Читать книгу Christmas in Hawthorn Bay - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 7

NORA CARSON HAD ALWAYS found it hard to say no to Maggie, even when she knew that her bullheaded best friend was being stupid. Though Nora, at nineteen, was only three months older than Maggie, the younger girl had a way of making Nora’s common sense sound pathetically boring.

And if making Nora feel like a fuddy-duddy didn’t work, Maggie had big sad eyes and a killer pout, a little-girl-lost look that turned Nora—and just about everyone else—straight to mush.

This late-autumn Saturday, Maggie’s nineteenth birthday, was no exception. Maggie, who was eight months pregnant, woke up with a hankering to go sailing. Nora knew it was a rotten idea, and so did Dr. Ethan Jacobs, the young obstetrician who had begun as Maggie’s doctor when they’d arrived in town three months ago—and ended up more like a love slave with a stethoscope.

But neither of them could resist Maggie in a Mood.

So here they were, halfway to nowhere, with the Maine coast receding as Ethan’s sails filled with crisp, clean wind. The cooler at their feet bulged with fried chicken, egg-salad sandwiches and bottled water. Ethan had caved in to Maggie’s pressure first, and admitted that he knew a tiny island Maggie would love. Just a couple of miles wide, it had everything, he said—a green forest, a cliff, a small white waterfall.

Best of all, it was completely uninhabited. The perfect place to make the world go away for an afternoon.

They’d been on Ethan’s tiny day sailer for almost an hour—the island was about ten miles offshore—when suddenly Maggie hopped up onto her cushioned seat and let out an exhilarated squeal.

“This is the best birthday ever! Oh, my God, I love this day!”

Nora, who was sitting at the back of the boat, couldn’t help smiling. Maggie’s spiky brown hair stood straight up in the wind, and her pregnant stomach looked as rounded and full of energetic purpose as the sails above her.

Maggie’s moods were always infectious. If she was depressed, everyone around her suffered. But if she was happy…

“And I love you!” Maggie climbed down and wrapped Nora in a bear hug. She turned to Ethan, who was angling the tiller, and, taking his face in her hands, covered his parted lips with a loud, smacking kiss. “And you, my dashing seafarer!”

Then she whirled away, and, with a contented sigh, leaned over to drag her fingers in the green current that rushed along the side of the boat.

Nora caught Ethan’s gaze. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, he looked stunned, as if he’d never been this close to anything as dazzling as Maggie. The sails began to luff, as Ethan forgot to steer, but he corrected the mistake and shrugged sheepishly, his cheeks pink.

Just last night, he had confessed to Nora that he was in love with Maggie. When Ethan had finished rubbing Maggie’s feet, which had been sore after a long day waiting tables at the lobster shack, she had stumbled off to bed, leaving Nora and Ethan alone together.

He had flushed the entire time he spoke. He knew it was inappropriate, he said, given that Maggie was his patient, but he couldn’t help it. She’d made her way into his blood, and he was going to ask her to marry him.

What did Nora think? Would Maggie say yes?

Nora wasn’t sure. For all her childlike displays of emotion, Maggie kept her deepest truths in darkest secret. That’s how you knew something really mattered to her—the bubbling stream of chatter suddenly dried up to dust.

Though they’d been best friends since they’d eaten paste together in kindergarten, Nora had accepted that there were things she’d never learn, no matter how many times she asked.

Like where Maggie got that old-fashioned gold ring she wore on a chain around her neck.

Or who was the father of her baby.

“Land ahoy!” Maggie leaned way out this time, pointing east. “I see it!”

“Maggie,” Ethan said sharply, “don’t lean out so far! You could fall overboard!”

“Stop being such a worrywart.” Maggie cast a sour look at Ethan, then went back to dragging her hand in the water. “Even if I did fall over, I know how to swim.”

Nora gave Ethan a look, too. She tried to signal that bossing Maggie around was not a good idea. Maggie hated domineering, patriarchal men—probably because her father was one of the worst. Nora knew that Mr. Nicholson had hit Maggie, at least twice, and she often wondered what else might have happened that Maggie didn’t confide.

