Starting Now

  “Okay,” Robin said, looking pleased with herself. “What’s your news?”

  Libby barely knew where to start. “I saw Joe.”

  “Your ex?”

  Filling in the blanks, she described her emotional breakdown and how Phillip had shown up unexpectedly at her condo. She mentioned the sailing lesson, and although she felt a little like a gossiping schoolgirl she told Robin about the amazing kisses they’d shared.

  “Wow,” Robin whispered when she finished.

  “He asked to see me again tonight.”

  “Dinner?”

  “Phillip suggested going out on the sailboat again, but that depends on the weather. I checked out the forecast, and it’s supposed to rain.” Frankly, Libby didn’t care what they did, as long as she was with him.

  “Roy has a boat,” Robin murmured wistfully.

  “Roy … Judge Bollinger told you about the opening in the prosecutor’s office?”

  “Yeah.” Robin immediately changed the subject.

  Apparently the judge was strictly off-limits. Well, well, so Libby had guessed right. It was Roy who had captured her friend’s attention.

  After her workout, Libby returned to her condo. She was changing clothes before heading to the hospital when her cell chirped. Thinking—actually, hoping—it was Phillip, she didn’t bother to look at caller ID before answering.

  “Hello.” Her voice was elevated, happy.

  “Libby, it’s Lydia Goetz from A Good Yarn.”

  Libby tensed. She hadn’t been in the yarn store since dropping the bomb.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, hoping she sounded casual.

  “You haven’t been by lately. Did you find a job?”

  “No, but I have a line on one. How is everything with you?”

  “Actually I’m calling because I wanted you to know how grateful I am that you came to me with your concerns.”

  Lydia was grateful? The situation had felt like a heavy, wet blanket weighing down on her shoulders. She’d feared Lydia might have taken her interference the wrong way. If she hadn’t been concerned for the young mother’s health, Libby wouldn’t have said anything. Phillip had felt the same obligation.

  “We’re convinced it’s Ava,” Lydia continued. “When I saw her last, I took a good look and I realized that Dr. Stone’s right. Ava is pregnant. She does a good job of hiding it, wearing loose clothes. Casey told me she barely has anything that fits her anymore.”

  “Oh, my.” The poor girl.

  “I thought I would talk to her myself,” Lydia continued, “but Casey suggested that it would be better if you did it.”

  “Me?” Libby barely knew the girl.

  “Casey told me Ava likes you. She asked about you yesterday when she stopped off at the shop. Would you mind terribly?”

  Libby hesitated for only a moment. Stepping outside her comfort zone seemed to be the order of the day, and if this girl needed help … “Of course I’ll talk to her,” she agreed. “When will she be in next, do you know?”

  “Could you come by on Monday? The shop will be closed, which might work well.”

  “Of course. I’ll make sure I stop by,” she said.

  So it was Ava who was pregnant—the motherless girl who so reminded Libby of herself at that age.

  Chapter 14

  Libby sat at the table in the back of the yarn store, working intently on the baby blanket while Lydia sat in her office paying bills. Casey and Ava were busily knitting and crocheting with Libby. If the fact that she was in the store when it was technically closed surprised them, they didn’t say. She certainly didn’t want to introduce the subject of Ava’s pregnancy in front of Casey, and so she anxiously waited for the right moment when she could speak privately to the young teen.

  Phillip had kindly offered a few words of advice and she was grateful for his help, but no matter what anyone suggested, confronting Ava wouldn’t be easy.

  At least she didn’t need to worry about carrying the current conversation. Casey easily took on that responsibility, bouncing from one subject to the next as if she were playing verbal hopscotch.

  When Casey took a short breath, Libby asked Ava a couple of questions and Casey, bless her dear heart, didn’t leap in to answer, allowing Ava to respond.

  “I’ve decided I wanted to learn how to knit, too,” Ava announced, focusing her attention on her knitting.

