“Yeah, I love you too. I’ll check in with you in a few days. I promise.” My heart jerks in my chest. Despite the size of her very pregnant belly and the three children she has with her, my heart still can’t rationalize the fact that Katie has a husband somewhere. I don’t know what that says about me.
I dash back to the sink when I hear Katie’s footsteps walking toward the door.
She hands my phone back to me and wipes her nose. “Are you all right?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” she says.
“Was that your husband?” I’m nosy. I can’t help it. I’m a cop.
She snorts. “I wish.” She wipes the back of her hand beneath her nose. “That was my dad and Uncle Adam.”
“How are they doing?” I have such fond memories of them from my childhood. Nights when we played Sorry together or rainy afternoons spent shouting over a game of Monopoly are some of my best memories of all time.
“They’re fine. They’re very relieved I’m here.” She looks up at me.
“Why?”
“Why what?” she asks, as she starts to dry the glasses.
“Why are they relieved you’re here?”
“It’s safe here,” she says quietly.
“What does that mean, Katie?”
She shakes her head. “It means I’m really happy to see you, Jake,” she says. “Dad and Uncle Adam said hi.”
I smile. “Next time you talk to them, tell them I said hello, will you? I’d love to see them.”
“I asked them not to come. Not yet.”
“What’s going on with you, Katie?” I rush to ask, because she’s really starting to scare me.
She heaves a sigh. “I just needed a safe place to land, Jake. That’s all.”
“And you picked here?”
She nods. “Yeah. I did.”
Suddenly, she winces and lays a hand on her stomach.
“You okay?” I ask, reaching for her. She brushes my hand away.
“I’m okay,” she says. “Just a hard kick. This one’s going to be another football player.”
“It’s a boy?”
She nods. “It’s another boy. Two and two. The perfect crew.”
“You like being a mom, Katie?”
She laughs. “Well, until one of them pukes or throws a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store, I love it. And I can handle the temper tantrum better than the puke. My husband…” She stops and shakes her head. “My husband always handled the puke. It never bothered him. Since he’s not here, Alex is the official pukemaster.”
“There’s nothing boys like more than gross stuff.”
“His dad told Alex to take care of me before his last deployment. He took it very seriously.”
“He’s military?”
She nods. “He was.”
“Where is he now?”
She throws the drying towel into the sink. “I think I’m going to put the kids to bed early and go to bed myself. The drive wore me out.”
She might as well have told me to scram.
“I’ll get Pop and head home. Thanks for letting us come for dinner. I think it did Pop good.”
“You did all the cooking, and the cleaning, and you brought the food. I can’t think of a better evening.” She smiles at me.
Then her smile slips away. “Stop trying to figure me out, Jake,” she says. “It’s simple. I’m here, in my favorite place in the world. And you’re here too, which makes it extra special. That’s all there is to it.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.”
Well, then. “I guess we should go.” On impulse, I lean down to kiss her on the cheek. She stiffens for a second, but then she falls against me, her arms sliding around my waist as she presses her cheek against my shoulder. I feel a little tap against my belly. “I think your uterus is kicking me,” I whisper.
She laughs, but it’s a watery sound, and my heart twists. “That would be the baby in my uterus, Jake. Get your anatomy straight.” She steps back from me. “Thank you,” she says. “I didn’t know how much I needed a hug until I got one.” She takes a deep breath.
“I’ll collect Pop.”
We walk out to the porch and find that Pop is now without a shirt, and Gabby has it hanging on the back of her chair.
“Jesus, Pop,” I say. “You’re losing your shirt out here.”
“The kid’s a shark, Jake,” he grumbles.
“Well, Katie wants to go to bed early. We had better get out of here before the shark wins your boxers.”
“That would just be gross,” Gabby mutters.
A little hand tugs on the leg of my jeans. “Can Sally spend the night?” Trixie asks.
“Umm…” I look at Katie. She gives me a subtle nod. “Sure. I guess it’s all right.”
“He can sleep with me.” Trixie looks from me to her mom. Her mom nods.
“I’ll come and get him in the morning,” I tell Katie.
“Sounds good.”
Pop lumbers to his feet and stretches, his pudgy white middle on display.
“Thanks for letting me kick your butt, Mr. Jacobson,” Gabby says, grinning from beneath the brim of Pop’s hat.
“Same time tomorrow,” he says, knocking his knuckles on the table. It’s not even a question. It’s an order.
“Pop,” I start to complain. But he’s already walking toward Katie. He kisses her on the forehead quickly and lingers to whisper close to her ear. She nods, and her eyes tear up. She blinks furiously.
“I’m glad I’m here too. Same time tomorrow.” She squeezes his arm.
I ruffle the dog’s…I mean Sally’s ears, and he sits down beside Trixie like this is where he belongs.
Pop gets in the golf cart and waits to speak until we’re almost home. “I didn’t let that kid win,” he says.
I arch a brow at him.
“She’s a shark, I tell you.”
“Maybe she’ll let you win tomorrow.” I chuckle.
“She had better not,” he grumbles. “That’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time.” He claps me on the shoulder. “And I got you another date.”
