The baby was quiet, bunted in a pink blanket, clean and wearing a little white cap. All that showed was her tiny face. Sarah’s heart shattered and twisted in her chest. Tears choked her. She blinked to keep them back.
Angie lay in bed, exhausted and spent looking. Her hair was plastered back from her forehead with sweat. She was pale and shaking. Sarah went over to Angie, smiling at her, taking her hand, and crooning as Sarah would normally to a baby.
Tears ran down Angie’s face. A nurse was busy moving around the room.
“It’s finally over,” Angie said softly.
“No, sweetie, it isn’t. You need to hold her. You need to hold her, and let her go. Or if you can’t, you need to know that too.”
She pushed a hand to her nose. Snot and tears mingled over her red face. “No. I just want them to take her.” Them being Luke and Kelly? Or the nurse?
“I’m not letting you do that. You need to hold her, sweetie. You need that. Please, for me?”
Angie hesitated, but finally nodded. Sarah turned to her newborn niece and picked her up. She gently placed the sleeping infant in Angie’s arms. Angie cried harder, she refused to look down. Vanessa came back into the room. Sarah glanced back and saw Scott standing just behind Vanessa at the end of the bed.
“Look at her,” Sarah said gently, taking the lead when no one else seemed to want to, uncaring how mad Vanessa or Scott would get with her for overstepping her bounds.
Angie finally looked down after an excruciatingly long moment where she seemed like she wasn’t going to. She started crying in earnest, hiccupping in drenching, gulping sobs.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Sarah said, trying to draw Angie out, make her talk, and make her present in this monumental moment.
Finally, after several heart breaking sobs, Angie nodded. “Yes. She’s real pretty.”
“You did that. You made her so pretty, so perfect, so healthy. You should be very proud of yourself.”
Angie looked harder at the baby. “Do you really think so?”
The need for Sarah’s approval was nearly desperate in Angie’s tone. Tears dripped off of Sarah’s cheeks. She nodded, brushing her knuckle to her cheeks to scrub at her tears. More came replacing them.
“I do. I really think so.”
“I should give her up though, right? They… her parents, are waiting for her.”
“No, you shouldn’t just give her up. You should take your time, and you should make your decision now that you know what your decision is about.”
Angie was quiet for minutes. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. She simply stared at the baby, as intermittent sobs escaped her. She finally looked up. “I can’t take care of her. Even though—” Angie’s sobs made her gulp back more tears. “—even though I love her. I do. I love her.”
“I know you do. You’re a good mother. Whatever you do for her, will be what’s best for her, in your heart.”
Sarah shook with fear. Was she saying the right things? Angie needed her mother right now. Angie needed a female’s guidance, and understanding, and that should, without a doubt, come from Vanessa. Vanessa had been in this exact position. But Vanessa only stared in strange silence at Angie. Not a word of comfort or guidance did she offer. Sarah knew she was overstepping, but she didn’t know what else to do. Angie was begging for guidance, for approval, for help. And Sarah was helpless to ignore her pleas.
Then Sarah felt a hand on her back. Big and warm she felt Scott’s hand print through the fabric of her shirt. He squeezed gently. Approval? Keep talking? Sarah took it to mean that.
“No one expects you to not love her. And you should take as much time as you want with her. Or you can tell the Tylers to go home, and we’ll figure out how to do this; you, me, Sean, Scott, and your mother. We’re this baby’s family. We’ll figure it out if that’s what you want.”
Angie looked into Sarah’s eyes, hers covered in a sheen of tears. “You mean it? You’d be there for me.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what to do. I didn’t think it would feel like this.”
“We love you, and will do whatever you need to do. And forget the Tylers, you don’t owe anybody anything. We’re not talking about you giving them your car.”
Angie looked up at Sean suddenly. “Do you want to hold her?”
Sean glanced at Sarah. Sarah sighed and nodded at him. Sean stepped forward, shaking, his hands quivered. Tears free-fell out of Sarah’s eyes. This was hard, excruciatingly poignant and sad, in ways she could have never guessed or predicted.