  When they’d first met, Casey had been teaching her to crochet. Lydia seemed to think it was Libby’s influence that had shifted Ava’s interest to knitting.

  “Knitting really isn’t difficult once you get the hang of it,” Libby assured her.

  “That’s what Lydia said. I’m knitting a dishcloth.” Ava laid it on top of the table and smoothed it out for Libby to see. “I’ve made a bunch of mistakes, but no one is going to be wearing it, so that shouldn’t matter, right?”

  “Right.” Ava had done a really good job, especially for a beginner. Libby told her so, and the teenager beamed with the praise.

  Out of the blue, Casey scooted her chair out and stood. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Libby wasn’t sure if this was her cue to broach the subject of the pregnancy with Ava, but either way she decided to seize the opportunity.

  “If you’ll remember, I was about the same age as you when my mother died,” Libby reminded her while studying Ava’s knitting.

  Ava glanced up from her knitting, and her hands went still. “How did your mother die?”

  “She had cancer. In fact, I originally learned to knit sitting with my mother when she was in bed. She taught me, but after she died I set it aside and didn’t start again until just recently.”

  “Why did you stop?” Ava asked. She returned her attention to the needles and the yarn, her tongue darting in and out of her mouth as she concentrated on creating the stitches.

  “After my mother died, I didn’t know anyone else who knit and there wasn’t anyone I could go to for help if I had a question or made a mistake.” Recognizing this as the perfect opportunity to lead into the pregnancy, Libby continued. “I wonder if you feel the same way about some things now that your mother is gone.”

  Ava responded with a slight shrug of her shoulders. “My mom worked a lot … she didn’t have time to spend with me or Jackson, knitting or anything else. My dad left us and Mom had two jobs.”

  “I’m sorry.” Libby remembered Casey telling her that Ava’s mother had died in a car crash. Apparently she’d fallen asleep at the wheel. A single mom, working two jobs—it’s no wonder the poor woman was so tired.

  “I’m not your mother, Ava, but if you have any questions, you can always ask me.”

  “About knitting?”

  “About anything.”

  The tentative smile returned and she held Libby’s gaze for longer than she had before, and then nodded as though to say she would. Seeing her gratitude made Libby realize how incredibly young Ava was. Her heart ached for the girl, having experienced the same loneliness herself.

  Libby tried a new angle. “After my mother died, I was alone after school every day.” She remembered how empty the house had felt without her mother. It hadn’t completely hit her that her mother would never return until several weeks after the funeral when she was struggling to find something easy to cook for dinner. Her mother would never be able to tell her how to cut down a recipe. She wouldn’t be able to teach her how to hem her pants, or shop for a special dress with her.

  “Jackson and I are alone a lot, too, because Grandma works so many hours.”

  “Sometimes I did things I knew would get me in trouble if my father knew about them.” Libby had given a lot of thought to how she should broach the subject and hoped to lead into it naturally.

  Ava’s fingers slowed. “Like what?”

  “I phoned my grandmother in Colorado. Long-distance calls cost money. She said I could talk to her anytime I wanted, but the minute my father saw the phone bill he blew up and put me on restrictions.”

&n
bsp; “Grandma gets upset about money, too. I know she misses my mom because she doesn’t like me to talk about her. It makes her sad; it … it makes me sad, too.”

  Libby still had her mother’s picture on her desk. For years she’d kept it on her nightstand for fear she would forget what her mother looked like. “Do you have a special boyfriend?” Libby asked, unwilling to get sidetracked.

  “Not really.”

  “Is there a boy you like more than anyone else?” she tried again.

  Once more Ava shrugged. “My brother is friends with Peter. He lives next door, but he can’t come over because my grandma doesn’t like us to have anyone in the house when she isn’t there. She’s afraid someone might take something. Peter wouldn’t but she said we couldn’t break the rules for him.”

  “So you don’t see Peter much.”

  “Not so much,” she said, and looked away.

  “Is he cute?”

  Ava grinned. “I guess.”

