteered to meet him here, Blake had invited her to stay the night, and she had never gone home. Although he had taken her on a surprise shopping trip during her second day in residence, she hadn’t bothered with a nightgown.
She took her first sip and realized he’d added cream, exactly the way she liked it. She tried to remember when a man had remembered even the important details about her, much less what she put in her coffee.
“This is such a lovely treat. Thank you.” She lifted the cup to her lips. “How long have you been up?”
He smiled, teeth white against tanned skin. “I had a little work to do, so I got up at seven.”
Blake was semiretired from a company that had something to do with network processors. He’d started the business himself, and his two sons—one of whom was a year older than Marina—were now in charge. Blake still went to his headquarters occasionally and worked each morning on a laptop in the kitchen dining nook. If he thought about work when they were together, he never let on.
Cream in her coffee was just one example of the attention he had lavished on her.
She patted the place beside her, and he sat. He was wearing khaki slacks and one of his endless supply of polo shirts. His cheeks were ruddy from shaving, and his brown eyes sparkled. He smelled like soap and aftershave, and she wasn’t at all sorry to wake in his bed.
“I have to go back to work on Monday,” she said, “so I’ll need to go home this afternoon and get all my things ready. But haven’t we had a good time?”
“You’re sure you have to go?”
She pursed her lips seductively. “I’m a working girl.”
“How well do you like your job?”
From the beginning he’d seemed interested, so she’d already told him a little about her position with a building materials supplier, about the way she facilitated sales and analyzed data, about the endless trips to construction sites with promotional items and a ready smile.
She answered truthfully. “I like putting together sales presentations. I like traveling to job sites but not the waiting around.”
“Are you looking for something else?”
She wondered if Blake was going to offer her a job at his company, and then she wondered how his sons would like that. “Right after college I got a great job in public relations in LA, and I loved it.”
She didn’t add that even more, she had liked the fact that single executives had been plentiful, and she’d dated her share. She’d been in no hurry, looking at net worth, future prospects and work habits before she went on to appearance, intelligence and humor. She hadn’t viewed her assessments as particularly calculating. She had simply done for herself what parents in other cultures did for their daughters.
Blake still seemed interested. “Why did you quit?”
She’d quit because Deedee had suffered a heart attack, and of course, Marina’s brothers hadn’t lifted a finger to help. She’d left behind a new lover who owned a chain of blue chip financial planning firms and called a congressman from northern California “Cousin.”
She bent the truth. “I missed my family. And it’s no sacrifice to live in San Jose, is it?” She smiled. “Just think, I never would have met you.”
“My lucky break.”
“What do you have planned for the day?”
“Bridge at noon.”
“Are you going to teach me to play?”
“You’re too smart. As it is I’m going to have to watch myself on the golf course.”
He had escorted her to the Par 3 course yesterday and given basic instructions. She’d realized the real meaning of senior living when he’d introduced her to his golfing buddies who had looked her over the way a starving man looks at a steak dinner. Blake was just old enough to be her father, but his friends were straying into grandfather territory.
“I probably like being outside or in bed better than I’d like being at a card table anyway.” She winked at him.
His eyes lit approvingly. “Do you like it here?”
“Why wouldn’t I? The place is gorgeous.”
“Sometimes I miss my house. Four bedrooms and a view of the mountains. My wife’s garden was her life. After Franny died I couldn’t stand to see it going to seed.”
“Is that why you moved here?”
“I wanted something smaller. Everything I could possibly want is here.” He had long, slender fingers, like a musician or an artist. He touched her hair and pushed a strand off her cheek, his fingertips lingering. “Especially now that you’re here, too.”
“I’ll come back if you want me. Maybe on weekends?”
“You could move in, Rina. There’s room.”
She took a moment to imagine life here. She would still have to keep her apartment, in case Blake got tired of her. She’d have the usual bills, although he always paid when they went out. After Toby’s birth he’d taken her to the symphony, expensive restaurants, a play. Deedee had been persuaded to take Toby for those hours, and Marina had wanted to forget everything about her real life and pretend she was the woman she’d been before the pregnancy.
Somehow, because she hadn’t wanted to scare him away, even then she hadn’t gotten around to telling Blake she was a new mother.
For a week now she’d carefully schooled herself not to think about the baby. Graham’s frantic texts—unanswered—had assured her that Toby was still alive and screaming. She wondered where Lilia fit into that scenario, or if she even did. Since Marina didn’t want to think about any of it, after one text too many she had blocked Graham’s number.
Did she feel guilty? If she did, guilt was buried under layers of disappointment and anger. She had fulfilled her part of their bargain, but Graham had not. Now the baby she had never wanted was his to fix. And okay, that made her a bad person, or at least a bad mother. But sadly she had never felt like a mother, just an overworked babysitter.
The whole situation had finally come to a head one night on one of her marathon phone calls with Blake. Realizing she couldn’t continue to keep such a big secret, she had finally broached the subject of children. He’d confessed he was glad child rearing was behind him. His sons were adults, and he wasn’t sorry they were.
She’d hung up once more without telling him about Toby, but in that final week before Graham’s party, when her thoughts about the baby had frightened her, she’d realized that, like Blake, she needed to put child rearing behind her, too.
“You could, you know,” he prompted, “move in with me.”
She smiled in answer. Did she love him? Of course not, and besides, what did love have to do with it? But money and security? Those were different matters. She liked him. Wasn’t that a good enough start?
“I would like to live here with you,” she said, feeling her way. “But I really can’t afford to, Blake. I’d still have all my expenses and a longer commute. And with my hectic work schedule, we wouldn’t see that much of each other, anyway. But when I’m free, I hope we’ll get together.”
“I like having you right here.”
“And I like being here.” She set down her coffee and held out her arms, letting the sheet drift to her waist. He might be dressed already, but they could fix that. Blake was past fifty, but his libido hadn’t suffered. He was an enthusiastic lover and surprisingly intent on making sure she found as much pleasure as he did.
And every time, he seemed to get his way.
“One for the road?” She winked at him.
“You could be the death of me.”
She pulled him closer. “Oh, I don’t think so, but what a way to go.”
8 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)


Feathering your nest with imagination and love
MARCH 10TH:
I’m home in Kauai after an unexpected challenge in my life. Your patience during my absence means everything to me.
Aloha, Lilia
In the days since she’d left California, Lilia hadn’t answered any communication from Graham, or Carrick, either. Carrick probably had been as much in the dark about Toby as she had. She believed he was furious at Graham. But the two men had been friends since they began rooming together as young teens at a New England boarding school. Since then Carrick had proven his loyalty over and over.
Of course so had she, and look where that had gotten her.
Today she planned to think of other things. Her parents were having a party in her honor, and now her mother, Nalani, came out to the yard behind the Swallows’ plantation-style house carrying platters of food to the picnic tables. The family had given Lilia a week to recover, but everyone knew the time to publicly welcome her home had come, whether she felt up to it or not. She couldn’t hurt the people who loved and wanted the best for her.
Unlike the man who had hurt her.
When family came for a meal, people sat on the lanai, in the kitchen or in the yard, wherever they could squeeze in. Here the outdoor tables were shaded by a spectacular Poinciana tree which in summer would set the yard ablaze with brilliant red flowers.
“You feeling more rested after your nap?” Nalani asked.
“A little.” Lilia hadn’t napped as much as collapsed in a lounge chair after breakfast. She was fairly certain she hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time since her arrival. She was still too angry, too torn, and despite herself, in the deepest part of her heart, too worried about her husband and his son. Some habits were hard to break, and she’d spent a year thinking of little other than Graham’s survival.
Nalani read between the lines. “If you disappear after you’ve greeted everybody, no one will ask where you are.”
