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Jamie and Carly were good. All the news was good.
Standing at the NICU window, watching the staff fuss around the incubator, Ellen cried as if her heart were breaking.
Maybe it had to break, to get bigger. To hear him tell it, her brother had a daughter now, which made her an aunt. Her whole life, it had been Ellen and Jamie against the world. Even when she got married, she’d felt that tug of affiliation to Jamie first; she’d never been able to realign her loyalties completely. When the divorce and Henry came along, her real family had expanded to include one more.
Now Jamie had Carly, and they had a baby, and Carly had Nana, so suddenly Ellen’s family was twice as big. It made her light-headed to think of it.
She really needed to stop sobbing.
She’d been like this when Henry was born, too. Newborns had a strange power. With their chicken legs and frog feet and hoarse, wavery cries, they tugged all the adult planets into new orbits.
It had been such a long day. She and Nana and Katie had taken turns running errands and holding hands and offering worthless advice. As the hours droned by in a flurry of test results and anxious waiting, she’d glimpsed Caleb from time to time, talking on his phone or coordinating with a guy in uniform. He’d come and gone at the periphery, never sitting, never stopping except when Henry tugged on his pants and asked him questions.
She’d been avoiding him. Avoiding being left alone with him, and avoiding thinking about him. But if she was being honest, Caleb had something to do with all these tears, too. Something she was too tired and way too emotional to analyze.
Finally, she got the waterworks under control and pressed her hand to the glass to say goodbye to the baby. Time for Aunt Ellen to find Henry and go home. She had an ache in her chest only her son could soothe.
Not wanting to call Maureen, she’d left Henry with Katie and Nana hours ago, when the nurses were prepping Carly for her C-section and Ellen had gone with Jamie to help him get ready for the operating room. Katie had reassured her that she had lots of practice taking care of her nephews. She’d programmed her number into Ellen’s phone, promising to keep Henry with her and put him to bed if necessary.
Henry hadn’t minded the separation. As soon as Katie showed him the Matchbox car in her purse, she’d become his new best friend.
It was two in the morning, but Ellen checked the visitor’s lounge anyway. The room was dark and empty. She reached into her purse for her phone, intending to call Katie, and then she saw him. In the far corner, nearly hidden from view, Caleb sat slumped in a chair, his temple against the wall. He cradled her son against his chest. Henry’s face was buried in Caleb’s armpit, and both of them had the loose-limbed sprawl of deep sleep.
Caleb’s dark head and Henry’s light one. Raw male power and the round, bunched muscles of toddlerhood. They were beautiful together.
She couldn’t have asked for a sharper knife to cut through her confusion.
She’d been kidding herself. There was the man she loved, holding the boy she loved. This was what she wanted. Everything she wanted. A new family, with Caleb. Their family.
Ellen took a deep, shaky breath and crossed the room.
How was it even possible that she’d fallen in love with him? When could it have happened? She flipped through her memories, but she couldn’t find the moment. Maybe there hadn’t been one moment. Maybe they’d built up—Caleb smirking across the flower bed the morning they met. Caleb sitting on her porch and making her smile while she fantasized about tying him up. Caleb letting Henry help him install the new deadbolts. Caleb inside her the first time, and the feeling she’d had that this was the most perfect, most right thing she’d ever done.
Caleb standing behind her, one hand on her hip as she confronted Richard at the end of the driveway.
Caleb sleeping in a chair with her son at the hospital.
Caleb keeping her safe. Keeping all of them safe.
God, how stupid could she be? How messed up and frightened and stupid, not to have known what she was throwing away? I want my life back, she’d told him, as if he were to blame for the chaos that had come to her in the past few days. She’d attacked him for the fence when really it was Jamie’s fault she needed it. Caleb was on her side. He’d brought her safety and confidence and joy in the midst of all the craziness. He’d offered her himself, and she’d turned him down.
She was crying again. She rummaged in her purse for another tissue.
“What’s the matter?” Caleb asked, his voice scratchy and deep. When she looked up, his eyes were open, but it was too dark to read them.
“Nothing.” Everything. “Just a little emotional. Long day.”
He looked down at the top of Henry’s head, then back at her. “I guess you’ll want to take him home.”
“Yes. Thanks for—thanks for keeping him company.”
“No problem.”
Caleb stood up. She stepped close to take Henry, who stirred but didn’t wake. Tucking her son’s arms around her neck, she felt the heat of Caleb’s body on Henry’s skin while Caleb’s breath on the side of her neck made her break out in goose bumps. It was so intimate, this transfer of her son from one safe harbor to another, and she wanted to linger in the moment. To close her eyes and absorb Caleb’s heat and strength, storing it for all the cold months ahead.
He stepped back and crossed his arms. He had his soldier face on. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
Her heart hammered insistently, and she felt suddenly, giddily like a teenager again, standing backstage at one of Jamie’s shows and mooning over some headliner. A girl with a crush, wondering what to say and when. How to find the right words to open up all the possibilities she’d dreamed about.
