Sister's Choice (29 page)

She left Alison to ponder her odd little family, and answered the phone.

The male voice that responded was unmistakable, Irish lilt and charm oozing across the line. “Good day to you, Jamie. How are things in Virginia?”

She glanced at Alison, who so seldom heard from Seamus Callahan that she hadn’t yet learned to hope his would be the voice at the other end of the line.

“Did you get my message?” Jamie asked softly. “I left you one with the new number where you could reach us.”

“Don’t assume the worst. I did indeed. But I just called there, and I was told I might catch you at this number today.”

She was glad to hear that Seamus had at least kept track of where to find his daughter. He was a vagabond and a thrill seeker, but like Larry, Seamus never quite forgot he was a father.

“Would you like to talk to Alison? She’s right here.”

“That’s why I called. I’m between tournaments. I wanted to be sure we talked before things got busy again.”

She chalked up a mock point in his favor and covered the receiver. “Alison, it’s your daddy.”

Alison looked puzzled; then her eyes brightened. She came forward and took the phone from Jamie’s hand, settling it against her ear.

“Hello?”

Jamie smiled. For once Seamus’s timing couldn’t have been better. This was a special treat, and bound to go a long way toward cheering up her daughter. She listened as Alison answered her father’s questions, even describing what she was doing in preschool. Jamie was about to take the phone when the little girl nodded seriously, as if Seamus could see her.

“Hannah’s fine.”

Jamie was glad Seamus had remembered to ask. But then, Seamus had always liked Hannah. In his favor, Seamus liked everybody.

“Mommy’s fine,” Alison said, still nodding. “She’s going to have babies.”

Jamie stood very still. This was something she hadn’t told Seamus, since it involved him not at all. Now she realized her mistake.

“Yes, babies. Two babies.” Alison nodded at the phone again. “No, Mommy says she has too many children. She’s giving some of us to Aunt Kendra.”

Jamie closed her eyes. When Alison held out the telephone to her again, she took it and began to explain, before Seamus hopped on the next plane to rescue his daughter.

“Out of the mouths of babes,” Kendra said, her eyes twinkling after Jamie told her the story. “What did Alison’s father say?”

“I didn’t give him much of a chance to say anything. He listened. Then he asked if I’d lost my bloody mind. Seamus can’t imagine anybody volunteering to carry one baby, much less two, for somebody she loves. But then, Seamus pretty much just loves Seamus.”

“Poor Alison.”

“He’s not really a bad person, and he likes her well enough. As long as she never requires any real effort.”

“She’ll realize that one day.”

“I’m hoping by the time she does, there’ll be a man in my life to give her the stability and role model she needs.”

“Could that be somebody you’ve already met?”

Jamie felt great; she was looking forward to seeing old friends. Her life seemed complete. “Who knows?”

“Are you saying it could be Cash?”

“I don’t know. Cash flew in fresh raspberries for me today. It’s not hard to love a man who pays attention and follows through. And I told him I’m not poor, and he didn’t care.”

“If you told the story that way, you’ll have to tell it again.”

“He didn’t ask how much. He said it didn’t matter.”

Kendra walked out to the porch with her. Isaac had already carried Jamie’s things out to the minivan, and he was now in the yard, entertaining the girls by making Dusty, the Taylors’ long-faced mutt, roll over and fetch sticks. Ten, the alley cat Isaac had rescued from certain death, was watching from the porch swing, far too snooty to perform for anyone.

“Thanksgiving’s right around the corner,” Kendra said. “How would you like to spend it? With us in Arlington? This’ll be our first Thanksgiving together since you and I were children. You couldn’t come last year because of classes. I’d really like us to make it a family tradition if we can.”

“Grace wants us all up at the orchard. You and Isaac, too. All the Rosslyns, of course, and one of her sons and his family are coming, too. Would that ruin it for you?”

“No, in fact I’d like that. Extended family. And it would be lovely to have it out here in the Valley. Before long we’ll be residents. Maybe next year we can have it at our new house for anybody who wants to come. The babies will be old enough to enjoy all the hubbub, won’t they?”