Sean took the baby with inept, clumsy hands. The nurse came over and led him to a chair and made him sit down.
Had she just broke her best friend’s heart? Would Angie let the baby go? Sarah didn’t know what she wanted. Both decisions seemed wrong, raising a baby at sixteen seemed impossible, but watching Angie give away her baby, seemed even worse.
Angie stopped crying. She wiggled in bed until she wasn’t slouched over. She blotted at her eyes with quick slaps. She flipped her hair off her forehead. “I love her. And I want to be part of her life. But I can’t give her what they can. I can love her. But love is not enough. Even I know that.”
Angie inclined her head toward her mother. Her mother who had yet to say anything either way. She didn’t even try to guide or help Angie in any way. Maybe the only thing Vanessa had ever done right was illustrate for Angie why a sixteen-year-old should not raise a baby.
“I think Luke and Kelly should come in here, and meet her. And maybe they could stay here a while with her. And, maybe, then I could let her go home.”
“Home, Angie?” Sarah asked gently.
“Yes. Home with the Tylers.”
Sarah’s breath caught. God, the unfairness of it. For Angie. For Sean. For this baby. If only they weren’t sixteen. No one could have ever explained how hard this would be.
Luke and Kelly came in. Both tentative, Kelly already had tears in her eyes. They did just the right thing. They went to Angie first. Somehow Sarah knew Luke would know just what to do in this situation. He’d been through so much loss, and he dealt with teenagers on a daily basis. Sarah turned and slipped out, feeling like a voyeur suddenly, invading a terribly private moment.
Sarah leaned against a wall far down the hall from Angie’s room. Needing, craving, being alone. Needing to let the thick tears flow out of her before she choked on them. She bent over at her waist, clutching her stomach, as tears poured from her eyes and choking sobs finally escaped her. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t watch this. It was too wrong, too unfair. They were sixteen years old and they were giving up their baby. It was wrong. It was impossible. It was…the right thing to do. But nothing made it easy to watch.
Suddenly, there was arms around her, pulling her. She glanced up and found Scott there, his arms around her. She couldn’t help it. She was crying in full now. It was long moments before she calmed down. Finally, she was quiet, her forehead leaning against Scott’s chest. Her legs were too exhausted to hold her frame up. Her breath came in big gulps, but nothing slowed her racing heart and emotions.
“What if I just made Angie give up her baby and it’s not the right thing for her?”
“You’re the only one who knew just what to say. You didn’t make her do anything. You said to her what needed to be said. What her mother should have. What even I couldn’t say. Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened without you in there.”
“I can’t stand it,” Sarah said softly. “Angie’s too young. Too young to have her heart broken like this.”
“I know. She’s too young for all of it. But something had to be done. And like always, you knew what that something was and how to make it happen.”
“Yes, because I control everyone, don’t I?”
“What you did in there was perfect. It was just right. It was why—”
“Why you can’t be with me,” she finished for him. She didn’t want to hear it. She was tired, and sad all the way into her bones, in an ache she’d never felt before. She couldn’t face him. She suddenly pushed back off Scott. She had to get out of the hospital before she started crying again. Before she ran back into Angie’s room and told her to keep her daughter. Before she threw herself at Scott and told him she loved him, and that he should keep
her
.
Sarah retreated to the beach. A soft mist fell, the clouds and ocean looked to be nearly one. The gray, gunmetal of the sky reflected into the colorless water. The cool spray felt good on her flushed face and stinging cheeks. The openness of the beach, nearly empty now, helped the panic-like feeling she had at the hospital.
Things were working out like they should. Luke and Kelly, who were married and in their thirties, were going to raise the newborn baby that was Sarah’s niece, and Angie and Sean would go on being teenagers. That was the right way of things.
Why then did she feel like she’d witnessed a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions? This was the way things should go. Why did it feel
so wrong
?
Sarah’s cell phone rang as she walked along the beach. Absently she pressed the talk button.
“What has you so upset, Sarah? Why are you crying all alone on the beach?” The disembodied voice that had been plaguing her on and off for months came over the line.
