Twelve Days (4 page)

Unsalvageable children, written off completely. Rachel hated that idea.

But after twelve years, she and Sam had tried everything else. She didn't see how they'd ever have children any other way, and now she feared they never would. When Will left, Sam said that was it. They were done trying. They weren't going to get their hearts broken like that ever again.

Which meant she'd just have to talk him into this, just until after Christmas. She'd promised Miriam.

Rachel forced a smile across her face and had to brace herself, just for the sight of her husband, the man she loved and had wanted from way back before all the bad times. But just before she opened the door, she heard something odd.

"So the place'll be ready by Christmas?" Sam asked.

That was odd. She didn't know of any job he was finishing by Christmas. In fact, he'd been at loose ends since he finished the Randall house five days ago, a full week earlier than he was scheduled to, and his next clients weren't about to let him start renovating their house until after the holidays. Sam did not like to be at loose ends. He didn't know what to do with himself.

"Okay," she heard him say. "A few days later? Hell, Rick, you know I'm not picky. If anything's really wrong, I can fix it. Christmas is on a Monday this year, right? How about the Tuesday after Christmas?"

What in the world? Rachel wondered.

"I'll take it. A bed, a bathroom, and a kitchenette is fine. I don't need anything else."

A bed?
Why did Sam need a bed?

"Yeah, I'm sure," Sam said. "This is what I have to do."

Oh, no,
Rachel thought, sinking down to the floor, her back against the wall.
Oh, no.

"No, I haven't told her," Sam said. "Her whole family was just here for her father's sixtieth birthday, and now it's almost Christmas. If I move out now, nobody'll talk about anything but that. It'll ruin the holiday, and there's just no point, especially if I can't get into the apartment until after Christmas. I'll wait to tell her. We'll do it nice and quick. That'll be the best thing for everybody."

She couldn't hear what Rick said, but Rachel thought,
Please. Please let him try to talk Sam out of it.

"No. I'm sure. It's over," Sam said. "Look, I've got to go. Thanks."

And then there was nothing but silence. Rachel shoved her hand against her mouth. She was breathing too hard, and her chest hurt, but she managed to muffle the sounds and somehow she wasn't crying. She was too stunned to cry.

Sam was leaving her.

The Tuesday after Christmas, he'd be gone.

And he wasn't even going to tell her.

Sam. Leaving.

They'd been married for twelve years. He'd seen her through the most awkward years of her life and, later, the hardest ones. She'd believed he would always be by her side, no matter what.

Apparently, he had other ideas.

Rachel stood up to go. She didn't want to know his secret. Maybe if he could live with the pretense, so could she.

She'd taken three steps toward the door when she bumped into a stack of wood on the floor, making an awful racket.

Sam called out, "I'm in the office. Come on back."

She closed her eyes and swore softly. She just wanted to hide somewhere, until she wasn't so shaken, so stunned. Until it didn't hurt to breathe.

But he knew she was here, and she had to talk to him about the children. She'd promised to take care of them. They were only staying until after Christmas, too. Sam and the children might well leave her on the same day.

Rachel closed her eyes and pulled open the door at the same time he came out. They nearly ran into each other. He caught her, his hands on her arms; it was the first time he'd touched her in days, maybe weeks, and they stood there awkwardly staring at each other, too close and way too full of hurt for two people who were supposed to love each other forever.

Sam let go almost immediately and backed away.

He looked guilty, and she wondered if she looked guilty herself.

"Hi." She forced the word out, looking down at his cluttered desk, at his phone, at his window, anything but him. Then lied without one twinge of guilt. "I didn't think you were here."

He looked as shook up as she was. She thought he was going to call her on that but all he said was, "I was taking care of some things in the office. Did you... need something?"

"Yes." She needed so very much. She couldn't begin to tell him now, so she concentrated on the children. "Miriam's here—"

"Is it Will? Did she bring Will back?" he asked urgently, and for a second the old Sam was back. The one who cared. The one who didn't live behind all the walls they'd erected.

