Impossible (16 page)

CHAPTER 38

Zach couldn't find a good T-shirt to put on. He had been told that the shirt needed to be snug, and also that it would end up completely trashed by the duct tape.

He whistled lightly while he searched. Was he getting somewhere with Lucy, or was he getting somewhere with Lucy? She hadn't been able to look away this morning! And then she'd nearly tripped over her own feet. He looked at himself in his bedroom mirror. He flexed a bicep. Oh, yeah. Things had really improved there this past summer, with all the manual labor. No wonder Lucy was impressed. He was impressive!

Not that he had ever been unattractive, really. Well, maybe in seventh grade. And possibly eighth. Maybe ninth, also. And then in tenth—well, that was the past. Zach was at his best now, just when he needed to be. Ha! He picked up an imaginary guitar and played a few chords.

Then he turned back to his T-shirt hunt.

He had dozens of T-shirts, but somehow nothing seemed right. He knew it didn't matter, and yet he rejected one after another.

Then he had an idea. He went to Lucy's room and boldly invaded her bureau. The old Yaz shirt that he'd given her was right on top in the second drawer. He pulled it on. It had to stretch to fit, but fit indeed it did.

Zach ran downstairs two steps at a time. They had a duct tape dummy to make, and then a seamless shirt!

Lucy smiled involuntarily at the sight of him in the Yaz T-shirt. For a moment, Zach thought she was going to make a comment about it, but she didn't. She simply gestured for him to stand in the center of the room. "Basically," she said, "I'm going to mummify you with the duct tape." She looked beautiful and very businesslike, holding the thick roll of silver duct tape before her. She stepped closer, cocked her head to the side, and spoke softly, thoughtfully, as if to herself. "Hmm. I wonder if I should have you sit down on the stool. No, I guess not. I'll have to be able to go around and around you with the duct tape."

Zach cleared his throat. "You could start mid-chest," he said helpfully. "And work down. Then you can do the shoulders and arms. Um, but only as far as the sleeves go." Not even Lucy was going to be allowed to duct tape bare skin.

"All right." Lucy was suddenly standing even closer. She looked up at Zach from under her lashes. "No time like the present. Could you hold your arms out? Yeah, just like that—straight out to the sides. Okay, then. I'll get started."

She smiled at him as if he were the most attractive man on the planet. And then there came a startlingly loud ripping noise as she yanked on the edge of the duct tape, pulling out about twelve inches in length. "Hold your muscles taut while I do this," she cautioned. "I'm going to do it tightly." Another glance up from under her lashes. "I don't think it will hurt."

Suddenly, firmly, Lucy pushed the end of the tape into Zach's chest, and began circling, pressing the tape onto Zach with one hand while reeling it out with the other.

He stood rigid, holding his breath. Soon there was one band of silver duct tape compressing the middle of his chest. And Lucy, less than three inches away—and what was that amazing smell wafting off her?—was going around again, overlapping the second circle of tape on the top edge of the first one, touching him, pressing on the tape, all the way around that second time. And a third time. And a fourth. And a fifth … the tape was just about at his armpits now. And it was getting hard for him to breathe, and it wasn't entirely because of the tape constraining his lungs.

This had been a big mistake. A huge mistake. He was the world's biggest idiot. What had he been thinking?

"Luce," he said weakly. "I'm not sure that … um." She was behind him now. Thank God. The tape roll was dangling heavily off his back while she got the scissors. He had maybe eight seconds to get his body under control.

All right. What if Soledad came in right now? Or Leo. Think of that. He would think of that.

It didn't help.

"Just keep your arms straight out at the sides," Lucy said sweetly. "That's right. I'm going to cut the tape here and start again, going down. Get all the way to your waist." She snipped the duct tape and began to move around to Zach's front.

Zach sat down abruptly on the stool. He dropped his arms in his lap. His eyes were on a level with Lucy's tummy now, as she stood in front of him. He saw clearly how it protruded. Twenty weeks. He knew the sight ought to cool him off.

It didn't.

"Zach?"

"Just a minute." His voice was hoarse.

"But—"

"Just a minute."

Lucy was quiet. He could feel her looking at him. Despite everything, she was naive enough to be a little puzzled. This broke his heart. And it made him so happy he could have keeled over from it too, if he hadn't had other, more immediate problems.

He felt as aware of Lucy as he was of his own skin. He could sense the exact moment she stopped being puzzled and understood his problem. He heard the little intake of her breath. He expected her to take a step back, away from him. But she didn't.

He looked up at her then, rueful and ready to laugh. She was still standing close. His gaze brushed the roll of duct tape as it dangled on her wrist like a bracelet, before he lifted his eyes to her face and found her looking right back at him. For the first time in a long time, their gazes met, and held.

