February 13, 2008
“MS. SLATER, THIS IS THE New Hope Fertility Clinic calling to confirm your appointment for in vitro fertilization tomorrow afternoon at two….”
Shivering as she brushed snow off the sleeve of her cashmere coat, Monica Slater, newly separated from her husband, half listened as the young receptionist read a list of procedures over the answering machine before clicking off.
There were two other messages. They could wait.
Monica turned her attention from calls she didn’t want to the mail she’d brought in from the box at the end of her drive, sure she didn’t want it, either. Not even the bulky, eight-and-a-half-inch manila envelope.
The truth of the matter was,
nothing sounded good at the moment. Not a hot-fudge sundae, a sinfully
delicious steak or French fries. Not a chat with her best friend from
college—or a vacation to
She was in a funk. Plain and simple.
The electric bill was paid. She’d done it online that morning. One envelope tossed. She didn’t want a subscription to a new just-for-women magazine—even at the introductory price. Who cared if her favorite dress shop was having a fifty percent off sale to valued customers that weekend?
Or that she’d just closed the deal of her life that morning?
What did any of it matter?
She was thirty years old. An investment broker at the top of her field—at least
in
And what did it all mean when the only voice that greeted her every night was a recording telling her how many messages she had?
At least the manila envelope distracted her for long enough to give her a five-second break from the relentless self-pity she’d been indulging in for most of the afternoon.
It was 4:00 p.m. on February 13th. Less than twelve hours until the first Valentine’s Day she’d spent by herself since she’d met Shane ten years before.
Damn it.
A tear dripped onto the back of the envelope, turning the slightly gold color a deeper brown.
Flipping it over, Monica glanced at the return address.
Margaret Grace Warren. Her
sixty-year-old paternal aunt. The woman who’d alternately blessed Monica’s
life—and driven her crazy. Monica had been sixteen when Aunt Margaret moved in
with them, taking over the household duties, and leaning on Monica’s dad— her
older brother—more and more for emotional and financial support. But, until
five years ago, she’d been the only mother figure Monica had ever known. She
was still living in their family house in
Almost thirty years after the death of Carol Bailey— Monica’s mother.
Monica had talked to Aunt Margaret the previous week.
CURIOSITY DISPELLING self-pity for a second, Monica slid open the envelope. A small, light-brown leather book, wrapped and tied with a thin leather strap, fell out—smelling of age and…something else.
Running her fingers over the softness of its cover, Monica slowly untied the book’s strap, careful when it started to fray. Obviously this was something of her father’s. But what?
And why hadn’t Aunt Margaret called before sending it?
The pages in the small bound book cracked as they pulled away from their binding. The ink was faded.
And the writing definitely wasn’t her father’s. It was smaller, rounder. A woman’s handwriting. Or a child’s.
With a gentle flip through the pages, Monica noticed the dates first. One at the top of each page. Starting with the year before she was born.
Then she saw the words my baby and sank to the floor.
January 25, 1977
Dear Diary, I talked to Chris again last night.Mom
and Dad were out playing bingo at the
Everyone thinks I’m too young. But I turned eighteen two months ago. I’m a legal adult.And for a few months, until his birthday, I’m only nine years younger than Chris instead of ten.
Oh, Dearest Diary,am I being stupid? Listening to my heart when it’s telling me that this is the love of my life? THE ONE?
Chris says we have to wait until I’m a little older, until I graduate from high school, go to college, but when I ask, he can’t deny that he cares for me. He won’t say he does. But he can’t say he doesn’t. He just gets this look in his eyes—those brown eyes that hide so much—and then he smiles at me and tells me to grow up fast.
We didn’t talk all that long last night. His mother was awake and in pain and besides he keeps telling me that we have to be careful, that it’s not right to have this friendship without Mom and Dad knowing. I keep telling him that all my life I’ve watched out for them as much as they have me, but I don’t think he really believes me.How could he? His mom is younger than they are.
He’ll be coming into the drugstore tomorrow to pick up the next batch of injections for his mom. I don’t know how he does it, Dearest Diary. Staying in that tiny little apartment by the hospital.Watching her fade away like that.
It’ll be better for him when
his sister finishes school in
I hope so, too.
But I also worry about
what’s going to happen when Margaret’s here in
I’ll just die if he does. Or I’ll follow him.There’s no other choice.
I can’t live without him.
February 13, 2008, 4:22 p.m.
WITH HER GAZE still on the page, on her mother’s scrawled handwriting, absorbing far more than what was written there, Monica made her way into the living room, climbing into Shane’s soft suede recliner, as she tried to connect the words she’d just read with the people she knew and loved.
Odd to see her beloved
grandparents described as old back in 1977. Made them seem much older than
their eighty-eight and ninety-two years, respectively. Aunt Margaret at school
in
And Chris?
Given Monica’s perception of her father as she remembered him—an aging schoolteacher who never got too excited about anything—she found it nearly impossible to fathom this account of a young man who’d inspired such passion. About as impossible as putting the leather notebook down.
January 26, 1977
It’s me again.I feel like a completely different person than I did last night. Today was the best—and the worst. I wore my new denim miniskirt—the one I had to fight with Mom to be allowed to buy—and my striped blue-and-brown-and-white sweater with my brown boots. It wasn’t really cold out today, thank goodness. I saw Chris’s eyes darken when he first saw me. Like he wanted me. Like this hunger I feel for him is inside him, too.
The feeling was so powerful, Diary. So real.He wasn’t looking at me like I was too young.But rather, like I was the only woman in the world for him. My whole body flooded with love and I forgot where we were.Even forgot for a second that we’re staying “just friends” for now.
Then he looked away and I wanted to die.To run to him. To make him acknowledge this craziness between us. I know he felt it, too. He’s taking this damned chivalry thing too far. I’m so scared that he’s going to blow the chance of a lifetime for us. The one great love.
And all because of a few birthdays?
Doesn’t he get that I’m not
like everyone else?That I’m not a kid? Growing up the only child of people old
enough to be your grandparents is great in some ways.You get all the attention
and love and support you could ever want. But you learn to love books more than
rock music, to watch the news instead of
You grow up fast.And you learn very quickly to discern what matters most.
Love, Dearest Diary. That’s what matters most. And finding someone to share it with for a lifetime and beyond.A love like Mom and Dad’s.
Mom was only eleven when they met. And eighteen when they married. My age now.
I’ve never told Chris that, though. I’d die rather than have him think I’m hinting.
Anyway, he said he didn’t like the outfit. He told me I’m too pretty to be dressing like that.That I’d attract the wrong kind of attention.He kept looking at my legs, but it didn’t feel as good as the time I’d had on my hip-huggers and platform shoes and I’d caught him looking at me.Twice. He’d smiled then.
Today he just frowned.And watched other guys watching me.
I threw the skirt away as soon as I got home.
January 28, 1977
Today’s Friday. I haven’t seen or talked to Chris for two days. I needed him so badly last night. Dad’s been having chest pains. And they said that the arteries to his heart are hardening.He might have to go on oxygen at night sometimes. He’s only sixty-two.Mom looked kind of scared,with those pinched creases around her mouth that mean she’s holding stuff in.
Even after forty years of marriage,they’re as much in love as schoolkids, holding hands, kissing. If one of them goes, the other will, too. I just know it.
They both acted like everything was fine. And maybe it will be.There’s some new medication that slows down hardening of the arteries. And the doctor talked about surgery if things get really bad.
But when they left for choir practice, I walked around the house and cried. I picked up the phone to call Chris, but then I thought of him standing in the store the other day,pretending he didn’t find my outfit attractive, and I wondered what was the use.
If he wants to pretend there’s nothing between us, that’s his choice. I certainly can’t force him to love me. I don’t even want to.
I want a man to love me like my father loves my mother. Openly and without shame.
I talked to Val for a bit. While we were on the phone her youngest sister—you know,the four-year-old, Kristy—called out to her and when Val said, “Just a sec,”Kristy shouted,“No more secs”at the top of her lungs. Val’s mom thought she said sex and came running. I could hear it all happening and I laughed so hard I almost started crying again. I love Val. She’s the best friend a girl could have.
I was going to tell her about Dad, but by that time I was feeling so much better, I didn’t want to get all bummed out again.We made plans to go to the mall tomorrow.
We were still laughing about Kristy when we hung up.And then when I went to bed I started to worry if Mom’s heart would go bad, too. She’ll be sixty in a couple of years.That sounds so old to me now.
Brett Fry asked me to go see Rocky tonight. Such a stupid boy thing, to ask a girl to a boxing movie on their first date,but I’d actually like to see this one. Seems all the kids at school saw it over Christmas break and everyone’s talking about it. Even Val. She saw it with her brothers and sisters and said it was the best romance ever.
But I’m not in the mood for a romance tonight.
And I couldn’t bear the thought of going out with another guy.Not even Brett Fry,who I had a crush on my whole sophomore and junior years. I look at him now and wonder why I thought he was such a hunk.
Anyway, I’m still freaked out about Dad. So I just wanted to stay close to home tonight. I wish Chris would call,but I know he won’t.He’s never called me.
I’m not going to call him anymore, either. Contrary to what he might think, I’m not some little schoolgirl with a crush. And I don’t chase guys. Even when I’m sure he’s the love of my life.
So, Dear Diary, it might be just me and you for a while. I’m glad you’re here. Some nights I don’t know what I’d do without you.
February 13, 2008, 4:45 p.m.
MONICA TOLD HERSELF that it was only because she hadn’t been sleeping well that she had to wipe tears from her eyes before she could go on. She always got weepy when she was tired.
The tears had nothing to do with her understanding her mother’s pain. Nothing to do with Shane’s insistence that he knew what was best for her future happi-ness—a life without him and impotence.
Like sex was important to her.
Making love was important—and something they could do in various ways every single day, even if Shane’s condition turned out to be more than temporary.
But like Chris with Carol, Shane was being stubborn and domineering in his insistence that Monica didn’t know her own mind as well as he did. That she couldn’t see into the future like he could. He’d moved out. Was filing for divorce—to set her free.
And if at some point he became a fully functioning male again—as he put it—and she was unattached, they could try a second time.
Like Chris with Carol, Shane was leaving her no choice but to carry on. Alone.
But unlike Carol, Monica didn’t have a Dear Diary to turn to for comfort.
