The Mommy Miracle (5 page)

Too hard. Way too hard.

She felt a surge of restlessness and fight, a need for the physical movement that was still so challenging, and told him suddenly, “I seriously do want to get back on the horse.”

“The real horse?” She'd caught his attention again. “You want to ride your horse again?” They were both making slow progress with their meal. “Your thoroughbred? He's leased out, since the accident, isn't he?”

“Leased out, to another rider, Bec, who's a good friend and who would give him back in a heartbeat. She lives out near Pictonville, on forty acres. I could go see him anytime. He's not sold.”

She'd been so happy to discover this. Elin had told her, “Even though Mom's never been a fan of your riding, even in the darkest hours when we questioned how much you'd recover, she wouldn't hear of Irish being sold.”

But now Dev said, “A spirited thoroughbred, Jodie? Twelve hundred pounds of muscle with a back higher than your shoulder?”

“Of course not yet,” she said quickly. “Not him. I'd ride Snowy or Bess.”

“Who are they? Are they quieter?”

“They're our hippotherapy horses, at Oakbank. They're trained for people like me, disabled riders and riders with special needs. You wouldn't believe how
patient and understanding they are. They seem to know exactly what a rider is capable of, whether they have cerebral palsy or a missing limb or autism. I want to ride again. I need to ride. My life just can't change that much.” She had to blink back tears, and was shocked at the way her emotions had shifted so fast. “Dev, I know this isn't what we should be talking about. We should be talking about…about DJ, but that's too big for me right now.”

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Nobody said we had to work everything out in one night.”

“No. Okay. Good.”

“Just eat. Talk about horses, if you want.”

“I think I should go home after we eat.”

“So I'll take you home.”

“Thank you.” She was tired of saying the words, but it seemed as if there were a thousand thank-yous she needed to give, and at least half of them belonged to Dev.

 

Jodie was quiet in the car, and Dev didn't push. It had been a huge day, for both of them.

Certain things stood out from the mess of conflicting emotions. First, the fact that she had never been given a real chance to hold DJ. He didn't know if that was his fault, if he should have made space for it—
forced
it—in the highly charged atmosphere between himself, Elin and Barb. Second, her wobbly little question about whether they were dating. Last fall seemed so long ago to him, but to her it must be so much fresher.

Those nights together. They were vivid and real for him if he thought about them, but too much had been overlaid since, and he didn't think about them often. He
hadn't been in love with her last fall, and he couldn't have fallen in love with her during her long sleep. This wasn't Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.

There'd been desire in their relationship, yes…a ton of it. Care, even. But “in love” meant forever, and he couldn't see it, he wasn't open to it, not with anyone. It didn't fit with the way he saw himself and his life, and it never had.

He loved his parents. He admired them. They were good people. But marriage had made them so slow and staid. They never left their comfort zone. They never seemed to want newness or adventure or zest. His mother said it to him sometimes, with a combination of smugness and resignation. “You'll feel differently when you're married…. You won't care about those things when you're married with a family.”

He'd seen it with most of his married friends, too. They began eating at the same restaurant every week. “They do such a good veal parmigiano.” They didn't renew their passport when it expired. “We won't really travel until the kids are in college. Well, Orlando, of course, for the theme parks.”

If marriage meant losing the capacity for curiosity and courage and adventure, he didn't want it. He'd decided this at twenty and nothing had yet happened to make him change his mind.

Not even DJ, because how would it be good for her, to submit to an institution he didn't want to belong to, purely for her sake?

All he wanted was to know that she was loved, so he could get his own life back on track and stop existing in this limbo of uncertainty.

He wondered what would be happening at the Palmer house. When he pulled into the driveway there was no
visible light in DJ's room. The night-light would be too dim to show from the street. Was she down for the night? Should he take her home?

Jodie hadn't even touched her yet. Had he been wrong to let Barb and Elin whisk the baby back here? Should he have just ordered them to leave? He didn't want the conflict that came with their differing interpretations of what Jodie needed. He wanted to see the bond between Jodie and DJ, but he was scared of it, too.