  Libby felt completely inept at this. She’d hoped the conversation would lead naturally into boyfriends, and that she could transition into the topic with a lot more ease and finesse than this.

  “Does your grandmother ever take you to the doctor?” she asked.

  Ava looked up as though the question surprised her. “I went to the dentist earlier this summer.”

  “What about a physical? Don’t you get one every year for school?” Oh dear, this was going badly.

  Ava shook her head. “Not really. You do if you’re playing sports, so Jackson has an appointment, but I don’t. I’m not any good at sports. I like to sing. I was in the choir at school and sang a solo once. Do … do you sing?”

  Libby shook her head and then remembered how much she enjoyed singing to the babies, but that was different. “I didn’t have many interests in school. I always had my face in a book, studying.”

  “Did you get good grades?”

  Libby nodded. “My mother wanted me to graduate at the top of my class. She convinced me I was the smartest girl in school. She said that because she knew she wouldn’t be around to see me grow up and graduate from high school and college. She said it every day because she wanted me to believe it, too. Sometimes she would close her eyes when she talked about me going to college.”

  Ava cocked her head to one side. “Why did she do that?”

  “I asked her that, too, and she said she was using her imagination to see me excelling in everything I tackled.”

  “Did you?” Ava asked.

  Libby blinked until she realized what the thirteen-year-old was asking. “Yes. I wanted to get good grades for my mother.” Libby rarely spoke of her mother to anyone. Those last few months with her mother, before she went into hospice, had been special. The memories had lingered in Libby’s mind through the years.

  “Did you have a boyfriend?” Ava asked.

  “No … not until college.”

  “College?” Ava repeated, as though she was shocked Libby had waited so long.

  Casey returned and her eyes instantly went to Libby, who quickly looked away. She hadn’t gotten very far into the conversation and now that Casey was back everything would change.

  “Where’d you go?” Ava asked her friend.

  “I ran over to see Alix at The French Cafe.”

  “Oh … damn … darn it.” Ava exhaled and thrust her knitting at Libby. “I dropped a stitch.”

  “I’ll get it for you.” Libby reached for her notions bag and brought out her crochet hook. Once she’d snagged the rebel stitch she handed the dishcloth back to Ava and showed her how to weave it back into place and slip it onto the knitting needle.

  Casey continued chattering away. “Alix is the one I was telling you about who bakes those yummy buttery croissants.”

  “Lydia bought me one this morning,” Ava explained.

  “Alix and my mom are good friends,” Casey went on. “Mom taught her how to knit, too. Before she got married she went to cooking school and then she started working at The French Cafe.”

  Libby had tasted those incredible croissants herself and they were every bit as good as Casey claimed. She had to avoid them altogether or her workout sessions at the gym would be for naught.

  Looking up from her knitting, Libby discovered that Ava was watching her. Immediately the girl’s gaze dropped as though she was embarrassed.

  “I was thinking of getting some lunch. Do you girls want to join me?” Libby asked.

  “Casey and I already have plans,” Lydia said as she approached the table.

  “We do?” Casey looked surprised.

  “Would you like to come with me?” Libby asked Ava, realizing Lydia had given her an opening for the two to spend time together.

  Ava hesitated and looked to Casey as if she needed her friend’s approval.

  “It’s all right with me if you want to have lunch with Libby,” Casey said, although she didn’t look all that pleased about it.

  “Okay,” Ava said softly, glancing up at Libby and offering her a shy smile.

  “Where are we going?” Casey asked her mother as Lydia drew her daughter away from the table.

  “I thought we’d meet Margaret,” said Lydia.

  “Can we have Chinese food?” Casey asked hopefully, then looking over at Ava, she added, “It’s my favorite.”

  “I’ll call Margaret and suggest that she meet us at China West.”

  Casey’s face lit up with a huge smile. “Great!”

  “What kind of food do you like?” Libby asked Ava as she started picking up her things.

  Ava shrugged.