She missed him, she realized. She missed her husband a great deal.

And he was leaving her.

Right after Christmas.

"No," she said. "Not Will. He's fine, she said. So far, so good."

Sam made an exasperated sound. So he was still angry, she thought. He still hurt, too. She hadn't known that, and he probably didn't know how angry she still was, either. They didn't share much of anything anymore.

"Rachel? Are you all right?"

"Yes. I just have to tell you something, and you're not going to like it."

He paused, his gaze narrowing on her face. He didn't even seem to breathe. She wondered if he thought she was leaving him, or asking him to leave. Truth was, it had never even occurred to her. She felt so foolish now, but the thought had never crossed her mind.

"Miriam found some children in trouble," she blurted out. "Two girls and a boy, all from the same family. They don't have anyplace to go."

"What does that have to do with us?" he asked carefully.

"We're still on the list. Of approved foster homes—"

"No," he said right away.

"We are. They never took us off—"

"I don't give a damn about any list."

"She needs us," Rachel argued. "These kids need us."

"We agreed."

"No, we didn't," she realized. "You decided. You just told me that we wouldn't do this anymore."

"We can't," he said. "It nearly tore us apart the first time. You know that. You know how hard it was."

"My whole adult life has been hard," she said. "Every bit of it, and when I think about it, I honestly can't see it getting much worse than it is right now."

After all, Will was gone, back to his pathetic excuse for a mother. Rachel's husband of a dozen years was leaving her, and she spent her days in a rocking chair in a dark corner of her house not seeing anyone or doing anything.

Sam stiffened, looked harder and sadder than ever. "You'll get yourself hurt again, Rachel."

"Maybe," she said. "Maybe I'm just doomed to live my life with one hurt after another. I don't know. But these kids don't have anybody right now, and I'm going to help them."

"What?"

"I am. I'm doing it," she insisted, standing up to him as she seldom had in their entire marriage.

He was a good man, good down to the core, both protective and considerate of her. Normally, she would have talked this over with him, and they would have decided together, but not anymore. He was leaving her. She'd have to think for herself, and she might as well start now.

"It's just for a little while, Sam. For Christmas. Miriam says all her foster homes are full. She doesn't have any other place to put these kids," Rachel said. "They need someone, and I can help them. I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing it for the kids."

"I won't do it," he insisted.

"Fine. Don't. It's not like you're at the house that often anyway, anymore. Show up for breakfast and supper, if you want, and I'll feed you. Dump your clothes in the laundry room and I'll make sure they get cleaned. But that's it. I doubt you'll even have to see the children."

"Rachel!"

"I mean it," she said, a little breathless at standing up to him. "I'm going to see that they have a safe place to stay and a nice Christmas."

"No matter what I say?"

"I know what you have to say about this." And he was leaving anyway.

Rachel didn't want him to go yet. For once, she wanted her house full of children, wanted to know how that felt. Maybe she'd pretend that these were her children, that this unreal time was her life, the way she'd always believed it would be. Maybe she would find she couldn't do without that. That no matter what the risks involved, she had to reach out and take that chance, one more time, to find the life she'd always imagined for herself.

These children she would borrow for a time, weave her fantasies around them, her life with children at Christmas, the way she always thought it would be. For that, she supposed she needed Sam's support.

"I haven't asked you for anything in the longest time," she said softly. "And I promise, I will never ask you for anything ever again. But these children need us, and I need to help them. Give me this, Sam. This one thing."

"It's a mistake," he insisted.

"Well, it's not like we've never made a mistake before," she said, then broke off at the look on his face. The hard, harsh, painful look.

What did he think she meant? That it was all a mistake? Surely he didn't think that. She'd never wanted anyone but him, but she'd always worried that given a choice, he never would have married her. Like a coward, she'd never found the courage to ask. She didn't have it even now after twelve years.

"It's not like we've never been hurt before," she said, not even looking at him now.

"That's no reason to get hurt again, Rachel."

