A Weekend Getaway (5 page)

Beth’s neck and shoulder muscles
tensed. “I do have to consider that.” She hated how selfish it sounded when she
heard it out loud.

“He’s dying, Beth.” Her voice
soft as a breeze. “His only regret is not having children. You could grant him
that wish.”

“Maybe I could write him a
letter.”

Sarah looked down her nose in
the way she probably did when her kids disappointed her. “You owe him more than
that. You need to be there to answer all of his questions.”

Beth sighed as they approached
the hotel room. She stopped a few steps away from the door and took another
deep breath. “All right.” Trying to imagine revealing her secret, she wrung her
hands. Her stomach twisted itself into a knot. “It’s better if I talk to him by
myself.”

After a hug, Sarah excused
herself. Stalling, Beth watched her go until she disappeared up the massive
staircase.

Beth stared at the room number
mounted on Parker’s door. 267. She swallowed and squeezed her forehead.
Finally, she could procrastinate no longer. She raised her hand and knocked.

Silence.

Where would he be if not here?
She knocked again, louder. “Parker? It’s me, Bethany.” Wiping her damp palms on
her slacks, she heard approaching footsteps, then the door opened.

Parker held a glass of red wine
in his trembling hand. “I didn’t mean to ruin the banquet for everyone. I
imagined my words would inspire people to live like each day might be their
last, but instead. .
 
. .”

“I’m so sorry.”

Shadows rested beneath his brown
eyes. “It is what it is. I just need to be alone.”

“I have something I need to tell
you.”

He stood there as if she should
blurt it out in the doorway, then leave.

She shuffled her feet, looking
at her black flats. “You’ll want to sit down for this. Trust me. I wouldn’t be
here now except that we’re all going home tomorrow and this has to be said.”

He opened the door wider and
ushered her inside. She sat down in the only chair and he sat on the edge of
the antique bed.

She nervously tucked her hair
behind her ears. “Is it true that children of someone with Huntington’s have a
fifty percent chance of having it?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any treatment if you
catch it early?” The internet hadn’t been too promising, but maybe Parker was
up on the latest research.

He shook his head and gulped
some wine.

“Would you have lived your life
any differently if you had known?”

He finished off his glass. “I
always knew there was a chance I had it, but I’m still regretful about things.
I should’ve volunteered more. I should’ve gone to Haiti after the earthquake. I
should’ve spent more time doing things that mattered.”

“Would you be happier if you
didn’t know?”

“Ignorance is bliss.” He
chuckled and poured more wine. “Want some?”

She shook her head and took a deep
breath. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about your grandfather?”

“No one wants to hear about an
incurable disease.”

“I did,” she whispered.

“Besides, you knew he died young
and I inherited money from him. That’s how I paid for college.”

But she’d never bothered to ask
how he’d died. Now her daughter would pay the price. “If you had a child, would
you tell him or her?”

“It would be hard to keep it a
secret.”

She pressed on her temples. “I
don’t know what to do.”

“What are you talking about?”

She didn’t want to say it. She
wasn’t sure how he’d react. At twenty, he probably would’ve appreciated her
willingness to handle the pregnancy on her own. At thirty-something, facing his
own mortality, he might suddenly envision himself as Super Dad—denied.

Just then the door handle
jiggled and Ivy sashayed in. “I brought some more wine.” When she spotted Beth,
an unpleasant expression flashed across her brown eyes. She lowered the bottle
in her hand. “What’s going on here?”

CHAPTER
FOUR

“Coming here was a mistake.” Beth lowered her head and made
a quick exit from Parker and Ivy’s room.

After she keyed into her room across the hall, she kicked
off her shoes and plopped onto the bed. But she couldn’t remain still. Adrenaline
coursed through her veins. She rose and paced.

She glanced at the door, waiting to see if Parker would knock
on it. Was he really going to turn out the lights and go to sleep without
asking her what was on her mind? Part of her hoped so and part of her didn’t.

