Without limits ssion and.., p.150
Without Limits: A BWWM Collection of Passion and Desire, page 150
“Yeah, I know,” she replied, chuckling.
Nancy got out two coffee mugs and put them on the table, which was clean, another shock. Her hands were shaking, but not as badly as they had in the past, as she poured coffee carefully into the mugs.
“So someone better start talking,” April said.
“Nancy, do you want me to start?” Alex asked.
“Knock yourself out,” she answered.
Alex looked at April. “It’s as simple as your mother asking me if Isabelle needed a babysitter.”
“No offense, Alex, but don’t let my mother babysit for you,” April said.
“Not me! The girls,” she said. “Courtney and Natalie.”
“Oh, okay. Sorry, Mom.”
“Jeesh,” Nancy muttered.
“I was going to look into getting them jobs,” Ryan said.
“I might not be the best mother in the world, but I have some say about what my kids will do, and a thirteen- and fourteen-year-old are too young to be working in a law office. They’d be bored to death, those two.
“They liked Mr. Cooper, so I called him and asked him to come by so I could give him my proposition.”
“How’d you know he needed a babysitter?” April asked.
“I read the paper. I see the news. His fights with his wife are legendary. Sorry, Mr. Cooper.”
“No apology necessary,” Alex said. “Miss Earle called me, and I agreed to talk to her about it. Isabelle is ecstatic. Our kids are too old for a nanny, so a mother’s helper afterschool until dinnertime and on the weekends would be great.”
April looked Ryan. “Do you want to go first?”
“No, proceed, counselor,” he answered, trying to keep a straight face.
“Although the girls working for the Coopers might be a good way to keep them motivated, why do I feel like there’s more to the story than a babysitting job?” April asked.
“I admit there was more at first. But last night I talked to Ryan, and he made it clear that you weren’t available. And it was also clear to me that he’s in love with you. I can be a jerk, but I’m not a monster. I would never mess with someone else’s lady. Ever.”
April didn’t know what to say, her emotions were so out of whack. That Alex was capable of eloquence was almost too much, and she felt the tears welling up again.
“I don’t think he knows what you mean,” Nancy said.
“I do,” Ryan said. “Alex said it well. I’m in love with your daughter.” He took a deep breath, suddenly exhausted. “I mean, it must be love because I’ve never made a bigger fool of myself.”
Saddened that she might be responsible for making Ryan feel like a fool, April took his hand. “Don’t say that…”
“It’s okay. I was politically incorrect. I shouldn’t have asked you to work with Alex. It’s so obvious now that it would be misconstrued.”
They sat and drank coffee for a while, no one speaking. There was a knock on the door.
“Everyone I know is here,” April said, getting up to answer.
She walked to the front door and looked through the sidelight.
“It’s my father! Daddy,” she said, opening the door, “why are you here?”
“Alex Cooper just texted me,” he said, looking confused and holding up his phone.
“Come in. I’m beginning to feel like there’s an intervention brewing.”
David Beaulieu followed April back to the kitchen. When he saw Nancy and saw how nice she looked, he was a little taken aback.
“Hello,” he said, nodding at her. “You’re looking well.”
“Why in the hell are you here?”
David nodded to Alex. “Ask him. I just do what I’m told to do.”
“Why would you ask my father to come here?” April asked.
Everyone looked at Alex, and he flinched a little bit, but good-naturedly. “At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do,” he said. “I’m here with his ex-wife—”
“We were never married!” they chorused.
“Oh, right,” he said, giggling. “I felt like I needed to have David here because he was the one who encouraged me to pursue April. But I can’t do that because April is in love with Ryan.”
“Wait, I never said that!”
Everyone looked at her, Ryan with eyebrows raised. “Ouch.”
“Ryan, I’m sorry, but I’ve only known you for, what is it? Three weeks? Has it even been three weeks? I could be in love with you. Right now, I’m tired of people telling me what I should be feeling.”
“Do you love him, April?” David asked.
His daughter looked different to him at that moment. She was softer, her eyes were glassy, and there was something vulnerable about her. Appalled, he saw her lips tremble and thought that if he made her cry, he’d never forgive himself.
Plunking down in the chair, she reached for a paper napkin and blew her nose. “Yes,” she moaned, taking a deep breath. “I love Ryan. As a matter of fact, I’m madly in love with him.”
Ryan smiled all around and put his arm around her shoulder. “She loves me.”
“I guess that settles that,” Nancy said. “My kids are all employed, and my weird daughter is finally in love.”
“Mother, what is that supposed to mean?”
“Hey, I call it like I see it. You never even had girlfriends when you were little, let alone a date. Now you have two hunky men fighting over you. I think that’s pretty significant.”
“Oh! I almost forgot,” David said, digging through his wallet. “Jamila wanted to make sure I paid you back for her flu pill.”
Holding out five twenty-dollar bills, David felt proud at that moment. He’d never been able to give his children much, but he wasn’t about to start taking from them.
“Thank you,” April said, taking the money.
There was a knock on the door again. “Okay, this is getting out of hand. Who’d you text now?” April asked Alex.
