“What do you think of her, Dad?” The nurse hovers at his side—why? In case he drops her?
“I think she’s incredible,” he says softly. “Can I . . . can I have a moment alone with her?”
The nurse looks around the hushed nursery, then nods. “I’ll be right over there for a few minutes. Just call me if you need me.”
Left alone with his daughter, Joe swallows the aching lump in his throat.
“Hey there, little rosebud,” he croons softly, pressing a kiss against the sparse, downy black fuzz covering the baby’s head. “I have so much to say to you, I don’t know where to start.”
The baby’s eyes are closed, her precious breaths coming in rapid little bursts.
“So . . . hello, and welcome to the world. I think you’re going to like it here. I’ll be your dad.” He pauses. Clears his throat.
Dammit. Something is missing. Nina is missing.
But she was never supposed to be here in the first place.
And now. . .
Now I’ll always have a part of her with me.
“Guess it’s going to be just you and me from here on in, rosebud,” Joe tells his daughter softly, cradling her close against his heart. “But we’re going to be just fine. I promise.”
THREE DAYS LATER, Nina is lying in her hospital bed, eating rubbery lime gelatin, watching the evening news on the television that only gets four channels, and wondering how she’s going to survive a few more days of this.
Then again, she isn’t in any rush to go home, either. Grandma Chickalini has vowed to stay and take care of Nina until she’s “good as new.” And that’s going to be awhile, considering the constant pain in her Cesarean incision and the persistent headache brought on by the spinal anesthesia. She still can’t even get back and forth to the bathroom on her own.
Dr. Sanjna has assured her that her physical condition will steadily improve. Until it does, she’s stuck here.
Nina glances toward the window. The sill is lined with floral arrangements and cards from family and friends. The centerpiece of them all is a tall vase filled with three dozen red roses from Joey.
He’s been here every day, all day, alternating his time between Nina’s bedside and the intensive care nursery. Little Rose is reportedly growing stronger every day. She might even be ready to go home around the same time Nina does. Joe’s parents have flown up from Florida and will take care of her until his last two weeks of work are up.
They, too, have visited Nina daily, telling her how beautiful their new grandchild is. They still think Nina and Joe are going to be married. Everyone does. They all assume that as soon as Nina gets her strength back, she’ll be settling in at Joe’s to live happily ever after with him and little Rose.
“Special delivery for Nina Chickalini . . .” Joe bustles in, wearing a trench coat over a suit, carrying his briefcase in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other.
“Joey! Hi!”
“You look cheerful.”
“Now I am. I’m so glad you’re here.” It’s as though the dingy hospital room has been infused with lemony sunshine. “I was hoping you’d come tonight.”
She knows he’s back at work as of today. When Rosalee was here earlier, she said she saw Joe heading for the subway early this morning.
“How are you feeling?” He plants a kiss on the top of her aching head.
“Better every second.”
“Sleeping okay?”
“Pfft. Can you please go tell them they’ve got to let me out of here before I freaking strangle one of those nurses? I swear they wake me up every hour all night long, and—”
“There’s the old Nina,” he says with a grin. “Good to have you back. I’ve missed you.”
“Seriously, Joey, I’m going to lose it. If I have to face one more day of tapioca or lime Jell-O . . .”
“Hey, never fear, Joey’s here,” he says, handing her the bag. “I brought you something.”
She looks inside. “Sushi? You brought me sushi!”
“I don’t break my promises.” He picks up the green gelatin. “Do you mind if I . . . ?”
“Be my guest,” she says, and he chucks it into the nearby trash can.
“Oh, wow, you’re my hero, Joey.” She begins unloading an array of takeout containers and sets them on the bedside tray. “How the heck am I going to eat all this? There’s enough for—”
“For two. I’m eating with you.” He sits on the bed, taking a pair of chopsticks from the paper sleeve and breaking them apart. He begins rubbing them against each other to remove the splinters, saying, “We’ve got sushi-sashimi deluxe, a couple of maki, seaweed salad, and miso soup. Oh, and I got two spicy yellow-tail rolls. Both for you. You don’t have to share.”
“Did I mention you’re my hero?”
“Did I mention I didn’t have time for lunch?”
They dig in.
After three or four bites, Nina can eat no more.
“What’s up, Nin? You’re usually good for at least twenty, thirty more pieces.”
“I’m sorry . . . it’s not that I don’t want it. It’s just . . . my appetite is shot.”
“It’s okay, Nin. Mine isn’t.” He pops a piece of California roll into his mouth. “And you know, speaking of appetites, you should see Rose eat. She guzzles down her bottle like a pro.”
“Really? That’s great,” Nina murmurs.
Her breasts are no longer painfully engorged, but she still feels a vague ache of loss at his words.
She won’t be nursing Rose. She never had the chance.
But it’s for the best, she reminds herself. Really.
With Rose bottle fed, Joe is the one who is meeting her most profound needs, right from the start.
She pushes away her own inexplicable, selfish longing to ask, “So how was it, being back at the office?”
