Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) (17 page)

The light green Mustang I’d given myself as a landing-my-first-job reward eight years ago still ran like a top, but it was looking rode hard and put up wet. I didn’t even think about cleaning it until two blocks from the CPS building when it hit me how far it was below Wallace’s standards. The delivery driver had used paper mats, but those had only covered dirty mats and carpet underneath. Residue of lattes past clung to the drink holders. A gym bag with used clothing glared at me from behind the passenger seat. Trash of spurious origins littered the back floor mats. I searched the glove compartment and console at a red light. No Handi Wipes. No miniature trash can. Oh well. Too late to do anything about it.

Wallace stood on the sidewalk in front of a nondescript building (amongst other nondescript buildings and large surface parking lots) fiddling with his phone. I tapped my horn lightly, and he looked up. My car withered under his scrutiny, and he hadn’t even gotten in yet.

He slammed the door and then gasped. “Emily. No.”

“It’s not like you’re going to get Ebola from it or something.”

Wallace cocked his head, eyebrows up but eyes soft. “I’m not so sure. That’s why Uncle Wallace is going to treat you to the most divine car wash ever.” I sputtered but he shook his head. “This little baby is borderline vintage, and she deserves preservation.”

Wallace directed me to the The Works car wash, and, once there, paraded around like a VIP. Talk about a place where everybody knows your name. He must have practically lived there, or owned stock. The trip to The Works for auto detailing set us back forty-five minutes. I decided not to let it bother me that we’d spent the time on my car. I’d left Jack a note that I’d be back in by midafternoon, and we were just making one stop at Maria’s. It shouldn’t take that long, and even I had to admit that the Mustang looked fabulous, with a little prance in her step after the detailing. Just in time to hang out in a neighborhood where she would have blended better in her previous condition.

Wallace made no secret of studying me as we drove away from The Works. “Okay, so I’ve held back as long as I can. Who peed in your Post Toasties today?”

I shook my head. “Who didn’t?” Then, because there was nothing else I could do, I laughed. “After the quality time we’ve spent together, I feel it’s time to share.”

“Sharing time, yes!”

I laughed harder, startled by his shout. “So, I’m back in Amarillo because a gay transgender man named Stormy who was dressed like a woman crashed my ‘Surprise, honey, I’m pregnant’ party to stake his claim to my husband, Rich, who had in the meantime drained our finances Sahara dry.”

Wallace stared at me for a moment. I looked at his face. Expressionless. I was afraid I’d offended him somehow, but then he said, “Wow, that’s some major-league sharing. I hope you don’t expect me to top that.”

I shook my head. “Oh, and that’s not even all. My girlfriend Katie found out from her brother Collin that I was preggers, so she congratulated my mother, who ripped me a new one for keeping her in the dark and took it upon herself to inform my ex, whom I hadn’t told yet either and who’s basically been strafing me with text fire all day. Oh, and I got in a snit at Jack and barged in on him half-dressed and in the midst of drawing a lovely charcoal picture of his daughter in front of his shrine to the family I didn’t know he had, and he’s not speaking to me.”

“Jesus, Emily, I hope you’ve got your therapist on speed dial.”

“I can’t afford one, thanks to Rich.”

“And here you are back in Amarillo.”

“Where everybody is a little too interested in my business. ‘There goes poor Emily who wasn’t enough woman to hold onto her man.’”

He shook his head. “Honey, it doesn’t sound like any woman was woman enough for your man.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?”

He reached over and patted my knee. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be old news by Christmas.”

I snorted.

“And Emily? I think the term you’re looking for about Stormy is transvestite.”

“Good to know for when I tell the police why I slapped the bitch.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry.”

He whooped. “Don’t be sorry. That’s the spirit.” He smacked me a high five. “Okay, you’re allowed one more hour to pout and be the center of attention. After that it’s my turn.”

“Deal.”

“In the meantime, take me back to the part about Jack and half-naked.”

The conversation lightened. It felt good to get all of it out, and my mood improved. I turned into Maria’s neighborhood and decided to swing around the block first.

“I don’t think she can park in back, but let’s take a look,” I said.

All we saw on the next street was more houses, and there was no alley between the two streets.

“Yeah, and she doesn’t have a front garage either,” Wallace said. “She’s going to have to park on the street.”

