Sweet Salt Air (38 page)

Nicole was taken aback. “I hadn’t realized you were angry.”

“Yeah, well, seeing him brought it all back. So there’s your answer.” Taking the lavender for herself, she leaned in, closed her eyes, inhaled, calmed. When she straightened, she felt better, not that she regretted the outburst. Catharsis had value on many levels. “Besides,” she went on, in answer to Nicole’s question, “during the wedding, we could ignore the whole thing. Now we can’t.”
It’s over, Charlotte. Let it go.
“Does he want the cord blood or not?”

With a last inhalation, Nicole stood. “Yes. He wants it. We’re here because he needs to rest first. He fights the fatigue, but it’s constant, and you saw how jaundiced he is. The neurologist put him back on safer drugs. He needs to stabilize and regain strength before the other.”

The other. Charlotte tried to interpret her tone, but this Nicole wasn’t as transparent as the old one. So she asked, “Are you still against it?”

“Terrified,”
Nicole cried. “I mean, have the two of us signed his death warrant?” Seeming desperate for comfort, she eyed the flowers. “But how can I tell him no, when it means the world to him?” Her gaze wandered, stumbling into the fenced-in patch. “What is that?”

“Red clover,” Charlotte said, explaining the how and why of it as she approached. Picking a single leaf, she offered it to Nicole. “Make a wish.”

“You believe in this kind of thing?”

“Don’t you?” Charlotte asked in surprise, because where gullible went, Nicole usually led the pack. “This is a Cecily thing.”

Nicole let out a breath. “I’ve grown up. I don’t believe like I used to.” But she was eying the clover with something that looked suspiciously like longing. Finally, grabbing the tiny leaf, she said, “Screw that. I am in dire need of a wish,” and closed her eyes tightly. When she opened them, she seemed calmer.

Taking advantage of that, Charlotte repeated her original question. “Should I stay with Leo while Julian is here?”

“Were you with him while I was gone?”

“Back and forth.”

“What do you see in him?”

“There are times when I haven’t a clue. He has serious baggage.”

“But you’re spending nights with him.”

“I
love
him.”

Nicole’s green eyes widened. “Seriously?”

Startled by her own admission, Charlotte considered the words. Thinking them was one thing, saying them aloud another. Forcing herself to breathe, she said, “I guess so.”

“But you’re leaving in four weeks.”

“I know.”

“And he won’t leave.”

“No.”

Shifting to the adjacent topic, Nicole asked, “How’s work going?”

“It’s going.”

“What’s left?”

Charlotte reeled off the list. She tried to make light of its length, but with most entrées and their related interviews still not done, not to mention intros, connectors, and closings, there was lots to do.

Nicole let out a frightened breath.

“We can do it,” Charlotte assured her.

“But I may have to leave again,” she warned. “If the doctor wants Julian in Chicago, I can’t let him go alone. Should I ask for an extension of my deadline?”

“No.” An extension wouldn’t help Charlotte. She had to be on a plane in four weeks. “I’ll make it happen if I have to pull all-nighters the whole last week,” she promised. This wasn’t only about work ethic. It was about atonement and redemption.

That said, three was a crowd. Tension between Julian and her could make for uncomfortable days. “I’m happy to work at Leo’s.”

“No,” Nicole said, suddenly decisive. “Work here. Julian needs to talk with you, anyway. You’re one of the reasons he came.”

*   *   *

Julian didn’t seek her out until the next morning. Charlotte had already been into town for an interview and was at the patio table, typing it up on her laptop, when he emerged from the house. Wearing surprisingly stylish cargo shorts and a wool crewneck sweater—Nicole’s doing, she bet—he looked marginally rested.

Deliberately, she finished typing her thought. Then she sat back in the chair and waited. He owed her something after all she’d done for him.

“I’m sorry,” he said wisely, conscious at some level of her anger. Nicole’s doing, too?

“Do not judge me,” she warned softly. “My sympathy for you only goes so far.”

He glanced at the nearest lounge. “Do you mind if I sit?”

She moved her head.
Whatever.

He stretched out, crossed his ankles, and pushed his hands into his pockets.

