“We’re serious,” Kyle said. “Any way we can help out, just holler.”
“Thanks for bringing the pizza,” Teri said.
“Hey, it’s all yours. We gorged on tamales. I’m telling you, Teri, they’re the best I’ve ever had. Thanks.”
“Are you ready for some pizza?” Jessica asked.
She shook her head.
“We’ll squeeze it into the fridge then,” Jessica said. “It’ll make a good midnight snack.”
“We need to get going,” Kyle said. “Is there anything we can bring you tomorrow? Some tea or something for your throat?”
Teri shook her head. Even though she sounded awful, she didn’t feel very sick, just shaken by Lauren’s call. She took another bag of tamales from the refrigerator and handed them to Kyle.
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
Teri pushed them at him.
“Well, if you insist.”
“Let us know if we can help you or Lauren in any way, okay?” Jessica asked, reaching for her purse on the counter. It amazed Teri how down to earth Jessica was. One would never guess by looking at the woman, by the way she dressed or how she carried herself, that she was worth double-digit millions. She never let it show, but she was one of the most generous people Teri had ever known. Kyle was the same way. Neither of them were flashy in how they gave. They helped in quiet, practical ways, such as offering to pick her up at the airport when she came home from Maui, bringing over dinner, or offering Lauren a place to stay. Teri saw them to the door and waved her thanks as they walked to the truck with their arms around each other.
What a contrast! Teri thought. Two people intensely in love and two other people across the country who just called off their engagement. Would I have ended up like Lauren if I had stayed with Scott?
The night was a restless one for Teri. She woke up around two o’clock, perspiring and fitful. Her initial waking thought was that someone had died. Then she remembered it wasn’t a death, but Lauren’s call that had swept her emotions to the edge of this jagged precipice. Teri padded into the kitchen for a drink of water and made a face at the mountain of dirty dishes still stacked in the sink. She went into the living room and curled up on the couch with all her pillows.
In a way, it almost was news of a death. Certainly a fateful blow had been dealt to her friend’s heart. How could a man break a promise like that?
For almost an hour, Teri fought an invisible war, trying to figure out what had gone wrong with Lauren and Jeff. He had definitely swept Lauren off her feet in one easy swoop. For a while the previous spring, Lauren had called often with details of their wedding plans. She had sent clippings from Bride’s magazine, so Teri could see the wedding dress and bridesmaids’ dresses. The wedding had been scheduled for April, on the one-year anniversary of their engagement. They seemed to have done everything right, and yet it had all fallen apart.
Lauren hadn’t gone into a lot of details on the phone. She had sounded as if she was handling it well. Still, it must have broken her heart.
Teri went back to bed. In the hazy tunnel of her mind, between sleeping and waking, she prayed for her friend. And she wondered if what had happened to Lauren might not happen to her one day. Couldn’t she find herself in a similar situation: feeling sure she had made the right choice in a mate and yet, even while she was caught up in her wedding plans, ending up watching all her dreams disintegrate?
When she woke the next morning, Teri felt more than a little shaken. No relationship was guaranteed. She was better off for having ended her relationship with Scott—or with any man, for that matter. Teri felt the only safe place to be was alone, single for the rest of her life. It was the only sure answer, the only guarantee she wouldn’t be crushed later in life.
With the devastation of Lauren’s engagement came the ruin of a dream for Teri, a dream of marriage and children of her own. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let her heart be smashed like that.
She didn’t say anything or make any outward adjustments to her life. But inside her heart, written on stone tablets, were the words: Thou shalt not fall in love. Thou shalt not get married. Thou shalt not have children.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Teri’s voice returned just in time for her to complete her last week of teaching before Christmas vacation. She helped Jessica and Kyle move into their new home in the evenings and did her Christmas shopping by catalog over the phone during her lunch breaks.
