I yanked a tissue out of the box on my nightstand and dabbed at the blood as I waited for Drea. When she returned with a blue ice-pack and a kitchen towel, she had unspent tears in her eyes. She wrapped the ice-pack in the towel and sat next to me as she held it against my hand.
“I’m pregnant,” I whispered.
She nodded and a tear fell from her cheek onto the towel. “I know, darling. I’m sorry I was such a jerk about getting you those pills.”
“You were right.”
“No, I wasn’t!” she replied forcefully.
“Yes, you were. I should have been honest with Jack the day he showed up at my mom’s house.”
She sniffed loudly as she lifted the ice-pack to check on the swelling. “Well, I suppose we shouldn’t be crying over spilt milk. We should be trying to figure out how to fix this.”
I couldn’t help myself as I let out a soft chuckle. “Fix what? There’s nothing left to fix.” I pulled my hand back and hugged my knees. “I just have to accept that we tried. We tried really hard to make this work. But he left me behind to pursue justice and I broke us beyond repair.”
She shook her head. “Pardon me, but that is such a load of bollocks.”
I let out a deep sigh. “You know, about half of couples who lose a child break up within six months. We’re lucky we made it more than two years.”
“Would you please stop? You and Jack are not breaking up. I will not allow it.”
I laughed again, despite my abject misery. “I love that you care so much about us. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“Yeah, yeah. Save me the flattery,” she said, placing the ice-pack on the nightstand. “I fucked up. I should not have refused to get you those pills. But I am not going to make the mistake of letting you give up on your marriage again. Come on, get up. I know what hotel Jack went to. We’re going there right now to hash this out.”
I shook my head. “It’s a nice thought, that my marriage could be saved by a refereed conversation. But we’ve already tried that, and a whole lot of good that did. It’s over. I broke us. And now I have to go tell Isaac that I may or may not be pregnant with his child. It’s… It’s almost as if I’ve spent the last few months balancing on a knife’s point and, instead of asking for help, I decided to impale myself.”
I let out another heavy sigh, which reminded me of the couple months after Junior died, when I sighed at least a hundred times a day. Sighing is the brain’s way of regulating blood-oxygen levels when dealing with overwhelming emotion, and those were definitely the most emotional months of my life.
“But you did ask for help,” Drea replied. “You asked for my help, and I let you down. I’m so sorry, Laurel. I’m a disloyal twat. You are officially allowed to punch me in my perfect button nose.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I could never damage your gorgeous twat-face.”
“Not anymore because you just passed up your one and only chance,” she said, scooting up on the bed until we were shoulder-to-shoulder and leaning against the tufted headboard. “So what are you going to do now?”
“I need to pack a bag and head back to my mom’s. Jack shouldn’t have to stay in a hotel.” I covered my face as another wave of emotion slammed into me. “I should pack him a bag, too. In case he chooses to stay in the hotel.”
She wrapped her arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “What’s that saying you once told me? The one your mom used to say? Something about going through hell.”
I sniffed loudly and paused as I recalled the words. “When you’re going through hell, you don’t stop and enjoy the scenery. You keep going. It’s the only way out.” My shoulders slumped as I let out yet another sigh. “I just wish everything could go back to the way it was before.”
Drea shook her head. “I’m fairly certain your mum probably had a saying about idolizing the past.”
I chuckled. “Actually, she did.”
“Of course she did.”
I wiped fresh tears from my face as her words floated to the surface of my consciousness. “Remember the good times fondly, but don’t fall into mourning them. It’s counterproductive.”
“There you go. A veritable font of wisdom she was,” she declared with a soft smile as she squeezed my arm. “I’ll help you pack.”
I went through the motions of packing and chatting with Drea, but my mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother. She was a fountain of wisdom, but it seemed she was also a locked chest of secrets.