Nodding her gratitude, Lilia took two of the platters of her mother’s shoyu chicken and set one on each end of two wooden tables placed end to end. Cabbage salad topped with crunchy ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese dotted with Spam—a local favorite—and a platter of fresh fruit had preceded them. Steaming bowls of rice would be set out when the family began to arrive in a few minutes. Identical bowls adorned two tables inside, and her brothers’ families would bring their own additions, as would the relatives and neighbors who came and went through the evening. Kai had agreed to sing and play, probably with friends from his band, and music magically turned the welcome home party into a luau. Children would chase each other, too excited to sit and eat. Grown-ups would “talk story,” which was local pidgin for chatting.
“Talk stink” was trash talking, and considering that by now everyone already knew why Lilia had come home, there would be plenty of that, too.
The usual family gathering.
The preparations reminded her of the party she had thrown for Graham. She had learned to entertain from her mother, who loved having guests as much as she did. Nalani was short and plump with a round face and shining salt-and-pepper hair that just cleared her earlobes. While Lilia most resembled her father, the two women were much alike in every other way.
She took a step backwards and nearly squashed a chicken parade, a hen and three chicks who were cleaning up crumbs behind her. Ellen had come to the island for Lilia and Graham’s wedding and shrieked when a rooster pecked at her sandaled toe. That memory brought the first smile of the day.
“You know we’ll have chaos, like usual,” Nalani said from the other side of the table. “You’re ready?”
“I’ve missed everybody. I’ll never stay away this long again.”
“Sounds like you’re planning to go back home then.”
“I’ll be back and forth.” There was no point in pretending. She hadn’t decided much, but she had decided that. “My life’s in California now.”
“Even without Graham?”
“I guess our friends will choose sides. But enough will choose me. I won’t be alone.”
“Then you’ve decided to leave him?”
Lilia had expected these questions soon after her arrival, but she wasn’t surprised Nalani had waited until now. She and her mother always had their most serious talks while they set out food. Until now she had asked very little, letting Lilia begin the healing process first.
“I make a decision. Then I change my mind. I’m a mess.”
“You love him.”
Lilia was no longer sure present tense worked. “I did love him. I don’t know what I feel now.”
“You think he was unfaithful more often than he said?”
“I don’t know.” She straightened the bowls of food until they were in a perfect line, although nobody would notice. “Wouldn’t somebody have found a way to tell me? Our marriage was out there where people could watch it. My website, the how-to videos we did together, the renovations Graham did on our house. Our relationship was almost public property. Wouldn’t somebody have told me if things weren’t the way they seemed?”
“People don’t always like to give bad news. But before this happened? Most people would have said Graham was honest no matter what it cost him. When he stood up to his father and went public with the problems at the Randolph Group, he lost his parents. But he did it anyway.”
“Some might. But he never had his parents, so what was there to lose?”
“And after having you, would he take a chance on losing you?”
“He clearly did.”
“So you’re still not sure he’s telling the truth?”
In the past week Lilia had asked herself that question over and over. On long walks at the beach and hikes on a mountain trail. “What he told me may be true. But what about now, Mama? He has a son. Not my son. His.”
She thought about Eli’s confession on the way home from the airport and wondered how her brother had found the inner strength, the goodness, to raise Amber’s firstborn as his own. At the moment she couldn’t find hers.
“You need more time. And a friend to talk to.”
“I have you. That’s enough.”
“There’s a difference in generations, and a difference between mainland and here.”
As her mother went into the house for more food, Lilia thought about that. The difference wasn’t imaginary. In the islands, family or ohana was primary, but it was far more than blood ties. Boundaries were fluid, and family included those who might be related or even wanted to be. Lilia shouldn’t have been surprised Eli had chosen to raise Amber’s son as his own. The individualism that was held up as an American value was not as valued here.
The Swallows heritage was mixed, but in this way, they were most like their native Hawaiian ancestors. When her Auntie Alea could no longer care for herself without help, various family members had taken turns staying with her in California until Lilia took on the job full-time. Nobody had considered engaging professionals. Help came from within.
Lilia sometimes felt she was walking a high wire strung between cultures, but when her mother returned, one thing was easy to put into words. “There might be a difference between generations, Mama, but nobody’s advice is as good as yours.”
“I have no advice. You have to walk your own path. I could tell you to forgive, and if you couldn’t, then you would carry the burden of my advice, as well as your own sadness.”
“I want somebody to fix this.”
Her mother was close enough to reach out and stroke her daughter’s cheek. “There is no one but you, Lilia Alea.”
The next half hour was filled with greetings, serving, sharing stories and catching up on family and local gossip. For the most part Graham’s absence was ignored, although a petite cousin pulled her to one side and told her she would personally go to San Jose on her next business trip to the mainland and slap him around if Lilia just gave her the go-ahead.
The air was filled with the scents of plumeria, pork roasting in an outdoor oven her brothers had built for her mother, fragrant pikake and ginger leis. For the most part the women were clad in flowered sundresses or muumuus, although some of the younger ones wore jeans, and the men wore aloha shirts patterned with flowers and local scenery. Her youngest brother, Jordan, a professional surfer, arrived in the striped board shorts he’d worn in his last successful competition and announced he planned to wear them until the next one.
Lilia noted that her father kept track of her, and when he sensed she was trapped in conversations for too long, he came to the rescue. Joe Swallow, former cop and now the owner of his own security firm, wasn’t a man who was comfortable talking about feelings, his or anybody else’s, but nobody ever doubted his devotion.
Several hours into the commotion, as Kai’s little band turned up the volume, new supplies of food arrived, and more neighbors arrived to listen, her father sought her out.
“A friend of yours is here.”
Lilia thought everybody she’d met in her years on Kauai was already at the party. Her head was beginning to ache, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to talk to one more person. An hour ago she had reached her saturation point, and now the evening was becoming a complicated jumble of thoughts and emotions.
Her father motioned. She followed him to the front of the house in time to glimpse a woman with strawberry blonde hair getting out of a cousin’s old Toyota. A moment passed before Lilia recognized her.
“Regan?” She moved forward, past her father, and the other woman ran straight into her arms. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“Tell me I really am, okay? I feel like I’m still on an airplane.”
They held each other until Lilia thanked her cousin and finally backed away. Now Nalani’s comment about a friend made perfect sense.
“My mother knew you were coming?”
“She thought you would enjoy the surprise. And the company.”
“She didn’t think I had enough company?” Lilia nodded toward the house and the roar from the back.
“Not exactly like me.”
Lilia linked arms with her friend. “I’ll introduce you to everybody. That will take hours. Don’t worry about how any of us are related because we never do. Call all the older women Auntie and you’ll be fine. And then when we can, we’ll sneak away. If you’re not too tired?”
“I can only stay till Tuesday. I don’t plan to sleep.”
“I’ve subscribed to that plan lately. It’s not a good one.” She stopped walking and turned to face her friend. “Just tell me Graham didn’t put you up to coming.”
“Lilia...” Regan frowned and shook her head.
“Your brother?”
“Is sick with worry. But coming was my idea. In fact I didn’t tell either of them, not that I’ve talked to Graham.”
“You’re not in charge of the baby?”
“You told me to stay away, remember? I listened. In his favor, he never asked.”
Lilia realized how much she wanted to know about the situation back in Willow Glen, and at the same time, how little. She was glad that right now, she had other priorities. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving. I smell food.”
“You’ll never go hungry here.”
“I’ll eat if you will.”
Lilia was surprised that eating actually sounded good now. In fact what she’d thought of as a permanent knot in her stomach was beginning to unravel. “Let’s load our plates. Then we’ll make the rounds.”
