Baby 101

“Really?” Her face lit up. “That’s great. I…I was really worried about getting a good one. I only have a few bucks…”

“Whatever you can afford,” Lana repeated gently. “I think you’d like this one.” She picked up a car seat that doubled as a carrier. “This will do wonderfully until the baby’s about six months old.”

The young mother’s face fell again. “But…they told me my baby will need to be in a car seat until—”

“When he outgrows this one, you come back and trade up to a full-size model,” Lana said, giving her best imitation of a used-car salesman. “No extra charge.”

“Great! I’ll take it.”

“Fine, here it is. Janette will show you everything you need to know about fastening your baby in safe and snug.”

“Thank you. This is a load off my mind.” She followed Lana to the counter.

“You really should let me publicize this little program of yours. I could do a lot more for you if you’d let the PR people at the clinic run with it.”

Lana turned to find the regal figure of her godmother, Megan Maitland, standing beside a mahogany reproduction of Prince William’s cradle.

“Aunt Megan.” Her mother’s longtime friend had suggested long ago that the Lord siblings call her that, and Lana still did. “What are you doing here in the middle of the day? I thought you were going to take some time off to spend with Connor and Lacy and little Chase.” Megan had recently been reunited with Connor, the grown son she had been told had died at birth.

“I’m on my way home now, but there’s something I need to talk to you about.” Megan motioned toward the back of the store. “Can we use your office?”

“Brittany’s back there feeding Greg. Remember I told you at the party I was giving baby basics lessons to…my new landlord.”

“That includes keeping his child here in the store?” Megan looked around.

“It does for the time being. As a matter of fact, he’s staying at the house.” Megan looked surprised. Lana pointed to the ceiling. “Lead paint. It’s not safe for the baby. They’re staying in the maid’s room.”

“Do your brothers know this?”

Lana laughed, but it sounded thin and nervous even to her own ears. “Well, no. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell them just yet. Or Shelby, for that matter.”

“Certainly, if that’s what you want.”

Lana was surprised Megan didn’t pursue the subject. She seemed distracted, and Lana wondered what she was doing here at this time of day. It must be important.

“Come over here. We can be private enough.”

Lana led the way to an alcove filled with framed prints and quilts and Noah’s ark figures displayed in an antique cupboard. Once they stepped inside they were out of sight of Janette and her customer. “Now, what’s up?”

Megan didn’t return her smile. “I’d like you to come out to the house tonight.”

“You know I never turn down an invitation for dinner with you.”

“This isn’t just a dinner invitation, dear. I received something in the mail yesterday that concerns you. All of you.”

Lana began rearranging the Noah’s ark figures on the piecrust table in front of her. Something in her godmother’s voice set off an internal alarm. She flicked the switch on a music box and watched the little animals move around the ark, two by two, as it played Brahms’s “Lullaby.” Her hands were trembling. Only one person in the world would try to contact all four of them through Megan Maitland. “It’s from our mother, isn’t it?”

“Yes, apparently it is.”

Lana couldn’t quite trust herself to speak. After twenty-five years of silence, her mother had apparently just dropped back into her life—into their lives. “Apparently? You mean there’s no name on…the letter? Is it a letter? Did she give you a phone number, an e-mail address?”

Megan squeezed Lana’s hand. “There was a note and a box of baby things. The note was just like the first one, Lana. The one that was pinned to Garrett’s shirt all those years ago. No return address. No signature. Nothing to identify who wrote it. For some reason, even after all these years, your mother doesn’t want you to know who she is.”

“VAN ZANDT DEVELOPMENT.” Dylan tucked the cell phone between his ear and his shoulder and went on looking at the schematic for the updated wiring he’d have to install to bring the building up to code.

“Dill Pickle? Is that you?”

“Mom?”

She giggled at his shocked tone. “Oh, dear, did I say that out loud?”

“Yes, you did,” he said, turning his back on the drawing, giving his mother his full attention. “You haven’t called me that since I was two.”

“It must be these painkillers. I swear my head feels two feet across. I had to dial you three times to get the call to go through.”

“How are you feeling otherwise?”

“I want out of this bed and this horrible contraption. I can’t even get up to go to the bathroom. How could I have been so foolish? I only fell two feet from the second step of the ladder.” In his mind’s eye he could see her shaking her head, her curly brown hair barely streaked with gray. “I really, really do have to lose some weight. The doctors have all been very nice, but I know that’s what they’re thinking. ‘If you weren’t so heavy, Mrs. Van Zandt, the injury to your ankle wouldn’t have been so severe.’”

