The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (24 page)

“Your mother is perfectly capable of looking after herself.”

Alice raised her head, struggling to hold his blurred face in focus. “Maybe. But it still affects me. She’s having a
baby,
for God’s sake. That’s not just a little blip on the radar screen—it’s a fucking
earthquake.
About eight-point-oh on the Richter scale, I’d say.”

“However you look at it,” he said, “there isn’t a damn thing you, or I, or anyone can do about it.”

She shook her head, scarcely hearing him. “I wish you could have known my dad. He was sweet and funny and…” A tiny sob escaped her. “God, I miss him so much.”

“I know.” Wes squeezed her shoulder.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is I have nothing against Ian, not really, though that doesn’t take away from his part in it. I’m sure I’ll grow to love the baby, too. I just can’t help feeling that if my dad were alive…” She let the sentence trail off.

“Everything would be like it was?” Wes finished for her. She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.

“I’m not naive,” she said. “I didn’t think she’d be alone forever. She’s an attractive woman and there is—
was
—Tom. It’s just…I never imagined anything like this. And it worries me. Mainly, because I can’t help thinking about what it’s going to be like for
us
in five or ten years.”

“I’m not sure I know what you are getting at,” he said, frowning.

She took a deep breath, the formless fear in the back of her mind taking shape at last. “I might change my mind about having a baby.”

His mouth stretched in a humorless smile. “I guess I should have seen this coming.”

“I didn’t say I wanted one. Just that I
might.
”

He leaned forward abruptly, and a band of light fell across his face, causing his eyes to blaze with sudden brilliance. Placido Domingo had stopped singing. There was only the soft chirr of crickets and nightjars in the canyon below. “In ten years, I’ll be sixty-four,” he reminded her.

“And I’ll be thirty-six.”

He shook his head. “I never led you down the garden path.”

“I didn’t say you had.”

He rose suddenly, his long shadow spilling out from under his chair onto the bone-white coping. He looked weary in a way she’d never seen him look before. “It’s been a long day,” he said. “We’ll both be more clearheaded in the morning. Why don’t we call it a night?”

The ground tilted as she stood up. She hugged herself, shivering. There’d be no use discussing it tomorrow…or the next day, or the day after that. What would be the point? No one, not even Wes, could predict what lay ahead.

“Y
OU’LL FEEL
a little pressure. Just try to relax.” Inez Rosario’s face appeared in the triangle between Sam’s sheet-draped knees: a pair of soft brown eyes and a forehead wrinkled, she imagined, from forever peering up at patients from this angle.

Sam squeezed her eyes shut as latex-gloved fingers probed inside her. Relax? How could she possibly relax with her whole life turned upside down? Since finding out she was pregnant, nothing, absolutely nothing, had been the same.

Audrey, par for the course, had had more than a few choice words to say on the subject, with her brother, after a stunned silence, booming heartily into the phone, “Hell, Sis. You’re just crazy enough to pull it off.” But she didn’t care whether or not they approved, not really. It was her daughters she was most concerned with. Laura, who’d been avoiding her at work—not an easy thing to do. And Alice, standoffish to the point of chilliness. What if they didn’t come around? What if this baby brought an end to more than the tranquil life she’d banked on?

“Everything looks fine.” The doctor’s face surfaced once more, this time with a smile. She patted Sam’s knee. “Okay, all done. You can sit up now.”

Sam lifted herself cautiously onto her elbows. “That’s it? No stamping me
FRAGILE, THIS END UP
?”

Inez had been a friend for years, and could appreciate a joke, but right now she was all business. “I’m not going to pretend it’s a piece of cake having a baby at your age,” she said. “There
are
certain risks. But there’s no reason you can’t have a perfectly normal birth.” She peeled off her gloves and tossed them into the trash. “Now, why don’t you get dressed, and we’ll talk about this in my office?”

Sam had known her since their children were in school together. She recalled one particular evening when she and Inez had stayed up late stitching costumes for the fifth-grade class play. It seemed ironic that her old friend would be shepherding this new baby into the world at a time when the two of them ought to be comparing snapshots of grandchildren.

In the cozy office, more like a sitting room with its chintz-covered easy chairs and Queen Anne-style desk, Sam eased herself onto the sofa. It wasn’t just that she was sore. She felt as if she were carrying an awkward bundle that at any moment could slip to the ground and shatter. Why was she so nervous? In the beginning, hadn’t she
hoped
to miscarry?

