The Homecoming Baby (18 page)

Trish moved away a foot or two, where she could surreptitiously check her reflection in the front glass. She still wasn't used to this haircut, and yet she thought she might look all right. She stood a little straighter, for one thing. And the hollows below her eyes weren't quite so deep.

Strange how, once she'd recovered from the shock of finding Patrick's papers, she awakened this morning actually feeling a good bit stronger.

It all had to come out in the open now, not just with Celia, but with everyone. When Trish had looked at those X-rays and reports, she'd realized a terrible truth. She'd been trying to forget what had happened thirty years ago. She'd been trying at all costs to change reality, to erase the pitiful Fatty Patty who had abandoned her helpless baby in that bathroom.

But while she'd been escaping by working long hours, rejecting frivolous pleasures and completely denying her sexuality, the truth of her youthful sins had still been out there.

Patrick had been living it.

So denial was no longer an option. It was time she paid the real consequences of what she'd done so long ago.

She still wasn't sure why the idea was so freeing. Maybe it was like hitting the infamous rocky bottom
of a long, terrible fall. Nowhere to go from there but up, and no one to start the climb but herself.

And this is where she'd decided to begin. Here at the Silver Eagle, with Mitch Dixon, who had been waiting far too long. With Mitch, who with any kind of luck, hadn't decided to give up on her for good.

Suddenly there he was, coming out of the kitchen with a sauce spoon in his hand. He looked so sweet she had to smile, in spite of everything.

“Hi,” he said. He paused. “Wow. You look great.”

She touched her hair self-consciously. “Thanks.” She kept her distance. “So do you.”

He looked down at his faded jeans and tugged at his polo shirt, which once had been blue but now was the color of a muddy chrome fender.

“It's the smell from the pineapple stains,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “It drives the women mad.”

The triplet at the cash register snorted, but her face was buried in the Want Ads again, so it was hard to be sure she was reacting to them.

Still, it was enough to remind them they had an audience.

He tilted his head toward the back. “Want to go into my office?”

Trish shook her head. This was her moment to show things were truly going to be different. That
she
was going to be different. Braver. More open and honest.

She wasn't going to let one silly airhead triplet frighten her off now.

“That's all right,” she said. “I have something to tell you, and I don't really care who hears it.”

Mitch widened his eyes.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “If you don't mind, I don't.”

The newspaper was suspiciously still. Trish knew the triplet was listening intently, but she was pleased to discover she truly didn't care.

She took a bracing breath.

“I just wanted to tell you—” She started over. “About selling the restaurant. I hope you won't. I want you to stay.”

Mitch's eyes narrowed, but he didn't react any other way. “You want me to stay?” He repeated the words as if they weren't in a language he completely understood.

“Yes. I want you to stay. I would miss you terribly if you left. I care about you very much.”

He chewed his lower lip and continued to watch her. “As a friend?”

“Yes,” she said. “And as a man.”

The newspaper rustled, and from behind it they heard a snuffling, smothered laughter.

“Jeannie,” Mitch said in a commanding voice. He didn't look away from Trish.

The triplet lowered her paper slowly. “Yeah?”

“Go tell Julio he can make whatever sauce he wants tonight.”

The paper fell to the counter. The triplet put her hands on her hips. “No way,” she said. “For real?”

He still didn't look at her. He held out the sauce spoon. “For real. Right now. Take this.”

The girl didn't do anything very fast, so it took her a while to grab the spoon and leave the room. But, when they were finally alone, Mitch came over to Trish and put his hands on her upper arms.

“That really did just happen, didn't it? You really said that?” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “I didn't just imagine it?”

She shook her head. “No. I'm sorry I've been acting like such a martyr, Mitch. I do care about you. I've cared about you for a long, long time.”

He moved in closer. “Then how about if I kiss you?”

She took another deep breath. “Not yet. I have something I have to tell you first. If, after you hear it, you still want to kiss me, you won't get an argument.”

He put his lips on her throat. “How about if we have the kiss first, and you tell me later?”

She shut her eyes and gathered courage. “No. This is important. It's quite possible you won't want to kiss me after you hear it. I would rather know that now.”

He lifted his head and gazed at her, as if he'd heard the sadness in her voice.

“There's nothing you could tell me that would make me stop wanting to kiss you, Trish. Nothing.”

