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Summer was here, and I was ready to work hard and play hard. Echo was definitely going to be part of that plan, and I wondered if she was on the plane right now. Her flight was due to land at eight, and then it would take her over an hour to get back to her apartment.
If I said I wasn’t counting down the hours, I would have been lying. First, though, I had to get my laundry done and restock my fridge.
I was folding laundry when Dom messaged me that he had arrived, and had met Heath. They’d checked into their rental and then had gone right to the hospital. Labor was progressing, but they still had a while to wait.
I sent him good luck and hoped that it would work out. The second the ink on the paperwork was dry, Katie was ready to storm into their house and make a nursery happen in a few hours. I’d never seen her so excited about anything before.
Echo didn’t reach out to me until later that night. I was off from my nap on the flight, so I wasn’t tired, even though it was my normal bedtime. I’d been puttering around, waiting for her. I’d even started answering emails to pass the time.
Back home. Sad and lonely.
SameI said.Already missing the kids.
We lobbed texts back and forth for hours and there was that feeling in my chest again. That feeling of falling. I wanted to ignore it, but it was getting louder, as if someone had turned up the volume.
I feel asleep with my phone in my hand, right in the middle of writing a text.
A baby girl arrived the next morning, seven pounds, three ounces, twenty-one inches long, healthy, perfect. Heath and Dom had been in the delivery room and had both gotten to hold her just after she’d been born. The birth mother was on board with the adoption, but there was still time for her to change her mind.
We already love her so much, K. She’s ours. I know she’s ours.
They had her name picked out, Marissa Isabelle, and her birth mother had agreed to it. Now they had to wait two weeks and bond with their little baby and (hopefully) come back to Maine with her.
My emotions were so close to the surface that all the pictures Dom sent me made me cry all over again. I could barely concentrate on work, so I went for a long walk instead and watched comfort movies with the cats, and had a late lunch at The Trap and filled Lou in on what had gone down at Nationals.
“Any news on that girl you had your eye on?” Of course she asked me about Echo.
“Maybe,” I said, stabbing a shrimp with my fork. Susie made a dynamite shrimp scampi that I ordered every time it was on the menu.
“And?” Lou asked.
“And we might be dating? I’m not even really sure. It’s very murky right now. I’m supposed to see her for dinner tonight.” Echo had picked the restaurant, an authentic Mexican place that was known for its bottomless margaritas and guacamole they made at the table in a real stone mortar.
“So it seems like you’ve let it go,” she said with a smirk.
“I mean, there wasn’t much to let go. I built a grudge on something so small. But over the years it just kept growing and I don’t know. I’m bad at grudges, I guess.” I twirled some pasta with my fork, and succeeded at splattering sauce on my shirt. At least it wasn’t the shirt I planned on wearing for my date later.
“I think that’s a good quality to have. Some grudges are important, but some aren’t. They’re not worth wasting your time and energy on.”
“I guess.” I wiped my shirt off. “I feel like I still don’t know anything about her. We’ve barely spent any time together. I keep waiting for something bad to happen. For some awful secret to come out.”
“Maybe she doesn’thavean awful secret.”
“That’s what my mom would say. I don’t know.” There was no way to know if this thing with Echo was going to work if we didn’t try it. That was the hardest part.
“I have a good feeling about her, and my good feelings are never wrong,” Lou said, and then went to pour drinks for a couple who waited at the other end of the bar.
I’d never been more nervous for a date in my life. Not even my first date, which happened when I was fifteen. My parents had driven us to the movies and we’d been too shy to even hold hands.
Echo and I had agreed to meet at the restaurant and I was jumpy and shaky the whole drive. I was the first to arrive and spent the time waiting for her arranging my hair and making sure there were no stains on my shirt. I’d stacked my fingers with just about every ring I owned and I could barely bend my fingers, but the metal soothed me.
I was fiddling with my thumb rings when someone tapped on my window and I almost died from shock. It was Echo, trying not to laugh at my shock.
“Don’t do that to someone,” I said as I hit the button to roll the window down.
“Sorry,” she said, but she was still holding in a laugh. “Do you need a minute?”
I narrowed my eyes and put the window back up and opened the door.