I wondered if I ever really knew my mother. I wondered if my mother knew her killer. Did he reveal his identity to her in those final terrorizing moments? In the final seconds of her life, did she wish she had done things differently, or did she have no regrets?
Knowing my mother, and I really believed I did know her, she probably accepted her fate with grace. I may not have known all my mother’s secrets, but what I did know was that she died trying to save my son’s life. And that was all I needed to know.
I trusted Drea to deliver Jack’s suitcase to him, and explain everything that happened with Isaac better than I had. I didn’t expect her to save my marriage or to make Jack understand how sorry I was. But I knew Drea would use her charm and her British accent to appeal to Jack’s merciful side. He did have a merciful side.
I hoped he would be merciful enough to take my call when I phoned him later tonight. I knew he had to leave the house in a hurry earlier because he was blindsided by my betrayal, but we still had a very important decision to make. Was I going to keep this baby?
Underneath the anger and determined vengeance, I knew Jack was in unbearable pain. As I exited the highway, I remembered how, a couple of months after we started dating, his grandmother died. He asked me to attend the funeral in Hood River. I’d have to miss two days of classes, and I would be meeting his parents for the first time, under somber circumstances.
But even then, just two months into this new relationship, I could tell the difference between Jack being frustrated over a less-than-perfect grade and the gaping hole in his heart caused by the loss of someone he loved. I knew Jack wouldn’t have asked me to go to the funeral unless he really needed me there. That was when I knew he trusted me with his heart. And I swore to myself I would never do anything to break that trust.
I pulled my SUV into the driveway of my mother’s house in Portland, the house I’d grown up in, for what felt like the millionth time. I was really starting to dread coming here, and that was not at all the way I wanted to feel about the house my mother willed to me. There were just too many painful memories here now: my panic attack caused by Isaac’s car backfiring; Isaac being shot by my bodyguard; and the dozen or so drunken tirades I’d unleashed on myself, which culminated in a sexual encounter with Isaac I could hardly remember.
I had to sell this house.
As I rolled my suitcase up the front path and lugged it onto the porch, I saw no signs of Isaac working outside. I heard no sounds of sprinklers or circular saws or power tools coming from the house next door. All was quiet, and I wondered if perhaps I had sent him running for the hills, too.
I shook my head as I unlocked the door and left the suitcase in the foyer. Closing the door, I headed straight to Isaac’s house. If he wasn’t there, I’d text him and tell him we needed to talk. Because men absolutely loved getting messages from women saying “we need to talk.”
As I approached Isaac’s front door, the one he and I had recently painted black, I heard the soft rustle of movement inside. Pulling my sweater tightly closed against the brisk November breeze, I let out a deep sigh, but not one of relief. It was a sigh of resolve.
This was it. This was the conversation I hoped I would never need to have with Isaac. I had to tell him that, even if I was pregnant with his child, we could never be together. Because I would never love him the way I loved Jack, and he deserved a woman who could give him her whole heart.
I rang the doorbell and the rustling sounds ceased. Human and dog foot
steps approached and stopped at the door. He was probably peeking through the peephole and deciding whether he should open the door. Would Isaac leave me out here?
As soon as this thought crossed my mind, the door swung open slowly. Isaac was wearing a white Fox racing T-shirt, the long sleeves pulled up to his elbows to reveal the tattoos covering his forearms, and a smile that didn’t quite reach his hazel eyes.
“Well, I’ll be. I was just thinking about you,” he said, stepping aside. “Come on in. Out of the way, Boomer.”
I stepped into his entryway and laughed as Isaac’s German shepherd service dog wagged his tail so hard, he whipped Isaac’s legs repeatedly.
I scratched the top of his head and he panted with glee. “Good boy,” I declared, and he glanced at Isaac as if to say, “See? She thinks I’m a good boy.”
Isaac shook his head as he closed the door behind me.
“What were you thinking about?” I asked, as I caught sight of the stacks of moving boxes covering the sofas and the surface of every table in the room.
