Anne Brown - Promise Bound

“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. H. “A baby isn’t something you can just drop on your parents.”

I turned her wheelchair around and pushed her back through the door while Lily trailed us into the house.

“Yeah,” Daniel said uneasily, following us inside. “I don’t think this is something I can ease them into either. My brothers, too. Better they don’t know.”

“You can’t be expected to hide a baby for twelve months,” Jason said.

“Jason’s right,” Mrs. H said. “Maybe you should leave him here with us.”

“Mom!” Lily exclaimed, stopping our progression into the family room with her hand placed firmly on the armrest of the chair.

“No!” Sophie said.

Mrs. H looked at both of her daughters with surprise and disappointment. “Who better to take care of him than us? We’ve already got three under this roof.”

“Absolutely not,” Lily said.

“Excuse me,” said Mrs. H, “who’s in charge around here?”

The baby squirmed, stretched, and let out a rhythmic pulsing cry.

Sophie scowled at him. “It’s not fair,” she said. “He’s just a baby. He’ll be swimming in a year and at the rate I’m going he’ll beat me.”

Daniel balanced the baby against his shoulder and tapped its back uncertainly.

“You don’t know that,” I said, putting my arm around Sophie. She curled into my side and hugged me around the waist. It was good to have a sister again.

“Danny can take care of his own baby,” Lily said.

“Of course he can,” said Mrs. H. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t.” The red-faced infant cried and arched its back stiffly. Daniel switched it to his other shoulder, but the baby only screamed louder.

“What have you named him?” Mrs. H asked, wringing her hands with worry at the way Daniel handled his son.

“Pavati likes Ambuj,” Daniel said, “but I don’t know.”

Lily left us where we’d all stopped just inside the front door, went into the living room, and opened her laptop.

“What are you doing?” Jason asked.

“Baby-name website,” Lily answered, tapping furiously at the keys. “How about a French name like the rest of your family, Danny?”

I pulled up a chair and sat beside Lily as she scrolled through an unending list of alphabetical boy names, stopping at the M ’s. I touched the screen. “Mortimer?”

Sophie snorted and Lily smiled.

“It says it’s French for ‘still water,’ ” I said. What was wrong with Mortimer? “That sounds peaceful. We could use some peace about now.”

“I’ve only had two years of French,” Daniel said, “but doesn’t that mean ‘dead water’?”

Lily frowned at the screen. “Then how about Moses? ‘Pulled from the water.’ ”

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Marlowe?” Lily asked. “That means ‘from the hill by the lake.’ You live on a hill by a lake.”

“Hey, you kids,” said Mrs. H, “can we find this baby something to eat? He’s famished.”

Daniel shot Mrs. H an anxious look. Of course he hadn’t thought about food. Lily scrolled back to the top of the alphabet. “What about ‘Adrian’?” she asked. “It’s French, but it means ‘from the Adriatic Sea.’ ”

Daniel came to stand behind Lily’s shoulder and read the screen. “Pavati might like that. The Adriatic’s in the Middle East, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly,” I said, remembering one of my first winters as part of the White family—Mother had taken us on a Mediterranean tour. Lots of cruise ships.

“But it’s close, right?” Daniel asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Closer than here at least.”

“Adrian’s a good compromise,” Daniel said. “I’ll tell Pavati tomorrow.”

Lily’s hands went rigid on the keyboard, and she and I exchanged a panicked glance before looking up at Daniel. I didn’t like the direction this was going. Lily spun her chair around and stood up. “What do you mean, ‘tomorrow’?”

“Lily’s right,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the baby’s wailing. “It’s not a good idea. And anyway … how would you intend to do that?”

Daniel shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt Adrian to dip his toes in the lake just for a little bit. Pavati should smell him, right? She might not need to see me, but she’ll want to see the baby, and I’ll take what I can get. However I can get it.”

The sad droop of Daniel’s eyes touched a chord of empathy within me, but Lily said, “Don’t be pathetic.”

That hurt. Daniel might be an idiot when it came to a lot of things, but, in that second, I understood him better than I ever had. If I were in Daniel’s place, if Lily and I were ever separated, I knew I would do anything to be with her again. Anything. And just like Daniel said, I knew I would take Lily any way I could get her. I’d thought she felt the same way about me.

Lily’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up to check the text. “Ugh. It’s Gabby again. She’s on her way over.”

“Then get rid of the baby,” Sophie said.

“Adrian,” Danny said.

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Whatever!” she shouted over the baby’s cries.

“Sophie’s right,” I said. “No need to have to explain a baby; we’ve got enough lies to feed Gabby as it is.”

Lily agreed with me. “I’ll tell her to meet me at Big Mo’s instead.” She typed out her message to Gabby, then slid her phone shut.

“Let’s get this baby fed,” Mrs. H said. “Jason, I’ve got some things saved up in the top cupboard just in case. You’ll have to get them down for me.”

“In case?” Sophie said, following her dad into the kitchen. “In case of what?”

Mrs. H didn’t answer.

“Mom, where’s my fleece?” Lily asked.

“Really? It’s pretty warm today,” said Mrs. H.

“I’m actually feeling a little cold.”

“Oh, honey, I hope you’re not coming down with something. We’ve got a baby in the house.”

Lily sighed and dug around in the closet by the front door. She wrestled a black-and-white houndstooth trench coat off a hanger and slipped it on over the band T-shirt and miniskirt.

“Ugh,” said Sophie. “You’re not going to go out in public like that, are you? Can’t you at least leave those leg sweaters at home?”

“I’m cold,” Lily said.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked. “I can help.”

Lily paused for a second, and I could see her answer before she said it. “I’ve got this.” Then she smiled apologetically and was out the door.

LILY

Oh, man. I have to say, I didn’t mind escaping my house for the afternoon. Not one bit. Danny didn’t seem to be in any hurry to take his crying baby home, and I’m sorry, I felt bad leaving Calder behind—but not that bad. Seriously, an hour or two of lying to Gabby and getting her persistent telephone calls behind me sounded like a retreat.

I pulled up to Big Mo’s and parked the car at the curb, idling, just to get my story straight. No, I hadn’t seen Jack, or heard from him, or heard anything newsy about him. It was just like I’d told her before: the last time I saw him was last July when he loaned me their boat and, no, he never mentioned leaving town.

“You know Jack,” I practiced, testing out the tone of my voice, “he’s impulsive. He probably has no idea how worried you are.”

I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. One of the side effects of my mermaid transformation: my eyes looked awesome—not just plain gray but almost silver when the light hit right. Kind of like Maris’s, I thought, though Calder had never acknowledged the similarity. Actually, he spent a lot of time trying to make me forget about my Half nature. I didn’t blame him for that.