January 31, 1977
Oh, Dearest Diary, I’m so confused! Why don’t they tell you that love really isn’t a splendid thing? It hurts and it makes you crazy and drives you to do things you promise yourself you aren’t going to do.
I spent the whole weekend convincing myself that I was over Chris. He was a fluke.A ship in the night. Someone I once knew. I’m not going to be a fool. Or make a fool of myself over him.
I can’t make him accept me in his life, no matter how much I believe our connection is forever.
But I can’t resist him, even
for sixty seconds.Af-ter all my decisions and talking to myself this weekend,
when he came into the store today I couldn’t look away. I was only scheduled
from five to seven because of the meeting with a rep from the
I thought I was safe.
And then there he was. Standing at my register, buying a pack of mints. Nothing else. No medicine. Nothing.
It was obvious, Dear Diary, that he was there to see me.
I can hear his voice now. Can remember every single word he said.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”I wasn’t lying. I was fine. I’d moved on.
And then he lowered his head like he does, his brown eyes reaching into mine,and said,“You sure?”
And I went and got all stupid and started to cry. I couldn’t speak.Just nodded.Thank goodness there were no other customers in line. Kind of odd how the whole store was deserted right then.
I don’t know if that was a good thing or not.
“I was getting worried about you.”
My heart began to pound when he said those words.You should’ve heard the tone of his voice. It was all warm and soft and deep. And his eyes…I kid you not, I could’ve melted in them.
I guess my heart did.
“Why?”I asked him,shocked that I could even get a word out, my throat was so tight.
He shrugged like he wanted to look all casual and nonchalant,but he’d already given himself away. The pack of mints did that.
“I haven’t heard from you in a few days,” he said. I stared at him.“And then when I came in today and you weren’t here…”
I knew it, Dear Diary! He’d already been in today. He’d come back just to see me.
You tell me, how could I resist that?
I have no idea how I managed it, but somehow I was able to keep looking him straight in the eye and say,“I was beginning to feel like a pest.”
He frowned, like he truly had no idea what I was talking about.“Why?”
“Calling you all the time.”
“I look forward to those calls.”
“But you won’t call me.”
“It’s not appropriate.”
“Well, maybe it’s not appropriate for me to call you, either.”
I had him there, Diary. I could see it in the drop of his shoulders and the way his mouth got straight.
I couldn’t believe what happened next. I expected him to make some innocuous comment and tell me to have a good day and leave.To tell me that he’d see me the next time he was in.
I was all prepared to tell him that no,he wouldn’t. I’d switch my schedule if I had to. Quit my job even. But I couldn’t keep pretending.
I didn’t get a chance to say any of that.
“What do you want from me?” His question was so sincere, the thoughts just ran out of my head.
And then, before I could start to think again, I opened my mouth.“I want you to acknowledge that we care about each other.That it isn’t just me who feels this…whatever it is…between us.”
He didn’t say anything for the longest time. I was getting worried that if he didn’t hurry up, someone was going to come in and interrupt us before we could get through the most crucial moment of my life.
“I’m ten years older than you,”he said.
I hate those words,Diary.I really,really hate them.
“So?”
“I’m a high school teacher and you’re a senior.”
“You aren’t teaching now. And you don’t teach at my school. And I’m going to be graduating in a few months anyway.”
His eyes narrowed and he stared at me some more.I wish I’d had on something a little cuter than the old jeans and sweater I’d worn because they were comfortable and because who really cared how I looked anymore?
“Have you told your parents about us?”
He’d asked me that before. He didn’t understand that I didn’t tell my parents a lot of things. He didn’t know about my dad’s recent health news.
“No.”
I could see how disappointed he was and started to explain but before I got any words out he held up his hand.
“Call me when you do.”
Without so much as looking at me again, he turned and walked out. I watched him all the way down the block but he didn’t glance back even once.
February 2, 1977
Dearest Diary, I told them. I didn’t want to. Didn’t feel it was the best way to handle this situation. I’m eighteen and within my legal rights to have whatever relationships I choose to have.But I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about the determination in Chris’s eyes.
He said he looked forward to my calls and the idea that I was denying him that brief respite during these hard times, while his mother’s slowly dying, clawed at my heart.
Mom and Dad forbade me to see him or speak to him ever again.I’m sure they would’ve forbidden me to think of him, too, if they’d been able to figure out how to do it.
They made it sound like he’s a pervert.They don’t know him or anything about him. And yet they’re certain their judgment is sound.
And that mine,because I’ve never had a boyfriend before, is not.
I love my parents, Dearest Diary. Incredibly much. But I cannot just arbitrarily accept this erroneous decision. Particularly when it involves the rest of my life.
They’re the ones who’ve always warned me about the dangers of following the crowd. They taught me to think for myself.
Remember that time I went to church camp with Sheila and the people there told me Mom and Dad weren’t saved because they didn’t go to Sheila’s church? I called them crying and hysterical, sure they were going to burn in hell and begged them to come and get me. I expected them to be as scared as I was. Instead, they very calmly told me to question what I was being told.To think about who I knew God to be.And then to figure out for myself if he would exact such payment.
They never did tell me what they thought about the church’s edict, or their own salvation.
I ended up staying the whole week at that camp. I helped with a service project, making little outfits for premature babies in a Third World country.That was the first time I learned about loving people who weren’t close to me, people I didn’t even know, and it changed my life.And I determined for myself which religious teachings were true for me.
Remember how, when Sheila found out I wasn’t going to be “saved,” she no longer wanted to hang out with me?
That hurt a lot, for a while. But I was glad I’d decided for myself what was right and true.
Which is why I can’t let Mom and Dad tell me what to think now.
Tonight, they said that as long as I live in their house,I have to live under their rules and that means no contact with Chris.
They could kick me out,I suppose,but they aren’t going to do that.They need me. I mow the grass and do the shoveling.Ever since Mom tripped and broke her ankle last year, leading to the discovery of her severe osteoporosis, I do most of the cleaning and I bring in the groceries, too, now that Dad’s back has gotten so bad.
Still,if they did kick me out (they’re going to have to hire someone to do that stuff when I leave for college in the fall, anyway) Chris would let me put a sleeping bag on the floor at his place. I could help him take care of his mom, give him some relief. I’ve had some experience with bedpans and things like that. Mom was flat on her back for almost six weeks last year with that ankle problem.After her surgery, she’d had to keep it elevated twenty-four hours a day.
Anyway, Diary, I’m rambling again. Sorry. You know I have a tendency to do that when I’m upset.
I haven’t called Chris yet.I’m not sure what to say. I’ll have to tell him my parents weren’t happy.I can’t lie to him.But if I tell him quite how badly they took the news, he’ll run for sure.
I can’t let that happen.
February 13, 2008, 5:15 p.m.
SHE HADN’T WANTED to tell Shane about the doctor’s call. About the possibility that the problems he’d been having could be permanent. They’d never had secrets between them. But Shane was such a man’s man in that area. Probably more so because he’d been raised solely by his father (as she had, which had given them something in common from the start) and the elder Mr. Slater had pushed his son to excel in all things masculine. From sports to women to baby-making.
Still, he’d changed so much since their first date in college. Become the man he’d said he wanted to be. Still strong, both emotionally and physically, but gentler, too. He’d said her love had changed him.
She’d gambled on that. Told him that the doctor said his inability to maintain an erection long enough to have an orgasm could be a result of his adult-onset diabetes.
She’d gambled and lost. Her marriage. Her life. Him.
February 3, 1977
Dear Diary, Is there ever a time when life gets easier? Even a little bit? Must it always demand such painful prices for the things we want?
I called Chris from a pay phone this afternoon. I wanted to talk to him in private without worrying that Mom or Dad would come walking in. I’m all paranoid now that they’re going to be watching my every move, even though I’ve never once given them cause not to trust me.
Is that why I’m paranoid? Because now I am giving them cause?
Doesn’t really matter at this point, I guess.
I knew Chris would be coming into the store tomorrow to get his mother’s heparin injections and I had to let him know I’d told them before I saw him again.
Or worse, before he avoided seeing me.
And I couldn’t leave him hanging, waiting for a call.
So I phoned him. I squirmed through his questions, letting him know that my parents weren’t happy,but that was all.I asked him to give them time.
I didn’t tell him they forbade any contact between the two of us. And I should have. I see that now.
I guess that’s what they mean about hindsight being twenty-twenty.
If I’d had any hint of what Chris was going to do…
He called them, Dear Diary. Can you believe it? Every time I think about it I want to die. I play the conversation over and over in my head,guessing how it must have gone,filling in the blanks with the things I did know—the things I heard from my father’s side of the conversation. And I get hot with shame. And embarrassment. I feel so hopeless.And helpless.
They’re all talking about me as though I’m an imbecile or a child, unable to form my own thoughts, know my own feelings, make my own decisions.
As if I wasn’t there.As if my life wasn’t my own. As if I can’t be trusted with the life that God gave me.
Chris will probably never like my parents now. And I can’t say I blame him. He has no idea what great people they normally are.
Dad called him some terrible names that I can’t even write here and threatened to have him arrested and charged with sexual misconduct with a minor if he so much as stepped foot in the drugstore again. Chris could fight the charges, and maybe win, since he’s never even touched me—let alone had “miscon-duct”with me back in October and November,when I was still seventeen. But just the charges could lose him, a schoolteacher, his entire career.
Even I know that much.
Chris tried to tell them we’d never done more than talk. He told them he has only the best of in-tentions.And that he was planning to wait until I was older before he pursued anything else with me. He told them he only wanted their permission to speak with me on the phone occasionally.(I heard Dad tell Mom that one.)
They threatened to call his
high school in
And then they told him I was grounded.I would be quitting my job, finishing my education at home and losing my car.They said they were going to take the phone out of my room and that they’d be monitoring every single conversation I had, every move I made.
It’s ridiculous, Diary.There’s no way they can do that. I’ve never, ever seen them act so crazy. It was like I didn’t even know them. But they wouldn’t back down.
Later, after Chris had hung up, Mom and Dad and I got in the first yelling match we’d ever had. I couldn’t believe it. I heard myself screaming at my parents,saw the shock on their faces and wondered what had happened to me.
I told them I refused to miss out on my last few months at school. Nor was I quitting my job. They could take my phone out of my room.What do I care? Chris probably won’t ever speak to me again,anyway.
