Losing Gabriel (29 page)

Smiling, he watched Gabe chase two little boys, his red Spidey cape flying behind him. Never mind that Spider-Man doesn't wear a cape. Dawson could have never imagined three years ago that he'd be in this place—a suburban dad, hosting a barbeque for children and neighbors. Not at all the life he'd planned. He saw Sloan in a far corner of the yard, sitting under an oak tree, apart and alone. What was going through her head? What did she see when she looked at their son? He poked the glowing briquettes with his spatula. To her credit, she had kept her word, gotten a job, and stayed out of his and Gabe's way. Nor did Lani have any complaints about Sloan's presence in the house.
Still…
he wondered.

He gathered up the burgers and hot dogs, set the tray on a food table covered with bowls of salads, beans, chips, and cut up fruit, and called everyone in. Later, when the sun was below the horizon and darkness spreading across the sky, Lani handed out the gooey cupcakes, placing one with three sparklers in front of Gabe.

But before she could light the sparklers, Gabe shouted, “Sing Lady! Git-tar. Sing song!”

Sloan, sitting back in the shadows on the outer fringe of the group, looked as if she wanted to bolt, and for a moment Dawson thought she might. He tensed. Gabe wouldn't stop begging, so with a cast of his gaze, Dawson gave Sloan permission. “How about it, Sing Lady? Want to lead us in ‘Happy Birthday'?”

She scrambled to retrieve her guitar from the house. When Sloan returned, Lani, her fingers trembling, lit the sparklers. Sloan strummed the strings, and Gabe's smile broke open. Others joined in singing the words, but all Dawson heard was the clear, distinct sound of Sloan Quentin's voice rising like smoke into the night sky.

“Y
ou sure you can handle all this?” were the first words out of Melody's mouth after Lani outlined her fall schedule. They were dining downtown in Mel's favorite restaurant, talking and nibbling on a bowl of crunchy rice noodles while they waited for their food.

“Of course I'm sure. I'm in the classroom during the mornings Gabe's in school. I'll pick him up at noon, study while he naps, and leave when Dawson comes home. He wants me to stay on the job, and there's no way I won't.” He'd asked the day after Gabe's birthday party, and she'd quickly agreed. She would also have to fit in her hospital work toward Step-Prep credits whenever she could, but she didn't mention it to her sister.

“And two nights a week, you'll stay late so Dawson can take a course that his company's paying for. Plus, you'll keep working weekends at Bellmeade.” Lani had already told this to Melody. “What about sleeping? Set aside any time for that and any social life?”

Lani drummed her fingers on the tablecloth. “It isn't a problem, Mel. Just back off.”

“But the real reason you're twisting your life into a pretzel is so that you can continue to care for Gabe. Wasn't this supposed to be only a
summer
job?”

“You know how I feel about Gabe; plus, starting preschool will be an adjustment. He needs continuity.”

“What about his mother? Isn't she still at the house? Why can't she pick up some of the slack?”

Lani glanced around for their waitress, hoping she'd rescue her from Melody's third degree. Giving up, she pushed back into the booth. “Sloan works too, and I've told you, Dawson doesn't want Sloan left alone with Gabe.”

“I met her at the party, Lani. She hardly seems like a monster. In fact, Gabe acted as if he
likes
her.”

Mel's evaluation didn't brighten Lani's mood. Truth was, Gabe did run down to the playroom if he heard the strum of the Sing Lady's guitar. Lani began to think of Sloan as the Pied Piper of Strings. “It goes to history. Dawson doesn't totally trust her.”

“Is he afraid she'll run off with their son?”

Lani sidestepped the question with “Just last week, Sloan played with a kitten in the park, and when Gabe got around the kitten's hair
on her clothes,
he started wheezing and coughing. I had to use his rescue inhaler. Sloan panicked. She shouldn't be left alone and in charge of Gabe. We never know when he'll run into a trigger. His bedroom is full of little stuffed animals he's been given from the time he was a baby by well-meaning people and before his asthma was diagnosed. They're all stored on high shelves in plastic bags so he can see them, but he can't play with them, because stuffed toys get dusty and Gabe reacts to dust. His favorite ‘stuffed' toy is a dog made out of leather his grandfather gave him. Doesn't hold dust. I wipe it clean.”

Melody rested her elbows on the table, her chin on fingers woven together to make a bridge, and Lani continued. “I've tried to explain to you that asthma is a very serious condition. I'm Gabe's nurse. He's only three, and I can't walk away from him just now. Don't you see?”

“My apologies, Lani. I forget that nursing is your career and something you're passionate about. It's as important to you as law is to me. If you ever need help, call me.”

Lani relaxed, believing that her sister finally “got it,” got her. However complicated her feelings were about Dawson, Lani was Gabe's first line of defense with his asthma when Dawson wasn't around.

Melody cleared her throat. “Except I won't mess with that horse. I draw the line at mucking stalls and hugging your horse.”

Lani laughed, was still laughing when the petite server appeared, balancing plates of food and bowls of rice and placing them on the table. The aromas of sesame-soy beef, oyster sauce, and tangy sweet and sour chicken made Lani's mouth water. “Deal!” she said, and dug into her food.