“So, I’m a good surprise?”
Lilia squeezed her friend’s arm. “Of all the surprises I’ve had lately, you are the very best.”
9 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
Plantation architecture arrived in the Hawaiian islands in the early twentieth century. The houses, for workers in the pineapple and sugarcane fields, suited the climate. They were often framed in wood, with wide-hipped roofs, vertical plank siding, and lanais for ventilation and extra living space.
The Swallows’ cottage had been built by Lilia’s great-grandparents and added on to, as was common, but the lanai that wrapped around three sides of the house was the crowning jewel.
On the morning after the family luau Lilia found Regan sprawled in a chair in the front with her eyes closed. She was wearing fresh clothing topped with a sadly wilted ginger lei she’d been given at the party. Last night she’d slept on the bed in the loft, where island breezes swept across the narrow expanse from opposing windows. For the Swallow children, sleeping there had been a reward for good behavior.
Invariably Lilia and Graham had slept in the loft on their visits. This time, for obvious reasons, she was sleeping on the daybed in what was now her mother’s sewing room.
With a cup in one hand she plopped down in a neighboring chair to sip her mother’s excellent coffee. She closed her eyes, too. “How’d you sleep?”
Regan didn’t open her eyes. “Am I awake?”
“You’d better be. This is our only full day together. I wish you could have gotten more time off.”
“You have any idea what a miracle it is that I got any time off at all? Hello? Remember tax season?”
Lilia knew March and April were crunch months for Regan, an accountant at a prestigious firm. “I appreciate that, and you.”
“I’m sorry we never got to talk yesterday.”
“If I’d dragged you away from my brother, he would have pulled out every embarrassing story he remembered and shared it.”
“I’d forgotten how cute he is.”
“And how young he is...”
“Three years, Lilia. Just three years younger than I am. That’s nothing.”
“Jordan’s married to his surfboard.”
“He’s coming to Huntington Beach in September to compete.”
“You’re so funny. You won’t even remember his name by September.”
Regan didn’t deny it. Like her own brother, she never seemed to settle down. “I think I kind of disappeared last night. The party was still going on when I went upstairs and tested the bed, just to see how it was, and that’s what I remember. I’m sorry. What are we doing today?”
“There’s not enough time in the world to do everything you’ll want to.”
“Whatever was in that punch Jordan gave me was lethal. I need advice, preferably delivered in short sentences.”
“We can swim, snorkel, hike, shop.” Lilia opened her eyes. The sun was creeping steadily across the lanai. In a few minutes they would need to move. “Whatever works best with your rum-addled brain.”
“Where would we hike?”
“We could walk up the Sleeping Giant.” Regan had forced her eyes open, too, and Lilia gestured to the mountain beyond them. “Can you see his profile?”
Regan squinted. “Maybe. The view’s priceless even without the fantasy. But now I remember what I’d really like to see. The Na Pali coast. Carrick told me all about his visits to the Randolphs’ house there. He said the house overlooked a fantastic beach.”
The long hikes Carrick and Graham had taken along the coast to get away from the Randolphs had later bloomed into Carrick’s passion for exploring. These days he spent whatever time he could eke out of his law practice backpacking through the West, an antidote, Lilia supposed, to too much time in offices and courtrooms.
“I know they sold the property a long time ago,” Regan said, “but can we still get down to the beach from there?”
Lilia certainly knew which beach Regan was referring to. She wondered if her friend knew the story of her last day there with Graham and Carrick, when they were still teenagers. Or had Carrick told his sister about his trips to Kauai and left out that account?
She hadn’t been to Kauapea Beach in years. There were plenty of other beaches that didn’t come with memories, but since her future might well be spent putting memories behind her, she supposed she could start today.
“The path down is steep, and this time of year the currents are probably too strong to swim. But we might be able to splash around in tidal pools.”
“Just lying in the sun for a while sounds great.”
“Done deal then.” Lilia got to her feet. “I’m going to change. Did you bring sturdy shoes?”
“Running shoes. Nothing fancy.”
“Perfect. The trail down is red clay. You’ll get dirty. Wear your suit and a cover-up you don’t care about.”
“I’ll get up in just one minute. If I can remember how.”
Lilia held up her mug. “This is my mother’s Kona coffee, and there’s a cup in the kitchen with your name on it.”
Regan stood and stretched. “I just remembered.”
* * *
On her first trip to the mainland, Lilia had found traveling in straight lines as amazing as the number of cars in California. The trip to Kauapea Beach, known as “Secrets,” meandered along the coastline past Kealia Beach, Anahola and inland before it took a sharp turn north. Since they were on Hawaiian time, they meandered, pulling over for better views. Once they were on the North Shore they took a detour and visited the Kilauea lighthouse and wildlife refuge to stretch their legs and look for nesting seabirds. Back on the road they stopped at a farm stand, and Lilia bought Regan a lei from a woman who had made them herself that morning.
She had asked her father for directions to the parking lot, accessible but not advertised, so it wouldn’t attract crowds. He had warned that a number of new homes had gone up along this familiar stretch of coast, and now she witnessed the reality.
After parking she gathered herself to relive the past. “We can walk along the road, and I’ll show you where Graham’s family stayed.”
“Carrick used to talk about that house until I wanted to scream. I was so jealous. I was too young to realize traveling with the Randolphs came at a price.”
“Carrick got along. He figures out what people need, then he gives it to them.”
“Within reason.”
“But that’s how he managed the Randolphs. Ellen needed polite conversation, and Douglas needed strict adherence to rules and no interruptions.”
“Is that how you got along with them?”
“Me? I was a shadow. My mother was the estate manager, and my father’s company provided security, but our whole family pitched in whenever a job had to be done quickly. Douglas never even realized I was alive until... Well, until.”
“That’s not a bad thing. It’s when he does notice that things get uncomfortable.”
They got out and chatted about nothing for a few minutes, stepping to the side of the road when cars approached. Lilia tried to get her bearings. Finally she stopped. “I think this is where their property was.” She pointed ahead where five magnificent homes were set back from the cliff overlooking the water. “It looks like they took down the original houses and built those in their place. Douglas was just holding the property until he could get permission to subdivide and build, but it took years. I can’t even imagine how much money he made when permission was finally granted.”
“A drop in the Randolph bucket.”
The new homes were lovely and lavish, but Lilia could still remember what the land had looked like years ago. “The old house was graceful, plainer than these and dated, but it had four bedrooms, views from every window. There was a guest cottage with a lap pool built to look like a natural lagoon, an orchard with avocados, mangoes, lychee, a gatehouse. The Randolphs only came a few times a year, but sometimes guests arrived and stayed a week or two without them. From the beginning, this was an investment. I doubt either of them had a sentimental thought about it.”
“How old were you when you met them?”
“Ten. Graham was eleven.” She turned away from the memories. “Let’s find the path down to the beach. It’s behind us and not always easy to spot.”
The trip down was steep and in places rugged, although more cultivated now than Lilia remembered. They moved through a hala and ironwood forest. She had a backpack with their lunch and towels, and they took their time to negotiate the narrow root-choked path. While the locals hadn’t managed to keep the beach a secret, getting to it still took experience or careful instructions. By the time they emerged onto pale golden sand, Regan was panting.
“Wow!” Regan moved forward and spun around. “Lilia, this is heaven.”
“It is pretty amazing.” In front of them was the turquoise ocean, behind them the rugged cliffs. Outcroppings of black lava dotted the waterline, and waves crashed against rock, sending silver sea spray high into the air.
“I’ve never been anywhere this beautiful.” Regan started forward but Lilia took her arm.
“Just remember to stay back, okay? Surf’s high today, and people get carried out more often than you think. We’ll head east and see if we can find a tidal pool where we can cool off. There’s a waterfall, too.”
