Somebody Like You (18 page)

Tucked in the side of the box was a brown manila envelope—the coroner’s report detailing how Sam had died. She’d opened it when it arrived weeks after Sam’s death, but only to shove her engagement ring and wedding band along with Sam’s band in among the folded papers. She wasn’t ready to read the black and white reality of how Sam had been killed. She knew he’d been assisting a wounded soldier. Knew he’d been taken down by a sniper.

“Sam, you should have come home.” She weighed the packet of papers in her hands—so light, and yet it contained life-changing information. “I was waiting for you. We were waiting for you.”

Some things were too precious to let go of, even for just a little while. Tucking the medical report in her top dresser drawer, she stored Sam’s medals and the American flag back on the closet shelf. Then she piled Sam’s high school yearbooks back into the plastic box, placing the tree house diagram on top of everything and replacing the lid. It was a start.

As she carried the box into the living room, Stephen walked toward her. “Let me get that.”

“It’s not that heavy.”

“No arguments. You’re already carrying a load.” He stopped, the tips of his ears reddening and a matching red flushing along his cheekbones. “I apologize. That did not come out like I meant it to.”

Stephen Ames blushed? “Be careful. The last thing you want to do is upset a pregnant woman.”

“So I’ve heard.” He hefted the box into his arms. “Although when my stepmother was pregnant, she was reasonable most of the time.”

“You have a—”

“A half brother. He’s thirteen—a great kid.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I figured if Sam hadn’t told you about me, he also hadn’t mentioned Pete. As upset as he was about my dad remarrying, he was even more upset when he found out Dad and Gina were having a baby.”

They stood in the hallway, uncovering family details she should have known—if life had been normal. “You told him?”

“Yes—I thought he needed to know, that my mother needed to know. She locked herself in the bedroom and cried all evening. And Sam threatened to take me down if I ever mentioned it again. So I didn’t.”

Divorced parents. Going to one high school while his identical twin brother went to high school in another state. A stepmother and stepbrother he wanted nothing to do with. Just what part of any of this fit the word
typical
, which Sam had used to describe his family?

Haley eased past him. “I know there’s not a lot in the box, but I thought you could begin with this. Those are Sam’s yearbooks. When I was looking through them, I found something unexpected.”

Stephen placed the box on the coffee table and sat beside her. He didn’t rush her, just waited while she retrieved the drawing of the tree house. “Remember this?”

He scanned the front of the paper, then turned it over and read the scrawled list before flipping the page back over again. “Where did you find this?”

“Inside one of Sam’s yearbooks.”

“I can’t believe he kept this.”

“Which one of you is the artist?”

“I am—although I won’t claim the title
artist
. Sam was the mastermind, and I sketched out his ideas.” He traced the
outline of the tree house. “As you can see by the erased and redrawn lines, it took a couple of tries before I got it right.”

“Finding that got me thinking.”

“What about?”

She stood and walked to the sliding glass doors in the kitchen that led to the backyard. “See that big old tree back there? Don’t you think it’d be perfect for a tree house?”

Stephen came to stand beside her, his steps easygoing. Slow. Sam would have jumped up from the couch and been out of the house and halfway to the tree by now. “Hmm. It’s substantial—a strong base. But . . . doesn’t that tree look kinda funny to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at those upper branches—they’re grayish brown and don’t have any leaves on them.”

“Well, of course they don’t. It’s March. In Colorado.”

“I get that. But look at the base of the tree—there’s new growth down there. Why aren’t there at least leaf buds on the branches?”

“I didn’t know you were a tree guy.”

“Arborist.”

“Excuse me.
Arborist.
” She continued to analyze the tree. “I think it’s perfect. I’ll re-create the tree house for Sam’s son—for our son. I’ve got the plans and at least a basic list of what supplies I’ll need.”

“When are you due again?”

“April fifth. Why?”

“Shouldn’t we concentrate on putting the crib together—and put a tree house on the back burner?”

“I didn’t say I was going to start today, Rogers.”

“What did you call me?”

“Nobody ever called you by your middle name before?”

“Just the typical ‘Stephen Rogers Ames’ when my mom meant business.”

“Well then,
Rogers
, let’s get back to the crib. You can keep the original sketch. I made a copy—” She motioned to where she’d anchored a piece of paper to the side of her fridge with a
COLORADO
magnet. “—for handy reference.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll take this other stuff with me and look through it.” His smile disarmed her. “Haley, thank you for giving me the tree house sketch. It means a lot.”

She pressed her hand to her throat, quelling the swift choking sharpness. It was a simple childhood sketch. “I thought it would.”

“Let me put this in my car. Then we’ll tackle the crib. And if you’re interested, I’d be glad to help you organize the garage, maybe unpack some of the boxes.”

“That’s okay, Stephen. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“I offered.” He stood in the archway, tossing a wink at her over his shoulder. “I’m going out of town for a couple of days, but when I get back, I’ll check into a hotel down the road and we’ll clear out the garage. I’ll even paint a room or two if you want.”

“Not crazy about the orange?”

“Are you?”

“I can’t say I am.”

“Well, choose another color, then. If you need painting done, I’m your man.”

No, he wasn’t.

