Amber's Embrace (2 page)

Amber faced him indignantly. “You know, coach, if
you’d
sat back and watched the pounding
your
team had taken for the bulk of the season, you’d be incensed, too. It’s been one arbitrary call after the other against my kids. From my viewpoint, that child reached the plate fully two or three seconds before the ball did. Do you disagree?”

He thought for a minute as a firm hand rubbed the back of his neck, then chose his words carefully, seemingly convinced of her good intent. “No, I think you may be right. But the umpire made the call, and it’s up to us to stand by it. Isn’t that what these children have to learn?”

The tingling at her scalp slowly faded beneath her one-handed massage. “Very painfully … yes. It’s a shame the lesson can’t be taught in a little more … gentle way, though.” Her pointed words held dual meaning, not lost on the clearly masculine features before her.

His smile was softer this time, though the strong mouth and jaw were a giveaway to his character. Her eyes narrowed. “I can’t help but wonder whether, had I been a father, that umpire might have called things differently.” Had she been a father, she mused, she certainly would not have been hauled away by the hair, at the mercy of the opposing coach!

An uncanny sense that the eyes behind the glasses traveled her length in comment was fodder for her suspicion. “You certainly aren’t a father,” his deep voice drawled in humor. “Perhaps you should play on your inbred … talents … a little. Sugar is often more palatable, you know.”

Amber didn’t need his eyes to convey the track of his mind. “My God! You’re as bad as that umpire. A chauvinist throwback, if I ever saw one! I’m surprised you even allow any girls on your team!”

As though beckoned by her words, a beautiful child-player with long dark hair flowing from the confines of her green baseball cap approached, sidling up close to her coach.

“Daddy?” she whispered urgently. “We’re all waiting!”

The tall figure lowered his head to speak with infinite softness to his daughter. “Hold them off a minute longer, Liz. I’m just about done.” The bold face held a smug grin when it returned to savor Amber’s astonishment. “Not quite as much of a throwback as you had hoped, hmmmm?”

With a resurfacing of her own good sportsmanship, Amber acknowledged her error, mirroring his grin with her own, faintly sheepish, but soft and sincere. “You have my apology. And my compliments. She’s a good little athlete.”

A dark eyebrow edged over the upper rim of the sunglasses. “So you do know how to turn it on, after all.”

The moment’s truce was broken by her burgeoning defiance. “I don’t have to ‘turn it on,’ as you so blithely put it, when it comes to honesty. Now, if you have no other hair-pulling to do, perhaps we should let the children continue?”

“By all means.” His head angled slightly to the side. “I do believe this is
your
messenger coming now.” The glasses reflected her own face once more before aiming again at the boy approaching. “The resemblance is remarkable. I must admit that you deserve credit for taking on your little brother’s baseball team.”

Amber nearly choked on a laugh, held back but barely as Scott drew even with them. “Hey, Mom, how about it?”

Turning, she lay a possessive arm across the boy’s shoulder. “Sure thing, Scottie!” The triumphant glow cast quickly over her shoulder as she walked back to the bench with her son brought its own reward; the expression of astonishment, so akin to hers earlier, which eclipsed both cap and glasses on the face of the Cubs’ coach, was worth the few tingling reminders of his strong-arm tactics. It seemed that this time around, at least, she was to have the last laugh.

It was short-lived, however. The final score was a demoralizing twenty-one to nothing, the worst beating the team had taken yet. “Come on, guys! Ice cream cones are my treat!” she announced to the quiet group of discouraged players, after the obligatory handshake lineup had been completed.

“But, Mrs. MacLaine,” one of the little girls, so prone to logic, piped up, “we
lost!
Ice cream cones are only for when we win!”

The spontaneous cheers which had sprung from the boys at Amber’s suggestion threatened to turn into a roar of boos directed at their more practical teammate. Lifting both hands for silence, Amber reassured them. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re
all
winners—the best sports any coach could ask for.” She ruffled the several hatless heads within reach. “Besides,” an impish grin played at her lips, “the ice cream is a bribe. We’re having an extra practice at nine o’clock on Saturday morning. I want all of you to
be there!
” The refrain of boos would not be denied this time, but faded quickly in the dash toward the waiting wagons, leaving far behind the humiliating loss, letting a jimmy-covered ice-cream future beckon.

