More Than Friends (43 page)

"You shouldn't have come," she finally managed to say.

"Of course I should have. You're my daughter. I could never have celebrated the new year without you."

"You should be with Mom."

"Mom's okay. You're the one who's unhappy, and since I'm the one who made you unhappy, I'm the one who'll cheer you up." She started crying again. He wondered what he was doing wrong. Pete's voice came from across the room. It was like sandpaper, smoothing Sam's fears. "You pulled the cork, Sam. Everything that's been stored up for weeks is flowing."

Sam nodded. He stroked Zoe's hair, rubbed her back and her arm. Fifteen years old--it was hard to believe. He could feel the new shape her body was taking, yet she remained young and fragile. He slipped a hand in hers, remembering the baby who used to curl her fingers around one of his. She didn't do that now. Nor did she pull her hand away. With his mouth close, he said, "We looked all over for you, Zoe, all over the chalet, all over the mountain. We called everyone we could think of, and all the time I was telling myself that if something happened to you, I'd be to blame. It's been a rough few months, all my fault."

"I want things back the way they were," came her small voice. "I want all of us skiing, not just Leigh."

"That may not happen. Once Michael is well, he and Teke will join us, probably Jana, too. I don't think J.D. will. He's separating himself."

"All because of you and Teke?"

"No. That might have been the catalyst, but there's more to what he's doing. He needs something different in his life."

"If he loved his family, he wouldn't."

"He loves his children very much. That's why he wanted Jana and Leigh in Arizona with him."

"Leigh chose Jon. Jana didn't choose me."

"She chose her father, and maybe she was right. Think about it, Zoe. Jana sees you every day, but not J.D. She knew you'd be spending the holiday with us, but who was J.D. going to spend it with?"

"But I want her back. I mean, I love having Mom to myself--Jana was a pest that way sometimes-but Jana's my best friend." He stroked her hair. "And she still will be, but that doesn't mean you can't survive without her. Look at Mom. She did Thanksgiving without Teke. She didn't think she could, but she did, and she got a real satisfaction from it."

"But I liked things the way they were."

"Me too." He thought about the law firm and the comfortable place he had had there once. The comfort was gone now. He was feeling unsettled. Then again, "But I'm starting to like some things the way they ore."

"Like what?"

"Like helping your mom. I get my own satisfaction from that. I never got it before, because Teke was always there to help."

"What else?"

"I like being home more. All my professional life I've felt that I had to be working, always working. Hours equal money. But, hell, what good's the money if you don't enjoy it with the people you love? And there's something else."

"What?"

"I like us being together, you and Jon and Mom and me. I may be selfish for saying that, but we haven't had much of it, and it's nice. It'd be even better if you and Jon would give me a chance. I made a mistake with Teke. You can't hold it against me forever." He tucked in his chin so that he could see her face, brushed a tear track from her cheek, and said in a soft voice, "I love you, Zoe. When I think of what I miss most about the way things used to be, one of the biggest things is you. I like the way we used to talk. I like the way we used to do things together."

She was quiet for a while, fiddling with one of the cables of his sweater.

"Whatcha thinkin'?" he whispered.

She whispered back, "I'm thinking I really messed up your New Year's Eve."

"Not necessarily. All's well that ends well. The night is still young."

She bobbed a shoulder against him. "Mom's up there and you're here. What fun is that?"

Sam agreed. "So why don't we pack up Papa Pete and drive back?" Zoe looked up. Her eyes were watery but bright. "Now?"

"Why not?" he said, grinning. She was the most beautiful child in the world, he was sure of it, and she was his. "First we'll call Mom to let her know you're okay"--he sought Pete's nod--"then we'll hit the road." He racked his brain. "We'll have to do something good when we get there. What do you think? Champagne's a little too common. Same with confetti and noisemakers."

Pete rose from his crate, went into the kitchen, and returned with something long, elaborately snakelike, and vibrantly bright. "My friend Bin Liu loaned this to me as a model. It's a three-man dragon. If pretty little Zoe can do her part, we have a team."