Sloan sat on the patio drinking beer and gazing up at the stars spread like pinpricks of cold light on a black canvas. The moon was waxing, on its way to becoming full and bright. September was gone, October half gone, and autumn coolness had crowded out summer heat. She felt restless tonight, restless and lonely, and even though she'd pulled a double shift that afternoon at the restaurant today, she wasn't a bit sleepy.

She worked six nights a week now, four at the restaurant, two in a sports bar, where the tips were better. Life at the house had fallen into a rhythm, with Gabe the main event, Lani and Dawson the supporting cast, and herself a walk-on player. Any extra time, Sloan spent writing music and sometimes entertaining Gabe. She tried never to think of Gabe as half hers. He wasn't. The boy belonged totally to Dawson and partly to Lani. Sloan struggled against her growing attachment to him, told herself she had no stake in him, and her promise to move on as soon as she could was one she planned to keep.

She missed the band, the singing, the all-nighters of arranging songs and jamming, and wondered what Bobby and Hal were doing, hoped that Sy was faring well under his father's financial tyranny. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life waiting tables and squirreling away tip money but didn't want to connect with them again either. They were in her past, along with the crazy plans she'd had of becoming a singing star.

“Sloan? You all right?”

Dawson's voice startled her from the doorway. She glanced over her shoulder. “Boss didn't need me tonight.” Usually he was gone when she got up in the morning and she was gone when he came home. Their paths rarely crossed. “You're getting in late.”

“I went to the library to study after class. If I come straight home, I'll fall into bed and
not
study.”

“Want a beer? I'm on my third, but I have more.” She held up a longneck.

He had sent Lani home when he walked through the front door. She'd given him a quick rundown of the day, then rushed out because she had a paper to write. He didn't know how she stuck to her schedule but was grateful she'd come up with the plan for staying on the job with Gabe. She was indispensable to him. Lani…he missed having any time alone with her. The beer Sloan held up was tempting. The long day had caught up to him. He stepped out on the patio, placing Gabe's monitor on a small side table so that he could watch the black-and-white image of his sleeping son.

He dragged a chair next to Sloan's. “How are you doing?”

“Okay.”

He recognized her dejected mood. “I, um, hope Gabe isn't too noisy in the mornings when you're trying to sleep in.” Over the time she'd lived there, he had mellowed toward her because she'd kept her word about staying clear of Gabe. Except when she practiced the guitar.

“He loves to listen to her play and sing,” Lani had told Dawson. “No harm.”

“I never hear a thing in the mornings. You remember how hard I sleep—” She stopped because she hadn't meant to bring up their shared past. To cover her slip, she took a long drink from her beer, stared up at the stars. The night was lovely, cool and crisp. Sloan didn't want to be alone. “So how about telling me about my mother, how she made your life miserable. I know she made
mine
miserable.”

He recalled telling her it was a long story, and since she'd asked, he figured this was as good a time as any. “You sure?” She nodded. “Gabe was home from the hospital for about a week when LaDonna showed up looking for you. I told her you'd split, but she wouldn't believe me, wanted to search the house. Course I told her no.”

“Imagine that, LaDonna thinking I was hiding from her.” The words dripped with sarcasm. “Did she ask to see the baby?”

“Eventually. Franklin let her sit on the porch and hold Gabe while we sat with her.” Dawson remembered how LaDonna had held the blue wrapped bundle away from her body, as if it were a foreign object. “Gabe slept through the whole visit.”

“Did she ask for money?” The question was blunt, but Sloan understood what motivated the woman, and it was rarely anything altruistic.

“Not at first. But a few weeks later she showed up demanding we respect her rights as Gabe's grandmother. She'd been drinking and was wobbly. Said she hired a lawyer to ‘get what was hers.' That's when she asked for money.” He recalled her standing on the front porch spewing a tirade about them trying to take away her natural rights and that it would cost them for her to sign Gabe over completely. “Dad hired a lawyer too, and it turns out that in Tennessee, grandparents don't have many rights when there's a stable biological parent involved. We offered her supervised visitation rights.”

“She didn't take the deal, did she?”

“No. After she hit our front lawn on a couple of nights, screaming and yelling and waking up the neighbors, we had to get a restraining order. After a while she stopped coming. I drove out to the trailer park once just to check, and she was gone.”

Sloan raised her beer in a toast. “Good riddance.”

Dawson hurt for Sloan, for the damage to her childhood from the alcoholic mother who had all but left her to grow up on her own. Sloan couldn't help who she'd come from. “You aren't like her, Sloan. You got away from her, and you made it out of that bad place where she tried to keep you.” He wasn't talking about the trailer park, but about LaDonna's life spiral.

“Have I? Sometimes I'm not so sure.” Her head spun as she pushed against emotions she didn't want, a past she couldn't change, and music she had lost. She stood abruptly, and so did he. “Time for bed.” She stepped forward and stumbled. Dawson caught her, and when he did, she burrowed into him, flung her arms around his neck, and buried her mouth into his.

Shock, like from an electrical wire, shot through him, and then fire, a backdraft of oxygen-starved flames. He reeled from her heat. Her mouth was hot, her tongue cold from the beer. They were both breathing hard when she broke the kiss. “Stay with me tonight.” Her voice a cracked whisper. Her hands secure around his neck. “I remember how things used to be…in the beginning…”