Scared of its potential power.

He jumped out of the car and came around to open her door and help her out. For a moment, she looked as if she might protest, but she was clearly too tired to manage on her own. The doctors and therapists had said it would be like this. The difference between what she could manage when she was fresh and what she could manage when she was fatigued might be huge at first.

Sure enough, her body looked heartbreakingly awkward and frail in the passenger seat, and after several seconds of intense, futile effort, she told him, “I can't.”

He bent down. Slid his arm beneath hers and around her shoulders. “Hold on.”

But she couldn't do that, either.

“I'll carry you.”

“Dev, no, I'm—”

“You're wiped.”

He shifted position, one arm coming beneath her thighs. It was incredibly awkward, and if she hadn't been such a featherweight, he couldn't have managed it. Once he'd straightened, it was much easier. She laid her head against his shoulder, with her hip pressing into his stomach, and he felt this surge of tenderness and confusion and determination.

Somehow…
Somehow…

Somehow, what?

What did he have the power to do? To make her get better? To make her come to the right decisions about her future? What were they?

“You can put me down now.”

“I'm fine. You don't weigh much.”

“Please.” There was an insistence to it, the old stubbornness about her size and strength that had made him smile and piqued his interest at eighteen. How did such a small body house such a strong spirit?

Gently, he let her down, still holding her firmly until they both knew that her feet would carry her weight. They did, but there wasn't a whole lot of margin for error. “I'll need to lean,” she said.

“Leaning is fine.” Leaning was
too
fine, really. He liked touching her too much, felt too connected to the scent and softness of her skin. He had to fight to keep his awareness under control, with the slight weight of her breasts just above his hand and her silky fall of blond hair in kissing distance.

They'd agreed on this. They weren't dating. There was no place for this helpless attraction. Just imagine if they had a flaming purely-for-the-sex affair and then parted in conflict and anger. It happened all too often. Sex didn't solve anything. It had too much of an agenda of its own.

And where would that leave him? Shut out of DJ's life forever? Or limited to a hard-won weekend visit every three months, exchanging her back and forth in the parking lot of a service-plaza fast-food restaurant halfway between here and New York as if she were a packet of cocaine? Meeting her at the airport, once she was old enough, and discovering she'd become a school kid or an adolescent or an adult since they'd last met?

No. It wouldn't be enough. No!

He wasn't going to be forced back to New York by the sheer strength of Palmer will.

Barbara Palmer stood in the open doorway, having heard the car. She looked watchful and anxious, as if expecting them to have covered major mileage tonight in their talks about the future.

They hadn't.

They'd barely talked about DJ at all. More about horses, in fact. And no matter how much Dev told himself to go with what Jodie needed, to give her time and space, it worried him a little. He didn't want to lose his daughter to her mother, but he wanted her mother to love her. Anything else was unthinkable.

“Did you have a good evening, honey?” Barb said to Jodie.

She thumbed cheekily in his direction. “I never knew he could cook.”

“Are you okay? You look—”

“Tired. Of course. But I'm fine.” She managed the steps into the house. In some ways she was better on steps than on the flat ground. “I think I'll go up right away.”

“She's asleep,” Barb said.

But Jodie hadn't been talking about seeing DJ. From the side, Dev saw the little look of fright and reluctance on her face and said quickly, “We'll take a look at her, though, Barb.” He still had his arm around Jodie's body and could feel her stiffen and flinch.

Barb had seen nothing, it seemed. She began, “You're not going to—?”

“No, I'll leave her here for the night,” he reassured her, “if that's okay.”

“Of course it is! Of course you shouldn't wake her and move her!”

“But we'll take a look, make sure she hasn't kicked off her covers.” He pretended he couldn't tell that Jodie didn't want to.

Why didn't she?

Well, the hugeness of it. It made sense, maybe. She just needed that first bit of ice broken, that first sense of confidence in her new role, that was all. Maybe right now, if they just went into the baby's room together and watched her sleeping, something in her heart would open and settle.