“Pop, that wasn’t a date.”
“Take it slow, son. It’ll all work out. You’ll see.”
I heave a sigh and go inside. It does no good to argue with Pop.
In my head, I try to piece together all the parts of Katie, but they don’t fit. They don’t form a picture at all. Not one that I can make out, anyway.
14
Katie
I walk from room to room, checking on my kids. It’s a habit from when they were small. I still stop in each doorway long enough to watch their backs rise and fall, or to see the covers flutter with the motions of their breaths. The regular motions of breathing can ease a troubled mother’s spirit like a balm to the soul.
Alex is in the top bunk in the room he’s sharing with Trixie. He has one leg flung through the slats on the bed, and his toes wiggle in his sleep. I smile and draw the blanket down around his foot.
Trixie is in the bottom bunk, and she’s lying against the wall, with her arm lifted above her head. Stretched out alongside her is Sally. He’s on top of the covers while she’s beneath them, and I stop to be sure they’re both all right. Sally lifts his head and looks at me, blinking his big brown eyes. Then he heaves a sigh and relaxes. It’s amusing and stupefying the way he has taken up with Trixie. She needed a protector. She needed someone to have her back. And it looks like this great big goofy dog has her back, her side, and he might even have her trust.
I walk into the living room to find Gabby pulling out the couch bed. “You don’t have to do that, honey,” I say. “Go to bed.”
“I’m going to sleep out here.” She starts to make up the tiny bed. “You take the bedroom.”
This worries me more than anything. Gabby has become my protector, after all that has happened. It should be me taking care of her. But it’s not. It’s the reverse.
“Seriously, Gabby. Go to bed.” I
point toward the bedroom and put on my mom face.
Gabby rolls her eyes. “Not happening, Mom,” she says quietly. “You’re eight months pregnant. You’re taking the bed.”
“Gab…” I don’t even know what to say to her anymore. I don’t know how to talk to my own daughter.
She sits down on the foam mattress and crosses her legs, then shoves the pillow down into the hole between her knees, resting her elbows on it as she looks at me. “So…” she says with a grin. “You and Jake, huh?”
A grin tugs at my own lips, even though I try to hold it back. “Me and Jake what?”
She smiles even bigger. “So you and Jake were totally a thing, weren’t you?”
“A thing?” I fluff the extra pillows and sit down next to her, leaning against the back of the couch with my legs in front of me. I lay my hand on my belly, because it makes me feel centered. “Define thing.”
“He was your boyfriend before you met Dad.”
I nod slowly and suddenly it’s hard to swallow past the lump in my throat.
“Oh, Mom,” Gabby chides softly. “Don’t cry.”
I point to my stomach. “I’m really pregnant, Gabs. I can’t help it.” I wipe my eyes and try to get myself together.
“Tell me about Jake,” she says, and she turns to lay her head in the little bit of lap I have left. My fingers immediately find their way into her hair. “Was he your first love?”
Warmth settles in my heart, replacing where pain was a second ago. “Yeah, he was.”
“How old were you?” She yawns.
“It was the summer I turned sixteen.” Memories wash through me, making the hair on my arms stand on end. “It was magical.”
She snorts and turns away from me, and I run my fingers through the back of her long dark hair. She makes a soft, happy noise, and I realize this is the most calm I have felt in quite some time.
“Was he your first kiss?” she whispers. Then she giggles.
“Yeah, Gabs. He was.” And he was my first grope, my first second base, and my first boyfriend. My first loss.
“What happened between the two of you? Too much distance?”
“No,” I reply. “I met your dad when I joined the Army.” And that love…that love eclipsed everything else.
“But before that,” she prompts. “What happened with you and Jake?”
I shrug more to myself than to her. “I had to go home. He stayed here. That was all of it. We wrote letters for a little while, and then we stopped. I don’t remember why.”
“You were meant to meet Dad,” she says. Her voice gets soft and breathy, and more of her weight settles against my leg.
“Yes, I was.” That is one hundred percent true. I was meant to meet Jeff. I was meant to have three beautiful children with him. What came later…that was a tragedy.
After a long while I slide out from beneath Gabby’s sleeping form and pull the covers over her, staring down at her long enough to watch her chest rise and fall twice. That’s enough. Twice.
15
Jake
My paddle slices through the water with a dull slush, the soft whisper of the boat moving across the lake breaking the silence of the morning. The sun is barely over the horizon, but I shoved the canoe off anyway. I didn’t have much of a choice. Pop woke me up early and asked me to go and fix the mooring cleat on the floating dock that’s in the middle of the lake. I get out there, though, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Knowing Pop, he’ll probably tell me that there was a lesson in this little excursion.
The lesson is: Don’t even try to sleep late when Pop’s in the house. He will always find a way to get you up.