“Torture. I couldn’t focus. Two more weeks, and I’m never going back.”
“What about your finances? Are you really in a position to retire forever?”
“I’ll be fine for a long time, Nina. And if the day ever comes when I’ve got to go back . . . well, I’ll deal with it then. Hopefully that won’t be until—”
“Until you’ve found a mom for Rose?” she asks, when he breaks off, looking uncomfortable.
He shrugs. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, Nina. I’m just taking this one day at a time. I want Rose home with me, and I want you out of here, and healthy . . . I just want everything to be back to normal.”
But how can it be, Joey? It’s never going to be normal again.
Everything has changed. It all happened too quickly. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to give up carrying Rose with her, having her all to herself . . . and she isn’t ready to say goodbye, either.
At least you still have a few months, a little bit of time to get to know her. . .
“Do you want to meet her, Nina?” Joe asks quietly.
She looks up. “How can I? Can she . . . can she leave the nursery?”
“No, but I asked the nurses if you can come down, and they said that I can bring you in a wheelchair.”
“Oh.”
“So after I finish eating, I’ll take you. If you want to go.”
If she wants to go. Does she? Is she ready for this?
She wasn’t ready to give birth, and it happened anyway. Now Rose is here, and Nina can’t avoid seeing her forever, afraid that . . .
Well, what is she afraid of?
You know. You know what you’re afraid of.
But she has to do this anyway. She can’t avoid it forever.
She takes a deep breath and looks up at Joe. “Yes,” she says. “I’d like to see her.”
“All right, then . . .” He tosses his chopsticks aside. “Let’s go.”
“But .
. . I thought you were going to finish eating.”
“Nah. I’ll eat later. Let’s go.”
Alarmed, she tries to protest. She needs a few more minutes to—to put it off, to brace herself.
But in mere minutes, Joe is pushing her in a wheelchair off the elevator and past a nurses’ station where he’s greeted by name.
“Is this Mom?” one of the women asks, falling into step with them as they roll down the hall past a sign pointing to the nursery.
Joe hesitates only briefly before saying, “This is Nina. She’s coming to meet Rose.”
“You have a beautiful little daughter,” the nurse says. “And your husband is going to make a wonderful daddy. He’s a natural.”
Nina can’t muster much more than a polite nod. She’s swimming in mixed emotion, no, drowning in it.
She wants to tell the nurse that she’s got it all wrong.
She wants to beg Joe to stop, to turn around, to take her back upstairs . . .
But he’s already sweeping her through a series of doors, past a number of checkpoints where everybody greets him warmly. Some call him Joe, others call him Dad. But they all refer to Nina as Mom.
She turns her throbbing head to look up at him as he pushes her past a row of see-through isolettes. “Joey, I—”
“Here she is.”
They’ve stopped moving.
“Only a few days ago, I had to wear sterile scrubs to even touch her, Nina. But she’s much stronger now. We can hold her.”
She watches him lean over the isolette.
“Hi, little Rosebud,” he says softly to the pink bundle inside. “There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”
He lifts the baby gently and cradles her against his chest, leaning toward the wheelchair.
“Rose, this is Nina.”
Nina.
Not Mommy.
Of course not Mommy.
Nina can’t speak. For a moment, she can’t even see. Then she wipes the tears from her eyes and focuses in awe on the tiny figure before her.
“She looks . . . she looks like you, Joey.”
“I think she looks like you. When her eyes are open, she looks like you. Your family thinks so, and so does mine.”
Yes. They’ve said it. Every visitor to Nina’s bedside talks about the baby, telling her how precious the baby is, how lucky Nina is . . .
“Hello, Rose,” she whispers, reaching out to stroke the baby’s fuzzy black hair. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”
“Thanks to you. You did a good job, Nina.”
“I can’t believe . . .” She shakes her head.
“What?”
“I was just so certain she was a boy. Even after I’d had her. For some reason . . . I don’t know if I believed that she wasn’t a boy until right this very moment.”
Joe laughs. “Oh, she’s definitely a little girl. I’ve changed her diapers. Here, Nina . . .” He holds out the baby.
No. No, she isn’t ready for this. She isn’t ready to hold her . . .
But Joe is placing the baby in her arms, and she’s powerless to stop him.
She feels the warm, familiar weight in her arms.
And then it happens.
Just as it did when they handed Ralphie to her seventeen years ago.
Just as she knew it would.
She looks down into the newborn’s sleeping little face, and she knows, in that instant, in a rush of maternal longing, that she can’t bear to leave.
She couldn’t leave Ralphie.
And she can’t . . .
God help her, she can’t leave Rose.
But you have to. She’s not yours to keep.
She belongs to Joe, and you weren’t part of the package.
“Well? What do you think, Nina?” he asks, hovering beside her.
She swallows her emotion, her pain, her regret. “I think . . . I think you have a beautiful daughter.”
“And it’s all because of you.”
Yes. She made his dream come true. Now she’s free.
Just as she always wanted to be.
Only now, freedom is the last thing she wants. She wants . . . She wants . . .
