“I understand that you and Joelle are willing to sacrifice your own happiness for someone who doesn’t need you to make those sacrifices,” Carlynn said, and he recoiled from her suddenly forceful tone. “And I’m willing to bet,” she continued, “that if Mara could talk, from all you and Joelle have told me about her, she wouldn’t want you to make them, either. She’d want Joelle to take care of you and Sam the way only a woman who adores you both can do.”

“I thought you were supposedly trying to heal Mara,” he said. “Or have you just been playing with Joelle? Playing with both of us?”

“I’ve been working very hard,” Carlynn said. “But you’re right. It hasn’t been Mara that I’ve been attempting to heal. She doesn’t need my help, Liam, I’ve known that from the start. It’s you and Joelle who need healing. Look at Mara. She’s always smiling. Have you ever seen her appear to be suffering?”

He didn’t respond. They both knew the answer to her question.

He stared out the window, collecting his thoughts. “If I give in to my feelings for Joelle,” he said, “it feels like I’m betraying my wife.”

“You’re not abandoning Mara, dear.” Carlynn’s tone softened. “You and Joelle can’t possibly hurt her by loving each other, and you don’t need to be divorced for you and Joelle to be married in your hearts. The happier you are, the more strength you’ll have to give to Mara. And to your little boy. I believe you have a responsibility to your child…to your children…to live a full and happy life.”

“Children.” He repeated the word more to himself than to her.

“Right now,” Carlynn leaned forward, her arms folded on the table, “you have a choice. You can go be with Mara, who feels very, very little, and who will be smiling whether you’re there or not. Or you can go and be with Joelle, who still feels everything—fear and love and worry—and who is feeling all those things right now as she prays to hold on to your child. You decide who needs you more.”

“Will you go see her?” he asked.

“Yes, of course I will. But I can’t take your place, Liam. Not at her side, and not in her heart.”

He left the lobby, but he didn’t go near the Women’s Wing for fear that someone would corner him to tell him that Joelle was asking for him. There was someplace else he needed to go first.

Mara was sleeping when he went into her room at the nursing home. He closed the door behind him, wanting privacy with his wife.

“Mara?”

Lowering the railing on her bed, he sat next to her as she opened her eyes. She smiled at him, let out her squeal, and he leaned forward to kiss her.

“I need to talk with you, honey,” he said. He reached across her body for her right hand, the hand that would feel his presence. “I’m struggling, Mara,” he said. “I love you. I’d give anything to make you whole again. You’ve been so wonderful for me. You’ve given me so much joy.” He ran his free hand over her too-long hair. “And a beautiful son,” he said. “The years we spent together were truly the best years of my life. But they’re over now, and I need to let go of them.” He smiled sadly. “You’ve already done that, in your own way, haven’t you?”

She was staring at him, her eyes huge and riveting, but her smile had not changed.

“I’ve fallen in love with Joelle, Mara,” he said. “We have one really huge thing in common, and that’s you. We both love you. We both want to take care of you. And I want you to know that I’ll always be here for you. I’ll never stop visiting you, no matter what else happens in my life.”

He ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “But I’m having a hard time letting go of you,” he said. “I don’t want to feel as though I’m betraying you. I love you so much.” He looked hard into her eyes. “I wish you could give me a sign, somehow. Squeeze my hand. Blink your eyes. Let me know it’s okay for me to move on.”

He studied her, and she smiled at him with the same vacuous smile that meant nothing other than the corners of her mouth were upturned. It was the only sign she was able to give him, and the only sign he needed.

Letting go of her hand, he brushed a strand of her hair back from her face. “Thanks, honey,” he said. Then he leaned forward to kiss her goodbye.







39






“ONE THING YOU’VE GOT GOING FOR YOU,” LYDIA, THE NURSE who was taking care of Joelle, said as she unwrapped the blood pressure cuff from her arm, “is good blood pressure.”

Joelle nodded from the bed in one of the antenatal rooms, but didn’t open her eyes. If she opened her eyes, the room would start spinning again.

Carlynn was at her side, holding her hand, and she was grateful for the stabilizing force of that gentle grip.