But it was different now from how it had ever been before.

Lucy cleared her throat as if she was going to say something, but she didn't. Her cheeks were flushed. She looked amazed, Zach thought.

He felt pretty amazed too. Also dizzy.

Later on, Zach acknowledged to himself that at this critical moment, the moment before he fell on his knees and proposed marriage to Lucy—meaning every word—his mind was filled with one single, powerful thought, and it was this:

I'm going to change my whole life plan right here, right now. For Lucy. And I know for a fact that it's not the smartest move I could make for myself. But with everything in me, I believe that it's right for
her
—no. No. No.

For
us
.

Us. Without his having known it on a conscious level, for weeks now, Zach had been considering roughly one hundred different, yet related, questions in his mind. They were all about Lucy, and about the baby, and they were also all about him. And now, suddenly, he had the answers. A few of the answers were ugly and scary. But that too was simply how things were.

There had to be an
us
.

So, the next moment, still holding Lucy's gaze, Zach was on his knees.

"Luce. Lucy. Lucinda Scarborough. Marry me. Please. I want you, and I want to be your daughter's father."

CHAPTER 39

"Zach!"

Lucy discovered that she was holding Zach's hands. The roll of duct tape slipped down her wrist, over her left hand and then over his right one, finally falling to rest on his muscular forearm. And she was looking down into his face, and into his eyes.

He didn't repeat what he had said. There was no need to.

Lucy took time to think before she spoke. She considered every word for a very long time, maybe thirty whole seconds. Then she said wonderingly, "I love you, Zach. I do."

Zach stayed on his knees, looking up at her. Was that a little smile starting on his face?

"What is it?" she said suspiciously. She was clinging to both his hands. They felt so solid. So real. And it was a fact that she liked seeing him on his knees in front of her. But—

"Okay, Zach. What are you thinking right now? Why are you smiling that way? That
smug
way?"

Was true love when you wanted to slap someone and kiss him madly at the very same time?

"What are you thinking?" Lucy insisted.

Zach shook his head. His grip on her hands was as strong as hers was on his. His grin didn't fade. "Just say it again, Luce. Say again what you just said."

"About you being smug?" she teased.

"No. The other thing."

She cocked her head to the side. She peeked down at him through her lashes. She came to the same incredible conclusion, but this time she allowed an entire minute to pass before she smiled and said it again. "I love you, Zach."

The certainty in her voice. And the amazement. And the—well. The other thing. The joy! She could hear it in her own words, she could hear all the things she was feeling; they danced in her voice like music. She knew he could hear them all too. And probably see them in her face. Her eyes.

He knew her, after all. He knew her well.

And she knew him.

Zach, she thought. Zach Greenfield from next door, who she'd known forever. She really, truly loved him. How could that be? And how could it be any other way, ever?

Why hadn't he kissed her yet? Was he waiting for her to make that move? Well, then, she would lean down this very second, and—

Zach said, "So, you love me. Does that mean you're going to marry me?"

This threw Lucy off. But yes, that was what he had said, to start with. He hadn't actually said he loved her, though she knew he did and of course he had said it before. But just now, he'd gotten on his knees and proposed marriage, like in a television commercial for a diamond ring. Except of course they had the roll of duct tape instead, which, when you came to think about it, was a far more practical item. Such a bad mistake it would be, to embark on marriage and adult life without a nice supply of duct tape.

Marriage. Adult life.

Lucy hesitated. "You mean later, right, Zach? You mean, after the baby is born, after we've both finished college—that is, assuming that everything turns out okay—I mean, we both know I'm sort of in a mess now." She gestured at the roll of duct tape, and at the strips still compressing Zach's chest and waist. "You mean we should get married someday. After all this. Right?"

"No," Zach said steadily. His hands shifted to hold Lucy's even more firmly. "I mean we should get married now. You should be my wife and I should be your husband. It should be my name with yours on the baby's birth certificate."

"Oh," Lucy said.

Zach was still on his knees. He said gently, "Think, Lucy. Think about what's best."

Lucy's eyes flared in automatic annoyance. She tried to tug her hands away. Zach wouldn't let her. "Marry me, Lucy," he said again. "Not someday. As soon as possible. Say yes."

She was thinking now. Still annoyed, but thinking. This fix she was in—marriage—

"Oh," she said flatly. "I see what you mean. You're thinking—because of the baby. You're thinking, what if it does turn out that I end up crazy like Miranda. This way, the baby has a legal father."

Zach nodded. "It solves some potential problems."