He didn't give her a choice, just took her with him, helping her up the stairs, opening the door of Elin's old room, which was as familiar to him now as if it had once been his. Beside him, he heard Jodie's quick, shaky in-take of breath, as if Elin's door was the gateway to a whole new kingdom.

M
om had used Elin's room as a sewing den for years but hadn't redecorated since Elin moved out. In Jodie's memory, the walls were still painted a defiant, brooding purple and were covered in posters of Elin's teen heartthrobs— John Cusack, Michael J. Fox and Johnny Depp. Actually, Elin in her teens had had pretty good taste.

Now, though…

There was a ballerina night-light plugged into the socket low on the wall beside the crib, Jodie saw. It gave off a quiet, pinkish light, revealing a room utterly different to the one she'd always known. Gone were the purple and posters, to be replaced by walls of a soft golden yellow with a theme of ducks and daisies in the scattered groupings of toys and decorations. There was a crib made of blond wood, with linens of white
broderie anglaise
cotton, a white closet, chest of
drawers and shelves, and in just a couple of places there were color accents in a light sage-green.

On the chest of drawers sat the baby monitor, its glowing light showing that it was switched on. But there was nothing to hear. Baby DJ was fast asleep.

Dev went across to her as if drawn like a magnet, his feet incredibly soft on the polished hardwood floor, a grin breaking onto his face in a way that told Jodie he didn't even know it was there. He had Jodie's hand trapped—not trapped,
held
—in his, so she had no choice but to go with him. He leaned over the crib and didn't say a word, just gazed, and Jodie's heart began to thump and her throat tightened, and the baby…the baby…

Didn't belong to her.

Was gorgeous, an angel, a sweetheart, a darling.

A stranger, when she should have been Jodie's whole world.

She knew this, because she'd seen it just today with Maddy and Lucy. Beyond the new-mother panic, or as a
part
of the new-mother panic, Maddy had been utterly mesmerized by Lucy, utterly in love with her. The way Elin had been with her firstborn, and her second and third. The way Lisa had been with hers.

Transformed.

Mothers to their bones.

The way Dev was already a father to his bones. A daddy. DJ's daddy. “Isn't she beautiful?” he whispered, as if he couldn't keep back the words.

“Yes. Yes, she is.” She learned the baby's little face off by heart—the button of a nose, the plump cheeks—and thought,
at least I'll recognize her now…

“I'm sure she won't wake up if you touch her.”

“How? Where? I mean, I really don't want to wake her up.”

“You won't. Anywhere.”

Where would I touch her if she belonged to me?

Jodie didn't know. She reached out her hand, and felt Dev holding her tight as if he knew she might otherwise fall. She thought she might put her hand on DJ's head, to see if her hair felt as silky as Lucy's, but it didn't feel right. It felt…

Not her head.

She laid her palm on the baby's back, instead. She was sleeping on her side, propped in that position with two little baby quilts rolled up, so Jodie had to slip her fingers between the roll and the stretchy fabric of DJ's miniature pink sleep suit.

“She's breathing, I promise,” Dev said.

“Oh, I wasn't— I was just—”

“It's okay. I didn't mean— It's okay. I check that she's breathing all the time.”

But she didn't feel as if it was okay, and took her hand away. She wasn't strong enough to keep her arm in that position for long anyhow. It would start to disobey the signal from her brain pretty soon and just flop.

Flop onto DJ and wake her up.

Mom was hovering outside, peering around the door, which Dev had left ajar. “I thought about putting the monitor in your room, honey, but that's probably not a good idea just yet,” she said in a kind of stage whisper as Jodie and Dev came out. “It would be hard for you to get out of bed quick enough to go to her.”

Would I need to go to her that fast?
Jodie wondered. Do all normal moms leap out of bed the second they hear the first tiny cry? What about in the dark, ancient
days before baby monitors were invented? How fast did moms get to their babies back then?

She could argue the issue. She could insist on Mom letting her have the monitor.

Dev had gone watchful again, but she hid her panic, made it about common sense instead. “Yes, you'd better have it, Mom. I'd hate to…you know…” She indicated the common-sense issues with a flap of her fingers.