More than she ever had been before, Jamie was struck now by the way she and Kendra had gradually blended their lives. She could count on her sister and brother-in-law to care for her girls. And, of course, Kendra and Isaac had counted on her to help give them children. Now Kendra was asking
her
for parenting advice. They were talking about their future, about establishing family traditions. The changes were happening a little at a time, but they were all so good. There were trials to come—the fine points of her relationship to the twins to work out after their birth, her possible sense of loss when the pregnancy ended—but she was sure now that everything would turn out well. After all these years, she and her sister were really going to be a family.

“They’ll be at a wonderful age,” she assured Kendra. “And I’d like that so much. I know Grace will let us contribute this year. Would you like to get together on Wednesday and make pies or casseroles? Just the two of us? Maybe we can figure out a few things we’ll want to serve every year, so our kids will have something to carry on when they leave and start preparing dinners of their own.”

“That would be great. But you’re the cook. You’ll come up with the recipes?”

“Gladly.” Jamie slung her arm around Kendra’s shoulders. “I’ll be back before you know it. Thanks again for helping here.”

“It’s little enough in return.”

They hugged awkwardly, but Jamie thought it was the most promising hug she had ever received.

F
rom the street, First Step looked like many of the other homes on shabby suburban Oakleaf Avenue, northwest of metropolitan Detroit. The homes had once been the gracious abodes of upper-level managers in the automobile industry, built by the sizeable cheap pool of immigrants who had come to work in the plants. But as the city crept outward, those wealthy enough to buy more peace and tranquility had crept outward, too.

After World War II, the expansive Oakleaf homes had been converted into apartments, or partitioned and sold as multi-family residences. Some had been turned into the headquarters of charitable organizations or offices. First Step was one of two halfway houses on a four-block stretch. The other served as a home for mentally challenged adults, where First Steppers often volunteered as part of their community service requirement.

Oakleaf was the rehabilitation center’s third address, but the only one Jamie had known. The program was almost twenty years old, and the last ten had been conducted here. First Step had proved to be a good neighbor, and when trouble did come calling, the staff dispensed with it quickly and effectively. The rules at First Step were clear and inflexible. They were enforced often enough that new residents learned them immediately. Clients came and went, sometimes in the same day, even though the First Step program was set up for a one-year period of residence.

Jamie had come to live here in the early months of her first pregnancy. She graduated when Hannah was just three months old, moved into a nearby apartment building and continued her job as a cook at a local restaurant while helping to mentor other First Step clients. In a year’s time she went from former client to staff member, then to part-time staff member as she enrolled in college and began to pursue her bachelor’s degree in architecture.

Her years here had been busy and productive, filled with hard truths and personal growth. Now, as she stood outside the floodlit French Normandy stucco, with its steeply pitched roof, multi-paned windows and gabled dormers, she felt, as she always did, that some force in the universe had been looking out for her and for Hannah when she was accepted to move to this house and pull her life together.

“It looks so good because the yard crew just did the big fall cleanup,” Tara Blayne told her. “Of course, I caught our two shrub trimmers out behind the garage shooting craps. Rosario said since they found craps so fascinating that it took them away from their commitment to the program, the guys needed to teach all the residents how to play, with a special emphasis on the strategies and statistics, how much money is made and lost each year in dice games and how an addiction to gambling relates to drug addiction. He’s going to make them present it as a class every Wednesday night this month, with handouts.”

Jamie slung her arm over petite Tara’s shoulders. Tara, an elfin blonde in her late thirties whose fascination with container gardening was in evidence on the First Step porch, had been a resident counselor with the program for several years. She and Jamie had been friends that long, too. Jamie would be spending her Michigan nights in Tara’s attic apartment.

“That’s our Rosario,” Jamie said. “When I was a resident, I had a midnight snack attack, so I went down to the kitchen to pop corn. At that point in the treatment, I wasn’t allowed out of my room at night, of course. So when Rosario caught me, he suggested that since I liked to cook at odd hours, I should be on early-morning kitchen duty. And actually, that’s when I learned how much I really
did
like to cook, which led to my first restaurant job.”

“Well, by the time Rosario’s done with them, I doubt these guys will want to become croupiers. They won’t want to see another pair of dice.”

“How is funding these days? Still hand to mouth?”

“The War on Drugs isn’t fighting enough battles on Oakleaf Avenue. And the private foundations have their hands full funding all those programs the government won’t. Don’t even get me started on insurance reimbursement. But Rosario’s good at beating the bushes. We’ll keep limping along.”

