Five Days Left (27 page)

Mara

Since arriving home from lunch with Steph and Gina, Mara had picked up the phone at least a dozen times to call her parents. Just one more goodbye, she told herself. One more chance to tell Laks how much she loved her. One more chance to tell her parents. One more opportunity to hear each of them say it back to her. But she had hung up the phone each time, before the connection was made. If she heard their voices again, she didn’t think she’d be able to go through with it.

Now she and Tom were driving east on the highway, headed for her birthday dinner. Mara bit her lip, thinking about how Tom, Laks and her parents were planning to give her presents tomorrow, when Pori and Neerja brought Laks home. Knowing her mother, Mara suspected one of tonight’s activities at her parents’ place involved cake batter, icing and candles. It made her sick to think of them working away in Neerja’s kitchen, making Mara’s favorite cake, Laks taking care to decorate it neatly.

“That is one amazing sunset, love,” Tom said, and Mara was grateful to him for interrupting her self-loathing session. “Can you see it?” He angled the rearview mirror for her, and a red-and-orange ball, shot through with streaks of deep mango yellow, stared back at her. The few thin clouds surrounding the sun were in shades of purple.

“Wow,” she said, though the word didn’t come out with enough force for him to hear.

“See it?”

She nodded, her lips pressed firmly together in a tight smile. “Lovely,” she finally choked out. She had thought, at one point, about making a list of all the small things in nature she’d miss, and making sure she enjoyed them one last time: the sound of August evening crickets, spring’s first daffodil, the whir of a hummingbird, the feel of sun on her face. And this, the dramatic, colorful canvas of a Texas sunset.

At some point along the way she’d lost the list, or forsaken it for one describing things she was far more desperate to experience: the sound of Laks’s laughter, the feel of Tom’s five-o’clock shadow against her cheek, the smell of her mother’s shampoo, her father’s aftershave. These were the sights and sounds and physical sensations most glorious to her. She had not run out to the garden at the first thaw this year to find the buds of daffodils. She had not paid specific attention to the mournful sound of wind in the chimes, the heavy, electric feeling in the air before a thunderstorm, the rich, thick, earthy smell after. She had not sat listening for hours on end to the calls of birds in the yard. Now she felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t taken the time for those things.

Tom turned back to the road while Mara watched the sun sink a little lower behind them. “Could we pull over and watch it?” she asked. “It’ll be gone in a few minutes and it’s so beautiful.”

“We’re already running late. Which, as you know, doesn’t bother me one bit. But I can’t say the same for my always-punctual wife.”

“I really want to watch it.”

“So let’s watch it.” He took the next exit ramp, found a parking lot and pointed them west before turning off the engine. “It really is lovely.”

“Mmmmm.”

He shifted in his seat to be closer to her, put his right arm around her shoulders and held his left hand out to her. She took it, intertwining their fingers as she edged toward him. She rested her head on his
shoulder and he laid his cheek on the top of her head. Without speaking, they watched the sun dip lower and lower, the purple clouds changing shades as the light source moved horizontal to them, then below.

“Is it the most amazing sunset we’ve ever seen,” she asked, “or is it simply the most time we’ve ever spent sitting still and really seeing it?”

“Hard to know.” He ran his hand up and down the length of her arm. “This is nice. We really don’t sit still all that often.”

“You mean I don’t sit still. You’re always trying to get me to do it with you but I’m always making excuses for why I can’t. It’s never been my strong suit, has it? Relaxing. Slowing down. Savoring the moment.”

“Or the sunset.”

“Right.”

“No matter. We’re doing it now.”

Nodding, she studied their intertwined left hands, gently touching the wedding band on his. “Marrying you was the single best thing I ever did, and the thing I’m most proud of.”

“Nah,” he said. “I married up. Way, way up.”

She laughed. It was an old joke between them. “For all your overachieving,” he’d say, “you certainly didn’t marry half as well as I did.”

“Up or down, backwards or forwards or sideways, I’m glad I did it,” she said.

“Me too.”

She adjusted her head a little on his shoulder. “Settling in for a long spell?” he asked.

“Why not? We’ve been out to dinner a million times. This is the thing we haven’t done enough of.”