"I can do my part," Zoe said with enthusiasm, but she didn't jump right up. She stayed with Sam a bit longer, resting against him, making up for lost time, he fancied. At one point he thought she might have fallen asleep, but when he bent his head over hers she met his gaze.

"I'm glad you came for me," she whispered.

He hugged her tightly. "I always will, Zoe. That's my job." More than ever before, with the new year about to break and his professional direction uncertain, he was grateful it was so.

slittle

the range of motion in his joints and gaining strength in his muscles. His movements remained awkward, but he no longer needed leg braces. That fact alone attested to the progress that was often hard to see. For every two good days, there was one bad.

Teke was experiencing the same thing. She met with the lawyer Sam recommended, got a Visa card in her own name, then wrote a check at the supermarket that bounced. She pumped her own gas for the very first time, agreed to chair a committee planning a walkathon to benefit the Constance Land Trust, then had a huge row with Jana.

The row upset her far more than the bounced check. The children were her Achilles' heel. Where they were concerned, she wallowed in worry and guilt. She was trying to do what was right, but what was right wasn't always popular. Too often she was in a no-win situation. Such was the case with Jana when it came to the girl's habit of jumping on the T after school and showing up unannounced for dinner with J.D. They even teen

had gone back and forth for half an hour and were repeating themselves, with neither willing to back down.

"But he's all alone," Jana insisted in defense of her visits. "That doesn't seem right to me."

"He chooses to be alone," Teke pointed out for what had to be the tenth time. She didn't want to bad-mouth J.D." but this was relevant. He had called to complain more than once, which would crush Jana if she knew. "There are times when he finishes work and stops for supper, then arrives home to find you there. Besides, what about us? I expect you home at a certain time, and you don't show. I call around in a panic until your father finally calls me. That's not right, Jana. We plan on your being here. We look forward to your being here. And you have homework to do."

"I do it there."

"Then your father has to drive you all the way back here. Or is that the point?" Teke asked, knowing that it probably was. "Jana, he moved out" She didn't know how much more emphatically she could say it. "He chooses to have his own place in Boston. You can have him drive you back here all you want, but it won't make any difference. He doesn't want to live with me."

"I don't blame him," the girl said with a defiant look. "I don't either."

She's upset, Teke told herself, and not for the first time, though the hurt remained. She's having trouble adjusting to the changes in her life. She loves me, whether she knows it or not.

"You don't need me," Jana went on. "You have Michael and Leigh. And Grady." This, accusingly. "You're still married to Dad. What are you doing with Grady?"

Teke's heart skipped a beat. It always did when

Grady's name came up. "Grady is my friend." Jana snorted in disdain.

"He's more than that." Of course he was, but Teke hadn't let the kids see it. She might have thrown herself at him in private, but when the children were around, she was a model of decorum. "What are you suggesting?" "Have you been to bed with him yet?" "That's none of your business," Teke cried, then caught herself. "But you think it is, so I'll tell you. The answer is no," she said conclusively and not without pique. Grady's "plans", the ones he had alluded to on the night they had argued, consisted of tormenting her. He was around more than ever, being helpful and companionable and more appealing than any one man had a right to be, particularly when he had been deemed off-limits by the woman he turned on most.

"Then it's only a matter of time," Jana said. "You embarrass me." Teke was insulted. She had been the model of decorum, where Grady was concerned. "Why, for God's sake?"

"Because you can't stand being in a bed alone. Daddy wasn't here, so you went with Sam--" "Not in a bed!"

"--and now it's Grady. How low will you go?" Teke bristled. "I should be so lucky as to end up with Grady. He's considerate and generous. He shoulders his own weight. He knows about hard knocks. He's paid his dues, and he's survived to become a productive member of society." "He's a carpenter" Jana sneered. Furious, Teke raised a shaking finger in the vague direction of Cornelia Hart's home. "I wouldn't turn your nose up at that, young lady, until you've taken a look at what he's done." She tried to keep her voice even but failed.

"He's making something beautiful of that carriage house, and it's only the latest of his jobs! You couldn't do what he does, but what he does will be around long after you and I are dead and gone!"

