Another Dawn (3 page)

“Look at me, Hannah Rose.” Dylan’s voice bounced off the pink-and-blue-striped wallpaper of the church nursery. He made a face, turned a somersault, then made another face—anything he thought might get a giggle out of his baby cousin. He was proving rather successful.

“Da da da da,” Hannah gurgled.

“Hey, Mama, I think she’s trying to say Dylan,” he called over to me.

Jana grinned down from the rocker where she sat giving Kelsey Whyte a bottle. “You know what? I think so, too. It’s amazing.” She waited until Dylan turned away before she whispered to me, “Better not tell Rob that Da-da is actually Dylan. I think he’d be upset.”

I laughed. “Yeah, the truth hurts sometimes.” I watched Dylan’s animated antics around the blanket. “I’ve never seen him like this. When he’s around Hannah it’s like a new, confident Dylan emerges from beneath his usual shy self.”

“Thanks for helping me in the nursery today.”

“I’m glad you asked.” All morning long I’d been trying to get the courage to start a deeper conversation but hadn’t yet found it. Until the phone call a couple of days ago, it had never entered my mind how Jana felt. But for now, we were doing what my family tended to do . . . carrying on surface conversations, pretending like nothing had happened. Jana and I would have lots of time to talk next week while Dad was in the hospital.

“It’s always good to have an extra set of hands when working with babies.” She looked toward Dylan. “Or two. He’s so cute with them, and I can’t believe how much he has grown.”

“Yeah, way too much, if you ask me. It’s amazing how fast it goes by. You keep that in mind and enjoy this time while it’s here.”

“Believe me, I am. I am.” Her voice, its cherubic sweetness, was intensified. “She’s such a gift, I’m not going to take one single minute for granted.” Jana and Rob had spent years and thousands of dollars, and more heartbreak than most people could bear, in an effort to become parents.

I looked at Hannah’s tiny fingers, her chubby little cheeks, and love welled up in me with the same intensity I felt toward my own son. “I’m so glad to finally see my beautiful niece in person.”

“I wish you could have come sooner.” Was there an inflection of accusation in her tone? She had asked me to come after Hannah was born and “help her figure this baby stuff out.” Jana had always been so self-assured, I’d never really considered that she might have been serious. Until now. I began to wonder just how many times I’d let her down over the last few years.

“I . . . wish I could have, too.”

Jana put Kelsey into a bouncy seat and began to twirl a butterfly on the bar in front of her. “So how’re things going with you and Dad?”

I looked at my sister’s too-innocent face. The usual wavy strands of blond hair had escaped from her ponytail and danced around her eyes as if they, too, were enjoying the joke.

“Here, I’ll do it for her, Aunt Jana.” Dylan dove into position and began to simultaneously bounce Kelsey and twirl the toys on the rack. Kelsey cackled and Dylan worked all the harder.

“How do you
think
it’s going?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low enough that Dylan wouldn’t hear too much, but not so low as to make him think there was a secret and maybe he should pay attention.

He did glance my way for just a second before turning back to his charge. “Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy,” he singsonged as Kelsey cooed.

I leaned closer to Jana and whispered, “If he tells me my son needs a haircut one more time, I swear I’ll . . .” Truth was, I didn’t know what I’d do. Probably nothing, as usual.

She looked toward the door, the dark circles beneath her eyes not quite concealed under her makeup. “I wish Steve could have come with you. He and Rob get along so well.”

“Yes, they do.” I swallowed hard and pointed at my empty left finger. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the two of us.”

“Oh, Gracie.” Jana put her hand to her throat. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice that.”

I couldn’t believe it, either. The words
Jana
and
details
were practically synonymous. The poor thing really was exhausted. “You’ve got a lot on your mind.”

“Yes I do, but still . . .”

I shrugged. “You’ve never seen me wearing it, so it wouldn’t seem that strange to you that it is missing, I suppose.”

She was shaking her head as if trying to return things back to their proper order. She reached over and took my hand then. “I am sorry. I had no idea. I wouldn’t have called and gone off on—”

I squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you did. We need to talk through some things during this visit. I’m just glad you told my oblivious self that there was a problem.”

