The Consequences of Forever (1) (33 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

              On Valentine’s Day, Adam drove me home from school and then left. He was going to talk to Nolan, he claimed; make sure he wasn’t going to do anything to hurt Hannah. He’d never called the day before.

             
I was happy Adam was doing something to try and protect Hannah, but it made me feel lonely, all the same. I wasn’t traditionally the type of person that cared about silly holidays like Valentine’s Day, but still; it would have been nice to have at least been together.

             
Ned and Julia went out to dinner, which was their tradition, every year. Despite Ned’s frequent travel for work, they seemed really happy with each other, still in that honeymoon stage, at times. They were true partners, so far from the marriage I’d witnessed between my dad and Nora. It gave me hope that maybe someday Adam and I could be that way.

             
It was a Friday, so I finished all the homework I’d been assigned for the weekend, and then wandered around the house, taking in everything that I might not have noticed before. I’d gotten so used to living there, that in two weeks when we moved out, it was going to feel strange. But I was looking forward to it, all the same. A home that was truly mine.

             
I’d just gotten into bed and starting flipping through the baby names book, trying to think of what to make myself for dinner, when Adam finally called. It had been hours since he’d dropped me off from school, and I’d started to feel a little worried.

             
“I need you to be outside in five minutes,” he said when I answered, skipping the hello.

             
“What?” I asked. His voice sounded breathless, like he was running. “Why?”

             
“No questions. Just do it.” He hung up before I could say another word.

             
I obediently got out of bed, leaving the book laying there, a name still not chosen. I slid into my shoes and pulled on a jacket that I’d had hanging on the coatrack on my door, and then made my way downstairs and outside. It was already dark, and though a cool, clear night, it felt creepy to stand there alone. Adam pulled up a few minutes later, and opened the door from the inside.

             
“What’s going on?” I asked as I got into the car. “Did something happen?”

             
He looked at me blankly. “What? Why would something happen?”

             
“The way you sounded on the phone.”

             
He shook his head. “No, I’m fine.” He didn’t offer another explanation, just pulled the car back into the street and started heading out of town.

             
“Where are we going?”

             
“You’ll know when you get there,” he promised.

             
“Did you talk to Nolan? Is he really going to take Hannah out tonight?”

             
He looked confused for a second, but then seemed to realize what I was talking about and nodded. “Yeah, he’s picking her up now. He broke up with Maggie last night, and she snapped his phone in half. That’s why he didn’t call.”

             
I smiled at the image of an enraged Maggie breaking a phone. I hoped Nolan would mention it to Hannah that night; she would get a kick out of it.

             
The rest of the car ride was quiet, and strange. Adam was usually the calm type, but tonight his leg kept bouncing on the seat, his fingers tapping the steering wheel. His eyes were focused directly on the road, like his life depended on knowing exactly where he was at any given moment in time.

             
When we were almost there, I realized where we were going. Our beach. We hadn’t been in there in a while, at least over a month. I smiled at the simple romance of it. Instead of a fancy, overpriced restaurant, Adam was bringing me to the same beach where our relationship had really begun to form, where we’d started to get to know each other. Where we’d fallen in love.

             
He parked the car and glanced at me quickly, but looked away before I could make eye contact with him. He got out of the car and opened the trunk, pulling out a blanket and a basket. Inside of me, Little Hannah jumped for joy.

             
I followed the silent Adam to the beach, where it was incredibly dark, with only the moon spreading minimal light over the beach. Any other time I might have found this a little creepy, but tonight it only made it more romantic. Adam spread the blanket out a little closer to the parking lot than the ocean than usual, but I didn’t mind. I sat down as he did, and waited patiently while he removed the food from the basket.

             
“What did you get?” I asked. It didn’t matter; I hadn’t eaten since lunch and I was so hungry that just about anything sounded good.

             
“Food from that restaurant you ate at on your sixteenth birthday,” he replied. “I thought it might be good to make a new, better memory associated with that.”

             
“That’s really sweet,” I told him. He offered a half-smile, more focused on arranging everything. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

             
“Why?” He nearly jumped out of his skin at my question. “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”

             
“You’re acting weird,” I pointed out. “You’re really jumpy.”

             
“I’m afraid of the dark,” he replied. That wasn’t true, and I knew it for sure, but I decided not to press the subject. He handed me a fork and I opened my container of spaghetti.

             
“It smells really good,” I said, smiling at him again.

             
“Yeah,” he agreed. He stabbed at a meatball with his fork, but then put it back down, not seeming interested in eating it.

             
“Can you believe this is our first Valentine’s Day together?” I asked, feeling a need to keep the conversation going. “I feel like we’ve been together forever, but it’s only been a few months.”