“It wasn’t Alex,” David said. “When I got the text, I didn’t know what to think, so I texted Jake that he’d better come over.”
April ran to the door to let her brother in. “Why did you knock?”
“Just in case there was something serious going on, I didn’t think I should burst in wearing my uniform. What is going on anyway?”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said, leading him back to the kitchen.
“Ryan, Alex, my brother, Jake.”
Both David and Nancy radiated pride, and this time Jake didn’t miss his mother holding her shirt together at the neck.
“Mom, you look like you’re about ready to keel over. What’s wrong?”
Nancy took a breath. “I don’t see you in your uniform that often. Buddy, you just take my breath away. I’m so proud you’re my son.”
“Ha! That’s a good one,” he said derisively.
“Son, she means it,” David said seriously. “Your mother is proud of you.”
“Well, it’s news to me,” he said, suddenly feeling like a four-year-old begging for attention. He looked over at April and could see she was in as bad a shape as he was about to be if he didn’t pull himself together. “Can I use the bathroom?”
“Of course,” April answered, heartbroken.
Her brother was the one talisman in her life, and when he’d left the previous week, she’d never felt so alone. She wondered how much of her willingness to jump into a relationship with Ryan was associated with missing Jake.
No one spoke while Jake was gone. In minutes, he returned, drying his hands on a paper towel.
“We have hot water? Or, I mean, you have hot water?”
“Ryan got it fixed for us,” April said. “Thanks to him, we’re also getting a new roof so we can use the other bedrooms without buckets all over to catch the rain.” She looked up at him. “Would you move back with Michele if that happened?”
Jake looked at Nancy and waited for the sarcastic remarks to spew forth.
“Hey, you won’t get any complaints from me,” she said. “I can’t stand you not being here. You’re more than welcome to move back with your girlfriend.”
“We’re getting married.”
“Well, all the more reason to come home, then,” she replied.
“Congratulations, son,” David said. “I’m sorry I brought you out on a snowy day.”
“Why did you text, anyway?”
“Mr. Cooper here asked me to come over,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect.”
“He thought I was going to hit on him, I guess,” Nancy said, shaking her head in disgust.
“And he’s the one who Daddy encouraged to try to date me. Dad, you almost cost me my job.”
“I’m sorry, both of you. But we’re all together for the first time in a very long time.” He nodded to the last available seat. “Sit down, why don’t you? You’re here now.”
“Since we’re all here, like David said, I’ll make my announcement,” Nancy said.
April looked at her mother curiously. It was true she gave her mother a wide berth. But Nancy looked better that day than she’d seen her in a long time.
“I hope you move back, Jake, the reason being that Mr. Lawson here, Ryan, got me into a rehab joint down in Florida.”
April gasped, asking, “What?”
“I can go as soon as I can get everything together,” Nancy said, looking at her beautiful daughter apologetically. “You don’t really need me, so the only thing I have to get together is myself. Jake, if you moved back with your girlfriend, I think her name is Michele, it would make it easier on April.
“With the younger girls being Isabelle Cooper’s mother’s helpers, they’ll be out of April’s hair after school and on weekends. David, if you would be available, I don’t know what for, maybe just another adult—”
“I’ll be here if they need me,” David said, the guilt over his irresponsibility as powerful as his children’s mother wanting to make a new start. He’d do whatever she needed. “I promise you.”
“I’ll speak with Michele, but I know she’d love to live here,” Jake replied. “Her commute would be about a quarter of what it is now.” He pushed away from the table. “Boy, I hardly know what to say. Everyone is coming together for us about the same time I ran away.”
“It takes a village,” Alex said, holding his coffee cup up.
“Oh lord,” Nancy moaned, the others laughing.
There was some truth to what he said, however.
“Don’t get carried away, Jake. No one is blaming you for wanting something better for your new life,” April said, leaning over to kiss Ryan. “Because of Ryan, we’re going to get that something better right here at home.”
Just when April thought she was at the end of herself, it appeared everyone would rally around her at last.
Christmas
Thanks to the new boiler installed under the watchful eye of Arnold Clark, the steam radiators in Nancy Earle’s brownstone blasted away, whistling, singing, announcing that winter had reappeared in New York City on the Saturday before Christmas.
Nancy was home on a holiday break from rehab, sequestered in her bedroom with a case of the winter flu. Michele stood at her bedroom door with a tray of tea, toast and chicken broth, while Jake prepared the ingredients for a mulled wine recipe that would take two days to steep. Although making a wine beverage with someone in recovery living in the house seemed rather passive-aggressive, he’d made peace with his mother in the past month when she’d called and asked him to forgive her for a list of offenses.
“My biggest regret is that I missed out on my baby’s childhood. I was drunk or depressed. I know I have mental illness, but that’s no excuse for the way I treated you and April.”
“Mom, we can start over. Let’s just take one day at a time, okay?”
“Okay. That’s what they say in AA. One day at a time.”
“Are you going to talk to April, too?” he asked, noting that even though life had gotten better for his sister, there was something not right. She still floated around with that smile, taking care of everyone.
“I’ll talk to her when I get home for Christmas. What I have to say to April must be said face-to-face.”