“Obviously, I fall into that oblivious category, too, although I’d never realized just how much so until this very moment. What happened? When did it happen?” Her voice had picked up a bit of its usual perk now. She was Jana the mender, ready to tackle my problems. It was good to see a bit of the old spark.

Knowing that she would pry the answers out of me eventually, it was likely better to go ahead and get it done with. I had finally told Dylan about the breakup, but I hadn’t shared details. At this point he was occupied with Kelsey, so it seemed safe enough to talk. “Monday night.”

Surprise overtook her. I knew what was coming, so I waved her off.

“I didn’t tell you because you would’ve let me stay in California. And as for what happened, well, let’s just say I’m just not sure . . . I don’t know if I can trust him. It makes me nervous.” I rubbed the back of my left hand. “You know me, when I get nervous, I tend to get a little crazy.”

“You tend to bolt, you mean. I played right into your hands, didn’t I? When I called and demanded that you come out here, it gave you the excuse you needed to run away from the problem.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not running away from the problem.” Not the one she was thinking of, anyway. “There’s nothing left to run from. It’s over.” The words hurt; it was as if saying them made the situation undeniably real. Still, I found myself somewhat comforted that I was finally having this conversation with my sister.

“I don’t believe that. Steve loves you; anyone could see that.”

“I messed everything up and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“So you were mean and downright ornery?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Yes, you would. You have. If it were anything less than that, you would have already told me about it.” Cuteness. That is Jana’s quality that is the downfall of everyone around her. I looked at those big blue eyes, her hair with just the right amount of wave to it that it always looked a little messy, and her dimpled cheeks that were nothing short of angelic.

“You know me entirely too well.”

“Of course I do.” She looked smug.

“Hey, Paisha, what ya doing?” Dylan moved across the floor to the next baby.

Paisha was wearing pink pants, a pink sweater, and a pink hat. She was up on all fours, every ounce of pinkness rocking back and forth, poised on the brink of crawling.

Dylan knelt hands and knees beside her. “You just put one hand out in front. Like this, see?” He moved his hand out. “Now, move your leg forward, put that leg on the other side so you don’t fall over. See?” He moved his left knee forward. “Now, just repeat.”

Paisha rocked all the harder. “Hee, hee.” She gurgled.

“That’s right, you’re almost doing it. Now, just pick up your hand, see.” Dylan reached over and put his left hand under her stomach, to hold her up, then with his right hand, he picked up her right arm and moved it forward and set it back down. She propelled herself forward and fell, in spite of Dylan’s steadying hand.

“Come on, let’s try again. You almost had it, I know you can do it.” Dylan had his face only inches from hers.

Paisha looked at him for a moment, a sort of grin on her face, then rolled over on her back and started playing with pink-sock-ensconced feet. Crawling lesson over.

Emma Sanders began to cry, so I picked her up out of the baby swing and rocked her slowly back and forth. “What’s the matter now, sweetheart?”

Jana picked up Ryan and began to rock him, as well. “Start back at the beginning. What exactly happened?” She spoke in baby talk, the way most women do when they talk to babies, and although she never looked away from Ryan, I knew the words were directed toward me.

I glanced toward Dylan, who was now busy following Hunter as he commando-crawled toward the back wall. I whispered, “He’d been at the conference in Los Angeles all day. I was wondering if he was going to stop by for dinner on his way back to Santa Barbara that night, so I called several times. It went straight to voice mail, which is not surprising, since he was probably in a meeting. I never left a message, but he always calls me when he sees my caller ID on the missed calls. He never did.

“So, just as I was starting dinner, I called one last time. It was on the fourth ring and I was just about to hang up when he finally answered. There was a lot of noise in the background.

“I said, ‘Hi. It’s me. I’ve been trying to reach you.’

“He said something to the effect of, ‘Really? I guess I haven’t even looked at my missed calls.’ His voice got really quiet. ‘It’s been a crazy day, I’ll tell you that.’ ”

She waited.

“And then I heard people cheer and a woman’s voice asking for some peanuts. He was at a Dodgers game. With another woman.”

“Oh, Grace.” She patted my hand, but then her eyes narrowed. “So he confessed.”

“He said a bunch of people from the conference were at the game. Including Daria, this insanely beautiful client of his. He got defensive when I asked what other people were there, and we yelled some—me mostly—and hung up.”