They still say I’m grounded.That I’m not allowed to drive or go anywhere for the next four months— until graduation.
I’m sorry,but I’m eighteen now and I’ll be coming and going as I see fit.
I would’ve told them that, too, except Dad got all gray and pasty-looking and we just stopped yelling as quickly as we’d started.We didn’t mention Chris again all night.
I’m dying inside, Diary. Dying at the thought of never seeing Chris again. Never talking to him. Dying at the thought of having my mother so upset with me. Of losing my dad. Just dying.
February 4, 1977
Oh my gosh. I tell you, Dearest, Dearest Diary, I sure didn’t expect today.I have no idea what to make of it.
Things are horrible with Mom and Dad. It’s never been like this. Ever.They aren’t just mad at me. Or upset. They’re like cold, heartless guards over a death-row criminal. The entire conversation at dinner was them grilling me about my day. They practically asked how many times I went to the bathroom. They wanted me to account for every single second.
Trust has always been the mainstay for me and them,and Mom and Dad with each other.I just don’t get why everything’s gone so wrong. But I’m telling you, Diary, I can’t go on like this.
Maybe I won’t have to. Maybe I’ll just move out now, before I graduate, start my own life, and maybe then they’ll love me again. Once I’m away, married, they’ll see that I’m responsible.That I can be trusted.
They’ll treat me like an adult instead of an ignorant child.
Surely,when I present them with their first grand-child,they’ll open their arms to me again.Mom loves babies.So does Dad.They both wanted a huge family and had to try for more than twenty years before they had me.
I’ve heard the story so many times….
“You were an angel sent from heaven to your daddy and me,” Mom used to say.I know the story by heart but never tire of hearing Mom tell it.Or watching the bemused expression on Dad’s face when she does. “It was May 10, 1958. I’d been out in the garden, weeding, and when I stood up, I almost passed out. It was a balmy day, not too hot, and the sun was shining nicely. I’d had my normal bowl of oatmeal for breakfast.And a banana.Nothing that should’ve upset my stomach.But suddenly I was so sick I didn’t think I was going to make it inside. Somehow I did. And into the bathroom.And that’s where Billy found me when he got home from work that afternoon— lying asleep on the bathroom floor.”
Billy. My dad. I always get all warm inside when I hear Mom call him by that name.No one else would dare.He’s always Bill.Or William.But anytime they’re fooling around or tender or emotional, he’s Billy. And every time she tells this story.
“I could see the fear in Billy’s eyes when he gathered me up and carried me the two blocks to my doctor’s office. He kept telling me everything was going to be fine. I didn’t believe him. I knew something inside me was very, very wrong….
“Sitting in the doctor’s office, all I could think about, all I could see, was Billy.I couldn’t leave him yet. I was only forty years old. He needed me. I couldn’t break his heart that way. Somehow I’d find the strength to battle whatever was wrong.”
Just as I’m going to find the strength to fight for Chris, Dearest Diary. And win. I can’t break his heart, either.
But can I finish telling you the story? It makes me feel so good to remember it—makes me feel like Mom and Dad will always love me,no matter what…
“‘Martha? Billy?’Doctor Arnold had an odd look on his face as he peered at us over his glasses, calling us back into his office. Clara, his nurse, was nowhere to be seen.That, more than anything, told me the news was bad.
“‘What is it, Doc?’ Billy’s voice shook, his hand shook, as he held mine.”
Dad always holds Mom’s hand during this part of the story.
“‘I don’t quite believe it myself,’ Doc said, frowning. ‘I’ve heard of it, of course, but never seen it happen.…’
“Oh, it was bad.Fear went clear through me.But I would fight it.Whatever it was.I gave Billy’s hand a squeeze, letting him know I wasn’t giving up. I wasn’t leaving him.
“‘I’ve looked at the test twice,’ the doctor said.
‘And based on everything else you’ve told me, I can
draw no other conclusion….’
“‘How long has she got?’ Billy’s voice was tense.
“‘I’d say about six months. Give or take a week or so.I’m putting November 10th as your due date.’
“Date? They gave you an actual date when you could expect to die?
“‘Due date?’Billy asked, just as confused as I was.
“‘Why, yes,’ Dr. Arnold said. ‘We did the blood and urine tests, talked about missed periods….’
“What? I’d thought they were going through standard procedures to find out what was and was not working in my body.Looking for symptoms. For…
“‘Are you saying—’ I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t swallow. I stared at the doctor, my hand in Billy’s cold and clammy.
“‘You’re pregnant, Martha. You’re going to haveababy.’
“‘I’m forty years old, Doctor.I can’t have a baby.’
“The doctor nodded, his spectacles sliding a little farther down his nose.‘That’s what I assumed, too, though, of course, I’ve read about many women your age and older giving birth. It’s just not something you see every day. But I checked twice and everything else adds up. We’ll do an internal ex-amination.You can schedule that for next week. But I’m sure that’s what we’re dealing with here.’
“‘She’s not sick.’Billy’s voice was blank.The look on his face dazed.
“‘No, Billy, she’s not sick.’
“It wasn’t until Dr.Arnold broke out into a grin, that the truth started to dawn on me.
“‘Congratulations, you two, you’re going to be a mama and daddy.’
“That was when I remembered Valentine’s Day. Billy. Loving me.”
Valentine’s Day. I was conceived on Valentine’s Day,Diary.I don’t think I’ve ever told you that,either. That’s just ten days from now.
Oh, Diary, how could something so great have gone so wrong?
I went to work today, fully expecting my mom or dad to be there, intending to watch me the entire time. I was right; Mom was there.And then, an hour later, Dad came.
They don’t trust me at all.
If Chris came by, I didn’t hear. He stayed away from me. I’m guessing he picked up the heparin injections while I was still in school.
But what Mom and Dad don’t know is that Chris didn’t run. He didn’t turn his back on me….
February 13, 2008, 5:45 p.m.
GOOD FOR YOU, DADDY, Monica thought, wiping away a fresh spate of tears. Shane, on hearing the doctor’s prognosis, had done exactly the opposite of what her father had done. He’d left.
Oh, he’d called her several hours later to come and get him. He’d drunk himself into such a stupor he’d been unable to get himself home.
But he’d left again. A week later. Two days after Christmas. And hadn’t been back since. Monica turned back to the entry she’d been reading. The longest to date. So long her mother had dated it a second time as she’d turned to a new page.
February 4, 1977
I still can’t believe it.
Chris hasn’t been scared off. And yet, inside my deepest heart, I’m not the
least bit surprised. Because my heart recognized Chris from the moment we met
back in September, when he’d first come to
He’s so like my parents,if only they realized it.He encourages me to strive to be my best self. Not to settle for less.To believe in myself. He bought me a Raggedy Ann doll for Christmas because I’d told him I’d never played with dolls. He sent taxis to pick me up from school and take me to work when the weather was below zero.
And never once, in all those months, did he so much as shake my hand.
He still hasn’t. But he actually came to the house. Just a little while ago. Even though it was barely after nine, Mom and Dad were already in bed and neither of us wanted to wake them.
He was outside the enclosed front porch, standing there in the dark. I didn’t open the screen door that would allow him access to the porch.And the front door. But, God, how I wished I could.
I stood at the door staring at him.I wanted to pull him inside, into my arms.To hug him and kiss him and never let go.
And then I wanted to show him my house.The place where I’ve lived my entire life. My space. All my things.The pictures of me and my parents on the mantel.The misshapen ceramic ashtray I made for my dad when I was in kindergarten. My room.
I didn’t, of course. He wouldn’t have come in. Not without my parents’ approval. But neither did he just leave.
For a few minutes he just studied me, as though he was seeing me for the very first time.Like he was making sure I was the same girl as the one behind the register at the drugstore.
And then his eyes got really deep and glistening. His mouth opened and I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t.
“What?” I finally asked. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to know what his eyes were hiding. What his heart was feeling.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,”he said.
I wasn’t sure about that.I’d only been thinking of myself the day before when I’d pushed my father practically to the point of a heart attack.I’d upset the two people who’d cared for my every need for all of my almost eighteen years.
“You have a generous heart, Carol.You’re strong and honest and open and not afraid to reach out for what you want.”
He was telling me something important. Far more important than the usual believe-in-yourself talks he gave me.
“We care for each other in a way most people haven’t experienced.Whether we see each other or not, whether we even touch, we each know the other is out there.And that knowledge comforts us.”
Oh, God, my Dear Diary, he was so right. And it felt so good to hear him say out loud what I’ve known for so long. Such a relief to have the deepest yearnings of my heart spoken aloud.
“Yes,” I said, because he seemed to be waiting for a response and I couldn’t come up with anything more coherent than that.
“They can’t treat you like this, Carol. They’re locking you up, shoving you into a corner, and you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. You were honest. Never so much as had coffee with me behind their backs.You’ve never done anything to betray their trust.”
“I know.” But I also know that Mom and Dad and I, we’re different. It’s always seemed like the three of us against the world.And now,out of the blue,I’ve brought a fourth into our midst. Without warning.
Someone they don’t know. Didn’t pick for me. I
didn’t ask them before falling in love with Chris.
And he’s ten years older than I am.
I understand their concern.
But not their lack of trust.
“I’m coming back tomorrow,” Chris said then, speaking softly.He was standing upright,his shoulders big and broad in the tan suede winter coat I’d first seen him wear the day beforeThanksgiving.His once-short dark hair was now touching the collar of the coat.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,”I said, shivering. From the cold coming through the screen, I told myself, but I knew it was more.
“I’m not going to allow their threats to make me turn my back on you, Carol. Not after all the months of support and caring you’ve given me. Even when I’ve offered you no encouragement, you’ve been there, believing in our friendship. Fighting for it. It’s time for me to do the same for you.”
My whole body melted at his words. I could feel tears forming in the back of my throat, behind my eyes. I was afraid my voice would wobble if I tried to speak but I had to say it.“You could lose your job. You don’t have to do this.”
“You want us never to see each other again? Never speak again?”
“No.”
“Then there’s no other alternative.”
“They don’t have to know about it.” I hated even saying the words. They were so much against my heart’s way of living. Not telling my parents about something I felt I had every right and ability to decide on my own was one thing. Deliberately lying to them was another.
“I’m not doing that to you,” Chris said immedi-ately.“I will not compromise you.”
