Page 15 of Can't Miss Christmas

“I’ll go,” she insisted, then gave his hand a quick squeeze. “But thanks for worrying about me.”

Frankly, he was worried about himself too. Just being in the hospital had brought a bunch of memories tumbling into the present. Above the colorful artwork and the cheery Christmas decorations, the bright fluorescent lights glowed a bit harshly. An antiseptic smell permeated the place. And the beeps of monitors and IV pumps couldn’t disguise the fact that life-and-death business was part of the fabric of life here.

Graham followed Grace down a long hallway, Helen chatting endlessly about how wonderful Mirror Lake was, how a retired nurse spent most of the fall knitting Santa hats for all the new babies, and offering them goodies from the myriad cookie and candy trays that seemed to be stacked on every free countertop in the nursing station. She didn’t notice how Grace stiffened. To Grace’s credit, she made small talk with the staff, signed books, and walked with one of the nurses into some of the rooms to meet parents and their babies.

“So, what’s it like being married to a celebrity author?” Helen asked him as he waited in the nursing station.

“Terrific,” he said. “I couldn’t be more proud.” He shouldn’t pretend, but the thought of explaining seemed too complicated. He ate a homemade Christmas cookie instead, which was delicious but didn’t dispel his antsiness. Grace had been gone a while, and he wanted to make sure she wasn’t overtaxing herself. Suddenly, he looked up and saw her standing in the hallway in front of the large nursery viewing window, arms crossed tightly.

He walked up behind her and didn’t say anything, just put his arms around her. For a minute, they looked at the chubby-cheeked babies, some bald, some with thick shocks of dark hair, some with heads a little conical from their tough journey into the world. A few were sucking their fists, others were wailing lusty cries, red-faced, their mouths in big wide O’s.

They stood there, together, in silence. He knew exactly what she was thinking, because he was thinking the same thing, about their baby, who never got a chance to be fat cheeked and chunky, with a loud, healthy cry.

Graham could literally feel Grace’s pain seeping through his sweater. He tightened his arms around her, trying to say with his presence what he couldn’t say out loud. He thought of the times he could not comfort her, when they were married and it had been his business to do that for her. When he’d been at a loss, and nothing he’d been able to do or say had helped.

Now that time had passed, he understood so much better that they’d lived through a tragic situation that no one could ever really comprehend, that neither of them could really be comforted except with the passage of time. He wanted somehow to make up for it, to do better, to tell her he was so, so sorry for not being the husband she’d needed.

“Cute little buggers, aren’t they?” Helen asked, coming up behind them. “You two have any yet?”

“No, not yet,” Graham said, releasing Grace. Then he quickly changed the subject. “Grace, you ready to take off?” Beneath her friendly smile, she sent him a grateful nod.

“On behalf of all my staff, thank you so much for all you’ve done,” Helen said. “It was a real treat.”

As Grace hugged and laughed with the staff and took their compliments—how their daughters loved her books, and how they were all holding their breath for the next one—Graham understood that now, more than ever before, he and Grace had issues to resolve. Things to talk about that would affect whether or not they could truly start over again.

The question was if he could somehow surmount the invisible boundary between them, the one that had prevented them from fully grieving the loss of their son and had torn their marriage apart.

* * *

“I think I’m going to take a little walk,” Grace said, hugging her arms tightly around herself as they reentered the hotel room midafternoon. Graham didn’t know it yet, but she was going to insist he get on the four o’clock bus.

Seeing those babies had been a huge reality check. It brought all the pain she’d worked so hard to push away cascading back. And it brought a fresh array of doubts. How could she trust Graham again when things had gone so far awry the first time around? How could she trustherself, when at this very moment she felt herself putting up walls between them once again to shut out all the pain?

She’d placed her coat on the bed, but now she picked it up, shrugged it on, and headed to the door. Graham stepped directly in her path. “No,” he said.

She whirled toward him, her expression startled. “What do you meanno?”

He let out a breath. There was no turning back now. “I saw how upset you were. If we could just talk—”

“It’s all in the past. Done. It was a horrible time, and—”

He held her by the shoulders and shook her a little. “It’s not done. Both of us still hurt from it. It’s time we both talk about it.”

She did not want to go there. Frankly, it scared her to death, and she was freaking out. Stepping out of his reach, she looked at him warily. They’d gotten caught up in each other, in the attraction they’d always felt, but this—revisiting their unresolvable issues that were so closely tied to the death of their son—could crush her.

“I didn’t respond well to your depression,” he said. “I didn’t understand it. I thought you were pushing me away on purpose.”

“Stop blaming our divorce on my depression. It was a lot more than that.”

“Okay,” he said warily, sitting down on the bed, waiting for her to continue.

“You never really came back, Graham. Even after I started to feel a little more normal.”

“That’s not the way I remember it.” He crossed his arms as he continued. “After your first book sold, every weekend was booked, and when you weren’t doing events, you were home writing like crazy to meet your deadlines. I tried to understand how badly you were hurting, and I understood your need to work to forget your pain. But you didn’t appreciatemypain, Grace. You were in your own little world, where all that mattered were your books.”

She shut her eyes tightly to protect against the sting of his words, which struck their target too well. “I would trade every success I had to have our sweet son back. You know that.”

“I do know that,” he said softly. “I tried to understand. But then you announced you were going on tour. Announced it, Grace. Didn’t discuss it, just told me that’s what you were doing.”

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