2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) (34 page)

She never thought that any seven words would be as
musical to her ears as, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Not until that
moment when she heard, “Catherine Hemmings, you are free to go.”

It turned out that their truck made it all the way to
Iowa before the guys who took it even figured out what had gone wrong (making
her wonder if perhaps she and Tara
weren’t
the biggest idiots in the
world). So they were off-course, but not terribly so. And thankfully they were
released just in time to catch the last bus to their destination. Things were
looking up, until they reached the other side and found out they owed two
hundred dollars in impound fees to get their truck back and, insult to injury, the
lot was closed for the day.

But Tara, the eternal optimist, took it as a sign. “This
will work out just fine,” she said with a devilish grin. “I’ve never done it in
Iowa before. It’s a goal of mine you know.”

“Stepping foot in every state? You tried that one on
me already, remember?”

“This has nothing to do with
walking
, bitch.”

“Why do you want to have
sex
in Iowa?” she hissed,
hoping no fainthearted Iowans were nearby to hear Tara’s crass intentions for
their land. “Or is this an all fifty states thing?”

Tara glared at her in openmouthed shock. “I’m not a
whore you know. Just the ‘I’ states. And ‘P’—which is done. And ‘K’—which is
half done. Plus the ‘N’ ones—Dakota and Carolina are going to be a bitch, but I
already did the rest.”

Catherine stared back at her, bewildered. “You were
never in Nebraska,” she challenged.

“I figured that I should get credit for screwing a guy
who was born and raised in Nebraska, seeing as how he has the place in his
bone—”

“I don’t really need to know this,” Catherine cringed.

“What? It isn’t dirty. I’m just saying that a man born
and raised in a place has it deep in his soul, so it should count at least as
much as being in the state and doing it with some random transplant or drifter
passing through. Maybe even more so.”

“And why those states exactly?”

“Because they’re pink.”

“Excuse me?” Catherine asked, against her better
judgment.

“P-I-N-K, get it?”

“I see what the letters stand for but—” She stopped
herself. Was it really worth delving deeper? It was just Tara being Tara… as
usual.

“So I guess you’re on your own tonight.”

“Are you serious?” Catherine exclaimed.

“Dead.”

“But you don’t even—”

“If I need you I’ll call…. But I won’t be needing you.
Or a place to stay,” she asserted, heading off down a totally foreign city
street with no qualms or inhibitions at all.

Now what?

Abandoned and alone, Catherine called Fynn to give him
the bad news.

“Hey babe,” he said, answering in half a ring.

“Hi,” she said softly, regret in her voice.

“Where are you? I thought you would be here by now.”

“Had a little copilot snafu…. We’re in Iowa.”

“Iowa?” His tone was pure disbelief.

“Yup,” she said simply. She figured it best to leave
out the legalese and stick with the most basic story… and the truth—it was all
Tara’s fault.

“I
knew
I should have flown out and driven back
with you,” he said lowly.

That damn hindsight thing rearing its ugly head
again….
“Probably, but we’ll only be a day later—” —
oh, and two hundred
poorer for it
.

“I miss you,” he said, buttery smooth.

“I miss you too.” She felt that tingling beginning
inside, her Pavlovian response to his voice. “But soon enough you won’t be able
to get rid of me.”

“You have a point. On second thought….”

“Hey, watch it,” she sulked.

Catherine got out of the cab and stepped up onto the
curb, carefully taking in the perfectly quaint little house that couldn’t
possibly house any sadness at all. She felt fidgety and nervous and didn’t know
what to do with her hands, thankful that once she reached the door they had a
purpose. She knocked—not too hard and not too soft—and immediately felt a rush
of discomfort that coming here like this, unannounced, was entirely
inappropriate. She willed the silence inside to continue, the door not to swing
open. She turned toward the street, remembering how she used to play ding-dong ditch.
Maybe she could take off right now, hide in the bushes, run from tree to tree,
and no one would be the wiser. A grown woman reduced to an unruly child out of
fear.

“Can I help you?” A firm yet feminine voice asked,
making her mind immediately jump to Mel at the diner in Nekoyah. It sounded
like it could be her sister.

“Oh, hi,” Catherine said quickly, turning to find a
very un-Mel-ish looking woman staring back at her from the doorway—face
thinner, hair gray, eyes closer together. But the stance was almost identical.
And the no-nonsense attitude that exuded out of her pores was spot-on.

