Tara Quinn - Merry Christmas, Babies

“Where are they now?”

“Wally died of a heart attack the year before I started college. Mary followed about six months later. They were both eighty-one.”

“I knew you then.”

“Barely.”

“You never let on you were grieving…”

Joe shook his head. It must be late. He couldn’t let go of Elise’s hand—as though his touch made a difference to her aloneness.

“I’m so incredibly sorry,” he said, hating how trite the words sounded. He’d asked what she’d meant by therapy, and she’d told him about the years of painful treatments she’d endured to regain full use of her injured muscles and limbs. About the nerves that couldn’t be fixed, the parts of her face that would never experience sensation again.

“Thanks.” She didn’t seem to notice that her fingers were still clasped in his. “You’re the first person I’ve ever told about this—apart from counselors.”

He frowned, wishing he’d taken more time to get to know her over the years. He had an idea he’d missed out on much. “Why is that?”

“Look at how you’re looking at me.”

He blinked, pulled away. Let go of her hand. “What?”

“You feel sorry for me.”

“Of course I do! You suffered such a tragedy.”

“I know. And I appreciate the sympathy, don’t get me wrong. But after everything I’d been through, I just wanted to live a normal life. It wasn’t ever going to happen if I took my past with me.”

“Your past is a part of you.”

She was busy trying to leave it behind. “Maybe.”

“It made you strong.”

She didn’t feel strong.

“I’ve dated two wonderful men in the past five years, and both times I could never get enough sense of who I was to be able to give my heart to someone. There’s always this part of me that’s detached.”

She figured that there was no point in holding back now. Joe already knew the worst. And he was safe. A friend and no more.

“I feel fake inside,” she admitted to him. “Just like my face is fake.”

She drew back when he reached to touch her, but he ran his fingers down the side of her cheek anyway. “You don’t feel fake.”

She didn’t feel his fingers, either.

And then, as his hand continued over her face, away from the grafted skin, she did.

“I lost everything, Joe. Mementos, photos, tokens. The memories fade and there’s no one left who shared them to remind me. I look in the mirror and I’m not me. There is nothing there that speaks of my heritage.”

He started to speak but she held up a hand. She had to finish what she’d started.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not feeling sorry for myself here,” she continued. “Yes, horrible things happened, but I was also incredibly lucky—in many ways—and I’m very grateful for that. Truthfully, I think more about the good than the bad.”

He nodded, sipped his watered-down drink, then held the glass in both hands in his lap.

“I’m a survivor, Joe. I’m only telling you about all this so that you can understand.”

And because, as of today, there was no way her choice wasn’t going to affect his life, as well, at least peripherally.

“I’m thirty-two years old. I’ve got my body back, my career and financial security are set, but my sense of self, of being grounded, which I lost in that fire, is still missing. I have no significant other. I’ve been finding my solutions on my own for a long time.”

“And so you decided to have a baby, start a new family, on your own.”

The knot between her shoulder blades loosened and Elise almost smiled. “Yes.” He got it.

“Okay.” He drained his drink, sat forward. “You have my full support.”

Elise was tempted to stand, to leave it at that and let him leave, but knew she couldn’t. She’d opened the door to truth between them. She was no longer hiding.

“There’s more, Joe.”

Lips pursed, he nodded. “I kind of thought so.”

“I had an ultrasound today.”

He peered at her through narrowed eyes. “There’s something wrong with the baby?”

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was personally invested in her answer. But this was Joe. He’d chosen divorce over creating a baby with the woman he adored.

“Not as far as they can tell,” she answered slowly.

“So what’s the problem?”

“There are four of them.”

JOE DROVE HOME. His older brother Kenny was waiting on the lighted basketball court behind Joe’s home, just as Joe had requested from his cell phone immediately after leaving Elise.

Kenny, like Joe, was unmarried, unencumbered with a houseful of needs that couldn’t possibly be met. He was also unemployed—for the fourth time in almost as many years.

By choice.

His brother got bored easily.

“What’s up?” Kenny asked as Joe joined him five minutes later, having exchanged his shirt and tie for shorts, a T-shirt and three-hundred-dollar tennis shoes.

“Just needed a game,” Joe grunted as he sank a three-pointer.

Kenny swiveled, butted up against Joe as he dribbled and went up for a successful slam dunk. “It’s after nine o’clock. You work in the morning.”

“You don’t, so what’s it to you?” Joe rebounded, took the ball back and lined up another three.

With a quick jump, Kenny stole the ball from him.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Kenny said, turning to grin at Joe as he bounced the ball between his legs and caught it behind him. “I sold Wambo.”

One of Kenny’s many animated video characters. He named a well-known, international video game producer as the buyer.

“I’ve got some changes to make to him—he needs to be a little taller and more agile. And they want a woman to go with him.”

Joe stood while Kenny made the next shot. His brother was up on him four to three. “Congratulations!” he said, slapping Kenny on the back.

Kenny got his own rebound and shot the ball at Joe’s chest.

“Can’t let you be the richest guy in the family,” he joked, but Joe could tell that his big brother was proud of Joe’s accomplishments, too. Mostly Joe was relieved to see that Kenny was finally finding some success with what he most loved to do. What he was good at.

He deserved it.

Joe sank another three. And was in his brother’s face, up and down the half court, pounding the pavement, the backboard, anything he came in contact with as he trounced one of Michigan State’s most celebrated basketball stars.

Kenny asked him again what was wrong.

Joe insisted nothing was wrong. And he showered and went to bed telling himself the same thing.

Elise was a business partner who’d survived incredible odds.

Her private life was not and never had been any concern of his.

Sleep was elusive.

ELEVEN O’CLOCK and Elise still couldn’t quiet her mind at all. She’d taken a hot bath. Done breathing exercises. She’d watched a sitcom. Tried to read—and to coax her independent housemates out from under the bed.

And then she picked up the phone. It was an hour earlier in Arkansas. He’d be home by now after his evening jog. Turning seventy hadn’t slowed him down a bit.

“Elise! Good to hear from you.”

Standing in the middle of her bedroom, Elise studied herself in the antique free-standing, floor-length mirror. There wasn’t a single visible scar on her face. And her body was almost as beautiful.

“I’m sorry to bother you so late.”

“You are never a bother, my dear. But I hear something in your voice that concerns me. Need to talk?”

He’d know it was why she’d called. Why, after all the years since being his patient, she still called. At least once a month. She’d grown up with Thomas, confided her deepest secrets to him, trusted his advice.