“It’s 7:00 p.m.,” Lydia said. “Am I correct in assuming you don’t want anything to eat?”

Joelle nodded again, but this time with a smile. “You’re correct,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll want anything to eat ever again.”

The magnesium sulfate made her feel hot and sick, as she knew it would, but she welcomed the drug into her veins because it gave her baby a chance to stay inside her longer. The monitor strapped to her belly let her know the baby was still all right; she could hear the comforting sound of the heartbeat, the whooshing reminding her of the underwater sound of whales or dolphins trying to find their way home.

“You don’t have to stay here,” she said to Carlynn without opening her eyes. “I’m pretty boring.”

“I’m not here for the entertainment,” Carlynn said, and Joelle managed another smile.

She was trying hard to stay calm. That seemed important, somehow, as though her calmness could prevent her cervix from dilating one more centimeter. Three or four centimeters would be “the point of no return” in a woman experiencing premature labor, Rebecca had said. She would be delivering her baby, then, ten weeks early, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. They’d given her a first shot of betamethasone, just in case, but that would take time to have any effect on her baby’s lungs.

She should call her parents, but she didn’t want them to worry or to come down to Monterey just to watch her lie in bed with a monitor strapped to her belly. If it looked as though she was going to have to deliver, then she’d have someone call them, but not before.

Even though she knew every nurse in the unit, and each of them had come in to see how she was doing, she still felt lonely. And no one—not her parents, not the nurses, not even Carlynn sitting next to her—could take the place of the person she was longing for.

Joelle could hear Lydia moving around the room, and she imagined the nurse was checking her monitor and the IV bottle. Suddenly she heard a voice at the door.

“May I come in?”

Liam. Her eyes flew open, and the room gave a quick spin before settling down again. Liam was poking his head in the open door, and she felt tears burn her eyes, she was so happy to see him there.

“Sure,” Lydia said, heading for the door. “Buzz me if you need me, Joelle.”

Liam walked into the room, and Carlynn let go of her hand and stood up.

“Since Liam’s here, I’m going to take a break and get a cup of tea, dear, all right?” Carlynn asked her.

“Of course, Carlynn,” she said. “Thanks for being here.”

Liam held the door open for Carlynn, then walked around the bed to sit in the chair she had vacated.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” She squinted, trying to get a better look at him in the dim light of the room. “Oh, God, Liam, your face.”

“You should see the other guy.”

She tried to read the expression on his wounded face. His smile was small, maybe tender, maybe sheepish. She wasn’t sure.

“Are you in tons of pain?” she asked.

“I bet not as much as you are,” he said. “They’ve really got you hooked up here.”

“Hear her heartbeat?” she asked. They had talked so little about this baby that she was almost afraid to draw attention to the sound filling the room.

“She sounds healthy and strong,” he said.

“God, I hope so.”

“You’re not feeling at all well, are you,” he said. It was not a question, and she knew she must look as terrible as she felt.

“The mag sulfate,” she said. “It’s making me sick.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and she wondered if he was apologizing out of sympathy over her nausea or for something more than that. “You look stiff, like you’re afraid to move,” he said.

He was right. She could feel the intentional rigidity in her body.

“I’m afraid that if I move, I’ll throw up,” she said.

“The basin’s right next to your head.”

She made a face. “I don’t want to throw up in front of you.”

He smiled at that. “I’ve been cleaning up baby upchuck and changing nasty diapers for more than a year now,” he said. “I think I can handle it. So if you need to, you go right ahead.”

“Thanks.” She felt almost instantly better having been given that permission, and she felt her body begin to relax.

“Can you explain to me what’s going on?” he asked.

She told him about the two centimeters dilation, about the mag sulfate, the betamethasone and the baby’s fragile lungs. “If she’s born now, and she makes it, she could have severe problems,” she said. “Cerebral palsy. Respiratory problems. Brain damage.” She expected him to flee from the room at that last one, but he stayed in his seat.

“Is there a chance she could be born now and be all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “With a lot of luck and good medical care in the NICU.”

Liam sighed. “I seem to jinx my women when it comes to delivering babies.”

The sentiment itself meant nothing to her, but the fact that he’d included her in “his women” meant everything.