But Ethan wasn’t paying any attention to Nora. He was still watching Maggie, and his mouth was set in an anxious line. Nora looked over at her friend, too. Maggie had both hands on her belly, and her face was gripped in a sudden, strange tension.

“What is it?” Nora leaned forward. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine. Carry on.”

Ethan’s dark brows pulled together. “Are you having contractions?”

“I’m fine, sailor.” Maggie waved her hand nonchalantly, clearly trying to lighten the mood. Nora couldn’t blame her. Ethan did hover a bit. “Colin was just giving me one of his Morse code messages. You know, punch-punch-jab-poke. I think he said something about nappy turfday.”

Nora smiled. Maggie always called the baby Colin, though the ultrasound had been inconclusive as to sex. She’d decided it was a boy, and, as usual, the facts didn’t really concern her.

But Ethan wasn’t buying it. He reached out with a doctor’s instinctive authority and put his hand on Maggie’s stomach. “I don’t like it. You sure he’s not saying something about going into labor?”

Maggie stood up and moved beyond Ethan’s reach. “My Morse code is pretty rusty, but I think I could tell the difference between ‘Happy birthday, Mom,’ and ‘Look out, here I come!’”

“Could you?”

She glared at him. “Colin is fine. I said carry on.” It always frustrated her when the universe didn’t fall right in line with her plans. “Look, not only is this my birthday, but this may be the last completely free day I have for—oh, say eighteen years? So don’t you two go all smothery and cheat me out of it, okay?”

Ethan adjusted his glasses. “But in the third trimester—”

Maggie stood on the seat, stepped one foot up onto the gunwale and pointed her hands over her head in the classic diving position. “I’m going to that island,” she said, “if I have to swim the rest of the way.”

Ethan laughed nervously. “Get down, you dork. Do you want to slip?”

He wasn’t really concerned that she’d jump. But Nora knew Maggie better than he did. She glanced quickly toward the island, calculating the distance. Only about a hundred yards. Maggie could swim it. And, if he didn’t back off, she just might.

“Ethan, don’t piss me off.” Maggie wasn’t laughing. “You’re not my father.”

“No, I’m your doctor. I simply can’t allow you to take foolish risks—”

Nora groaned. Too bossy. He even sounded a little like Maggie’s father. Maggie despised her father.

She dove into the ocean with an emphatic splash.

Ethan lurched. “For God’s sake, Maggie!”

She ignored him, her arms cutting through the water with a brisk freestyle. Her feet churned up little green-white whirlpools, and soon she was moving faster than the boat.

“She’s a great swimmer,” Nora said when Ethan turned around to give her a horrified, open-mouthed stare. “At home, we swim all the time.”

“But she’s eight months pregnant! She has no idea how dangerous that is.”

He looked down at the water, and Nora knew he was thinking of diving in after Maggie.

“Bad idea,” she said. “You know how stubborn she is. She’ll fight you till you both drown.”

Though his adoration made him act silly sometimes, Ethan wasn’t stupid. He knew when he was outmaneuvered. Obviously the only thing they could do right now was stay close to Maggie, and get to the island as fast as possible.

He sat, wiped his water-speckled glasses on his shirt, and then grabbed hold of the tiller. It took several seconds, but he adjusted the sails until they caught the wind.

They were only a few yards behind Maggie, just a few feet to her left—Ethan was steering as close to the wind as he could, so that they wouldn’t separate much. Her small white face kept turning toward them every other stroke. Once, Nora could have sworn Maggie stuck out her tongue at them.

“Little brat,” Ethan murmured. But Nora saw that he was smiling—and, in spite of her annoyance with Maggie, she felt happy for her. How great to have someone love you so much they even found your flaws adorable.

