Nash was standing on the sidewalk along Garner Avenue, talking to a portly guy I recognized but couldn’t recall his name. They shook hands and then parted. The man smiled at me as he passed so I smiled back.
“Did you make a new friend?” I asked Nash as he held the door open for me.
He snatched a kiss along the way and winked. “Maybe.”
“Quite the social butterfly these days,” I remarked.
Two elderly women were browsing in the aisles of the store. One of them nudged her companion and exclaimed over the wall of paintings depicting the Hawk Mountains.
“That was Ted Foster,” Nash said.
I was still staring at the women as they admired the paintings. “What?”
“Ted Foster. The man who just left.”
“Ah, that’s right. I’d forgotten his name.”
“He’s one of the little league coaches. He wanted to know if he could count on our support to help sponsor the team in the fall league.”
“What did you say?”
Nash grinned. “That the team could count on the Ryan family just as they had for years. I even promised to attend some of the games. Heck, maybe in a few years Colin will be out there playing.”
“It might be more than a few years,” I laughed. “Considering Colin isn’t crawling quite yet.”
Betty Carter, long time employee at Hawk Valley Gifts, waved to me with a smile and then approached the two customers to see if they needed assistance.
“What time are you leaving?” Nash asked.
“About five. I’ll go pick up Emma as soon as I see my mother.”
“You didn’t talk to her yet?”
“No. Everything has happened so fast. But I need to tell her before I go.”
Only three days ago I drove up to Nash’s house to find him in the middle of a strangely friendly conversation with Harrison Corbett. Harrison left it to Nash to explain why he had been so desperate to contact me. Nothing about the situation was what I’d thought. I felt some sorrow that some of the ugliness could have been avoided if I’d chosen to answer one of Harrison’s messages. I’d been afraid and I’d allowed that fear to rule me.
But now that I knew there was precious little time to waste. Down in Phoenix a dying woman was eagerly waiting to meet her little granddaughter. Harrison himself had been downright congenial when I called him after speaking to Nash. He thanked me profusely and offered to make himself scarce during the visit if his presence made me uncomfortable. I told him that wasn’t necessary. I didn’t expect he’d try anything funny in front of his dying mother. These people were Emma’s family. If they were good people who would love her then I had no right to keep them out of her life.
So tonight my daughter and I were leaving Hawk Valley for a little while. Emma was excited when I told her this morning we were going away overnight. She’d never been to Phoenix and asked if we could get a pet rattlesnake. The plan was to drive down there tonight, stay in a hotel and then tomorrow spend the day with Randall’s mother. We’d return home tomorrow night.
But before we left I owed my mother an explanation. I owed her the whole story that I should have told her four years ago.
“I wish you’d let me come with you to Phoenix,” Nash said and I loved him for wanting to be there. I loved him for a lot of things. I’d tell him. Soon. Even if he didn’t love me back I wouldn’t be sorry for telling him.
“Emma and I will be just fine,” I said. “You have your hands full with that sweet baby.”
Nash checked his watch. “I told Nancy I’d be picking him up early today. We’re planning a crazy night of eating pureed bananas and watching cartoons.”
“I’m jealous.”
I noticed one of the women was buying a painting. The other carried a basket full of carefully chosen souvenirs that I heard her say were ‘for the grandkids’.
“I was going over the sales receipts from the last month,” I said. “Looks like business is really picking up.”
“Just like you said it would in the summer,” Nash reminded me.
I reached for his hand. We hadn’t yet discussed an official change in status but we weren’t keeping things under wraps any longer. “So I’ll call you when I get to the hotel tonight?”
“You’d better. I’ll be waiting.”
I kissed him. It was supposed to be a quick peck but Nash didn’t let me go and turned it into the kind of kiss that left me breathless. When we came up for air Betty and the two customers were staring at us.
“Oh my,” one of the women said and cooled her flushed face with a Hawk Valley folding fan.
That kiss left me feeling a bit woozy but I managed to stumble out the door with a smile that didn’t want to leave my face.
An hour later I wasn’t smiling anymore. I was sitting in my mother’s kitchen, twisting my hands together as I awaited her reaction to the things I’d just told her.
“Why?” she asked.
I nervously tried to make a joke. “You sound like Emma.”
My mother’s brows knitted together. “Why did you ever try to hide something so important?”
I heaved a sigh and sorted through my memories to find the scared girl who’d come home four years ago with no prospects and carrying the child of a dead man in her belly.
“It was bad enough that I’d dropped out of school and was having a baby at nineteen. The fact that Randall was the father just made the situation harder to deal with. I was in pain and so horribly disappointed in myself. I couldn’t handle the disappointment of others on top of that, especially yours.” I swallowed. “I was a coward.”
“Kathleen Margaret.” My mother’s voice rose. “One thing you have never been is a coward.”
A tear fell down my cheek. It seemed I wasn’t quite finished getting them all out yet.
My mother gazed at me and I wondered what she thought of this person crying in her kitchen, her only child. Other than our auburn hair and our affection for black coffee we had little in common. She’d worked her fingers to the bone for thirty years at the post office before retiring last spring. I’d never seen her read a book or even pick up a newspaper. She was very outgoing with a long list of friends, always active in a variety of charities. But, like me, she understood heartbreak. She’d suffered her own trials in the love arena with three failed marriages and a succession of inadequate boyfriends.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said, calling her a name I hadn’t called her since I was a little girl not much older than Emma. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”
“Oh Kat.” Now her green eyes were watery. “I’d forgive you for anything.” She got out of her chair and collected me in her arms. “You’re my baby, Kathleen. The love of my life. Don’t you know that?”
Crying in my mother’s arms while she stroked my hair felt childish and restorative at the same time. I was twenty-three with a child of my own but instantly I could recall being five and refusing to go back to sleep after a nightmare unless my mother stayed in my bed with me. And she did. She hummed a song that nowadays I sing to Emma and to Colin and that night she stayed with me long after I fell asleep.
Once my therapeutic sob fest was finished, my mother questioned my plans to drive down to Phoenix.
“Are you sure these people are trustworthy?” she asked. “I don’t think you and Emma should go alone. I can go with you.”
“Nash already offered to be our personal escort,” I said. “But no thank you. I need to bring Emma down there by myself.”
“If you’re sure,” she said and I could tell she was trying to weigh her words and avoid saying the wrong thing.
“I’m sure.”
She watched me. “I saw Nash yesterday. I was passing by the store and hadn’t been inside for a while so I took a look around. He was folding t-shirts. Folding them incorrectly I might add.”
I grinned. “But I bet he looked great doing it.”
She smirked. “I never said he wasn’t easy on the eyes.”
“He’s a good guy, Mom. I swear.”
She nodded. “All right. If you say so then I’m sure it’s true. I trust you, Kathleen.”
As I left my mother’s house and went to go pick up my daughter I felt like a new chapter in my life was beginning. There was still one more big topic to sort out but it would have to wait. I was nervous because I didn’t know what the outcome would be. In the beginning I’d promised Nash Ryan friendship and no hassles, no complications.
I couldn’t keep that promise anymore.
I just didn’t know if he wanted the same things I did.