             
“Eight months tomorrow,” he replied.

             
“Wow.” That didn’t seem like long at all, and I guess in the big picture of things, it wasn’t. Little Hannah would probably be here before we even got to celebrate our first anniversary.

             
I ate my dinner the best I could, until the awkwardness of Adam sitting there stabbing at a meatball and not eating got to be too much. I put my fork in the container and pushed it off to the side.

             
“Adam, please tell me what’s wrong,” I pleaded with him. He glanced up at me, finally making full eye contact for the first time all night.

             
“I’m nervous,” he replied.

             
“About what? It’s just us.”             

He didn’t say anything. As odd as the silence was, the look on his face was even stranger. It was like he was trying to think of how to tell me something, but the words weren’t coming to him. My first thought was Natalie, that he’d gotten in contact with
her again, but I quickly pushed the thought aside. I couldn’t jump to that conclusion forever. We’d made up, and I needed to make sure it stayed that way.

“Are you nervous about the baby?” I asked. “We still have a few months to get ready for everything. I know that doesn’t seem like much, but I think we’re going to be fine.”

              “It’s not that,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m ready for that, I just…” he took a deep breath. “I have to ask you something.”

             
I frowned. “Okay, then ask me.”

             
He sat up on his knees and reached into his jacket pocket, rummaging around with something before pulling out a small box. My heart stopped. He glanced at me quickly and then away again.

             
He cleared his throat. “Lainey, will you marry me?”

He fumbled with the box until it opened, revealing a simple ring with a silver band and one stone in the middle. I thought it was a diamond at first, but then realized it had a pink, almost purple color to it.

              “Oh my God,” I whispered, the shock almost too much for me. Of all the things I ever expected Adam to do or say, this wasn’t one of them. We’d talked about getting married, but it had always been in the sense that it would happen eventually, when we were ready. When we were older.

             
I looked at Adam and saw how terrified he was, and immediately wanted to relieve him of that feeling. “Yes,” I heard myself say. “Yes. Of course.”

He looked relieved, and pulled the ring out. His hands were shaking, but he somehow managed to slip it onto my finger. I stared at it, mesmerized.

              “You had me worried for a minute there,” he admitted, holding my hand in his. “I thought I was going to have to go drown myself in the ocean or something.”

             
I shook my head, staring at the ring still. It looked so foreign. “What is it?” I asked, stroking the small stone gently.

             
“It’s alexandrite,” he explained. “It’s the birthstone for June. I thought it was appropriate, since we met in June and Little Hannah is going to be here in June. It’ll turn green in the daylight.”

             
“Really?” I stared at it in amazement.

             
Adam laughed softly. “I have no idea. That’s what the guy at the jewelry place told me. It isn’t real, but he said it’s close enough to the real thing. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”

             
“Of course it doesn’t,” I reassured him. “So Hannah did see you last night.”

             
Adam nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, she did. I was picking it up. I ordered it weeks ago.”

             
“You’ve had this planned for weeks?”

             
“No, I didn’t know when I’d ask. I just knew I would.” He squeezed my hand. “I want to do this right, even if it didn’t start off the right way. I want you to be my wife and this baby to grow up having both parents around, always. I love you so much.”

             
“I love you so much, too,” I whispered. I glanced down at my ring again and smiled. Little Hannah started to kick viciously. I grabbed Adam’s hand and placed it on my abdomen so he could feel.

             
“I guess she approves,” I said. He brushed hair from my face with his free hand and smiled. I could see tears forming in his eyes, and felt them in my own.

             
“I guess so,” he agreed, and kissed me.

             
This is the beginning of forever
, I found myself thinking as his lips moved across mine.
There’s no turning back now.

Part III

A Mother’s Love

Chapter Thirty-Four

              “What about Harper?” Adam asked.

             
I looked across the table at him, my fork poised in mid-air. “Harper?” I repeated.

             
He tapped the cover of the book I had been reading before dinner,
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee. I’d found it at the bottom of my locker a few days earlier, and decided to give it another read.

             
“What about her?” I asked, biting into a large piece of broccoli. Since moving into the guest house nearly two months earlier, I’d been making a point to cook dinner just about every night. It had been a luxury, going from Bella Vista where Nora was a professional chef to the Montgomery’s, where weeknights meant Sylvia’s special brand of home cooking and weekends meant restaurants and takeout; but that luxury was over now and if I expected to feed this baby well someday, I needed to start by learning how to feed myself.

             
“Not Harper as in the person, as in the name. Do you like it?” Adam asked, studying my face as if searching for the answer there.

             
I considered it. Harper. Harper Montgomery. It did kind of have a nice ring to it. “Maybe,” I said.