“I wish we knew what she drove.”

“Or if she has a car at all.”

“True. I didn’t find anything registered to her.”

I parked the Mustang three houses down. We walked to her door. I heard a giggle, and the sound of feet. I rang the front bell, then knocked. No answer. No lights. No more sounds.

“Someone doesn’t want us to know they’re here,” I said. “But the laugh sounded like a child.” I chewed my top lip. “Valentina?”

“It sounded more like a little boy to me.”

“You’re right. Let’s watch the house for a while. Unless you can think of something else?”

“No, sounds good.”

We hadn’t been in the car five minutes when I pointed out a slight Hispanic woman in jeans and a black jack-o’-lantern sweatshirt headed toward us, from beyond Maria’s house. She carried white plastic grocery bags with a red and blue logo on them looped over her arms.

Wallace leaned in her direction. “That could be her.”

“She looks about the right age.”

We knew to expect a fifty-ish woman from the information I’d found on her.

I tucked my handbag under my arm and put my hand on the door latch. The woman cut across the yard of the house next door at an angle toward Maria’s. Wallace and I looked at each other and nodded, and we slipped out of the car. We walked toward Maria’s house, moving quickly. The woman noticed us, and she started running, groceries spilling all across the grass. Oranges, avocados, a quart carton of milk, tortillas.

I shouted but my words were punctuated by gasping breaths as I ran to intercept her. “Maria, wait, someone kidnapped Valentina Perez. We’re not with INS, we just want to help the little girl.”

She didn’t slow down. Wallace surprised me with a burst of speed and he made it to the door before she did. She stopped short, and I hit the front steps full tilt.

Crack! My foot exploded through the old wood and my momentum threw the rest of me forward into the steps: knees first, then gut and hands. All of the air came out of my lungs in a “woof.” And then I yelled bloody murder, rattling the windows.

“Mother Goose!”

“Emily!” Wallace had a panicked look on his face.

The woman looked at me, then at her front door and moved toward it.

“No! I’m fine.” I pushed myself up with my right hand, and I waved my left at her. “Don’t let her get past you.”

Wallace stayed put. “Maria, please. We don’t care what you’re doing, or who the little boy is inside that house.”

She drew a shaky breath.

Wallace continued. “Some white guy, big, with a shaved head, took Valentina. You know who Valentina is, right? Sofia’s daughter? Sofia, the one who used your ID to get a job, the one on the news who killed a guy at a hotel last week?”

I had meanwhile gingerly pulled my foot out of the splintery hole in the bottom step. My navy shoe stayed behind, so I reached in and got it. I sighed and put it back on. The wood had torn my knit pants, but the pants had protected my skin. I’d have an ugly bruise and I had splinters in both hands, but I wasn’t really hurt that badly. I rubbed my stomach. The cramps that I’d endured off and on the last few days were still there, but no worse than before.
Sorry, baby
.

Maria took a step back, shaking her head.

I stood up. “I’m Emily and we talked about all of that on the phone last Friday. You’re Maria, aren’t you?”

She shook her head again.

“A six-year-old little girl. And you could help her, couldn’t you?” She didn’t react at all. I softened my voice, pleading. “Please. The man had a tattoo, an ESL, a weird E, here, on his arm.” I pointed to the inside of my left upper arm.

Finally she spoke. “You not cops?”

I definitely recognized her voice from our phone conversation. “No, we’re not.”

“Not INS?”

“No.”

“Then go. You trespass, and I defend myself.”

“What?”

She pulled a handgun out of her purse. I raised my eyebrows and Wallace put his hands in front of him, palms forward, and said, “We were just leaving.”

***

Back at the office, I took Snowflake out to do her business and then settled in at my desk. I was disappointed—and sore—from the visit to Maria’s. I felt virtuous for the Johnson report I’d left Jack in his chair that morning and it didn’t appear he’d been back to the office while I was gone. That meant my brownie points were already in the bank, so I allotted myself fifteen more minutes to sleuth online. I’d still have two hours left in the day to work on the new client projects afterward.

A text came in, Nadine answering mine from earlier:
I’m working tonight. Coffee tomorrow?

I could go before my OB appointment at eleven. I texted back:
9:30 at Roaster’s on Georgia?