An hour later, after splashing in the pool under the waterfall and immersing themselves in a larger one close to the shore, they walked far enough that they were well away from the dozen or so people who had gotten to the beach before them. To the east the lighthouse stood guard high above, and behind them, red cliffs anchored with evergreens and ferns towered like castle walls.
They spread towels and reapplied sunscreen. Then they lay down where the cliff provided a little shade.
Despite sunglasses Regan shaded her eyes with her hand. “Shade? Sunscreen? I’m still a redhead. I’d better not stay here too long.”
Lilia was staring at the water. “This is one of the longest beaches on the island.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t been here lately.”
“Carrick never told you about our last afternoon together on this beach?”
“Not in so many words. But I have the feeling it didn’t end happily.”
“We were teenagers. It might bore you.”
“Tell you what, I have a story to tell, too. We can trade.”
Intrigued, Lilia settled back and closed her eyes. “Graham and I were friends first, but you know that. The day we met? Ellen called my mother early that morning to say they were coming sooner than planned and asked her to have a meal ready. They had a chef for the rest of the week but would need her help that day.”
“That’s how I always travel. With a chef, butler, lady’s maid. You, too?”
Lilia laughed. “I was trying to stay out of my mother’s way while she finished setting out the meal she’d prepared. They’d brought guests, and Douglas was at his most charming, but Mama knew how quickly that could change. So before he could complain about me, she chased me outside. She’d roped my brothers into coming with us, to get everything ready outdoors while she cooked. They drove separately, and I expected to leave with them when she stayed on, but they took off without me.”
“Brothers.” Regan knew.
“Graham was tossed out, too, or left on his own. I thought he was from another planet.” She paused. “Too bad I didn’t roll my eyes and walk away, huh?”
“Things might be simpler now.”
Lilia pushed on. “I thought he didn’t know how to smile. We played Frisbee until I fell backwards into the pool with the Frisbee clutched to my chest. He did smile then, even laughed. And he kept smiling and laughing afterwards, every time I saw him. We became friends, although his parents didn’t realize it. I was just the little brown-skinned babysitter. Eventually they brought your brother along to take him off their hands even more.”
“Carrick always knew that.”
“Since he loves Graham like a brother, he was willing to go along. And hey, this is Hawaii. Why wouldn’t he come?”
“Did you ever wonder why the Randolphs chose him?”
“I assumed because they were roommates at school.”
“Did you wonder how that happened, too? My father’s a college professor, an immigrant from Ireland, no less, so we’re not exactly in their social or economic class.”
“They take what they need, right? They tolerated little ol’ foreigner me.”
“Um, Hawaii is a state.”
“Too recently to count. Carrick used to say he and I were founding members of the Wretched Refuse Society. Anyway the two of us were acceptable enough to make sure Graham left them alone.”
Regan rested her hand on Lilia’s arm. “Here’s the real reason Carrick was acceptable. Douglas wanted my father to come to work for him.”
Regan’s father taught economics at a small Pennsylvania college. He was known in academic circles for having eccentric ideas about the world economy and publishing papers nobody wanted to read. He was as charming as his son.
“Douglas wanted your father? At Randolph Group?”
“Douglas may be cow poop on the heel of your favorite sandal, but he’s brilliant, and he knows Da is, too. Douglas was probably instrumental in getting Carrick a full scholarship to prep school and maneuvering them into letting Graham and Carrick room together.”
“Why is this news to me?”
“Why would either Carrick or Graham talk about it? If it’s true, they were manipulated into becoming friends. But whether or not it is, Da was happy teaching and working on a book nobody will ever read, so he refused all offers. But he does give Douglas financial advice from time to time. Which means if any of this is true, his plan paid off. At least a little.”
“I remember the first time I met Carrick. I think he was fourteen. I liked him right away.”
“Did you have a crush on either of them?”
Lilia crossed her arms under her head and tried to remember how all this had started. “I was surrounded by boys at home, so they held no mystery. Graham and Carrick were nicer than my brothers, and I just liked being with them. They came from a different world, too. Of course as the years passed, things changed a little.”
“How so?”
She wasn’t sure how to phrase the difference. “We all became more aware of each other. They began to compete for my attention, and I liked it. The two were so different, but they were both attractive and fun to be with. Carrick is open and easy. Graham is more closed off. I’m sure every time he tried to open up, a door was slammed in his face by one parent or the other.” She realized she sounded sympathetic, and that annoyed her.
“What happened on the beach?”
All these years later the scene was absolutely clear, because all of them had been so humiliated. “I was fifteen, and it was summer. I think both Ellen and Douglas finally realized I might be more than unpaid help, because my invitations to visit dropped off.”
“You were probably a knockout. How could they not notice?”
“One afternoon Graham called to say he and Carrick were at the house for a week and asked if I wanted to go swimming. My mother was going to a neighboring estate to oversee the installation of outdoor lights, so she gave me a ride. When I got there I found out that Graham’s parents were in town having lunch with business associates.”
“Maybe that’s why they called you.”
“I’m sure. Graham wanted to hike down here to swim. In those days the path was even more challenging, and two years before he’d tried it after a heavy rain and broken his wrist. Ellen had strictly forbidden him from coming here, but that day he said it was ridiculous to live so close to a beach he couldn’t use. He was determined to come down again with or without us.”
“Sixteen and finally ready to challenge authority, huh?”
“I suppose. I didn’t want him going alone, but it was clear he planned to, unless we went along. Once Graham makes up his mind, there’s no stopping him. Witness the fact that he decided to have a baby without his wife.”
“Is it hard to talk about him? You could just leave me hanging.”
Lilia grunted. “I showed them the best way down. The water was a lot calmer that day than it is now. We bodysurfed and watched for dolphins and whales. Then we walked this way to see the falls before going back. Graham wanted to make sure he was home before his parents got there.”
Regan sat up and slapped more sunscreen on her legs. “It’s strange to be right here while you tell this story.”
“When he asked what we would see farther east I told him the truth.”
“Which is?”
“Farther that way,” she pointed, “people like to take off their clothes to sunbathe. The far edges on both ends are known as nude beaches.”
“Whoa. Sixteen-year-old boys. Nude beach.”
“Uh-huh. I might as well have tossed a lighted match into a gallon of kerosene. I was embarrassed, but I was persuaded to walk with them because they were going to go anyway, and I wanted to be sure they knew how to get back up the path. I told them we would look from a distance, and that’s as much as we would do because it was getting too late to go farther. Some couples were sunbathing, but without binoculars that was all we could see. Even so the possibilities made me uneasy.”
“I can see why.”
“I was with two guys whose place in my life had quietly reconfigured. I was confused about my feelings, and thrilled when they agreed to turn around and start back. That’s when we saw a man stalking toward us. Of course it was Douglas. I hung back with Carrick, and Graham went ahead to meet his father.”
Regan lay down on her side and propped her head to look at Lilia. “I can imagine this.”
“Douglas has a way of diminishing anybody who disagrees with him, but you know that. Graham took the abuse, but when his father accused me of putting him up to this, Graham told him he was wrong. Douglas didn’t listen and called me a number of names I have managed to forget.”
“I’m sorry he put you through that.”
“When I arrived back at their house my mother was already there. Ellen was furious, most likely because Douglas was. She told Mama I would no longer be welcome, and my mother told her to find someone else to manage the estate. By then Graham had taken off in one of the family cars, and Carrick had gone along, probably to calm him down. Not only was I totally humiliated, I lost two friends I thought I would never see again.”
“They didn’t find a way to see you before they left?”
