Secrets (33 page)

****

Sarah came back home after the call that Angie, whose baby was over two weeks late, was going to be induced the next morning. Sarah caught the next flight she could get out of LA to Portland, where Cassie picked her up.

Sarah had arranged to stay in Luke and Kelly’s spare room in case her stalker, who she hadn’t heard hide nor hair from in the last five weeks since she’d left town, was still lurking in Seaclusion. She also hadn’t heard from Scott. She could not touch how that felt. She had to let it be. She hadn’t understood about the word heartbroken, until now. Until Scott.

The Tylers were all glad to see her. They hugged and kissed her and had dinner in honor of her return. It made her feel like she belonged to a family, even as she squashed the tug of disappointment it wasn’t her own parents who arranged a dinner in honor of her return.

When she drove through Seaclusion, she glimpsed the ocean along the road, and her breath finally came back to her. She felt like she’d been holding it for weeks.
She was home
. No matter what, this place was home. And here was where she felt like herself. She wished she wanted to live in LA. She desperately had hoped working at her other store would make her want to stay there and run it permanently. But no, Seaclusion was where she felt like she could breath. Unlike most people, getting away from her small hometown made her feel disconnected. Here in Seaclusion, she felt connected, vital, a part of something bigger. In LA she felt nameless, faceless, and disconnected.

She needed to find a way to accept Scott as part of Seaclusion and not part of her life. And put a happy face on while she was doing it, because she was not leaving again.

Unsaid through the whole evening was the stress over the next day’s impending birth and the toll it was taking on Luke and Kelly. How deeply was Angie hurting? Would Angie really go through with giving away her baby?
That question,
seemed to nearly radiate off Luke and Kelly even though they said nothing. Sarah almost wished she hadn’t done this to them. Especially to Luke, after all he’d gone through with his first wife. But then again, what if they got their baby after all? Her hopes were pinned on that.

Her parents hadn’t spoken to her more than three times over the last few weeks. They hadn’t asked why she was gone so long from Seaclusion, nor did they mention Sean, Angie, or the baby. A fact that felt tragic. Vanessa was right, she was spawned from reptiles.

Sarah had talked with Sean the morning that she left. She’d found out things about her brother she’d never imagined. And as they had talked, she realized she’d been as guilty of ignoring Sean and his concerns as their parents had. She meant to rectify that in the future. The morning she left, she told Sean everything she knew about what had happened to their mother, everything she knew about the circumstances of his birth, why their mother never left the house, and why Dad let her. She didn’t really have any more answers than Sean did. But having someone care, and talk to him, opened Sean up in a way Sarah would have never guessed of her brother. They’d spoken regularly while she’d been gone.

Eventually their phone conversations had led to Angie. Sarah had learned Sean wasn’t as cold and mean as he’d let on. Sean was deathly scared, petrified really, of Angie, and her pregnancy. He’d avoided her because he was afraid of what he’d done. Almost as if talking to her would make it happen all over again.

Sarah was sorry she hadn’t made an effort with her brother long ago. Maybe she would have made a difference for him. Maybe not. But at least now, they could have a normal relationship for the future. Sean had begged Sarah to come to the hospital. He wanted to be there when Angie gave birth but he was too afraid to show up alone. And, of course, their parents weren’t interested. So as usual, that left Sarah. She did not relish being there with Scott and Vanessa. But she did want to be there for Angie.

So for all, tomorrow would be a big day.

****

Sarah followed her brother’s slouching, lanky frame through the corridor to the hospital waiting room. They stopped at the room Angie was registered in, glancing at each other, with unusual and unheard of understanding between them. She took Sean’s hand and squeezed it as they walked through the door.

Angie lay in the bed, looking way too young to be under the heavy burden of her large, bloated belly. Her hair was longer than ever and stringy down the front of her hospital gown. Her arm was hooked to an IV. Her expression was one of misery.

Sean flinched next to Sarah.

Sarah looked past Angie and saw Vanessa sitting there glancing through a magazine, as unconcerned acting as she’d be in the waiting room of a hair salon.