I looked down at Emma, whose eyes were closing with each downward stroke of the rocker. “Needless to say, the conversation the next day did not go well. He was mad at me for being so jealous all the time; I was mad at him for being . . . well, I don’t know, untrustworthy, I guess.”

“You’ve been together for a couple of years. Has he done anything that would lead you to believe you can’t trust him?” Jana bounced Ryan on her knees.

I shook my head. “Not that I know of. But the point is, I’m perfectly fine on my own. If we were to get married, if Steve really became part of Dylan’s life, and then he decided he was happier without us, well, I just couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t watch my son go through something like that. It nearly crushed me as a twenty-year-old. How can I expect a child to survive something like that?”

“Just because Chase was a jerk doesn’t mean every man is. Rob and I have been together through some really hard times. I mean, you know, you were there—at least on the other end of the phone line for hours at a time—during all the infertility treatment and the miscarriages. You know how hormonal I got. He was a rock through the entire time.”

“You” —I stood with Emma and carried her to the nearest crib—“did manage to land one of the only perfect men around. Unfortunately, that took one of them off the market and greatly decreased the odds for the rest of us.”

“Perfect? No. But wonderful, yes. I think there are still a few more out there. In fact, I’d go out on a limb here and say that Steve definitely qualifies.”

“Maybe he did. But, like I said, that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”

“If you’re going for a walk, hurry back. That boy of yours wakes up kinda whiny. I don’t blame you, necessarily. That’s what happens when you raise a boy with no men in the house. They just don’t learn to man up.”

The last thing I needed on a Monday morning was this from my father. “Man up? You think a four-year-old needs to learn to man up?” How my eyeballs remained inside my face at this point, I don’t know, because my entire head was about to spontaneously combust.

“I didn’t mean it that way, exactly. What I meant was, if there was a man in the house, Dylan would be a lot less emotional, too. Wouldn’t be carrying that stuffed bear around with him.”

Not quite six in the morning, and I’d already listened to half an hour’s worth of Dad’s tirades against politicians, fat-cat doctors, and most anyone who wasn’t like Dad. That’s when I’d come up with the idea of going for a quick walk. I’d decided I needed to get out of here if I were going to play the role of the caring daughter at the hospital today. I pushed back from the table. “I’ll keep my walk short.” What I really wanted to do was grab my son, race out the door, and never come back.

Twelve more days, only twelve more days. I needed to do this. I was going to prove to Jana that I didn’t always bolt when things got hard. And I didn’t. I’d kept my son, in spite of the fact that there were other options available, and I’d done a good job of raising him so far. That should’ve counted for something.

“Mama, I don’t feel so good.” Dylan’s voice came from the hallway behind me. It was extra high-pitched, and I didn’t have to wonder what my dad thought of it.

I turned around, surprised to see that Dylan’s face did seem perhaps a bit flushed. “Oh, Dylan, what feels bad?” I sat back down and extended my arms toward my son, chancing a quick glance toward my father.

His expression was every bit as smug and disapproving as I expected. He looked from me, to Dylan, to Frederick—Dylan’s bear—and I could read his thoughts now as easily as if he’d spoken out loud.
Whiner.

Dylan crawled into my lap and laid his head on my shoulder. “Everything. Well, my nose is runny and . . .” He started coughing.

Great. A bad cold was all we needed at this point. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you play in that sandbox yesterday.” I thought of the little plastic turtle. It had a lid, but even if it was always covered, kids with all their germs digging into the same small bit of sand—well, it couldn’t be very hygienic. I felt his forehead. “You don’t feel terribly hot. You probably just caught a cold. Let’s go get you some juice. Does your tummy feel okay?”

“I think so.”

I removed him from my lap and set him on the seat beside mine, careful not to look at my father again. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out the organic apple juice I’d had to drive all the way to Lawrenceburg yesterday to find. “You drink a little of this, okay?”

“ ’Kay.” He leaned over and laid his head on my father’s shoulder. “Hi, Grandpa.”

“Hey there, little man. Having trouble getting in gear this morning?”

“You know what, Dylan? You probably shouldn’t sit so near your grandfather. We don’t want him to catch your cold. After all, he’s having surgery on his knee today.”

Dylan slid over, folded his arms on the table, and rested his forehead against them. “I’m tired.”

