Wishing on Willows: A Novel (18 page)

Getting pregnant became the thorn in our flesh. The one thing we couldn’t get right. I remember sitting on the edge of our bed, twelve months of negative pregnancy tests littering our past, gripping the stick in my hand after the three minutes had expired, as if that second line was late in coming. Micah rubbed circles into my knee and I wanted to tear his hand away. I
wanted to yell and scream and blame him for this thing that wasn’t happening. Instead, I sat there—my heart cold and empty.

“This is going to happen. I know it will.”

“It’s been a year, Micah.” A year of taking my temperature every morning. Charting my cycle. Swallowing vitamin B pills and knowing way too much about my cervical fluid. I’d even started drinking whole milk and forbidding my husband to wear anything tight around his manly parts. And Aunt Ingrid’s long-ago prediction? It was coming true. Trying for a baby had turned sex into a chore.

“We should go see a doctor,” I said.

“If that’s what you want.”

I nodded at the carpet. Never in a million years did I think I’d have to go on Clomid. Never in a million years did I imagine our future would involve fertility testing. But here we were, at the twelve-month mark and my womb remained barren. I felt like a failure.

Micah took my hand and squeezed my palm gently until I looked into his eyes. “Someday you are going to be a mother. A beautiful, amazing mother. We’re going to be parents, Robin. I can feel it right here.” He moved our hands to his chest and beneath the desperation, beneath the despair, I felt the faintest glimmer of hope. Micah could be so convincing. “We just have to be patient. God’s timing is perfect.”

Six months later, I had my positive pregnancy test. And Micah was in the hospital—brain dead.

Dad and Donna took Caleb to a River Bandits baseball game. Enjoy a night off, they said. Relax and do something fun. Over the past four years, the words
something fun
entailed Chuck E. Cheese’s or squirt gun fights or tents as big as a T. rex in the basement. Robin no longer knew what fun meant apart from her son. Which is why, after Dad and Donna and Caleb left, she sat in the kitchen, tapping her nail against the table, with no clue what to do with herself.

Bethany was at home with Evan and Elyse. Amanda was out with friends. And she—Robin Price—was Caleb-less for the night. Most mothers might find it refreshing. Robin found it unnerving. After thirty minutes of table-tapping, she grabbed her keys, drove to Willow Tree and attempted to fill the empty space with music. She played several of her mother’s favorites—all the while thinking about Dad and Donna and the happy way they kept smiling at each other.

Robin’s hands fell from the keys, her thoughts turning to Ian and One Life and Kyle and her town and Bethany and Evan and Amanda and Jason, and somewhere in the silence, a knock sounded against her window. She turned, expecting to find the Crammers, unaware that the café was closed for the holiday weekend. Instead, she saw Ian.

Swallowing the dryness in her throat, Robin walked to the entrance, unbolted the locks, and opened the door halfway. He stood on the other side with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, eyes twinkling, wearing the same blue-and-white checkered button-up and gray undershirt he’d worn at the picnic, except it was untucked and a five o’clock shadow had replaced his smooth shave.

“I’m closed,” she said.

“So says your sign.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Asking you the same thing.”

She opened the door wider. “Were you spying again?”

“
Again
implies I spied a first time.” He stepped inside, only she hadn’t invited him in. “I was at the park across the street when I saw a light come on in your café.”

“What were you doing in the park across the street?”

“Collecting my thoughts. Enjoying the swings, but then your light came on and I was curious. So here I am.” He smiled, like this little encounter was entertaining.

“And here you go.” She swept her hand toward the night outside.

But he stepped around her, scanning the loft overhead and the canvases on her walls. “It’s nice like this.”

“Like what?”

“Empty.”

“You are quite the comedian.”

He pivoted on his heels, his eyes wide with innocence. “Oh no. I’m being totally sincere. I always loved my grandpa’s restaurant after close. It was peaceful.”

“How nice.” Her voice came out flat. Being alone in her café with the attractive condominium man was not how she pictured her evening. The day’s events left her zapped of energy, almost to the point of delirium. She couldn’t afford to be delirious in front of Ian McKay. “No offense, but I’m not really in the mood to talk about your offer or the condominiums.”