And that, Dear Diary, is when I fell irrevocably head over heels in love, forever in love, with Christopher Warren.
February 5, 1977
I’m writing this in the bathroom, Dear Diary. My parents went through my room today after Chris left,confiscating anything they thought might prove there was something going on between him and me. I sat there with tears streaming down my face, promising them that nothing had happened, that they weren’t going to find a thing.
And I hid you, just in case. I couldn’t survive if they got hold of you, read you, exposed you to a court system and managed to put Chris in jail because of a young and stupid girl’s ramblings.
I couldn’t bear to lose you.You are my life.Maybe my sanity.
I cried until I couldn’t breathe, but it didn’t make any difference.They didn’t soften at all. It was the first time I’ve ever cried in front of my mother without her putting her arms around me.
Life is changing. Fast.
I’m scared, Diary. Not of Chris. Or even of loving him. But of life. Of losing my parents. My safe refuge from the world.
What if I’m no good at love? What if I let Chris down? Disappoint him? What if, when we finally manage to have real time together, we find out that I really am too young, too immature for him?
He told Mom and Dad he was going to call me. That he intended to ask me out.
They told him that if he did,they’d expose the fact that he’d begun a relationship with me while I was still a minor.A high school student. Dad had phone records proving I’d called Chris and that we’d talked for more than an hour on several occasions in the past months.
They said they’d talked to my boss, who could testify that I spent many of my breaks with Chris, starting in September,often walking out back where we could be alone.
It didn’t matter that Chris and I both told them that all we’d done was talk. Usually about his mother. Or school.
I’d told him about a manager at the store who’d come on to me. Chris’s suggestions had not only ended the inappropriate behavior, but lost the man his job.
My parents weren’t swayed, even then. Can you believe it,Diary? Even when they heard that Chris had come to my aid,saved me from possible sexual abuse.
So it’s a standoff. I’m sitting here shaking. Chris knows Tuesday is my day off.Will he call?
Will he ever call?
And what if he does?
Will my parents really hate me? Enough to ruin the life of the man I love, simply because he loves me back? Can I let him take that risk?
I don’t know, Dear Diary.
I just don’t know.
February 6, 1977
I haven’t heard from Chris today. Mom and Dad question every move I make. They watch me constantly.
No one is happy.
February 7, 1977
No word from Chris.Mom surprised me with tickets to the dinner theater tomorrow night. My evening off work.Val’s invited.
It’ll be the four of us.
Mom hasn’t smiled in days. But she’s pretending this is a happy occasion, something fun for us all to share. She’s pretending she bought the tickets on a whim, but I know differently. She bought them so I wouldn’t be free to see Chris.
She can’t possibly think she’ll be able to occupy my time every single day I have off for the rest of my life.
February 8, 1977 (morning)
Dear Diary, I know I don’t normally bother you in the morning, but I had to talk to you. My stomach is a mass of nerves. I hardly slept all night. Dozed for a few minutes and then would wake again.
It’s Tuesday and if I don’t hear from Chris today, my day off, I’m not going to. I just know it.
Being in love, coupled with my parents’ withdrawal, is horrible. Lonely.
I’m worried sick.
What if Chris calls? Do I spare him the trouble my parents have threatened? Or do I stand beside him and fight for us?
What if he doesn’t call?
I’ve been waiting for this day for months. And now that it’s here I don’t feel ready for it.
One way or another, today is going to mark my entire future.
February 8, 1977 (night)
It happened. Just as we were leaving to go pick up Val for the dinner theater the phone rang. Mom and Dad had bought me a new red plaid long skirt and jacket with a silk blouse and matching shoes and purse,and I dropped the new purse,spilling lipstick and keys and everything on the floor. Mom looked at my stuff lying there and then answered the phone.
I don’t know what Chris said, but I knew it was him.
Mom just hung up.
When the phone rang a second time, I reached for it, pulling it away from my mom.
She didn’t try to stop me. I was on my own.
I didn’t want to be.
Mom and Dad were standing there watching me. My new purse was on the floor at their feet.They were all dressed up and had actually been smiling as we’d headed for the door.
Now they both looked old to me. Old and pinched and angry.
I couldn’t bear that they weren’t on my side.Sup-porting me.
And then I heard his voice.“Hello” was all it took and I knew I was doing the right thing.That I had to fight for Chris.
My heart could see what I could not. It could see beyond the moment and into the future. It knew what I was on earth to accomplish. And what I needed to help me through.
We only talked for a few seconds and I remember every single word.
“Are you free tonight?” I’d imagined the words a hundred times that day, but never with that low, intimate note of affection.
“No.We’re on our way to the theater.Mom got the tickets at the last minute.”
I held my breath waiting to see what he’d do with that information.
“Would you like to have dinner tomorrow when you get off work?”
Air came out of my lungs in a whoosh. “What about your mother?” I asked.
“I’ve got a nurse coming to sit with her.”
This was it, then. Mom and Dad seemed to be staring a hole in my back. I couldn’t see them, but I knew that’s what they were doing. I could feel them.
And I had to choose. Chris or my parents.A man I’d only known for a few months, a man I’d never shared anything with but conversation? Or the two people who’d been there for me my entire life, loving me, supporting me, protecting me?
Oh,Diary,my heart breaks again as I tell you about it. How did I get into this position? I never meant to hurt anyone.
Well,you know what I did,don’t you? You already know the words I said.
I said,“I’d love to have dinner with you.”Of course.
Dad’s chin dropped to his chest.A man defeated. Mom started to cry.
And we went to the theater.
February 10, 1977
Oh, Dearest Diary! I feel so… I just… How can I possibly feel so incredibly, perfectly great, and so horribly sad at the same time? I’ve gone out with Chris three times in two days. I can’t talk long, Diary. I’m so exhausted I can hardly keep my eyes open.
But I needed to tell you that being with Chris is everything I knew it would be, and so much more. I’m at peace when I’m with him. It doesn’t matter if we’re sitting at the diner down the street from the drugstore, drinking hot chocolate and talking for the two hours he has, or walking by the lake or grocery shopping for his mother.That’s all we’ve done. Nothing big and romantic and exciting, because right now his first priority has to be his mother.And yet, I’ve never felt so magical in my life.
Tomorrow I’m going to meet his mother.We’re going to have dinner with her. I’m so nervous I feel like throwing up. I hope I can manage to eat when I’m there. We’re having baked spaghetti. Apparently it’s Chris’s specialty and his mother loves it. She used to make it when he and his sister were little.
Mom and Dad were already in bed last night and again tonight when I got home. I stopped in to tell them good-night, but they were both asleep. Either for real or pretending, I’m not sure.
I miss them so much, Diary. I cried myself to sleep last night. I wish they could see Chris for what he really is. I wish they could see into his heart—and mine. They have nothing to worry about. I know what I’m doing. I know Chris is the man for me.It’s crazy,and I know that,too.But Mom and Dad are the ones who taught me that you can’t predict or control life.When it happens,it happens. You have to recognize it.And then have the courage to live it.
I just have to believe they’ll come around.
And in the meantime… I hope Chris kisses me soon. I’m dying to feel his lips against mine.To be held against his body.The wait is killing me.
February 13, 2008, 6:04 p.m.
IT HAD BEEN ALMOST six weeks since Shane had kissed Monica. But not since he’d kissed a woman. It was no more than five days since he’d done that. She’d had light brown hair with those auburn highlights everyone knew were fake.
She’d been perfectly made-up, too. And her clothes…
As she’d been doing for five days, Monica tried to push the vision away. Tried not to see the tight black slacks next to her husband’s bar stool at the upscale club near their house. She didn’t want to know that the woman had perfectly manicured red nails, nor that they’d run familiarly through Shane’s blond hair, as though it hadn’t been the first time….
Didn’t want to remember the black leather and fur jacket, the nicely sized rounded breasts, the husky chuckle just before Shane had lowered his head to the stranger’s lips. He’d lingered there, tasting her.
Who knew how long the kiss would’ve gone on, or where it would’ve led, if Shane hadn’t opened his eyes and seen Monica standing there?
She’d gone to the club, one of their favorite spots, specifically to look for him the previous Friday. To tell him enough was enough. To come home. And if her tough-girl attitude hadn’t worked, she’d been prepared to beg.
Instead, she’d embarrassed herself with an open mouth and tears in her eyes as she’d run out, ignoring his voice behind her.
Even in high-heeled boots, Monica had run farther, faster, making it to her car before Shane could catch up with her. She’d had the advantage, of course. She’d been closer to the door. And hadn’t needed to make excuses to anyone before dashing out.
He’d reached her as she was about to drive off. Monica could still see his face gazing in at her.
“Monica. Honey. Please open the door.”
His brow was creased, his eyes wide, imploring. “Come on, sweetie. I’m begging you.”
Apparently he’d been prepared to beg, too. But for Monica five days ago, it had been too little too late.
She’d driven away with him still standing in the street. If he hadn’t jumped back, she might have run over his toes.
She’d refused to answer his calls ever since. And the door, too, when he’d come pounding both Saturday and Sunday.
Shane Slater was out of her life. Period. Decision made.
Just as Carol’s had been that weekend after Chris’s negative reaction to her miniskirt?
Was she really through with Shane? she asked herself now. Could she be if she was still considering tomorrow’s appointment at the fertility clinic?
If she was so sure she wasn’t going to go, why hadn’t she canceled? What was she waiting for?
Or was it more a case of knowing that Shane was the one great love of her life? The same way Carol had known… Even with the marriage over, there would be no other men for her. And she wanted children.
So why not Shane’s?
February 13, 1977
Hi. Sorry I haven’t written lately. It’s been a rough few days.
My dad had a heart attack,Diary.I still can’t believe it. It happened Friday morning. I think. My days are all running together. But it must’ve been because I was getting ready for school.He’s still in the hospital. In the cardiac ward. He has to have open heart surgery,Diary,or he’s going to die.They’ve scheduled it for tomorrow.Valentine’s Day. Mom and I have to be at the hospital by seven so we can see him before he goes in. The surgery could take anywhere from two to seven hours,depending on exactly what they find.
He’s got the best team of
doctors in
But they’re going to saw his chest in half!
And they’re only giving him a sixty percent chance.
I feel so responsible,Diary.Like this is my fault for pushing them about Chris.And yet, I need him now more than ever.