“Okay, Sam, what’s on your mind?” Inez settled in behind her desk, a handsome woman only a few years older than Sam, with graying black hair that fell in crisp waves about her ears. On the credenza behind her was an array of family photos: her son and daughters at various ages, all three with gleaming dark hair and wide smiles. “I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you. Your family must have been pretty taken aback.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

Inez smiled. “I remember when Essie was pregnant,” she recalled, referring to her youngest, Esperanza, the same age as Laura. “You’d have thought single moms were unheard of. Her grandmother had calluses on her knees from all the praying.”

“Essie’s young,” Sam said. “When people think of a widow pushing fifty, it’s as a fourth for bridge, or the extra guest at a dinner party.”

“They’re not the ones having this baby,
you
are.”

Hadn’t Ian said the very same thing? Ian, coming home tomorrow. Sam’s heart soared at the thought, then just as quickly plummeted. What now? They couldn’t exactly pick up where they’d left off. It wouldn’t be like in New York, either, when they’d both been too shell-shocked to make sense of it all.

What if this was more than Ian was equipped to handle? Her mind flew back to the time, a few years after Alice was born, when she and Martin had talked about having another child. She’d been reluctant, mostly because of Martin. With another man she might have been willing, but he was so…well,
Martin.
Sometimes she’d thought of him as the son they’d never had: a little boy who would play outside until all hours, and spend his last dollar of allowance on ice cream.

If Ian wasn’t ready for this…

“The truth is, I’m scared stiff.” She brought a hand to her belly. It was still flat, but in a few more weeks there’d be no getting around the fact that there was a baby on the way.

“I take it you’re referring to more than just health risks.”

Sam felt her fears come rushing up all at once. “How many of your patients know, really
know
, what’s involved?” Women, she thought, who hadn’t already raised a family.

“Not many,” Inez acknowledged.

“I
loved
being a mother.” Sam smiled, remembering when her girls had been little. “But I haven’t forgotten how hard it was. I’m not sure I’m up to starting all over again from scratch.”

Inez eyed her cautiously. “Are you thinking of ending this pregnancy?” It went against her Catholic beliefs, Sam knew, but Inez would have referred her to someone if need be.

Sam shook her head. “No.”

Inez’s gaze wandered to a framed eight-by-ten photo on her desk. Inez and her husband, Victor, standing in front of their house, flanked by their children, Esperanza cradling a baby in her arms. She said gently, “You haven’t told me anything about the father.”

Sam felt suddenly too warm. “His name is Ian,” she said. “He’s… quite a bit younger than me.”

“So I’ve gathered.” When Sam shot her a curious glance, Inez added with a wry smile, “You, of all people, should know that OB offices are prime watering holes when it comes to gossip.”

Sam smiled. “Like I said, it’s been a while.”

Inez regarded her seriously. “That still doesn’t answer my question. Is this Ian going to be in the picture seven months from now?”

Sam’s mind flew back to their weekend in New York—Ian reassuring her over and over that he loved her, that they’d make it work. He hadn’t actually said the words, “I want this baby.” By the same token, neither had she. They’d wandered about the city instead, pretending to be having a good time—even succeeding at it here and there. The Metropolitan Museum, where every painting of Madonna and Child seemed to leap out at her. Central Park, with its sea of strollers. Greenwich Village, where each new taste had been more tantalizing than the next—until the trip across the harbor on the Staten Island Ferry, when she’d been as nauseated as if on an ocean voyage.

Her gaze wandered to the antique vitrine in which Inez’s collection of vintage patent medicines was displayed—bottles and jars like the large purple one bearing the faded label:
DR. KREUGHER’S ALL-PURPOSE TONIC FOR DYSPEPSIA, INSOMNIA, NEURASTHENIA, AND FAINTING SPELLS
. A sly poke at the trade, no doubt. But she found herself wishing now for a pill or tonic that would fix everything.

“He might think twice,” she said, “if he knew what was involved.”

Inez sighed, smoothing an iron-colored wisp behind one ear. “Come to think of it, how equipped were
we?
With Raquel, I don’t know which of us was more scared—Victor or me.” She chuckled softly at the memory.

“You had each other, at least.”