“That makes two of us.” He picked up a stray sugar packet from one of the tables and tossed it into his other hand. “Where’s your little guy?”

“At a baseball game with my dad.”

“Have you eaten dinner?”

“No.”

Before she could object, he walked toward her kitchen. She hurried after him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Making you dinner,” he said, pushing through the door.

She slid in front of him, trying to ignore his warmth and the growingly familiar scent of wintergreen. “No, you’re not.”

He grabbed an apron hanging on the wall behind her and tied it around his waist.

“I’m sorry, but could you please get out of my kitchen?”

“I’m an excellent cook.”

“Yeah. Right.” Cooking. Fixing ovens. Charming families. Dr. Phil. The guy was too much.

“You think I’m lying?”

“I think it’s irrelevant.” Seriously, they were not doing this.

He tossed the sugar packet toward the trash can by her refrigerator. It sailed through the air and landed in the center with a faint plop. “Let’s make a deal. You let me fix you something to eat. If you honestly don’t like it—and you have to promise you’ll be honest—I’ll wave the white flag and leave Peaks forever. One Life will be safe and so will your café, at least from McKay Development and Construction.”

Robin’s lips fell apart.

“But”—he held up his finger—“if you do like it, you have to stop calling me Mr. McKay and start calling me Ian.”

“You’re serious?”

“I never ever joke in a kitchen.”

“It seems like a pretty lopsided deal.” She crossed her arms and sized him up, from his tan loafers to the small white scar above his left temple. “I don’t understand why you’d make it.”

“Because I love to cook, I’m a very confident chef, and Mr. McKay is my father.”

“You should know that I’m an incredibly picky eater.”

“Challenge accepted.” He stepped around her and washed his hands in the sink. He dried them with a towel and walked into the refrigerator. Robin stood there, blinking at the door, not entirely sure what had just happened. How did she end up alone, in the small confines of her kitchen, with Ian McKay? It was so ludicrous that she almost wanted to giggle—a definite
sign of delirium. He came out with a handful of ingredients and began dicing a tomato on her prep table. Decisive, even strokes. Robin stared at the hypnotic movement. His fingers were long and tan, with wide, neatly-trimmed fingernails shaped like squares.

“Were you two alike?” he asked.

“Who?”

“You and your mom.”

She swallowed and looked away from his hands. “In a lot of ways.”

“Tell me something about her.”

Robin picked up a towel—folded it, unfolded it, folded, unfolded. What something could she say that might convey the loveliness that had been her mother? “Listening to her play the piano was like magic,” she finally said. “Every song made me want to grab someone by the shoulders and ask if they were hearing what I was hearing. She had this way of making everyone feel like they were the most important person in the room. She would have spoiled Caleb rotten.” She shot him a pointed look. “And she would have loved this café.”

“I have no doubt.” He picked up a red pepper and began chopping. “What else?”

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. Something special.” The knife made a soothing staccato sound against the prep table. “Like your favorite memory of her.”

One came to mind so swiftly and suddenly that a smile captured Robin’s lips. “A couple weeks after my mom had been diagnosed with cancer, we went to the grocery store. She was adamant about making a pumpkin pie. According to her, pumpkin pie made everything better. Anyway, somebody spilled an entire bottle of vegetable oil in aisle nine.”

“How does that happen?”

Robin shook her head. “I have no idea. While we were trying to avoid the mess, Mom slipped and fell. She couldn’t get a hold on anything to pull herself up … the shelving, brownie mix boxes, powdered sugar. For the life of her, she couldn’t get up. I tried to help, but the oil spread like The Blob and we both ended up on the floor. Oh my goodness”—her smile grew so wide
it took over her entire face—“we were just laughing hysterically. It was paralyzing. We were probably stuck on the floor for fifteen minutes.”

For weeks afterward, even amidst a gloomy prognosis, Robin and her mother could not look at each other without bursting into laughter. A bubble of hilarity rose in Robin’s throat at the memory, but she clamped her hand over her mouth to keep it in.

Ian stopped chopping, a smile of his own pulling up the corners of his lips.