He waited there a long time, looking at her and then looking away. She saw him work for every breath he took, saw him shake his head back and forth, as if he were about to refuse.

"Just until after Christmas," she said.

"All right," he said finally. "If that's what you want."

And it wasn't until later, when she was alone and headed back to the house, that she realized what she'd done, what she'd promised him. If she couldn't ask him for anything else, that meant when the Tuesday after Christmas came and he was ready to go, she couldn't ask him to stay.

* * *

Sam stood just outside the back door and stared at the back of the house.

There were children inside. It literally took his breath away, the thought of children inside his house.

And they were staying. His wife had decided. She'd feed Sam and do his laundry, and other than that he could just stay out of her way.

Sam was still smarting from that, still in shock, honestly. She had never made such a monumental decision on her own, never suggested that she'd be just fine without him. He'd spent weeks worrying about that—about whether Rachel would be okay without him.

But he wasn't gone yet, and it was still up to him to protect her as best he could. Determined to do just that, Sam stalked into the house. The back door opened into the laundry room, a catchall area for winter coats and boots and shoes. He kicked his off, hung up his coat, and stepped into the kitchen, warily looking around for the children or his wife or her busybody aunt, Miriam.

He found a little boy shoveling pumpkin bread into his mouth and gulping down a glass of milk that looked two times too big for the boy's hands. The boy was four or five, and he had dark hair that hung down into his eyes. He needed a haircut in the worst way, had on jeans that were frayed nearly all the way through at the knees, and worn sneakers that had to leave his feet wet and freezing in the snow. The boy had big, dark eyes and a mischievous grin. His mouth was sticky with cream and cake crumbs, and he was going at it as if he hadn't eaten in days.

Sam had taken a two-by-four to the chest one time when somebody swung a board around unexpectedly and caught him unaware, and the sight of the hungry, ill-cared-for boy felt much like that. A two-by-four to the chest.

The boy reached for another swig of milk and discovered Sam at the same time. Startled, he set the milk down, missing the counter. It hit the floor, milk and bits of glass going everywhere. The boy gave a startled cry, then looked at Sam as if he were some kind of monster that might attack at any second.

"I'm sorry," he gulped.

Sam frowned at the boy and then back at the mess. The boy went to scramble down off the stool, and Sam barely caught him in time and put him back up there. Sam let go of him as quickly as possible, refusing to think about what it felt like to have a little boy in his arms.

"Sit there," he said. "There's glass, and you don't need to be down there in it."

"I'm sorry," the boy said again, almost crying now.

Rachel, Miriam, and a girl with a baby in her arms rushed into the kitchen. "What happened?" Rachel asked.

"I broke it!" the boy wailed. "An' I made a mess."

"It's all right, sweetheart." Miriam stroked the boy's hair.

The girl gave the baby to Rachel. Sam looked away, not wanting to see Rachel with a baby in her arms. It had been hard enough to watch her with her nieces and nephews this weekend. Then the girl grabbed some paper towels and reached for the mess.

"I'll get it," she said.

"No," Sam said, maybe more sharply than he should have. "There's glass. I'll get it."

"I can take care of him," the girl said, a little breathless and maybe scared herself.

"You're just a child," he pointed out.

"I'm almost twelve."

"Which most people consider a child," he said, too harshly yet again. She looked as if she was about to cry, too.

Rachel stepped in and said, "You know, this is my fault. I should have given him a plastic cup. Then we wouldn't have anything but milk to clean up."

"I'm sorry," the boy said again.

"It's okay," Rachel insisted. "Zach, this is my husband, Sam, and he's not mad at you. He's just worried you were going to get hurt. You, too, Emma."

"Hi," Zach said tentatively, all big dark eyes and too much hair.

"Hi," Sam said, doing his best to wipe the scowl off his face.

"Emma, say hello to Sam," Rachel instructed.

"Hi," she said, obviously hurt by the fact that he'd called her a child.

"And this"—Rachel turned so the baby curled up against her shoulder was more or less facing him—"is Grace. Isn't she just an angel?"