  “There’s a really good soup and salad place a couple of blocks from here.” What Libby liked best was the outdoor dining. They would have some privacy … she hoped.

  “That sounds okay. I like soup.”

  “So do I.” Most people thought of it as a winter lunch but Libby could easily eat soup every day.

  Ava and Libby left the shop together. While heading toward the cafe, Libby did all the talking. Drawing Ava into the conversation was difficult. When they reached the small restaurant, she chose an isolated table and hoped it would stay that way.

  The waitress arrived with filled water glasses and two menus tucked under her arm. “The soup special today is butternut bisque.”

  “They have a wonderful crab salad if that interests you,” Libby suggested to Ava.

  Ava studied the menu as if Libby was going to give her a test on its contents. “I like tuna fish.”

  “You can order whatever you’d like.” Her own stomach was in knots. Everyone was counting on her to help Ava. Good grief, she knew nothing about teenage girls, let alone pregnant ones. What she did know was what it was like to be a motherless daughter. That was her main connection with Ava and she prayed it would be enough.

  The waitress returned a couple of minutes later.

  “I’ll have the soup special,” Libby said, handing the other woman her menu.

  Ava continued to study the page. “Do you have peanut butter and jelly?”

  “Sorry, no,” the waitress informed her.

  “Can I have a tuna sandwich, then?”

  “On wheat, sourdough, rye, pumpernickel, or white bread?” she asked, her hand poised over the order pad.

  “Ah …” Ava’s gaze shot to Libby, as if the question had overwhelmed her.

  “Wheat,” Libby said, answering on her behalf.

  “Lettuce and tomato?”

  Ava nodded.

  “Mayo?”

  Ava smiled. “Yes, please.”

  The waitress finished penning the order. “One tuna sandwich on wheat with lettuce, tomato, and mayo, plus a bowl of butternut squash bisque coming right up.”

  Libby waited until their food arrived and they were both eating before she made another attempt to broach the subject that needed to be addressed.

  “After my mother died, I felt lost and alone,” she told Ava. “Have you felt that way?”

  “Sometimes. Do you ever dream ab
out her?”

  As soon as Ava posed the question, the memory of a vivid dream played back in Libby’s mind. She set her water glass down but kept her hand folded around the cold glass. “About a month after Mom’s funeral I dreamt that I was in a rowboat on a big lake. It was foggy and I couldn’t see the shore. I was scared and I kept calling out for my mother, until I remembered she couldn’t hear me. I woke up shaking and crying.”

  When she stopped speaking, she found that Ava had abandoned her sandwich.

  “Do you ever dream about your mother?” Libby asked.

  “I did earlier this summer. She was going to the car and I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen. I kept telling her that if she got in the car she was going to die, and she said she didn’t care if she died because her life was hell anyway.”

  “Oh, Ava, that must have been horrible.”

  The teenager shrugged and reached for the second half of her sandwich.

  Libby stiffened and dipped her spoon into the bright orange bisque. It was now or never.

  “Sometimes when we don’t have our mothers to watch over us, things happen,” Libby said.

  Frowning, Ava looked up and seemed confused.

  “What I mean is,” Libby added, leaning forward until her stomach pressed against the edge of the table, “we find ourselves in situations we probably never would be in if our mothers were alive.”

  “Did you?”

  Libby nodded, although for the most part she’d focused on her studies and strived to be the daughter her mother had wanted her to be. Thankfully, Libby hadn’t gotten involved with boys or drugs. The thing was, she could understand how that might have happened for Ava.

  “As motherless daughters we often look for someone to step in and love us, and we do what we can to be worthy of that love.” Libby sincerely hoped Ava understood where she was leading the conversation without her needing to spell it out chapter and verse.

  Ava just stared at her as though she was completely lost.

  Beneath the table Libby bunched her hands into tight fists. The only thing left was to ask Ava outright.

  She inhaled and held her breath for several seconds. “Do you remember when you met Dr. Stone in the elevator that day in the hospital?” she asked.