Chances Are (30 page)

She was in this alone.

She drew a vertical line down the center of the page. That seemed a logical way to begin. On the left she would put all the reasons why she should keep the baby. On the right she would list the reasons why she shouldn’t.

The right side filled up quickly.

She was too young.

She had no money and Seth had even less.

They both had full scholarships to Columbia and a world opening up before them that most definitely did not include a baby.

She and Seth had planned out their life together years ago. They shared the same goals, the same ambitions, the same dreams. First school, then the fun of seeing all of that schooling, all of that hard work, channeled into the challenge of launching their careers. They were going to do great things. They dreamed big, and they knew how to make those dreams come true. Together they could make a difference in the world.

One day, in the shadowy far-off future, there would be babies but not yet. Not for a very long time. She didn’t want to end up like her Aunt Claire, angry and trapped and so jealous of everyone she could barely see straight.

Once again Grandma Irene was right. All she had to do was look at the list, and her path was clear.

Eleven reasons why this wasn’t the time to have a baby.

Not one single reason why it was.

She stared down at the expanse of white space and the pale blue horizontal lines on the left side and waited for something, anything, to materialize, but nothing did.

Only one decision made any sense at all, no matter how you twisted or spun the facts. Saturday morning she would drive over to the CVS at the mall and buy a home pregnancy test, just to be sure, and then she would do what she had to do before too much more time elapsed.

She had to talk to Seth. He had the right to know what she was thinking, how she was feeling. She also knew that he would support whatever decision she made. He had sworn to be with her every step of the way, and she believed in him. She had always believed in him. He would understand and be there for her, just as he had promised.

“Need more tea?” Julie paused, coffeepot in hand, next to her table.

“I’m okay.”

“Eat the toast,” Julie urged. “Don’t make me give it to the gulls. Those greedy beggars scrounge enough off me as it is.”

Kelly nodded and pretended to take a bite of toast, but the second Julie moved away, she put it back on the plate. Her stomach had finally settled down. There was no point in pressing her luck.

She had done enough of that already.

 
“HEY, WATCH WHERE you’re going with that thing, Claire!” Frankie, the produce manager, leaped aside as Claire’s shopping cart barely missed his left hip. “I don’t have collision on my ass.”

“I’m sorry, Frankie.” She spiked a bunch of celery into her cart. Nothing like taking out your aggressions on innocent vegetables. “I didn’t see you standing there.”

Frankie glanced down at his aproned bulk. “Didn’t see me? I weigh two hundred eighty pounds. They can see me on Mars.”

“Everyone’s a comedian,” she said with a shake of her head. “Are you out of string beans?”

“We’re out of everything. The farm truck’s behind schedule. Come back around four.”

“Like I have nothing better to do than make a second run to Super Fresh.”

“Whaddya want from me, Claire? We’re out of string beans. You want ’em, you come back. We’re not Ray’s Pizza. We don’t make deliveries.”

By the time she pulled into her driveway, she had managed to alienate the checkout clerk, the pharmacist, and every driver who had the misfortune to be on the road with her. That sparring contest with Maddy had gotten under her skin more than she had realized. The sight of that small diamond sparkling on her left ring finger had seemed to awaken every ugly emotion she had spent a lifetime tamping down and send them spilling out across the table.

It wasn’t that she wished for Aidan to be alone, because she didn’t. He deserved happiness. God knows, so did she, but happiness showed up where and when it wanted, and this time it was Aidan’s turn. But she wasn’t convinced Maddy Bainbridge would be around for the long haul. There was something about her, an impermanence, that irked Claire, as if the woman always knew the exact distance between herself and the nearest exit.

Just look at the way she had acted at the coffee shop. She couldn’t get away from there fast enough when Claire and Kelly tangled. The woman had almost left skid marks on Julie’s freshly waxed floor as she sprinted toward freedom. That wasn’t the kind of wife Aidan needed, and it sure as hell wasn’t the kind of stepmother who could steer Kelly through her college years. The first sign of trouble, real trouble, would send her running for her life.

