What's Left Behind (7 page)

Was her mother also out of Tessa’s life?

“Does she know about the baby?” Abby asked.

Tessa shook her head, and her eyes misted.

Abby took a slow, deep breath. How horrible for Tessa’s mother not to know about the existence of her own grandchild.

How horrible for
Abby
not to have known. Until Tessa had, on impulse, landed on her doorstep.

Abby drew her hands to her chest, one overlapping the other. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I don’t know.” Even though Tessa’s gaze did not scurry and retreat from Abby’s, Tessa sat up taller. She shifted into a subtle defensive stance. And Abby still didn’t believe her.

Rob returned with a glass of ice water and handed it to Tessa. “There you go.” He sat next to Abby, and the sides of their knees bumped.

“Thanks.” Tessa hiccupped and gulped down the water, as if she hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. Did she know the dangers of dehydration? As soon as Abby had discovered she was pregnant, she’d worried about the baby’s health. She hadn’t realized how much harder it would be after Luke was born.

Between middle school and high school, Luke had sprained the same ankle twice playing basketball. Broke his wrist executing a back flip on a frozen pond. Suffered a concussion during a sledding accident because he’d refused to wear a helmet. Each injury had chipped away at the fallacy she could keep her child safe from harm.

“You have a bag or suitcase I can haul in for you?” Rob asked.

“Just this.” Tessa gave the handbag at her side a poke.

Was she staying somewhere else and she’d already dropped off a suitcase? “So . . . what’s your plan?” Abby asked.

“I guess I have three choices?” Tessa’s hand settled over the swell of her belly. “I could, you know, keep the baby?” she said, and her gaze wandered around the room.

Heat prickled the back of Abby’s neck. She hadn’t asked Tessa about her plans for the baby. She’d assumed Tessa would raise the child.

What else would you do for the child of the man you’d loved and lost?

Tessa’s gaze fell to the floor, and she shook her head. “Probably a dumb idea. I’ve never even babysat. I’m not good with kids. I have school and—” Tessa took a couple of long, deep breaths before she met Abby’s gaze. Her mouth turned down, as though she might cry, and her brow furrowed. She tried for a smile, the same shaky optimism Abby had seen before she’d fainted. “I could give you the baby.”

The words thrummed between them, pounded through Abby’s chest. Beside her, Rob shifted in his seat. She ushered her hair over one shoulder. Her hand came away sticky with sweat. Beneath the apples-and-cinnamon scent of her home, she detected a milky newborn scent. Beyond the shushing crash of waves, the memory of an infant’s cries tickled her ears. And instead of the carved-out feeling that had plagued her since she’d touched her lips to her son’s cold cheek, warmth, soul-warmth, filled her head to toe.

I want my son back.

Abby glanced at Rob, and he offered an encouraging nod-grin that didn’t touch his eyes.

Abby stood up. Her legs did not shake. No spots danced before her eyes. And her vision did not waver at the edges.

“Thank you, Tessa. Thank you so much.” Abby bent and gave Tessa a hug. The girl reached up to touch Abby’s hair, looped a finger into a curl, the way Luke had when he’d been small. Tessa swallowed and pressed her cheek to Abby’s. Abby had prayed for a second chance. Maybe this wasn’t a miracle, but it was pretty darn close. Abby let go first and swiped at the wetness beneath one eye. “You at least have to stay the weekend.”

Tessa’s wide grin withered, and her bottom lip puckered into a pout.

A sudden knowing panic gripped Abby’s chest, a close cousin to the sensation she’d experienced months ago when the University of Massachusetts had flashed on her caller ID. “What? What’s wrong?” Abby said, her voice high and tight.

Tessa shrugged and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Abby. It might be better for me to give the baby to someone else.”

“Better?” Abby said, her voice wavering, a hairbreadth below hysteria. “Better for whom?” Abby searched the girl’s face, looking for malice or madness. But all she found was a nervous smile and a gaze that hid from Abby’s glare.

Did Tessa think this was some sort of game? Why would she come all this way to offer Abby Luke’s child and then, seconds later, snatch the baby away? How horrible for Tessa’s mother not to know she had a grandchild on the way. But Abby would gladly trade places if the alternative was knowing Luke’s baby existed somewhere in the world, in a stranger’s house, a stranger’s arms. And she would never hold him.

She might never hold her grandchild.

Luke had told Abby that Tessa was nice. As compared to what? A monster?

“I don’t know,” Tessa said. “I’m not sure. I honestly have no clue.”

