Page 50 of All We Could Still Have

Dana gave me a sheepish look. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought I was clear that I’d be taking Oliver back when I left for the summer.”

“Kyle cheated on me.” I hadn’t known I was going to tell them, but once I had, the words kept coming. “Months ago, but he just told me.” Aunt Izzie, Dana, and I sat side by side. Recounting the story without having to look at them made it easier to tell. As I spoke, Dana curled her arm around my waist. I leaned into her, her wiry frame giving me the strength I needed to share the story with the only family I had left. Aunt Izzie listened without interrupting, scraping the heel of her shoe through the dirt over and over again.

“The woman is pregnant. Someone he met at the Penalty Box.” I wiped the sweat dripping down my forehead with the back of my hand.

“No, no, no.” Aunt Izzie’s face went slack. She stared into the distance with an unfocused gaze. The hole by her foot was several inches wide and deep now.

Dana unzipped the cooler and handed Aunt Izzie a sandwich. “You were probably having a better birthday when we were fighting about the dog,” she said.

Chapter 30

The framed photos of me and Kyle had been on display in my office for so long that usually I didn’t notice them. This morning, I couldn’t turn away from them, one of me sitting on Kyle’s shoulders in the water at Marconi Beach, another of us warming up by a fire and toasting each other with big mugs of hot cocoa after a day of snowboarding, and one of Kyle and me on the ice after one of his hockey games. All the photos had been taken before we started trying to have a baby. We looked insanely happy, big goofy grins on our faces and our bodies pressed so close together we looked like conjoined twins. Tears stung my eyes. We would never be happy together again. How could we be when he had fathered a baby with someone else?

In a frenzy, I raced around the room, snatching up each picture as if it were evidence of a crime I had committed. Stacked in my hands, the metal frames clanked against each other as I stared into the trash can, a pretzel bag crumpled in the corner its only contents. Boy, had my life changed since I’d eaten those pretzels last week. In the end, I couldn’t make myself dump the pictures in the garbage, so I stuffed them in the back of my bottom desk drawer.

I settled in front of my computer, my hands poised on the keyboard, ready to write an article on the new yoga studio in town. Under Elizabeth’s guidance, the entire magazine had turned into a multipage glossy advertising flyer. When she had given me my latest assignment, I’d asked why advertorial content outweighed editorial articles. “Thinkof the magazine as an activity guide for the region,” she’d said. Her response made me question whether I wanted to continue working there, but where would I go?

For the first few hours of the day, I remained behind my closed office door, banging out a first draft. At lunchtime the occasional whispered chitchat in the hallway turned into a roar. A parade of coworkers marched by my office. Their laughter and voices drifted through the walls. “He’s adorable,” someone said.

“She looks just like you,” Page said.

A few minutes later someone else said, “Oh, you have a smart one there.”

Then there was the distinct sound of a baby crying.A baby?My heart clenched. Why would there be a baby in the office? Clearly, my imagination was playing tricks on me. My door cracked open, and Page popped her head in. “Elizabeth’s nanny is here with the kids. They’re adorable. Come see.”

“I have a deadline,” I lied.

Page licked her upper lip, looking around my office, her gaze lingering on the empty shelves. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “What’s going on? Why are you cleaning out your office?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I just took down some pictures.”

She studied my face as if it might reveal my reasons for doing so. “Is everything okay?”

The baby cried again, and I could feel my lips quivering.

Page raced around my desk and looked down at me. “Oh, honey, what is it?”

I wiped a tear from my face. “Nothing I’m ready to talk about yet.”

She leaned down to hug me, her hair tickling my nose. The scent of her apricot shampoo filled my nostrils. “When you’re ready to talk, I’mhere for you. No matter when. Late at night, the butt crack of morning. I’m here for you.”

“Thank you.” As I watched her leave, I wondered why I hadn’t confided in her about the trouble Kyle and I had trying to conceive. Maybe she would have been able to talk me out of withdrawing from my retirement fund. If I hadn’t done that or if I had told Kyle the truth about where the money came from, he would have never been with Casey. That I was sure of.

After Page left, I couldn’t focus. I kept reading the same line of an email over and over again. A bloodcurdling scream ricocheted down the hall. I imagined the poor baby getting passed from one of my coworkers to the next, each tickling his belly or pinching his cheek. I gave up trying to work and decided to go to lunch. Unfortunately, the only way out of the building required me to pass Elizabeth’s office.

As I turned the corner, the party by her desk broke up. My coworkers streamed into the corridor, followed by a little girl and a twentysomething woman with long red hair cascading over her shoulders. She pushed a stroller with Elizabeth on her heels, barking in her ear. “You’ll make sure to put him down for a nap when you get home. But don’t let him sleep past three.” The little girl dropped a doll she was carrying, and Elizabeth bent to retrieve it.

“I know,” the red-haired woman said. We made eye contact. I could tell by her furrowed forehead and tight mouth that Elizabeth annoyed her as much as she sometimes did me.

“And you’ll read to Hallie.”

“Absolutely.”

“One of the books I left on the dining room table.” Elizabeth handed her daughter the doll.

The nanny rolled her eyes, and I smiled as I passed. “Of course,” she said.

“Nikki,” Elizabeth hollered. I thought about continuing down the hall without stopping, but she called my name again. “Come meet my kids.”

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