Courtney and her friend Jeremy were in the living room, inserting hooks on the new drapes that had arrived Friday, under the direction of Margaret Clark, Ryan’s housekeeper, while Natalie carefully ironed the wrinkles out with a new steam iron. Jeremy carried the drape up the ladder Arnold had placed in front of the window.
“Now put the pointy end of the hook into the slot on the curtain rod,” Margaret instructed. “One hook in each hole.”
The sound of a new snowblower drowned out traffic noise in front of the house as Arnold cleared the sidewalk. He was there to help with the tree when April and Ryan returned from buying a Christmas tree that they’d bring home in the back of a pickup truck he’d rented for the day.
“Anything you want hauled, tell me now while we’ve got the truck,” he said. “I feel like I need a cowboy hat.”
When Ryan told April they could have a tree delivered, she wouldn’t hear of it. “One of the few nice memories I have of childhood is of walking down Tenth Avenue with David and buying a tree from a vendor on the corner. We’d drag the tree home together, the sticky, pine-smelling sap covering my mittens, the smell lasting until the first snowball fight.”
Closing her eyes, the smell of fresh pine filled her senses. She didn’t say that although there was usually a fight or two on Christmas Eve, the beautiful tree made everything seem normal.
Arnold helped Ryan wrestle the gigantic tree in the house, where they’d prop it up in the warmth before decorating it. April was beside herself, clapping her hands. The joy the sight of the tree brought her was indescribable.
The old house vibrated with life and happiness that week. After having the roof replaced, it had received a partial interior makeover that lasted for four hellish weeks, but everyone agreed that it was worth it.
The third-floor transformation when finished, would includ a mini apartment for Michele and Jake with a kitchen, bathroom, sitting room and bedroom. There was a tiny alcove off the bedroom that would be perfect for a nursery, if and when.
The first-floor kitchen and bathrooms were wonderful, not over the top, but clean, functional and appropriate for a brownstone. Jake had discovered a penchant for cooking and on his days off could often be found concocting a new dish.
“This kitchen makes cooking so pleasant. I couldn’t do it in the old kitchen,” he said. “I have to hand it to April, and to Mom when she cooked.”
The rest of the house would have to wait because April didn’t want Christmas to be celebrated in a construction zone.
After dinner the night the tree arrived, Arnold built a fire in the fireplace, the first time it had been used in years. He demonstrated to April and the others how to open and close the flue before striking a match. Next, he made a small pile of sticks, then a teepee of larger pieces surrounded by logs. It burst into flames when he set the match to it, to the applause of the family.
Arnold and Margaret went back to the East Side, and April’s siblings went to their own spaces, leaving April on the couch next to Ryan, looking at the fire.
“If you had told me last year that this Christmas I’d have a real job and a warm house with hot water and a roof that didn’t leak, I’d say you were insane.” She turned to him, holding his hand. “I guess I have you to thank.”
“Just for the job,” he said. “You made the rest of it happen. Actually, you made the job happen because you’re so cute.”
She laughed, gently elbowing him. “And don’t forget my amazing intellect and sense of humor.”
“That too,” he said, and then got down close to her ear and whispered, “And that thing you do with your tongue.”
“Oh, you,” she said, embarrassed.
“April, I was going to wait until Christmas, but I can’t.”
“It’s next week! Wait.”
“I can’t,” he said, sliding down on his knee.
“Oh, Ryan, no way,” she cried.
He took her hand and kissed it. “April Beaulieu, I love you with all my heart. Will you marry me?”
Letting go of her hand, he fussed in his pocket and brought out a black satin box. Hands covering her face, April’s heart beat so hard she was sure she was going to faint. It was a beautiful ring, not so huge to be a cliché among their acquaintances, but exquisitely set in platinum.
She reached out for the box. “Let me see it.”
“You didn’t answer me,” he said, moving it out of her reach.
“Yes! Of course I’ll marry you,” she said, laughing while wiping a tear off her cheek.
“Can I put it on your finger?” he asked.
Holding her hand out for him, she began to cry in earnest, leaning forward to fall into his arms.
“How’s it fit?”
“Perfect! Like I was there with you when you bought it. How’d you know this is what I’d like? We’ve never talked about rings. We never even talked about getting married.”
“You won’t believe it,” he said. “I promised not to tell.”
“You’ve got to tell me now. Was it the girls? If it was, it means they actually listened to me when I spoke to them.”
“Nope, not the girls.”
“There’s no one else,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Nancy went with me.”
“Nancy who?” she asked, frowning.
“Your mother Nancy,” he answered hesitatingly, worried about April. “Who else?”
April sat back on the couch, holding her hand out in front of her, watching the ring pick up the sparkle of the fire in the fireplace. “Nancy? How did that come about?”
“She offered to help me on the way home from the airport.”
Everyone had to work the day Nancy returned from Florida for Christmas break. Ryan had offered Arnold to bring her home when April was going to hire a car. Resisting at first, April had finally relented when her appointment arrived early and she didn’t have time to argue.
“I still can’t figure out when you could have had a conversation with my mother,” April said, feeling nervous that Nancy had somehow interloped on her special day.