I'd hate to only reach her after that big spotty monster hiding under her crib had already drooled all over her. I'd hate no one to get there in time to catch her reciting Shakespeare in her sleep.

“I know. I think you're right. I'm sure that's the best decision,” Mom said, as if it were momentous, like deciding on risky corrective surgery, or what college DJ would attend. “We can keep it that way as long as you want. Well, when she's sleeping here, of course.”

Dev said nothing.

 

“I've done a spreadsheet,” Barb announced when Dev arrived back at the Palmers' house the next morning.

“A spreadsheet?”

“I can do one every week. Here's a copy I printed out for you. The schedule has gotten more complicated now that Jodie is home, but see the color coding?”

Dev took the page. Yes, indeedy, he could see the color coding. Yellow for Jodie's hours at day rehab, blue for DJ's naps, even though she wasn't nearly as predictable in that department as the spreadsheet suggested. Green apparently meant DJ at Devlin's and he didn't like the scattered nature of those color blocks. So he was only having her two nights this week? Whose idea was that?

Barb had said to him some weeks ago, when Jodie's recovery began to unfold with such positive signs, “Now you'll be able to go back to New York,” and he couldn't get those words out of his head. Did the Palmers want him to go? Did he?

Meanwhile, where was pink for Dev, Jodie and DJ go to the park? Or, better, lilac for Barb, Elin and Lisa get the hell out of town for a few hours so Jodie can make up her own mind about what she wants to do with the baby?

In fact, he couldn't see one color block or notation in the schedule that gave Jodie any time with DJ on her own.

“I mean, it's just a draft, obviously,” Barb said, reading the disapproval in his face.

He said in apology, “I'm not a huge fan of spreadsheets, to be honest.”

“But you must use them all the time, in your work.”

“People put them together on my behalf. And I file them in the cylindrical file.” He mimed balling a sheet of paper and tossing it in the trash.

“You throw them
out?
”

“Spreadsheets can make you feel like you're organized when really you're not, don't you think? Like bullet-point presentations. I'm not a fan of bullet points, either.” He dropped the flippant tone and spoke gently, because despite everything, he was becoming fond of his daughter's grandmother. He knew she meant well. “You know DJ won't nap to a schedule, Barb, so why pretend about it on paper? We don't know how much time Jodie's going to be spending with her at this stage. Can't we keep it flexible?”

Barbara pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I'm just trying to manage this situation.”

“I know. And I appreciate it. But I don't think a spreadsheet is the answer. Where are they, anyhow?”

“DJ is in her bassinet on the deck. I just gave her a bottle. Elin was helping Jodie in the shower, but I think they're done.”

“So Jodie's upstairs?”

“Let me call her. I'm sure she hasn't come down.”

He hesitated. It bothered him that Jodie wasn't with the baby, and yet why should it? What did he expect? He'd been so afraid of the opposite happening, of the love kicking in too fiercely and possessively and shutting him out, and now he'd done a full turn-around and wanted to push the other way.

It wasn't logical.
He
wasn't logical. He was a mess of conflicting wants—to go back to his real career in international law, yet keep the strongest possible bond with DJ, to see Jodie discover her love, yet for that love to be generous when it came to his own needs.

Jodie had huge needs of her own. She still struggled to manage dressing and showering and the most ordinary day-to-day things. She was so brave about it. Brave and funny and stubborn. She couldn't have taken over all of DJ's care even if she wanted to.

Did she want to? This was the crunch, the big question. Was she holding back from DJ in order to work harder on her own recovery, or because she couldn't cope with suddenly being a mom?

“I'll go up,” he told Barb.

“I'll be in the kitchen, if you need me,” she said. “You'll…say the right things, won't you?” Her face twisted with worry and he felt his frustration build. What did Barb want from him? It would help so much if she could just relax a little.

He found Jodie in her room doing some range-of
motion exercises for her arms and legs. She wore calf-length black leggings and a strappy white tank, little more than a scrap of stretch fabric and lace. The swell of her breasts peeked above the neckline of the tank, and the leggings made her tight, round butt seem even tighter and rounder. Dev had trouble keeping his gaze where it belonged.