Not that it was any of her business. Aidan could marry whomever he wanted to marry. There was nothing she could do about it. She was there to advise him if he wanted her advice. She was there to help Kelly if she wanted her help. If they didn’t want her—well, that was their mistake. She would still be there when they finally came to their senses.

Her father was sitting at the kitchen table eating a tuna sandwich when she came in through the back door schlepping a trio of grocery bags.

“You look like a sherpa,” he observed, looking up from his paperback Spenser mystery.

“An old sherpa,” she said as she dropped the bags on the counter near the sink. “I could use a hand unloading the trunk.”

“Why do you think your mother and I had so many kids,” he said, folding down the corner of a page. “No more trunks to unload, lawns to mow, or sidewalks to shovel.”

She couldn’t help laughing. “It didn’t work for me either, Pop. Finish your sandwich first. The cat litter can wait.”

“Guess who’s home for the weekend?”

She quickly ran through the possibilities. “It can’t be Kathleen. I didn’t see her car.”

“She bummed a ride with one of her friends.”

“Where is she?”

“Sacked out in her old room.” Her father took a gulp of Pepsi.

“Is she all right? Why did she come down for the weekend? She isn’t—”

“She’s fine,” he said. “She needed a quiet place to finish writing her school paper.”

Claire’s knees went weak with relief, and she sank down onto a chair opposite her father.

“You’ve got to lighten up,” he said, observing her trembling hands. “She’s doing great now.”

“I know, but—”

“She’s all grown, Claire. You’ve done everything you can do. Now it’s up to her.”

“You weren’t here when she was in trouble, Pop. You don’t know what it was like.”

“I’m old, but I’m not stupid. You think I don’t know what addiction’s all about?”

If you weren’t there for the visits to the ER, the near misses, the screaming fights, the terror of almost losing your firstborn, you didn’t have a clue. But there was no point to saying any of it. He loved Kathleen, and his belief in her had never wavered, not even when Claire and Billy had feared the worst. What were facts and figures compared with that kind of unconditional support?

“You’re right,” she said, patting him on the arm. “I worry too much.”

“So what else is new?” He pushed half of his sandwich toward her. “I’m saving room for those brownies you made last night.”

She reached for the sandwich and took a bite. “I thought you were laying off desserts for a while.”

“Next week.” He finished off his Pepsi. “So how did it go this morning at Olivia’s place?”

“Don’t ask.”

“You and Rosie’s girl had a problem?”

“Can you believe she tried to undermine my position at Cuppa by trying to take over some of the baking?”

“She’s a lousy cook?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “And besides, that’s not the point.”

“So what is? You want to bust your behind working two jobs for one salary?”

“It’s only temporary. We’ll be hiring somebody to help out with the baking once we get up and running.” Olivia didn’t want to miss the high tourist season, which meant an accelerated and possibly somewhat rocky start-up. She knew that when she agreed to come aboard. “Since when are any of your kids afraid of hard work?”

“Work smart,” he said, “not hard. You don’t have to do it all yourself, Claire. Do what all the big shots do: learn to delegate. That’s the ticket.”

“You really have to stop watching
The Apprentice,
Pop. We’re talking tea and cookies, not multimillion dollar mergers.”

“Listen to your old man on this. You gotta give a little to get a lot, kiddo. That’s the real secret to getting along in this world.”

 
“A DISASTER?” ROSE asked as she scoured the commode.

“How so?”

Maddy looked up from the tub she had been scrubbing. “I took off from Julie’s like I had a rocket in my pocket. You’re looking at a gold-medal-winning escape artist.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

“It was worse. The second they started arguing, all I could think about was how fast I could get out of there.” She dried off the soap holder and placed a wrapped and fragrant bar of French-milled soap on the ledge. “I’m a coward.”

“You did what any sane woman would do in a similar situation. You excused yourself from a family argument.”

“I bailed out on Kelly.”

“Is that how it seemed to you?” Rose wiped down the lid with disinfectant.