“My name is Catherine Hemmings. I… came to see Renée.”

“She’s sleeping,” the nurse replied. Her tone giving
her away even more than the scrubs she was wearing.

“Oh… okay. Is Cara here?”

The nurse looked at her warily. “Who are you exactly—”

“I’m right here! Hi, Cat!” Cara squealed right before
bowling her over with the excessive force of unadulterated youth. Little arms
locked around her middle and soft pigtails tickled her hands. After a hug of
pure, honest appreciation, no question or hesitation in the face of her
surprise visit, Cara pulled away and looked up at her. “Mommy sleeps a lot in
the day while I’m in school so she can be awake for dinner with me and play
games at night,” she said matter-of-factly, like her mother was doing shift
work rather than lying weak and ravaged in bed all day and night.

“I can see why she would want to spend time with you,”
Catherine said, tugging lightly on one of her pigtails. “You’re like a ray of
sunshine.”

Cara beamed as if to prove her right.  

“And look how big you’ve gotten already! I just saw
you a few weeks ago and I think you’re a whole head taller!”

“Mommy says it seems like I grow an inch a day.”

“That would be about right,” Catherine agreed, suddenly
feeling like maybe this visit was just about perfect. Like there was a reason
for everything in the world, including her recent bout of extremely bad luck
and her brush with larceny that landed her here in Iowa. It was about time she
met Renée face-to-face.

“I’m having a snack to hold me over till dinner,” Cara
said, parroting an adult. “Do you want some?”

Actually she
was
pretty hungry, but she was
still trying to keep her diet on track—smaller portions, less meals, NO snacks.

“Come here.” Cara pulled her toward the kitchen.

Catherine noted the homey atmosphere—the fact that it
didn’t smell sickly in the house even though she knew full well that Renée was
in a hospital bed in another room.

“Do you like baby crackers?”

“Baby crackers?” Catherine asked, amused.

“These, silly.” Cara pointed at the box of Ritz Bits
Sandwiches on the table.

“Of course I do.”

She poured some more on her plate, enough to share,
making Catherine quite certain that it would be rude to turn the offer down.
Plus,
I am trying to eat smaller portions and these are miniature….

“You need some juice,” Cara asserted, heading for the
fridge like a proper hostess.           

Well, by all means, if you think I do….

*****

“So you changed your mind,” Renée said weakly from the
bed. She was propped to a sitting position but she sounded like she’d just
woken up.

“Just when I thought Joel Trager was a man of few
words,” Catherine said tightly. She’d hoped Renée didn’t even know about the
breakup or anything else that had been going on, seeing as how it made her look
flighty and unfit. “It was a ridiculous moment of panic. I just don’t want you
to think that—”

“Catherine, stop,” she said quickly. “I’m not going to
interrogate you. Believe me; I have done my fair share of freaking out over the
years. You should have seen how I reacted to the tumor.” A smirk of chagrin.
“I’m not judging you.” Renée appraised her for a few seconds before continuing.
“I’ll admit that I
was
concerned—”

“Oh?” Catherine tried to be charitable and give a
dying woman a chance before freaking out completely, but she was on the edge.

“Please sit,” Renée said softly.

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

“You’re not. Most of my time is medicated TV watching,
so please.” She motioned toward a chair.

Not until Catherine sat would she continue. “You see,
ever since I asked Fynn to take Cara, I’d been afraid that I’d hurt him deeply.
Taken away his freedom to be him and find his way—what makes him happy. It
wasn’t fair of me to ask him to finish out my life for me—”

“He would do anything for Cara,” Catherine said
earnestly.

“Yeah, but he’s a tough enough nut to crack without
baggage—with a five-year-old daughter on the way… well, women don’t stick
around for that kind of thing. I knew that before I even asked him and I felt
guilty about it, but not guilty enough…. I just wanted to leave this earth
knowing where Cara is. What her room looks like. Who will be there for her when
she comes home from school. Who will help her learn the easy things and the
hard things too. But saddling a single man with what will one day become a
teenage daughter is… to put it lightly, cruel.”

“But Cara is such a wonderful, happy, sweet little
girl.”

“And we all know what they become,” Renée said with a
smile.

Catherine smiled back, remembering her father’s
absolute bewilderment through her teen years. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

“When you came around I was
relieved
.”