But there was a serious point to the stretchy clothing. She was working hard. There was a sheen of sweat across her forehead and her collarbone, and she lifted her top away from her stomach to let in some air. “Nothing's working this morning,” she said, slightly breathless. “Starting to come back a little.”

“How about doing them on the deck?” He didn't like the way she was shut in her room like this, with DJ out of sight and out of mind.

“I guess that would be okay.”

She managed the stairs on her own, while he went a few steps ahead of her, ready to brace her if she fell. When they reached the deck and she saw the bassinet with its lacy white canopy, she froze for a moment. She hadn't known until now that DJ was out here. “Oh, right,” she murmured, then began to grab the air with her hand as if seeking something solid for support. Dev helped her get comfortable on the built-in wooden bench that ran along the railing and went to peek at his daughter.

She'd woken up. The wicker of the bassinet creaked a little as she tensed her body and let out a whimpering cry. She writhed, as if her digestion was bothering her, but then her gut settled and she blinked a few times and looked up at the view. Dappled leaves. Dev had learned that small babies, when awake, just lo-o-ove to look at dappled leaves with a background of sky.

Ooh, and here's something else they love to look at—their daddy. She caught sight of him and her face broke into the darlingest smile in the world. “That's right, sweetheart,” he whispered, and smiled back. He was pitifully in love with her, and “in love” meant forever, and he didn't even care.

Jodie was watching him, he could see, distracted from the exercises she'd been so dedicated about up in her room. He felt a thud of sudden vulnerability—all that fear of the unknown where DJ's future was concerned.

He had to bite the bullet.

They both did.

Jodie had to have her first hold.

He didn't give her a choice today, just picked DJ up—she was wearing a stretch-cotton smock dress with tiny blue flowers on a white background, and matching bloomers—and brought her across. “Here, why don't you take her for a bit?”

“I—I— Now?” Jodie stammered.

“Yes, but you need a couple of cushions, right?”

“I think so.”

“I'll grab some.” He was more than capable of managing a baby and two cushions at once. He'd recently managed a baby, a poopy diaper and a handful of wipes with a phone pressed to his ear at the same time, talking international law. He settled the cushions on either side of her.

“Can you…? I'm leaning, I think.”

She was right. Her body had slipped a little on the bench. He sat down beside her and nudged her bare, pale shoulder with his.

“I hate this,” she said.

“
Hate
it?”

“No… No!” she corrected quickly. “Not the baby! Not her. My body. The fact that sometimes I'm not coordinated enough to sit straight, by myself.”

“Right. You'll get there.”

“I know. But it's frustrating.” She sounded wobbly. Scared. Maybe she didn't hate the idea of holding the baby, but she definitely had issues with it. Because she didn't trust her body?

“I would never let her fall,” he said, and lifted the baby across.

 

This is my baby.
To Jodie it still didn't seem real.
This is my baby, in my arms.

DJ didn't seem to consider this event to be miraculous in any way. She looked up at Jodie, fixing her gaze just below her hairline. She didn't smile. Her eyes were a dark, swimmy blue and she had translucent blisters on her lips from sucking on her bottle. The neckline of her tiny dress was still a little damp from where some of the formula had leaked from the corners of her mouth. She felt heavy.

No, it wasn't the weight, it was the tension in Jodie's muscles. “I didn't feel this tired, holding Lucy yesterday,” she said.

Dev had risen and moved away. He stood on the far side of the deck, beneath the thickest shade from the black-cherry tree, watching her to check that she was all right. “You were in a chair with armrests for that,” he said. “And Lucy's a little lighter than DJ. Can you not manage it? Let me know if—”

“No, I want to.” Something kicked inside her, a stirring of tenderness and love. But it wasn't strong enough. It wasn't the overwhelming certainty Jodie wanted it to be.

I love her,
she said inside her head.

No, that wasn't quite right.

She tried again.
I love you!