Someone Like You (11 page)

Karen’s eyes swam with tears.

“Why are you crying?” Cat demanded. “This is good news.”

“I know,” Karen said. “That’s why I’m crying.”

What was it about babies that turned levelheaded women into complete marshmallows? She had seen Karen broker deals that would make Donald Trump whimper, without batting an eye, but the merest mention of a baby on its way, and she was sobbing into the sleeve of her shirt.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be hormonal,” she teased.

“Sorry. I’m just so happy for you.”

“This isn’t at all the reaction I’d expected from you.”

Karen sniffed and used her sleeve again. “I’m a pushover for babies and small children who aren’t mine,” she said. “Promise you won’t use it against me in seven months.”

“No promises. I hear the labor room can get pretty scary.”

Karen made a face. “Piece of cake. I’d be happy to walk you through it.”

She couldn’t imagine a better coach. “Be warned. I just might take you up on it.”

“I hope you do,” Karen said, giving her a hug. “That first moment when a new person suddenly enters the world is indescribable. I’d love to be there for it but without the stretch marks this time.” She hugged Cat again. “I’m glad you finally told me. I was getting tired of biting my tongue every time you disappeared into the bathroom.”

 

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER she was standing at the nurses’ station in ICU. Laquita Chase was the nurse in charge, which instantly put her at ease. She and Laquita had gone through high school together. Laquita had been the “bad girl,” the one everyone figured would end up coming to a sad end far away from Idle Point, but she had fooled everyone and turned her life around. Mimi was definitely in good hands.

“I thought you were on the surgical unit today,” Cat said after they exchanged friendly greetings.

“Mary Ann called in sick, so I took her shift.” She quickly glanced at her computer terminal, then back up at Cat. Her smile was warm and reassuring. “She’s still out, but her vitals are rock solid.”

“How long do you think she’ll be unconscious?”

“Hard to say. You’re dealing with a number of different circumstances here, and each one brings its own set of complications.”

Cat started to feel lightheaded, and she forced herself to breathe deeply. “Like what?”

Laquita’s shoulders rose and fell. “I can’t say, Cat. You really should try to corral Green for a few minutes and get the answers you need.”

Another nurse joined them. “Do you mind if I use the terminal?” she asked Laquita.

“Be my guest. I have to check on 12A.” She motioned for Cat to follow her across the room to Mimi’s cubicle, where she began speaking in a warm, conversational tone of voice. “Hello, Mimi. It’s Laquita. I’m going to hang a new bag, but it won’t take long. Cat’s here to see you.”

Mimi was much the same as she had been prior to surgery. The area under her left eye was badly bruised, as were her left cheekbone and jaw. A diagonal swath of hair had been shaved away from her hairline and in its place was a network of eight railroad-track stitches. A system of weights and pulleys supported her right leg at an angle necessary to accommodate her fractured pelvis. She was attached to an array of electronic machines that served as silent monitors.

It was everything she had feared would one day happen to her mother, in one hideous package.

She was her mother, and yet she wasn’t. Whatever made Mimi the contradictory, troublesome, exasperating, charming, heartbreakingly sad woman she was had been lost, and the woman who had taken her place was a stranger.

“Go ahead,” Laquita said as she worked. “You’re not in the way.”

She felt awkward and deeply inadequate to the task. How little she knew the woman who had given birth to her.

“Hello, Mom.” She touched Mimi’s arm, then drew her hand back quickly. “There’s a full moon tonight, and I made a wish for you.” When she was very little, long before Joely was born, Mark and Mimi used to take her outside each month on the night of the full moon to make a wish. A silly thing, ridiculous really if you stopped to think about it, but the memory was still clear, still sweet, despite the years.

Her eyes met Laquita’s, and she hesitated.

“Go on,” Laquita urged. “Tell her the same things you would tell her if she were conscious.”

