Emilie Richards - The Swallow's Nest

“Lilia—”

“Don’t even try to explain. Take your son.”

He was frozen in place, as if the horror of the moment had stripped him of the ability to move.

She spoke through gritted teeth, and only for his ears. “I have managed to carry this baby all the way through the house, but if you don’t take him right this minute, I can’t say that either of you are going to survive unscathed.”

He reached out and grabbed Toby, holding him awkwardly.

“Just confirm Marina’s story,” she said. “This is your son? And all the months I was taking care of you, working to support us and doing everything I could to make sure you survived, another woman was pregnant with your child? Were you just waiting to tell me until you didn’t need my help anymore?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“He’s yours?”

Graham looked down. If possible Toby was screaming louder, his tiny face screwed up in misery. “Yes.”

“Then I suggest you get used to taking care of him. His mother left and didn’t look back. She doesn’t want him, and as you probably figured out a year ago, neither do I.”

Then she turned and walked back through a parting Red Sea of guests who looked as if they would rather be slaves in Pharaoh’s Egypt than at this party to celebrate Graham’s good fortune.

4

From the master bedroom addition over the sunroom Lilia listened as the last of the guests fled. At first she had simply trembled with her back to the door and stared out the windows. But by the time someone called her name from the hallway she had positioned a carry-on suitcase on the Hawaiian appliqué quilt her mother had given her on her wedding day and begun to pack. She didn’t answer, but the door opened, and Carrick appeared in the doorway.

He was the first to speak. “Regan has an extra bed at her place. And you know I have a spare bedroom.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “You should be with your date.”

“We drove separately. Julie’s gone.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m going home.” She was torn between continuing to pack so she could leave faster, or asking him the question she hadn’t outside. The question won. She faced him.

“Did you know, Carrick? About Toby? I hope to God you weren’t keeping Graham’s secret, too.”

“I had no idea.”

She studied his expression. Carrick looked both furious and wounded, but she knew her question wasn’t the cause of either. “Okay.”

“He knew what I would say if he’d told me. Maybe he was trying to use every bit of strength just to stay alive.”

“Don’t make excuses for him!”

“I’m not.”

“He was your best friend before I even met you. I’m not going to ask you to choose. I’ll make it easy. I won’t be here.”

When she turned away he joined her at the bedside where she had begun packing again. He perched on the edge, long denim-clad legs stretched out in front of him, but his posture wasn’t relaxed. Carrick was holding himself like a man walking a tightrope.

“Lilia, these past awful months I’ve been right there with you. I know what you’ve gone through. Days, even nights at the hospital, then home to change clothes and go out to design appointments, or work on the website, or head out to your storage unit to be sure The Swallow’s Nest orders were being processed correctly. Dealing with your employees and doing whatever you could with Graham’s. You hardly ate or slept. Nobody could have done more to keep everything going until Graham recovered. If he did.”

She remembered an evening when Carrick had asked if she was experiencing sympathy lymphoma. He’d offered to shave her head if she wanted to enhance the effect. Then he’d marched her out of Graham’s hospital room for fish tacos and a chopped salad and sat with her to make sure she ate every bite.

Her hands hovered over the suitcase, but she couldn’t force herself to fold the T-shirt she was holding. “How could he have done this to me? To us?”

He touched her shoulder, his fingers warm against her skin, but he removed his hand quickly. He didn’t move closer, aware, she supposed, that she would either fall completely apart if he held her or, worse, she would shove him away. “I don’t know. I really don’t, but you need an answer. I don’t think you can leave without knowing.”

“Do you know what she said to me? What Marina said? She said I might hate her, or something to that effect, but at least she’d given that baby life—” her voice broke “—when I couldn’t even be bothered to have Graham’s baby.”

“Lilia...”

She cleared her throat. “I wanted children. Before he got sick I thought we were ready. Graham was the one who held back. We had that possibility of a television show, and he kept saying the time should be exactly right. Then when it wasn’t, when it was the worst possible time to have a baby, when we had absolutely no idea whether he would live or die, he begged me to get pregnant. Just like that. After the diagnosis and before chemo. Out of nowhere. He wanted me to do everything to keep us going and have a baby, too. And we had no idea if he would even live to see it born!”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Although I guess that question was answered. He did live to see his son, didn’t he?”

“You have to talk to him.”

“No, I’m going home. I stayed in San Jose the whole time he was sick. I missed a wedding, a christening. I need my family.”

“Plan to come back.”

“Are you speaking as my lawyer? Can Graham divorce me for desertion if I leave?”

“Not in California. I’m talking about The Swallow’s Nest, Lilia. You’ve built your whole business on making a home and a happy marriage, and you need to figure out how you’re going to explain this to your readers. If you leave Graham and leave this house, everything crumbles to dust. And we both know your financial situation is beyond precarious. You can’t afford to walk away.”

He was right. The house was her one real asset, but she couldn’t sell it to fund a new life because it was heavily mortgaged, first to pay for renovations and the audition tape she and Graham had made for a potential television series, then refinanced yet again to help with medical bills and the loss of his income. If she sold it now she would be homeless and still in debt.

Then there was her life’s work, her reputation as a designer whom local and internet clients could count on. And what about the readers who loved her website because she shared her own stories to help them gain the confidence to share theirs?

She was too confused to think it through. She spaced her words for emphasis. “I am too angry to talk to him now.”

“Then just listen. Regan has the baby. Your guests are gone—”

“No surprise.”

“Graham’s a mess.”

She hoped it was true. “Apparently I’ve used up my store of sympathy.”

“You don’t have to sympathize. You need facts. After you hear what he has to say you can take time to think this over.”

“What is Graham going to do with that baby? I’ve never seen him hold one. Does he know he’ll have to support his head? Put him on his back to sleep? When he’s with my nieces and nephews he watches them like he’s at the zoo.”

“I guess he’s about to learn fast.”

“Right, or maybe he’ll go back to his baby-mama and ask her to take them both in. A happy little family.”

“I don’t know what Graham was thinking when he slept with Marina Tate, but I do know she’s not the one he wants.”

“Well, I don’t want him. I don’t want a husband who sleeps with somebody else, finds out she’s pregnant and forgets to tell me.”

“He’s been suffering. The depression? The way he pushed us both away at times? He was ashamed and probably torn up about what to do.”