Jamie actually knew more about First Step’s financial situation than she let on. She had been able to persuade the trustees of the Dunkirk Foundation to give First Step a good-size grant, although the money was being channeled through another organization so nobody would know it had anything to do with her. The trustees had been reluctant, until she pointed out that it would be bad public relations if word ever leaked to the press that they had refused to help the very rehabilitation program that had set one of the last of the Dunkirks on the road to recovery.

“Rosario told me to pop back and see him when I got in,” Jamie said. “Do you mind?”

“’Course not. I’ll get one of the residents to bring your suitcases up to my apartment. You know where to find Rosario.”

They parted at the front of the house, where Tara stopped to fuss with a half barrel filled with chrysanthemums that were in their final days. Jamie took the walkway around to the back. Ron Rosario and his wife lived above the garage in a two-bedroom apartment she had designed for them in her third year at the university. The neighborhood and this property still had enough magnificent old trees to shield it from the street and from the view of nearby residents. The apartment was simple and functional, but precisely because of the first, the board had been able to find the money to add it to their budget. Once it was completed, Rosario and his wife, Georgia, had moved from the attic, which was now Tara’s digs. The rest of the staff lived elsewhere and went home after their shifts.

The stairs began at one side of the garage and wrapped around to the back, ending at a small deck that was just large enough for a round metal table and two café chairs. Tonight that was where she found Rosario, sitting at the table, staring into the darkness behind the house.

“Hey,” she said, pulling out the other chair to join him. “This is Michigan, and it’s November. Don’t you know it’s cold out here?”

He leaned over the table and kissed her cheek. “You look warm enough in that coat. They haven’t ruined you down south. You still look like a Michigan girl.”

“I’m carrying two little heaters around these days.” Jamie rested her hands on her wool-covered belly.

“How are you feeling?”

“A little tired after the trip. But mostly just pregnant.”

He nodded. Ron Rosario was a large man who seemed ageless to everyone who knew him. In reality, Jamie guessed he was probably in his late fifties. His only son had already left home for college by the time the program moved to Oakleaf Avenue, and these days Georgia sometimes talked about what they would do and where they would go when they retired.

Rosario still had a thick head of grizzled hair that he wore in a ponytail, and a neatly trimmed beard to match. His most arresting feature was his large dark eyes, which saw right through lies or any lesser form of pretense. If he had ever been patient or tactful, his years of working with addicts had cured him of both.

“Where’s Georgia?” Jamie asked. “I brought you both some Virginia peanuts and peanut brittle.” Rosario had a notorious sweet tooth.

“What, no more grants from the family foundation?”

She arched her brows and tried to look innocent. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You went to a lot of trouble to hide where that money came from.”

She knew better than to play games with him. “If I did, it was because I don’t want anybody making a big deal out of it, including you.”

“You put in your time here, paid your dues. You don’t have to keep paying.”

“We both know the money’s there to be used, and it’s not exactly coming out of my hide. Are you sorry I helped?”

“Not sorry at all. Delighted, even grateful. But just wondering when you’re going to stop paying penance for the bad years.”

She was a little hurt, but she was also used to this. Rosario used those big dark eyes to look beyond everything. He wasn’t always right, but his miscalculations were rare enough to be notable.

“Georgia’s closing up the beach house,” he said, in answer to her earlier question.

The Rosarios had a cottage in the Upper Peninsula, where they retreated when they could. She had always suspected Georgia retreated the most often, not only to get away from First Step, but from the intensity of living with Ron.

“What’s the difference between paying penance and just paying back a debt?” Jamie asked.

“When you pay penance, you’re hoping for absolution.”

“That’s not happening. Not with the foundation money. I never hurt
you,
so how could you absolve me?”

“Because I’m the biggest authority figure in your life.”

She smiled. “Maybe so, but I went to bat for First Step because it’s important to a lot of people. Not because I needed anything from you.”

“How about the pregnancy?”

The smile faded. “That’s hitting below the belt.”

“No pun intended?” He held out a bowl filled with rice crackers. “Did you have dinner?”

“Tara saved me a plate of whatever they made for the house tonight. I’ll eat in a little while.” She took a handful anyway, suddenly starving.

“We haven’t had a decent meal over there since you left. I miss your lasagna.”

