Emilie Richards - The Swallow's Nest

He put his hand to his forehead, as if to brush away hair that still wasn’t long enough to be a nuisance. “There is something else. You need to know one more thing.”

For a moment she wasn’t sure she could listen. “Make it fast.”

“Marina didn’t want to have the baby. Especially after she found out I was sick and might not be around to support them both.”

She knew better than to respond. She clenched her teeth and waited.

“I...convinced her to finish out the pregnancy by promising to pay her. A lot.”

He stopped, but he didn’t have to go on, because suddenly she knew. “Your trust fund? The one that tanked the last time the stock market dipped? The one we really needed for medical expenses so I didn’t have to mortgage this house?”

“I lied to you. That money was well invested. But I couldn’t live with myself if Marina hadn’t gone through with the pregnancy. The whole thing was my fault, and an abortion would have been, too.”

“You gave her all of it? At one time the fund was worth, what, almost a hundred thousand dollars?”

“I gave her half and promised to give her the rest when Toby was born. But at the last minute I had to use it for my final round of chemo. Our insurance refused to cover the drug the doctors wanted to try, and they rejected the claim. They called the drug experimental, but my team said it was vital.”

“I know that, but you told me the insurance paid it after you appealed.”

“Because I couldn’t tell you I’d paid the bill myself with money from a trust fund I’d already told you was worthless.”

“What an accomplished liar you are!”

“Marina was furious, as she had the right to be, and that’s probably why she brought Toby here today. But that’s the end of the lies, Lilia. The absolute truth. All of it. One terrible mistake that just kept growing.”

“And now you have a baby to take care of when you can hardly take care of yourself. And nothing to live on.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

She was rarely sarcastic, but nothing stopped her now. “Maybe Marina will take you back. You can tell her how awful I am, like you did the night you used her like a broodmare.”

He winced. “Lilia, Marina won’t be in the picture. She hasn’t wanted Toby from the beginning, and now she’s abandoned him to me.”

A stab of sympathy for the other woman surprised her. “As strange as it seems, maybe I can see her point. She told me on the porch that you had promised her so much more. You lied to both of us.”

“I never promised her anything except money. We never talked about a future together, I swear. She was reading what she wanted into a one-night stand.”

“A one-night stand with a man intent on proving his manhood and his fertility. It’s no wonder she was a bit confused. If she was.”

“I’ve screwed up so many lives. I’m so sorry.”

“As exit lines go, that works. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes, and then you’ll have lots of time to wallow in all the damage you’ve done.”

She thought she was finished, but she realized she couldn’t be. Not yet. Because even though her flash of sympathy for Marina had come and gone, she was still worried about the other person in this drama.

She turned her back to him. “That baby is the biggest loser here, isn’t he? He never asked to be born. And he sure never asked to be born to the two of you. Whatever else you do, make sure he’s taken care of. Toby’s more than your selfish bid for immortality. He’s flesh and blood, and no matter how he came into this world, he deserves better than you wallowing in self-pity and wringing your hands for the next weeks. His mother doesn’t want him, and his self-absorbed father has no clue how to give him what he needs. Find somebody to help you who can act like an adult, and find somebody fast.”

“Please, come back when you’re ready.”

“I’ll have to come back to settle things. Other than that?” She shrugged. “In the meantime if you have any suggestions on how I explain this little upheaval in our perfect marriage to my readers, let me know.”

“Is there anything I can do except tell you again how much I love you and how sorry I am?”

“You can leave. Now.”

A moment later the door closed behind him. She was alone.

She dropped to the side of the bed where Carrick had been and closed her eyes, trying to calm her roiling stomach. Through all the turmoil and terror of his illness, she and Graham had stood together and faced whatever came their way. Now she was alone. When it seemed his chances of survival were slim, she had learned to face a future without him. But she had never expected to face a future without him because he had betrayed her.

No part of her wanted to call him back to forgive him. But a part of her wished it were yesterday, when whether her husband lived or died was her worst problem. Yesterday she wouldn’t have believed how insignificant life and death could seem today.

5

No one knew exactly which ancestors had passed their genes to Lilia or her four brothers. From their mother’s side they were Hawaiian, Filipino and Samoan. From their father’s they were Chinese, along with a large dose of the UK. International bloodlines weren’t unusual on the island of Kauai, where she’d been raised. Neither were they atypical in the South Bay area of California where she had moved at age eighteen to care for her aunt.

Now looking at her oldest brother, Eli, who had picked her up from the airport in a four-seater beach buggy, she remembered a game they had played as children. Each sibling had imagined that ancestors long departed had personally chosen him or her as a favorite. Their personal guardian angels.

Eli had always claimed their Samoan great-grandfather had chosen him. He was big-boned and substantial, with the darkest coloring of any of the Swallow siblings, although that was never easy to document because of the hours each child spent in the sun. As a teen he had come home sporting an intricate Samoan shoulder tattoo, and since then he had added to it until now most of one muscular arm was covered.

Eli owned a shop that gave tours and rented buggies, like the one he was driving today, and he swore the more Polynesian he looked, the more business he attracted. Some of his steadiest customers were female. When he’d threatened to knot a lavalava around his waist and show up for work bare-chested, his wife, Amber, had put her foot down. Business was fine just the way it was.

Eli was a man of few words, so Lilia knew he was waiting for her to tell him why she had come home with such short notice. He would never ask outright.

“Do you remember what we used to pretend about our ancestors?” she asked.

“You thought you were descended from some English princess or maybe a Chinese courtesan. I don’t think you knew what that meant.”

“It was all about the palaces. There was a book in the school library with amazing photos. I wanted to live in one.”

“California doesn’t have a lot of palaces.”

“Kai decided he was all Hawaiian, remember? That was the year he borrowed his first ukulele from Uncle Ike.” Kai, who sang and played beautifully, was the second oldest Swallow, followed by Micah and then after Lilia, Jordan. Lilia was the only girl, and for the first five years of her life she had been treated almost exactly like her brothers, including short haircuts, hand-me-down clothes and freedom.

“We had a great childhood.” As she spoke she envisioned baby Toby, whose childhood so far was anything but, and unexpectedly her voice caught.

Eli glanced away from the two-lane road to search her face. “You didn’t say what’s what with Graham.”

She had debated this question since she boarded the plane to Honolulu, and then during the hours she had waited for the final flight to Kauai. She had managed to get home, but not on the best schedule. She was exhausted and still too emotional to trust herself.