He’s been a rock through all of this. I’ve had to be strong for Mom. I’m the one running around getting doctors to talk to us.Driving her to and from the hospital. Making sure she’s eating.
And Chris is being strong for me. His apartment is a couple of blocks from the hospital and he’s walked over several times. Even met me in the cafeteria for a cup of hot chocolate last night while Mom had some time alone with Dad.
I think she knows I’m seeing him, but she hasn’t said anything.
He’s going to be in and out all day tomorrow. He says he won’t come into the family waiting room because he doesn’t want to further upset my mom, but he can’t just leave me there alone, either.We’re going to meet every two hours down by the elevator. And if I’m able to go to the cafeteria, we will.
Knowing he’s going to be there is the only thing keeping me sane right now.
I never did meet his mother,but he said she sends her good wishes and is keeping us in her prayers.
That’s very kind.
February 14, 1977
It’s three in the morning,Dearest Diary.I left you just an hour ago, but I can’t sleep. I’m so worried about my father I can’t rest. Can’t find any calm at all.
What if something happens to him tomorrow? What if tonight is his last night on earth? I should be there with him. Mom should be there. Not some strangers walking in and out of his room. He shouldn’t be alone.We love him so much.
I love him so much.
They made us go home. Said we needed our rest, and that he did, too.
Tomorrow night, if all goes well, Mom can stay with him. We’ve already arranged to have a bed moved into the little room off the ICU. It was the only way I could get Mom to come home tonight.
That, and Dad telling her to leave.
He was fully conscious this evening.And bossing us around. He told me to call the school to get my homework. And to put out the trash cans in the morning so the neighbor’s cats don’t get into them. He told me to drive carefully. To make sure my mother gets some rest. He told us both to eat.
And he asked her to bring his robe when we visit in the morning. He hates the hospital attire.
He didn’t say anything about Chris. Didn’t ask anything. I didn’t mention him, either.
Diary, what if I caused this? What if my insisting on seeing Chris was what made this happen?
Sorry about that blotch there.I can’t seem to stop crying tonight. I love my daddy so much. He’s been good to me every day of my life. No matter how tired he was when he came in from the press machines at the Chicago Tribune, he’d always take time for me. He’d ask about my day.And listen while I rambled on about unimportant little-girl stuff.When I went out for softball in junior high, he spent hours in the yard playing catch with me.And when I made the cheerleading squad in freshman year, he was at every single game. He taught me to bowl and to swim and how to shoot a rifle.
Yeah, there were times when it seemed he was being a little tough on me, grounding me for a week for talking back to my mother,and for a month when I stole a Tootsie Roll from the drugstore where I now work. But I always knew he loved me.Always.
I can’t imagine life without him.
I’m not ready to lose him.To lose either of them. I know it’s going to happen sometime. Sooner than it will for a lot of my friends.
This is where being an only child sucks canal water.
And being the only child of older parents—even more.
Hold on a sec…I have to get a tissue.
Okay, sorry. I’m back.
I’m probably being a baby. But I can’t lose them yet, Diary.There’s still so much to share with them. So much for them to teach me. For my daddy to teach me. Holidays to share. Presents to buy for them. Things I still want to do for them, to show them how much I love them.
Daddy has to walk me down the aisle.
And hold my children in his arms.
He has to see me graduate
from high school.And the
He can’t leave me yet, Diary. He just can’t.
I’m only eighteen.
February 13, 2008, 6:13 p.m.
MAYBE SHE SHOULD call Shane. Life was too short for hurt feelings and insecurities to get in the way of a love as deep and strong as hers and Shane’s. Shane was a good man, last Friday night—and any other times he’d been with another woman—notwithstanding.
She remembered the week her
dad died. Shane had driven down to
Shane had been her strength then.
If she even considered keeping the clinic appointment and attempting to have his child, she should call him.
February 14, 1977 (more)
It’s six now. I’ve been up since five, showered and ready to go.We have to leave in half an hour.
There were no calls from the hospital during the night. It’s only been three days, but listening for that phone call all night, and feeling relieved in the morning that it didn’t come, seems like a way of life to me.
Being at the hospital all day, talking to my mom, trying to find pieces for the puzzle we’ve kind of been working on in the small waiting room two doors away from Dad’s, seeing Chris, cataloging Dad’s features every time I’m allowed in to see him, trying to determine if his color is better or worse, if his breathing has improved, watching the little lines squiggle across the screen beside his bed, holding my breath—it seems as if this is the only life I’ve ever known.
Last week, school, eating dinner at the table, the fight about Chris, they all seem like a very distant and faded movie I once saw.
There is nothing but this. Nothing but knowing that my father could die. Nothing but spending every ounce of my energy on keeping him alive.
Sorry for the messy writing. My hand’s a little shaky.
I don’t know how Chris is doing it. How he can spend all day every day watching his mother die. They aren’t even trying to cure her anymore.They’re just doing what they can to give her a few more months.And to make sure she’s comfortable.
Not that I wouldn’t do exactly the same thing. If they can give me even a few more months with Daddy,I’ll take them,spend every moment I can right there beside him. I just don’t know how my heart’s going to get through this without breaking into a million pieces. I don’t know how I’ll survive. I can hardly breathe for thinking about the day to come.
Valentine’s Day.
A day for love.
Please, God, let my love for my father be enough to keep him here on earth with us. Let Mom’s love be enough.
We need him.
You got that?
We need him.
Mom’s calling me. I gotta go….
8:30 a.m.
I’m in the bathroom now. It’s big.A private room off the waiting room we’re in today.On a different floor.
Where the operating rooms are. I guess they put all of us with potential deaths on our hands in separate places from the regular people.
No kids are allowed up here. I wonder if they would’ve let me in if this had happened three months ago.
No one’s ever seen you,Diary.No one knows about you. But I had to bring you.At the last minute I stuck you in my backpack.I didn’t think I could go it alone.
And for all that Mom would notice, I could probably bring you out sitting right beside her. But I won’t.That’s why I’m in the bathroom now.
I’m almost as worried about Mom as I am about Dad.She’s like a zombie,as though she’s under anesthetic along with Daddy.Will she die, too, if he does?
They’re so in love. So connected. They’ve been married forty years.And still smile when one or the other walks into a room.They still have eyes only for each other. I used be jealous that they always saw me as second.
I get it now.I feel the same with Chris.When I first see him, it’s like the rest of the world fades away. I don’t mean it to. It just does.
I don’t understand why Mom and Dad didn’t see that about me and Chris.Why didn’t they understand? Why didn’t they want me to have what they have?
Dad was in good spirits this morning, but he was a little groggy. They’d given him something before we got here. He joked with me about my problems in trig last semester.Said he hoped the doctors were more accurate when it came to measuring off the
incision line.
He laughed. I didn’t think it was funny at all.
And then Mom came in from talking to the doctor and they looked at each other for a long time. They were talking to each other. Saying really deep, serious stuff, except they didn’t use any words.
A few minutes later, the orderlies came to get him. He glanced between my mom and me, and then, holding my gaze steadily, like he always did when he was about to teach me something, he said, “You’re a good girl,Carol Bailey.The best.I love you.”
I told myself I wouldn’t, but I started to cry.
I’m not sure he saw, though. He was already looking back at my mother. I didn’t hear what he said, but I saw them kiss. It was a long, gentle kiss. And made me cry harder. And then he was gone, and the room was empty.
It’s been almost an hour now. I’m supposed to meet Chris in another ten minutes. I think I’ll go early, just in case.
I can’t wait any longer.
If I don’t find some strength, I’m going to lose it and they’ll have to haul me away before I find out how Dad’s doing.
Please tell me he’s still alive,Dear Diary.Please tell me that all is going as well as can be expected.
Please?
9:15 a.m.
I’ve got to go back to Mom. Chris held my hand for ten minutes. I feel much stronger.
He’s sure Dad’s going to be just fine.He reminded me that Dad’s relatively young for this kind of surgery. And in good general health. He isn’t overweight.
He warned me that it might be several hours yet, and that if it was, it didn’t mean anything bad.
I don’t know how right he is about any of it, but I need to believe him so I do.
He told me his mother said hello and that she’s thinking about us. He’s coming back at eleven.
11:10 a.m.
I only had a second with Chris. Mom’s been crying
and I don’t want to leave her alone.
Still no word from anyone.
The day seems to have gone on for years already.
Chris insists that no news is good news. I have to accept that.
He’s going to bring lunch from the deli around the corner when he comes back at one. I won’t tell Mom who brought it.
I don’t imagine either of us will be able to eat,but Chris says we must.
So I’ll try.
1:25 p.m.
I finished the jigsaw puzzle. Saw Chris just long enough to grab lunch. I’m afraid to leave Mom except for these brief trips to the bathroom. I’m drinking so much diet soda I’m swimming in it.
She’s having as much coffee.
We’ve been talking a lot. Like old times. But just about the past. Memories from when I was a little girl. I wanted to ask Mom about when she and Dad were dating, but I was afraid to bring up the subject. Afraid it would remind her of Chris and change her back into the stranger she’s become these past days.
Neither of us touched lunch. But Chris is a smart man. He brought cold sandwiches and fruit.They’ll keep.
In case you haven’t figured it out already, Diary, there’s still no word.That’s almost six hours. I read the paper and found a seek-and-find but can’t concentrate on it. Mom’s doing a crossword puzzle. Or pretending to.
Chris tells me not to worry. It’s hard to do. He hugged me, though, and it helped so much. For a second there, my stomach wasn’t in knots.
I told him he didn’t have to come back at three. I hate that he’s making so many trips,walking down here, when I’m only seeing him for a few seconds.
He says the exercise is good for him.That he often takes walks during the day.And then he said something else that’s been ringing in my head ever since.
“Your heart is hurting. I belong here with you, Carol. It’s as simple as that.”
And I knew he was right.
4:00 p.m.
Still nothing. It’s been too long now. Something has happened that they didn’t expect.
Didn’t even talk to Chris at three. Just looked out the door of the waiting room and shook my head.
Mom’s shredding the tissues I’m handing her.But she stopped crying hours ago.
My body is on fire and my face feels cold. I want to be out of this place. Out of this time.
And I want Chris.
He can’t make my father better. But his presence continues to give me strength.
6:05 p.m.
My last time in this bathroom.Thank God for that. Dad’s still alive!
I don’t know any more, but I’m grateful for that much.