“Oh, no,” he said, sitting upright again and moving to start the car. “You’re only saying that because of me. And I’m fine. We’ve been here a few minutes. I’ve gotten my quota of sitting still, and you must be long past your limit.” He winked at her. “No need to torture yourself on my account.”

“I want to,” she said, pulling his arm away from the ignition, his body toward her again.

“You want to torture yourself?” He laughed, letting himself be pulled down. “On my account?”

“There’s no better account to do it on than yours.”

Scott

Scott sat on their bed, working up the courage to wake his sleeping wife. A hand on her shoulder, he shook her gently. “Laur?”

She opened an eye and his heart pounded. Now that he was here, and she was awake, he didn’t feel so sure. It was a bad idea, starting out by waking her. How many times had she lamented never getting enough sleep?

She glanced at the clock. “What’s wrong?” Her voice sounded panicked and she started to sit.

He pushed her gently back down. “No need to get up,” he said.

“Good,” she murmured sleepily. After a second, she seemed to register he was out of bed himself and asked, “But then, what are you doing up?”

“I was talking to Bray. He’s a mess.”

She clucked sympathetically. “It’s a lot for him to deal with.”

“Yeah . . .” He looked down and noticed his right leg was bouncing a mile a minute.

She noticed, too, and pulled on his shirt to get him to face her. “What?”

Scott took a breath. “He’s been talking to some people, and he’s had a little time to . . . think about everything, you know? And . . . he’s not certain anymore whether . . . he can handle a kid on his own. He’s convinced he’ll screw things up. For both of them.”

“But that’s a complete change from the way he was talking yesterday.”

“Yeah.”

“So now he’s thinking . . . he’ll put him in foster care?”

“He’s considering it. Only he thinks that would be an equally bad idea.”

“Wow.” She rolled onto on her back and stared at the ceiling. “What a mess. And knowing Bray, he’s—”

“A complete wreck. He’s convinced that whatever he does, it’s the wrong thing. I’m worried he’s never going to forgive himself, either way.”

“So what now?” she asked. “When’s he going to decide? When’s he going to tell Curtis?”

“I asked him not to make a decision until tomorrow night.”

“Oh, right, because you and Curtis will be at Monster Trucks all day anyway. And he wouldn’t want to say anything in the morning before you leave. It could ruin the entire day.”

It made perfect sense, and if he’d been quicker on his feet, he’d have pretended that was precisely the reason. He wasn’t, and his expression showed it.

“Scott. What’s Bray waiting for?” She raised herself to sitting and leaned against the headboard, regarding him narrowly. “Scott.”

His throat went instantly dry and he reached for the glass of water on her bedside table, took a long sip. The second he set the glass down, she grabbed his wrist and held it firmly.

“Answer me. Why did you ask Bray to wait?”

“I told him to wait . . . to see if maybe . . . you and I could . . . uh . . . keep the little man.”

She dropped his wrist. “You told him
what
?”

He moved closer, taking her hand in his. “Hear me out,” he said. “I know the year has been . . . challenging. But maybe a lot of that was the temporary nature of it, you know? The fact that we all knew he’d be moving home with his mom. Miss Keller said as much, and you, too, remember? How the impending transition has been tough on him? And really,
the whole year’s been a transition, right? Moving here, and by the time he gets settled in, he’s moving out again. One big twelve-month transition.

“Plus, the question of whether she’d keep it together once she got out of jail—I mean, that had to be stressful for the kid, right?”

He waited for her to nod in agreement. She didn’t.

“Well, anyway,” he continued, “if he hadn’t had that in the back of his mind the whole time, who knows how he might have done. So I was thinking, if he knew he was going to be here permanently, and if he didn’t have to worry about whether his parents were going to be home or in jail when he got home from school, maybe he’d be . . . better. Less . . . trouble. Maybe he’d even, over time, you know, get . . . easy.” He eyed her warily, guessing he was pushing his luck predicting Curtis would ever be “easy.” The look she gave him let him know he had guessed right.

“I know you’re anxious for time alone, for yourself and for us.” He squeezed her hand, smiling. “And I am, too. But again, I think if he knew he would be staying here for good, he’d be better about that, too. A lot more likely to go play alone in his room for a while after school, give you time to yourself. I think it was the idea that his time was going to be so limited here that kept him underfoot all the time. And I know Pete would help out for the next few months, so we could still fit in all the date nights and everything, before the baby.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, then shrugged, laughing at his own weak attempt to show her the kind of romance she could expect from him.

