The setback, p.12
The Setback, page 12
I’ve never seen this side of Ethan.
Judging by Beth’s expression, she may not have seen it either.
The sound of the door closing is pretty final. Beth looks like she’s been socked between the eyes. I pull up a chair and sit down next to her. “It’s a lot,” I say. “I’m sorry you’re dealing with this.”
“With what?” Beth’s hand drops to her belly. “The baby?”
“Of course, that,” I say. “But I really I meant Ethan throwing a fit.”
Beth laughs, but it almost sounds like she’s crying.
I place my hand on the one of hers that’s still on the table.
“He’s being honest,” she says. “If you knew how supportive, how patient, and how considerate he’s been for the last few months. The last year, really.” She shakes her head. “Ethan’s not the villain.”
“Are you implying that you are?”
Will chooses that moment to tap and come in the front door. I force a smile, but he can clearly tell something’s wrong. “Ethan just shot out of here like he’s answering a 911 call.” He scans the room for signs of emergency.
“Everything’s fine.” I glance at Beth and tilt my head, asking for permission to tell him.
She shrugs.
“Beth’s pregnant, and Ethan’s trying to get her to decide what the next few months are going to look like.”
Beth stands up. “I’m eighteen. I’m supposed to be working a part-time job, trying classes, and planning a few months ahead, tops. But Ethan wants to get married, pick out China patterns, and plant tulips behind a little picket fence.”
“Hey,” I say. “Picket fences are cute.”
“Tulips?” Will’s eyes look nervous, like a rabbit caught in the garden. He opens his mouth and then closes it again.
“Beth has decided to keep the baby,” I say slowly. “But Ethan’s not sure where he fits into all that.”
“As the father, wouldn’t he have a say, too?” Will’s talking slowly, like he’s trying to find a safe spot to step in the midst of an active minefield. “Or is that not what people think these days?”
“He’s not the father.” Beth’s voice is flat. “I guess it’s going to be a question everyone asks, but I’m already tired of talking about it.”
I shake my head at Will.
He mouths the word, “What?” at me. As if I can really explain that he should let me handle things.
“If you decide you don’t want to keep the baby,” Will says, “Donna got some bad news of her own last week. Docs say she probably can’t have kids. We’d love to have it.”
My jaw nearly drops to the floor. “It’s not a puppy, Will. You don’t just put it in a crate and give it to your neighbor who has a rat problem.”
“Who said anything about rats?” Will asks. “I was just saying that if Beth doesn’t want it, but she wants it to have a great home, we have that right here.” He turns toward Beth. “A great home, I mean.”
“William Earl, I love you to the moon and back. Usually, everything you do and say is polite, caring, and considerate, but right now, you’re even worse than Ethan.” I point at the door. “Get out.”
His shoulders fall. “I’m sorry, Beth. I’m not trying to be an idiot. Sometimes it just comes naturally, I guess. Congrats on the baby.” He bobs his head. “No matter what you decide, I really mean that. Babies are always a blessing.”
The second the door closes for the second time, Beth bursts into tears.
“Oh, no.” I stand and pull her closer, wrapping my arms around her. She sobs against my shoulder for a long time. Long enough that my shoulder goes to sleep and starts tingling. Long enough that my left foot starts to go numb.
I want to help her feel better, but if it takes much longer, I may need to call the paramedics to move me out of the kitchen. Just as I’m working up the nerve to say something to Beth, she drags in a ragged breath and releases me. “Thank you.” The whispered words make it worth it.
My poor little niece.
“I haven’t been through what you’re dealing with,” I say. “But I was barely older than you when I married a man whom I thought was dynamic and brilliant and loved me.” I walk into the family room, hoping she’ll follow me.
Thankfully, she does. “And?”
“You’ve met Charlie,” I say, my tone as flat as a two-days-open soda.
“Oh. Right.”
“We make a lot of decisions when we’re young, and some of them have consequences that we can’t imagine at the time. I actually think you’re smart for taking your time with this one.”
“You don’t think I should just marry Ethan?”
“He’s what? Twelve?”
Beth laughs.
“But honestly, if you were telling me that the idea of setting up house with that handsome, earnest kid was your heart’s desire, then I’d be all for it. It’s so much easier to raise a child as a partnership. Or, you know, I think it is.”
“He didn’t help at all? Uncle Charlie, I mean?”
I shake my head. “That was my job as the woman.” I sigh. “But none of that matters here. What does matter is—” Something hits me then. “Does the father know? Because if he shows up later, demanding the baby. . .” Custody battles are the actual, literal, honest-to-goodness worst thing in anyone’s life. Or if there’s something worse, they’ve got to be awfully close.
“He knows,” Beth says. “Or rather, I called him. He insists it’s not his baby.”
“What a standup guy.” I plop onto the edge of the sofa.
Beth shrugs. “It might be easier.”
“Depending on what you decide to do, you may need him to sign off on paperwork. I hope—”
“As long as it’s a paper saying he has no responsibility or legal connection to the baby, he’ll sign, I bet.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“But do you think I’m stupid for wanting to keep her?” Beth sits down next to me on the sofa. “The baby, I mean. I don’t have anywhere else to live, and I don’t want to get married because of a mistake. Does that make sense?”