“Just thinking about calling you,” he replied, letting go of the door handle. “But I didn’t think that would be a good idea. I… saw you leave with your husband a few days ago.”
I turned to look him in the eye as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Are you moving?”
He stared at the floor for a while before he nodded. “I’m going back to Minnesota. I think it’s time.”
I suddenly felt as if I couldn’t breathe. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye?”
His eyebrows squeezed together as he looked me in the eye. “We both know I’ve done more damage than good here. Your mom… She wouldn’t have wanted me causing trouble for you.”
I shook my head as I wiped tears from my cheeks. “I don’t know what my mom would have wanted. It turns out none of us really knew her. But I know she wouldn’t have wanted you to leave on my account. And besides, I’m selling the house, so I won’t be around to bug you anymore.”
He laughed. “You know you’ve never bugged me. Not a single second.”
“Not even when I got you shot?”
He smiled as he shook his head. “Not even then.”
I drew in a shaky breath. “Don’t leave, Isaac. I’m… I’m pregnant.”
His smile faded and his gaze fell. “Congratulations.”
I shook my head. “I mean, I’m pregnant and… it might be yours.”
He cocked an eyebrow and chuckled nervously. “That would be something of a miracle.”
“Excuse me?”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Laurel, I can’t have kids. I had a vasectomy two years ago.” He looked me in the eye for a moment before he continued. “I told you before about how I enjoyed keeping company with beautiful women before you moved in. New one every week until you came along. Not that you’re not beautiful,” he clarified, shaking his head as he moved on. “But a couple years ago, I had a bit of a scare with one particular lady. And though nothing came of it, I didn’t want to risk it happening again. So I went in for a little snip-job.” He caught me as I began to sway. “Whoa. Let’s go to the kitchen so you can sit down.”
With Isaac’s help, I dragged myself around a stack of boxes and toward the breakfast nook.
“You can’t have kids?” I whispered as he pulled out a wooden chair for me to sit down at the round dining table.
He pulled another chair close to me and sat with his knees almost touching mine. “I should have told you, but you were the first woman to ever make me regret that decision. It’s pretty dumb, considering you’re married, but I was afraid of scaring you off.”
I turned toward the table, resting my elbows on the surface as I leaned forward with my head in my hands. The last five days of anguish while I waited to take a pregnancy test… The pain I’ve caused Jack… The end of my marriage… Was it all in vain?
No, it wasn’t in vain. Jack knew the truth now. He could decide to be with me or not, but at least there were no more secrets between us. But, oh, how it ached to know that I didn’t get a chance to tell Jack I was pregnant with his child.
Oh, God. Jack and I are having another baby.
I couldn’t help but smile as I wiped happy tears from my face. “I’m having Jack’s baby?”
Isaac smiled at me, but this time it reached his eyes, that signature eye-crinkling grin. “Man, oh, man… I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that happy.”
I took a deep breath as I turned to face him. “Isaac, I—”
“I know,” he said, nodding his head. “It was never in the cards for us. But it was an honor just to know you… and your mom. It really was. You’ll tell Dylan I said goodbye?”
I sniffed loudly and nodded. “Of course.”
Isaac and I chatted for a while longer, and he told me how he sold the house to an investor. He was packing up his personal belongings to ship them to his parents’ house in Stillwater. When I asked about his vehicles, he said the nephew of our elderly neighbor, Edna, was going to take a look at his Mustang and truck later this afternoon to see if he wanted to buy them. If he wasn’t interested, Isaac was planning to donate the Mustang and sell the truck to a dealer the next day. Then, he would take an evening flight back to Minneapolis.
“I should get going,” I said, standing from the chair slowly, as I suddenly felt weighed down by my reluctance to say goodbye.
“Yeah, Edna’s nephew’s going to be here soon,” he said, walking me to the entryway.
I turned around when I reached the door. “I’m sorry for everything. I really am.”