Sam was thinking of Martin. Raising a child on her own, she thought soberly, might be easier than constantly tripping over a set of false expectations.

At the same time, a voice cautioned,
Don’t judge Ian by another man’s stripes.
Nor should she lose sight of the fact that Martin had been a good father in most respects.

Inez scribbled something on a pad and handed it across the desk. “Here’s a prescription for prenatal vitamins. I’m going to give you a little free advice as well.” She eyed Sam sternly as she rose to her feet. “Don’t write chapter six before you’ve finished chapter two.”

Sam looked into Inez’s kind, no-nonsense face, with its feathering of lines about the eyes and mouth. It seemed aeons since they’d sat side by side in her living room, stitching tails onto tiger costumes.

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” She rose, too, putting out her hand. “Thanks, Inez. I don’t know how I’d get through this without you.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Inez’s handshake was warm, if brisk.

“See you in a month?”

“Make that two weeks.” In response to Sam’s questioning look, she said, “As you said, you’re not in your twenties anymore. I’d feel more comfortable keeping a close eye on things.”

Sam walked back through the park, taking her time, savoring the chance to be alone with her thoughts. Lunch hour had come and gone, leaving the paths deserted except for a handful of tourists toting guidebooks and old Clem Woolley seated on a bench with a bundle of tattered pamphlets bound in string. He was strumming “Oh, Susannah” on his guitar, not very well, his head with its flurry of white hair bent low, his lips moving soundlessly. Two open cans of Pepsi and two unwrapped sandwiches sat atop the battered case at his feet. He didn’t see her, but she smiled at him anyway. It must be nice, she thought, to be familiar enough with Jesus to know he liked tunafish on wheat, pickles on the side.

Farther down the path, she ran into Reverend Grigsby with his constant companion Lily trotting along nicely on her little set of wheels. “Afternoon, Alex.” She bent to pat the dachshund’s head. “I hear you’ve found a new organist.”

The plump, bespectacled pastor bobbed his head. “Congratulations aren’t quite in order yet.” He dropped his voice to confide, “She’s auditioning for the congregation this Sunday.”

“She?”

“Carrie Bramley.”

“Ada Bramley’s daughter? I thought she moved away.”

“Well, she’s back. And in fine form, I might add. She’s been studying music abroad. Which reminds me—” He peered at Sam, eyes swimming behind his thick bifocals. “How’s it going with the music festival?”

“This year’s should be the best ever.”

She saw no reason to mention that at last Thursday’s meeting there’d been a definite chill in the air. Marguerite Moore, with whom Audrey played bridge, had obviously been given the scoop.

“Wonderful.” He beamed as if she were single: handedly responsible. “Something else to look forward to.”

“Pardon me?”

He winked, patting his rotund belly. “I think you know what I mean.”

She felt herself blush. “How…how did you know?”

“Oh, I hear just about everything in my line of work,” he said mildly his gaze tracking Lily as she took off after a squirrel, wheels and all, only to be brought short by her leash. When he looked back at Sam, she saw the compassion in his gaze, compassion tempered by knowledge of what lay ahead. “Don’t let anything spoil it for you, Sam. You just go on ahead and do as you please.” He patted her arm, then tugged on his dog’s leash, chiding affectionately, “Come, Lily, those squirrels have better things to do than play with an old cripple like you.”

Sam wandered off in a kind of daze, her ears ringing with Reverend Grigsby’s words. Suddenly everything looked a little brighter: the escallonia, bowed with bright pink blossoms, the cape honeysuckle climbing up the gazebo. Life is full of surprises, she thought. Maybe, just maybe, Ian would surprise her, too.

Exiting the park, she strolled along Old Mission, pausing in front of Ingersoll’s, where the tantalizing scent of baked goods fresh from the oven wafted onto the sidewalk. Food hadn’t held much appeal lately, even the delicate little tapas with which Lupe had been trying to tempt her. But her mouth watered as she peered in at the cookies and tarts, the cakes high on pedestals. Even on weekday mornings the line stretched out onto the sidewalk for Ingersoll’s honey-glazed doughnuts, hot from the vat. She’d been coming here since she was little, and remembered when Helga Ingersoll would lean over the counter with a bag in one hand and a cookie folded in crinkly paper in the other, saying, “One for Mama, one for you.”