Emilie Richards - The Swallow's Nest

And who knew? Maybe it was true.

Just as she was pulling off her jeans again to get more sleep the bedside telephone rang. She studied the caller ID and saw that this caller was welcome.

She licked her lips and cleared her throat before she answered.

“Hey, stranger.” She swung her legs to the mattress and propped pillows against her padded headboard.

“Rina, how’s it going?”

Blake Wendell probably thought using a nickname signaled they were closer than they were, like promising an expensive piece of jewelry without making the cash outlay. She was Marina Ray Tate, but only Deedee called her Rina, and then added the Ray for good measure. Even her brothers knew better. Unfortunately she’d made the mistake of confiding the nickname in a long phone conversation. She’d been six months pregnant, and conversations with Blake had been one of her few distractions. At least he’d forgotten the Ray.

“It’s going fine.” She examined her chipped nails. Professional manicures had been impossible with a screaming baby, so she’d taken to doing her own.

He cleared his throat. “You’re okay? It’s been a while since we talked.”

In reality they had talked earlier that week. She envied him for enjoying the kind of life where one day flowed gently into the next. Or maybe, there was an even more positive spin? Maybe he really had missed her.

“We should get together,” she said.

“Would you like me to come over? I haven’t seen your place.”

She realized then how badly she wanted to get away from the apartment where Toby’s presence still hung in the air. “Why don’t I meet you at your place instead? Just give me an hour.”

She hung up after jotting down his address, glad that Blake wanted to see her, although she wished he had waited until she had gotten some rest.

She got up and stretched, hoping a shower would revive her. She would wash and style her hair, do her nails, and choose something sexy to wear.

Halfway to the bathroom she felt something soft under her toes. Glancing down she saw she was standing on a small fleece blanket, the white one she’d always used to swaddle her son. She had wrapped his tiny flailing arms against his body to calm him, and walked in circles around the apartment, crooning the closest thing to a lullaby that she knew. Toby had seemed to prefer this blanket to others, and sometimes swaddling him had even helped a little. But this morning he had rejected swaddling the way he had rejected her and everything she tried to comfort him.

She should have left the blanket on the porch with Toby’s other things.

Should she send it to Graham now with a note explaining it was special? Would anybody understand or care?

She lifted the blanket off the floor and held it to her nose. The fabric still held the scent of baby shampoo and baby powder, along with the indefinable essence of a brand-new human being. Her hand dropped to her side, but she stood in the same spot, holding the blanket for a very long time.

Finally she changed direction and moved to the far corner of her room. She carefully folded it into a square and laid it under a pile of her shirts in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

3

The baby was screaming now, a shrieking siren that seemed incompatible with the featherweight human being in Lilia’s arms.

After one examination she didn’t want to look at him. Early in their marriage she and Graham had put off having children, certain they had all the time in the world to start a family. Later when she’d been ready, he had still wanted to wait. Then Burkitt’s had entered their lives. He’d frozen sperm before chemo so that someday, when he recovered so completely they no longer had to worry about his future, they might be able to conceive through artificial insemination. But no baby birds would be hatching in this nest anytime soon, something she had tried hard not to think about.

Now she had no choice.

Instinct told her to set the child down and never pick him up again. Before she hurt him. Before the betrayal washing through her washed over him, too, and caused irreparable harm. But there was no place to lay him, no carrier or car seat. He had arrived in his mother’s arms, and now he was in hers, the only place on the porch even halfway acceptable for an infant.

She’d been raised with other people’s babies. Cousins, nieces and nephews, neighbors. As a teenager, she’d been in demand as a babysitter because she always seemed to know what to do. Yet she had no inclination to rock this one in her arms, to snuggle him against her shoulder or pat his tiny back. She was so angry that every ounce of goodness inside her had already been summoned. She was struggling just to remember that no matter the circumstances of little Toby’s birth, he had not asked for this moment any more than she.

But quite likely his father had.

She knew then what she had to do. Suddenly it seemed simple. She held the infant against her shoulder so she could open the door with her other hand and walk inside, walk through the house she and Graham had so lovingly renovated together, walk through the kitchen where Regan was piling her carefully marinated chicken wings on a platter.

Her friend looked up and smiled. “Hey, who’s that?”

“Where’s Graham, do you know?”

They’d been friends so long that Lilia’s tone wilted Regan’s smile. “Still out back, I think. Mingling. But—”

“He may be calling on you tonight for help. Say no.”

“Lilia, what—”

She stalked into the sunroom and threw open the door to the patio. The music was so loud that even the baby’s screams were muffled. She was aware enough of her own feelings to be sorry that was true. Everybody should get the full benefit of Toby’s misery.

At first she didn’t see her husband, but somehow a path cleared. Friends who had smiled at the sight of her with the baby quickly sensed all was not well and stepped away. She wasn’t surprised. She had learned to cover her despair in the past year, but fury was a different matter. Since she’d never been this angry, not in her entire life, she made no attempt to hide it.

Graham was in the far corner of their yard. He’d set up a dartboard against their tiny garage, and he, Carrick and several others, including Carrick’s date, were playing. She should have gloried in the sight, one that at times, she had worried she would never see again. At the moment her husband was up, darts in hand, and carefully, one after the other, he was aiming at the board. She watched as he scored a bull’s-eye.

Carrick moved to join her, but she waved him away. He paused. “Whose baby is that?” He looked completely baffled, and she wondered if Graham had kept Toby’s presence in the world a secret, not just from her, but from his best friend and attorney, too. Carrick usually saved his acting skills for the courtroom, but until now, she’d never had reason to doubt her husband, either.

She watched as Carrick floundered toward the truth. At that moment Graham finished his turn and turned away from the board. His smile of satisfaction died. His gaze flicked to the baby screaming against her chest, and suddenly, he looked as unwell and frightened as he had during the worst moments of his illness.

If she’d had lingering doubts that Marina had been telling the truth, they fled forever. She expelled a long, harsh breath, and then she lowered Toby until he rested in the crook of her arm, moved closer and held him out to Graham.

“All your best friends are here. I’m sure they want to meet your son, and they’ll want all the juicy details. I suggest you practice telling the truth for once and explain how this happened. They’ll be dying to know.”

When he didn’t step forward, she did, until there was nothing between them except one wailing infant.