Chapter Forty-Four

Michaela

 

You’d think changing your name after getting married would be simple, right?

“I was going to, but California requires you to publicly publish it unless you’re in the witness protection program or something like that, plus there are fees involved…and I thought there’d be time to make it official when it was more convenient. Semester finals were in December, I was trying to save every penny…then—”

“You were a widow instead of a wife.”

“Yeah.” Sighing, I pushed the bowl of wheat remnants and milk aside. “Grief and morning sickness consumed a lot of days, and then I was still pregnant.”

“What was that like?” Lincoln chewed, then added, “Being pregnant.”

“It didn’t feel real until I felt him moving inside me.”

“When was that?”

“Haven’t you known any pregnant women?”

“I’m asking about you.” Gesturing with a hunk of bread between his fingers.

I sighed. “In the fifth month. The sickness finally subsided, I had energy to get out of bed, and I realized I had to take care of myself for someone else.”

“Were you working?” He settled in his seat now he’d gotten me to play Twenty Questions.

I shook my head. “I bailed on my mall job after the news, then I was too sick. Moira’s had a stable job the whole time.” There was a tiny knot in the wood of the table top. I picked at it with my fingertip. “It’s funny. The sixth month is kind of the best pregnancy gets. You have energy, you can eat more, and you can still walk without waddling. I’d started to reclaim myself and look to the future—my baby. An ultrasound showed it was a boy, so Moira and I went shopping. Only the necessities, though, since I didn’t have a job—onesies, diapers, a bassinet, and a car seat that became a carrier. And blankets, of course. He was going to have to fit into my room in the apartment, a unit less nice than we have now.”

Second-hand stores had a lot of baby things, thankfully.

He nodded. “Did you get that swallowed-a-beach-ball look?”

Ha. “No. I felt big, but my doc said I was a small pregnancy. Matthew reached a healthy birth weight…I just didn’t swell up. Maybe my lack of expansion was a reason he didn’t face the delivery direction he was supposed to. I don’t know.”

Lincoln set his empty plate next to my bowl. “Jonny’s family must’ve been excited.”

“Oh, yes.” I wished I could smile more at the memory. “They wanted me to move in as soon as I told them. But I couldn’t live in his old room so soon after—” His eyes went soft with sympathy. “Got there anyway, with a hole in my gut. Um, so the original plan was support from the grandparents in the manner of babysitting and such. Moira wanted to nurse me through my post-surgery healing, but she didn’t have vacation time, yet. She used a sick day to be my birthing coach and stay at the hospital until I woke up, but had to work the rest of my time there and rushed over right after her shifts.”

“How many days did they keep you?”

“We left on day five because of my blood loss, and it took Matthew longer to figure out breastfeeding because of the pain meds.”

His brow furrowed. “Isn’t that harmful?”

“Some passes through milk, but the doctors knew how much was safe. I had a prescription for a week beyond the hospital, then had to manage the rest of my recovery with OTC. Mrs. Acero didn’t believe anything but food should be in a mother’s body, so she started getting Matthew used to a bottle when I slept. I didn’t know until Moira saw it and told me, not that I could move much that first week at the house.”

“I’m sorry they didn’t trust you.”

I shrugged. “I was nineteen and she had raised three children including Jonny. I was willing to put up with a little over-protectiveness until I could manage Matthew without help.”

“And then the depression.”

“Yeah…” I sat back in my seat. Dredging up these memories made my chest ache. “I was young and healthy before the surgery, so it took six weeks to recover, but every other part of me was struggling. I didn’t sleep or I slept too much. I struggled to bond with my baby.”

“You must’ve felt like you were losing your mind.”

Knowing it was wrong and having the energy to fix it were two different things. “Little bit, yeah.” I chuckled, but not with mirth. “The shrink only wanted me to go back to the Aceros if they’d clean out Jonny’s room.” He winced. “Yeah. Mrs. Acero wasn’t about to ‘toss his things in the garage’—her words.”

“So you tried raising Matthew with Moira?”

I wished it could’ve been that easy. “Here’s how fucked up I was—my shrink advised that I ease into motherhood. I had to be stable before an infant could rely on me twenty-four-seven. Of course, right? The last thing I wanted was to harm him.”

“But that meant cooperation from your in-laws.”

“Mr. Acero was nicer about it all. Still is.”

“Jonny’s grandmother?”

“My therapist tried inviting her to a session so we could explain my illness, but she wouldn’t come. Moira confronted her on my behalf and I almost got barred from the house.”

“That’s fucked,” he spat.

Every visit with my son was supervised, peering at me like a bug under a microscope. If I wanted to walk with him, it was around the backyard. If his diaper needed to be changed, she took him from me to do it herself. If he started to cry, the visit was cut short.

“Sitting at home with nothing to do didn’t help me, so I got a job from an old high school friend that had become an assistant manager at a pretzel shop. Shaping dough and squeezing lemons for lemonade were repetitive tasks where I didn’t have to think, and not thinking was good during the day.”