It is beautiful out here, though. The sun is coming up over the trees, casting shades of purple and grey on the calm lake, which looks slick as glass. I have missed the calm mornings and gentle breezes. In the city, it’s all hustle and bustle of epic proportions. People rush to and fro, horns honk, and people shout, even in the early morning. Here the only shout is the fishing crane as it flies by. Or the duck that happily dunks its head over and over, bobbing like a cork, causing tiny ripples that fan out around it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone standing on the end of the dock. I shade my eyes with my hand, and realize it’s a young boy. Katie’s son, Alex? He has something in his hand and he hauls his arm back and throws it toward the center of the lake. Then he turns and runs back down the dock, back toward their cabin.
Well, that was strange.
I paddle over, just because I’m a nosy bastard, and I see an empty soda bottle floating on the water. I pull it toward me with the tip of my oar, then toss it into the bottom of the boat. I’ll have to give the kid a talk about throwing trash into the lake.
I kick the bottle with my foot, slightly annoyed that the kid just tossed it in like that. It’s like ruining all the perfection, displacing some of the magic of the lake, when you get it dirty.
But then I see a slash of white within the bottle. I pick it up and turn it over, and see the piece of paper within the empty container. I screw off the cap and pull the paper from the bottle.
Dear God,
Please send my dad back so he can help us.
Love,
Alex
Well, shit.
The sense of peace I’d enjoyed a minute ago is now gone.
16
Katie
“Eat your eggs,” I say to Trixie. Getting her to eat anything healthy is like pulling teeth, and pretty much just as painful. She likes peanut butter and jelly and not much else.
“I don’t like eggs.” She props her elbow on the table and rests the side of her face against the flat of her palm. While she blinks down at the food she doesn’t want, Sally slobbers a big puddle of drool right beside her chair. He licks his lips.
“Alex, do you want milk or juice? Gabby?”
“Milk,” says Alex around a mouthful of bacon.
Gabby slaps him gently on the arm. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” She pours out some milk for Alex. “Juice for me, please.”
I turn away to get some juice and turn back to find that Trixie’s plate is now completely empty. “I do like eggs after all,” she chirps. She holds out her palm, and Sally gives her his paw like he’s giving her a high five.
“That dog has to go back to Jake today,” I mutter.
“Why can’t Sally stay?” Trixie asks.
“Because he’s Jake’s dog.” I sound like a whiny brat myself. I was up all night with an unborn kid sitting on my bladder.
“But he likes me,” she says as she feeds him a bite of egg off my plate. I actually got the dog some dog food when I got up early this morning and went to the store, but the dog won’t touch it. And why should he when–
A loud knock sounds on the door. Gabby jumps up quick as a flash and gathers the children and the dog, and they go into the bedroom.
My heart thunders in my chest. “Who is it?” I call through the door.
“It’s Jake,” he calls back.
I let out the breath I was holding and force myself to relax. Then I open the door and step to the side so Jake can come in as Gabby brings the kids back into the kitchen. She’s carrying Trixie, who suddenly won’t look up from where her head is pressed beneath Gabby’s chin.
I wish my kids weren’t so fearful. Hell, I wish I wasn’t so fearful.
“Is everything okay?” Jake asks, looking closely at my kids.
“Yes. We’re fine. What’s up?”
Jake fidgets. “I wanted to talk to you really quickly.”
“Okay…” I say slowly. “About anything in particular?”
He jams his hands into his pockets. “Can you take a walk with me?”
I turn off the burners on the stove. “Can you watch the kids for a minute?” I ask Gabby. She waves a hand at me, dismissing me totally. Teenagers.
“What do you need, Jake?” I ask, as I step carefully down the porch steps. He turns and takes my hand as I waddle. “Is your dad all rig
ht?”
“He’s as mean as ever.”
Jakes fingers linger in mine well after I’m down the steps, and my heart trips a quick little beat.
17
Katie
I can remember very well the second time I ever held hands with Jake Jacobson. He kissed me that night when we fell into the lake, but it was an awful kiss. It was all tongue and slobber and it really wasn’t anything I wanted to remember. I certainly didn’t go home and write about it in my journal.
We were at a camp cookout. Mr. Jacobson held them every Saturday night. He said it was an excuse to burn a hamburger, but really it was his attempt to bring all the people in the area together. The magic of being at the lake wasn’t in the solitude. It was in the community. It was in finding other kids your age, or getting to meet interesting adults, or the missionaries that came on Sundays to deliver the church messages. The magic was in the community.
So every Saturday night, Mr. Jacobson would cook burgers on the grill and everyone else would bring a dish to share. My dad and Uncle Adam brought key lime pie that Uncle Adam made from scratch. It was so much better than the icebox pies that my dad bought. But you had to eat it quickly or it would melt. For that reason, we left it in our tiny freezer until it was time to eat dessert.
Dad sent me back to the cabin to get it while he finished his burger. “Run and get the pie,” he said. “I think everyone is almost done.” He looked around. Uncle Adam was across the table from him, because when we were out in a crowd like this, they were my dad and my Uncle Adam, and not my two dads. It’s how it was back then. They had to be much more careful to conceal their love for one another than they are now.
I ran back to the cabin and got the pie from the freezer, only stopping briefly to let the cold air cool my face. When I ran back to the picnic area, I stopped short. Jake was sitting with my dad and Uncle Adam. He looked back over his shoulder at me and smiled. “Hey,” he said.