“No, that was the last time for years. They left the next day. Carrick emailed to say he was sorry things had gone the way they had. Graham never did, and he didn’t answer my email. But I wasn’t surprised. I knew that, of all of us, he was the most embarrassed by everything that had happened.”
“Did you and Carrick stay in touch?”
Lilia considered her answer. “I think Carrick knew that Graham had a thing for me, even then. His first loyalty was to him.”
“I don’t think that’s true anymore.”
Telling the story to Regan had taken some of the sting out of it. Still she didn’t want to talk about herself anymore. She turned on her side to view her friend. “Now it’s your turn.”
Regan bit her lip and didn’t speak for a moment. When she did her voice was low. “This is harder than I expected. Even after you just gave such a great lead-in about how painful it is to lose people you care about.”
“Are you about to lecture me?”
Regan waved her to silence. “Oh, please, not even vaguely. It’s just I’m something of an emotional coward.”
“You’re somebody who will fly all the way to Kauai during tax season just to support a friend.”
“I came for more than that.”
“Why don’t you tell me then?”
Instead Regan crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the sky. “I love my family, but we never really talk about feelings, so I never learned how. Actually we never talk about ourselves. It’s that Irish Catholic thing. Don’t get a swelled head. Put yourself down, so nobody else has to.”
Lilia knew Carrick better than she knew his sister. Regan had grown up on the East Coast and gone to college and graduate school there. They hadn’t become good friends until she had come West to take a position in a Silicon Valley accounting firm. Now she realized that Regan was right. Because whatever Carrick was feeling, he rarely shared it, and Regan was much the same.
“Are you saying you have something you want to say, and you don’t know how?” She paused but Regan didn’t answer. “Don’t tell me you were having an affair with Graham, too?”
Regan whacked her on the arm. “You’d better be kidding.”
The mood had changed, which is what Lilia had intended. “So spill.”
“I’ve never told you about Devin.”
Regan had discussed some of the men in her life, but only with humor. Lilia remembered that one blind date had suggested they should have sex immediately to see if they were compatible, and when Regan had wondered out loud if anybody in the restaurant would notice, he’d taken a good look around while he considered.
“I’ve always counted on you to remind me how little I enjoyed being single.” Lilia realized she might be in that category again and soon.
“Devin was different. I met him in my senior year of college. We both headed for the same graduate program, and after a year together, it was clear we were also headed for a life together. Things seemed perfect. You’re sure Carrick never told you this?”
“I have a bad feeling this is the kind of story Carrick wouldn’t share.”
“Because I’m not going to look good after I tell it?”
“No. Because it’s personal to you and not a happy ending. I’m right?”
Regan didn’t answer directly. “That Christmas he gave me a ring. A really beautiful diamond. We decided we’d be married the next summer, something small and informal so we could spend whatever money we had on a backpacking trip through Europe. I wanted to see family in Ireland. His roots were in France. It seemed perfect.
“He was a top student. Lightning quick. A creative thinker. But in January he started not showing up for classes. A professor sought me out and asked what was going on. I was living with a family as a part-time nanny, and Devin and I had decided I should stay there the rest of that year to save for our wedding. Anyway, we weren’t living together, so I didn’t know he had been missing classes or why. When I asked him, he told me he was fine. He was using that time to catch up on another class. He said it was temporary, and he was getting good notes from another student.”
Lilia knew even if that had been true, it would have been a problem. “Did he take too many hours?”
“He’d moved out of accounting into corporate finance. I figured the work might be a lot harder, but Devin knew what he was doing. He’d found a way to handle things.” Regan faced Lilia. “I should have pushed him instead of just choosing to believe him. You can start counting the ‘I should haves’ now. After Devin died I spent an entire year starting every sentence that way. I’m better now. I know his death wasn’t my fault. But still...”
Lilia tried to read Regan’s expression. “You left out a lot.”
“Drugs.”
“Oh...”
“He was pushing himself really hard, so he started with the easy stuff, to give himself a way to unwind. Pretty soon that didn’t work, and he moved on. Prescription drugs, then cocaine. He was smart. He was sure he could beat it. He was even sure he could beat heroin.”
Lilia had seen too much addiction among family members and college friends not to understand. “How did you find out?”
“I should have seen it sooner, but remember what I said about myself? When he didn’t tell me what was bothering him, that just seemed natural.”
“Because that’s how things were for you.”
Regan nodded. “Of course there were more signs, but I wrote off his lack of appetite, his restlessness and everything else as exhaustion and stress over the future. I told him we could postpone the wedding, but he said no. And here’s the zinger. He told me he wanted to take my ring back to the jeweler to have it cleaned and the prongs repointed. He said a friend had lost the diamond right out of one that was newer than mine. So I gave it to him, and for weeks I didn’t even worry when he didn’t return it. When I finally asked, he said the jeweler was busy. He’d had to send it away because there was a problem...”
“He sold it.”
“Oh yeah. But not for enough to feed his habit, because about a week later he was caught in his academic adviser’s apartment stuffing anything that glittered into a pillowcase. He’d been given the key so he could study there. By then Devin didn’t care about anything except where his next fix was coming from.”
“You must have been devastated.”
“I was furious! I can’t begin to express how angry I was, except that I don’t have to, because you know what that kind of betrayal feels like.”
The analogy made Lilia flinch. “What happened?”
“Since it was a first offense the judge gave him a choice between jail time and a drug treatment center. You can guess which he chose, and he was lucky. His parents mortgaged their house to give him that chance. They loved him enough.” Regan lifted her hand in emphasis. “Me? I didn’t.”
“He hurt you badly.”
“Another thing about the Irish? We hold grudges. Just look at our history. Anyway, I can’t blame this on ancestry. The day Devin left for the treatment center I told him we were through, that I didn’t want anything to do with him ever again. And I meant it.”
Lilia was pretty sure what was coming next. “Whatever you said didn’t kill him, Regan. Wasn’t Devin in charge of his own life?”
“The statistics were pretty clear—40 to 60 percent of addicts relapse. He had ruined everything, and that was that. I didn’t write him. I didn’t take phone calls from his family. I finished my course work and took the job in Mountain View to be near Carrick. I told myself I didn’t love Devin anymore. I dated jerks. I was pretty sure I deserved jerks, considering how stupid I’d been not to see what was happening.”
Jerks or guys like Lilia’s brother Jordan, with whom Regan had absolutely no possibility of a future. But Lilia knew that revelation was out of place and waited for her to go on.
Regan turned to her back again. “He found me and called one night after I’d been in California for a couple of months. He was back in school in a different state but doing well. He knew addiction would be a lifelong battle, but he had tools to fight it. He wanted my forgiveness. That’s all he was asking for. And I couldn’t give it to him. I kept thinking he’d chosen heroin over me, that he’d ruined both our lives. I told him I didn’t want to hear from him again.” Her voice was suddenly thick with tears. “And I never did.”
Lilia moved closer to put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Did he die of an overdose?”
“No. He decided to spend his spring break in Haiti with some other guys from his program. They were helping build a new wing on a treatment center there. His program is big on community service as a way to return self-confidence and give back to the world. His second night there one of the residents got high, found a knife, and when he went after another resident, Devin stepped between them.”
“I’m so sorry.”
They lay that way for a few minutes until Lilia finally moved away. She was sure of one thing. Regan hadn’t traveled this far just to acknowledge her own past. “You’re trying to tell me I should forgive Graham and go home. That people really can change.”
“I don’t have any idea if you should go back to Graham. I really don’t.” Regan wiped tears off her cheeks. “Only you can know that.”
“Then what?”