His words punctured her heart with the swiftness of a well-aimed bullet even as the familiar scent of lime lingered after Stephen left. Why did Stephen prefer what Sam would have called “men’s perfume” while Sam stuck with a no-frills soap-on-a-rope that his mother gave him every Christmas?

H
aley carried her laptop into her bedroom, waiting for her brother to respond to her instant message. She settled against a pile of pillows, the computer resting against her baby bump. Well, it was more than a bump, with six weeks to go.

Her message remained unanswered in the white box on the lower right-hand part of the Facebook screen. She’d typed
You want to Skype?

She tapped her fingers on the keyboard, checking her e-mail while she waited for David, flipping back and forth between tabs. Finally he responded.

Sorry, Hal. Don’t have time to Skype.

Got a few minutes to IM?

Sure. How ya doing?

No complaints. Unless you want to hear about how many times I go to the bathroom at night.

NO.

Didn’t think so.

You keeping your guard up?

She shook her head, mustering a half laugh at his big-brother way of reminding her to be strong, to not let life take her down.

Always.

Seriously, Hal—you need anything?

Haley paused with her hands over the keyboard. She needed advice. The kind only a big brother could give.

I’m good. Sam’s brother has been hanging around some.

Why?

He wants to talk about Sam. Helped put up the crib. Wants to paint the baby’s room.

Are you okay with all that?

Sure. Shouldn’t I be? It’s okay for me to help Sam’s brother, isn’t it? For him to help me?

You tell me, Hal. Didn’t you say the guy looks just like Sam?

He’s not exactly like Sam.

Identical twins, right?

Okay, they look exactly alike. But they have different personalities.

You’re confusing me.

How to explain this to her brother over instant messaging?

I’ve noticed differences. That’s all.

Whatever you say. So long as it doesn’t weird you out, I don’t see a problem with it. Maybe he feels bad that he wasn’t around more when his brother was alive and wants to help you now.

That’s what he said.

Guys are uncomplicated, Hal. He’s helping you because he misses his brother. You okay with that?

Sure.

David signed off a few moments later.

Was she fine? There was no easy way to answer that. Most mornings the remembrance of what she’d lost—whom she’d lost—jerked her awake. And then she’d have a morning like today when sleep disappeared in slow blinks of her eyes and emptiness lay soft in her heart, forcing her to weigh it and find a way to balance it with yesterday, today, and all the tomorrows without Sam.

She clicked on the folder labeled “Sam’s E-mails,” searching for the one titled “Follow Up” and dated a few weeks before his death.

I miss you, Hal.

I know you’re upset that I re-upped. But we talked about it before I left. And I thought about it all the way over here. Talked about it with some of the other guys. The bonus is just too good to pass up. You get that, right? We can save it for that house you keep talking about.

Just because I reenlisted for a couple more years doesn’t mean I’m going to make a career of the army. We’ll talk about that. I promise.

I need to cut this short—have to go train.

I love you. Take care of yourself. I know you will. You always do.

S

Why hadn’t she responded? Told him she loved him, too? Told him that she thought she might be pregnant?

She’d filed the e-mail and waited for his next phone call—and then acted as if everything was fine. Let him talk about his day. His buddies. And when he brought up reenlisting, she said, “I get it, Sam. Decision made.”

Even though she didn’t get it. She was married to a man who seemed intent on leaving her . . . again and again and again.

Why, God?
Did Sam really prefer being deployed over being home with her? Wasn’t she enough for him to come home to?

She slammed the laptop shut.

She didn’t want an answer. The truth might rip the flimsy bandage off her shredded heart, allowing her to fully feel the pain she’d suppressed for months. The emptiness that had stalked her even before Sam’s death.

T
he warm fluid trickling down her thigh didn’t mean anything. All pregnant women had a little bit of incontinence.

Right.
Haley would lock herself in the bathroom that needed to be painted, the fixtures updated, for the next six weeks and keep telling herself a lie. This is what Kegel exercises were for: stopping that bothersome third-trimester leakage when you sneezed. Or laughed. Or coughed.

Only she hadn’t sneezed. Or laughed. Or coughed.

She had gone back to her bedroom to get a pair of shoes because Stephen Ames, bossy man, told her that she couldn’t work in the garage if she was barefoot. She bent over to get her tennis shoes and felt something . . . something
wrong
.

Haley stood in the bathroom off her bedroom, gripping the edge of the chipped porcelain sink, and refused to look at herself in the mirror. Questions piled up like a mental traffic jam in her head—questions she couldn’t answer.

Was that amniotic fluid?

If it was amniotic fluid—and it wasn’t!—what happened next?

Could she ignore what was happening?

Stephen called her name from the living room. “Sorry, Rogers. You’re going to have to figure out whatever you need by yourself.” She was a little busy right now trying to determine if the baby had found a new position on her bladder or if she was leaking amniotic fluid.

Which she wasn’t.

She couldn’t be in labor. Yes, her back was a bit tweaky this morning—but it had bothered her on and off for the last month. She wasn’t having
contraction
-contractions. It was too early. Lily had given the class a brief rundown of the potential complications of preterm labor last week. Haley had joked with Claire that she’d be the woman who delivered two weeks past her due date.