Читать книгу Balancing Act - Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy - Страница 9

“I can stay until Sunday,” Brady said. “We can think about it. There are options. You know, a lot of people manage shared custody of their kids after a divorce, even when they’re living in different states. People manage to have their kids visit far-away grandparents. It’s not insurmountable.”

“No, I guess it isn’t,” Libby answered obediently. She popped a little smile onto her face, then added, “More coffee?” and when he nodded and said, “Please!” it gave her an excuse to go into the house, where she could rebel in private.

She didn’t want Brady to see how much his words about managing “shared custody” had terrified her. One look at that little girl in his arms, identical to her own Colleen, had told her how easily she could come to love two daughters, but how could she share two daughters with a stranger?

Did he expect her just to hand Colleen over for weekends and vacation visits? Put her on a plane and send her seven hundred miles? Dear Lord, no!

Her own parents had divorced when she was eight, and she’d had to do that. Just step on a plane every few months. The memories weren’t good, and she didn’t revisit them very often. Mom had never really adjusted to the divorce and to being a single parent. She hadn’t been prepared for managing on her own, so they’d moved from Kansas City to Chicago to be closer to Libby’s grandparents, and it had taken Mom a long time to find her feet.

She’d been horrified when Libby had taken on the role of single mother voluntarily. “If Glenn was still alive of course I’d have loved a grandchild, but not like this, Libby. You don’t know how hard it’s going to be.”

But Libby had cherished her independence and her freedom to run her life the way she chose. She hadn’t had that same freedom in her marriage. And now Brady was talking about “shared custody” as if it was easy and safe, as if it was something they could both just slot into their lives. He had no idea!

I should have challenged him on it. But maybe if I work as hard as I can to make this weekend nice and fun and harmonious, we can talk on Sunday and we’ll find there is another answer.

Even as she thought this, she knew it was a cop-out on her part. The kind of cop-out she’d made before, and didn’t want to make again. But wanting something and achieving it were two very different things, she’d found, especially when life came at you sideways like a runaway train.

Still unsure of how she would handle the situation, she poured two fresh mugs of coffee and went back out to the rear deck. Brady had vanished from the deck chair, and a few seconds of panicky searching—he was a stranger, she knew almost nothing about him, and she’d left him with her precious daughter, was she crazy?—revealed him safely down in the yard with the girls.

Oh, mercy, what a sight it was!

Silently, she put the coffee mugs down on the barbecue table and watched. Somehow, he’d gotten himself horizontal on the damp grass, solid as a fallen log, and both girls were running to and fro, covering him deeply with leaves.

They were shrieking with laughter—identical laughter—tossing wild handfuls of color every which way and earning exaggerated protests from Brady which they clearly found hilarious.

“More leaves? We’re having more leaves?” he was saying in that gravelly voice she was starting to know. “What? I’m not buried deep enough for you, yet, guys? I swear—”

Then he caught sight of Libby and stopped abruptly, and she had to hide a laugh of her own at the sight of his face.

He was blushing?

No, it had to be the effort and exertion of all that protesting, followed by the sudden scramble to his feet.

“I…uh…” he said, and brushed himself down, strong shoulders moving beneath the gray fabric of his sweatshirt. “That was…you know…”

“I know,” she answered, still laughing. “They loved it.”

She wanted him to laugh with her, but he’d closed off, retreated somehow. Coming up the steps and reaching for the coffee mug she still held in her hand, he looked intimidating and serious, a construction company boss through and through, not the kind of man you’d ever catch horsing around with two little girls.

Libby was sorry, now, that she’d caught him out. She didn’t want to create more distance than necessary.

Their fingers touched briefly as he took the mug. As a piece of body contact, it was nothing. Quicker and lighter than the touch of a makeup brush on her cheek, or the flick of her hand when she shooed a mosquito from Colleen’s face. All the same, it was warm and physical and potent, and she wished it hadn’t happened.

Possibly he did, too.

If he’d even noticed it, Libby revised. She doubted that the imprint of it had lingered on his skin the way it was still lingering on hers. And she doubted that her scent was still wrapping around him, the way his had wrapped around her. It was clean and male, reminding her of freshly shaven wood, and it was mixed with the earthy scent of the leaves.