Rob made a sound behind her, a grunt of disapproval that Abby wholeheartedly agreed with.

Honest,
or one of its derivatives, was one of those words kids used when they weren’t. Once a mother, always a mother. She wasn’t that long out of practice. And Tessa was not at all sorry.

“Then you’d better stay,” Abby said, “until you decide.”

The sticky-sweet smell of Belgian waffles and blueberries, Sunday breakfast at Briar Rose, flipped Abby’s stomach on its head. She ducked inside the pantry, folded a saltine into her mouth, and washed it down with tap water. Too much thinking and too little sleep had resulted in a worry hangover. In short, she felt like crap. She’d managed to wake with the sun, complete food prep, and set the tables before the first bleary-eyed guest stumbled into the dining room for coffee. She’d set herself on autopilot, forbade her mind from wandering to the girl who slept in Luke’s bedroom, wrapped in Luke’s blankets and around Luke’s baby. But maintaining focus had zapped her meager supply of energy.

One couple was finishing up and lingering over coffee, and another awaited the delivery of their meals. The rumble of their voices scraped across her tattered nerves. Not their fault. But more than anything, she wanted to return to her bedroom, dive under the covers, and hide from the plans she’d made last night with Charlie. She’d called and asked him to meet her at Percy’s for an ice cream, a safe spot to tell him about Tessa. She’d felt like she was lying to Charlie by fabricating a sudden ice-cream craving. She’d felt like she was cheating on Rob, the man she craved.

Abby balanced two breakfasts across her arms and made the delivery. “Here we are,” she said, and set the warm plates before the gray-haired couple.

“Excuse me, Abby?” Lisa from Room 1 motioned her over to where she and her husband, Ronnie, sat before empty plates, oversized servings consumed. Lisa and Ronnie weren’t newlyweds, but the childless couple in their thirties acted the part. They sat on the same side of the four-top, ate from each other’s plates, made a point of finishing each other’s sentences and each other’s food. Earlier this week, Abby had to knock on their door and drop not-so-subtle hints about the thin walls, although nothing at all was wrong with her home’s insulation. Some people—Lisa—liked to make sure everyone knew when they were having a good time.

“More coffee?” Abby asked.

“We’d like some eggs.”

“Eggs?” Abby asked, her mind working to come up with a polite answer that wasn’t a lie. She had plenty of eggs, all needed for tomorrow’s eggs Benedict. She always explained breakfast service, a different meal each day. Coffee or tea? Apple juice or orange? Canadian bacon or sausage? Half an hour ago, those were the only choices she’d offered.

Lisa nodded. “Two scrambled, dry please.”

“Of course.” Abby might still have enough for tomorrow.

“Sunny side up for me,” Ronnie said.

Never mind.

In the kitchen, she eased two cast-iron frying pans from their hooks and fired up the gas burners. She slid a carton of eggs from the fridge and cracked one over the bowl before she realized she’d forgotten the bowl. “Really?” she told the egg oozing across the gray granite. “Are you kidding me?”

“Who are you talking to?” Hannah bustled in for her shift, light brown hair piled wet on her head, arranged like one of Celeste’s sticky buns.

“Please.” Abby motioned at the egg mess, and Hannah snapped up a sponge from beside the sink. Abby shook her head. She cracked two eggs onto the surface of an oiled pan, two more into an actual bowl for scrambling.

Hannah rinsed the sponge in the sink and then scowled at Abby’s kitchen chalkboard menu planner. “Those don’t look like waffles to me.”

“They most certainly do not. Some people think rules don’t apply to them.” Abby whisked the eggs harder. “I explain the rules about breakfast, rules I’ve thought out, planned out. How am I supposed to plan if, at any given moment, someone can just walk into my home and change my entire life?” Egg sloshed over the rim of the bowl.

Hannah rushed in to wipe up the drips. “You need me to pick up eggs for you at Rooster’s?”

Eggs sizzled in the frying pan. Abby turned down the heat, sprinkled her Briar Rose recipe seasoning mix. She added some to the scrambled eggs and poured them into the second pan. “Some people do whatever they want, no thought to the consequences, or who they’re hurting. I mean, I love eggs. Love them. You know that, right?”

“I guess.”

“I always thought that I’d have more.”

“I can run out after my shift.”

With her right hand, Abby flipped the eggs, landing them sunny side up. Left-handed, she scrambled eggs in the pan. “One thing’s for sure, I do not take well to teasing.”