“My dad called it The Great Grocery Fiasco of ’95.” The memory of the slippery tile and her mother’s oil-permeated pants expanded until the bubble burst. Robin giggled. Which turned into laughter, and then, somehow, Ian was laughing too, and she couldn’t stop. The more she laughed, the more he laughed, until they were doubled over, wiping their eyes, gasping for breath. She placed her hand over her stomach, trying to compose herself. Ian wiped his cheek and shook his head, and when the laughter adequately subsided, took back the knife.

Robin filled her lungs with air and dabbed at her wet eyelashes. Man, that felt good. “What are you making?” she asked.

“A very easy, very delicious omelet. You can add it to your menu, if you’d like.”

She leaned against the oven. “So where did you learn to cook, Dr. Phil?”

“My grandpa Vin, who owned the restaurant. I spent a lot of time in his kitchen.” The tenor of Ian’s voice was low, almost intimate. The sound of it made her skin prickle, and then her muscles tense, because what was she doing laughing and chatting with this man? She raked her teeth over her bottom lip, suddenly eager for Ian to leave.

He finished his chopping and looked up. “Frying pan?”

She grabbed the one hanging on the wall and set it on the stovetop while he cracked three eggs into a bowl with one hand, seasoning them with spices she hardly ever used.

“When I was a kid,” he said, “I used to pretend I was a famous chef.”

“Then how did you end up in the development business?”

He poured the scrambled eggs and the chopped vegetables into the pan. The sound of sizzling filled her tiny kitchen. “Because I’m my father’s son, the future president of McKay Development and Construction.”

“You don’t sound too excited.”

Ian shrugged, and crumbled a handful of goat cheese over the omelet. “Not everyone gets to do what they love. You’re lucky that way.”

Lucky? She was a widow. People didn’t call her lucky very often.

When he finished, he slid the omelet onto a plate and handed it over. “Remember, you promised to tell the truth.”

Robin picked up a fork and took a small, tentative bite. She wanted to hate it. She wanted to make a face and spit it out. Tell him she didn’t like it and insist he hold up his end of the bargain. But she couldn’t lie. It was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted.

His eyes crinkled. “So?”

“So I guess I have to stop calling you Mr. McKay.”

The smell of fried cod clung to the air as people stood beneath white tents, drinking cold beer over abandoned plates of fish and tartar sauce. The sun beamed overhead, casting short, fat shadows across the grass that flickered and jolted to the country music beat blasting from the band shelter. A sticky breeze tussled Robin’s hair. Caleb bobbed up and down by her side, his hand clasped in hers as his head swiveled back and forth, from the inflatable bouncer on their left to the short line of porta-potties on their right.

“Do you have to go potty?”

He shook his head, but Robin knew better. Pulling Caleb with her, she made a beeline for the right and kept one eye open for the man who insisted on disrupting her life. The man who claimed he had no choice. The man who showed up at her café on Saturday night and somehow distracted her with belly laughs and a delicious meal. A tricky bit of magic. Well, today she would not be distracted. Today, she had a plan. Robin stepped in line and watched her son potty dance. “You can make it, buddy. We’re almost there.”

Caleb crossed one leg over the other and puckered his brow. Robin squeezed his shoulder in moral support. When they reached the front, she pried open the door and stepped forward, but Caleb stopped her with his hands. “I can go by myself.”

Yeah, and fall in. “Can’t I come in with you?”

“I can do it myself!”

“Okay, but don’t touch anything.” Robin kept the door cracked and
peeked inside. She could just see Caleb using the opportunity to check whether or not the tiny plastic triceratops in his pocket could swim. She shuddered. Porta-potties gave her the heebie-jeebies.

“Everything okay in there?”

She jumped and spun around. The master of distraction stood behind her. He’d foregone his usual pressed garb for a pair of well-worn jeans, cross-trainers, and a Cubs shirt. Micah had hated the Cubs.

“A little jumpy today, are we?” he asked.

“That’s because you spoke directly in my ear.” Robin took a step back. “Where’s your shadow?” As soon as she said it, she clapped her hand over her mouth.

Ian laughed—a rich, husky sound. “My shadow?”

She shook her head, hand still covering her snafu. She liked the mayor. At least she used to. She had no business calling him a shadow.

“You mean the mayor?”