Teri planned to go home to Escondido for Christmas. Her flight left on Sunday afternoon, which meant she had a day and a half to organize everything after her last day of teaching. She went over to Kyle and Jessica’s new house on Saturday morning with her gift of several bags of tamales. Kyle was especially appreciative. Their new home was beautiful.
“It looks as if you guys are all set here,” Teri said, scanning the living room with its ornate marble fireplace and exquisite wooden mantle. The furniture and walls weren’t overdone, but they were definitely Victorian and fit the style of the house beautifully.
“All we need is a couple of hydrangea bushes out front, and it’s home,” Kyle said. He shot a look at Jessica, and she returned the loving expression with a lingering intimacy. Teri noticed that they seemed to draw strength from each other.
“Oh,” Jessica said, slowly looking away from Kyle and going over to the oak rolltop desk, “I have something for you, Teri.” She handed her an envelope and said, “I know it’s not fancy, but I didn’t have a chance to wrap it. Go ahead and open it.”
Teri slit the envelope and pulled out what looked like an airplane ticket. “What’s this?”
“It’s good for any time and any destination. You just call that number and tell them where you want to go and when. I thought you might want to use it when Anita’s baby comes. Or maybe you could go see Lauren in Tennessee. I know it’s kind of a weird gift, but I wanted to buy you something you could use.”
Teri hugged her. “This is so sweet of you! Thanks, Jess.”
“You’re welcome. And thank you for feeding us for the next week with your tamales!”
“You think they’ll last that long?” Kyle asked.
Jessica smiled and said, “Okay, make that for the next two hours.”
“When do you leave?” Kyle asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Do you want a ride to the airport?”
“No, I decided to drive and leave my car at the airport. I’ll only be gone five days. Thanks, anyway.” Teri slipped the envelope into her purse and hugged her friends good-bye. “Have a wonderful Christmas! I need to get going. I have eight more tamale deliveries, and I need to pack.”
“Be sure to thank your mom for teaching you the art of tamale making,” Kyle called out as she left. “Tell her we appreciate it more than she’ll ever know.”
Teri remembered his words several days later when she was seated at the family dining table, enjoying her mom’s enchiladas. Her mom passed the credit on to her mother, who was seated next to Teri.
Grandma Maria leaned over and tapped Teri on the hand. She said, “You have learned what you need to make your esposo happy—good cooking.”
“Now all she needs is an esposo,” one of her brothers said.
I don’t need a husband! Teri couldn’t bring herself to voice her feelings and decided it would be better to endure the string of comments that were sure to follow about her being the oldest of all her sisters and cousins who wasn’t married.
It hurt. She tried to ignore it, but as the holidays unfolded, she realized that in her family she was a loner. On Christmas Day seventeen people were crammed into her parents’ living room. She noticed that everybody had somebody—everybody but her. Even her fourteen-year-old sister, the baby of the family, had received a heart-shaped necklace the day before from a guy at school who liked her.
Teri tried to convince herself that she could be single and still be important to this family. Her Aunt Yolanda was. She had forged her way into the business world and w
as now at the executive level. However, Teri didn’t have those kinds of ambitions.
One of her cousins handed Teri her four-month-old baby boy so she could help her two-year-old son open his gifts. Teri watched the big family merriment and the flurry of unwrapped gifts, all accompanied with happy squeals. She rocked the little one, and he fell asleep in her arms.
She felt a deep sadness, but she kept it to herself. For the most part, Teri enjoyed her family and the Christmas fun. It was a lively yet sacred time for her family, and she was glad to be with them all. If only she didn’t feel so alone and fated to be alone forever.
On the morning after Christmas, the telephone rang at 5:00 A.M., waking Teri, who was sleeping on the couch. Her mom answered the phone in the bedroom and a few minutes later came hurrying down the hallway.
Teri met her mom in the kitchen. “Who called?”
Her mom looked dazed and a little frightened. “It was Danny. They’re at the hospital. The baby is coming!”