“I hope that's true. But you don't know how bad it is. You can't really even imagine—”

“Sure I can. I'll have you know I am blessed with an excellent imagination.” He looked at her speculatively. “Let me guess. Sometimes the story goes that you killed your sister and Tee Ellis in a PMS-induced fit of jealousy. Is that what you're going to tell me?”

Trish's whole body turned to ice. People really said things like that? And all this time she thought she'd been such an inconspicuous little mouse.

“Are you crazy, Mitch? Of course not.”

“Good, because I'd still want to kiss you, but we'd have to cut it short so we could go find you a good lawyer.”

“Mitch, please. Be serious.”

“I am being serious. That's the part you don't get, Trish. I love you. I don't give a damn what you've done, or what you feel the need to confess. Tell me if it will make you feel better to get it off your chest, but don't tell me because you think it will scare me away. I don't scare easy.”

“All right. Then just let me get on with it before I lose my courage.”

She was glad his hands were on her arms. They felt like crutches, helping her to stand up straight.

“For the past thirty years, I've been living a lie,” she said. “I'm the girl who left her baby on the bathroom floor at the Homecoming Dance that night. Not Angelina. Me.” She took a shaky breath. “Patrick Torrance is my son.”

He smiled at her.

“Yeah, I guess I figured that out about a week ago.
So what's wrong? Did you kill him to shut him up about it?”

She frowned. “Mitch, don't be ridiculous. This isn't a joke—”

He raised his eyebrows. “Well, did you kill
anybody?
”

“Of course not.”

He grinned happily and pulled her hard against his chest.

“Then shut up, Trish Linden, and kiss me.”

C
ELIA WASN'T QUITE SURE HOW
she got through the next few days.

Work helped. She could immerse herself in her patients' problems and temporarily forget her own.

Some of them were struggling with issues so much bigger—it made her too ashamed to waste time feeling sorry for herself.

Rose Gallen, for instance. In a possessive, testosterone-driven fit, Tad had decided to fight for custody of their unborn child. Celia was probably going to have to testify about how he'd threatened her. At least a dozen other people had been called to talk about his drinking.

Rose would probably win. But still, the battle was terrifying, and her pregnancy began to develop small complications that frightened her still more.

Compared to things like that, Celia's problems were trivial.

The worst of Celia's fears, that Trish would go into an emotional decline, had proved unfounded. In fact, after the initial horror of finding out about Patrick's abusive childhood, Trish had seemed to grow strangely calmer.

Just two days after she discovered Patrick's papers, Trish told Celia the time had come to announce the truth publicly. Shortly after that, she'd gathered everyone at The Birth Place together to tell them as a group.

It had been an amazing moment. She didn't go into details, but she shared the basic facts with an enormous amount of dignity. As she talked, Celia watched, and marveled that, though Trish still seemed to possess a deep, sad core, she had acquired a new poise and maturity that were very becoming.

And yet, at the same time, she seemed ten years younger, as if the weight of secrecy and uncertainty had been crushing her into the ground. As if even knowing the worst was better than not knowing at all.

Or maybe the joy of simply being able to lay eyes on the son she thought she'd lost forever had restored her life to her.

After the meeting, everyone in town knew. In Enchantment, good gossip spread fast. Some people had been shocked—but others had contended that they'd suspected all along.

Almost everyone, from the janitor up at the high school, who had found the Homecoming Baby first, to the mothers-to-be at The Birth Place, who knew just how hard pregnancy could be at the best of time, had been completely supportive.

But Patrick himself had disappeared.

“Celia, have you seen Katherine Collins?” Devon Grant stuck her head into Celia's Birth Place office. “I need to ask her about the Moreno case.”

Katherine was one of the midwives, and judging from the tight look on Devon's face, Katherine must have done something unorthodox. Devon had arrived in Enchantment the day after Lydia's heart attack. She'd spent the first two days at Lydia's bedside, but after that she'd pitched right in at the clinic, filling in for her grandmother.

The only problem was that Devon and Lydia didn't quite see the role of the midwife exactly the same way. While Lydia was highly intuitive and inclined to take the “earth mother” approach to midwifery, Devon was cutting-edge, high-tech, all business.

“No, I haven't seen her,” Celia said. She smiled. “Not many of the midwives make it up here to the second floor.”

Devon pushed a stray hair out of her face and returned the smile. Her gray eyes were so like Lydia's that Celia was amazed every time she looked into them.

“I guess not,” she said. She gestured toward Celia's empty patient chair. “So… Are you busy right now?”

Celia shook her head. “I'm done for the day. Have a seat.”