“Trixie is fine. Remember Matt from the fire department? He found her in the apple tree in the side yard and got her down. Karen told me she’s not too thrilled sharing my house with Cosmo and Newman, but a plate of white meat chicken should do the trick.”

Mimi made a low sound from deep in her throat, a cross beneath a cough and a groan. Laquita moved into action.

“Mimi.” She placed her stethoscope against the woman’s chest. “Can you cough for me?”

Mimi made that noise again, half cough and half groan.

“Did she hear you, or was that a coincidence?” Cat asked.

“The anesthesia’s wearing off.”

“Is she in pain?”

“We’re regulating her pain the best we can, but without her input it’s imperfect at best.” Laquita straightened up and cast a swift glance at the monitor adjacent to the bed. “Sit with her while I get a new bag. I think she’s coming around.”

Cat grabbed a chair from one of the unoccupied cubicles and pushed it next to her mother’s bed. Was this going to be the new normal? The thought made her deeply sad.

She had done the best she could to keep Mimi safe, but it hadn’t been enough. How did you figure out where the boundaries should be or when it was time for your mother’s independence to take second place to your need to protect her from herself?

“I should have figured it out,” she said to this shadow of her mother lying on the bed. “I wish I’d paid more attention.”

She felt awkward and sad and deeply inadequate to the tasks that lay ahead, and she wished with all her heart that she had someone to share this burden with her. Not to make the decisions or pay the bills. Just someone to sit with her and hold her hand and tell her everything was going to be all right, even if they both knew it wasn’t.

No questions. No hesitation. He would be there by her side for as long as she needed him. He didn’t know Mimi. He didn’t owe Mimi anything at all. He would do it for Cat, and he would do it out of something too close to love to be ignored. No wonder she had pushed him away with both hands, all the way back to New York.

Joely was the one who should be here with her, if not for Mimi’s sake then for her own. At least Cat knew she had issues. Joely still believed the ocean between them was wide enough to protect her from the past.

Mimi’s eyes opened for a moment then closed again. Cat leaned forward and again briefly touched her mother’s rail-thin forearm.

“Mom, I’m here with you. You’re in the hospital, and you’re doing fine.”

Mimi’s eyes opened again. She looked directly at Cat, but there wasn’t even a glimmer of recognition.

Nothing had changed.

 

JOELY HAD BARELY left Logan Airport traffic behind when Annabelle stopped being a good traveler and started being a seven-year-old in need of a bathroom.

“Honey, we just stopped five minutes ago,” Joely pointed out as the Next Exit—27 Miles sign flipped past. “We won’t see another rest stop for another half hour or so.”

“I have to wee,” Annabelle said, her tone veering dangerously close to a whine. “I have to go
now
!”

Joely glanced at the speedometer and did a quick calculation. “Twenty minutes, honey, that’s all. Can’t you hold it for twenty minutes until we reach the next rest stop?” The kind with clean bathrooms, lots of toilet paper, and hot soapy water.

“I don’t think so.” Annabelle turned big woeful eyes in Joely’s direction. “I really really have to wee now.”

She flipped on her right turn signal and moved into the slow lane, then slowed down even more as she eased the car onto the shoulder and came to a stop.

“This is the best I can do,” she said by way of both apology and explanation. “We’ll have to duck behind those bushes.”

Annabelle’s face was the perfect picture of horror. “No!” she shrieked. “I want a loo!”

“There isn’t a loo for another twenty miles,” Joely explained. “We can’t even get off the highway until then to go looking for one someplace else.” She reached into the huge carryall bag on the seat between them and pulled out a stack of paper towels she’d cribbed from the last rest stop visit. “I’ll make sure you’re fine, honey. Let’s go.”

Annabelle’s soft brown eyes flooded with tears. “I don’t have to wee anymore,” she said in a very tiny voice.

“I think you do, honey. You’ll be fine. I’ll show you how.”

Annabelle shook her head. “I don’t have to.”

She’s only seven,
Joely reminded herself.
She went to sleep in Scotland and woke up on the Mass Turnpike. Cut her a little slack.

