Josh and Cody were at the hotel when she returned. Cody was glowing with excitement about the upcoming airplane ride and the fact that Honor was going to see his ‘real bedroom.’ She listened with mock excitement equal to his own, laughing at his unbridled enthusiasm.
Josh shook his head. “He’s been going full tilt all day…no nap. I expect him to crash any minute now, so we better get some food before he hits the wall.”
Although they made a valiant effort to hurry, Cody fell asleep with his head on the restaurant table, halfway through his meal. Josh and Honor finished their dinner, exchanging amused glances with several passersby who couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the tuckered-out little boy.
Honor told Josh about her visit with Sarah Jacobs. “What do you think I should do?”
Josh folded his arms across his chest. “I understand your concern for the people who work for William, but you need to be careful not to wind up in trouble yourself.”
“I know. I need to start thinking like Margaret and find a creative way around the rules.”
Josh did not smile. “This is serious. They’re not rules, Honor. They’re laws, and they’re major laws at that. You really need to be careful.”
Honor nodded. “I will. I promise.” She smiled. “On a lighter note, it looks like you’re going to be meeting all three of my sisters when we get back from North Carolina.”
She explained their plans to close on the house and then stay overnight there.
“Sounds terrific. I promise to make myself scarce during your sleepover—right after I pry all of your embarrassing childhood secrets out of them, that is.”
Honor giggled. “I guess that’s fair, since I’ve already heard most of yours.”
They went back to their room and tucked sleeping Cody in for the night, then packed for their trip and snuggled together in bed.
“Did I tell you a few of my friends are going to come over to help us move the heavy stuff into the storage cube?”
“Define ‘heavy stuff.’”
Josh chuckled. “Don’t worry. You only have to fill up the boxes. We’ll move them all.” He hesitated. “I guess we’ll take Amy’s stuff to Good Will.”
“You still have her things?”
“Yeah. I didn’t need her room, so it was easier just to keep her door closed.”
Honor wondered if keeping Amy’s belongings had made it easier for her to stay and visit Cody. She coaxed, “Tell me more about Amy.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I’m not sure… just tell me everything you can think of.”
Josh cleared his throat. “Well, she wasn’t nearly as beautiful as you are.”
Honor lifted her head from Josh’s shoulder and frowned at him. “I’m not looking for reassurance, Josh. Just tell me about her. What was her last name? What did she look like? How did you guys meet? That sort of thing…”
Honor lay back down on his shoulder.
Josh took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Her name was Amy Douglas, and she had short brown hair, blue eyes and a great sense of humor. She worked for a flooring company and we met when she stopped by one of my project sites to check on an installation. We hung out with mutual friends a couple times and then one night, after too many beers, we wound up in bed together. We tried going out a few times after that, but we both knew that we weren’t really clicking together, so we just sort of stopped calling one another. A few months later, she called out of the blue and said she needed to talk to me. She came over and told me she was pregnant and that I could be as involved or uninvolved as I wanted to be, but she was going to keep our baby. And presto… my life changed forever.”
“Uh huh—Then what?”
“Well, I wasn’t thrilled about her being pregnant. I mean, who wants to have a baby with someone they don’t love? But the idea of being a dad grew on me pretty fast. Then, when she was about six months pregnant, she developed preeclampsia… high blood pressure, and her doctor told her she was going to have to take it easy until she delivered. She had to quit her job and couldn’t afford to pay her rent. I owned my house, so I suggested that she could move into one of my guestrooms until she was ready to go back to work. She moved in that weekend. I panicked. I remember thinking, ‘Now what have I done?’”
Josh kissed the top of Honor’s head and she looked up at him. She could tell he was trying to read her reaction.
“It must have been hard trying to care for Amy without getting stuck in a situation you didn’t bargain for.”
Josh nodded. “Exactly. At first, I was sort of walking on eggshells in my own house. Then one night another girl I was interested in called. Amy answered the phone and told her that she was my platonic roommate. Given the fact that she was pregnant with my child, this might sound strange…but after that, we were exactly what she said we were: platonic roommates. We had fun together, decorating the nursery and talking about names for the baby and stuff like that, but for the most part, we led separate lives.”
Honor reached up and kissed his cheek, then snuggled back into her favorite position against his shoulder.
“Amy was pretty concerned about the preeclampsia. Since her folks were dead and she was an only child, she brought home some forms for me to sign, making me her medical representative and the legal guardian of our child in the event that something went drastically wrong during the delivery. I thought she was being overly dramatic, but I signed the papers to ease her mind, and boy, am I glad I did.”
Josh took another deep breath. “Things were fine until Amy got restless one afternoon and drove herself to the store to buy a few books. On her way back home, a truck ran a red light and smashed into the driver’s side of her little car. The next thing I know, I get a call at work saying there had been a car accident and that a card in Amy Douglas’ wallet listed me as her emergency contact. They told me she had been taken by helicopter to a level one trauma center and that I should get there right away. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt. She complained they were too uncomfortable with her belly being so big and all…” Josh swallowed hard.
