Susan Wiggs - Table For Five

“Oh, hi, Sean,” she said, clearly surprised to see him. “I can’t believe Crystal stood up her own kid like this. Anyway, here you go.” She dumped the baby into his arms. The two-year-old regarded him with apprehension.

“Have you heard from Derek?” Sean asked, shifting the baby awkwardly.

“Not a word. We must’ve all got our signals crossed. Listen, I’m grotesquely late,” Jane continued, “so I need to hurry.” Spying Cameron, she said, “Come and get the car seat, will you? God, thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”

When Ashley saw her brother, she squealed with delight and reached for him. “Cam! Cam!”

“Yeah, I’ll be right back,” he said, and followed Jane out to her car.

When the baby realized he was walking away, she arched her back and let out a wail that penetrated like an armor piercing bullet.

“Hey, now,” said Sean, his chest filling up with panic. “It’ll be all right. He’s coming back.”

She thrashed her head from side to side and cried harder. Her tiny fists alternately clutched Sean’s shirt and pummeled him. He was reminded of the creature in Alien popping from the stomach of an unsuspecting man. What the hell was it with babies? he wondered feverishly. They were like another life form to him, a dangerous and sinister one at that. She was loud and smelled funky, too. He suspected Jane, in all her self-important rush, had not bothered to check the kid’s diaper.

It felt like an eternity before Cameron returned with the car seat. The second Ashley spotted him, she quit yelling and lurched toward him, nearly leaping out of Sean’s arms. He clutched the writhing little body to keep her from falling, then quickly handed her over. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“Naw, she’s just cranky. Probably tired and hungry, aren’t you, sugar bear?” Cameron jiggled her on his hip. “I’ll go get her something to eat.”

“’Nana. Want a ’nana,” Ashley chortled good-naturedly as he set her down and led her into the kitchen. In a heartbeat, she’d turned from the Tasmanian Devil into an angel. How did she do that so quickly?

A moment later, Charlie came barreling in through the front door, a towheaded dynamo.

“Uncle Sean!”

He caught her up in his arms. Her wiry limbs felt surprisingly strong, and something—her hair or skin—had a bubblegum smell. This was more his speed, a niece who actually liked him. “Hey, short stuff. How you doing?”

“I’m starving to death,” she said, clutching her stomach and reeling in his arms. “Where’s Mom?”

He set her down carefully, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to be staying with you until your mom gets back.”

She gave him a look of skepticism, narrowing her eyes and twirling one pigtail with her finger. “Really?”

“Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

“Maybe I do.” She yelled with delight as he chased her to the kitchen.

There, the baby was happily cramming a chunk of banana into her mouth. Charlie helped herself to one. “Did you know monkeys peel bananas like this, from the bottom up?” She demonstrated.

“I guess that makes you a monkey.”

“I wish I was a monkey,” Charlie said.

“You look like one,” Cameron said.

Charlie stuck her tongue out at him.

“Monkey,” Ashley echoed around a mouthful of banana.

“Why do you wish you were a monkey?” asked Sean.

“Then I wouldn’t have to go to yucky, sucky school.”

“Sucky,” Ashley said.

Sean looked at Cameron. “Is she allowed to say that?”

“Probably not.”

Sean turned to Charlie. “Don’t say sucky.”

“Okay.” Charlie bit into her banana.

“Sucky,” Ashley said again.

“I’ll be right back.” Sean hurried out of the kitchen and went to the phone in the front hall. He picked up the handset and glared at it. What the hell was going on? This was starting to be truly…sucky. He wondered how long he should wait before getting seriously worried.

With a scowl, he dialed Derek’s cell phone. Derek always answered his phone, always checked his messages. When the voice mail clicked on, Sean said, “Hey, bro, it’s me. I’m here with your kids at Crystal’s house, and she’s not home. What’s going on? Call me.” He found Crystal’s number by the phone, got her voice mail and left a similar message. He wished, just briefly, that he knew her better. He wished he knew if she was the sort of woman who would temporarily forget her kids.

Now what? he wondered. He tried Maura. He didn’t know why. His girlfriend barely knew Derek and had never met Crystal and the kids. The people in his life didn’t know one another. His connections with family were disparate and shallow, something that had never occurred to him until now.

“Dr. Riley,” she answered with crisp efficiency. A fourth-year medical student, she was working at Portland’s Legacy West Hospital this year.

“Hey, Doc, it’s me.”

“Sean!” A smile brightened her voice. “What’s up?”

“I’m not sure. I’m with my brother Derek’s kids. There was some mix-up and their parents are MIA.”

“So call them and—”

“I can’t get hold of either one of them.”

“Well, then…look, I’m in the middle of rounds. And I’m staying in the city for a seminar, did I tell you that? Can I call you in a few?”

“Sure, whenever. Bye.” He had no idea what he expected her to do. She didn’t even know these kids. This sure as hell wasn’t her problem.

Ashley was yelling and banging something in the kitchen. Cameron had turned the radio up loud again.

Sean hit the caller ID button on the phone and looked at the display. The first came up Private, the second was “Coombs, Jane.” The next one was “Robinson, Lily.”

The schoolmarm, he thought. There was something vaguely familiar about the name. Maybe he’d met her before, though he doubted it. He tended not to hang out with schoolmarms, but maybe that was about to change.

“Help me out here, Miss Robinson,” he muttered as he dialed the number.

Friday

7:30 p.m.

Lily sighed with contentment and snuggled down into her favorite overstuffed chair. There was a large bowl of popcorn and a glass of red wine on the table beside her. On the coffee table in front of her, a map of Italy lay spread out with the sinuous route of the Sorrentine Peninsula highlighted in yellow. The names of the towns, which she’d circled in red, came from story and legend—Positano, Amalfi, Ravello, Vietri Sul Mare.

Two more months, she thought. Then summer would be here and she’d go jetting off on an adventure she’d been dreaming about for half a year. She’d be all by herself, gloriously, blissfully alone.

Her colleagues at school thought it odd that she loved to travel solo, but for Lily, making her own way and answering to no one were her favorite parts of the adventure. Her annual summer trip was hugely important to her. It always had been. Travel gave her balance and perspective and made her feel like a different person. It occurred to her to wonder why she would want to be a different person, but she didn’t think too hard about that.

She loved seeing new places and making new friends. Crystal always asked her what was wrong with the old ones. Nothing, Lily thought, except that sometimes they made you do exhausting emotional work. Lily was good at a lot of things, but not at nurturing the deep, sometimes painful bonds of true intimacy. Life simply hadn’t prepared her for that. She could understand the heart of a child, could find ways to inspire and teach, but she’d never been capable of taking a headlong plunge into lifelong commitment. Some people, she had long ago decided, were not cut out for the dizzying, dangerous adventure of loving someone until it hurt.