Back in high school, Maggie’s edgy personality had scared off most of the guys. She’d had only one boyfriend, as far as Nora knew—a short, dumb fling with Mr. Jenkins, their senior biology teacher who shortly afterward had married the English lit teacher and had moved out of town. Nora assumed Mr. J. must be the father of the baby, though of course Maggie wouldn’t discuss it.

But perhaps Mr. Jenkins had been a sign. Maggie needed someone a little older, a lot wiser.

Yes. Nice, honest, loyal and unmarried Ethan would be good for Maggie.

If only she’d have him.

The wind had shifted, so Ethan had to tack. Maggie beat them to the beach by at least five minutes, and they were coming in several yards west of her.

All they could do was watch as she climbed out of the surf, little bits of foam clinging to her bare legs. She shook water from her ears and ran her fingers through her hair to spike it back up where it belonged. Finally, she assumed a pose of exaggerated boredom, as if they were taking forever.

And then, abruptly, she doubled over, gripping her stomach with both hands.

Ethan made a skeptical sound. “Faker,” he said. “I’m not falling for that one.”

Was it just a joke? If so, it wasn’t one bit funny—it was actually damned scary. Would Maggie really be such a jerk? Nora frowned and moved to the other side of the boat, hoping to make out the details of Maggie’s face.

But her chin was tucked down against her breastbone. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hands were still hanging onto her stomach, fingers widespread and curved, like stiff claws.

“No,” Nora said through suddenly cold lips. “No, she’s not faking. You know how she is. She never pretends to be weak. She always pretends to be strong.”

Ethan frowned. They had almost made land. A shrill cry reached them, knifing through the crisp autumn silence. It sounded like a gull, but it was Maggie.

“Oh, my God,” he said. His knuckles were stark white around the tiller.

As they watched, Maggie swayed from side to side, as if she were wrestling with something inside her. And then she sank to her knees in the sand.

The sailboat was only fifteen feet from shore. Without thinking, Nora jumped out and waded through the cold, chest-high water as fast as her trembling legs would take her. Behind her, she heard Ethan jump out, too.

Her feet were clumsy on the grainy sand, but she ran as fast as she could. She reached Maggie just as she toppled over onto her side, her hands still wrapped around her stomach.

“Honey, honey, what’s wrong?” Nora dropped to her knees beside the moaning girl. “Is it the baby? Is the baby coming?”

“I don’t know.” Maggie’s face was coated with sand. Her voice sounded high, half-strangled with either pain or fear. “Maybe, but…but it’s too soon. And it hurts. I think something’s wrong.”

“How exactly does it feel?”

Maggie turned her face toward the sand. “It hurts.”

“Did your water break?” It might be hard to tell, Nora thought, given that Maggie was soaking wet all over.

For the first time, Nora looked down at Maggie’s legs. They were streaming with pale, watery blood.

The comforting words Nora had been about to say died away. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t what she’d been told to expect. She’d been to the birthing classes, and it had all sounded so organized. Step one, step two, step three…

No one had said anything about pale, quivering legs laced in blood that grew a brighter red with every passing second.

She didn’t know what to do. But even if she had known, she wouldn’t have been able to do it. She was going to faint.

Why, why had she listened to Maggie? Why had they come out here, to the end of the world, all alone? And before that…why hadn’t she insisted that they go home to Hawthorn Bay and tell Maggie’s parents about the baby? Maggie should have delivered her baby in the little hospital by the bridge, with a dozen brave, experienced adults to see it through.

But Nora had never been able to make Maggie do anything. Maggie was the strong one, the defiant one—she didn’t care what anyone thought of her. She didn’t need anyone, she always said. Not even Nora.

And maybe she didn’t. Maybe she would have been just fine alone. But, though Nora was almost painfully homesick to be back in Hawthorn Bay, back in her own little yellow bedroom at Heron Hill, she hadn’t been able to leave Maggie behind.

Under all that defiance, there was something…something tragic and vulnerable about Maggie. Nora had decided to stay with her, at least until the baby was born.

After that they’d decide what to do next.

