A Weekend Getaway (21 page)

She peered inside. Lights glowed from the ceiling, but she
couldn’t see any people.

They’d missed it. They’d missed everything.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Beth pounded on the glass door with her fist.

Parker cupped his hands and looked inside. “Are you sure you
have the right address?”

She took a few steps back and pointed to the metal letters
spelling “Dallas Museum of Art” above the door. Behind her a fountain splashed.

Parker knocked. “Hello?”

A stout man wearing a security uniform approached. He pushed
open the door. “May I help you?”

She tried to catch her breath. “We’re here for the high
school art show.”

Parker chimed in. “It’s an awards ceremony.”

The man rubbed his stubbly chin. “You’re late.”

As they rushed past, she nodded. “We know.” She followed
where the guard pointed and hustled across the wooden floors. Adults and
children milled around in the gallery adorned with students’ artwork. Beth
scanned the crowd for a familiar face. “Do you see her?”

Parker cracked his knuckles. “No.”

Then Beth spotted her. She saw her baby.

In the corner Hannah chewed on her thumbnail and looked
around nervously. She wore the burgundy pantsuit Beth had picked out on-line.

The hairs on the back of Beth’s neck rose. “This is it.”

In an instant, Beth recognized Mrs. Taylor, too. With her
auburn hair, she looked the same as Beth remembered except for the early signs
of crow’s feet bracketing her light eyes. She stood beside Hannah, twisting her
wedding band.

Signaling for Parker to follow, Beth rushed up to them and
was thrown when she realized she stood a couple inches shorter than her
daughter. “Hannah? I’m Beth. Bethany.” Instinctively, Beth reached forward to
hug her, but Hannah stepped back. Instead, her daughter offered her a
limp-wristed handshake.

Beth held her breath. Suddenly, she couldn’t find any words
to say. This was the moment she’d been worried about.

She took in her daughter’s features. Dark eyelashes framed
chocolate-colored eyes while shiny brown hair hung in waves over her shoulders.
She was thin and still sported a bit of a summer tan. “You’re so pretty.”

Hannah’s turned-up nose and cheeks turned red.
She gets that from me
, Beth thought.

Parker shook both of the ladies’ hands. “We did everything
we could to get here in time.”

Soft curls framed Mrs. Taylor’s forced smile. “I can’t
believe you drove all of this way. What was it? A fifteen hour drive?”

“Something like that.” Beth and Parker mumbled at the same
time. They looked at each other and said, “Jinx.” A giggle came from Beth and
she hated how dumb it sounded. Nerves had stripped her of her confidence.

Hannah pointed across the room with a blue ribbon in her
hand. “If you’re hungry, there’s a table with cookies over there.”

Even though her belly grumbled, Beth wouldn’t leave her
daughter for a moment. “No thanks. Is that your award?”

Hannah seemed reluctant to show off her prize. She held up
the blue ribbon that said “Best in Show.” Beth and Parker made a big fuss over
congratulating her.

“It’s nothing.” Hannah dropped her hand to her side. A
second later, she started chewing on her thumbnail again.

Shifting her weight, Beth wished Hannah seemed happier. “Which
picture is yours?”

Hannah led them all to a row of matted but not framed photos
hanging from a wire. “This is mine.” She gestured toward what looked like a
red, white and blue kaleidoscope image. “I did this for Veteran’s Day. Those
are photos I took of cardinal flowers, milkweed and blue-eyed grass.” She
half-smiled, causing her braces to twinkle in the bright lights.

Beth studied the diamond shapes, trying to make out each
flower. “That’s beautiful.” Up close it looked like nature and from a distance,
it looked like a patriotic abstract.

“How original,” Parker added. “Sorry again that we missed
the ceremony.”

“That’s all right.” Mrs. Taylor pushed Hannah’s bangs out of
her eyes the way only a mother can.

Beth’s heart ached watching them. Lost in a daze, she
thought Mrs. Taylor said something about dinner reservations.

Parker shrugged. “We didn’t eat, hoping to make better
time.”

