Inside, he drank in the cooler air.
The guard who patrolled the lobby stepped forward. Alan knew him and the lavender-haired woman behind the information desk. Formerly kindergarten teacher to half the adults in Leith, in retirement, she volunteered at the hospital. After a curt nod to the guard and his ex-teacher, he evaded their sympathetic glances.
Their pity turned him back into the ten-year-old boy whose mother had deserted him. As his father had disintegrated in front of his eyes, Alan had cleaned and cooked and put on a “normal” face.
After he’d set the kitchen on fire for the third time, their neighbors had stepped in. A Southern staple, the casserole, had begun to show up in its endless varieties, in the hands of their well-meaning friends.
The food, he’d thanked them for. Their looks of commiseration he’d hated so much he’d begun to pretend no one was home at dinnertime. His makebelieve often became the truth once his father decided to drink away his sorrows at a bar instead of in front of Alan.
The elevator doors wheezed open, pulling him out of the past. He glanced at the number painted on the pale-blue wall. Cate’s floor.
At her door, he knocked lightly before he went inside. To his surprise, she was sitting up, reading a magazine. She looked up, stroking the dressing that bulged against the sheet on her thigh.
“Hey,” she said, her tone lush and deep, like the dark river that ran behind her aunt’s home.
“How do you feel?” Idiot, he thought. Idiotic question.
Cate set her magazine aside. “I want to talk to you about how I feel.”
She looked younger than thirty-eight. Far younger. He still saw her as she’d been the day she’d sat in a bed on the floor above this one and held their newborn out to him.
Her wary gaze intimated this wasn’t going to that kind of talk. He steeled himself. “Tell me now if something’s wrong.”
“You’re making me nervous. Can you sit down so we can talk eye to eye?”
Wondering how hard his heart could pound before it exploded, he dropped into the chair beside her bed. “How bad is it? Just tell me.”
Confronted with the threat of another injury she found hard to discuss, he realized once and for all how they’d changed. Not just because she couldn’t remember their past. They’d drifted apart before her accident.
He’d tried to fool himself. He hadn’t preserved their love for each other despite all his protection. He’d feared losing her for the same reasons he’d lost his mother. He’d shut Cate out, because he didn’t trust her to love the part of him that felt so afraid.
“Alan, I need to know you’re listening to me.”
Her demand surprised him. She sounded exactly as she had the day of the accident. “You’re still yourself, after all.”
“Am I?” Interest filled her blue eyes as she held out her hand. “Tell me how.”
“What you just said, that you needed me to listen. Just before you got hurt, you were trying to make me understand exactly what you—”
“We argued?”
“I’m afraid so.” If she’d given him time, he might have tried to paint a better picture of those last seconds. “It wasn’t important.”
“But you didn’t understand me?”
“We’ve been married a long time. We’ve learned a shorthand, but shorthand may not have covered the conversations we needed to have.” Jeez, he sounded like a talk show therapist. “What’s wrong with you, Cate?”
“It’s not serious—I’m not—Oh, I give up.” She pushed her hair behind both ears. “I’m trying to tell you gently because I’m not sure you’ll be pleased, but I’m pregnant.”
He heard but he didn’t hear. Alan leaned forward, seeing her as a stranger. Her watchful blue eyes couldn’t belong to his Cate. “How pregnant?”
“Sixteen weeks.” She spread the gown over her belly, and he saw why she’d begun to avoid his touch.
He’d trusted her with his life, but she’d kept his child a secret. Her betrayal cut deep. “I thought you didn’t even want me to make love to you any more.” The only time they’d still communicated.
“Why didn’t I tell you?” Cate asked.
Rage made him harsh. “Since you didn’t, I can’t explain.” She’d planned to leave, but her decision hadn’t been spur of the moment. She’d planned to take his child. His heart stuttered over a few beats. “I can’t talk any more.”
“But I need to know—”
With his own lie foremost in his mind, he met her tear-sharpened gaze. He didn’t trust her tears, but he’d been no paragon of honesty.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
“Because I don’t understand. Were we unhappy?”
“I can’t guess how you felt. I remember the past twenty years. I remember when you told me about Dan.” They’d celebrated for nine months, until the real party started with his birth. “I would have been happy this time, too.”
“JUST PARK THE CAR. Don’t stop at the door, boy. I’m no invalid.” Uncle Ford’s orders bounced around the roof and doors of Dan’s car.
Ignoring his uncle, he braked beneath the canopy at the hospital’s front door. “I’m stopping here for Aunt Imogen. Will you wait with her while I park?”
“Imogen could best you in a footrace around the parking lot,” Uncle Ford said.
“Glad you recognize my talents, Ford. Now get out and let the boy park. Did you bring your cane?”
Dan shot her a grateful glance in the rearview mirror, and she smiled back while Uncle Ford wrestled himself out of the car. He insisted he just used the cane to lure the ladies to his supposedly helpless side.
“We both know I don’t need it,” he grumbled in what he always assumed was a whisper no one else could hear. People came out of the hospital’s vestry to see about the commotion. “Imogen, get out of this car. I’d like to visit my niece before tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t mind him.” Imogen waved a bottle of vanilla-scented perfume, which she dabbed behind her ears. “He’s worried about your mother, but he’d rather snap at us than admit he cares.”
Thanks to Aunt Imogen, he was the only guy his age who recognized vanilla at a hundred paces. “I don’t mind, but don’t go up to her room without me. Okay?”
“I’ll hold Ford back, but you hurry.” She shoved her perfume back in her purse and followed his uncle to the curb.
Dan parked in the first spot he found and dashed through the lot. Thank God for Aunt Imogen and Uncle Ford. He wouldn’t have to talk to his mom with them around. They were still arguing when he joined them.