“It does. It’s like getting first place because the actual first place winner was disqualified. You may have won, but it’s for all the wrong reasons.”
Beth tilts her head.
“Okay, I’m not Abigail, but I gave the analogy a solid effort.”
She laughs.
“Look. What I’m trying to say is this. You have a place to live here, and even if you decide to raise a newborn in your room, that’s still true.”
“Can you really not have kids?”
“Do you remember the night Will proposed?”
Beth’s eyes widen. “The night you were crying in your car?”
“I’d been to see a doc, and they said that between my endometriosis and the particular kind of fibroids I have, it’s very unlikely. Plus, as people get older, it gets harder and harder anyway.”
“And you want more kids?”
“I’m not sure this is the best time to be talking about this.”
“I didn’t even think about giving her to you.” Beth’s voice is small, and her gaze drops to her hands. “Or maybe I did, but not for very long. I want to stay here, living with you. But it would be too hard, if you had my baby. But maybe Will’s right.”
My heart lurches in my chest. “Right?”
She looks up at me. “I don’t want to give her up, but mostly because I want to make sure she has the best family. One that loves her as much as I do. How well can you really ever know a family you’re considering for adoption?”
I can’t breathe.
“But you would love her. I know you would.”
I nod.
A tear rolls down her cheek. “If I gave her to you, I would need to move out. I think it would be too hard, otherwise.”
“Beth.”
She shakes her head. “I think maybe that’s what I need to do. It’s the first answer that hasn’t immediately fought back. It’s not like I really know what I’m doing in life, and it’s not like I have the best job here or whatever.”
“This feels like a pretty dramatic decision, and there’s no reason you have to make it right this moment.”
“Ever since I found out I was having a baby, I’ve been wrestling with this. Keep the baby. Give her up. Keep the baby. Give her up. No matter what I decided, it felt wrong. But this feels right, giving her to you.” Tears are streaming down her face, now. “If she ever asks me why I decided not to keep her, I can tell her. Because who better to raise my beloved child than the best mother I know?”
And now I feel pretty guilty. Because the day started out badly, but now it’s taken a turn toward sunshine and rainbows. Not for Beth, I guess, but definitely for me. Is it wrong to profit from someone else’s misery?
It feels a little bit wrong. But it also feels surprisingly good.
11
Helen
I was once on my way to a meeting with investors on Stone Street when a clearly high man in a ripped t-shirt jumped in front of me. I do not have a black belt in anything—that was a bluff—but I didn’t miss a beat.
“I’ll give you one hundred dollars in cash,” I said. “And you don’t have to try to mug me, or even lay a hand on me. Then we can go our separate ways. Deal?”
The man had grinned a gap-toothed grin and nodded.
I handed him the cash and made it to my meeting on time.
Another time, I was doing due diligence on a deal in Brisbane when a spider the size of my forearm leapt out from under my car. A group of investors were watching me, and I didn’t even scream. I’d done my research and I knew that huntsman spiders don’t bite humans. I shooed it away—my heart beating wildly in my chest—and got in my car.
When an interloper tried to snake the deal, the Australian syndicate within the company insisted they would stick with me. The fearless American, they called me.
But looking at this pile of stuff?
I want to turn tail and run.
“Aren’t these too small?” I extend my finger and poke the rubbery end of the tiniest little bottle I’ve ever seen.
Abigail laughs. “That’s not for me, idiot. We just found out that Roscoe’s having puppies.”
“I’ll admit that I’m not the most observant when it comes to animals, but isn’t he a boy dog? What kind of bizarre experiments is your friend’s vet boyfriend doing?”
“Roscoe fathered puppies,” Abby clarifies. “And it’s not my friend. She’s my sister-in-law, Amanda, and her fiancé did not perform any experiments. He has a female dog, and Roscoe spent a little too much time around her without the proper surgical preparation.”
“Apparently,” I say. “That’s a terrible plot twist. So why do you need to have teeny tiny bottles?”
Abigail smiles. “Hopefully they won’t need them. Most puppy births are uneventful, but my neighbor bred Pomeranians, and once she had to dropper feed one of her puppies all night long before it got strong enough to latch.”
“And you got them because. . .”
“Eddy’s a large animal vet.” She grabs a bag and starts sticking things into it, including the tiny bottles, what looks like a heating pad, and a big jar of puppy formula. Maybe I should have noticed that one.
“Okay, but they’re his puppies, right?”
Abigail sighs. “They are, but I’m trying to show my support.” She smiles. “And, they promised my kids that they can have one of the puppies.”
There it is. “That’s a mistake. You’re about to have a baby.”
“I know.” Abby sighs. “We’ve missed having Roscoe around, though, and if you’ve learned anything about our family yet, you should know that when something seems hard, we just double down and make it harder.”
But she’s grinning ear to ear. Abby has always thrived with more things on her plate than anyone else could ever hope to eat, much less digest. “Fine.”