“Are you sure, Mom? She’s not due for another two months.”
“Oh, Teri,” her mom said, grasping her hands, “we must pray.”
As the two women began to pray, Teri’s dad joined them in the kitchen and entered into their prayers. Before they were finished, four other family members, including Grandma Maria, had joined them in the praying.
When the last amen was said, Teri’s mom set about making coffee.
“Mom,” Teri said, sliding up behind her and giving her a comforting hug, “why don’t you go be with Annie? I have a ticket you can use. It’s good for any time.”
“No, I couldn’t use your ticket.”
Teri’s father overheard and entered the discussion, agreeing with Teri that Mom should go, but they could buy a ticket for her. Then Grandma Maria thought she should go, too. When all the discussion ended, it was agreed that Teri, Mom, and Grandma would all travel to Hawaii as soon as possible.
Teri retreated to the bedroom phone and called the airline. She made arrangements for the three of them to leave that morning. A frantic scramble ensued, and nearly ten hours later the three Moreno women stood together on Hawaiian soil.
“You did tell Dan what flight we were on, didn’t you?” Mom asked, with the worry lines deepening in her face.
“Yes, of course I did,” Teri assured her. “He wasn’t going to leave the hospital, so he said he would send a friend to pick us up.”
They stood together at the baggage claim, all three of them still in shock over how quickly everything was happening. No one approached them, saying he was Danny’s friend who had come to retrieve them.
As soon as they had all their bags together, Teri said, “Look, you two stay here, and I’ll make a couple of phone calls. I should have told him we would rent a car. We can still do that.”
Teri was surprised the airport was so much more crowded than it had been that summer. Maui appeared to be a favorite vacation spot for Christmas. She couldn’t blame any of these people for wanting to be here.
The minute she had stepped off the plane and the warm island breezes had greeted her, she had remembered how deeply she loved this island and how she had wanted to move here long before anyone had thought up the tamale business and long before she had run into Scott. Once again the desire rose within her, and she wished she were moving here, not just visiting, especially under such panicky circumstances.
She headed for the phone but stopped when she saw a familiar face. Renegade strands of brown hair swept across the face, while laugh lines stretched from the corners of his blue eyes. The fit Australian waved at Teri and jogged toward her.
Look out for that trash can, Gordon!
He maneuvered past it with only a pinch to spare.
“It’s a girl!” he shouted breathlessly. “Only three pounds, but she’s alive.”
Teri felt an impulse to hug him, but with the shot of adrenaline his words brought, she turned and hustled back to her mom and grandmother, shouting as soon as she saw them. Gordon followed on her heels.
“How do you know this?” Grandma asked, looking confused.
Teri introduced Gordon and let him relay the whole story to the three of them. The baby was born a little more than an hour ago, and Annie was doing fine. They wouldn’t know much more until the doctors had completed their exam.
Gordon took the luggage from the hands of the older women and showed them to his car in the parking lot. They drove straight to the hospital.
Only two people could go in to see Anita at a time, the nurse insisted. Mom and Grandma scooted right in while Danny took a break and went to find something to eat. Teri, who had located a couch in a corner room down the hall, collapsed on it.
Not until her spinning mind started to slow down did it sink in to Teri that Gordon was sitting beside her. He must have been there a full five minutes, quietly leafing through a magazine, not speaking, not pushing in any way, just being there with her.
“Thanks for picking us up, Gordon.” Teri smiled at him. He returned the smile, and Teri felt as if something inside her had started to come back to life, like dying embers in a fire that had been fanned back to a red glow. She realized she hadn’t seen Gordon or talked to him since that night at Kimos last summer. Yet she felt comfortable sitting there with him. It seemed natural for him to be involved in a family crisis. Perhaps it was his pastoral position.
“Teri,” Gordon began to say something and then stopped. He looked at her intently, as if his serious blue eyes were peering through a window into her soul.
