Daisy nodded, wishing some sign would come down from above, telling her once and for all the right thing to do. Instead, the minutes crawled by. Her mom waited with her until her name was called. They stood up together and embraced.
“I love you, baby,” her mom whispered.
“I’ll see you soon,” Daisy said.
“I’ll be right here in the waiting room.”
“Okay.” Then she stepped back, took a deep breath and walked through the open door.
* * *
Greg paced. He was surprised there wasn’t a path worn in the floor, he’d been pacing so long. Where the hell were they?
He could hear the TV droning in the next room, ripples of dialogue interspersed with studio laughter. Max was at that indiscriminate age; he would watch anything on TV.
For no reason he could put his finger on, Greg felt like crying. He ought to be relieved right about now. Daisy would come home and she’d no longer be pregnant and everything would get back to normal.
Not that normal was any great state of affairs, he thought, hearing a commercial for toenail fungus from the other room. Here he was, in the middle of his life, starting all over again. And he didn’t have his youthful foolishness and drive and naïveté to spur him on. Just the daily grind of worries about his kids and his business. And the God-awful loneliness howling through him as he lay awake each night.
One thing Greg knew about himself—he wasn’t meant to be alone. It wasn’t in his makeup. Sophie used to make this observation about him, postulating that as the youngest sibling, he wasn’t accustomed to being content in his own company.
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. She postulated about a lot of things. She was a lawyer. She was good at it.
He dug his wallet out of his back pocket and found the business card Nina Romano had given him. It had a water wheel on it—the seal of the city—and Nina Romano, Mayor, with three phone numbers and an e-mail address. He turned the card over to see that she’d written, “Welcome!” on the back. Did she do this for all newcomers or was he somehow special?
The sound of a car engine startled him and he slipped the card away. Then he ripped open the side door and burst outside. “Is everything all right?” he demanded as Sophie emerged from the driver’s side of her rental car.
Thin-lipped, her expression grave, Sophie nodded. “She’s fine.”
His hands shaking as relief coursed through him, Greg opened the passenger-side door and Daisy got out. She looked unexpectedly well, her cheeks flushed with color and her eyes bright.
“Let me help you inside,” he said.
“In a minute,” she said. “I need to tell you something.”
He glanced at Sophie. Her cool expression told him nothing.
“Dad, I didn’t do it.” There was a giddy, almost hysterical note in her voice.
“You didn’t what?”
“I changed my mind. I’m having this baby.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jenny’s stomach was in knots as the train’s brakes gnashed to a halt in Avalon. She told herself not to feel bad. Not to be nervous. This was a homecoming. She should be happy about it. About coming home.
Instead, it felt like a defeat. A month ago she had gone to New York City expecting…what? For her life to suddenly turn into an episode of Sex and the City? To fling her hat in the air while the world discovered how fabulous she was? To find herself instantly surrounded by interested, fascinating friends? She should have thought things through. If she had, she would have realized that it was impossible to run away from herself. Being in the city, meeting a literary agent who pointed out exactly how much work she needed to do, only magnified the truth. She was like her unfinished book—a work-in-progress. And city life wasn’t what she wanted after all.
With a heaviness in her limbs, she collected her belongings from the overhead rack and headed for the exit. She stepped down onto the platform and was immediately lashed by a blast of cold air, scented with the burning-cinder odor of the engine’s fuel. When the cloud of blowing snow and dust cleared she saw Rourke there, shimmering like a figure in a dream. Very Casablanca, right down to his scowl.
She found herself remembering the day she got engaged to Joey. Rourke had been on the verge of telling her something and if she’d let him, maybe everything would have turned out differently. If she lived to be a hundred, Jenny would never forget the look in Rourke’s eyes that day. They’d turned flinty and hard, flash-frozen by her words. Joey asked me to marry him. One moment, she thought. One moment, she’d let her true feelings waver. One moment of doubt, and she’d opened the door for Joey. One moment, and she’d made a mess of three lives.
“Don’t you dare say ‘I told you so,’” she warned Rourke. She wondered if the memories showed on her face.
“It seems I don’t need to,” he said, though there was no satisfaction in his voice.
She stood there like an idiot. Was she supposed to hug him? Give him a kiss on the cheek? What did he expect? “I didn’t know you’d be here,” she finally said.
He took her heavier bag and headed for the exit. No hug. Not even a “hey.” A smile was too much to hope for. As for that goodbye kiss, she might have imagined it. “I figured you’d need a ride,” he told her.
“Thanks, Rourke.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I came here to intercept you.”
“What?”
“To stop you from going off to Camp Kioga.”
Their boots