She crunched crackers and thought about what he’d said. There was no reason to take up that particular conversation again. That was Rosario’s style. Throw something out, see if anybody took the bait, leave them thinking about it until next time. He wouldn’t bring up the babies again, not unless she did.

She couldn’t help herself. “Don’t you think that sometimes we just owe people we’ve hurt something extra?”

“Like risking our health, taking a year away from a promising career, moving across the country where we don’t know anybody, just to prove we’ve changed?”

“How is it that you can make my whole life sound trivial and neurotic without half trying?”

“I’d say what you’re doing is the opposite of trivial, wouldn’t you?”

“It feels right.”

“Lots of things feel right, Jamie. Taking drugs, for example. Stealing to buy drugs. Ask anybody in the house. Search your memory.”

“I did those things for myself. I’m doing this for my sister.”

“Really?”

“Of course I’m getting something out of it. The giver of a gift comes away with a sense of satisfaction. That’s normal.”

“Satisfaction or absolution? Is this what it’ll take for your sister to forgive you? Or for you to forgive yourself?”

“I don’t know if Kendra needs to forgive me. But she does need to trust me.”

“And this will accomplish that?”

“I think so. But really, that’s not
all
this is about. I want to do this for her. I love her. She and Isaac will be great parents. We so rarely have a chance to make this kind of difference. How could I not have helped them?”

“Easily. They didn’t ask. They probably never even thought of it.”

“I’m glad
I
did.”

Rosario rarely gave advice. Questions were more his style. But this time he broke with tradition. “I think you need to be careful. This is a sacrifice and a gift that will resound through generations, but you have to be aware that this may not end the way you hope, with everybody happy. You have to be prepared and able to accept that.”

“I know.”

He nodded. “You probably do, up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “But for somebody who lived on the streets for a while, you have a tender heart. And you still let it make too many of your decisions.”

“I may have come away with a tender heart, but I also came away with survival skills.”

“Put them to good use, then.” He reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “And don’t be a stranger here. Make sure you bring those girls of yours back to see us. Georgia and I think of you as family. Never forget it.”

The next morning, Rosario’s words played in Jamie’s mind when she was in the middle of a shower. She was soaping her breasts, gazing with dismay at the large mound ballooning beneath them, when she felt a lump on the right side of her right breast.

At first she thought she had imagined it. She hung up the washcloth and began to explore with her fingers. Since the day she had begun hormones to prepare for in vitro, her breasts had felt noticeably lumpy. Of course, they had felt tender and stretched to capacity, too. Since she’d had a breast exam less than a year ago as part of the physical to determine if she could be Kendra’s surrogate, she hadn’t thought much about any of that, blaming the changes on the hormones, then on the pregnancy.

She turned off the water, continuing her exploration after she stepped out and dried off. She wasn’t imagining this. Something that felt almost like a marble seemed to be just below the skin. Was this just a normal symptom? She wasn’t sure what she felt, exactly. But she thought there was definitely something different there, something harder and more defined then the simple swelling she had more or less gotten used to.

Maybe it had
never
been simple.

She was having breakfast later with her former gynecologist, Suz Chinn. Over omelets, she could ask Suz to work her into the schedule today and check out the lump, so she could reassure Jamie there was nothing to worry about.

As soon as that occurred to her, she decided she was being silly. She was only going to be in Michigan for a few days. If the lump was still there by the time she got back to Virginia, she would make an appointment with Dr. Raille and have an examination.

The same Dr. Raille who had gotten so used to explaining every little aspect of Jamie’s pregnancy to Kendra that she might feel obligated to discuss this with her, as well.

Jamie wondered what to do. Kendra was already worried enough that something was going to happen to the twins. She hadn’t been happy about Jamie’s trip here, although she hadn’t tried to stop her. But every physical symptom Jamie experienced was like a warning bell for her sister. Jamie could not imagine what Kendra might do if Dr. Raille worried her with this.

By the time she dressed and went downstairs for the morning meeting—a requirement for anybody who stayed overnight in the house, resident, staff and guests alike—she still hadn’t decided how to proceed. She greeted everyone in the airy living room where the meeting was held, listened as announcements were made and people shared their plans for the day, and then shared her own. She was meeting a friend for breakfast, then heading over to the university to see her advisor. She would be back to help with dinner that afternoon….