Susan Mallery - Her Last First Date

“Thanks again,” she said. “I appreciate your help.”

“I was happy to be here. You have my number. Call me if you want to talk about any of this.”

Exactly what Abbey had said, but somehow Josh’s invitation was inherently more intriguing.

“Okay, I will,” she said, even though she knew she wouldn’t.

Crissy managed to park in her garage and made it all the way to her kitchen before the first tears fell.

“This is stupid,” she said aloud. “I don’t cry.”

She hadn’t in years. So why start now?

Logically she knew there were any number of reasons, the first of which was meeting Brandon. She glanced at the clock on the cable box, then added three hours. It was too late to phone her parents in Florida. Too bad, because she could have used hearing a friendly voice.

She pulled out the bottle of white wine she’d opened the night before and poured herself a glass, then left it on the counter and walked into the room she used as her home office.

Ignoring her computer and the comfy sofa she’d put on the opposite wall, she crossed to the closet in the corner and pulled open the door. Inside were her off-season clothes, several boxes of financial records and a shelf full of clear plastic containers. She pulled off the one that held all her odds and ends from high school and sat on the floor.

The top came off easily. Crissy began digging through prom pictures, yearbooks and hundreds of photos of her with friends. At the bottom, she found an old envelope containing only a few pictures. They were all of her while she was pregnant and there was a single photo of Brandon, right after he’d been born.

She spread the pictures out on the floor and gave in to the tears. She looked so young, she thought as she touched a photo of herself in a hideous pink maternity blouse. Young and scared, yet determined. Determined not to let the consequences of a single night ruin her life.

She knew that’s what she couldn’t forgive. That she’d never agonized over the decision. She’d simply decided to get rid of the “problem” as quickly and easily as possible. That meant finding a nice couple to adopt her baby.

She hadn’t even tried to make it work. Hadn’t considered upsetting her careful plans. What did that say about her? She’d given away her child and for twelve years, hadn’t looked back.

Shouldn’t she have been devastated? Shouldn’t she have worried about him? Wondered? Missed him? There were—

Someone knocked on her front door. Crissy wiped her face and stood. As she walked into the hallway, she pulled the office door shut behind her. She wasn’t expecting anyone and it seemed too late for kids selling candy for school.

She glanced out the peephole in the door and blinked when she saw Josh on her doorstep.

Great. After her meltdown she would look red and blotchy. There was no way to disguise the fact that she’d been crying.

She opened the door and tried to smile. “This is a surprise,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

“That’s my question,” he told her. “I wanted to check on you. How are you doing?”

“Great.”

“Liar. Can I come in?”

She stepped back to let him enter the house, then closed the door behind him.

“Can I get you something?” she asked. “I have an open bottle of wine.”

“Sounds good.”

She went into the kitchen and poured a second glass for Josh, then collected the one she’d ignored earlier and carried both back to the living room.

Josh stood by the fireplace. He took the glass of wine, then looked around. “Nice place.”

“Thanks. It’s kind of big for one person, but I like the high ceilings and the open floor plan.” She pressed her lips together. Chances are Josh wasn’t here to talk about her house.

She motioned to the sofa. “Have a seat.”

When he was settled, she curled up in the corner and faced him. “I’m fine,” she told him.

“That wouldn’t be my professional opinion. Meeting Brandon is a big deal. It makes sense that you have a reaction to all that’s going on.”

“Is that what it is?” she murmured, then put her wine on the coffee table. “I feel guilty. That’s the bottom line in all this. I feel stupid and unworthy. He’s a great kid. I like him. But until recently, I never thought about him as a real person. I don’t even know what I’m upset about. Am I mourning what I never had? But I never wanted it. I don’t know if I want to be part of his world, or even if I should be. I don’t know how to get over the fact that I was lazy.”

“You were young. There’s a difference.”

“There might be a difference, but it’s not an excuse.”

He sipped his wine. “I remember when Abbey told me they were adopting Brandon. I was still in medical school, studying all the time. I went by their house the first day they brought him home. I’d never been around babies before—not without my mom to handle things. He was so small. Both Pete and I were terrified. It was the only time I questioned being a doctor.”

That made her smile. “Because you couldn’t handle one little baby?”

“Yeah.” Humor brightened his dark green eyes. “But not Abbey. She was a natural. Loving, attentive and fearless. She could handle everything from cutting those tiny nails to treating a spiking fever. Pete learned because he had to, but for Abbey it was only joy. Sometimes I think she’s doing what she was born to do.”

“Abbey’s a great mom,” Crissy said, remembering the homemade everything and the ice cream scoops in the individual paper cups. “I agree it’s her calling.”

“So it was a cruel twist of fate that took away her ability to have children of her own. She’d only ever wanted to be a mom. You enabled that to happen.”

Crissy knew in her head he was telling the truth, but in her heart, she didn’t think she should get off so easily.

“Marty was my first serious boyfriend,” she said. “Back in high school. He played football and was really popular. I had a lot of friends, too, even though I played sports. So uncool for a girl.”

“I’ll bet you did well.”

“I did. I was fast and coordinated and I worked hard. I had a plan. Softball scholarship to pay for my college, then a high powered career in finance.” She shrugged. “At least the scholarship part came true. I had a full ride. The day I got the letter I finally admitted to myself what I’d been avoiding for weeks. That I was pregnant.”

She looked away, remembering that day. How she’d curled up on her bed and wished the baby away—something she’d done ever since she’d begun to suspect that having sex with Marty and not using protection had been a dumb idea.

“Marty was as shocked as I was,” she told Josh. “We were each other’s first time and stupid about birth control. He panicked, saying he didn’t want a baby. Not for a long time. I didn’t, either. I had a future and it didn’t include being a single mom.”

“You were only seventeen. That would have been a hard road.”

“I talked to my parents and told them what had happened. They offered to do whatever they could to support me. I could live at home and go to community college. Mom would baby-sit while I was in class. They made it sound so reasonable.”

“But you didn’t want that.”

She shook her head. “I wanted out. Marty signed the paperwork releasing him from responsibility as soon as he could and I started looking for a couple to adopt the baby.”

“What’s wrong with that?” he asked. “Why is that so horrible?”

“I don’t know. It just is. I feel guilty about not feeling guilty enough.”

“That has to sound crazy, even to you.”

Despite everything, she smiled. “I’ll admit it does. I just feel horrible about not caring enough. Not suffering enough.”