She agreed. I had a girlfriend date. I typed it into my calendar, then started Googling ESL and ΣSL. ESL had common usage as “English as a second language,” resulting in a crushing load of hits about adult education programs. No way would some thug tattoo English as a second language on his arm. ΣSL brought up concepts only an engineer or mathematician could understand. I added Mexico to each term, but that didn’t help.

The door in front of me opened, and I rapidly closed my browser. I swallowed and looked up to try to make amends with my boss, but it wasn’t him.

“Hello, Emily.”

It was Rich.

The Colombian man standing in front of my desk didn’t look much older than he had when I’d met him in my freshman English class at Tech. He was slight of frame in his skinny jeans, thin black sweater, and overly stylish ankle boots. Dark and sexy in an Enrique Iglesias sort of way. But I didn’t feel the rush I used to with his intense, beautiful eyes locked on me—just a sadness, a regret that made my shoulders sag, a panic that stole my breath. What the heck was he doing here?

“How did you know where to find me?” Like I didn’t know. But I wanted to hear him say it.

“Your mother. We must talk.”

“I’m at work.” I stomped toward the kitchen, away from him, but he followed.

“I understand, and I promise we will converse in a civil manner.”

“Speak for yourself.” I moved around to the far side of the kitchen table.

He stood in the doorway. “Emily, I’m so sorry. I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I’m asking for it.”

I rolled my eyes. Three weeks without his private school South American English made it foreign to me again, and irritating.

“Yeah, but not so sorry that you can’t cheat on me and leave me broke. Give me a break, Rich. This isn’t about me. You’re here because of the baby, so just get on with it.”

“Come back to Dallas. I want us to be a family and raise this baby together.”

I cackled like a deranged hen. “That’s priceless. You, me, baby, and Stormy. We’ll have to get a California King. I call dibs on the side of the bed closest to the bathroom.”

“If you come back, I give you my word I will not continue with Stormy. I will take the reparative therapy classes your mother has suggested I sign up for. The conversion.”

“No.”

“No, you don’t want me to take the conversion?”

“No, I won’t come back to Dallas; I won’t stay married to you. You are the baby’s father, and we can work out what that will look like, and I won’t try to keep you out of the baby’s life. But I don’t want you in my town, or in my office, or in my house. I will not see you anymore while you’re here. And if you show up again, I will call the police and tell them you’re harassing me.”

“You don’t mean these things, surely?”

I stood up, put both hands on the table and yelled louder than I had when I fell through Maria’s porch step earlier. “Get out. Get out, get out, get out!”

Rich stood for several moments, his mouth working but no sound coming out. I crossed my arms, but then a horrible pain tore through my abdomen. I grimaced and put my hands back on the table. Rich didn’t notice, or if he did, he must have thought it was about him, because he put his hands up in defeat, took two steps back, and then turned, stopping at the door. “As you wish. Goodbye, Emily.” Then he left.

As soon as he disappeared from sight, I gasped and clutched my stomach. I half-turned and put my hip on the table, then stood up again. Blood. Blood on the table. Panic gripped me. I heard the office door open and shut.

“Are you okay?”

Jack’s voice. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, and his warm, golden eyes looked concerned, not angry. Had he heard everything? Probably. But that was the least of my problems now.

I shook my head no. “I think I need to go to the emergency room.”

The Southwest ER nurse squeaked away on white hospital shoes. He’d taken my blood, my temperature, and my pulse and pressure. Now the waiting for a doctor began. The light pink and white curtained space didn’t give much privacy, and not only could I hear the moaning woman to my right, but I could see skinny ankles and bare feet under the curtain to my left. Liquid dripped to the floor by the bare feet and I averted my eyes, adjusting myself on the absorbent pad the nurse had placed under me. Jack sat in an armchair with a pleather seat, to the right of the bed.

I trained my eyes on my cold bluish toes. “You don’t have to stay,” I said.

“I’m not leaving you alone.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against his seat back.

For the last hour, I’d tried to stay calm and keep my fears at bay. I didn’t really want him here. At the same time, I did. I didn’t know what I wanted about a lot of things. But one thing was for sure: I wanted to think about something other than why I was here.

Work. We could talk about work. “I left you a report on Johnson.”