Leaning down, she rubbed her sore calf. Her nerves spurred
her to pace some more. After twenty minutes, she realized that he wasn’t
coming. She pulled off her pantsuit, tossed it in her suitcase and climbed
under the covers.

Although hours later she eventually fell asleep, she didn’t
get much rest.

Church bells woke her the next morning. She packed quickly
and headed to checkout. As she handed her key to the clerk, she kept looking
over her shoulder, afraid she’d see someone she knew: Parker or Ivy or Sarah.
She’d decided years ago not to bother Parker with her situation and there was
no need to stir up trouble now. It was too late.

Outside, the leaves applauded softly in the breeze as Beth
wheeled her suitcase toward her parking spot. Regret from long ago decisions
weighed on her. Last night’s near-confession reignited panic in her chest. She picked
up her pace, anxious to get out of town.

A friendly female voice called out behind her. “Bethany!”
She turned and saw Sarah. Her long hair splayed across her black coat, and a
turquoise scarf she’d probably knitted herself hung loose around her neck.

Sarah jogged closer to Beth. “How’d it go last night?”

Beth gripped the handle of her luggage tighter. “I tried to
tell him, but then we got interrupted.”

“So that was it?” She gave Beth a disappointed look. “I
suppose it’s your decision. Are you at least going to let the agency know the
new medical information?”

She nodded. “Of course.” Not that she wanted to re-open that
wound, but ethically she had to.

“Too bad it’s Sunday or we could go over there together.”

Beth fidgeted, feeling both guilt and relief that Ivy had
stopped her from confessing. “Right. Well, it was great to see you. I’ve got to
get back home.”

“Oh, me, too.” Sarah pulled her in and gave her a tight hug.
A long lost aunt at a funeral kind of hug. “Let me know if you need anything.
Anything at all.”

 
“Give my best to
your kids. They’re lucky to have a mom like you.” She suspected that Sarah
would’ve handled motherhood at eighteen with grace, making the best of things. The
thought caused Beth to pull away first.

On her way out of town, Beth passed the adoption agency, a
small office building with an empty parking lot, at the crest of a hill.

 
Through the
glass door, she could see that it was dark inside. She remembered Sarah holding
her hand, walking through that door with the words “Loving Solutions” stenciled
on it. Her friend had stayed with her when the counselor with a bad perm
confirmed the pregnancy and encouraged her to tell her parents. When Beth said
that was not an option, adoption was offered as the next best thing. Beth had
already done the math in her head to figure out that she’d be due in the
summer, between semesters, meaning adoption was do-able. Adoption made sense.

Sarah got a job and sublet an apartment so they could stay
in town together. She even helped her look at adoptive parents’ profiles and
attended the interviews. The couples all wore pained smiles and many discussed
how they couldn’t have children of their own. Some thanked Beth for potentially
giving them the most precious gift of all. Others showed her pictures of
nurseries already painted pink, furnished with cribs and rocking chairs.

Eventually she’d found the couple that felt right. The
Taylors. He was an optometrist and she an elementary school teacher. She would
be the kind of mom to draw smiley faces on her kid’s sandwiches in mustard. She
would be the kind of mom who’d push her daughter on the swing and sing her
lullabies at night. She would be the kind of mom that Beth hoped to be someday.

And they’d planned on telling the child from the start that
Beth had loved her so much she carefully selected the Taylors to raise her.

They offered pictures and letters and updates, but Beth
didn’t want any of that. It would only rip out her heart over and over again.
She preferred not to have contact. Until years later.

The call she assumed would come from her teenage daughter,
didn’t, and the letters she’d expected to eventually show up in the mail never
came. And that’s when Beth realized she’d been holding her breath. For sixteen
years, she’d anticipated some sort of contact. And yet…nothing.

Maybe the Taylors had divorced, lost interest in their
adopted child, wished they could undo what they’d done. Beth had seen a woman
on Dr. Phil once who wanted to give back her adopted child, and she’d thrown a
pillow at the screen, acid pooling in her gut. This type of regret was
possible. It happened. Maybe it had happened to the Taylors.