He waved off my apology. “I already told you, you have nothing to apologize for. In fact, I should be apologizing to you. I should have left you safe and alone in bed that night. I was just worried about how sick you were. And what happened… One hundred percent my fault. But I hope you know I’m not the type of guy to take advantage of that kind of situation. I should have stopped it.”
I shook my head. “Not one hundred percent your fault, but I appreciate the sentiment. I’ve been digging my own grave for a very long time. It was inevitable I was going to fall in one of these days.”
He smiled. “I’ve seen buddies of mine descend into deeper, darker holes after enduring less trauma than you. In my eyes, you’re not just a survivor. You’re a hero.”
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist to pull him into a tight hug. “Please take care of yourself.”
He coiled his arms around my shoulders and squeezed me. “Yes, ma’am. Same goes for you and that baby.”
I held on a bit longer before I stepped back and took in that beautiful smile one last time. “Good-bye.”
He nodded and I left as fast as I could. I didn’t bother retrieving my suitcase from the foyer. I got in my car and headed straight for the highway. I had to go back to Hood River.
Chapter 4
Isaac
As I stood up and pulled my backpack out of the overhead bin, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for all the times I’d done this before, when I came back from boot camp and any one of my three tours. But this time was different. The aisle cleared for me to exit the plane first, with Boomer in front of me, wearing his army-green K9 vest, complete with all the badges he’d earned.
I nodded as people smiled and thanked Boomer and me for our service. By the time I reached the front of the plane, my anxiety level was skyrocketing. I let out the stale breath I’d been holding as soon as I stepped into the skybridge. Every time I walked through this tunnel, I was a different man than when I’d left. This was more true today than it ever was.
As Boomer and I stepped out of the skybridge into Southwest Airlines Gate T2, I was overcome with a bone-deep sense of relief. I grinned like an idiot as we passed the familiar concourse shops and restaurants. I had shipped four boxes of my belongings to my parents’ house, so we didn’t bother going down to the baggage claim. We took the Skyway straight to the parking garage and hopped on the lightrail going to Terminal 1,
where my dad was set to pick us up in about twenty minutes.
My mom didn’t question me when I called her four days ago to say I was coming back. She just asked me when, and if there was anything she could do to help. My mom could always be counted on to leave the past in the past.
I stepped out of the terminal and the smell of Minneapolis hit me like a freight train. It was the familiar scent of Minneapolis after a November “scorcher” in the 50-degree range. The warm winds heated the soil and brought in all the “pleasant” smells from farms to the west. People were covering their faces with their shirts in the passenger pickup area. But not me. I walked up and down the sidewalk a few times, breathing in lungfuls of nostalgia as I looked for my dad’s black BMW. It was nowhere in sight.
I found a bench and set my backpack down. Boomer gazed up at me as I slid my phone out of my pocket and dialed my dad’s number. The phone rang four times before it went to voicemail. My dad usually answered the phone, even if he was driving. The only time he didn’t answer his phone was when he was with a patient. Maybe he forgot he was supposed to pick us up and he was still at work.
No big deal. My dad’s dental office was less than forty minutes from the airport, I could wait a while longer. Actually, if he was tied up, I could take a Lyft to the house. But as I opened up my Lyft app, I froze at the sound of a familiar voice calling my name.
“Isaac?”
I turned toward the voice and a huge grin spread across my face. “Well, I’ll be. This is a nice surprise. Is this a coincidence or are you here to pick me up?”
Emily shrugged. “To pick you up, I guess. Your mom called me, like, literally twenty minutes ago to ask me. She said your dad had a dental emergency with one of his patients.”
She was tiny. No more than five-foot-two, and cute as a button.
I looked her up and down for a moment, taking in her dark tousled hair, her army-green jacket, and skinny jeans that showed off her curves. “If this is what you look like when you have twenty minutes to get ready, I may just have to take you out somewhere nice to see what you look like when you really put in the effort.”