Devon sat with a small groan. She worked very hard, long hours. The only person Celia had ever seen who worked harder was Lydia herself.

“I've been hearing a lot of gossip about you and Patrick Torrance,” Devon said without preamble. She wasn't the type to beat around the bush—again like her grandmother. “Apparently it was pretty hot and
heavy there for a while. Are you doing okay now that he's gone?”

Celia shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “I knew all along he wouldn't be staying. He's some big investment analyst in San Francisco. Enchantment doesn't hold much appeal for that kind of man.”

Devon began to play with the art-glass wind chime that hung on a wall bracket just beside Celia's desk. Celia knew what that meant. Nine out of ten of her patients would begin to play with the wind chime when they reached an intense moment in therapy.

“I've also been hearing some other things,” Devon said with an elaborately casual air. “Things about Patrick Torrance's adoption. I gather Lydia set it up. People are saying he went to parents who turned out to be terribly abusive.”

Celia paused. How on earth had that piece of information slipped out? She didn't realize anyone knew it except for Trish, Mitch, Lydia and Celia herself. And none of them would have been likely to toss it around cavalierly.

“I think there were some problems,” Celia equivocated. She didn't feel comfortable sharing too much. It wasn't her story to tell. “If you need to know more, maybe you should ask Trish, or even your grandmother.”

Devon made a skeptical sound and ran her fingers roughly through the chimes.

“No point asking Lydia,” she said. “She'd just think I was trying to criticize her for arranging another adoption that turned out badly.”

Celia waited a second while the sound of the notes died away. “Well? Is that what you'd be doing, Devon?”

Devon frowned, as if she might decide the question was insulting. Then she tugged on her ponytail and leaned back in the chair.

“Okay,” she said. “Maybe that
is
what I'm thinking. But I can't help it. I profoundly disapprove of this clinic getting involved in adoptions at all. The ones we've handled certainly haven't seemed to go very smoothly, have they?”

Celia chose her answer carefully. She didn't know all the details about the adoptions Devon was referring to. Some of the information she did have was not much more than common gossip, and she refused to set much store by that.

“I believe that some situations are so stressful that there really isn't a perfect answer,” she said finally. “I believe that Lydia always does the very best she can at any given moment. Can any of us say more than that?”

Devon started to speak, but suddenly her posture changed. Her gray eyes went cloudy and thoughtful. She plucked pensively at her slacks.

After a moment she sighed and looked over at Celia.

“No,” she said, flushing subtly. “In fact, most of us can't even swear to that much.”

“Amen,” Celia said with feeling. The two of them shared a rueful smile.

After another minute, Devon said goodbye, but Celia wasn't really listening.

She didn't know what foolish memory had come to Devon's mind, but she knew exactly what had come to her own.

Patrick's blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight, that first day at the ghost town. Patrick's dark eyes shining in the shadows, that night in the courtyard archway. Patrick's fevered eyes glowing in the moonlight, that night on Red Rock Bridge.

So could she honestly say she always did the best she could? Hardly. From the minute she'd met Patrick Torrance, she had been weak, naive, gullible and insanely self-indulgent.

And the worst thing of all was…she loved him still.

She didn't even have the sense to be glad he was gone.

 

T
HE NEXT NIGHT
, The Silver Eagle was in crisis. The triplets had quit. They'd found new jobs modeling underwear for a catalog company, and they'd turned in their name tags without offering Mitch more than about fifteen minutes notice.

So once again Trish and Celia had been pressed into service. Trish had been running the cash register all night, and Celia had been waiting tables.

Celia didn't mind, though by eleven o'clock she was worn out. But better to fall into bed numb and exhausted than to lie there for hours thinking about Patrick's eyes.

Except for a couple of tourists, a honeymoon cou
ple who were playing footsie over a final coffee, Gina Vaughn and her husband were the last customers. After going through some tough times, Gina and Zach were working on their marriage—and judging from the cuddling in booth six, Celia deduced things were going well in that department.

Trish and Mitch were equally mushy, when they had time to be. They'd been exchanging lingering looks and stealing little nipping kisses for hours.

Celia tried to be happy—she had waited so long to see Trish find this kind of joy. She tried not to be jealous. She tried not to feel like the only woman in Enchantment who wasn't happily in love tonight.

Finally the tourists managed to tear themselves apart long enough to walk over and pay their bill. Even Gina and Zach seemed to be waking up to the real world again. Celia breathed a sigh of relief. Her feet were hurting, her heart was hurting, and she wanted to go home.