Or maybe it was nothing. Perhaps they were happy. Or perhaps
they’d misplaced Beth’s information. After all, she’d moved several times since
her freshman year of college. She hadn’t left the state or changed her maiden
name, but she supposed that finding her might have been too much of a hassle.
Which meant they’d given up. Or never tried.

Beth exhaled. It all came back to rejection and she knew she
deserved it. If the Taylors had been wonderful parents, and of course she hoped
that they had been, then her offspring would be totally well-adjusted. Happy
with being adopted by such adoring people. That was the ideal scenario.

The worst was that the Taylors had pulled the wool over
Beth’s eyes. They weren’t doting wanna-be parents. They made her baby feel
less-than because she didn’t share their DNA.

A horn blared from behind her Chevy. She jerked the wheel
realizing she’d drifted out of her lane and was about to sideswipe a mailbox.

Refusing to think about her past anymore, Beth cranked up
the Top 40s station on the radio and pushed hard on the accelerator. Even with
the music blaring, thoughts about her secret baby and the potential fall-out with
Parker and Drew gnawed at her. Could she possibly contain the damage once she
opened the lid?

As the miles brought her closer to home, she seemed to
distance herself from the past and became focused on the present. She longed to
feel Drew’s embrace and be reassured that their union was still intact. But what
had he been doing for the past forty-eight hours? He’d never once answered the landline
or tried calling her.

When she finally got to their house with a bay window on one
side and a tower on the other, she burst through the front door, anxious to
hear where Drew had been all weekend. Captain Kirk squawked, “Hello-hello.”

 
“Drew?” No
answer. Checking the first floor, she noted that the bathroom toilet no longer appeared
to be leaking, but still no Drew. The parrot started making high-pitched
squealing noises that were especially annoying.

Beth marched upstairs, her pulled muscle still a little
sore. Anger flooded her when she found her boyfriend in Emma’s room, peeling
off the floral wallpaper in oblong strips. He hadn’t gotten very far.

Turning toward her, his face reddened.

She planted her hand on her hip. “Where have you been? I
tried to call, but you never answered.”

Fiddling with the putty knife in his hand, his face flushed.
“Sorry. It’s a long story. Let me get you a drink and you can tell me about
your fun weekend first.” They headed downstairs into the kitchen, where he pulled
a pitcher of Crystal Light out of the fridge. Opening an upper cabinet, he
searched for a glass, but couldn’t find one. He probably hadn’t run the
dishwasher all weekend.

Sighing, Beth sat at the kitchen table and laced her fingers
together tightly. “I don’t want to talk about me. Tell me what happened. You
promised to get a bunch of projects done.”

He poured her sugar-free drink in a coffee cup and took a
seat next to her. “My sister called.”

“Missy strikes again.” She picked up the Healthy Habits
Vitamins & Herbs mug, not sure if it was originally hers or his, and took a
sip. “What’s wrong now?”

He tapped on the table, seeming reluctant to share. “She and
her boyfriend broke up and she’s quite a mess. I went over to try and console
her.”

“All weekend? She switches boyfriends like she’s changing
clothes.” Envy and rage boiled inside her core. Missy got to keep her daughter,
but she wasn’t even trying to be a good mom. Missy never put Emma’s needs and
wants before her own.

“I know. The problem is she had been living at his place. So
I had to help her find a new apartment and move all of her stuff.”

Beth put down her cup with a thud. “Instead of spending a
romantic weekend with me, you helped your irresponsible sister through another
break-up.”

“If I didn’t help her find something, she’d have no choice
but to move in with us.”

“No choice?” Beth had never asked for someone else to bail
her out. When she was younger than Missy, she’d learned to take responsibility
for her actions. “Doesn’t she have any friends? Doesn’t she ever have to act
like a grown-up and solve her own problems? It seems to me that she has plenty
of choices.”