The door to the bathroom opened, and Scott stepped through, with a glass in hand he brought to Angie’s bedside.

Sarah watched his long steps, his confident carriage, his hair longer than last time she’d seen him. She nearly groaned with how good he looked. How familiar. How much love swelled through her at the sight of him.

Too bad it was all for a man
who didn’t want it.

“Sarah?” Angie asked, turning her head as she sensed their presence, both of them still standing in the doorway. Sarah and Sean glanced at each other and then stepped closer to the bed in total, uncharacteristic sync with one another.

Scott’s gaze jerked up, as Vanessa’s hostile eyes snapped around.

“Hey, there, sweetie, how are you doing?” Sarah focused on Angie.

“Miserable. This could take forever. And I just want her out. I want all this over.”

Angie’s composure slipped as tears filled her eyes.

Sarah rushed over to her bedside and took her hand. “Shh. It’s okay. It will get over. I promise.” She ran her hand in soothing strokes over Angie’s forehead. Sean stood back shuffling his feet, acting stupidly out of place.

“I’m glad you came back,” Angie whispered, almost shyly. Sarah had a feeling Angie felt awkward with her mother’s gaze burning on them.

“I am too.” She could literally feel Scott across the bed listening and watching them.

“I’ll be here if you need anything.”

Angie squeezed her hand, and glanced at Sean with a frigid nod. Sean nodded back. If circumstances weren’t so dire, Sarah would have laughed hysterically that these two had made a baby together but could not maintain eye contact.

“Were you really living with Brett Carlton?”

Sarah straightened up. Vanessa was looking at her as if ready to accuse her of lying.

“Yes, I really was. Why, are you a fan?”

“Well, why wouldn’t I be? Did you bring him with you?” Vanessa asked looking out toward the hallway.

Sarah peeked at Scott who’d yet to acknowledge her.

“No. I didn’t bring him.”

“Too bad. It might make your being here tolerable.”

“I missed you, Vanessa,” Sarah said sweetly instead of getting angry. Not today. Not in front of the two teenagers who needed them to be adults today.

“Mom!” Angie groaned. “Not today, you promised.”

“Okay. Okay. My lips are sealed.”

Sarah snorted unladylike at that improbability. She squeezed Angie’s hand and fled the room. She went outside to the waiting room with Sean, who probably felt even more awkward than she did. But where else could they be this day of all days? Sarah wished she could have Kelly there, but the Tylers were all staying away until Angie delivered the baby, and made her decision for sure.

“Next time, Sean, wear a condom,” Sarah said, after they had been sitting there for an hour.

He jerked at her unexpected statement. “I know.”

“Good. Make sure you say you’re sorry.”

“How do I do that?”

“Talk to her, like you do me.”

“That’s different, you’re my sister.”

“And Angie’s my niece. How would you like it if I knocked up your sister and then didn’t talk to her for six months?”

Scott’s voice interrupted them as he came walking up on the tail end of their conversation. There was barely restrained anger in his tone. His gaze was cold, demanding of Sean.

“I wouldn’t like it. I never thought of it like that. I-I should go talk to her.” Sean looked down hard at his worn sneakers.

“Yes. You should,” Scott said, shaking his head as if talking to a dullard. “And if you do anything to upset her, make no mistake this time I’ll kick your scrawny ass up one side of this hospital and down the other.”

Sean’s posture hunched over even more, and he looked seriously frightened of Scott. He passed around Scott in a wide berth, as Scott stood in the hallway with his hands on his hips, glaring at Sean. His mood foul, emanating off him in waves.

“Was that really necessary?” Sarah drew herself up and stood in front of Scott. “He’s a stupid kid, too, you know. And he’s trying here. He’s really trying. Do you really think threatening him physical harm is going to do any good?”

“Maybe if someone had before, we wouldn’t be here.”

She studied Scott’s face. It was drawn with worry. He was anxious for Angie, and instead of admitting that he was deflecting it with anger, at her, at Sean, at all those things that weren’t Angie.

“He’s fifteen.”

“Yeah, well, poor fucking little kid. I’m over being sorry for him.”