Ethan was still thigh-deep in the water, trudging toward them, pulling the small sailboat along by a tug line. Intellectually, Nora knew he was right to take the time—they couldn’t afford to let the boat drift away. No one knew where they were. Even Ethan’s father, who was also a doctor, just thought they were having a picnic in the park.

But emotionally she wanted him to just drop the line and race over here. He was one of the brave, experienced adults they needed. She was only a teenager, and she wasn’t ready for this.

Maggie had begun to weep. “It hurts,” she said again, and she reached out for Nora’s hand.

Ethan finally dragged the boat onto the sand. A couple of gulls landed near it, obviously hoping for dinner. Ethan reached into the cockpit and extracted their beach towels and his cell phone.

Oh, God, hurry.

He punched numbers into the phone as he ran toward them. He listened, then clicked off and started over.

It was like watching a mime. Even from this distance, Nora could read the significance of that wordless message. They had no phone signal. They were officially in the middle of nowhere.

And they were officially alone.

When he reached them, Nora focused on his eyes—she knew the truth would be there. She’d known him only a few months, but she had already learned that he was a terrible liar.

For just a second, when he saw the blood, his eyes went black. For that same second, so did Nora’s heart.

She felt an irrational spurt of fury toward him, as if by confirming her fears he had somehow betrayed Maggie. She turned resolutely away from his anguished gaze.

“You’re going to be okay, honey,” she said, but she heard the note of rising panic in her voice and wished she hadn’t spoken.

Maggie stared at her with wild eyes. “There shouldn’t be blood,” she said. “There shouldn’t be blood.”

Ethan touched Maggie’s shoulder gently. “We have to see what’s causing it. And we need to see what’s going on with the baby. I need to know if you’re dilated.”

Maggie moaned in response.

“Nora,” he said without looking at her. “Please get the water bottles out of the cooler.” He held out the phone. “And take this. I don’t think it’s going to work, but keep trying.”

She clutched the phone and started to run, her sodden tennis shoes squishing with every step, making mud of the sand. Though there were no bars on the cell phone’s display, indicating they had no service, her fingers kept hitting 911 over and over.

By the time she had gathered the little plastic bottles in her arms and run back to the others, she’d tried 911 a dozen times.

Nothing.

While she’d been gone, Ethan had somehow spread out the towels, arranged Maggie on them, and removed her shorts and shoes.

Nora didn’t look at anything below Maggie’s face. She couldn’t allow herself to see how much blood there was. She couldn’t even think about how the baby might be coming. Here, in this empty place. A full month too early…

She gave Ethan the water, and then she took her place at Maggie’s shoulder.

Maggie rolled her face toward Nora, and the whites of her eyes were so huge that for a minute she looked like a frightened colt.

“Ethan will take care of everything,” Nora said numbly as she took Maggie’s hand. She felt like the recording of a person, programmed to speak words she didn’t even understand, much less believe.

Maggie’s face was so white. Was that what happened when you lost too much blood? Nora wanted to ask Ethan, but she didn’t want Maggie to hear the answer.

She didn’t want to hear the answer, either.

Ethan had positioned himself between Maggie’s knees. He’d opened some of the water, and poured it onto a small towel. He must have been hurting her, because Maggie’s grip on Nora’s hand kept tightening, until she thought the bones might break.

“Ethan will fix it.” She realized she was speaking as much to Ethan as to Maggie, telling him that he had no choice, he had to make this right. “Ethan won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I don’t care about me,” Maggie said, shutting her eyes and squeezing her fingers again. “Just be sure the baby is all right, that’s all that matters.”

Nora nodded. “Yes. Of course the baby—both of you will be fine.”

“You’ve got to relax, Maggie.” Ethan shook his head. “I need you to relax so I can find out what’s going on.” He glanced at Nora, the consummate doctor now, all business and no emotion. “Talk to her,” he said.

About what? About the blood? About the cell phone that was no more useful than a lump of scrap metal? About the miles of ocean that stretched out all the way to the horizon?