Before she knew it, they drove caravan-style to a restaurant
with a crowded parking lot. Without speaking, they walked inside. Mrs. Taylor
made her way through a group of people in the lobby to check-in with the
reservations desk. A hostess with a pixie-cut showed them to a thick wooden
table beneath a deer antler chandelier. Within minutes a waiter in black pants
and a crisp white shirt brought them water glasses and offered to take their
orders. The Taylors must’ve been regulars, knowing what they wanted without
checking the menu. Parker and Beth followed their lead and ordered the house
specialty, prime rib.

Beth folded and unfolded the cloth napkin in her lap,
wondering what to say. “I love your dress, Mrs. Taylor.”

“Call me Connie. And thank you. I got it at Neiman-Marcus
special for Hannah’s big night.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Mom always wears dresses with
flowers on them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Connie said.

“It’s so old-fashioned.”

Connie fiddled with the heart-shaped locket around her neck.
“Well, I like flowers.”

Beth kept watching Hannah, in awe that this nearly grown
woman had once fit in the crook of her arm. When Hannah caught her staring,
Beth glanced away and swallowed. “Mrs.
Tay
—I
mean Connie, I want to thank you for inviting me here today.” Parker chimed in
with similar sentiments.

Connie nodded. “Glad you could make it.”

Everyone took a sip of his or her drink. This was definitely
awkward. Beth looked around at the mismatched china plates hanging like artwork
on the dark paneled walls. The décor seemed odd to her—like a fancy log
cabin. Making eye contact with Parker, she wondered if he was as uncomfortable
as she was. He seemed to take the hint and kicked into small talk mode. “What
grade do you teach, Connie?”

“Kindergarten.”

“I had the best kindergarten teacher, Miss Snodgrass. She’d
let us sit in bean bag chairs while she read stories. Do teachers still do
that?”

“Sure. Just today I read
Where
the Wild Things Are
.”

Parker nodded. “A classic.”

Hannah’s cell phone buzzed and she read the screen. “Molly
just got her acceptance letter to Texas A & M!” She continued texting under
the table. It seemed kind of rude to Beth, but perhaps it was Hannah’s way of
dealing with her nerves.

The adult conversation transitioned to Hannah’s college
prospects and ceased when the food arrived a little while later.

The baked potato, stuffed with sour cream, butter and
chives, was so big, it could’ve been their entire meal. Worried that she’d eat
too much out of stress, Beth cut her steak in half. Then she imagined that one
side of it was invisible. The meat was tender and juicy, but she barely
noticed. She kept looking at Hannah—her peaked eyebrows, her dark eyes, her
rounded chin, even her attached earlobes. This was the cocktail that her and
Parker’s genes had created. Part Morris, part DuBois. What a perfect package.

After they all agreed they were full, the waiter cleared
their dishes. Hannah reached into her tiny hipster purse and found a mirror so
she could check her braces for food. When she seemed satisfied, she pulled out
a list. “I have some things I’d like to know. Like, how old were you when you
had me? Were you two in a serious relationship? Do I have any brothers or
sisters?”

Beth and Parker looked at each other as if willing the other
to speak.

Finally, Bethany took the lead. “I wasn’t much older than
you are now. Eighteen. Parker was twenty-one. But no, we never dated
seriously.”

Hannah tapped a pen on the table. “So you were friends with
benefits.”

“Hannah!” her mom said loudly in a chastising voice. She
wiped her mouth with the cloth napkin then picked at her baked potato.

“To be honest, we were really just friends who made a
mistake. It was a one night stand.” Bethany paused and twirled the straw in her
water glass. “What else did you ask? Oh, right. Siblings. No. I don’t have any
children.”

Parker’s eye twitched. “Me, neither.”

“Oh.” Hannah sounded disappointed. “But when I called your
house, Bethany, a little girl answered the phone.”

“She’s my niece. I mean, she’s my boyfriend’s niece.” She
cleared her throat. “Ex-boyfriend.” Her focus darted downward.

“Why didn’t you have more kids?”

No one spoke. Bethany shrugged her shoulders. “I was
thinking I would have a family someday, but it’s not looking too good at this
point.”

Parker tilted his head at Bethany and looked sympathetic. “I
thought about children, too, but my wife. . . .” He seemed to stumble on that
word. “She isn’t exactly the mothering type.”

“My mom said I should get an updated medical history from
both of you since some things have a genetic component.”

Beth made eye contact with Parker, whose square jaw fell
slightly ajar. She took a deep breath. “I don’t have much to report except a
terrible sweet tooth and a grandmother with diabetes.”