He could have had half a dozen better reasons for moving away from her so quickly, with that distant frown still on his face.

Brady knew he was frowning too much, knew it made him look distant—intimidating, even—and he didn’t care. Deliberately, he turned his back on Libby, took a big mouthful of coffee and stared down at the fall color carpeting the yard.

He shouldn’t have fooled around with the leaves like that. He couldn’t afford to have this woman think he was soft, lacking intelligence, easy to manipulate, easy to distract from his goals with a bit of pretty color, and ready to take care of everything as needed.

Even though he was soft. He knew that. When it came to Scarlett’s well-being, he was a pussycat. He turned to liquid inside, like a soft-centered chocolate candy, every time he felt her little arms around his neck, or saw her smile, or had to kiss a bump.

And when it came to Scarlett, he would take care of everything as needed. He would walk over hot coals to give her the things she should have. A play in the leaves. Pretty toys at Christmas. A college education. Her very own twin sister.

What kind of sacrifices was Libby McGraw prepared to make? he wondered.

They drank their coffee mostly in silence, just watching the girls and commenting occasionally on their play. Inwardly, Libby was working on her courage, putting it in place piece by piece, like building a solid brick wall.

She waited until Brady had drained his mug, then cleared her throat—it shouldn’t have been so tight, but it was—and said, “How about we go out for pizza? There’s a place just a few blocks from here that’s kid-friendly, and the girls should stay the distance, don’t you think, after their naps? It’s not even six, yet. Seven, Ohio time.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he agreed.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to speak. “Because I don’t want to leave it until the end of the weekend before we talk about this, Brady. I want to get it on the table tonight, so that we both know where we stand.”

He looked at her, and she could see the speculation and assessment in his face. He didn’t fully trust her. It was written in the jut of his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes. It was shouted by the frequent glances he gave toward both the girls. Definitely, he didn’t trust her.

The feeling was mutual, and maybe that was good. Staying on her guard was a lot better than the alternatives.

Since it was still pretty early, they had their pick of several tables at the pizza restaurant, and chose one in a quiet corner in back, near the open kitchen. The girls were happy to squiggle with crayons on sheets of paper, watch the pizzas sliding in and out of the big, wood-fired oven and slurp their juice.

“Have you always lived in St. Paul?” Brady asked Libby as they waited for their order, and she couldn’t help her suspicion that it was more than just a casual question. Had she once again lost the initiative she was seeking?

“No, I was born in Kansas City,” she answered him, too accustomed to behaving as good manners dictated. She wasn’t prepared to avoid his question, or to challenge it, no matter how suspicious of it she was. “But I grew up in Chicago after my parents got divorced. I met my husband at Northwestern—he was doing his master’s—and we moved here when his company transferred him, around ten years ago, right after I finished college.”

“You’ve moved around some, then. I was born in Columbus, and I’ve stayed there.”

“So Scarlett is a third-generation Buckeye fan?”

He laughed. It was the kind of laugh that invited a response, deep and chuckling, like a little stream gurgling way down in a forest’s secret hollows. “Fifth.”

“Wow!”

“My grandfather used to take me to games when I was a kid, and his father took him. I’ve been taking Scarlett since she was a baby. Not sure how she’ll go this season, now that she wants to run around.”

“That’s nice.”

His eyes were nice, too. Libby didn’t want to notice the fact, but it was a little hard not to, when they were looking at her from just a few feet away, across the table. She was right in what she’d seen earlier. They didn’t always look blue. Now, for instance, you’d have said they were gray—dark and smoky and thoughtful.

She got the impression he wasn’t an intellectual man—not the kind of person who read serious books and watched documentaries on TV—but he wasn’t stupid, either. He was the kind of person who kept his thought processes to himself, then came out with surprising results in the end. Take his next question, for example.

“Were you and your husband trying to have a baby for long?” he asked. “Were you on that whole assisted reproduction treadmill, like Stacey and I put ourselves through?”

“No, we hadn’t been trying long at all,” she answered, startled into honesty. A couple’s fertility wasn’t something most people wanted to ask about at a first meeting. As it happened, she and Glenn hadn’t had time to discover whether they had any problems in that area. “Just three or four months,” she added. “Glenn hadn’t felt ready until he hit thirty-seven.”

Too late, she realized what she’d unconsciously implied—that she herself had been ready much sooner.

