gently pushing open the door to Stacey’s hospital room. “How’re you feeling today?”
She gingerly propped herself up on her pillows and hit the button to make the bed hinge forward. “I’m okay. Tired. This little monkey was up most of the night. I seem to remember that Connor slept a lot when he was first born. I think I’m in for a battle with her.”
I peered into the plastic hospital bassinet to find a snoozing little Thea, all swaddled up like a sausage with only her chubby-cheeked face poking out. “Connor, come meet your baby sister.”
Jake had Connor by the hand and led him over to stand next to me, the heat from his big body radiating like waves and making me sway on the spot. He lifted the little guy up so that he could peer inside. Connor’s eyes went wide with fascination, and his mouth parted in awe.
“Little,” Connor squeaked.
Stacey smiled. “Very little. We have to be gentle.”
Connor looked up at the sound of his mother’s voice and instantly changed, his smile illuminating the room. His arms stretched out for her. Jake took him over to the side of her bed in one long stride, and the little boy slid in next to his mother, hugging her and nuzzling into her chest.
“I missed you, buddy,” she cooed, tears forming in her eyes. She quickly wiped them away with her sheet. “Have you been good for Jake?”
Connor nodded. “Pancakes for supper.”
“You had pancakes for supper?”
He nodded again. “Yep!”
For the remainder of the day, Stacey and I interviewed potential nannies. Jake and Connor hung out for a bit longer before heading home, promising to come back and get me later that day. After sifting through some real weirdos and duds, we finally managed to find somebody that both Stacey and I liked, agreeing that she seemed to know her stuff when it came to kids but wasn’t opposed to going with the flow and following Stacey’s lead and decisions on child-rearing. Some of the women we met were so rigid and controlling that Stacey felt if she didn’t toe the line herself, she’d be handed demerits, while others were such loopy flower children, you got the feeling that if one day if they didn’t show up, it was because they were off chasing a rainbow.
But with Daniella, we finally seemed to find a good fit—a woman in her mid-fifties with years of experience working with various families, both as a nanny and au pair, as well as in preschools and daycares. Unable to have children herself, she’d decided to dedicate her life to children and surround herself with their love and curiosity. She’d even noticed before any of the doctors or nurses had that Thea appeared to have mild jaundice and suggested that Stacey go and sit in the chair next to the window with her, so the baby could get some sunlight.
Stacey seemed relieved to know that after I left, someone was going to be there to help her through the first few daunting weeks of having a new baby. But underneath it all, even beneath the fatigue and euphoria that came from having a baby, she was still seething with rage. And who could blame her? I’d moved past my anger and was now just kind of numb. But he’d left her with two children to care for. I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive someone who did that to me.
It was closing in on four o’clock and I was softly rocking the baby next to the window while Stacey slept. A quiet rustling at the door made me turn around. Jake and Connor stood there with a big bouquet of flowers and a balloon that said “BABY GIRL” in big Pepto-Bismol pink letters.
“Shh,” Jake whispered. “I think your mummy is sleeping.”
“No, I’m not,” Stacey murmured, popping one eye open and then sitting up as Connor raced toward her, the big balloon bouncing behind him.
“Here, mummy!” he cried, thrusting the balloon ribbon into her hand. “Flowers!” He pointed at the huge bouquet that Jake was setting on the dresser at the foot of the bed.
“They’re lovely,” she said with a yawn. “Thank you.”
I brought Thea back over and Stacey took her, letting Connor get good and close to his sister. “Baby,” he cooed, gently brushing his knuckle over her cheek.
“I’m going to go find a washroom,” Jake said.
“Okay, spill,” Stacey said, giving me a stern look once Jake had rounded the corner. “What’s the deal with you two? Because I may have been in labor, but there was definitely a spark between the two of you when you arrived. And now it’s as though you can barely stand to be in the same room as each other. What happened?”
I looked toward the door and then back at her. “It’s complicated.”
She shook her head. “No, my situation is complicated. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever get laid again. But you, you have all the freedom in the world. How long have you guys been seeing each other? Because you never mentioned him when you were here.”
I bit my lip and looked down at my shoes. “We, uh … we met on the plane home.”
She shot me an infuriated look. “You let a complete stranger hang out with my kid!”
“No, no,” I protested, shaking my head emphatically and waving my hands. “Turns out he’s super close with my friend Emma and her husband. We didn’t actually get along on the plane but then ran into each other when I went to Emma’s for dinner. We called a truce. It was his brother’s private jet that got us here so fast. He’s great with kids. Has nieces and nephews.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Private jet?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Trust me, I don’t think he’s a threat. Connor seems to love him.”