What do you see? she thought. How can you connect yourself to me like that, so instantly and uninvited? It occurred to Teri that she felt she had nothing to hide from this man. They were somehow united. Whether it was over this emergency or a result of their long and honest talks in the crater, she wasn’t sure. But at this moment, Teri felt as if the real her had somehow become intimately connected to this man, and she had done nothing to initiate such a connection.
“Teri,” he said again, tilting his good ear toward her, “I …”
Before Gordon could get out his words, Teri’s grandma stepped into the room and said, “Teresa, it’s your turn.”
It took Teri a moment to break away from her eye contact with Gordon. “All right,” she said, slowly looking up at her grandmother. “How’s she doing?”
Grandma Maria didn’t answer. She looked at Teri with an expression of delightful surprise and then at Gordon as if she had noticed him for the first time. Grandma mumbled an exclamation of amazement to herself in Spanish. As Teri rose, Grandma sat down next to Gordon and, patting his hand, said, “So, now, tell me all about yourself.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hi,” Teri said, gently sitting on the edge of Annie’s bed. “We were right, weren’t we? It’s a girl.”
Mom stood at the head of the bed, tenderly brushing Annie’s hair off her forehead.
“Oh, Teri, she’s so tiny,” Anita said. “So tiny. I don’t see how—”
“Shh,” Mom interrupted. “Don’t speak, mi hija. It’s in God’s hands. Shh.”
After a few moments of awkward silence, Teri asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Okay. I’m glad you’re all here. You didn’t have to do this, you know.”
“Oh, yes we did. The Moreno women stick together when it really matters. And you really matter to all of us, Annie,” Teri said.
“I told Mom I’ve been waiting for years to have her come visit me. If this is what I have to do to get her here, I’m not sure I want to guarantee many more visits.”
Teri smiled. Anita didn’t look right. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of childbirth or the nervous fatigue over not knowing what was going to happen to the baby.
“Have you decided on a name for her?”
Anita shook her head. “We weren’t ready for her yet. I don’t even have a crib or anything. I planned to use the money we received yesterday for Christmas gifts from everyone.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Was Christmas yesterd
ay or the day before?”
“It was yesterday,” Mom said. “You need some rest, Annie. Then I’m sure you’ll feel better.”
“I want to wait until the doctor comes back. I won’t be able to sleep until I hear what he has to say.”
“Why don’t you try just to rest,” Teri suggested. “We’ll be right here, and I promise we’ll wake you up the second he walks in that door.”
Then, as if Teri’s words had been the doctor’s cue, the door opened, and an older man with white hair and a matching white coat stepped in. “Well!” he said, seeming surprised to see Teri and her mom. “Visitors already?” He extended a handshake to both of them. “Dr. Vaughan,” he said as a simple introduction.
“This is my mom and sister.” Anita’s voice pitched a little higher than usual. “They just arrived from the mainland.”
“West Coast, I take it,” he said, looking at them over the top of his half-glasses. He seemed easygoing and friendly. Teri couldn’t tell if the chart in his hand bore good news or devastation for Anita.
“Southern California,” Mom answered. “Would you like us to go find Danny?”
“No, I just spoke with him in the hallway. He said he would join us in a minute.”
Teri moved so Dr. Vaughan could be by Anita’s side.
“They don’t have to leave, do they?” Anita asked.
“It’s up to you,” he said.
“I’d like them to stay.” Anita reached up and took hold of her mother’s hand, waiting for the report on her baby girl.
“Okay, well then,” Dr. Vaughan took Teri’s flattened space on the edge of the bed and opened his chart. “Let me go through everything with you. First, your daughter weighed in at three pounds and fifteen ounces.”
Teri cringed. She saw Mom and Annie squeeze hands.
“Her heart is quite strong, her lungs not fully developed. But we didn’t find any obvious problems with them. She’s not yet able to breathe on her own, so she’ll be on oxygen for some time.”