Well, that was true, wasn’t it? Although ten years younger than he was, she’d been ready for a long time, but Glenn had stood firm, as always. He wasn’t ready to share her with a baby yet. He wanted her all to himself. He still had career goals to accomplish. He didn’t want to be tied down and woken in the night. She had pretended to herself for years that she understood those reasons, and that she didn’t mind.

She just wished she hadn’t let Brady Buchanan in on the secret. There had been some dissatisfactions in her marriage before Glenn’s illness. For the sake of the deeper connection they’d made with each other during those last months when Glenn had softened so much, however, she kept those to herself.

It seemed weird to be talking on such a personal level with Brady, a near-stranger, but discovering that you shared twin daughters with a man cut through some of the usual barriers.

Some of them.

In other areas, she felt even more wary, and more protective of secrets and doubts and resolutions.

She went on quickly, “Then his cancer was diagnosed, and that was the end of it. With the type of cancer and treatment he had, there was no possibility of getting another chance to conceive once his treatment was over, even if he had survived.”

“That must have been tough.”

“It was. A double loss, in a lot of ways. My husband, and my chance for a child that was his. Even so, it took me a long time to decide on adoption. I knew it would be a major undertaking on my own.”

“Stacey and I tried to have a baby for eight years,” Brady said. “Deciding to go for an intercountry adoption gave us the best year of our marriage.”

It didn’t quite make sense. They’d only had Scarlett for two or three months before his wife’s death. He must have been including the months before that.

Libby couldn’t agree on those months being good ones in her own case. Although she’d appreciated the need for all the bureaucratic red tape in two countries, in order to ensure that children were willingly given up to responsible adoptive parents, she’d found the actual process of it—the waiting and the uncertainty—quite gruelling.

She’d had to list every address she’d had in her adult life, every organization she’d ever belonged to, and every job she’d ever had. She’d been allowed to choose the sex and approximate age of the child she hoped for, but that was all. Brady and Stacey must have been through the same thing.

She’d spent weeks in fear that her application would snag and fail on some small detail, and weeks more, before her flight to Vietnam, panicking that she might not be able to bond with the child who’d been chosen for her.

She couldn’t imagine how those had been good months in Brady’s life, but maybe it was a very different process if you weren’t going through it alone.

“So, if you moved because of your husband’s job, that means you don’t have parents or siblings here, right?” he asked, while she was still thinking about his last statement.

“No, no siblings anywhere,” she told him.

His gray, thoughtful gaze was still fixed on her, and she found it unsettling. His questions were like an interview, or a test. For the sake of Colleen and Scarlett, she hid her growing anger and discomfort. What was he angling toward?

“I’m an only child,” she explained.

“Me, too.”

“My parents divorced when I was in grade school, as I said. My mother’s still in Chicago, and my Dad died when I was eighteen.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, it was hard,” she answered. It wasn’t something she let herself think about.

“But at least you have your mother, not so far away.”

“Far enough!”

Mom hadn’t visited since Colleen’s adoption. She’d sent gifts, and she talked about coming, but she hadn’t made it yet. Mom was a cautious, conservative person, slow to adjust to new situations. How would she deal with the news of Colleen’s twin?

“And what about your husband’s parents?” Brady asked.

“They’re in Florida. We were never all that close, and I’ve lost touch with them since Glenn’s death.”

It all sounded too arid and distant. She knew that, and wondered what Brady would think. It wasn’t her fault. She’d called Glenn’s parents and sent cards for birthdays and anniversaries and holidays. But if they were out when she called and she left a message, they never called back. They never sent cards in return, and when she’d told them about her plan to adopt a Vietnamese baby, she could practically hear the ice crackling down the phone. They’d considered her action an affront to their son’s memory.

This was when she’d given up. She and Colleen would go on putting down their roots here in St. Paul. They had a great house in a great neighborhood. She had good friends she’d made over the past ten years, and more friends she’d begun to make with other mothers since adopting Colleen. They were both happy at the day-care center, and she’d begun to consider schools for her daughter’s education later on.

Brady was looking at her as if all of this—this failure, this distance, this determined independence—was scrolling across her forehead like a TelePrompTer, and as if it said as much about who she was as did her taste in clothes. It probably did.