“So, what’s the deal with you two then?” she asked, visibly relaxing and seeming to accept my character reference of Jake. Her eyes were probing and eager, begging me to give her the scoop on my love life.
“Like I said,” hoping my shrug was nonchalant, “it’s complicated.”
“You slept with him!” she exclaimed. I gaped at her. How could she tell? “You’ve got ‘multiple orgasms’ written all over your face.”
I made a face, hoping that it neither confirmed nor denied anything but instead shifted the subject elsewhere. “He doesn’t know about Ted. He just thinks I’m a widow.” She nodded, understanding completely. She didn’t want to advertise how she’d become a widow either. “But he’s started asking questions.”
She made a face, and I spun around to see Jake coming back in. “Ready to go?” he asked, his face void of emotion.
I swallowed. “You bet.”
I helped Connor, who had climbed up into his mother’s bed, back out and pecked the baby on the forehead. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning to get you and Thea, okay?”
“Okay.” She nodded, but as I went to pull away, she grabbed me by the sleeve. “He might be one of the few guys who understands and doesn’t run for the hills. Maybe tell him? He seems pretty great. And gorgeous too.”
I rolled my eyes. She didn’t know the half of just how great Jake really was. “I’ll think about it. See you tomorrow.”
That night, we had another delicious dinner—this time Jake and Connor had made spaghetti, another one of Connor’s requests. He’d also asked for ice cream sundaes for dessert. Once the little guy was tucked into bed, Jake and I sat in awkward silence in the living room. The news blathered on in the background, and he played on his phone. I was nose-deep in my e-reader.
“So, are you ever going to talk to me again?” he finally asked, causing me to jump and toss my e-reader to the floor.
“Of course.” I shrugged, lifting one shoulder in an attempt to seem cool and collected and not all hot and bothered, even though inside, my stomach, heart, brain and genitalia were in a full-on battle. My brain knew I shouldn’t get involved with him. But my heart ached and wanted love again, wanted to feel the things that Jake made me feel. My stomach was doing flip-flops, and my genitalia, well, let’s just say it wanted an encore of last night. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, your complete one-eighty this morning, for starters. What the hell happened?”
“It was one night.” I sighed. “Nothing more.”
He growled something under his breath that I couldn’t quite hear. “It was not one night. Stop saying that. And don’t you dare say that it was a ‘thank you’ again.”
I picked up my e-reader and set it down on the coffee table before pulling my legs under me. “What do you want from me?”
“I want the truth. Is that so hard? Don’t you think I deserve that?”
“I’ve told you the truth.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you have. Why are you so evasive when I ask you questions about your husband?”
I looked away from his face. Nobody should be allowed to be that good-looking. That kind of handsome should be illegal. It messes with your mind and makes you want to do all kinds of things you know you shouldn’t. I bit my lip, twisting my fingers together in my lap. “There’s nothing to tell. He’s dead. Our marriage wasn’t that great. I’m sorry he’s dead, but I don’t miss him.”
“See, I think there’s more too it. Why is Stacey changing her and the kid’s last names? Did she hate her husband too? Did you guys off your husbands together or something?”
I gaped at him. “Off as in murder? Did you honestly just ask me if I killed my husband?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Did you?”
“Oh my goodness! Seriously? First of all, no, we didn’t. Second of all, had we, do you think I would own up to it? If I were you and I’d decided to answer you with a ‘yes,’ I’d be looking for the nearest exit, because I wouldn’t be letting you live with the truth.”
A coy smile played on his lips. “Fine, so you didn’t murder your husband. Then what did happen?”
“Ugh, you just won’t let this go, will you?”
He shook his head again. “No, I won’t.”
“Fine, if you really must know,” I clenched my teeth, “one man died in the car accident. And he was my husband and he was Stacey’s husband.”
He furrowed his brow trying to decipher my ambiguous response, and then the light came on and eyes went wide. “Are you two like sister-wives or something?”
I snorted. “In a way, I suppose, but it was unbeknownst to the both of us. Ted was leading a double life. Had me as a wife in one city and Stacey as a wife in another. We didn’t find out about each other until after he’d died.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah … ” and then I decided to let it all out. From beginning to end, I told Jake the story. And I guess in some ways it was cathartic, but it also forced me to relive that horrible moment, the moment where my entire world, my life as I knew it, came to a screeching, crashing halt …