And since he had opened the dialogue, Charlotte was only too happy to take part. “The last thing you should be is angry at me,” she said. “I did what I had to do. I wanted Nicole to be happy.”

He sat, seeming deep in thought. As she watched him, she wondered for the gazillionth time how she could have ever been in his arms. She felt no physical draw at all.

Finally, he said, “I had no idea.” About the child.

“That was the point. I never wanted this to spoil your marriage.”

He made a sardonic sound. “Funny how health issues can trump most else.”

He didn’t have to elaborate. Annoyed as she was—unsympathetic as she wanted to be—Charlotte hadn’t missed the tremor in his hand when he ate or the way he favored his right leg and too casually touched the backs of chairs to steady himself when he walked past.

“Did she look like one of us?” he asked quietly.

Feeling a twist of the old pain, Charlotte was somber. “I don’t know. She was covered with gunk. And I was crying, so everything was blurred. They took her away right after that.”

“Did you ever regret it?”

“Of
course
I regretted it. She was my child, my baby. But keeping her would have been wrong. I thought it then, and I think it now.” She was clutching the wrought-iron arms of the chair. With a conscious effort, she relaxed her grip. “It’s done, Julian. You can hate me forever, but she has a happy life.”

He still seemed troubled. “Did you ever think about looking for her?”

“I’m not allowed to do that. Nor are you.” She glanced up at the pergola with its lavish canopy of small, peach-colored roses, but their fragrance failed to take her to a happier place.

“Even just going to her school and watching her on the playground without her knowing?”

She struggled to stay composed. “What I’m
saying,
Julian, is that letting them take her from my arms was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but she isn’t mine anymore. Do I wonder sometimes? I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But to spy on her, then walk away a second time?” She gave a slow headshake.

“What if she comes looking for you someday?”

“Please. I can’t go there. This isn’t about the baby. It’s about the cord blood.”

“That’s fine for you to say,” he argued with an anger of his own. “You’ve had ten years to come to terms with it. I haven’t.”

He stared at her. She stared back.

“Does she know about the stem cells?” he finally asked.

“I doubt it.”

“If she needed them and her parents came to you, what would you do?”

“If I had them, I’d give them. If they’ve already been used, I can’t.”

“Is she well?”

“I do not know. There is no contact at all. Nothing.”

Seeming to finally get the point, he stared at the ocean again, before meeting her gaze. “How do you retrieve the cord blood?”

This was better. This she could handle.

Then again, perhaps what she felt was relief. Venting her anger at Julian gave a kind of closure to that night on the beach. What came next was part of moving on.

“I call. The bank will overnight whatever you need. They froze separate one-milliliter samples for the sake of matching. They also did DNA testing when the cord blood first came in.”

“Is that standard?”

“I don’t know about other banks, but it is for this one. They use the results for identification purposes as much as anything, kind of like a serial number. So if you doubt she’s your child—”

He waved off the possibility.

Grateful for that at least, Charlotte mellowed. “You should know, Julian, that I hadn’t planned on telling Nicole any of this.”

He swallowed. “It worked out. We’re stronger, she and I.”

“I’m glad. She’s my best friend. I would do most anything for her sake.”

He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to hers. “Then it’s time. I want the cord blood. Will you make the call?”

Chapter Twenty-four

S
INGLING OUT THE SMALL RECTANGULAR
tag from others on her key ring, Charlotte called the number there and gave the necessary information. After a follow-up fax to confirm her identity, the cord blood was on its way to Chicago.

And what was there to say then?

Julian had already been in touch with the doctor, but called back now with shipment details.

Nicole sat beside him on the patio, looking like her heart was in her mouth as the arrangements were defined. She left him only for the minute it took to go to the garden, pick another clover, and return.

And Charlotte? With her part done, she headed for the beach and walked until she found a sheltered rock. Nestling in, she hugged her knees and stared out. Under a steady wind, the ocean was a mass of whitecaps that hit the shore in a reverberating rush, all wet and mired with spume. But she didn’t feel the wildness inside. She wasn’t upset. Nor was she gratified, though. And she certainly wasn’t smug. Sitting alone with granite at her back, cold sand under her butt, and the wind whipping her hair over her face, then away, over and back, hiding then exposing, she wasn’t sure what she felt at all.