Their pizza arrived, along with salad and soda pop for the adults. Brady took a knife, cut a slice of pizza into bite-sized pieces for Scarlett, then used it to lift a second slice onto Libby’s plate, while she was occupied in helping Colleen. He had big hands, but he used them well, with sure, economical movements.

Sliding a third slice onto his own plate, he got some sauce on his forefinger and casually wiped it into his mouth.

“You said you didn’t want to wait before we talked,” he said. “Does that mean you already know what you want to do?”

“It means I know what we have to do,” she corrected him quickly. “As I see it, Brady, there’s no choice.”

She took a small bite of the hot, crisp slice, but her appetite didn’t respond. Her stomach was far too churned up to feel hungry, and she was nauseous. She had a deep, instinctive dread of laying her emotional cards on the table like this, which she could never really understand. It wasn’t fair to blame Glenn and the patterns that had evolved during their marriage.

“Okay, so tell me.” Brady leaned forward a little, his face serious and steady.

“I don’t buy your point about visits and access, like after a divorce,” she began.

“No?” He looked as if he was sincerely ready to listen, and she liked that. Grabbed on to it hard, gritted her teeth, fought back the nausea, and hoped with her whole heart.

“These girls have already lost both their biological parents, whoever they were,” she went on. “During the adoption ceremony in Vietnam, we undertook to keep them in touch with their cultural heritage.”

“Yes, I remember that bit.”

“It’s going to be hard to make that more than a token thing, across a whole, huge ocean. I can’t justify making their relationship with each other only a token thing, as well. The girls are way too young just to put them on a plane and send them back and forth, in any case, and there’s only one way I can see to avoid doing that,” she finished on a rush of words that came out more aggressively than she’d intended.

“Yeah?” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. His attitude had changed. He looked skeptical, now, ready to shoot first and ask questions later.

She lifted her chin, took a deep breath and just said it. “One of us is going to have to move.”

Okay, Brady thought.

Hadn’t he known something like that was coming? Wasn’t it the only reasonable solution a sane, feeling person could come up with? It wasn’t so drastic. People moved from one part of the country to another for far less meaningful reasons. And wouldn’t he have said it himself, if she hadn’t?

No, he wouldn’t. Not yet.

He didn’t like the way she’d said “one of us,” and he wasn’t fooled by the apologetic spread of her dainty, pretty hands as soon as she finished speaking, nor by the nervous lapping of her pink tongue against the still-glistening color on her upper lip as she waited for his response.

He took a large bite of pizza, aware that she’d barely touched her own slice.

So one of them was going to have to move? Hanging in the air, unspoken, he could almost hear her corollary, “And I’m happy and set up in St. Paul, so I don’t see why it should be me.”

Well, she was wrong about that.

This was why he hadn’t wanted to discuss it so soon. He’d known that if she really believed in the importance of keeping the girls connected, this was the solution she’d propose. He’d seen it coming, in his own heart and in hers, but he’d wanted to wait, in the hope they’d each manage to build a little trust.

This was why he’d asked her all those questions, just now. He’d wanted to gauge the ties she had here in Minnesota, and whether there was any possible way she could justify asking him to uproot his life. If he moved, he would have to sell his company, deprive Scarlett of a close, loving grandmother, start over in a new state and a new town. When Libby had no family here, and could easily get a job almost anyplace she went, was it unreasonable, on his part, to expect her to make the move?

He didn’t think so, and she might as well know it upfront. He wasn’t going to leave himself open to emotional manipulation.

“Columbus is a great place to raise kids,” he said steadily, not quite smiling. “Housing is affordable. People are friendly. Winters are mild compared to here. You’re going to love it. I’ll even help you with your move.”

He’d made her speechless. That wasn’t a bad thing. She sat there, slowly turning pink, with her pretty mouth dropped open. She looked at Colleen, looked at him, looked at Scarlett. Still didn’t say a word. Closed her mouth eventually, as if she knew it was more polite, and went on saying nothing.

So maybe he should give himself more credit for his powers of speech. He knew that running his own company for the past five years had honed his ability to handle careless sub-contractors and late-paying clients.

State your position up-front and show the opposition how he or she stands to win. Build immediately on your advantage.