“Thanks. Did you get started on Freeman?”

Words fizzed behind my lips, then died. Did I get started on Freeman?
Of course not,
I wanted to shout.
I was looking for that little girl you don’t care about.
But I didn’t have the moral high ground here. I had been a giant horse’s rear end to him.

“No. I’m sorry.” I took a sip of water through a straw and felt calmer. “Johnson may have atrocious manners and business deals on the fringe of polite society, but he hosts the biggest annual charity event in Las Cruces.”

“Really?”

“Yep. It’s a whole weekend of activities anchored by a three-day golf tournament that raises money for after-school shelters and programs. A keep ’em off the streets initiative.”

“Huh.”

“He’s never done time, although most people suspect he gets away with breaking the barrier before the flag is tripped, if you know what I mean.” He didn’t answer, so I quickly added, “You know, when a horse starts early, before the steer breaks the barrier—”

“No, no. I know what you mean. I was just thinking.”

I nodded, but he didn’t elaborate, so I continued. “I can’t make up my mind about him. He has a bad reputation with women, but I read that he’s a good father. I met his daughter at your office last weekend, and she doesn’t seem to like him, but it could just be a teenager thing.”

Jack nodded.

“People hint that he’s shady with his businesses,” I continued, “but he raises money for kids. He may just be someone rough around the edges who’s risen above his past.”

Jack rubbed his forehead. “Which could make him a great client. He sent us our first case this week. An assault and battery charge against one of his employees.”

“That’s good.” He didn’t respond, so I added, “Right?”

He ignored my question. “This weekend he’s having a housewarming party. Out at his ranch. We’re all invited, and I think we should go. I mean, if you’re feeling up to it and you don’t have other plans.”

I thought of spending time with my mother giving me the silent treatment, versus out at Wrong Turn Ranch with Jarhead, where I could possibly sneak over to Roswell and see what I could find out about Spike and Harvey.

“Okay,” I said. “Sounds good.”

He cleared his throat and looked down. “About this morning.”

Oh, spit. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think about it. I shouldn’t have to deal with something that big and humiliating while I lay bleeding in an ER, should I? I could change the subject. Yet I didn’t want it to linger on.

“Yes?”

He took a pen out of his pocket and thumped it on his leg, one time. “It’s okay.”

I swallowed hard, and then tears came. I tried to speak, failed, then tried again. “No, it’s not, and I know it. You asked me to give you privacy, and I violated your space, and your, your—”

He sighed, cutting me off. “Memories. But it’s not like you took them from me. I still have them.”

His words sunk in, and I realized that my earlier suspicion had been right. His wife and kids were gone. It was sad, but a tiny place in me felt a flicker of hope.

“I’m so sorry.”

He rubbed his chin, and I saw he hadn’t shaved today. “Hey, guess what? I bunk in my office.”

“Yeah, I kinda saw that.”

He laughed, and I gave him a watery smile, but inside I hurt for him, and, I admit it, I wondered what had happened. The wife must’ve left him for someone else, I decided, because he sure didn’t act like a guy who’d quit her of his own accord. I’ll bet they were the reason he’d come to Amarillo, maybe following them here. I wondered about the little girl and her pony in the charcoal drawing. About her brother. I hoped his kids knew how much he missed them.

“So don’t sneak back there outside of work hours—you might catch me snoring.”

“I’ll ring the bell.”

He smiled. My heart did a crazy flip and I cursed it. How could I go from so frustrated to feeling like this, while I was working for this man and pregnant with someone else’s baby? Meanwhile he was hung up on his ex-wife and kept a shrine to her in his office, or apartment, or whatever it was when you lived where you worked.

Just then, the curtains to our space parted, and a tall, thin woman with pale skin, freckles, and light auburn hair stepped in. She looked a little like Katie, only not as pretty. She read from the notebook in her hand. “Mr. and Mrs. Bernal?”

Jack stood up. “No, we’re not married. I’m Mr. Holden and she’s Ms. Bernal.”

The doctor looked up. “Okay, no judgment here. I’m Dr. Marshall.”

I jumped in. “He’s not the father.”

My mother’s voice shredded the uncomfortable silence following my words. “Oh, my baby, I’m here.”