“You okay?” Nicole asked, seeming surprisingly strong against the elements in her jeans, sweater, and thick-wrapped scarf.

Charlotte felt a prick of annoyance. She had left the patio to give Nicole and Julian private time. But this was hers. “Everything good back there?” she asked in what was, in essence, a polite dismissal—as in,
unless you need me, please leave
.

“I guess. Once Hammon gets the cells, he’ll start work in the lab.”

With a brief nod, Charlotte returned to the sea, but the hint must have been too subtle, because rather than leaving, Nicole began to talk.

“Once the cells are thawed, Hammon has to select out the regulatory T cells. They’re the ones that hold the secret to a cure, and you only find them in umbilical cord blood. Know why? A baby may not be compatible with its mother—like, different blood type or whatever. Regulatory T cells make it possible for the baby to thrive in the womb regardless of that. This is the same reason you don’t need a perfect match when you do a transplant using regulatory T cells. They’re like magic bullets. We’re just beginning to understand the kinds of illnesses they may help.”

Holding her hair back on the side farthest from Nicole, Charlotte glanced up as a seagull flew past, but it was another subtle gesture missed.

“He cultures the T cells and expands them,” Nicole went on. “I mean, the numbers are ridiculous. He may get a few million from the original sample and then expand them in nineteen days to, like, a thousand
times
that, so he’ll have enough for an adult transplant. This guy is good, Charlotte. This is all research for him, so he’ll keep track of every little detail. He’s going away in September, so he wants to do the transplant by the middle of August to make sure he’s around for two or three weeks afterward to be sure Julian’s okay.”

She was trying to sound confident, like this was all just another medical procedure, and she wanted reassurance. But Charlotte wasn’t in the mood to coddle her. Pushing up from the rock, she said, “I think I need to walk,” and set off.

“Want company?” Nicole called, sounding frightened.

But Charlotte tuned that out. “No.” She didn’t understand what she was feeling, she only knew she didn’t want Nicole around.

Walking toward the tail of the island, she crossed patches of sand, skirting boulders and low rocks. She stopped when she reached the spot where she had been with Julian. There was no pain from that memory now. Nicole knew what had happened and was benefitting from it.

But Charlotte felt pain from something. Trying to figure it out, she stood for a time, oblivious to the punishing wind, before continuing on.

As she neared Cole land, the route roughened. Boulders were larger at spots, spilling at length into the sea. She debated swimming around them. Hell, she was wading in and out of the shallows already, and with the gush of the incoming surf, her sneakers and lower jeans were wet. If the rest of her got wet, too? She would dry.

That said, she wasn’t suicidal. The water was wild, the depth of the rocks unknown, and undertow a possibility. So she turned inland, climbing up over granite, plodding through heath and thick grass, then scrambling back down when sand reappeared. Two, three, four times she did this, the last being the hardest. Here was the forested patch bordering the spot where she first swam with Leo. The boulders were more jagged here, the woods dense. She stumbled over roots and tangled underbrush, and scrabbled on all fours over the trickiest rocks before reaching sea level again.

The beach where they had made love was a puddle. Splashing through, she continued on over a floor of stones, over a last granite patch, through the overhang of trees and around the curve to the tip of the island and Leo’s house.

The office door was open. He would be working.

But she didn’t go in. This wasn’t about him. It was about feelings that disturbed her but that she couldn’t name, and about needing to be at the most soothing spot on Quinnipeague.

So she walked all the way to the end of the dock and sat cross-legged with her elbows on her knees. The ocean was as wild as before, but the last outcropping of rocks over which she had climbed was a natural breakwater, calming the surf at the dock. In keeping, his boat rocked gently against its lines.

No, this wasn’t about Leo. But she didn’t feel the full effect of the soothing until his footsteps vibrated on the dock.

Bare feet was all she saw. He scratched the top of her head, then leaned over her. “You okay?” he asked just as Nicole had, but with an entirely different effect. Lowering her face to her knees, she began to cry.