“You let go of that one quick.” She narrows her eyes. “Do you want a puppy too, Helen? Amanda’s not your biggest fan, but if I beg—”
“Don’t even think about it.” She must be out of her mind. A baby border collie? I’d rather scalp myself and make a wig out of it. Giving me a dog I don’t want is just the kind of thing Abby would love to do. “In case that wasn’t clear, I do not want a puppy. I will never want a puppy. The day someone gives me a puppy is the day it gets abandoned in a weighted bag down by the river. Am I clear?”
Abby rolls her eyes. “You pretend to be this unfeeling monster, but I know it’s not true.” She taps her finger on my nose.
Which makes me sneeze.
And that makes her laugh.
“You’re the unfeeling monster,” I say.
“But you’re the one who came in here to help me set up the nursery. If that’s not big-hearted, I don’t know what is.”
The reality is that, I just found out that I’m supposed to give her some kind of baby gift after the baby comes, too. Or rather, I found out that Amanda and Mandy are. I can’t let them get her something without getting her something better myself. Since I already bought everything I could think of for the shower, I have no idea what else she might need. I figured the only way I’d come up with something great is if I can see what she has and doesn’t have.
And that’s why I’m sitting in here, in the room that blue vomited.
Apparently, setting up a nursery involves assembling a crib. After we try for a half an hour, strip two screws, and mash Abby’s finger, we give up.
“Well, Steve will surely thank us for our efforts.” I can’t help my droll tone.
Abby scrunches her nose at the pile of mess we’ve stuffed back into the now-opened box. “It’s the thought that counts?”
“You know, most clichés, like that one, are just dead wrong.”
“I think he’ll appreciate that we tried.” Abby folds her arms and glares at me.
“Yes, I’m sure he’ll be delighted that his job is now three times harder. Maybe he’ll shiver with delight that his wife tried, and failed, to do a task he now has to fix.”
“What would you have done if your husband was tired and busy? Just let him deal with it alone?”
“First, I’d never have a husband. Second, I’d never need to be assembling stuff in a nursery. But if I were ever in an alternate universe and that scenario existed, I’d hire someone,” I say. “Then nothing would be messed up, and my theoretical husband wouldn’t be working harder because of my ineptitude.”
“I get it now,” she says.
“Get what?”
“Why Amanda hates you.”
I lift my nose. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Your former sister-in-law is a self-absorbed, self-righteous, inconsiderate—”
“Hello, pot. It’s the kettle here. Yes, I have your reservation for eight o’clock on the books. We’ll be ready for you.”
This time I’m the one glaring. “I’m not self-absorbed. I’m over here helping you with your nursery.”
“She’s planning a wedding, which I have done nothing to help with.”
“I know. I keep getting stuck as your fill-in. Speaking of, did that doctor test thing go alright?” I glance down at her belly. It’s big. It appears to be fine.
She laughs. “It’s fine. The alien I’m growing in my womb is A-OK.”
I nod. “Good to hear. But are you a little annoyed it’s another boy?”
This time, her laugh is loud. “You are the prickliest, most obnoxious sister anyone has ever had.” She sits down on the squishy, oversized rocker in the corner of the room and sighs. Then she wipes the laughter-inspired tears from her eyes. “No. I’m happy to have a boy.”
“Really?”
“Really,” she says. “The girls are awesome, don’t get me wrong. But I also love the step-on-bugs, poke-things-with-a-stick, throw-a-ball-as-hard-as-I-can little boys. Trust me. A little boy has a lot of wonderful things to recommend it. Plus, there aren’t enough amazing men in the world. I have the chance to add one to that pile.”
I can’t argue with her logic there. I’ve found an awful lot of the lousy ones. Our next task is sorting through clothing and pulling off tags so we can wash them before little bits wears them. “Is this really necessary?”
“Baby skin is sensitive. If I don’t wash it before I put it on him, he might get a rash.”
“Please let me hire you a nanny.” I yank a tag off without breaking the stupid plastic connecter thing again. “Ugh. Then they can do this kind of crap.”
“I already told you—”
“I know, quality time, blah blah. You have to change his diapers so he’ll know to ask you whether to smoke pot later on.”
That one earns me a stuffed elephant to the head, which I probably deserve.
But I’ve been here two hours, and so far, it looks like she has everything she needs and then some for this little crumb cruncher. When my phone bings, I whip it out of my pocket like it’s a lifeline. Please let it be my golden ticket out of tag-pulling and wipe warmer installation.
DON’T FORGET. BROWNINGS IN AN HOUR.
I swear under my breath. Talk about the opposite of a golden ticket. It might be the only thing I want to do less than baby prep.
“What’s wrong?” My sister’s eyes are intent, like she’s ready to draw her sword and slay the dragon for me. It’s cute. Unnecessary, but cute.
“Nothing,” I say. “I just have to go meet David almighty Park at Brownings.”
“Wait.” She straightens in her glider. “Why are you meeting him?” Is that a smile tickling at the edge of her mouth?
“It’s a work thing.”
“What kind of work thing?” Abby bites her lip, as if she has more she wants to say, but she’s stopping herself.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. We went head-to-head on the Ellingson ranch, and—”
