Scattered Ashes (18 page)

Now the irony and cruelty of timing, that was another matter.

“Okay, now would be a good time for you to say something.  Otherwise you'll look like Medusa snuck in here and turned you to stone,” Sarah said, rocking the baby.

Shaking her head, Nicole finally said, “I’m not sure what to say, Sarah.  I’m not even sure I heard that right.”

“Bullshit.”

Nicole scanned all the recent calls not because she thought her best friend was lying but because she couldn’t quite believe Michael hadn’t thought enough about how far along she was even to call and check on her.  Then again, once Michael put his head in the business clouds, nobody was going to shake him loose.  Period.

“There’s a sick irony to this,” Nicole finally said, shaking her head.  Of course right now she should’ve been laughing at this hand of cards she'd been dealt, but nothing felt funny.

“What do you mean?”

“My husband flies out the morning I go into labor and I can’t reach him, but the guy I was crazy about in college calls me.  If that isn’t a sick cosmic joke, I don’t know what is.”  In disgust, she set the phone on the rolling table near her bed.

“Yeah, well, there is that.”  Sarah peered at the baby.  “At least you got a cute little boy out of the deal.”

Nicole eyed the phone and picked it up again.  As she started dialing, Sarah asked, “Oh, are you trying Michael again?”

“No.”  She set the phone up to her ear even as she saw her best friend frantically trying to catch her attention and tell her to hang up, as if that would work.

“Are you insane?” Sarah whispered loudly.  “He’s getting a divorce!”

“May I speak to Jordan, please?”  She paused.  “Oh, hey, Jordan.  It’s me.”

Sarah immediately began shaking her head in disbelief.  Then she whispered to Nick, “Your momma’s lost the last of her brain cells, just so you know.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your divorce.”  Nicole sounded earnest.  Then again, Sarah knew it was probably because she really did feel badly for him.  “Yeah, well, even if you thought it had been coming for a while, that doesn’t make it any easier, and I wish you didn’t have to go through that.”  Nicole looked down at the IV in her hand and wished they would get rid of it.  She hated it with a passion because it made everything so difficult--not to mention that her hand was starting to swell from all the fluid and that if she moved it wrong her hand ached, which meant she only had one hand, really, with which she could even hold the phone.

Sarah watched her and knew the reason Nicole was avoiding eye contact was that even though Sarah didn’t ask, she knew Nicole had feelings for Jordan Carroway, and this wasn’t a message she needed to hear, especially when Michael decided to be lawyer of the year and leave town right now.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Nicole said, smiling slightly.  “I just had a baby boy, and he’s awesome!  So beautiful.  I wish you could see him.”

At that, Sarah glared at her, not quite believing what she’d just heard.  Was Nicole truly that insane?  Jordan didn’t even have a place in her life anymore.  He shouldn’t even have been calling her because they were really anything but platonic friends.  There had been something between them from the first, and no matter what, there was still something between them.  There would always be something between them.

 Nicole probably would have continued the conversation just to spite her best friend, but when she heard another call coming in, she pulled the phone back and checked out the display to find out the caller was Michael.

“Look, Jordan, I’m sorry, but I have to go.  Michael is calling, and I need to talk to him.”  A pause.  “Okay.  Bye.”

Nicole disconnected and handed the phone back to her best friend.  “Talk to him.  Tell him I’m asleep or something.”

“Nic—"

“Please.”  There was something deep and hurt in Nicole’s eyes and Sarah knew that it probably had to do with Michael always being gone and suddenly Jordan being divorced.  She knew there were difficult currents, but she wasn’t sure how to help her friend navigate.  In the end, the only thing she figured she could do was the take the phone as she was asked.

“Hey, Michael.  Where’ve you been?”  Sarah stared at her friend as she started to pace the room, holding both the baby and the cell as Nicole looked out the window, her expression suddenly unsure and fragile.  Sarah glanced at her.  “No, she’s asleep right now.  She was in labor for a few hours, and now she’s exhausted.”  Another pause.  “Yes, Michael.  She had the baby.  Without you.  Next time check your damned messages.  Better yet, stay home.”

Sarah disconnected the phone and silenced it, knowing Michael would probably call back, not that either of them felt much like talking to him.  Sarah set the phone on the table and kissed the baby’s head, taking comfort in his sweet baby smell.  Although she wanted to say  this was all about Michael being stupid, she knew better.  Although Nicole and Michael had at first seemed perfect for each other, there were subtle indicators that things had gone wrong.  Now, for the first time, there was a noticeable tear in the fabric of their marriage which neither of them could downplay.  Sarah doubted that Michael would see the error of his ways.  He’d always put the job first, but Nicole recognized that there was something wrong on a much deeper level.

Chapter Twelve

Jordan had been driving around for about an hour and had yet to arrive anywhere.  He wasn’t even sure where he thought he had was going.  Probably he was just going through the motions of having somewhere to be before he drove to his parents' house.  He hadn’t seen them in a few years—not since he and Alyssa had moved to Kansas, as a matter of fact--and that had been long before everything in Jordan’s life had blown up. 