“That makes two of us.” Charlie stood in the doorway to the kitchen, over an hour early and in the worst possible location.

Abby’s heartbeat kicked her in the ribs. She gazed around Charlie, making sure a certain young lady wasn’t heading his way to take him out at the knees. “What are you doing here?”

“You sounded stressed on the phone.”

“You have no impulse control.”

Charlie shrugged. “That, too,” he said, but his expression caught the brunt of her insult.

Sorry,
she mouthed, and ushered him in. She slid the egg orders onto the waiting plates and turned to Hannah. “Deliver these to table three?”

Hannah glanced at Charlie and back to Abby. Abby didn’t make a practice of sharing her personal life with her employees, but Hannah had worked for her long enough to piece together their history. “I’m on it.” She slid a half apron from its wooden peg, tied it around her waist, and snapped up the orders.

Abby turned off the burners, but heat flushed her chest. Her lips tingled. All she could do was shake her head, give herself a moment before she upended Charlie’s life.

“Don’t do that, Abby. What is it? What’s wrong?” he said, his voice taking on the tinge of her mood.

“Do you remember Luke’s girlfriend, Tessa?”

“Sure, of course, hot girl with blue hair.”

Abby laughed, the perfect antidote for her tension. Leave it to Charlie to sum up a woman by the color of her hair and where she hit on the hotness chart.

Hannah breezed into the kitchen. “Just passing through.” She slipped the apron from around her waist and backed out the door so she wouldn’t miss a thing.

Abby waited for the sound of Hannah rifling through the broom closet. “Tessa’s pregnant,” Abby said.

Charlie tilted his head. He stared at her, long enough to remember why she loved his changeable hazel eyes. Long enough to remember Celeste’s warning to keep her distance. Long enough for her to wish she could forget.

His eyes brightened from gray to green. “How far along?”

“About five, six months. I’m not sure, I—”

Charlie let out a whoop. “We’re having a baby!” He grabbed Abby around the waist, lifted her in the air, and swung her in a circle, the kind of over-the-top reaction she’d wanted when she’d told him she was expecting Luke. Crazy, irrational, but she’d wanted it anyway. She’d been a teenager. She’d been in love.

Abby held on to Charlie’s shoulders, widened her eyes at him, a little thrilled and a lot horrified. “Put me down! What’s wrong with you?” She cut her gaze to the dining room, filled with guests waiting to gobble up a juicy piece of local gossip and spit it out across town. Or, worse, spew bits of misinformation at the gift shop she recommended to all of her patrons: Lily Beth’s Heart Stone.

He set her back down, closer to him than when he’d lifted her from her feet. “We’re having a baby,” he repeated, slow and sweet and caressing every syllable.

“I’m not pregnant, Tessa is.”

“Would it be weird if I were proud of our kid, in a youthe-man kind of way?” Charlie said, referring to Luke. “You know, along with an appropriate amount of parental disapproval.”

She was about to tell Charlie he was a complete ass, but truth be told, he wasn’t. If Luke had been alive, she could well imagine Charlie lecturing him from here to next Thursday. And then, after the baby was born, pounding him on the back and sharing a cigar.

“It wouldn’t be
that
weird.”

“What do we do now? Road trip to Amherst?”

“Not necessary.” Abby told him about Tessa showing up on her doorstep and everything that followed. “She might want to give the baby to someone else,” Abby said, and the cracker she’d eaten hardened in her belly. “I’m keeping the baby.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Charlie said, and his airy confidence rubbed Abby the wrong way. “She’s just a kid. She’s scared,” he said, as if Tessa were a damsel in distress, rather than a young woman who’d come here with a hidden agenda. “How can she know whether she’s ready to raise a child? She’s probably spent the past few months trying to avoid the issue.” Charlie’s voice filled the kitchen, taking on the resinous tone of Charlie the caring objective teacher. No relation to Charlie the one-time absentee father.

“Is that what you did?” she said, hating the raw edge to her voice, but powerless against the pull of the past. And sleep deprivation stripped away every defense.

“Never.”

“No?”

Tessa stepped into the kitchen, her face flushed, her pink camisole wrinkled from sleep. The fabric gaped, revealing an inch of bare round belly. “You sound just like Luke. I thought you were Luke.” The disappointment in Tessa’s eyes wound around Abby’s heart and tugged her toward the girl. Then Abby remembered Tessa’s list of options for Luke’s baby, and she stood her ground. Tessa knew what they’d all lost. How could she threaten Abby with more of the same?