He came through surgery. And recovery. He’s made it through the most critical part—for today. The future remains to be seen.
Mom’s staying with him tonight.
She didn’t like leaving me alone, but I reminded her that I’m an adult. And, truthfully, I welcome some time away from my parents. Life has become so complicated. So rife with potential pain that the fear engulfs me, even now.
My father’s alive today, but these hours have shown me clearly that I have a tough road ahead of me, loving my parents as much as I do.They’re only going to get older, weaker, from here on in. I have to be prepared for that.
I’ve never felt as alone as I do right now, Dearest Diary.
I had a few seconds with Chris at five.They’d just moved Dad into ICU. Mom was with him, and I was waiting my turn.We have to go in individually right now. And only for a few minutes. He’s awake but barely.
He looked terrible, Diary.Worse than the ninety-year-old guy who sits in front of us at church.His lips were chapped and his eyes sunken and unfocused. He’s trussed up with so many wires I don’t know how they keep them all straight.And he has at least two IVs and various other tubes. He’s on oxygen. Truthfully, I don’t know how they can tell anything about the state of his body. I doubt it’s doing anything on its own.
Anyway, I can’t think about all of that now. I’m staying with Mom until nine and then driving home. Chris insists that he’s going to follow me home. He doesn’t like that I’m driving all that way by myself.
I told him it wasn’t necessary, and I meant it. But
I know he’ll be here. And I know I’m glad. I need him.
11:45 p.m.
Chris just left. I’m no longer a virgin.
February 13, 2008, 8:05 p.m.
MONICA TURNED THE PAGE. And then another. Frantic now, she flipped through the rest of the pages in the leather-bound book. Blank. All blank.
How could that be?
Almost two hours had passed and darkness had fallen, outside and in her condo. Only the lamp by the couch was on, leaving her in an isolated pool of light as she sat there, feeling as though she’d finally met her mother.
All her life she’d heard about the woman who’d given birth to her. First from her father, who’d known her far too briefly and loved her more deeply than most people ever love. And then from Carol’s parents, the grandparents Monica had sought out after his death.
Tonight, more than any other time in her life, she needed her mother. She should cancel tomorrow’s appointment. Logically she knew that. But she couldn’t bring herself to do so.
She wanted so badly to call Shane, to use the appointment as an excuse. Yet she was afraid that made her little more than a pathetic ex who couldn’t let go.
If only Carol were there, if only Monica could talk to the woman who’d known more about life at eighteen than Monica knew at thirty.
Monica got up, retrieved her cell phone from her purse. Hit speed dial.
“Aunt Margaret?”
“Yes, dear, how are you?”
“I just got your package.”
“Oh.”
“Did you read it?”
“Some of it. But I stopped. I didn’t think it was my business.”
“It’s my mom’s diary.”
“I know, honey.”
“How long have you known about it?”
“A week. I mailed it to you the day I found it. It was up in the attic, in a box of my mom’s linens, of all things.”
“It talks about your mom. About Daddy caring for her.” Monica had heard the story many times. “And it says that you were away at school.”
“Finishing up that exchange program.”
“Daddy was really hoping you’d make it back in time.” Monica had often heard her father say that, yet tonight, after reading about it in her mother’s girlish scrawl, the tragedy of those days seemed so much more potent.
“We all were, but I wasn’t even close. Mom died on the 19th of February, 1977.”
Only five days after Carol had slept with Chris.
“Do you know what happened between my mom and dad during those last days?” Did their relationship continue? “The diary ends on Valentine’s Day. Did he ever see her again?”
“Once or twice. Mom took a turn for the worse on the fifteenth. Fell into a coma. It’s my understanding that he never left her bedside after that. They’d told him it was a matter of hours. Those hours stretched into four days.”
“How long did he stay in
Suddenly, every second of those days mattered.
“There really weren’t a lot
of things to do,” Margaret said in her soft, well-spoken, southern-lady voice.
“He’d sublet an apartment, fully furnished, on a week-to-week basis. A family
friend was forwarding his mail. As soon as the coroner released Mom’s body, he
flew her home to
Monica rubbed her brow. She needed aspirin. Another headache was beginning.
So many questions. “We know
Mom was killed when she was driving to
What Carol hadn’t done was tell her father about her, Monica. And although Monica had asked both her father and her grandparents, no one had been able to tell her why.
“No,” Margaret said. “He had no idea she was coming down.”
“But he would’ve been thrilled! He’d have married her.”
“I’m sure he would have,
honey.” Margaret’s voice was wistful. “Your father was a changed man when he returned
from
Her father had been the most revered, respected and intimidating English teacher in her high school. He’d had offers to move up in the educational system. Principalships, even an assistant superintendency, were offered to him. He’d always refused.
He’d been on the track, running by himself, when he’d had the heart attack that ultimately killed him at fifty-two.
“He never forgave my grandparents for my mother’s death,” Monica said, repeating something they both knew. “He was sure she didn’t see that gravel truck she pulled in front of because she was so emotionally distraught at having to choose between them and him.”
“Witnesses who passed her said she was crying while she drove.”
“I know.” Monica took a deep breath. “And he wouldn’t let me have anything to do with them because of that. Yet, other than on that one issue, he never said anything negative about them.” She thought of the pages she’d just read. The threats her grandparents had made. “And he could have.”
“He took you from them,” Margaret reminded her. “You were all that mattered to him at that point.”
After the accident, the state police had called William and Martha Bailey as their unmarried daughter’s next of kin. They’d turned over the baby who’d survived the accident to them.
“They didn’t fight him.”
“Your mother put his name on your birth certificate.”
Even when they were living states apart, even though they weren’t in touch, she’d reached out to her Chris. Acknowledged him.
That was the kind of love they’d shared.
The kind Monica had—used to have—with Shane.
All consuming. Incredible. Magic.
And short-lived?
MONICA MADE IT AS FAR as her bedroom, taking off her pumps and tailored wool jacket, before the sight of the oversize queen mattress, the down comforter, reminded her of the man she’d expected to share that bed with for the rest of her life.
The man she’d intended to make love with in her eighties.
Darkness descended again. Not a darkness that could be dispelled by the flick of an electrical switch. She knew. She’d tried often enough. And with the darkness came the weight of a broken heart. Broken dreams.
The pain.
She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go in there tomorrow and have herself injected with her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s sperm. She couldn’t bring on the heartache.
Like her father, she’d loved and lost.
She couldn’t have Shane’s baby without him. It wasn’t right. Wasn’t moral or decent.
Even if some small part of her hoped the child would bring them back together...
Had he been able to have sex with that beautiful stranger? Had he recovered from whatever had prevented him from making full and complete love with Monica?
The idea twisted her inside out.
Lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, Monica tried to clear her mind, to focus on business, on the multimil-lion-dollar tooling company that would be going public in the morning, listing the clients she’d pegged for the buy.
She was okay again. Confident. Where she was most comfortable. As her father had taught her to be.
Her father. Chris. The man who’d walked to a hospital several times on that one day just to get a shake of the head. Who’d gone there simply because a girl’s heart was breaking. The man to whom love was so important he’d been willing to risk everything—especially the career he’d loved—for the woman who’d captured his heart.
The man who’d given up months of his life to care, almost single-handedly, for the mother who’d spent her life caring for him.
Carol Bailey must’ve been some kind of woman. So young, yet so sure. Monica wasn’t sure about much of anything.
So what happened? Was she conceived that Valen-tine’s night? Counting the months to her November birthday, it seemed feasible. Of course Carol had been young. Monica could’ve been early.
And then, after Monica came, had Carol changed her mind? Had she suddenly decided she didn’t really love Chris, after all?
Or did her father tire of the young girl once he’d had her in bed?
So much heartache. So many lives unfinished.
SO WHAT HAPPENED? Was Carol’s determination just a result of her youthful enthusiasm? Was her absolute certainty in her love for Chris misguided? Had she been nothing more than a very young and idealistic kid whose courage was merely a disguise for ignorance?
Or had her mother died knowing she loved Chris Warren more than life? Had she gone to her grave faithful to that love?
Monica had to know. Period.
Throwing off her blouse, she
strode over to the closet, stepped out of her panty hose and into a pair of
jeans. Pulled on an off-white angora sweater that would keep her warm, no
matter what the cold
She knew two people who had them. And this time she wasn’t accepting any vague excuses or deferrals.
This time she had ammunition. A bribe if that was what it took.
Grabbing up the small
leather book that explained so much and yet not enough, Monica headed out into
the cold
GRANDPA BILLY WASN’T HOME yet from the wood shop at the assisted living facility where he and Grandma had moved ten years ago. Grandma was thrilled, as always, to have Monica come for a visit.
The apartment door was decorated with a wreath of rattan and pastel silk flowers.
Silk. Fragile. Just like her eighty-eight-year-old grandmother. Were answers really worth putting the woman she’d grown to adore through more pain? Hadn’t Billy and Martha suffered enough? They’d lost their beloved only child before her twentieth birthday.
And lost the first twenty-five years of their only grandchild’s life, as well.
Before she could decide, the front door flew open. And a small woman, an inch or so shorter than Monica’s five foot four, stood there, framed by the light.
“Monica?”
Martha’s voice wavered with age.
Monica nodded as she approached the shaky arms reaching out to her and walked right into them. As she’d done the first time she met this woman. And every time since.
Which didn’t explain the sobs that came from someplace deep inside her as she held on.
She couldn’t explain. Couldn’t think. She could only cling. And feel. And know that every time she saw this woman she’d come home.
MONICA HAD SO MANY questions. As she’d driven over to her grandparents’, her mind had been filled with them. In the end, as she moved beside the old woman to a room filled with antique furniture that had been new to Martha Bailey at some point, she didn’t have to ask. One look at the diary in Monica’s hand and words poured out of her grandmother, as though the woman had always known this day would come. As though she’d been waiting.
As though she needed to speak the painful words as badly as Monica needed to hear them.
In the end, Monica just sat and listened.
“I met Billy Bailey when I was eleven. He was fifteen. His family had moved in down the block and he’d walk to school behind us. Every day. Always behind us, scuffing his feet, kicking stones. He never joined us.
“Never talked to us at school, either. The older kids on the block made fun of him. Made up outrageous stories about him and his family—probably just to scare us. They said he was an escaped prisoner holding his family hostage. And then one day, after he’d read a poem he’d written in English class, they decided he was some famous writer who was hiding out in our little neighborhood to avoid discovery.