Jack put his hand on my mother’s shoulder and said, “Agatha, I’m leaving her in your good hands. And Dr. Marshall’s, of course.”

I shot a frantic glance at him. He started backing up and nodded at me. “Emily.”

My mother grabbed my hand and wrung it in hers.

***

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you’ve lost the baby.”

Dr. Marshall’s cool voice an hour later made the words sound innocuous. But they weren’t. I’d expected them, but still they gouged a black, empty hole inside me. She turned to include my mother.

“I’m not sure if you know the stats, but one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage, so this is fairly common.”

“Oh my God,” I said. “I had cramps for a few days. I spotted. I should have come in sooner.”

I felt sick with guilt, certain that my baby would have lived if I’d come in the first time I’d spotted, if I hadn’t been running around all over Amarillo trying to find Valentina, if I hadn’t fallen through Maria’s steps, if Rich hadn’t cornered me, if I hadn’t galloped Jarhead at top speed across the New Mexico highland desert last weekend. So many ifs. So many possibilities, all pointing back at me. I hadn’t kept my baby safe. I hadn’t protected the life entrusted to me.

I had let my child down.

Mother wailed. “Oh no. I did this. I did. I’m responsible.” Her words sounded hollow to me. She couldn’t be. I was.

The doctor shook her head. “Really, miscarriages around the eighth week aren’t unusual, and—”

“But emotional distress . . . and upsetting her . . .”

“No, no. Our ultrasound shows bleeding from her right Fallopian tube. She had a tubal pregnancy. It was never viable.”

Dr. Marshall’s words rang in my ears: Never viable. Never viable.
Never
viable.

So I hadn’t done this to myself, to the baby. Instead of making me feel better, it made me feel worse in an incredibly empty way. The prospect of this baby was never viable. Never
real
. I stared at the speckled white ceiling tiles over my bed. Square after square marched across the room in a military-style cadence, chanting, “Never real. Never real. Never real.” Like being a man’s beloved daughter. Or wife. Never real. Never real.

“Oh, my poor darling girl!” Mother pushed my hair back from my forehead.

Dr. Marshall touched my mother’s arm. “She’s doing great, Mom. Pregnant ladies are tougher than you’d think.” She turned to me. “We need to get you into your regular obstetrician as soon as possible for follow-up. They’ll decide whether you need surgery.”

Surgery. Well, who cared? If the baby wasn’t real, nothing was at risk, and surgery was just a bother, a nuisance. “I have an OB appointment tomorrow,” I said.

My mother grabbed my hand in a grip as strong as a man’s. “What kind of surgery?”

“In a low percentage of the cases after a tubal pregnancy hemorrhages, part or all of the Fallopian tube has to be removed. But it’s a very low percentage.”

The blood drained from my face. I know this because I could feel every drop.

“But I only have the one Fallopian tube,” I said. “On the right. I had the other removed years ago. Tumors. Noncancerous. But they were bad, and, well, I can’t lose the right tube or I can’t ever have children.”

My mother pulled my hand to her chest.

“We saw that on the ultrasound, and it’s something to discuss with your obstetrician, of course. But, again, removal isn’t required very often, and even then it’s usually only partial. You can still get pregnant with only part of one tube.”

My free hand pressed into my mouth, holding in my heart.

“I’m surprised your doctor didn’t see this earlier, actually. While it wasn’t viable, a tubal pregnancy can be ended before it causes damage to you.”

One time, when I’d been coming to get Jib from the pasture, she’d startled and ran into me headfirst. The crack of our skulls had knocked me out, and I still remembered the impact. I felt that skull crashing again now from Dr. Marshall’s words against my brain.

“I just moved here. I was between doctors.”

“Ah, I understand. That’s too bad. But your chances of losing that tube are so slim. You have to try not to worry about it. Now, I’m going to release you because we were able to stop the bleeding. But I’d like you to stay off your feet until you get to the doctor. Come right back here if you start bleeding again before then.”

Dr. Marshall rattled off some more instructions, and I saw Mother nodding, but I just stared at the doctor’s bouncing lips.

Oh God,
I thought.
Please forgive me for being a careless, selfish, vain woman.

Numbness spread over me, everywhere but my chest where a heavy weight crushed down on my heart. My baby had never been real. And now I might never get another chance to have one.