His parents were expecting to find him happily married and working on starting a family, not divorced with no kids.  He raked his fingers through his hair and pulled into a small coffee shop, just another way of stalling, no doubt, but he wasn’t ready to face all the questions he knew he couldn’t answer.  Could anyone put into words the reasons for a marriage’s demise?  Sure, perhaps it had had something to do with not being able to have kids.  Maybe that had been the fault line.  But there had to be more, and there was.  It just wasn’t something Jordan thought he could find a way to sum up.  And did the reasons really matter?  Would knowing them precisely change anything?  No, it wouldn’t, so Jordan would rather take the cowardly way out and slip into the shop, grab some java, and read the newspaper so that when his mom decided to gossip--and she would--he would be prepared for all the details.

Jordan looked at his watch: 10:07.  He scanned the empty shop, grabbed a newspaper from an empty table, and took a seat in a back booth.  He’d no more than sat down when a waitress walked over with a pen and pad.

“Can I get you something?”  She was an attractive blonde, totally not Jordan’s type, not that he was even remotely looking for his type considering the way the last relationship he’d had had played out.  Nonetheless, here she was, peering at him with big blue eyes and a smile that said she wanted more than to take his order.  Of course she did.

Trouble was, he didn’t.

“Could I get a cup of decaf and some cream, please?” he asked, unfolding the paper.

The waitress nodded.  “Okay.  Anything else?”

“Nope.  That’ll be it.  Thanks.”

He looked at the paper, pretending he didn’t see her lingering there as though waiting for him to ask for her number or something else, and after a minute she eased away, leaving him to read in peace before setting a cup of coffee in front of him along with some cream.

Around him, he heard the typical sounds of any eatery—pans clanging, grease sizzling, people chatting.  Normally Jordan would have been distracted by it, but today, he just kept replaying the last conversation he’d had with Alyssa—the day she’d told him she wanted a divorce.  She'd said it wasn’t all about not having kids, but she'd refused to go into detail.  He didn’t believe she was cheating on him, and he damned sure wasn’t cheating on her, so what did that say for marital vows?  Did anything last anymore?  He wasn’t sure.

He started scanning the headlines, only taking half an interest in the words he'd read before moving on to the next section.  He came to the obituary section and started to flip the page when one of the names caught his eye: Edward O’Roarke.

Could there be any relation?

For a moment he blinked, staring at the picture of the bald man with intense blue eyes that peered back at him.  He looked about old enough, Jordan guessed, not that he would have thought this man would have been related to Nicole.  They were as different as night and day, really.

Still, the spelling of the last name wasn’t all that common, and just in case it was a family member of Nicole’s he felt obligated to keep reading.  He was almost to the end of the obituary when he stumbled onto the connection.  Edward O’Roarke was Nicole’s father, meaning that even though he dreaded telling his own parents about the demise of his marriage, what Nicole was suffering through was far worse and something that demanded his attention.  He could forget that the times they had spoken were few and far between, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he didn’t at least go to the funeral and check on her to make sure she was okay.  She did deserve that much, at least.

He scanned the obituary, gleaning the details of a life he had never known.  Nicole’s father had been a deacon in a church.  He'd had only one child, and he had been a high school history teacher before retiring.  He'd still been married to Nicole’s mother, and Nicole was still married because the paper listed a son-in-law—one Michael Adams.  Lingering on that thought, Jordan tried to picture someone who physically went with Nicole, yet all he kept seeing was himself.  Talk about wishful thinking.  He turned back to the newspaper. 

Ed O’Roarke’s death had been very sudden—a car wreck.

Jordan felt the pit of his stomach knotting as he realized just how much of a mess Nicole’s life probably felt.  As if it weren't painful enough to lose a loved one, losing him without warning seemed so much more devastating.  There had been no time to get used to the loss, no chance to say all the things which needed to be said to continue on without him for a lifetime.  His jaw clenched, and he hoped Michael Adams was there for her, taking care of her as he should be.

One last glance at the obituary revealed the last information that he needed to know—details of the funeral.  Leaning back in his booth, he realized that either Jordan was extremely lucky or someone was watching out for him.  The funeral would take place in a couple of hours at a nearby church.

Glancing down, he quickly realized he wasn’t exactly dressed formally, but if he knew anything at all about Nicole, that small detail wouldn’t really matter.  It would be about him taking the time to attend rather than the clothes he might be wearing.  He knew that because Alyssa had always been one who stood on ceremony, and Nicole was nothing like his ex.

Refolding the paper, he leaned back as the waitress brought him the coffee and cream.  Her smile invited him once again to ask her out, and he shook his head, knowing he was in no way ready to jump back into the dating pool.  Granted, he’d always landed on his feet before, and he’d always had plenty of girls to go out with, but his head still wasn’t on finding someone to wile away time with.  He didn’t even feel like he knew himself anymore, and adding someone else to that mix would be was a mistake until he got things under control.

To that end, he just smiled politely at the friendly waitress and turned his attention back to the newspaper as he flipped from the obituary page to the local section.  This was where his mother got a lot of rumor-fodder.  Taking a sip, he read through one story about a local charity for children, the black-and-white picture there revealing three ladies, one of whom was his mother.  A smile lit his face, and he wondered why his mom hadn’t said anything--or perhaps she had and he hadn’t paid attention when he should have.  Maybe since reading of Ed O’Roarke’s death, he was starting to see his own parents in a new light, as people who would at some point be taken from him.  That though unsettled him, and he forced himself to read the article beneath his mom’s picture so he could ask her about it.  Then he scanned through the rest of the paper.