“It turned out, of course, that he was just shy and needed an invitation to join us… .”
“Which you offered him,” Monica interjected and then, watching the faraway look in Martha’s eyes start to fade, knew she wasn’t going to do that again, wasn’t going to bring her grandmother back to the present until she was ready. Martha was living another time, and she’d taken Monica with her.
It was a place she desperately wanted to go.
“I offered.” Martha nodded slowly and paused. Monica waited patiently.
“We went on our first date when I was fifteen and were married on my eighteenth birthday. Oh…that was a day. So many flowers. And the music! I can still hear the waltz we danced to. At first just Billy and I were whisking around on that makeshift dance floor in my parents’ backyard. Lights shone from the trees and people were gathered all around, forming a circle to hold us in. The circle of love, they called it. It was meant to keep us together forever… .”
The young girl had danced, her heart filled with love and hope. She’d been secretly in love with Billy Bailey for seven long years and finally, finally he was hers.
She was a little nervous about the night to come. Wedding nights weren’t pre-empted in those days, and while her mother had told her some things, it had only been enough to leave Martha with more questions, not to comfort or calm her. But when she danced in Billy’s arms, when she felt his body pressed against hers and looked up to see those eyes, those lips, smiling down at her, she knew everything would be fine.
As it turned out, it was better than fine. Much, much better. And they began a glorious life. Billy worked at the Chicago Tribune, running a press, and rushed home to her every night when the other guys went out for beer. He read to her. Danced with her. Helped with the dishes and took her for long walks. She’d play the piano and he’d sit on the bench beside her and they’d sing. They’d play cards, either just the two of them or with friends. They saw their families often.
Some of these stories Monica had heard often over the past five years. Some of them she was hearing for the first time.
After her marriage to Billy, the years passed so quickly, Martha hardly noticed them. Until suddenly she did. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but one morning she woke up and she wasn’t eighteen anymore. She wasn’t Billy’s young lover. She’d had her thirtieth birthday. And she still wasn’t pregnant. Her home was beautiful. While her friends had been making babies and formula and changing diapers, she’d made drapes and bedspreads and stained the tables her husband had built. She’d hooked rugs and crocheted doilies and bought pretty dishes. She’d grown flowers, planting gardens all over the yard, and harvested vegetables, too. She’d raised chickens, selling the eggs for money she saved to buy a brand-new living room set.
She’d just never had a baby grow… .
But she had Billy. And on the days depression overwhelmed her, when her arms were too empty, her hours meaningless, he’d come home to her. He’d hold her. Take her for a walk. He’d tell her how she filled his heart, his life, how he couldn’t live without her. How she’d made him the happiest man on earth.
And for a while, until the emptiness started to gape again, she’d believe him. She went to the doctor, but there was nothing anyone could do. No explanation or remedy for what ailed her. She talked to Billy about adopting a child. He agreed and for the next couple of years they looked for a baby to come their way, waited on a list that seemed never-ending. She’d built a nursery piece by piece. Sewed and painted and knitted little booties. And they never got the call.
She turned thirty-five and then forty. And spent six months after that crying every single day until Billy told her she had to shape up.
“A baby isn’t meant to be, Marty. Not for us.” Standing there in their bedroom, holding her upright after he’d come home from work and found her lying on the unmade bed, still in her nightgown with her hair a mess, he spoke more firmly than she’d ever heard.
Staring up at him, she felt the familiar tears against the back of her eyes, flooding her vision until he was little more than blur.
“I don’t have to lose you, too,” he said, more softly, reaching down to gently kiss her lips. “Now, come on. It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m taking you out. We’re going dancing.You have half an hour to get yourself prettied up.”
She didn’t feel like dancing. Hadn’t even known that the holiday for lovers was upon them. She went on crying.
“I don’t have a present for you,” she sobbed.
In years past, he’d have come home to his favorite dessert, a cherry cobbler that she doctored with her own secret ingredients. There would’ve been a nice dinner, too, but he would’ve gone for the dessert first. And then her. They might or might not have gotten to the dinner sometime later that night.
“You are my present, love,” Billy said, and with the way he was looking at her, she could only believe him. “You’ve always been enough for me. Don’t you understand that?”
Something happened to Martha then. Some constricting, suffocating emotion let go inside her. She stared up at the man she still loved more than her own life and felt a rekindling of the magic they’d always shared.
“I love you, Billy Bailey.”
“And I love you, Martha Bailey.”
“Show me?” she whispered, forgetting for the moment how she looked, still in last night’s bed clothes, not even running her fingers through her hair.
“Yes,” Billy said, not seeming to notice that he had a hag standing before him.
And over the next several
hours, he made Martha forget that, as well. She was eighteen again, reliving
their first time. And then the time they’d been on vacation in the wilds of
And in the morning, Martha was eager to get up again. To start the day. And the new rest of her life. With a new goal. To spend every single minute being thankful for the man she adored, thankful that he adored her back. That very day, while Billy was at work, she walked down to the church and volunteered to help in whatever way she could. Three months later, she was providing regular meals to shut-ins. To the elderly who could no longer get around. And to young mothers with brand-new babies. To a friend of hers who had the flu, and a woman ten years younger who was dying.
And every night, when Billy came in from work, she was fully coiffed, with dinner on the table, a smile on her face—and more importantly, a smile in her heart.
And then came the day she got sick in the garden.
“YOUR MOTHER WAS AN angel sent from heaven to bless us,” Martha told Monica, smiling at Billy, who’d returned and was drinking hot chocolate with them.
When she’d heard that Monica hadn’t eaten dinner, Martha insisted on making her a grilled cheese sandwich and a mixed greens salad, which Monica ate sitting at the scarred wooden table in the kitchen while her grandmother fussed around, cleaning up.
Now the three of them sat at the old table, just as her mother had sat there with her parents years before.
Martha and Billy took turns telling stories about her mother’s childhood. Stories she never tired of hearing.
Monica watched the memories play across her grandparents’ faces. And then, so softly she was almost whispering, she asked, “So what happened?”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you.” Martha’s tone had changed. The nostalgia, the gentleness, was gone. She exchanged a long glance with Billy, and only when he nodded did she continue.
“During those years when I was busy growing flowers and prettying up my house, while my friends were all busy with the important business of raising human beings…”
Monica waited.
“I lost my head for a little while.”
“After your fortieth birthday. I know. You told me.”
Martha shook her head, the wrinkles in her neck more pronounced, in spite of the high-collared blouse she was wearing with a pair of dark slacks.
“Long before that. I can make no excuses, have no explanation. Other than that I married young—not young for the times, but young for me—and I’d never even looked at another boy from when I was eleven years old.”
With no idea what was coming, Monica leaned forward, elbows on her knees, facing her grandmother. Martha took Billy’s hand, met his gaze for another long moment. He smiled at her and it seemed that was what she’d been waiting for.
“I met someone,” Martha said quickly. “A salesman. He came to the door one afternoon, selling shoes. I let him in and as he tried pair after pair on my feet, touching my calves, I just…lost my head. He made me feel desirable. Complete. Whole.
“To be fair to Billy, he did, too.” Martha stared straight ahead. “It’s just that Lance didn’t know I couldn’t get pregnant, couldn’t give my husband the family we’d always wanted. He didn’t know I felt like a failure.”
Monica didn’t want to hear any more.
“It’s okay,” she interrupted, placing her hand over her grandparents’. She didn’t need to know this.
Billy coughed and then said slowly, “People get confused sometimes. It’s part of being human.”
Grandpa Billy didn’t say all that much anymore, as though he was conserving his breath, but every time he did, Monica hung on his words.
“I hurt your grandfather more than anything in this lifetime ever hurt him,” Martha said, her voice surprisingly strong.
Martha Bailey had strengths that her daughter had probably never known about.
“It only happened once,” she said. “In my early thirties.” She paused. “But it took me a lifetime to forgive myself for it.”
The way she said those words told Monica something entirely different. Martha still had not, and probably never would, forgive herself for being disloyal to the man she loved. And even so, at forty, she was blessed with a miracle.
“Anyway,” Martha continued, “the baby was born after an easy labor. Everything was perfect with Carol until just before her eighteenth birthday. We knew something had happened, we just didn’t know for several months that it wasn’t a what, it was a who. Overnight she changed on us. Grew distracted, didn’t come home and immediately pour out everything about her day. She had a funny smile on her face, a bounce in her step. A confidence we’d never seen before. I told Billy she was growing up. And he agreed with me, although I think he knew.…”
“In her Diary Mom wrote about your reaction when she told you about my father.…”
With pinched lips Martha nodded. Before she could speak, Monica put two and two together.
“You were terrified that she was going to make the same mistake you did. Getting married to the first man she loved without looking around first to make sure that love was forever.”
“If you don’t know the bad, you don’t know how great the good is,” Martha said. “She’d never even gone on a date, not with him or anyone else, and suddenly she was absolutely certain she’d met the man she was meant to love forever. I’d learned what happened when the bad times came, when life didn’t unfold like you’d thought it would and you started to doubt everything. Without any experience, how can you be sure about anything?”
Monica nodded, understanding her grandmother in a way she might not have six months before.
“For the first time in her life, she didn’t put her father and me first. Our word, which had been gold until then, meant nothing anymore. I didn’t know what this man had done to her, but he’d somehow convinced our daughter to trust him more than she trusted us, her own parents.…”
So much pain. So much love. Monica, whose life had both, teared up again.
Shane had been her first love, too, so she’d had no basis of comparison. Still didn’t in that area. And she’d taken their love for granted—almost as though it was their due. She hadn’t paid attention to her husband’s struggles as she should have. Hadn’t realized how deeply Shane’s impotence had affected him over the past year. She hadn’t truly realized the value of their love or her responsibility to watch over it.
“Grandpa…” Again she paused, the familial term falling so awkwardly from her tongue. “His surgery. Obviously it worked.” She smiled at him.
And Martha took up where the diary left off.
After that fateful Valentine’s night, Carol and Chris were never alone again for more than a minute. She’d spent the next few days at the hospital with her father, and his mother had worsened overnight. By the time Chris’s mother died, Billy had been moved from ICU. He was expected to recover, but would require months of rehabilitative care at home. Carol and Martha were instructed to keep Billy’s life completely stress-free— or at least as far as they could manage.