“Hey, I did what I thought would make you happy. I had to
loan her money for a security deposit, which I’m sure I’ll never see again, but
I figured that was better than her moving in here.”

 
“I should’ve
known you gave her money. How much?”

“A few hundred.” He ran his hand over his coppery hair.
“Please don’t give me a hard time about this. I would’ve rather been anywhere
but with Missy this weekend.”

“If you would’ve gone with me to I.U., you would’ve missed
her call. What do you think she would’ve done then?”

He shrugged. “Probably would’ve gone crawling back to her
no-good boyfriend. I’m glad they’re over. The place was trashed when I got
there—broken dishes and lamps on the floor. She wouldn’t say anything bad
about the guy, but I know he did it.”

“Thank God Emma wasn’t there.” She shivered at the thought.
“Where is she? You said you’d pick her up.” Beth thought about how Emma’s strawberry-scented
hair tickled her cheek when they hugged. Emma gave the best hugs.

“Missy wanted Emma to spend the night at her new apartment.”

Beth shook her head, tired of their lives revolving around
Missy’s mistakes. Hating that Emma’s life always would. “Sometimes I can’t
believe you and Missy are related. She’s such a...” How could she put it
nicely? “...fly-by-the-seat-of-her pants parent. You, on the other hand, would
make an excellent dad.”

“I know what you’re hinting at. We’ll have to wait a while
longer—until Missy gets a better job and can find affordable daycare.
Until then Emma will still live with us.” He took an apple out of the fruit
bowl in front of them. He twisted off the stem but didn’t take a bite.

“I don’t want to wait. Missy is a mess, but that doesn’t
mean we should put our lives on hold.”

“What kind of mother just gives away her own flesh and
blood?” Anger flared in his voice. It wasn’t like him. “I don’t respect her at
all.”

Beth froze. She didn’t know if he was referring to Emma or to
the baby Missy placed for adoption without his knowledge, while he was away at
college.

Beth’s mind stuck on her own clandestine adoption—an invisible
web that tied her to Parker and Sarah, whether she liked it or not. The secret
that she had planned on sharing with Drew, when the time was right. But now,
she wondered if the time would
ever
be
right.

 
“What kind of mother just gives away her own
flesh and blood?”
His judgmental words stabbed at her heart.
“I don’t respect her at all.”
But unlike
Missy, Beth had learned from her mistake. She’d finished her degree, worked her
way up to middle management, found a faithful man. Yet, she couldn’t shake the
feeling that her one mistake would always haunt her.

 
She forced
herself to focus on the current dilemma, where Missy road blocked Beth and
Drew’s future together. “When I moved in, I assumed we’d eventually take things
to the next level. Get married, start a family.”

“I know. But Emma is our family.”

“Of course. And I love having her. I’m tortured by the fact
that any day her mother will show up and take her away. But by then we may have
missed our chance at having our own kids.”

“Or Missy won’t ever take Emma back and we’ll be the only
parents she’ll ever know.”

“Is that what I’m supposed to hope for?” She’d seen this in
him before. Drew, with five years between him and his sister, played the
eternal older brother. Protective. Vigilant. Steadfast. Beth pulled on her
cuticle, wincing at the pain. “Think about what you’re doing to us. To me, to
Emma. We’re living in limbo.”

When he didn’t respond, she continued. “We earn enough money
to have Emma and a child of our own.”

Drew put the uneaten apple back in the bowl and sighed. “I
can’t make you any promises right now.” He walked around behind her and put his
hands on her shoulders. “Please try to understand.”

He massaged her tight muscles, and she closed her eyes. She
could never resist his back rubs, and today she needed one more than ever.

After a too-quick massage, he kissed the crown of her head.
“I think the
Wrath of Khan
is on TV.
Come watch it with me.”

Knowing the baby discussion was over, Beth took her cup and
sat next to her boyfriend on the couch. But she refused to snuggle.