It seemed he’d honed his ability to handle personal relationships as well, because even now, after he’d given her plenty of time, she still didn’t speak, and he still had the upper hand.

“I could see you in Upper Arlington,” he went on. “Worthington, or maybe Clintonville, where I live myself. Bexley is beautiful, but that’s on the other side of town from where I’m located.”

“I guess it wouldn’t make sense to move seven hundred miles and have the girls still end up a long drive from each other,” Libby said at last. Her voice shook a little, Brady thought.

Was she trying not to cry? Yeah, he felt a little emotional, too. Both of their lives had turned upside-down today. He was still crossing his fingers that they’d each flipped in the same direction.

He waited once more for her to make some kind of a counter offer, as a potential client might do in response to his company’s cost estimation on a big project.

I’ll move, but not until spring.

I’ll move, but it would seem fair if you covered half the expenses.

I’ll move, but I’ll need somewhere to stay until I can decide where I want to live, and whether I want to rent or buy. And there has to be a fall-back if it doesn’t work out. I don’t want to sell my house in St. Paul, and I want to get back here sometimes to see friends.

She didn’t say any of that. Instead, she poured herself some more pop, and Colleen some more juice. Then she helped with Colleen’s pizza.

Brady saw that her hands were shaking, and he felt an odd and powerful need to take them between his work-hardened palms and say, “Stop. It’s okay. Are you upset at the thought of moving? If you feel that strongly about it, St. Paul looks like a great city, and I’ll love it here.”

Was that what she wanted? Were the shaking hands just a cold-blooded example of the kind of emotional manipulation he couldn’t stomach? Was the silence an opportunity for her to hone her strategy? It wouldn’t surprise him. Some women played their relationships like chess games. He just wished Libby would say what she felt, and say it clearly. But she didn’t.

Instead, she was speaking in a bright tone to her daughter. “Let me cut that piece in half for you, honey. Yes, I know you want to do it yourself, but this bit Mommy has to help with. There you go, beautiful.”

He liked the way she talked to her daughter. Sweet and steady and clear. Plenty of endearments, but not too much fussing. Suddenly he found himself making the counter offers for her. All of them. In the same clipped, confident voice he used when proposing contract terms.

“Wait till spring if you want, and count on me to cover the moving expenses,” he said. “I have a pretty big place. You can stay there, with your own room and bathroom, while you decide on a permanent place. You don’t need to sell your house here right away. Best for both of us if you have some fall-back in case this doesn’t work out.”

“You’ve thought it through, haven’t you?” There was a note of controlled accusation in her voice.

“Didn’t take long,” he answered. “Most of it’s obvious. Makes sense that neither of us burns our bridges. Makes sense for you to have the time you need.”

“And is there a deadline on my decision?”

He shot her a closer look. Was she angry? Her voice was still just as sweet and steady. Her cheeks were still just as pink. He didn’t know what to think, didn’t understand what was going on in her head.

When Mom was angry or upset, she said exactly what was on her mind. Loudly. When she tried some underhanded tactics and he confronted her with them, she confessed at once. He appreciated that.

With Stacey, in contrast, it had been like building a house on quicksand. She’d lied. She’d pretended to have emotions she didn’t feel in order to get her way. She’d played on the beliefs she knew he had about duty and honor. She’d splashed around her emotions—genuine and false—like a one-year-old throwing food.

He waited for a mild, Miss Minnesota Princess version of either Mom or Stacey, but nothing happened, and this left him at a loss. Colleen shifted in her seat and looked uncomfortable. She provided a welcome change of focus. The restaurant was filling fast, and the noise level was rising, along with the smell of pizza in the oven.

“I think she’s working on a diaper,” Brady and Libby both said in unison.

Libby added, “I’ll take her out. Eat all you want of the pizza and salad because I’m done.”

“You haven’t eaten very much,” he pointed out, although this wasn’t the issue he wanted to confront her on. “You haven’t finished a single slice.”

She shrugged and gave a polite smile. “I wasn’t very hungry.”

Holding her daughter’s hand, she walked in the direction of the bathroom, still giving no indication of what she was feeling beyond her well-mannered facade.

Brady watched helplessly after her, wondering whether he’d won tonight’s most important victory, Ohio State Buckeyes over Minnesota Gophers, or whether instead he’d just stared down the barrel of his own defeat.