And over me?
Instead she said, “You leave my brother to me. And take your mood to Vanessa. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

He folded his arms over his chest. Glaring at her. “What the hell? You finally talk to your brother?”

“Yes, I did. And we’re forming a very new, very tentative relationship, which I don’t need you bullying through and ruining. So leave him to me, he’s learning, he’s trying. It takes time.”

“When did you find time for that?”

“I met with him before I left town, and talked with him on the phone.”

“Oh, the phone. You know how to use one of those? Really? I thought maybe the technology escaped your grasp.”

“You wanted me to call you?”

“Duh. How did you think I was going to know you were okay or not? How would I know if the asshole who had been terrorizing you, and me via you, for the last few months wasn’t there doing the same? You ever try calling a movie star’s house? They don’t just let you through. And your cell number was out of service.”

Her jaw opened in shock. “I had it disconnected and got a new one. You tried to call me? You’re mad at me because I didn’t call you back?”

“God, you are so clueless sometimes. Of course, that’s what I wanted. You’re so infuriating and reckless.”

She registered in some part of her brain he was calling her names and he really shouldn’t, but the other part of her brain, the love soaked part that had gone deaf, dumb, and blind, was trying to do somersaults of happiness.
He had called her.
He was mad because she hadn’t called him. That meant something. Something important.

“I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me. I thought we were done.”

“When have I ever given you the impression that I don’t have simple, normal, human values? Did you really think that I wouldn’t want to know you were all right? Jesus, you’re something, I’ll give you that. Your lack of opinion of me would be startling if it wasn’t so fucking typical of you.”

Okay, being gruff was one thing, but yelling at her and swearing at her in a hospital with people they knew lurking about wasn’t okay. Even if his irate anger meant he missed her. Yelling at her was out of hand.

“Would you listen to yourself? Quiet down. I really don’t appreciate how you’re talking to me, and about me.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to hurt your delicate sensibilities.”

“What is your problem? Did I miss something where I really was your girlfriend and that you were in love with me? And therefore, you had a right to get mad at me like this?”

His eyes widened at her. She’d managed to shock him, and it didn’t take dirty language to do that. It took talk of normal things like dating, commitment, and love. She pressed her lips into a tight line and nodded her head. “That’s what I thought. So get out of my face and quit yelling at me when you’ve no rights to me. You and I aren’t even friends, are we?”

****

Later, so much later Sarah thought the baby was never going to make it out of Angie, Angie finally started progressing. Scott had all but disappeared since she’d managed to eloquently silence him. Even if she had almost told him outright she was in love with him.

Sean stayed and valiantly tried to hide his growing boredom, after all he was only a kid. Sarah’s heart turned over. Didn’t his fidgeting reveal just how young Sean really was? He was too young for this, for this responsibility and for this blame. Of course, Sean had handled it all wrong. Why would this fifteen-year-old, clueless kid have handled it right?

Then, finally, Scott came out of Angie’s room.

“She’s in labor. The baby is almost here,” he said quietly to Sarah. His earlier anger subsided.

“You look tired.”

“I am. You should call Luke and Kelly. I think now would be a good time.”

Sarah let out breath. “Really? She’s going through with it?”

“Yes.”

A heavy weight squeezed her chest. “I don’t know why this feels so hard.”

“I know,” he said, turning away from her.

Sarah called her friends. They had been waiting on top of the phone for her call. They arrived at the hospital within twenty minutes. They both looked as stressed and tired as Scott did. They were unsmiling, no one bothered with pleasantries or idle chitchat.

Then Vanessa came out. She came straight to Scott. Nodding. The baby girl was here.

“Should she hold her?” Vanessa asked, looking up at Scott as they stood in the doorway of Angie’s room. Sarah could hear only because she strained her ears to eavesdrop.

Scott frowned and scratched the top of his head. “I don’t know.”

Sarah stepped closer. “What kind of question is that? Of course, Angie should hold her baby.”

Scott glanced at Sarah and nodded. “Okay, then would you take Sean in? They need to do this together. They need to hold their baby and make sure giving her up is what they want.”

Sarah nodded, turning toward Sean.