The baby was due in a little over a month, and we were no closer to having a name picked out then we were back in January when we found out we were having a girl. I was starting to worry she was really going to be called Little Hannah for the rest of her life.

              “You told me you wanted to give her an important name, remember? One that actually means something?”

             
I vaguely recalled saying that. “But she isn’t even my favorite author.” Did I have a favorite author? No one came to mind.

             
“You liked her enough to write an essay about her,” He pointed out.

             
I sighed. “True.”

             
“And you were carrying this book, the first time we met.”

             
I stared at him blankly. I was pretty sure I hadn’t brought a book to the party where we’d met nearly a year earlier, but then again, it was possible.

             
“Not at the beach,” Adam said with amusement, noticing the expression on my face. “The beginning of your freshmen year, when you dropped your books in the hallway and I picked them up for you? This book was one of them.”

             
I nodded slowly, remembering. “Are you sure?”

             
“Positive.” Adam stood up, picking both of our plates up and walking a few feet over to the kitchen.

“Know what I think?” He asked, not waiting for me to answer. “I think you’re scared of committing to a name.”

              “That’s silly,” I argued, picking the book up and studying the cover. Harper.

             
“No, it’s not. You told me yourself that a name is the first really important thing you’re ever going to give your kid, and you were afraid of getting it wrong.”

             
“I was drunk when I said that,” I replied.

             
“No, you weren’t. You were six months pregnant and you’ve never drank alcohol in your life.”

             
That much was true. I turned around, or at least tried to, in my seat. “It is a big deal though, Adam,” I pointed out. “I was born with the wrong name, and look how I turned out.”

             
He put the dishes in the dishwasher and raised his eyebrows at me. “How do you figure that?”

             
“I don’t feel like a Lainey. I never did, not a day in my life. And I certainly don’t feel like an Alaina.” I frowned. “I don’t know how I’d feel about being a Harper, either.”

             
Adam walked over to me and kissed the top of my head before collecting the rest of the dishes off the table. “You’re overthinking it.”

             
“Why don’t you just name her, then?”

             
“Because you didn’t like any of the names I picked out.”

             
I made a face. That was also true.

“Everything you picked sounded like your name,” I pointed out.

So far, his top two contributions had been Addison and Adalyn. For a period of time in April we’d been set on an A name, since both of our names started with A, but that had died fast. I’d liked Audrey, but Audrey Montgomery didn’t sound too good, at least not to me. Adam wasn’t a fan of the name, but he’d been on the verge of agreeing just to be settled before I’d changed my mind about it.

             
“That was the point,” Adam replied with a grin, but his face quickly turned serious again. “At our last appointment, Thea told us that the baby could come early. We really need to at least narrow down a few names.”

             
“We’ll name her after your mom, then,” I decided. Julia Montgomery. At least I already knew it sounded right. Could girls be juniors?

             
“What happened to an original name?” Adam asked, looking both amused and a little frustrated. It had been amusing to him, the way I couldn’t settle on a name, but I could tell he was getting a little worried as my due date approached. I didn’t find it humorous at all.

             
“Have you looked at the baby name book? There are too many original names. There are too many names, period.” I’d read through that book more times than I wanted to try and remember, and not once had anything really stuck out to me. I’d like Audrey because it meant “noble strength,” but Adam hadn’t liked the name at all.

             
Adam finished loading the dishwasher and turned it on. “Then I guess she’s going to be Little Hannah Montgomery for the rest of her life.”

             
“Hannah would love that,” I remarked.

             
“Yeah, until everyone starts calling her Big Hannah.” We both laughed. I imagined Hannah walking around, punching everyone in the face that dared to call her that. Fortunately, there hadn’t been any more instances of that since Maggie.

             
“I miss Hannah,” I admitted.  We hadn’t seen each other much in the last two months. It was surprising, because I’d thought having my own place would mean seeing her more than ever. But she’d been so busy with Nolan, it was almost impossible to get ahold of her for more than a few minutes at a time.

             
I couldn’t complain. I was happy for her, even though I still wasn’t crazy about Nolan and his potential to hurt her. He’d ended things with Maggie the way he had promised, and his relationship with Hannah had started up immediately. They’d become inseparable, and it seemed like things were getting serious. It made me nervous.             

             
“If it’s such a big deal, why don’t you let her pick the name?” Adam asked. “You don’t like any of my suggestions and you haven’t come up with any of your own, so Hannah is the logical next choice.”

             
“I’ll think about it,” I promised, even though I was pretty sure I wouldn’t. It seemed like too much of a cop-out, asking someone else to name my daughter. I wondered what Harper meant.

             
“Okay. Well, I need to get going. Are you going to be okay here by yourself?”