Over by the boat, more gulls were arriving, screaming overhead and diving for crumbs, like vultures.

She swallowed, her mind casting about. “Did you ever tell Ethan why you call the baby Colin, Maggie? Did you ever tell him about Cornwall?”

Amazingly, she seemed to have hit on the right subject. Maggie seemed to be trying to smile. “We were happy in Cornwall,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Nora nodded. It had been a lovely summer—and it was, she thought, the only time she’d ever seen Maggie completely relax. It was the only time the underlying vulnerability had seemed to vanish.

“You tell him, Nora.” Maggie nudged her hand. “Tell Ethan about Colin.”

Ethan wasn’t listening, Nora knew, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk. It was a good memory, and it would at least distract Maggie for a minute or two.

“When we graduated last spring, my parents gave us a trip to England,” she began awkwardly. She smiled down at Maggie. “Four whole months abroad, just the two of us. We couldn’t believe our luck.”

Maggie shut her eyes. “And all thanks to Jack,” she said with a hint of her normal dry sarcasm.

Nora let that part go. Ethan didn’t need to hear about Jack Killian. But it was true—the trip had been partly to celebrate their high-school graduation, and partly, Nora’s parents hoped, to help Nora get over the broken heart handed her by Black Jack Killian.

“We liked London,” she went on. “But we really fell in love with Cornwall, didn’t we, Maggie?”

Maggie’s eyes were still shut, but she nodded, just a fraction of an inch, and she once again tried to smile. It had shocked Nora to see Maggie, whose punk sassiness seemed much better suited to the London club scene, bloom like an English rose among the brutal cliffs, stoic stone houses and secret, windswept gardens of Cornwall.

But from their first night in the West Country, which they’d spent in a tiny fishing village that echoed with the cries of cormorants and the strange, musical accents of the locals, Maggie had clearly been at home.

“We met Colin Trenwith in Cornwall,” Nora said. “I think it was love at first sight for Maggie.”

Finally, Ethan looked up. Nora knew he’d always thought Colin might be the name of the baby’s father.

She smiled. “Or at least we met his ghost,” she added. “Maggie found his tombstone. He was a pirate who died in the 1700s. I think she fell in love with that name, right from the start.”

Ethan blinked behind his glasses, then returned to his work.

Nora tried not to see what he was doing. Instead she pictured Maggie, kneeling in front of the tilted tombstone in that half-forgotten cemetery overlooking the Atlantic.

“Nora, listen,” she’d called out excitedly. “Colin Trenwith, 1756–1775. Once a Pirate, Twice a Father, Now at Rest with his Lord.” She’d run her fingers over the carving. “Isn’t that the most poetic epitaph you’ve ever heard?”

Maggie hadn’t been able to tear herself away. She’d begged Nora to linger another week in Cornwall, and then another. They’d changed their tickets, and, cloaked and hooded against the wind, they’d hiked every day to the graveyard.

While Nora read, Maggie used Colin’s stone as a backrest and invented romantic stories about the boy who had packed so much life into his nineteen short years.

It was there, in that cemetery, that Nora had realized her parents were right—a new perspective had been just what she needed. Jack Killian had hurt her, yes, but her heartache was neither as immense as the Atlantic beside these ancient tombstones, nor as permanent as the deaths recorded on them.

And it was there, in that cemetery, breaking off impulsively in the middle of a tragic tale, that Maggie had first confessed her secret.

She was pregnant.

She was going to name her son Colin.

And she was never going home to Hawthorn Bay again.

So far, she hadn’t. Though they’d left England, having run out of money, they hadn’t gone home. They’d taken a bus from New York’s airport to small-town Maine and found menial jobs here, so that Maggie could have her baby in secret. Nora had called her parents, to let them know they were all right, though for Maggie’s sake she couldn’t tell them exactly where they were.

Maggie hadn’t called her family at all.