And Carol told Chris that she couldn’t see him or speak to him until her father was better.
She promised to come to him,
to find him in
“She told me this on the day we had our last fight. She blamed herself for her father’s heart attack— although it had far more to do with corroded arteries than with Carol’s love life. She told me she’d given Chris her diary,” Martha said, glancing at the book Monica had carried to the table with her. “It was her promise to him. She was giving him her heart and she’d have to come and collect it.
“Of course, she didn’t expect to find herself pregnant after only having slept with him on that one night. Nor had she counted on her father’s reaction to the pregnancy.
“I’m ashamed to say,” Martha said as she once again looked at her husband. “But Billy and I used his illness to keep her with us.”
“We did, and we paid dearly.” Billy’s voice cracked.
Martha took over immediately. “Once we knew about the baby, we were more frightened than ever that our girl was going to tie herself to what we saw as a lecherous older man, a teacher who had an eye for young girls. We thought she’d feel obligated to promise herself to him for the rest of her life—without ever having the chance to find out what life held for her. We made a deal with her that she’d have the baby and we’d take care of it while she got her college education. If, after that, she wanted to marry Chris, we’d support that decision.”
“But he wouldn’t wait?” Monica asked.
“She had no intention of asking him to wait,” Martha told Monica. “We just didn’t know that at the time.”
“To appease her father, Carol agreed to his stipulations. Looking back on it, as Billy and I did almost every day for the next twenty-seven years, we think she was just so darned relieved that the news of her pregnancy hadn’t killed him that she would’ve agreed to anything.”
Martha’s eyes filled with
tears. “And at first, when Carol brought you home, we thought everything was
going to be fine. We made it through Thanksgiving and then Christmas and she
seemed to be settling in. She’d enrolled in the spring semester at the
Her chest tight, Monica waited as Martha once again paused. All the things Martha had told her that night had not seemed as hard for her grandmother as whatever was to come.
“Then, one day, she said she
was going to
“I panicked. I reminded her of the deal she’d made. I told her that if she left, she was not ever to step back in our house again.”
Martha was crying in earnest now.
“She didn’t mean a word of it,” Billy said shakily.
“I regretted the words the second I spoke them,” Martha said.
“You were desperate,” Monica guessed. “Trying to scare her into staying.”
“I killed her.” Martha’s tears had stopped, her eyes tired and old-looking. “She thought I meant what I’d said, and although she still left, she was crying while she drove….”
“You couldn’t have known…”
“Thank God you were thrown from the car,” Martha said as though she hadn’t heard her.
“Grandma,” Monica said, filled with sudden urgency. “Was Grandpa’s heart attack my mom’s fault?”
“Of course not!”
“But he’d just had word from his doctor about his heart problem, and she kept pushing you about Chris anyway. Hurting you. Causing you stress.”
“She had no way of knowing…” Martha’s words faded, her eyes widening. “I had no way of knowing…” she half whispered.
“I’d say our little girl here is maybe even smarter than her mama was, wouldn’t you?” Billy said softly, his eyes on his wife. And then he looked at Monica. “I’ve been telling her for thirty years that it wasn’t her fault.”
Martha’s shoulders relaxed in a way Monica had never before seen, and the tears in her eyes this time weren’t quite as sad.
MONICA GAVE HER grandmother the diary. She sat between her grandparents on the living room couch as the old woman read aloud how very much her daughter had loved them, read about the grief Carol had suffered at the withdrawal of her parents. And read about the passion for Chris that suffused those pages.
“He came to get you after the state notified him of your existence when they discovered, upon your mother’s death, that he was the father of the supposed orphan child. We told him then that we weren’t going to interfere this time. That we’d wait for you or him to contact us before we saw you again.”
“I didn’t know that until he died and his lawyer sent me the letter telling me about you,” Monica said, looking back, understanding now that her father had been a great man who’d loved hard and been deeply hurt but still preserved this relationship for her future.
Martha’s sorrow, her regret, was obvious. That she and Billy had paid for their mistakes, which were really the desperate efforts of frightened parents to protect their only child, was very clear.
“We all make mistakes, my dear,” Grandma replied when Monica said as much. “The key is to move on. Not to be afraid to try again. The key is to take that chance.”
Chills spread through Monica’s body and she knew she’d found, in the most bizarre, roundabout, unforeseen way, the answer she’d been seeking. She was going to call Shane.
Give him a chance to explain. Give herself a chance to forgive.
Tell him he didn’t have to prove his masculinity in the arms of other women. That no matter what happened, he was all man to her.
And she was going to ask him to go with her to the appointment the next day. And if her luck was anything like her mother’s and her grandmother’s, who’d both conceived their babies on Valentine’s Day, she, like them, would have a baby by Thanksgiving. A baby to love.
So would Martha.
Before she left, Monica told her so.
“SHE WAS NOTHING TO ME, Monica, I swear.” Shane’s voice came over the line later that night while Monica lay alone in the bed she should’ve been sharing with him. She’d asked him to come over.
He’d refused, preferring to stay in the two-bit motel room he’d rented back in December.
At least he hadn’t moved into an apartment yet. Started buying his own furniture.
Or stripping parts of their condo.
“Did you… Were you able to—”
“I didn’t even try,” Shane broke in and Monica took her first easy breath in five days.
“Did you want to?”
His pause was answer enough and Monica’s eyes filled with tears that dripped down the sides of her face.
“Of course I thought about it,” he finally answered. “If my problems are because of stress, of trying too hard, or because of the pressure I put on myself to please you, then it stands to reason that being with someone else should work. And if it didn’t, there’d be a bit of embarrassment, but nothing else to lose. It wouldn’t matter.”
Damn it, he made sense. He usually did.
“So why didn’t you?” She lay in the darkness, not wanting to know, and asking anyway.
“Because I love you.”
“Come home, Shane.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Not until I get this worked out. I was starting to resent you, Monica, to blame you, no matter how much I knew this situation isn’t your fault.”
Monica thought of her mother wrongly blaming herself for Grandpa Billy’s illness. Of Grandma blaming herself for her daughter’s death.
“That’s only natural,” she told the man she loved with all her heart. “And something we can work through together.”
“I can’t take that risk.”
“Aren’t you taking an even bigger risk that we’ll
lose each other by staying away?” Shane didn’t have anything to say to that. Monica almost ended the conversation right there.
Thinking about Shane’s lips on another woman’s, about a possible future liaison, she began to hang up the phone.
And a vision of Grandpa Billy staring into his wife’s eyes, so obviously loving her, giving her the strength to tell their granddaughter about her indiscretion with that salesman, flashed before Monica’s eyes.
That was the kind of love she wanted. The kind of
lover she wanted to be. “The insemination appointment’s tomorrow.” “Are you going?” Her grandparents had been holding hands when
she’d left them a short time before. Ninety-two and eighty-eight, seventy years of marriage, and still holding hands.
“I want to.” “Okay.” “You don’t mind?” “No.” “Will you come with me?” “No.” She wished Shane a good night and disconnected the
call.
THE CONVERSATION played and replayed itself in Monica’s mind as she lay on the paper-covered table in the small exam room at the clinic the next afternoon. They’d injected her half an hour before. She was giving those suckers a full hour to find an egg they liked and make a home within her womb.
She thought of her grandparents, whom she was going to see that night, to celebrate Valentine’s Day. She thought of her father. And Carol Bailey.
She cried a little. And then some more. But by the time she was in her car, Monica’s heart was more at peace than it had been in months.
As she pulled into her drive, her mind was on nursery furniture, pastel colors and asking Martha to teach her how to knit. Which was probably why she missed the tall, too-thin man sitting on the steps leading up to her front porch.
She didn’t notice him as she stopped the car, got out and collected her purse.
“Monica?”
On her way to collect the mail from the box at the street, she froze. She’d imagined that voice there, in their yard, many times over the past weeks. It wasn’t really surprising that it would visit her again.
“Monica.” The voice was stronger, less questioning.
She turned, and just like that, he was there. “Shane?” She was afraid to hope, to read too much into his presence in their driveway.
It was the first time he’d been there since he’d left.
“You were right.”
About what exactly? Monica was afraid to ask. Afraid…of everything.
Life without Shane was like that.
“I’ve been a fool, sweetheart, leaving you here all alone while I waited for life to take care of itself. My problems, your problems, whatever they might be, are life and that’s what we promised each other.”
Monica opened her mouth to speak—to agree with him, to ask if he meant what he was saying—but no sound came out.
And that was when her husband hauled her into his arms and covered her mouth with his own.
“Happy Valentine’s,” he said when he finally raised his head.
“Shane?”
Monica tried not to make too big a deal of it. Tried not to look down. But for the first time in months— since he’d walked out on her —she’d felt the rock-hard sensation that had occurred every single time Shane had held her in the old days.
“I know.”
“You wanna try?”
“Every single day for the rest of our lives,” he said, a new note in his voice. A peace she hadn’t heard before.
Wanting to talk to him about that, to understand what he was thinking, to know everything about him, Monica’s body urged her to other things first. Whether Shane could make love to her or not didn’t matter as much as feeling her husband’s skin against hers, running her fingers over him, knowing him.
Feeling his hands on her.
As though he could read her mind, Shane bent, lifted her easily and carried her into the bedroom they’d shared for almost ten years.
Monica didn’t want to rush, didn’t want to push, didn’t want to drive anything about their lovemaking. She just wanted to love Shane. It was all she could do. Her lips sought his, her hands moved over his body, and there was no thought of success or failure, of can or can’t. They’d already succeeded. Shane was with her.
Together they could take care of everything else.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He was still hard.
And minutes later he began to move against her.
“You think it might last?”
“Looks like it.” He was grinning. “Abstinence—and maybe the lack of tension—might be enough this time.”
Monica’s body welcomed the pressure of his while her heart sought something far more important. “Shane? I love feeling you inside me, you know that, but I love you far more.”
“Me, too.”
“I need to know that you love me more than you love this.”
“I think I needed to know that, too,” he told her. “I think that’s what these last weeks were all about. When I saw that look in your eyes on Friday at the bar, I thought I’d lost you for sure. But then you called last night…”
“And?” Monica searched his face for reassurance.
“I came back,” Shane said.
And in the end, love really was as simple as that.
November 13, 2008