“You’re sure?”

Annabelle nodded.

She eased back into traffic, then moved into the lefthand lane where, if she remembered correctly, speeding was almost mandatory in the Bay State. Annabelle’s knees were pressed tightly together, and her little face was contorted into a grimace worthy of a 1940s B-movie actress. She prayed their insurance covered flood damage to the car’s upholstery, because the odds of making it to the rest area in time were growing slimmer by the second.

 

 

Cat made it to the telephone on the sixth ring.

“Good thing you picked up.” Michael’s voice, rich and warm with concern, greeted her. “Next call was to the police department.”

“Hold on,” she managed. “I—” Finishing your sentences was a luxury pregnant women in their first trimester didn’t always enjoy before noon. She darted back into the bathroom.

Minutes later she reached for the phone again. “I’m sorry,” she managed, trying to sound upbeat. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here. How are you?”

“Steady as she goes.” She tried to laugh, but her stomach threatened another mutiny. “They say morning sickness is a sign the pregnancy is proceeding normally, but I’ll be extremely happy to kiss the first trimester good-bye.”

“Drink some ginger ale,” he suggested. “And what about those soda crackers?”

“They’re on my shopping list.”

“The doctor said they’d help settle your stomach.”

“Michael, I was there in the office. I remember what he said.”

“Hey, I’m the one who got his ass kicked back to New York. If anyone should be pissed, it’s me.”

Great going, Cat. First you kick him all the way back to Manhattan, then you snipe at him
.

“Are you?” she asked. “Pissed, that is.”

“I was,” he admitted.

“Are you still?”

“I don’t hold a grudge,” he said. “It’s one of my best traits.”

“I’ll file that away for future reference.”

“How about you? Any grudge-holding genes in your background?”

Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have had any trouble coming up with a properly witty comeback, but this morning she was too raw emotionally to play.

“Okay,” he said as the silence deepened. “I’ll try again. How’s everything in Mayberry?”

“No change.” She had brought him up to speed late last night in a brief flurry of e-mails that had been long on information and short on sentiment. “I spoke to the nurse in ICU, but I haven’t made it to the hospital yet.”

“Any news from your sister?”

She made a sound that was unladylike by even the most generous standards. “She’s not coming. Her life is in Scotland.”

“She said that?”

“Not in so many words, but I know what she meant.”

“She might still surprise you.”

“Not going to happen. William is in Japan on business, and she’s taking care of Annabelle. She’s not about to leave her with strangers.”

“Kids are portable.”

“Not when they don’t belong to you.”

“You lost me. I thought—”

“Nope,” she said. “They’re not married.”

“And Annabelle isn’t—”

“Nope again.”

“We really need to sit down and talk about your family tree.”

“I don’t think you’re ready for that yet, Michael.” She wasn’t entirely sure
she
was ready.

“Speaking of ready, I’d better get rolling. I’m taking an earlier flight.” An unexpected business dinner with a producer who had expressed interest in doing a feature film of one of his short stories.

“Poor you.” He wasn’t a West Coast kind of guy, not by any stretch of the imagination. “How long will you be gone?”

“Two days. I’ll be home Friday night.”

“You lead a glamorous life, Yanovsky. Caviar . . . movie stars . . .”

“I’d trade it for a weekend up there with you.”

A surge of emotion took her by surprise. “After things settle down with my mother.”

“Real life doesn’t scare me, Cat. It never has.”

“I was terrible to you yesterday,” she said. “I’m used to being in control.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You deserved better than the bum’s rush I gave you.”

“A glass of water and a nap might’ve been nice.”

“Oh, Michael, I—”

“I’m kidding, Doyle.”

“I think my sense of humor is missing in action.”

“It’ll come back.”

“I meant what I said about after my mother’s situation is stabilized. I want you to come back up for a weekend.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, Doyle.”

She knew he would. If there was one thing she knew for sure about Michael Yanovsky, it was that he was a man of his word.