She threw the phone as hard as she could before the voice could continue. The phone landed out in the tumbling mass of foamy surf. She regretted it as soon as the phone landed. How was the police supposed to trace it or figure anything out if she kept destroying possible evidence? Sarah looked around. She saw no one. There was a scatter of hotels and condos along this stretch of beach, all set back in the sand dunes. Someone could be watching from any of those. She looked up and down the beach and was sure there was no one close. Shivers broke out over her flesh. She started jogging, and then running as fast as she could toward the beach entrance she’d parked her car.
Son of bitch!
Why wouldn’t this guy stop? What did he want of her?
There was her car, parked off the main road at the pull off she’d impulsively gone into after leaving the hospital. Someone had followed her. There was no other way someone could know she was here.
It was a mildly populated stretch of beach leading back into town. There were houses across the street, but forest still dominated the area. Someone could be anywhere. And she’d stupidly thrown her phone. What the hell was wrong with her? Her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest.
Then, off across the road, partially hidden by the thick vegetation she saw a man, standing in the V of a car door. He was watching her. He wore a baseball cap low over his forehead. He was tall and hidden under a bulky coat, a coat way too thick for the mild temperatures of the September mist.
Sarah stumbled and stopped. They stared at each other across the empty parking lot and two lane road. Sarah’s heart paused in her chest, and then started pumping with enough force to remind her to move.
Just move.
She shook off the terror induced paralysis and jumped into her car. She started it and fish tailed out of the parking lot, and past the tan car.
By then the man had ducked into his car, his face down. Sarah didn’t stick around to find out who he was. She considered it lucky he had called and not followed her out onto the beach. She half expected her car to stop running or her brakes to quit working, as she remembered the last time he’d stranded her. But so far, it seemed he’d done nothing more than call her. Which, in fact, was nearly all that had happened to her since this started. But why did she feel so violated? Feel so terror driven? As if he’d already attacked her? Her skin was crawling and her blood was racing.
There were headlights behind her on the gloom of the road. Was that him, following her? Her hands shook as she gripped the steering wheel tightly, frantically, to navigate the twisting highway that led into Seaclusion. She went straight to the modest single story building that housed Seaclusion’s small police department. Inside, it was brightly lit, surprisingly clean and airy for a police station. A woman smiled cheerfully at Sarah from behind the reception desk. Sarah was too winded to talk. She handed the lady the card that Detective Swanson had given her.
It was only a moment before the familiar brown haired officer, rushed forward. Sarah followed him back to his desk, and told him in detail, three different times, what had just happened. He was well aware of her continuing saga.
“Funny you should come by now. I think we’ve a break in your case.”
“You have? What?”
“A suspect.”
“How?”
“Well, now that it has become more or less public knowledge you’re being harassed, someone called saying they’d witnessed you being yelled at the hospital a few hours ago from that Scott Delano. Made me think. So, I did some checking, compared his phone records and found that his cell phone had called your apartment and your cell phone at a couple of the same times you’d reported the harassing calls. I sent a car out to the hospital. He wasn’t there. He was at his house. They just reported back they have him in custody and are bringing him in. He could have easily gotten back there after following you.”
Sarah sat perfectly still. Her heart nearly stopped. Chills racked through her. Scott? They were suspicious of Scott? Oh, God, this couldn’t get much worse.
“No. You’ve got this wrong. Scott would never do anything to hurt me. He was with me when I got a lot of the calls.”
“I know. I’ve been stewing over that. I’m thinking maybe he had some help, would explain how he could manage that and keep himself looking innocent.”
“Because he is!”
“Well, the way you tell it he could have easily snuck around and taken that picture of you the first night.”
“And printed it how? A pocket printer? Get real.”
“Well, there again, if he had some help.”
“Oh, my God. You’re so wrong. He’s been the one person I could count on through this, he hasn’t done this. I know him. God, I—”
“Well, yes, I’ve figured that you are with him. But the first time you came in here you weren’t sleeping with him, were you? I noticed a distinct difference in you two as time went on. Maybe he wanted to make sure that happened. Pretty, classy girl like you might not be interested in a blue collar boy like him.”