Why had this never occurred to Lucy before? The problems Zach had referred to came to her now, spinning into her mind with the force of a sandstorm. Soledad and Leo were Lucy's foster parents only. Because of the strange situation with Miranda, Lucy had never actually been legally free for adoption. If Lucy were incapacitated, if she were like Miranda, what would be the legal position of the baby? She had assumed that Soledad and Leo could care for the baby, could just take over, but if the baby were in the legal power of the state of Massachusetts, who knew? Anything could happen. Different foster parents could be assigned. Anything.

If Soledad and Leo had been thinking about this problem—and surely they must have—they hadn't bothered to say a word to Lucy about it. They had been sparing her, she thought wildly. Protecting her. Trying not to worry her. Making contingency plans, very possibly, without her. And of course she could trust them. But…

But.

But this was something that had to be worried about. That she had to worry about. Talk about being irresponsible … why hadn't she thought about this before? Was it the fault of that strange hormonal sea of well-being? Well, forget that! She needed to talk to a lawyer!

Who, she recognized a second later, would probably think she was already insane.

Her mind whirled on. For a few minutes, she forgot where she was, that Zach was still there on his knees before her. She wondered: Was she old enough to make a will? Or rather, to create some document saying what ought to happen to her baby in case she went crazy? If she did, was it enforceable, legal? She had so many questions suddenly. Child custody. The child welfare department. State bureaucracies. It was like a sinkhole had just opened at her feet.

And there was a huge obstruction in her throat, as if she were choking.

Then it relaxed. She blinked. She looked down.

Zach was still there. Looking up at her. And he was still holding her hands. She thought vaguely that his knees had to be hurting, but if so, she couldn't tell from his face.

"I know," he said to her, as if he had been able to read on her face every frantic thought she had just had. "Luce. I know. But it'll be okay. I can help. We can make all those problems go away."

Was that right? If Zach were legally the baby's father, if he were legally her husband … He had just turned twenty. It wasn't old, but it wasn't a teenager either. He was responsible and land and he loved Soledad and Leo and they loved him, and she, Lucy, loved him too. In every way.

She swallowed. She stared at him.

"I love you, Luce," he said now. Long, long minutes after the proposal. Now, now that she understood what was really going on, he said it again.

And she understood that he did love her. Really and truly. The scope of it was before her and she recognized all of it in that moment and she couldn't say a word, because the knot in her throat was again too big.

Zach Greenfield from next door. She knew him so well, and yet she hadn't known him until this moment, not fully.

"Say yes," he said.

There was another long moment of clarity in which Lucy knew she should not. A moment when she thought, No, I can't let Zach do this, I can't let him, because I love him. It's too much, he's taking on too much, he'll end up twenty-one years old with an insane wife and a baby who's not even his … and no college degree. And babies are expensive, he has no clue, neither do I. If I truly love him I will not do it, I will say no, I will talk to Soledad and Leo and we'll work something else out—maybe that's not fair to them exactly either, but I can't go down that path right now. The point is, Zach doesn't have to do this. It's not the only answer; it's maybe not even a good answer. And also it could even be just plain wrong, wrong of me to let him do this. To take this on.

"Say yes, Luce," Zach said. "Marry me."

She looked down into his eyes and they were the whole world.

"You mean it." Her legs lost what strength they had had. She fell on her knees, facing him.

"I mean it," he said.

They knelt there, before each other, clutching hands. Lucy might have cried a little. She wasn't sure; she didn't quite remember. If she loved him, how could she just go and ruin his life, which was surely what she would be doing? But the baby. The baby.

How could she not give her baby this father? Not just any father, but
this
father?

She thought of what Miranda had put in her letter to Lucy, about finding Soledad and Leo for Lucy. What a miracle that had been.

Now she was faced with a miracle of her own, and it was even better. Because if Lucy really did have only a few months left of sanity, of the ability to love, how could she say no to it? She wasn't strong enough to say no, not when everything in her screamed yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes! Take it. Be selfish. A few months—if it's only a few months—to be with him—

"Yes," she said.

She saw Zach smile. And then, at the very moment she said yes, at the very moment Zach dropped Lucy's hands and reached out to pull her close, the earth beneath the house rocked a little, as if it were located on a fault line, as if this were California and not Massachusetts, as if a very small earthquake had just occurred.

Neither of them noticed. And Zach was kissing Lucy, finally. His arms were around her, tight, urgent, and safe. Safe and dangerous all at once. And she was kissing him back, and her arms were just as fierce around him. She could feel the edge of the duct tape roll on his arm, pressing into her back. What was happening in her life was all very serious, and she still had to make the shirt. Yet, here she was, engaged to be married.

Lucy would have laughed with joy, except that her mouth was otherwise, and even more happily, occupied.