*   *   *

“Is that everything, Scottie?” she called from the base of the stairs, one hand tensely clutching the curved tail of the banister, a high-heeled foot on the bottommost step. A glance at her thin gold wristwatch told her that there was little more than ninety minutes to go before takeoff. With the airport a forty-minute drive away, they had but a few moments left at home together. Her already jumpy stomach lurched at the thought. “Scott?” The silence that echoed from the second floor drew her upward to pause only at the open door of her son’s room. Two years of summer’s partings made this third no easier.

The figure sat, small and forlorn, on the edge of the corduroy covered bed, staring blindly out the window at the lush maples in the yard. It was always like this—the last minutes. For the past few weeks, she had kept them both busy, running raggedly from one thing to another at the end of each school day, working late into each night in hopes of denying the inevitable anguish. Now, with classes adjourned just yesterday, all had been done. There was no more putting off the fact that, with the drive to the airport, her son would be gone to the West Coast for the summer.

Slowly, she walked toward the bed, a knot forming at her throat. Quietly, she sat down beside the sad form, gently wrapping her arms around him, gathering his special warmth to her. She had always taught him to cry freely, yet it was only in the protective cocoon of his mother’s arms that he let go. His shoulders shook as silent tears slid down his cheeks.

“Shhhh,” she crooned softly as she rocked him, her face buried in the thick thatch of sandy-brown hair. His tears were so innocent, those of a child leaving home and mother. Her own, now barely held in check, reflected the anticipation of separation from the one in life who was dearest to her, her very flesh and blood. To absorb his sadness, to feel what he felt compounded her own unhappiness.

Seconds meshed into minutes, the long hand and the short, much as their arms wound around each other, hers long, his shorter. These moments were too dear to be rushed, for they embodied the closeness of this mother-son relationship. The warmth of their mutual comfort would have to last them in memory through the summer.

Just when Amber’s eyes had cleared, the low whispered “I love you, Mom” moistened them afresh. It was another stretch of time before she could begin to answer him.

“And I love you. Very, very much, Scottie. You know that, don’t you?” The small head nodded against her blouse as she added, “I’ll miss you.”

“Mom”—he drew away to look at her—“why don’t you come out to visit in a few weeks?”

Her fingers blotted his wet cheeks with a tenderness echoed by her eyes. “You know I can’t do that, Scott. Your dad will keep you really busy, and there’s your grandmother and grandfather. They’ve been dying to see you. And Aunt Sherry and Uncle Richard—”

“You still don’t want to see him.” The boy’s hazel eyes, so like hers in shape and depth, challenged her, sending a knife thrust of guilt through her.

“It’s
you
I’d want to see, but you’ll be so busy that you really won’t have the time.” She lifted the backs of her fingers to brush at the moistness at the outer corners of her lids.

“What about you, Mom? What are you going to be doing while I’m there?”

Amber forced a tremulous smile to her lips in a half-hearted show of nonchalance. “Oh, I’ll be writing. You know me, never without a pen in my hand.”

The appearance of his small grin broke through the worst of the gloom. “Will you be here at the house most of the time?” Even as a child, he had been comforted by knowing exactly what her plans were, where she would be while he was in school, where she and Ron would be when they went out together. She often wondered if Scott followed her day in his mind, much as she did his.

“Ummm, some of the time I’ll be here. I’ll be at the hospital every morning, though. If there’s any problem, you can reach me there. Any operator will give you the number of Massachusetts General, then all you have to do is to ask for the Public Relations office.” The thought of this new job brought a brighter light to her liquid orbs, giving their pale green a semblance of sparkle. Scott immediately sensed her pleasure.

“You’re excited about it, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh. It should be fun. I’ve never done PR work before. My writing has always been much more on a freelance basis. This will be different—working on one project for the summer. But the nice thing
is
that it’s only for the summer, while you’re away. I’ll be bored and waiting for you, by the time you get back. Hey, have you got your camera packed?”