“And I’m sure Curtis would fit right in with the new baby. He’s been so excited about meeting her, talking all about how he wants to come over and see her, sing to her, teach her to shoot hoops. He’d be a fantastic big brother, I know he would. And look how well he’s already fit into our lives, right? We’ve had those family dinners all year, like you’ve always wanted. And he’s gone grocery shopping with you, and helped you bake cookies. Things you’ve always imagined you would do with kids one day.

“And remember how much fun it was at Christmas, with both of them here? Remember Christmas morning? How you explained the
whole thing about lining up shortest to tallest at the top of the stairs and singing ‘Jingle Bells’ on the way down, and they were both all over that?” He gestured to the hallway behind him, and the top of the stairs, trying to get her to remember how much fun they’d had that morning. “And you said it was a real family Christmas? The four of us, a family?”

Breathless, he reached for her water glass again, staring intently at the book on her bedside table while he took another long sip and built up the nerve to look to his left, meet her gaze. Hear her answer.

She cleared her throat and he turned. Her lips parted slightly, and he realized with relief that she was at a loss for words. He wasn’t ready to hear what she might say. He started to speak again, thinking it would be best if he filled the silence with more words of his own, talked his way past her shock, past the questions he knew she was going to ask when she recovered, the reasons he suddenly knew she was going to give for why his idea could never work.

She found her voice before he could think what to say next. “You want us to adopt Curtis?”

He lifted a shoulder. “He’s so excited about the baby. He’d be a terrific big brother. Even you said so—”

She sputtered, pulled her hand away from his and held it up, facing him, stopping him from going on. “That was months ago. And mostly I was praising him as a reward for being so sweet about spending all that time looking at baby clothes with me that day. I didn’t mean it literally. You know that. I meant it theoretically. If his mom were to have another baby, I meant. I didn’t mean he’d be a good big brother to our baby specifically, so he should stay for good. Don’t use that against me to—”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. But he would be a good big brother. And he has fit in here, right? We’ve had some great times this past year, haven’t we?”

“Sure we have,” she said, now fully awake. “We’ve also had hundreds of time-outs and almost as many temper tantrums. Half a dozen meetings in the principal’s office—”

“Right,” he said, nodding agreeably. “And that’s what I’m saying. That so much of that was the product of inconsistent parenting for the first seven years of his life and . . . stress. But how much of all that would go away if he knew the rules were going to remain consistent? And if he knew this was his permanent home? That we were going to take care of him for good? And he didn’t have to worry about where his next meal was coming from, or whether we’d be sticking around?”

“I don’t know, Scott. Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it. And you don’t know—”

“Well, yeah, I mean, there’s no guarantee. And he won’t turn into some dream child overnight, but—”

“It’s not only about the behavior anyway,” she said. “Or about wanting time to myself, or having time alone with you before the baby comes. You know that.”

He cocked his head. He hadn’t known it would be about more than those things. The look on her face told him he should have.

She scowled. “Don’t look at me that way,” she said, “all surprised, as if it’s news to you how I feel about this.”

He tried to guess where she was going with this.

She raised a brow skeptically. “Really? The biggest fight we’ve ever had, and you’ve forgotten?”

Ah. The older-child adoption argument that had landed him on the couch for a week before he was promoted to the outer edges of his side of the mattress for another two and then, finally, allowed closer. He blinked. That must be the argument she was talking about now. It was the only really big one they’d ever had. But how did it relate? Those were hypothetical kids. Curtis was real.

He said it out loud.

She shook her head and looked at him like he was completely clueless. Which he felt, suddenly.

“That makes it harder,” she whispered. “A lot harder. But it doesn’t change how I feel. I still want the same thing. Our own family, our own
biological family. You, me and our baby. And maybe others, if we get lucky enough to conceive again.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But Curtis—”

“I know. And I’ll feel sick about it if Bray decides not to take care of him. But I can’t take him in just because I feel bad for him, Scott, I can’t. It’s not the family I want. I can’t suddenly be okay with it because their situation is now different.”