“We never know whether change will stick or what the future’s going to hold. And we’re never under an obligation to play somebody else’s games. But I’ll be haunted forever because I didn’t tell Devin I was glad he’d made progress and wished him well. Even if I’d opened the door for another chance at a life together, he probably still would have gone to Haiti and died trying to help other addicts. But if I had just said those words? Both of us would have had closure. And who knows? Maybe we would have had that second chance.”
“Don’t marriages have to be built on trust?”
“We like to say that, but isn’t marriage just a merger between two flawed, fragile human beings who make mistakes, sometimes really terrible mistakes, and somehow come through them together? Trust is a shaky foundation because it can be so easily destroyed. The question is whether a relationship is worth rebuilding. Maybe more than once.”
Lilia cleared her throat, which was suddenly clogged with tears. “You’re afraid Graham’s going to die, aren’t you? And you’re afraid I’ll have the same regrets you do.”
“All of us are going to die. But I wish I had asked myself what really mattered for whatever time I had left on this earth, or Devin did. And I guess that’s what I came to say. Maybe that’s what you need to be asking now. What do you have to say to Graham that you haven’t said? What, if anything, do you need to forgive? Because nobody knows the future. You can trust me on that.”
10 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
Marina hadn’t yet cooked for Blake, but on Friday night he had a cold and didn’t feel like going out. Even though her work week had seemed a hundred hours long, she had volunteered to feed him.
She wasn’t a gourmet. Her talents ran to macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, tuna fish sandwiches, anything her brothers would deign to eat when she had been in charge. She still specialized in food that arrived at her local Safeway in a box, jar or can. Tonight, for a change, she was going to prepare something more appealing. Even she could bake a potato and broil a steak, and these days salad came in a plastic bag with dressing. At the grocery store she added frozen garlic bread to her cart and half a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream. Blake’s fancy wine cooler was already well stocked.
As she unpacked and started dinner she took stock of the kitchen. The space was expansive, only separated from the living room by an island. Drawers were crowded with every possible utensil and gadget. Since Blake relied on pre-prepared meals from the supermarket freezer, she suspected his wife had been the one to revel in complex recipes. She also noted that the black granite countertops were spotless, which meant the kitchen probably hadn’t been used since his cleaning service had come on Monday. She wondered how much he missed being married.
She wondered if he wanted to be married again.
As the garlic bread warmed in the needlessly complicated oven, and the potatoes baked in a microwave with enough settings to fly a space shuttle, she poured orange juice and took it into the living room.
After work she had changed into her shortest micro-miniskirt without tights, even though she hadn’t enjoyed the modesty challenge as she slid in and out of her car. But when he’d opened the door to find her standing on the porch with groceries, Blake had enjoyed the sight of her bare legs enough for both of them.
He was enjoying them again, this time as she held out the glass. “Pretend it’s a screwdriver. You’re not taking care of yourself, are you?”
He took it and began to sip. “If you were living here, I bet you’d make sure I did.”
She smiled, although the thought of being in charge of somebody else sounded woefully familiar. “And if I was taking care of you, I would never make it to work, would I? You’re usually a pretty hands-on guy. You must be sick.”
Reluctantly he wrapped both hands around his glass. “Somebody ought to take care of you.”
“I’m a big girl.” She paused just long enough. “But I won’t be around much next week. Sales meetings, and in-service training in San Francisco. I’ll be driving back and forth since my company’s too cheap to spring for a hotel, so I’ll be getting back too late to see you.”
“You’ll be missed.”
“I’ll call and check on you. And you’ll go to the doctor if your cold gets worse, right?”
He sent her a warm smile, which must have taken some effort. “Do you like being back at work?”
Blake thought she’d been on leave to recover after minor surgery, so she couldn’t tell him the truth. No, she didn’t like being back. She didn’t like the way the other employees looked at her, the way they didn’t ask about her baby son because they knew he was no longer with her. None of her sales colleagues had been at Graham’s “celebration” party, but word traveled fast in the construction community. While she’d spawned a little sympathy as a pregnant woman alone in the world, now it had vanished. She’d had an affair with a man they had previously respected, and now she had given him their child to raise. Publicly, too. For a mother there was no greater crime.
And maybe they were right.
When she didn’t answer, he continued. “You shouldn’t have to work so hard. You need more fun.”
If that was true, clearly somebody had forgotten to tell Deedee, Graham and God. Her brief sojourn in Los Angeles had been as close to “fun” as Marina had ever experienced, too little and over too fast.
She lowered her lashes. “I imagine I’ll have fun at the sales meeting. They pull in executives from all over the world. I’ve met some great...” She paused, as if to reconsider word choice. “People. There’s always a little social time built in.”
He hadn’t missed the hesitation. “Do you work with many women?”
“Mostly men. I do try to keep work and play separate, though.”
“Do you go out of town a lot?”
“Depends on what’s in the pipeline. The job pays my bills. I can’t refuse.”
“I might be able to find you something closer to home.”
She pictured a deadly dull office job. Creating a marketing plan for the latest innovation in denture cream. Putting out a company newsletter with feel-good stories about the new water dispenser and the tenth anniversary of the underpaid cleaning service.
She chose her words carefully. “I like being out in the field. I was born to travel. I love seeing new things. So the job suits me well enough. We’ll find time to be together.”
“Have you traveled much? Real travel, I mean?”
“Not nearly enough.” In truth, not at all.
“My wife didn’t like it. I always wanted to go, and she always wanted to stay. Mostly we stayed.”
“You didn’t go anywhere?”
“Europe once. We came home two weeks early because she missed her garden and our dog. Somebody was supposed to come in, weed and water, but they didn’t do it the way she wanted, so she never went anywhere for more than a weekend again. And even then, we had to take Doolittle.”
“I guess each person is different. I haven’t been able to travel and always wanted to. She could and didn’t.” Her sigh was real. “And what about you? Now that you can, do you plan to?”
“It’s not the same without somebody you love.”
Marina thought traveling alone would be great. Nobody to answer to; nobody to take care of. Just her, doing whatever she wanted.
“Maybe we could travel together,” he said.
She squeezed his shoulder. “I would like that. So many places to see and all of them interesting. But I won’t have any time off, Blake. Not for most of the year. I had to use most of my personal days for the surgery.”
He sneezed and ended the conversation by blowing his nose.
She took that opportunity to head into the kitchen to broil the steaks and finish their dinner. When she took out the garlic bread to replace it with the steaks she saw she hadn’t, as hoped, mastered the complicated oven settings. The bread was charred. She wrapped it tight before she tossed it in the garbage, but the burned smell lingered. She was glad Blake had a cold.
When they finally sat down to eat he complimented her on the meal, but she could see he was only going through the motions. He wasn’t running a temperature—she had checked—but the first stages of a cold were often the worst. When he set down his fork, she did the same, even though she was only half finished.
“I think you need a shower and bed, my boy.” She got up and removed his plate. “I’ll tuck you in, but I think you’ve got a long night of sneezing and coughing ahead of you.”
He was as docile as a lamb, getting up as ordered to head into the master bedroom. In a few minutes she heard the shower running. As she cleaned the kitchen she ate the rest of her own dinner standing up. Then she tucked both plates and the serving dishes into the dishwasher and got it going, did one final swipe of the counters and prepared to leave.
As she gathered her purse and the jacket that dangled lower than the hemline of her skirt, the doorbell rang. The shower wasn’t running, but Blake was still in the bedroom. Shrugging, she set down her things and went to peer through the peephole. This was a gated community, and two men about her own age in jeans and sport shirts had made it through security and now stood on the porch. She opened the door a crack.
“Can I help you?”
The taller of the two, a man with perfectly normal features that were one size too large for his face, wrinkled his oversized nose. “Who are you?”
“Since I’m on this side of the door, I think I’m supposed to ask that question.”
