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“I don’t know that it’ll make any difference, but I have to try for them,” I told her quietly. “Would you please tell Sister Emanuelle that I’d like to speak with her?”
The little nun nodded at me and I watched her throat work on a hard swallow as she squeezed my arm. “You’re a good man, Mr. Beckman. I’m sure Sister Emanuelle can see this and will understand what you would do for your family.”
She nodded resolutely then and turned, beckoning I should follow her down the hallway and toward my fate.
15
Madelyn
Thenextfewdayswere unbearably quiet. It was the calm before the storm, one way or another, and I started a new project in the yard in order to keep from going completely insane.
Everything was washed and folded. Daniela’s room was ready for her and Kennedy had roped one of her brothers, a lawyer, into being “your guy on standby” whenever it came down to signing legal paperwork–ifwe were approved.
Mia had already texted me several times to ask how things were going, and I knew it was because Scott felt it would be too invasive if it was coming from him, but also because Mia genuinely cared. If anyone knew what it was like to raise someone else’s children, it was her, and she’d already told me no less than three times that she expected pictures the instant things were settled.
I hadn’t exactly told Scott about the shotgun wedding yet, though he should have been the first person I told. I’d taken a new last name and official documentation had to be updated: tax paperwork, my passports, payroll information, my driver’s license…the list went on and on, but I had no head for it at the present, so it languished while I tried to keep myself busy with other tasks. Tasks that would so physically exhaust me that I fell into bed each night and slept a dreamless sleep.
No time to think about the man who still slept next to me.
No time to worry about what would happen if we weren’t allowed to adopt Daniela.
She was the entire reason he married you,nagged at the back of my mind on a constant loop, and I knew what would happen if we lost her: I’d lose him too.
I didn’t ask Adam to explain why he continued to sleep next to me and to act like we were a couple in all the ways that mattered to the outside world.
Every morning he brought me coffee in bed, which was impressive, because I was an early riser.
Though he had returned to work, he came straight home each day and helped around the house. He mowed the lawn and folded laundry, fed the animals and brought in the mail. Then we sat down to dinner together each night and each night I fought the butterflies in my stomach that whispered,Maybe he’ll give in tonight.But it never happened. Instead, each night he helped me clean up the kitchen, took Bailey out to the yard before giving him his dinner, then stretched out in the living room for a few moments to watch TV or read a book.
That was something I didn’t know how to do: sit still. I tried to observe what he did, so I could incorporate it, but I quickly learned that if I was watching a movie I needed something for my hands to do, and often I was up and looking for something to do only a few minutes later.
The only time I wasn’t twitchy and pacing was in the dead of night, when Adam finally rolled to face me and, dead asleep, pulled me against his chest and kept an arm wrapped around me until it was nearly daylight. Unmoving. Deep, steady breaths.
The truth was that I wasn’t sleeping all that well, which wasn’t unusual, though my reasons were different now. I no longer had to sleep with one eye open, ready to jump up and rush out. Instead I was safe, going to bed each night with long hours stretching out ahead of me, with no interruptions but one. And each night I was only half asleep until he rolled to pull me to him, and then I wasn’t asleep at all because my mind was running riot.
After coffee each morning I was in the garage by sunrise, putting myself through punishing repetitions to set fire to my muscles. It was the only thing that helped take some of the edge off, and the fact Adam still slept next to me at night meant the only place I had to myself was the shower and inside my own head, though I hadn’t much liked what had been going on in there lately.
It had been three weeks since the home study and we still hadn’t heard a word, so I started working on the yard to keep myself from losing my mind. I was dying a little more each day and I knew Adam was doing his best to keep me occupied during the hours he was home. He could sense my agitation. My distress. And he joined me in my backyard project, wordlessly hauling one wheelbarrow after another of mulch back to the large circle I’d created.
Steve showed up that weekend and helped Adam fill the huge sandbox, then hauled several big boxes from the garage out into the yard where they constructed the play set I’d had delivered.
“Lots of preparations for a tiny girl,” Kennedy observed as she watched through the slider in the kitchen, and I saw the worry in her expression that I felt in my heart. Almost four weeks without a single word was a long time. It seemed longer, since I was still visiting Daniela almost daily, and I felt like Sister Theresa was looking at me with pity.
“And how are things on the home front?” Kennedy didn’t look at me as she topped up her coffee, and I made a face at her back as I considered how best to answer that loaded question.
“Going,” was all I could manage and she turned to face me, one eyebrow already crawling up her forehead.
“Itsois not,” she said, looking me up and down. “That isnotthe look of a satisfied woman. Believe me, I know.”
I had to set my cup down, because the last thing I needed was an eighth cup of coffee for the day and when she looked at me like that, I had to have a distraction or I’d spill my guts. It was another of Kennedy’s superpowers, and it seemed I hadn’t yet discovered all of them–they were legion. All these years and I was still discovering new things about her.
“It’s complicated.” I sighed, busying myself by opening the silverware drawer and fidgeting with the utensils that were already stacked in nice, even rows.
“Madelyn.” Kennedy’s voice went flat. “It’s actually very simple. You’re either blissfully happy and screwing each other’s brains out, or you’re not, and you’renot. Why?”
I stole a look out the window to make sure Adam and Steve were still fully engaged in wrestling with the play set. The back of my brother’s neck was starting to turn red, meaning a barrage of colorfully spliced curses would drift through the yard soon.
“He’s repaying some kind of cosmic debt,” I finally hissed and she cocked her head to the side, lowering her eyebrows–finally, because the left one had been trying to stage an escape into her hair.