Reflexively, he frowned and he shook his head once, hard, as though trying to clear something unsettling from his thoughts. He had anticipated hearing how difficult Curtis had been, how reluctant she was to sign on for more challenges, how he would owe her big-time, in ways she would look forward to dreaming up. He hadn’t anticipated this.

He felt his wife’s gaze and he lifted his chin to her. She was crying, and he realized she had seen the face he made, registered his disappointment.

“Don’t pretend that’s news,” she whispered, and he could hear anger laced into her tone, along with pain. “And don’t you insinuate it’s such a terrible thing for me to say. This is something I’ve been waiting for, dreaming about, for years, and it’s finally happening.” She put a hand on her belly. “Don’t you pretend it’s an awful thing for me to want to enjoy it completely.”

He swore at himself. “I didn’t mean—” he started, reaching a hand toward her.

She batted his hand away and pushed past him, sliding off the bed. “Don’t tell me you didn’t mean it. I saw the face you made.” She swiped angrily at her tears. “After everything I’ve done for those boys this past year.” Her voice was barely above a whisper and he had to lean forward to hear. “All these months I could’ve been getting the nursery ready or reading all those baby books that are gathering dust in the corner because I haven’t had time to get to them. Because I’ve been helping with homework, reading stories. Arguing about taking a bath and going to bed on time. All the weekends I could’ve spent doing all the relaxing
everyone tells you to do before the baby comes and you never have a quiet moment to yourself again.”

“Laur,” he said softly, “I know. You’ve done so much for him. I’m sorry—”

She raised a hand. “Don’t tell me that now. Don’t you dare try to tell me that five seconds after you’ve looked at me as if I’m some evil monster for not wanting to keep the boy forever. I’ve done my part. I said I would keep him for twelve months, and I have. I’ve done everything I said I would do. And I’ve done a damn good job.

“I’ve made that boy feel loved and cared for and safe. I’ve opened my home and my family and my heart to him. And they’re still open, and they always will be. I’ve told Curtis and Bray they’re welcome here anytime to visit, even to stay over. Come for holidays, even. As visitors. I don’t owe them more than that, and I don’t owe you more than that. I signed on to be a limited guardian. Not to adopt.”

“I know,” he said. “I messed up. I shouldn’t have reacted that way. I wasn’t thinking. I was only—”

“You were only assuming I’d forget everything I want and say yes. Because that’s so easy for you to do, you assumed I’d do it, too. And I didn’t, and now you’re, what? Disgusted? Disappointed? What was that look, exactly?”

Her voice broke and she took a step away from him, toward the bathroom. Scott moved quickly toward her, standing himself now, reaching for her.

“No, that’s not it,” he started. But he couldn’t think of what to say next. He dropped the hand that had been reaching for her, dragged it across his chin. He rocked on his heels and stuck his hands in his hip pockets. “Is there no way you could be happy,” he asked, “with this . . . change of plan? I know it’s work—he’s work. But what if I promised to handle all the stuff at school, so you wouldn’t have to do any of that? I’d do all the homework . . . all the everything. You could focus on the baby.”

“That’s not a family,” she sniffed. “Me and the baby in one room, you
two in another. You wouldn’t be happy with things that way. Neither would I. And it wouldn’t be fair to him.”

“Right,” he said. “But then . . .” He cast about for something, anything. “What about . . . I don’t know. Is there something else? Some other way we could make it work? You don’t think there’s any way for you to get used to . . . ?”

She shook her head slowly and stared at her fingers.

“And the fact that we’re talking about Curtis here . . .” His voice faltered and she snapped her head up.

“Doesn’t change how I feel,” she said. “I love Curtis. Don’t use that against me. I feel like you’re setting me up here, suggesting that because he’s been here for the last year, we’re the ones who need to take him. That’s not fair. Don’t make me regret agreeing to take him in the first place.”

“I guess I don’t really understand,” he said quietly. “I mean—”

“I can’t have this conversation again,” she interrupted, raising her hands to stop any further questions, any more suggestions about how they could make it work. “And I don’t think you really want to, either. Because my not wanting to dedicate my entire existence to these boys isn’t the only issue here. There’s also the matter of you being this total family man when we moved into this house, wanting nothing more than to load the place with babies and spend all our spare time together, as a family.