Cynthia Reese - The Baby Wait

“Because. You. Want. A. Baby. The one damn thing I can’t build for you with my own two hands. If I could, I’d go turn one out on a lathe for you right this very minute. I can’t buy a baby. I can’t borrow it. I can’t make it. Do you know how that makes me feel? To see you crying and to know that I can’t fix it? Me? The guy who goes in behind crappy contractors and cleans up their messes for half the price?”

“We’re fixing it!” Hearing Joe say the things I’d suspected he’d been thinking ripped into me like a chain saw. “If you’ll just believe…”

Dear Reader,

Every year hundreds of babies from China find loving homes in the U.S. Each one of those stories has a happy ending where baby and parent are united at last. One of those happy endings is my own—my husband and I brought our daughter Kate home from China in 2002, when she was just eight months old.

Our wait, though long, was nothing like Sara and Joe’s, and my childhood was nothing like Sara’s. But I kept thinking, what if? What if something had happened? What sort of woman would hang on? Why? What would her husband, hiding his own broken heart, do?

I thoroughly enjoyed creating all the characters who people Joe and Sara’s world. Dublin, Georgia, is real—though I’ve taken small liberties with south Georgia geography and created the town of Campbell—which doesn’t exist. Also, for dramatic reasons I chose a shorter initial Wait; the current wait, which fluctuates, is now about a year. Joe and Sara’s story isn’t my story—it’s theirs…and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

If you’re interested in adopting from China, see links from my Web site, www.cynthiareese.net, which will point you in the right direction. I look forward to hearing from readers!

Cynthia Reese

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Kate,

My sweetie-pie, my miracle baby, the gift

God gave me…I love you!

This book would not exist without the help of

so many people: my editor, Laura Shin, who took

a chance on me, and other Harlequin editors—

Jennifer Green, who listened to me stammer

out this idea, and Ann Leslie Tuttle, who called

it the book of my heart. Thanks, too, go to

my agent, Miriam Kriss; to my critique partners:

Cindy Miles, Steph B., Tawna Fenske, Nelsa, R,

and Babette D.; to my husband, who thinks

I’m welded to my laptop; to Tessa Hill for an

inside look at how adoption agencies work

(any errors are my own); to my sister and

my mom for believing in me; to the 2005 BIAYers

and to the entire staff at Bellevue Avenue Post

Office—thanks for getting my work to my editors

on time, every time!

Cynthia Reese lives with her husband and their daughter in south Georgia, along with two dogs, three cats and however many strays show up for morning muster on their back deck. She has been scribbling since she was knee-high to a grasshopper and reading even before that. A former journalist, teacher and English professor, she also enjoys cooking, traveling and photography when she gets the chance. The Baby Wait is her first book.

An invisible red thread connects those who are

destined to meet, regardless of time, place or

circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle,

but will never break.

—An ancient Chinese belief

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I STOOD in an airport, not an English printed word or a Caucasian face in sight. Old Chinese women swarmed me like an angry colony of bees. They shook their fingers in my face. They looked me up and down, jerking their heads in disdain. I could not understand a single word they said. Finally, one tiny, shrunken lady shoved her face close to mine and in broken English shouted, “Missy, you forgot baby! No lucky baby for you!”

Another Chinese lady whipped a black telephone that looked straight out of the 1940s from behind her back. The force of the phone’s rings made the handset vibrate.

And, then, consciousness seeped in. The phone’s ringing was a digital buzz, not the t-ling t-ling of the old heavy clunkers. My phone. My cordless. In my bedroom, not a Chinese airport.

It had to be Ma, probably drunk again, maybe even in jail. I groped for the phone, dropped it and retrieved it from the jumbled-up covers.

“Hello?” I squinted at the clock.

“Sara? It’s Joe.”

I sat up, pushed a hand through my mussed hair. “What is it? And what happened to the alarm? It’s eight o’clock.”

“I turned it off. You said you weren’t going in this morning. I thought you could do with the extra sleep.”

He sounded a little wounded at my lack of appreciation. “Um, thanks. Did you need something? Forget your lunch? I’ll take it by.”

“No, I just wanted to let you know I could meet you at the doctor’s office. Things here are under control, and the trusses are going up faster—”

“Joe, it’s just a routine Pap smear, okay?” I interrupted him. “Relax.”

Joe sucked in a breath, apparently not believing what I said. “You always used to get so down when you had to go to the ob-gyn…what with the pregnant women. And I’m worried, anyway. Damn, Sara. With all you’ve been through, nothing’s routine about a visit to your ob-gyn.”

“Joe.” I thought for a moment about how to proceed. My stomach had already tensed from being reminded about today’s appointment, but I ordered my nerves to calm down. “I’m a big girl, and I want to go by myself. We talked about how important it is for me to do this on my own.”

“I know. I know.” He sighed. “Well, call me when you get through. I may be on the roof of this house, trying to get trusses in, so if I don’t hear the phone ring, just leave me a message, okay?”

“Sure. The minute I get out. I’ll see you tonight. And, hey…thanks for offering. I love you.”

“Back atcha,” he said before hanging up.

I replaced the handset and swung my feet to the floor, my heart still racing from the unpleasant task ahead and the dream. Stress. Good old-fashioned stress. I’d had this nightmare before, and I knew stress had woven it.

Of course I wouldn’t forget my baby in some airport. I’d waited too long for her. I’d stumbled through a dozen years of dashed hopes and dreams before discovering China, before knowing Meredith Alicia whatever-her-Chinese-name-was Tennyson could be my daughter. I’d know her second middle name when they finally told me the name they’d given her. When I could finally see my daughter’s face.

As I fumbled for my bedroom slippers, my toe stubbed a stack of books: Toddler Adoption, Lost Daughters of China, A Passage to the Heart, What to Expect the Toddler Years. The ache in my heart replaced the ache in my toe. What was Meredith doing today? Was she getting enough to eat? Did she have adequate clothes? And, the famous question, what on earth did she look like?