I was ready for my dad to spit out something about manning up, and how he’d already slept half the day away, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked at Dylan with concern in his eyes, then looked up at me. “What’s the matter with him?”

“A bad cold, I guess.” I put my hand on Dylan’s forehead again. “He’s maybe a little warm. Do you have a thermometer?”

“I’m sure there’s one around here somewhere. Your mom was always and forever checking y’alls temperatures.” He stared out in the distance as if seeing the scene. “Look up in that cabinet above the sink. I’d bet that’s where it is.”

I pulled a chair from the kitchen table and climbed up on it to see what might be inside the cabinet. Memories flashed through my mind of watching my mother standing on this very chair, rummaging through this same cabinet, while saying things like, “Oh, darlin’, don’t you worry. You’ll be feeling better in no time,” or, “Judging from the look of that knee, I’d say you slide into first base with more effort than anyone out there.” I missed the comforting sweetness of her voice. Jana had inherited it, along with our mother’s wispy blond hair, leaving me with Dad’s gravelly speech and stick-straight black hair. Those were the only two things we had in common.

Inside the cabinet, there were several dusty prescription bottles, along with some long-expired Tylenol and Aspirin. Toward the back, there was a small wooden bowl. I pulled it out and climbed down so I could more easily view the contents. I found a nice supply of Band-Aids, ancient Neosporin, and what looked like a black plastic pen. I unscrewed the cap and pulled out an old mercury-filled glass thermometer. “You know what? Maybe this afternoon I’ll run to the pharmacy and pick him up some Echinacea, lemon juice, and honey. While I’m there, I’ll get a digital thermometer.”

“What’s wrong with that one?”

“It’s got mercury in it.”

“So what? It’s inside a tube of glass.”

“Well, if that glass breaks, it’s a very big deal.”

“I seem to recall breaking a few of those things over the years. Only problem I remember was it was hard to clean up, ’cause it all sort of came apart in little liquid balls. What do you think is going to happen? He’s going to lean down and lick it up? I tell you what. Every single kid you were raised around and went to school with had their temperature taken with one of these thermometers. Far as I know, they’re all alive to tell the tale.”

“Yes, and I guess we should drive around without seat belts and air bags just because that’s the way you used to do it. Just because I never had a problem with a broken mercury thermometer doesn’t mean that Dylan won’t.”

“Ah, parents are so uptight about those things these days.” My dad leaned back in his chair and rubbed his right knee. “When you were little, we let kids be kids. We didn’t run around with antibacterial wipes, and we gave you vegetables from gardens that had fertilizer in them. Kids today, they’re growing up soft.”

“So you think we should pump our foods full of chemicals and smear our kids with germs?”

Dad ignored me.

“Bah. It’s just like those narcotics they’ll send home with me from the hospital. You don’t have to be a particularly smart person to know that those things can be addictive. Don’t mean I’m not going to take something when I need it just because there’s a little risk. That’s what we need more of these days, a little common sense and self-restraint.”

I set Dylan’s juice on the table beside him. It was in a blue plastic cup shaped like a snail, with a straw coming up from the back of his shell. Dylan didn’t lift his head.

“Hey, darling, do you think you could eat a little toast? We’ve got to get Grandpa to the hospital for his surgery here in a little while.”

Dylan looked up. “Okay. Will Hannah Rose be at the hospital, too?”

“Yes, she will. But you know what? Since you’re not feeling well, you need to stay away from her today, okay? We don’t want her getting sick.”

“Lord knows that kid has been sick enough.”

This was a fact I knew well. Hannah had been plagued with colic for the first few months; now it was recurrent ear infections.

“I can play with her, right? As long as I don’t get in her face?”

I turned toward Dylan and pulled his hair back from his cheek. “You can dance around like you did yesterday and see if you can make her laugh again, but you can’t touch her or get near her. Okay?”

“Okay, Mama.” He put his head down on the table again.

I reached forward and put my hand on his forehead, even though I’d already done so several times. “You know what? I think I’ll go get some liquid Tylenol out of my carryon just in case.” I never gave Dylan medication unless I knew for certain there was a valid reason to do so. But, with no safe thermometer, and my father’s impending surgery, I figured this morning might be the time to bend the rules.