“I figured you were horrified. A crazy chick shoving
her way into Fynn’s life.”

“No. You are his saving grace, Catherine—and mine too.
I know that we haven’t even spoken, but Cara adores you. I just don’t want my
illness—the death sentence that just keeps dragging out,” she said wryly, “—or
Cara’s guardianship to come between you and Fynn.”

“
None
of this craziness has been about Cara. I
knew she was a part of his life from the beginning. I love her…. Sure I’m
totally unsure of parenting in general. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,
actually. But that doesn’t change the fact that I absolutely adore her. I was just
afraid that you realized how totally inept I was, you know, when I returned her
with an ear infection and probably on a sustained sugar high…. After she told
you everything we did over that weekend, I figured there was no way you’d want
me around your daughter anymore.”

“I think it’s time for a motherhood confession,” Renée
said, her eyes beseeching. “I once took Cara to a birthday party with a broken
arm. She was about three and she fell off her tricycle. I was right there to
kiss it better, and she seemed fine afterward. The next day I brought her to a
party and a dad there was an EMT; he told me to take her to the emergency room.
God, I felt like such an idiot. How did I miss that?”

“Now don’t go making up an elaborate story just to
make me feel better.”

“No, it’s true. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Catherine winced noticeably, but Renée chuckled.
“That’s got to be the worst part about dying—all jokes are off, when all I want
to do is
laugh
.”

“I just—God, under different circumstances—”

“Hey, it is what it is,” she said simply. “Maybe
that’s the drugs talking—I’m on some
killer
drugs—but I already went
through woe-is-me. I also went through pissed-as-hell. Broke a lot of glasses,
even a mirror—figured I already had all the bad luck in the world. Now, it
isn’t so much that I’m resigned as it is that I’m at peace…. And that has to do
directly with you. You complete the puzzle. I don’t have to worry anymore that
I am changing everyone else’s lives for the worse by leaving—not that I have a
choice in the matter. Since I have to go, at least I know Cara will have
everything—even more than I was able to give her.”

“But you
are
giving it to her,” Catherine said,
tears in her eyes.

“She talks endlessly about Gramma Lizzy and Pop-pop,” Renée
said, matching tears in her own.

“My parents. I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t jumping
the gun. She came up with that all herself—”

“No.” Renée waved her off. “She never knew her
grandparents. She even asked for some for Christmas one year.”

“Renée, I just want to assure you that Cara is a part
of our family—Fynn’s and my family. She will be taken care of and loved like
our own.”

“I am so happy to hear that because I need you to do
something for me.”

“Please don’t tell me you want me to kill you and put
you out of your misery,” Catherine joked nervously. Suddenly the room was
filled with pure musical laughter that echoed through the quiet of the old
house, and for that moment Catherine saw the woman Renée used to be before
illness began leeching her life out from under her. Tears welled up quickly again
to refill what had appeared in bittersweet emotion and been released in good
humor.

“I want you and Fynn to adopt Cara…. And I want you to
do it while she’s still young.”

“What?” Catherine was shocked.

“I don’t want her to grow up with guardians. I want
her to have parents. No confusion. No explanations to her friends, or at school.
Just simply Cara Marie Trager.”

Catherine’s breath caught. She hadn’t even known that
Cara’s middle name was Marie. Something else they had in common. The same
middle name. The same initials. And they shared love for Fynn. And Magnus. And
they would soon share a deep sorrow of loss: Cara for her mother, and Catherine
for her sister.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to take your place, Renée.”

“She deserves to have a normal family. She deserves
the chance to move on. And you deserve the love and respect that come with
motherhood. It will be easier on all of you that way. And maybe it won’t hurt
as badly for Cara.”

“Does Fynn know?”

“I haven’t told him yet. Honestly, I knew he would
fight me if I told him. I was having it drafted into my will to command him
from beyond the grave,” she said spookily. “That way he would have to do it
without giving me any lip. I know I’m being morbid, but I appreciate the chance
to say it; this is the stuff I can’t talk about with Cara. You literally came at
the perfect time…. Why did you come anyway? You’re like the answer to my
prayers.”  

“Unless God is in the business of auto theft, I don’t
think I’m quite that.”

“Someone stole your car?”

“Well,
who
stole
what
is up in the air,
but it landed me here so it was good for something.”