“Every time she looks to me for advice, I start looking for ways to change the subject. What’s wrong with me?” She arranged minibottles of shampoo and conditioner in the amenities basket, then piled it high with beribboned packets of sweet herbal bath salts. “I’m thirty-three years old. I’m a mother. Why do I want to run every time Kelly looks like she’s about to confide in me?” Worse yet, was she going to feel the same way when Hannah was seventeen and in trouble?

“You’re a lot like I was.”

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious.” She motioned for Maddy to add one more packet of bath salts. “I can’t count the times I did the same thing when you were growing up.”

“Maybe in an alternate universe,” Maddy said with a laugh. “The Rose DiFalco I grew up with had the answer for everything, including the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa.”

“I did a pretty good job of faking it, didn’t I? Half the time I felt like I was only a half step ahead of you and losing ground fast.”

Maddy wiped the mirror clean with long, vertical strokes. “There’s no softness in Claire. She wants Kelly to adhere to some arbitrary rules that were set up a long time ago. Her words were whizzing right over the girl’s head, and she didn’t even know it.”

“It’s hard to let go, honey, no matter how many times you’ve done it.”

“So why do I feel so guilty? None of this has anything to do with me. What difference is it to me if Claire and Kelly have a spat?”

Rose sat back on her heels and brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. “If you really feel that way, maybe it’s time you did some thinking about your future with Aidan.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

“You’re not just marrying a man, honey, you’re marrying a family, same as Aidan is. He has every right to expect the same commitment to his daughter that you expect him to feel for yours.”

“I’m very fond of Kelly.”

“She has enough friends. She needs a mother.”

“We’ve been down this road, Ma. She has Claire.”

“Claire isn’t her mother.”

“Neither am I.”

“You can only turn her away so many times, Madelyn. God willing, you and Aidan have a long life together ahead of you, and Kelly is going to be part of it. The decisions you make now are going to influence the future in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.”

“Geez, Ma, we’re beginning to sound like a
Lifetime
movie. All we need is for your long-lost secret child to show up at the door.”

“Excuse me.” Crystal rapped on the doorframe, and both women burst into gales of laughter. “Was it something I said?”

That, of course, generated more laughter.

“Your timing was perfect,” Maddy said when she regained at least a little bit of her composure. “We had just conjured up my mother’s long-lost secret child.”

The poor girl looked totally confused. “Whatever. I just wanted to tell you we’re leaving now.”

“I thought you were going to film check-in.” Rose was the only woman Maddy had ever seen who could look elegant policing a bathroom.

“We’ll be back. Beep Peter’s cell when the bus rolls in, and we’ll come right over.”

“We’re not going to hold things up,” Rose warned her. “If you’re here, you’re here. I don’t inconvenience my guests for anyone.”

“Gotcha, Mrs. D. You do what you have to do. We’ll work around you.” Suddenly she seemed to take in the scene in front of her: scrub brushes, pails filled with soapy water, toilet brush, and industrial-strength, environmentally friendly cleaning products, all wielded by two women on their knees. “Wow! You mean you guys clean your own bathrooms?”

“Who on earth did she think did the cleaning around here anyway?” Rose demanded after Crystal disappeared. “House elves?”

“Let’s face it, Ma: you don’t exactly look like a charwoman.” She gestured toward her own grubby jeans and faded T-shirt from a long-ago Rolling Stones concert at the Meadowlands. “Whereas your daughter . . .”

“Please don’t tell me that’s the same shirt you wore in high school.”

“You won’t hear it from me.”

“You always did get emotionally attached to your clothing.”

“Remember my favorite pair of Jordache jeans?”

“The ones you insisted had to be dry-cleaned.”

“At thirteen it made sense to me.”

“Remember that when Hannah turns thirteen, and you can’t pry her favorite pair out of her hands.”

They fell into companionable silence, punctuated only by the swish of water over tile or the soft sound of fresh, fluffy towels sliding into position in the built-in cabinet.