She wants to be happy, dammit. So why isn’t she? Mission accomplished. Baby delivered. Joey’s a dad, and she’s on her way to freedom.
Freedom was once so tantalizing it was all she could think about. All she could talk about. All she could plan for.
Now, she feels like crying her heart out at the mere thought of leaving the baby . . . and Joey.
It must be hormonal. Hormones, or biology, or whatever it is that causes a woman’s emotions to become erratic after giving birth. Why fight the wave of maternal longing? She’ll bet that any second now, she’ll be right back to craving her escape from Astoria.
She smiles through her tears, down at the newborn in her arms. The baby stirs and stretches, her little arms flailing for a moment, seeming to reach upward.
She’s reaching for her mommy. . .
She’s reaching for me. . .
She doesn’t know. . .
She doesn’t know I’m not really her mommy.
Nina holds the baby close, whispering against her tiny ear. “It’s okay, Rose. It’s okay. Mommy’s here.”
Yes. Just for now, Mommy’s here. And she can’t bear to think about the looming day when she won’t be.
So she won’t think about it. Not until she has to. Not until she’s better equipped to combat the urges that have everything to do with biology and nothing to do with her plan for the rest of her life.
Chapter Twenty
IT’S BEEN A week since Nina came home from the hospital; nearly twenty-four hours since she gratefully dispatched Grandma Chickalini back to Heritage Meadows.
Grandma protested, of course, but in the end, she actually seemed relieved to return to the uneventful world of bland meals and bingo and nightly piano singalongs. Before she left, she made sure the house was spotless and the fridge was stocked with enough homemade food for a church potluck.
Nina is thankful to have the house to herself once again, even if it means facing the mountain of laundry that has piled up already.
Humming softly, she sorts three pairs of Ralphie’s dirty gym socks into a pile of their own on the floor in front of the washing machine. Three pairs . . . how the heck did he manage to soil three pairs in less than twenty-four hours?
Then again, it’s almost comforting, this familiar ritual of sorting, washing, folding. She’s fine as long as she doesn’t lift anything heavy. Her incision is still sore, but at least she’s getting around the house fairly well.
Around the house . . . and across the yard to Joey’s. It isn’t that he needs her help—not when his doting parents have temporarily taken up residence and are more than willing to play nanny. But Nina can’t seem to spend more than an hour away from Rose before she finds herself needing to hurry back over there.
Every moment she spends cradling the precious baby in her arms, rocking her or feeding her a bottle, is pure bliss. Sometimes, Rose opens her navy eyes to gaze solemnly up into Nina’s face. Whenever she does, Nina wonders if she knows, somehow. If she’s memorizing Nina’s features, and if, when they meet again, she’ll recognize the woman who gave birth to her.
Probably not. Of course not. She’s so young. But . . .
Nina hears a key turning in the front door. It opens and slams abruptly. Footsteps stride toward the stairs.
Ralphie.
It’s much too early for him to be home from school . . . and he was supposed to go to the restaurant to help Pop afterward, anyway.
“Hey, get back down here,” Nina calls to her brother.
The footsteps halt on the stairs.
“Ralphie!” She tosses aside a damp towel and hurries into the hall. ?
??What’s going on? Why are you home?”
Ralphie is standing halfway up the flight, his back to her. His head is bent.
“Ralphie, what the heck are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?”
Then she hears it. A gasping sob.
Alarmed, Nina starts up the stairs toward him.
He turns to face her, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Icy fear ripples through Nina. “What is it, Ralphie? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Ralphie, you’re scaring me. You have to tell me.”
He shakes his head and sinks to the steps, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, his head buried in his arms. He looks like a frightened, pitiful little boy.
Nina sits beside him. She wraps her arms around his shoulders.
“Ralphie,” she says softly, “you can tell me. Whatever it is. I’m here with you.”
Even as she speaks, a sliver of guilt seeps in to mingle with her worry.
She’s here for him now . . . but she hasn’t been. Not lately.
Who’s been looking out for Ralphie while she’s been gone?
Dom’s away, and it’s all Pop can do to keep up with the restaurant. Rosalee is working there, too, and at her regular job, and wrapped up in her wedding on top of it. All of them have been distracted by worry over Nina and the baby. There’s been little left for Ralphie.
“Please, sweetie . . . what’s wrong?” she asks gently. “I love you. I can help you.”
“No, you can’t.” He looks up at last. “There’s nothing you can do, Nina.”
“About what?”
“Camille.”
“Camille . . . ?” She shakes her head, confused.
“Camille. You know . . . from last fall.”
“Your old girlfriend?”
He nods.
“I remember. The one you broke up with, when you started seeing Grace.”
“Yeah.” His entire body is quaking.
“What happened to Camille?” Chilling thoughts dart through Nina’s mind. A car accident . . . Cancer . . .
“She’s pregnant. I got her pregnant, Nina.”
Nina is speechless.
“She’s due at the end of July.”
Ralphie’s a kid. He’s just a kid.