Hannah turned her attention to Parker.

He took a sip of his nearly empty water glass, the ice
rattling when he set it down. “Um.” He ran his hand through his thick, brown
hair. “I don’t have anything to add.” He started to choke. He coughed and
coughed.

Beth patted his back. “Are you okay?”

He nodded and continued to cough. “Excuse me.” He stood and
walked away.

# # #

As she and Parker strolled down the hall toward their hotel
rooms, Beth couldn’t believe she’d just met Hannah. She bumped Parker’s hand.
“Oops. Sorry.” Her adrenaline, which was already ramped up, skyrocketed from
the touch.

He smiled at her. “We have a daughter. We just ate dinner
with our daughter.”

She loved that he was as excited about seeing Hannah as she
was. This was his second encounter with the girl, after all. “I think it went
well, don’t you?”

“Except for the scuffle with Connie about my paying the
restaurant bill.” He chuckled. “As if I’d ever let her pay.”

A fast-walking couple approached rolling two suitcases. Beth
moved to the side to let them pass and held on to her thoughts for an extra
minute. “I’m scared Hannah doesn’t want anything more from us than the answers
to some questions.”

“We’re still strangers to her.”

She didn’t like the way this conversation was going. She’d
lost Emma, the closest thing she had to a little girl of her own. And she was
getting too old to find a new guy, fall in love, get married and have a baby.
Hannah would have to be it. “I want to know everything about her. And I want
her to know everything about me.”

“She caught me off-guard with that medical question.”

“Yeah. You choked. Literally.”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe I lied. I just wasn’t
ready to tell her.” They slowed down as they located their side-by-side rooms.

“It wasn’t the right time.”

Neither of them unlocked their door. Instead, they rehashed
the evening’s events as if they couldn’t savor them enough.

Beth pulled her hair into a ponytail, then let it drop. “I
can’t believe how tall she is! Taller than me.”

“But not too tall. I hear it’s hard for women if they’re
taller than most men.”

“I wouldn’t know.” At five-foot-four, she’d always been
shorter than any guy she met. “I’m glad she didn’t inherit my body type.” He
didn’t argue and she allowed it to hurt her.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” He smiled like a proud papa.

They had to move to the side of the hall to let three hotel
guests walk by.

After about an hour, a bald man in a robe stuck his head out
of a neighboring room and asked the two of them to keep their voices down. Beth
apologized.

Parker inserted the key card into his door and lowered his
volume. “See you for breakfast.”

“Sure.” Once she walked into her room, her body went through
her bedtime routine while her mind danced in the clouds. She’d been reunited
with her baby. Her baby had spunk and freckles and combined the best of Beth
and Parker.

Of course, after she put on her
p.j.’s
and climbed into bed, she couldn’t sleep.

# # #

As early as deemed polite, Parker drove Bethany to the
Taylors’s house the next morning. Right away, he noticed a blue vintage Mustang
parked by the road with a “For Sale” sign taped in its front window. For a
moment he was torn between checking out the car and rushing to the front door.
He chose to walk with Beth to ring the bell, of course.

Hannah opened the door in a Yale T-shirt and blue jeans. She
didn’t wear a drop of makeup, which for some reason, caused him relief. He
hated to think of his little girl trying to attract the attention of boys.

They exchanged greetings and he couldn’t help but point his
thumb toward the car. “Who’s Mustang is that?”

Hannah led them into the kitchen, which was sunny and
bright. “It was my dad’s. Mom said it doesn’t make sense to keep it any
longer.”

“Don’t you have a license?”

She sighed. “I do, but the car’s a stick shift. Dad always
said he’d teach me how to drive one, but. . . .”

Connie, her auburn hair pulled back in a loose bun, sipped a
mug painted with “World’s Best Teacher” and an apple. She folded up a newspaper
and set it down on the counter. “Would either of you like a cup of coffee?”

He and Beth declined before he continued with his train of
thought. “My father had a 1965 Mustang just like that one out front. Only it
was red like that apple on your mug. If it’s all right with you, Connie, I could
teach Hannah to drive.”

Hannah’s eyes grew wide and for once, she didn’t try to hide
her braces. “Really?” Her attention turned to Connie. “Can he? Please, Mom?
Then it could be my car when I go off to college.”