When the bell over the front door rang again, she cursed softly. Why hadn't she remembered to throw the dead bolt? They were closed, darn it.

She turned, an apology on her lips. “I'm sorry, but we're—”

The words died when she saw him. It wasn't just another hungry tourist who couldn't read the hours posted on the sign.

It was Patrick.

“Hello, Celia,” he said.

He looked like one of her dreams, all black and blue and beautiful. She hardly knew what to say.
Where was all her bracing indignation? Where were the words that would toss him out on his ear, where he belonged?

Somehow, over the past three days without him, her fury seemed to have shriveled to a weak, shadowy imitation of anger. But how was that possible? She was still angry, darn it. She was still hurt. She still hated what he'd done…

So why couldn't she summon up a single one of those emotions now that he was standing before her?

“What are you doing here?” That was the best she could do. And to her horror her voice was shaking. It didn't sound righteous and scathing. It sounded sad.

She toughened it. “It's late. You shouldn't have come.”

To her surprise, Trish was at her elbow. She was looking at Patrick, a warmth in her blue eyes that even Celia recognized as love.

“Hello,” Trish said. “I was hoping you'd come back.”

He nodded. “I came as soon as I could. I had to wrap up a few things in San Francisco first.”

To Celia's surprise, he looked both humble and nervous. “I hope I haven't come at a bad time,” he said. “I'd like to talk to you alone for a minute.”

She followed his gaze. He wasn't asking Celia. He was asking Trish.

Celia was about to intervene, to say no, he most certainly could not take Trish off alone, where he might say things to hurt her. Trish had friends here, and they would protect her.

But Trish spoke first.

“Of course,” she said to Patrick. She put her hand on Celia's arm. “Don't look so worried,” she said with a small smile. “I'll be all right.”

And so Trish and Patrick sat down together at the last booth, by the front window, so far away that Celia couldn't hear a single word they were saying. She turned and went instead to booth six, where Gina and Zach were still whispering and giggling like newlyweds.

They looked up when Celia arrived, and glanced around the restaurant, obviously conscience-stricken.

“Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. We're the very last ones, aren't we?”

But then Gina's gaze lit on the booth where Patrick and Trish were sitting. Her mouth widened in surprise, and she wrinkled her freckled nose. “Oh, my gosh. Celia! Isn't that…?”

Celia nodded. “Yes, it is,” she said as blandly as she could. “So do you guys need anything else?”

Gina shook her head, still transfixed by the sight of Patrick. Celia understood then just exactly how much gossip had been going around about the whole thing. Gina turned to Celia. “Is he? I mean, are you two—?”

Zach, who at six foot three towered over his wife, looked uncomfortable. “You're embarrassing her, Gina. Leave it alone.”

But Gina still hadn't taken her eyes off Patrick. “You know, I don't think I ever realized quite how
fantastic this guy is,” she said. “I mean, I'd seen him from a distance, but… Wow! He is to die for!”

Celia didn't see how she was going to disagree without looking either like a liar or a blind woman, but luckily Zach came to the rescue.

“Hey,” he said, putting his big, strong arm possessively around his tiny wife. “You'd better remember you're spoken for, lady.”

That was all it took. Though Zach was hardly “to die for,” apparently he was still the man of Gina's dreams. She turned her back on Patrick Torrance, and settled into her husband's arms.

“You big silly,” she said. “You know I wouldn't trade you for anybody in the world. Take me home and make me a happy woman.”

After they left, Mitch and Celia found themselves alone. They stood together for a moment, looking at Patrick and Trish, who were still deep in conversation.

Finally, with an irritable grunt, Mitch grabbed a couple of towels, tossed one to Celia and turned toward the kitchen.

“We might as well get things cleaned up. Those two look as if they could talk all night.”

They worked hard, and silently. Neither one of them seemed in the mood to share the truth of their thoughts. But an hour later, right in the middle of wiping down the oven, Mitch simply ground to a halt.

“To heck with this,” he said. “By God, I have a right to know what's going on out there.”

He looked at Celia. “You coming?”

She hesitated. What Mitch said was true. He did have a right to know. He and Trish were a couple, a partnership in every way. Celia, on the other hand, really had no official status here, not with Trish—and certainly not with Patrick.

“Oh, come on,” Mitch said. “It won't do anybody any good if you stay back in here breaking your heart over the whole thing.”