He glared at her. “I’m Wayne Wendell, and my father lives here.”
She saw the resemblance now, although Blake, at his son’s age, would have been much better-looking.
She opened the door all the way and held out her hand. For the first time that day she was sorry she’d chosen her shortest skirt. “Marina Tate. I’m a friend of your father’s.”
Wayne hesitated a moment before he took her hand, then he inclined his head toward the man beside him. “My brother, Paul.”
Paul Wendell looked nothing like Blake. He was at least four inches shorter than Wayne, with a belly that hung over his belt and close-set eyes that were even closer now because he was scowling. Marina shook his hand, too, then gestured for both to come inside.
“Your dad’s not feeling well. I’m almost sure it’s just the start of a cold, but I came over to make him dinner. He’s on his way to bed now. He needs to sleep.”
“How well do you know my father?” Paul asked.
She pretended not to understand. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, how well do you know my father? I don’t think he’s mentioned you.”
“I’ve known him a while.”
“In what capacity?” Wayne’s eyes traveled down her legs.
For a moment she didn’t understand. When she did she stepped back and stared at him. “You think he pays me for something?”
He sniffed the air, where the smell of burned bread still lingered. “Not for your cooking.”
She could feel heat rising in her cheeks. Blake took that moment to come out of the bedroom wearing a robe and slippers. His hair was damp, and clearly he had been in the shower.
The moment he saw his sons, he frowned. “Is everything all right?”
“You said you weren’t feeling well. We were checking on you.” Wayne gestured to Marina. “And look who we found.”
Blake didn’t respond immediately. Instead he lifted one eyebrow before he went to Marina and put his arm around her. “Marina made me dinner. Not that I need to explain.”
“I think I’d better go.” Marina kissed Blake’s cheek, then pulled away. “You need your rest. I’ll call tomorrow from San Francisco if I get a break. But drink plenty of juice. I bought extra, and there are cold meds on the counter. Please, call the doctor if you start feeling worse.”
“We can take care of our father.” Paul stepped aside, leaving a clear path to the door.
“I’m so glad you can.” She smiled at him. Then, just because she could, she winked. “But not in all the ways that I can.”
Blake laughed.
If the gloves had still been on, now they were off. Wayne stepped forward. “Dad, what are you doing? This woman is probably younger than I am.”
“But with much better manners.” Marina cocked her head. “I, for instance, would never jump to conclusions.”
Wayne acted as if he hadn’t heard. “I would appreciate it if you would leave so we can talk to our father.”
“You’re the one who’s leaving,” Blake told him. “You and your brother. Right now. This is my house, and you’re not welcome if you can’t treat Marina with respect.”
Marina stepped between them and touched Blake’s cheek. “Look, you’re not feeling well, and you don’t need a fight. We’ll all part friends and leave you alone to recover. Okay?”
Paul’s voice rattled with anger. “We don’t need your help. And my father doesn’t need your attentions.”
“That’s it!” Blake walked to the door and held it open. “Out!”
The two younger men stalked to the open door. More words were exchanged, but Marina, too angry to trust herself, stayed out of the fight. When it was over, and the door had closed behind them, she shook her head.
“Just what you didn’t need, huh? I’m sorry, Blake. If being your friend upsets your family, maybe I ought to stay away.”
“It’s my own fault. I had to be away a lot when they were growing up, and they still resent me. I let them take over the business when their mother was sick and I needed to be with her. And after that I got tired of working so much and let them take over even more. Now they want to take over my life.”
She was still furious, but fury had never worked in her favor. She didn’t let it show. “I’m sorry.”
He ran his hand over his wet hair, leaving tracks where his fingers plowed through it. “You’re the first good thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”
“I like being your good thing.”
“Don’t you dare stay away.”
She thought about how not staying away would make his overbearing sons feel, and she had to work hard not to smile. “Then I won’t. I definitely won’t.”
“I was thinking in the shower. Can you take at least one day off so we can go somewhere for a long weekend? We could get a flight to Las Vegas, see a show, have some great meals?”
She had been to Las Vegas—hadn’t everybody? But she’d gone for one night on a budget, eaten at cheap buffets and played the penny slots.
She didn’t have to think. This was her chance to do everything differently. “I’ll see what I can do. I might be able to take a day without pay.”
“That job of yours is going to be a hurdle.”
“Maybe I’ll quit someday.” She hugged him hard, but her mind was on other things. Like how she could use his sons’ anger against them. Like how her life could change for the better and quickly.
Then she thought of Toby. If she had kept him, she wouldn’t have this chance. She had traded her son at least partly for Blake, but maybe it was going to work out best for everybody.
“Stranger things have happened,” she said. “Someday I just might quit. Who knows?”
11 (#u595f6052-4084-53f6-8aa6-6694a6d33036)
At age ten Lilia had fallen in love with her aunt’s “nest.” She’d stepped out of the taxi on her first visit to her grandparents and aunt in San Jose, and the tiny house had beckoned to her and whispered “home.” In those days the stucco exterior had been pale gray and the trim charcoal. Unkempt evergreens had flanked the house and hidden the lower panes of windows. As she and her mother walked up a crumbling concrete sidewalk, Nalani told her that while Auntie Alea could still walk, keeping up with the house was difficult now that she had Parkinson’s, and hard, too, for Lilia’s grandparents, who had moved from Kauai to help.
“It doesn’t matter what shape the house is in, because Auntie Alea will never leave,” her mother added. “Leaving would kill her faster than any disease. She loves her nest the way I love my children. And while we’re here, we’ll do everything we can to make it a happy place for her.”
Now, as Lilia stood at the curb after saying goodbye to the driver who had picked her up at the airport, she remembered how she had felt that day. While her brothers were completely content living where they had been born, she had known immediately that when she grew up, she would live on the mainland. And while the boys and her cousins had taken their turns helping an increasingly fragile Auntie Alea when their grandparents went home to Kauai, Lilia had come most often, until the day she’d moved in permanently to attend San Jose State.
Even if she had hated San Jose she would have come to help her aunt, who by then was wheelchair bound. That’s what family did. But from the beginning she had known just how lucky she was to be here. The city, and particularly Willow Glen, felt like home.
It still did.
Twilight deepened as she gazed up at the house, in no hurry for what lay ahead. Her aunt had left her cozy little nest to Lilia just months before Lilia married. Her brothers and cousins had received money and stock, but nobody questioned the reason Lilia was given the house. Everyone knew Auntie Alea had left it to the one person who loved it as much as she did, and would keep it in the family.
She came from strong, solid people, people who, when decisions were made, thought about what was best for everyone. They trusted each other and the future they would share, even when things went wrong.
Her trip home had been a reminder of that strength, and her own strength was beginning to return. But still, the decision to come back today had been the hardest of her life.
The moon was coming up over the house, bathing it in silvery light. After their marriage Lilia and Graham had lovingly restored and renovated, and finally built the addition to ensure they could live here forever. Despite living in much more extravagant houses all his life, Graham loved it as much as she did. When property values increased, when he found a better investment or a more prestigious location, Douglas Randolph had moved his family. Unlike any house Graham had lived in with his parents, this one had love and family woven through every room.
Together they had added their share.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to say to him tonight. Two weeks had passed since the moment Marina thrust Toby into her arms and disappeared. Regan had been short on particulars, but she had said that Toby was still living with his father. Whether Marina was back in the picture was a mystery, as were details about how Graham was managing.
As a child, when a night was hot or something particularly bothered her, Lilia had gone out to her family’s lanai, sometimes to find a brother in one of the lounge chairs, too. She had slept better there, as if she’d nestled into the loving arms of Papahanaumoku, the earth mother, who with her sky husband, Wakea, was the ancestor of all people.