             
I rolled my eyes. I was eight months pregnant and bigger than I’d ever imagined myself being, and Adam seemed to think that made me handicapped. “I’ll be fine, Adam. You’re going to be gone what, three hours at most? If I need anything, I’ll call Julia.”

             
Adam looked unconvinced, but he’d promised his dad he would go golfing with him at the Haven Country Club after dinner. Apparently Ned was really getting into the game, and wanted to show his son the ropes. Adam seemed less than enthused about it, but thought it would be nice to spend some quality time with his father.

             
“It’s not like you’re going to be gone for ages,” I reminded him. I forced myself to my feet and wrapped my arms around his waist in an awkward hug. Hugging always felt awkward now. I was used to pressing my body as close to his as I possibly could, and my giant baby belly didn’t allow that.

             
Adam left a little after five, and I busied myself with cleaning the house, even though it really didn’t need it. Adam was getting better at not leaving a mess everywhere he went, which was a relief to me. After the living room and kitchen was to my satisfaction, I wandered into the baby’s nursery.

             
It was hard not to smile when I went in there. I’d picked a color similar to the shade of lilac as the blanket Hannah had gotten me for Christmas, and Ned and Adam had spent a Saturday in early April painting it. It wasn’t furnished yet, but we’d planned out where all the furniture would go, and started decorating the walls a little. There was a picture of me and Adam, framed, from early in our relationship, before the baby was conceived. We looked so young then; it was less than a year ago, but we seemed like completely different people. Nolan had taken it, on the beach behind his house, as close to the exact spot where we’d met as we could get. It was a bright and sunny day, and Adam held me close to his chest, smiling at the camera. My hair flew around in the image in a crazy golden-red swirl.

             
I walked over to the picture and touched it. I always did that, for a reason I wasn’t really clear it. We were so new then, falling in love faster than we could catch our breath. I wanted to hold onto that for as long as I could. Above the picture, we’d fastened the piece of driftwood Adam had found on the beach in August. It was bittersweet, that driftwood, reminding me both of the way he’d found it, and the cabin in Oregon where my father and I had had our own collection.

             
I toyed with the engagement ring on my finger, a new memory flooding back. Adam, so nervous, asking me to be his wife, to take our vow of forever and make it permanent. The shock washing over me, the yes escaping my lips. No one but Nolan had known about his plan before that night; his parents were surprised, but accepting. Ned’s demeanor changed after that night; he no longer held the fact that Adam wouldn’t be attending college against him. Instead, he congratulated him on really stepping up and becoming a man. The pregnancy might have shown immaturity on both of our parts, but the decision to get married and make this family whole showed maturity.

             
I picked up the baby book, kept in here so I didn’t obsess over it every second of the day, and flipped to the ‘H’ chapter. I found Harper relatively quickly, and frowned. Harp player. That was all it meant. I had no way of knowing if this baby would grow up and want to play the harp, so would picking a name that meant that make any sense?

             
I put the book back down, frustrated with myself. I never knew how important the meanings behind names were to me, and I wondered if anyone else ever put this much thought into it. I made a mental note to ask Julia later.

             
There were plenty of other pictures I wanted to hang on the wall. It had been my idea, to cover the walls with familiar faces, faces that this baby would grow up knowing and loving; faces of people that would keep her safe, and love her forever, no matter what. Growing up, I only had one. This baby would have dozens.

             
I studied the wall where the crib would be positioned, and imagined the sticker letters that spelled out names. I’d seen the design a bunch in a lot of the baby magazines Hannah had bought for me, and liked it.

Harper
. I imagined the name stretched out across the wall, every letter a different color.
Harper
.

             
I headed back into the living room, deciding that since I had no homework and nothing else that needed to be done that night, I’d get to work at picking out more pictures and framing them so they could get on the wall faster. I’d just sat down in the middle of the floor with the box of empty frames and photo album when the doorbell rang.

             
I frowned. The only person I could think of was Hannah, but the door wasn’t locked and Hannah wasn’t one for promoting privacy, unless it was hers. And Julia would never ring the doorbell. Knock, maybe, but never something as impersonal as ringing a doorbell.

             
“Hold on, I’ll be right there!” I called, grabbed the end of the couch and pulling myself up. I wondered if the baby would mind if we started calling her Big Hannah instead of Little Hannah, since she made me feel like a beached whale most of the time.

             
“Sorry!” I called to the doorbell-ringer, finally making my way to the door. I flung it open, a smile frozen on my face. A smile that quickly melted.

             
A blonde woman in her mid-thirties stood there. She was dressed impeccably in a dark, navy blue pantsuit, contrasting greatly with the white-blonde hair that rested on her shoulders. She was wearing sunglasses, but she removed them just as the door opened, revealing blue eyes.