“We have to get back to the mainland,” Ethan interrupted tersely. “Right away. We have to get her back on the boat.”

Maggie cried out and her body jackknifed, as if someone had stabbed her from the inside.

“No,” she said, her voice tortured. “No. Do it here. The baby’s coming, Ethan. It’s too late to go back.”

Nora balanced herself with one hand on the wet sand. “Is it true? Is the baby coming?”

He nodded. “She’s already seven centimeters.” He gazed down at Maggie. “You must have been having contractions all morning, you little fool.”

Maggie shifted her head on the beach towel, grimacing. “Just twinges. Braxton-Hicks, I thought.”

Nora knew what that meant. When she’d agreed to stay in Maine with Maggie until the baby was born, she’d agreed to be her labor coach. Braxton-Hicks. False labour. Not uncommon in the weeks prior to delivery.

Maggie looked at Nora, as if she needed absolution for the sin of such dangerous foolishness. “Honestly, I didn’t think— Everyone says it takes so long the first time—”

“Well, it’s not going to take long for you.” Ethan sounded tense. “We have to get you back on the boat. Even if the baby is born there, we have to do it.”

Nora twitched her brows together, silently asking the question. Why? Why did they have to take such a risk? Surely it was safer here, where they at least had solid ground under their feet. Why go?

For answer, Ethan simply held up his hand. It was covered in blood, from fingertip to wrist, like a red rubber glove.

Nora felt the beach tilt. She thought for a minute she might pass out. It wasn’t just the baby coming early, then. Maggie was in real trouble. She was losing too much blood.

Maggie must have seen Ethan’s hand, too, though they both thought her eyes had been closed. Her whole body clenched, and then once again she reached for Nora’s fingers.

“Nora. Listen to me. If anything happens, I want you to take the baby.”

Nora pulled back instinctively, as if the words had burned her. Her heart was beating triple time, and her flesh felt cold.

“Don’t talk like that, Megs,” she said. She forced a teasing note into her voice. “It’s absurd. I know you love melodrama, but this isn’t the time. You need to focus on your breathing.”

“Not yet.” Maggie’s gaze bore into hers. “If it’s absurd, we’ll all have a good laugh about it later. But just in case. I want you to promise me that you’ll take the baby.”

Ethan was wrapping the towels around her. He must have done something that hurt. Maggie cried out, and her legs stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Nora saw a bead of sweat make its way down his hairline and mingle with a smear of blood on his cheek.

“Promise me, Nora.”

“Okay,” Nora said as she began to shiver. “Okay, Maggie, I promise. Now please. Focus.”

“And you must never let my parents know. About Colin. They can’t have him. My father—”

Maggie bent over again, making a sound like a small animal.

Ethan cleared his throat. “Nora, you have to help me carry her.”

When had Ethan stood up? Nora felt confused. This was a nightmare, where things happened in confusing, nonsequential jerks. But she had her part to play in the nightmare, too, so she struggled to her feet, though she no could longer feel them or trust that they were rigid enough to carry her own weight, let alone a bleeding woman and an unborn baby.

Maggie was so light, though, frighteningly light, as if part of her had bled away into the beach. They tried not to jostle her, but once or twice she seemed to pass out, then come back to consciousness with a groan.

Ethan cradled her in his arms while Nora made a pallet out of blood-soaked beach towels on the floor of the cockpit. As they placed her on it, Maggie seemed to rally a little. With one hand that, though it shook, seemed surprisingly strong, she pulled off the chain that held the mysterious gold ring.

She held it out to Nora.

“For you,” she said. Her voice seemed slurred. “For Colin.”

Nora took it, and her first tear fell.

Colin Trenwith.

Once a pirate, twice a father, now at rest with his Lord.

While Ethan towed the boat out to deeper water, Nora chanted the epitaph silently, over and over, like a prayer.

And then, with the words still circling through her mind, like a slender chain wrapping its fractured pieces together, Nora watched Ethan climb into the little boat, and the three of them set sail for home.