“And then?” he asked.

I left the table for a glass of water. “The Aceros were losing patience with me. Moira says I gave up—on rocking the boat, on…”

“Taking him back.”

“The first anniversary of Jonny’s death hit hard. It was easier to move on like I hadn’t loved and lost. So—”

“You became Aunt Michaela.”

I returned to my chair. “Essentially.” The cold tap water out of the winter ground made the glass sweat in my hands. “It sounds horrible.”

He shook his head. “I can’t say what I would’ve done in the same circumstances.”

“Thanks. But I know my illness failed him, if nothing else. I made Mrs. Acero become a parent again at fifty-nine. They’re sixty-eight and seventy now. It should be their golden years.”

Lincoln frowned. “They chose to keep him full time.”

“I suppose…”

“You were right before. It is complicated. And tragic.”

So many layers of pain.

“But can you deny that you didn’t rock the boat because you felt you should carry the guilt of needing to heal for those months you couldn’t be a mother?”

My jaw dropped open to reply but no words formed on my tongue.

How did he always do that?

I blinked and my eyes were wet.

He shot out of his seat and pulled me into his arms.

I breathed in the scent of fresh, clean male—of him. He whispered it’s okay into my hair. Because what else could he say? The sexual tension I’d felt since he first kissed me bloomed in my body again. He wouldn’t mind if I took this hug in that direction, but I shouldn’t keep drugging my feelings with sex. Right? It didn’t fix my issues.

A call to my therapist was probably in line this week.

Thomas approached the outside door and I parted from Lincoln.

“Good morning, Miss Simon. Mr. Adams. I wondered, Miss Michaela, if there was anything you need me to do on your last day here.”

Time to put my heiress hat back on. “Yes, actually. Change the locks.”

Thomas’ brows rose. “Beg pardon?”

“My mother has one of my grandparent’s keys.”

Understanding washed over his face. “Ah. Of course. If you like the existing front door set, I’ll pick up a rekeying kit.”

“Let’s take a look.”

The three of us left the kitchen, Lincoln taking a turn upstairs, probably for his shirt. Thomas opened the front door for me and we stepped outside. Like the rest of the house, the lockset mimicked the old. Harry had found reproduction antique hardware.

“If it’s possible to keep it, please do. If not, I trust your judgment in finding a close replacement.”

He smiled. “I’ll head out right away and hopefully get you a new key before you leave.”

“Do the other outside doors use the same lock?”

“Oh no. The side door didn’t need to look pretty, so that’s a separate set, and the patio door in back only locks and unlocks from the inside. And then there’s the garage.”

I chewed my lip for a second. “I don’t know whether she snatched a whole key ring or not.”

“Well, I’ll recode the gate and that’ll fix that, and I don’t see your mother climbing over fences to break in.”

I laughed. “Oh no. Risking a rip in her designer clothes? She’d rather die.” I touched his arm. “Thank you. Let me know if you need anything.”

A nod of his head, then he left in the direction of the garage and his pickup.

I stepped back inside. Lincoln walked down the stairs wearing the shirt he pulled out of his backpack. His feet were still bare.

“How are your feet not cold?”

“Because I’m a guy and not eighty?” He stepped onto ground level and kissed me, his hands landing on my hips.

“It looks like rain outside.”

“I’m not going to get sick.”

“I wasn’t worrying about you.”

“If you were, it’d be cute.”

I rolled my eyes. “Save the old wives’ tales for old ladies.”

He chuckled. Then, “Hey…we got interrupted before.”

I sighed. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to be.” He tilted my chin up. “Don’t pretend with me, okay? Not when we’re alone.”

“Not dwelling on those topics isn’t equal to pretending.” I moved out of his grip.

“Putting up a good front. Hiding. Avoiding. Same difference. I told you this morning I want to see every raw, honest, beautiful layer of you.”

“Lincoln…” I shook my head.

“What, you’re going to tell me the moment before Thomas walked in was a natural conclusion to that conversation?”

“Yes. Maybe. I…” Order your thoughts, Michaela. “We don’t need to dig into the depths of either of our souls all at once. Whatever we are has lasted a week. You can be patient.”

He closed his eyes for a second, then held his hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be pushy. The offer to listen more is genuine because I asked a question that made you cry.”

Did I punish myself for being ill instead of a competent mother?

“I don’t judge you for the choices you made while fighting depression,” he continued. “But I think you do. Jonny’s death broke your heart, but ten years alone—excepting Moira—was more than grief as a widow.” He laced his fingers with mine and I met his eyes. “You’re not the same girl I took to lunch at In ‘n’ Out.”

“Of course not. My uncle died and gave me his fortune.”

A tug brought me closer. “You know what I mean. I see you, Michaela Simon.”

Are you better with or without him?

His answer would most certainly be with. But what was the truth?

I looked up into his green gaze. “What is it you see?”