The boy’s eyes rounded. “Oh, no, I almost forgot!”

“Well, don’t forget,” she teased gently. “If you and I are going to put together a summer diary, we’ll need pictures. You’ve got your notebook, haven’t you?” With Scott’s dawning interest in photography, it had been a mutual brainstorm for him to keep a detailed log of his summer, both for his mother to see and for a keepsake at its end. It was one activity that would bind them together daily during the weeks apart.

“Yup. In my suitcase.” His grin warmed her.

“Then, you go get the camera,” she urged, standing and smoothing his hair back from his forehead, as though reluctant to relinquish even this small hold on him, “while I get myself put back together. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Moments later, in the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom, she studied her somber image in the glass. Her tear-smudged makeup was a sight, though not much better than what lay beneath. The past few weeks had etched fine lines of tension around her mouth. The frequent late-night writing sessions had painted deep smudges beneath her eyes, whose hollowness was a reflection of her frame of mind.

Quickly repairing her makeup, she added concealer and blusher, then sighed, knowing she could do no better. All in all, she was certainly presentable. Despite her pallor, the finely sculpted lines of her face held a natural beauty, emphasized with poignancy by the neat draw-back of her blond hair into a low twist at the nape of the neck. She wore a soft white blouse, its buttons opened only far enough to preclude cleavage, the offering of lightly tanned throat boasting an exquisite gold chain to match the studs at her ears. Her skirt was navy and white, in a dirndl style, crisp yet feminine, hemmed just below the knees to reveal the length of browned leg below.

Returning to the bedroom, she straightened the waistband of her skirt, seemingly looser than it had been two weeks before, grabbed the white leather bag that matched her high-heeled sandals, extracted and applied a light pink gloss to her lips, then, with a sigh of resignation, headed downstairs to join her son.

The streets out of Dover had never been as beautiful, tree-lined and clothed in a magnificent array of summer greenery. An easterner by origin, Amber had missed these seasonal distinctions during her years in California. Her relocation to New England had already justified itself on this score—with the crispness and vibrance of fall, the chill and snow-filled air of winter, the bright and gay rebirth of spring, and, now, the warm richness of summer just bursting with pleasure.

On this sun-blessed day, the local streets were particularly quiet, instilled with the laziness of the newly arrived summer season. Dover was a peaceful town, as went the westerly suburbs of Boston. Its homes reflected the flavor of its residents—from the older, more stately to the younger, more contemporary. Its fields and meadows spoke of a countrified pace which its sophistication belied. For Amber and Scott, it was a comfortable and welcoming community, a perfect spot to make their home.

As the Dasher wagon passed unerringly through the maze of back streets toward the more open expanse of Route 128 and, then, the Massachusetts Turnpike, both its occupants were lost in their own thoughts. The boy’s ran ahead, with trepidation, some three thousand miles across the country to his father and that “other” half of his life. The mother’s ran back to the fateful decision of nearly four years past. Had it been the right one? she wondered anew. For herself, there was no question; without Ron, she was a happier, more confident person than she had been in years. For Scott, the question was more complex. Did he miss the family unit that had existed, albeit merely as a formality, before the divorce? Did it bother him to spend nine months out of each year without a father? He was growing older, perhaps more in need now of such a masculine figure than he had been before. Could she be both mother and father, as she had so desperately tried to be since their move to Massachusetts?

A well of pride surged within her as she cast a glance toward her son’s face. He was so handsome, so angelic—dressed to the hilt in his new Levi’s jeans, new Lacoste jersey, and new Nikes—that it was hard, at this moment, to recall the many points of contention between them during the past years, all minor in hindsight and totally typical of a preadolescent. There were, for starters, fights about clothes. Scott’s preferences ranged from the old to the torn to the faded; his mother’s veered toward the well-kept. The boy shunned her preference for sweaters and jerseys in his bid for anything with either a slogan or a team number on it. And footwear—that was an issue in itself. Not only was he allergic to anything warm or leather, but the only sneakers permissible in his wardrobe were those with a dark blue stripe in vee-formation on the side. Amber had finally given in on the latter, so long as they were clean and in relatively one piece.