Here in Willow Glen, when she and Graham had added the master bedroom suite upstairs, she’d done her best to replicate that feeling, insisting on skylights so she could see the stars, and cross-ventilation so she could feel the breeze.
But last night back on her family’s lanai, she had made a decision.
Before going inside she allowed herself one more look at the house. How many times had she changed the color of the door, the trim, even the stucco? The wisteria vine running along the eaves was finally coming into its own after years of training and nurturing. The walkway no longer led straight to the door, and perennials bloomed in the curves. Except for the beds of old roses rimming the back patio, everything she planted was drought resistant and colorful. And during the driest season, she’d been known to catch buckets of “greywater,” the water that normally ran down the drain as her morning shower warmed, to soak the roses.
The house belonged to her, and most likely since it was hers before marriage, even with California’s community property laws, it would remain hers in a divorce.
Not for the first time she wondered how much worse Graham’s death would have felt than his betrayal.
Lights were beginning to flick on in houses, but not in hers. The porch light was off, and none of the windows were lit. If Graham was home, he was doing a good job of hiding it. She had no idea what she would walk into, but she was about to find out.
On the porch she unlocked the door, then gathered herself and went inside, pulling her carry-on behind her. The downstairs wasn’t completely dark; the light on the microwave glowed softly from the kitchen, and light shone through windows where shades hadn’t been drawn. She left her suitcase and shoes by the door and walked through the familiar rooms to the staircase.
Graham hadn’t wasted their time apart cleaning. Dishes lay on the dining room table, still dotted with food. In the kitchen more were piled in the sink, and unopened mail, magazines and keys littered a counter. She wondered if he had given up hope she would be returning soon, or if he just expected her to clean up after him when she did. More likely he just hadn’t given her reaction any thought. And that seemed like a bad sign.
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard a wail. Not a loud one, more the sound of an infant just waking, or one who had worn himself out with louder cries. At the top of the stairs she listened and realized the sound was coming from the small bedroom they used for guests. Someday they had hoped to use it for a nursery.
The door was open, but the light was off. She didn’t need light, though, to know the room was now occupied. Toby was in the nursery they had planned for their own child. She hadn’t considered the possibility, but it stabbed her now. Toby was not their child. He belonged solely to Graham and the woman he had impregnated. And now his baby was firmly implanted in the room, in the dream she had shared with him. A dream of a baby they had created together.
She didn’t go inside despite continued wailing. Toby was Graham’s to care for. She walked slowly down the short hall to the master bedroom. The door was open, and here, at last, was light shining from two lamps and spilling brightly from the connecting bathroom. Graham, fully dressed, was facedown on the bed, as if he had collapsed there because he didn’t have the strength or energy to strip off his jeans and slide between the sheets.
For a moment she wondered if he was breathing. She held her own and watched until she could make out the steady rise and fall of his back. She wondered how long he had lain that way, clearly so exhausted he couldn’t do anything but sleep. Even quiet, cheerful babies took enormous energy. Constant feeding and diapering and toting from one place to another. After an evening of babysitting she had always been relieved to give infants back to their parents. She’d loved the cuddling, the nurturing, the singing of lullabies, but she had also felt drained.
How much more drained was a man who had just endured a year of cancer and chemo? Considering the state of the downstairs, no one else was helping. From all the signs, Graham had been on his own.
One part of her felt sympathy, another thought he deserved exhaustion. Graham hadn’t asked for cancer, but he had asked for his son.
The wailing was louder now. So the baby wasn’t giving up; he was just getting started. And Graham? Graham was sleeping too soundly to hear him.
Lilia knew she should wake him. A part of her was ready and willing. She could tell him she would be downstairs in the sunroom when and if he got Toby back to sleep. She almost did both.
Instead she found herself in the hallway again, and this time she entered the room where the cries were growing louder and louder and stood in the doorway. The shades weren’t drawn. A street lamp was all she needed to see a crib had been installed in a corner, along with a changing table and a dresser. Everything looked brand-new and possibly expensive. She wondered which credit card Graham had used.
She nearly turned away, nearly went downstairs to let the baby cry and Graham sleep on until the cries woke him. But none of this was Toby’s fault. As angry as she was, as hurt, she couldn’t let a baby who had asked for none of this suffer. She padded slowly to the side of the crib and stood looking down at him.
Toby was so impossibly small. She always forgot how tiny babies were, how fragile. They had no defenses except their cries. And how sad, how forlorn he sounded, as if he believed that nobody cared about his distress, nobody even recognized it.
She scooped him into her arms before the desire to do so registered. He was so light. For a moment she wondered if she dropped him if he’d simply fly away, if his bones, like a bird’s, were hollow, and he would gracefully soar to the heavens.
Miraculously the cries stopped. In the lamplight she examined his face, and oddly, he seemed to examine hers. On that awful day she’d seen Graham in his features. Now she saw her husband again. Since the beginning of human reproduction fathers had seen themselves in babies that weren’t their own. But this was no mistake. She certainly didn’t see herself when she looked at Toby, but she did see the man she had married.
He whimpered, and without thinking she rested him against her shoulder. He squirmed, but he didn’t cry. She adjusted him so his face was turned toward hers, and he seemed to relax.
She wondered when he’d last eaten. Had he been hers she would have offered him a breast, sat in the corner rocking chair—and yes, she saw now that there was one in the corner away from the window—and sung to him as he nursed. But he wasn’t hers. She had no idea what Toby ate and when. She did know, though, that he was wet. The dampness was seeping through the little footie pajamas he wore.
As she changed him she murmured. Of course the wailing began again. Few babies enjoyed being changed. But she turned on a lamp so he could see her better and told him who she was as she stripped the pajamas off his impossibly tiny body and warded off the chill with a flannel blanket over his chest as she removed his diaper.
“I’m Lilia, Toby. And this is my house. I hope you never remember the day you arrived, because it wasn’t a good one for you or for anybody else.”
She wondered how true that was. Had it been a good day for Marina? Had she been so relieved that after she drove away she’d gone somewhere to celebrate?
She found wipes and cleaned him thoroughly, noting the beginning of diaper rash. Would Graham know it if he saw it? Wasn’t anybody helping who could point out the need to change Toby more frequently? Clearly the baby had sensitive skin, and despite a quick search through the changing table drawer, she saw nothing to relieve it.
Tomorrow she would shop.
That thought surprised and annoyed her. “Except that you’re not mine to worry about, are you?” Still pinning him to the table, she pulled dry pajamas from a drawer in the dresser. Somebody had folded and placed baby clothes in drawers. Somebody had made certain the dresser was an easy reach from the table.
She pulled the pajamas over the baby’s flailing arms, then scooped him up again and took him to the rocker, grabbing a blanket from the foot of the crib as she passed.
Seated, she tucked the blanket around him. “I guess we’ll find out if you were just wet or hungry.” A pacifier sat on the closest window ledge, and she tucked it into his mouth. Then she began to rock. He squirmed; he protested. But in a minute he began to settle.
“So I was saying...” She was surprised that her voice quieted him even more. “I’m Lilia. And you’re Toby. If I’m not mistaken you are now my stepson. What you are for sure is a surprise. What a way to start your little life, huh?”
One arm shot up, and he batted at her chest, surprising her. He was no longer crying. Now he was squinting at her, as if he was trying to figure out who she was. She remembered that babies saw faces, that faces intrigued them.
“I have four brothers. All but one of them have children. They’re a rowdy group, Toby. They would eat you alive. Then they would spit you out and teach you to surf and fish and hike up mountains.”
She wondered why she was telling him this, and she thought of Eli’s oldest son, the child who wasn’t his by birth, but was as much a part of their extended family as any other child.

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