"I'll leave my mark on the world!"

"You do that!"

She watched Jana storm from the room, thinking that things had to get better. After all, Michael was starting to come around. So was Leigh. Two out of three wasn't bad.

Then came the day she took Leigh to see Charlie Hart. "Pills, I would think," she had told him on the phone. Once at the office, Leigh went inside while Teke sat calmly in the waiting room flipping through Redbook. Twenty minutes later, when she had begun to grow concerned thinking that in the course of his examination Charlie had found a lump or hint of some other disastrous disease, he appeared at the door and waved her in. Leigh was sitting on a chair looking pale as a ghost. Sure that one of her imaginings was fact, she asked a frightened,

"What's wrong?"

Charlie rocked back on his chair, steepled his fingers, and said with a sigh, "We have a slight problem when it comes to birth control. It's too late. Leigh's pregnant."

Pregnant. Teke's jaw dropped. Pregnant.

"From what we can figure, she's probably seven weeks along." Pregnant? Teke hadn't imagined that one. She didn't know why. She supposed that if her daughter was old enough to have a lump in her breast, she was old enough to have a fertilized egg in her womb. Still, a fertilized egg meant a baby. Leigh was little more than a baby herself. No. That was wrong. She was seventeen. Nearly eighteen. And pregnant. Oh, God.

"I told you at Thanksgiving," Leigh said defensively. "I told you then that I needed birth control."

"That would have been too late," Charlie pointed out gently. "It probably happened the first or second time you were with Jon. You said that was right around the middle of November."

Pregnant. Teke couldn't believe it.

Leigh was still looking at her. "We held off as long as we could, but it didn't seem fair, finally. Everyone else was doing what they wanted."

There it was. Sam again. "It never ends, does it?" Teke asked in a high voice, fighting panic.

"I didn't do it on purpose, Mom."

"Didn't it occur to Jon to use anything?"

"He said we didn't have to worry about AIDS."

"But the other."

"He said he'd pull out. He did. Almost."

Teke sought help from the ceiling, but there were no answers written there. "Pregnant," she breathed, feeling suddenly weak.

"Maybe it just looks that way," Leigh told Charlie. "I don't see how I could be pregnant. I mean, I don't feel pregnant."

"You will," Charlie said. He was sitting with his forearms on the desk, the counselor now. "There are options," he told Teke. "Leigh and I have been discussing them. She can have the baby and keep it. She can have the baby and give it up for adoption. Or she can terminate the pregnancy. It's still early enough for that." Teke pushed a swath of hair from her cheek to the top of her head. She couldn't consider options, not when her heart was thudding loudly enough to shake up everything in her head. How could she think of options when she couldn't believe Leigh was pregnant?

Stunned, she turned to the girl. "Did you know?"

"I don't know now! I haven't been sick or anything, I didn't think it could happen so soon, I had no idea"

Bewildered, Teke sought comfort from Charlie. "Should I rfave known?

Should I have seen something?"

He shook his head. "There was nothing to see."

"She must have missed a period."

"She says she lost count over the holidays."

"Who's sorry about missing a period?" Leigh asked, trying to explain it.

Are you now? Teke might have asked if Leigh wasn't so clearly upset. If Teke was feeling like a mass of loose bones ready to come apart any minute, she imagined Leigh was feeling worse. Then again, maybe not. Leigh didn't understand what having a baby meant. She didn't understand the responsibility, the worry, the time commitment, the expense. She thought she had partaken of the ultimate in adult freedom by making love with Jon. She didn't understand that the outcome would take that freedom right away.

A baby. Leigh's baby. Leigh and Jon's baby. Teke's grandchild. Sam and Annie's grandchild. Annie. Teke wondered what Annie would say to do.

But Annie wasn't the one in Charlie Hart's office. Teke tried to remain calm and somehow order her thoughts. "I think we ought to take this one step at a time."

They told Jon as soon as he got home from school. He went every bit as pale as Leigh had been when she had first learned. To his credit, he was fast to take her hand and hold it tightly.

"We should have waited," Leigh whispered to him.