“You don’t have to go on if this is too hard to talk about.”
“Thanks, but you should know the whole story.”
He swallowed again.
“When they finally let me see her at the hospital, there were tubes and wires all over the place. The doctors said Amy would never regain consciousness, but miraculously, the baby was doing okay. They wanted to increase his chances of survival by giving him a little more time in her womb before performing a cesarean section. As her medical representative, I agreed to let them keep her on life support.” His voice faltered.
Honor patted Josh’s heart, wishing she could take away his pain.
“A month went by like that. Amy lying in the hospital on life support—a human incubator. It was horrible. I knew she was brain dead, but a part of me couldn’t accept that. I went there every day and sat by her bed, talking to her about everything from stuff at work to how the interviews with nannies were going.”
Honor hugged him, hoping to give him strength.
“One Sunday morning, a couple of doctors were standing in her doorway when I arrived. I knew something was wrong even before they said anything. They told me Amy’s heart rate was becoming unstable. They were worried about the baby and recommended delivery as soon as they could book an operating room. Since I was her medical representative, the decision was up to me.”
Josh’s arms tightened around Honor.
“I signed my consent and asked if I could stay with her. The doctor said I could watch the birth, but because they were worried about the baby, he said I would have to leave the O. R. immediately, if anything went wrong.”
Josh combed his fingers through his hair.
“You must have been scared.”
“Yeah. I kept talking to Amy throughout the surgery, telling her she was very brave to hang in there taking care of our son and stuff like that. A part of me was still hoping she would hear me and just, you know…wake up.” Josh paused again.
“Jesus, Honor, when I saw the doctors pull this tiny baby out of her body, it was the most amazing and terrifying moment of my whole life. I just held my breath, waiting for him to cry while they looked him over. It seemed to take forever, but then he let out this pitiful little wail, and I just knew he was going to be okay.” Josh rubbed his eyes.
“I remember the details like they happened yesterday. The doctor said, ‘time of birth…5:29 p.m.’ It was great. I told Amy, ‘Look what you made. That’s Cody Douglas Lancing over there. Can you hear him hollering?’”
He shook his head. “What happened next was surreal. A machine that was right next to my ear started beeping really loud. I jumped backward and banged into something. Someone said, ‘get him out of here,’ and a nurse took me by the arm. I was confused, but let her lead me out of the operating room. She told me not to worry, but I didn’t believe her. I knew Amy was dying and they didn’t want me to watch it happen.”
Josh choked up and Honor felt a shiver run through him. She clung to him as he continued his story.
“The nurse told me to go to the surgical waiting room at the end of the hall, but I couldn’t make my feet move. My mind was racing and I felt numb all over. I noticed the sounds from the alarm had stopped. Everything was quiet. I opened the door and went back inside. I knew Amy was dead, but it still didn’t seem right to leave her alone. She had been so alone most of her life. There was a lot of blood on the floor and no one was hurrying anymore. The nurse tried to push me out of the room again, but I told her it was okay… I knew Amy was gone. One of the doctors nodded at her and she let me in. Someone covered Amy with a sheet, except for her head, and I went to stand by her side. She had a peaceful expression on her face and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. It was incomprehensible to me that she was no longer alive. The doctor told me he had pronounced her dead at 5:39 and I remember thinking that our son had been born exactly ten minutes before she died.” Josh swiped at his tears.
“They let me stay with her for a few minutes, to say goodbye. I just kept looking at her, feeling sad that her life had been so short and empty, and that she had been denied the satisfaction of holding the baby that she had been so excited about bringing into this world. I felt guilty about how little I knew about her and I wondered if she would have wanted me to call anyone except the people she worked with to let them know she was gone. The nurse came over and told me it was time for me to leave Amy, so she could take me to the nursery to hold my baby boy. It’s funny, but I had forgotten he was out. I looked toward her belly and it was so flat…”
Josh shuddered, as if that memory was almost too painful to touch, even now. “I thanked Amy for giving me a son and promised to take care of him. Then I bent over, kissed her forehead and said goodbye. Like I said, it was surreal. The nurse took my arm and led me away. And the next thing I know, I’m holding Cody and feeding him his first bottle. I’ve never been so happy or sad in my life. It was weird to be both at the same time.”
“Well, I think the way you’re raising Cody is a tribute to Amy.”
“Thanks. I really can’t imagine my life without him anymore.”
Josh’s breathing leveled out and a few minutes later, he was asleep, emotionally exhausted.
Honor lay awake, thinking about Amy’s spirit. Eventually, she drifted to sleep and the chilly fog swept in around her.