didn’t follow her to the door. Instead, Rick Kraynick, baby wipe still in his hand, watched as Carrie rolled over. And over again. To reach the bright yellow rattle that was her favorite. It went straight to her mouth. And Sue wondered, not for the first time, if the little girl was going to teethe early.
She’d rolled over a couple of weeks sooner than Sue had expected, too.
Her visitor’s expression—soft and filled with pain, too—called to her, making her nervous.
“Mr. Kraynick, you have to go.”
He nodded. “That’s her.”
He was moved by the baby. And why did she care? This man was a total stranger to her. So why didn’t he seem like one?
“I’m not going to—”
“I know—confirm or deny. But you don’t need to. That’s Carrie.”
He was right. But then, he’d had a fifty-fifty chance.
“You need to leave.” Please. Before I do something I’m going to regret. Like let you stay.
“She seems to be a happy baby.”
“Mr. Kraynick.” Barb would be arriving soon to collect the two babies she’d had to leave with Sue when her third had a reaction to this morning’s inoculation, running a fever of 104, and had to be taken to the emergency room. “You have no idea which of those babies might or might not be your niece. Now I’m asking you to leave.”
“I heard you,” he said, still watching the baby.
Sue opened her mouth to threaten to call the police. He was breaking the law, refusing to leave her home. And then she noticed that his eyes were glistening.
And it occurred to her that they’d both buried a family member that week.
“Mr. Kraynick.” She hadn’t meant to allow any softness in her voice. He really had to go. His presence was causing her to feel things she couldn’t afford to feel.
“She…I’m sorry. She looks exactly like…someone I used to know…” His voice faded away.
Just when she was going to lose her battle with herself and allow him to pick up the baby, Rick Kraynick, the oddest man she’d ever met, turned, thanked her for her kindness and walked out of the room. And out of her life.
“I CAN’T STOP THINKING about her.”
“Rick, come on, man. What are you doing?” Mark easily dribbled around him and went for the layup. He scored.
Again.
And rebounded his own ball. Holding it against his side, he stopped and stared at Rick. “You aren’t seriously considering trying to get her yourself, are you?”
“I’m not just considering it, I’m going to do everything in my power to get her.” He’d given up on family. On making a family, or hoping for one. But he was not turning his back on family that already existed. Period. His mother aside. Her he’d written off years ago. “She’s my flesh and blood, man. She’s my sister’s child. And I know I can be a good father to her, give her a happy life. Hannah certainly had no complaints.” With a lunge, he stole the ball from the former college all-star point guard, took it out to the three point line and back to the basket for a score. And when Mark rebounded, he played him one on one until he stole the ball a second time.
In the end, the score was even. Rick was no more out of breath than his former employee as they headed into the locker room.
“I wish you’d reconsider this baby thing,” Mark said as they sat, a bench apart, untying the shoes that they left in the lockers behind them in between these Friday workouts.
Half an hour had passed since either man had said a word to each other.
“ ‘This baby thing,’ as you put it, isn’t negotiable,” Rick grunted.
“It’s ludicrous, man. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment.”
Disappointment? That would be a step up from the hell that had been his constant companion since he’d lost Hannah the previous fall.
A darkness that had dissipated, for hours at a time, since he’d heard about the orphaned baby living half an hour away from him. He was meant to do this.
“You really think they’ll give a baby girl to a single guy? Come on, man, they don’t even like to give them to couples who are living together and not married, let alone to a man living alone.”
Rick didn’t bother to respond. He wasn’t just a man. He was Carrie’s uncle.
He stripped off his shirt and shorts, dropped them in a pile in front of his locker and strode to the shower.
The two men had just secured their lockers when Mark spoke again.
“It’s not fair to her, either, is it?” he asked, his chin jutting as he faced Rick across the bench. “To be a stand-in for what you lost?”
“No one, I repeat, no one, will ever replace Hannah.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Mark’s gaze was filled with an empathy the two men didn’t generally share with each other. “You think I don’t know that while you might be breathing and moving, you’re no longer alive? I watched you dust yourself off back in high school, each time you got moved to another family.
And then again when Sheila took off. You’ve done it again. You go to work, you rule with your firm but fair hand, but you’ve got no heart.”
“Then you don’t need to worry about me using some-one else’s baby to replace my own, do you?”
“I’m worried that you’re going to take a little girl from the chance of a loving, two-parent family, and bring her to a house of grief.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing you don’t think I’d stand a chance getting her, isn’t it?”
“Ah, Rick, come on. This is me. I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah.” Rick was the first to drop his gaze. “I’m kind of worried about me, too. But everything else aside, man, rest assured, I’m positive this is the right thing for me to do.”
Grabbing his keys, he headed for the door.
“MA, DO NOT LET Uncle Sam make you feel guilty about that necklace.” With Carrie on her hip, little newborn William sleeping in his car seat carrier on the floor, and three-month-old Michael napping in a swing, Sue used her free hand to straighten up the family room Saturday morning. Picking up toys. And talking into the Bluetooth her parents had bought her for Christmas the year before. “That’s what your father says, too,” Jenny told her, “and I know you’re both right. But I’ve spent a good part of my life wishing Sam and I were closer. Looking for something I could do to show him how much I love him. And…”
“He had no business assuming that Grandma’s diamond necklace would go to him.”
Michael