“Mom, you’re not fat.” But she wasn’t skinny, either. He couldn’t remember her as anything but pleasingly plump. His parents were both nearing sixty, active and healthy except for his dad’s high blood pressure and now his mom’s broken ankle. Nevertheless, they were looking forward to turning over the business to him in a few years and retiring. That’s why he had to make this project work. They’d put a big chunk of their savings into it and let him take out a loan against the company assets.

“I’m not skinny, either. And I’m bored witless already, as you can tell. How’s Greg? How are you two doing? Should I send your father up there to help out?”

“We’re doing fine, Mom. And Dad needs to stay there with you and the office. The bids for the new gymnasium at the high school are coming up next week. We’ve got a good chance at getting the job.”

“I know, I know. But there are other things just as important as the school bid. Like my little Greggy. Are you sure he’s okay?”

She was beginning to sound tired, her words slurring now and then, but Dylan knew better than to try to cut the conversation short. Even half zonked on painkillers, his mother wouldn’t stand for that. She sensed how conflicted he was about his son. She had accepted the little guy wholeheartedly, but Dylan wasn’t fooled. His mother could count. She and his dad had to be aware that Greg could have been conceived during the time Jessie had lived apart from him. But it made no difference to Linda Van Zandt. Greg was her grandchild, just as his sister Christy’s and his brother Trent’s kids were. “He’s fine. I…I’ve got someone to help with him.”

“Who’s that?” His mother’s voice was razor sharp again, just like her wits.

“Her name’s Lana Lord. She’s the tenant in the store below my apartment. The store called Oh, Baby!”

“I’ve heard that name.”

“It was on the architect’s drawing of the new facade, remember?”

“Oh, yes, a baby store. I read an article about one of them in the business section of the Statesman once. Supposed to be a real growth industry. Lots of waited-till-it-was-almost-too-late professionals having babies and spoiling them rotten. Did I tell you about it? They have more hair than sense and buy whole new sets of furniture for every baby they have. Thousands of dollars worth. Then they just pitch it and start over.” She sounded shocked by the waste. “Why, I still have Grandma Parsons’ high chair and crib. It was good enough for me and Billy Joe and Gracie and the three of you. It’s good enough for Greg when I get it painted, and someday it will—”

“Mom, do you want to hear about Lana Lord or not?”

“Of course I do. It’s the medicine. I just run on and on.”

“You always run on and on, Mom.”

She laughed. “Okay. Tell me about this woman who’s taking care of my Greggy.”

“She heard him crying the first night and came upstairs. She’s keeping him with her in her store during the day. I’ve got him with me at night…at her house.” He didn’t have to tell her that. She wouldn’t know where he was if she called on the cell phone. But if she did find out, there’d be hell to pay.

“Her house? You’re living with this woman you only met three days ago?”

“We’re staying in the maid’s room. The house is huge. A big old Tudor monstrosity, cold and damp as the dickens.”

“I see. Then she must be one of the Austin Lords.”

“She is.” Dylan didn’t elaborate, although his mother’s silence told him she wanted more details.

“Well,” she said after a silence. “I’m glad Greg’s out of that musty old apartment. I mean, the paint has to be lead-based—”

Was he the only adult in Texas who hadn’t thought about lead paint on the walls? He cut her short. He could hear someone coming up the steps from Lana’s store. Only she had the key. He glanced at his watch and frowned. It wasn’t five-thirty yet. Something must be up with Greg. Another bellyache? Diarrhea? “I’ll call you back, Mom. Someone’s here.”

“Okay.” There were voices in the background. “My roommate’s getting visitors, and this call is probably costing me a fortune. I’m sure the hospital doesn’t have a five-cents-a-minute plan. Dylan, you’ll give me your number at this woman’s house, won’t you? I don’t like being out of touch.”

“You can always reach me at this number. But I’ll call you as soon as I get hold of the new one. I’ll let you talk to Greg, how’s that sound?” he asked, half teasing.

“Wonderful. I miss him so much.”

“I know you do, Mom. We’ll be out to see you this weekend. I promise.”

“Good. Take care of that precious little boy of ours.”

“I will, Mom.”

He broke off the connection and turned. Lana was standing in the doorway of his apartment, the living room of which was now doubling as his field office. “Hi,” she said.

She was holding Greg against her shoulder, against her heart. She was patting his back gently, absently, as though it were the most natural rhythm in the world. He couldn’t feel that way when he held the child. He wondered if he ever would. Physically, he was more comfortable with him in his arms, but there was no personal feeling there, no warmth, no connection.

“You were on the phone. I hope we didn’t interrupt you.”

“No,” he said. “I was talking to my mom.”

“How is she?” She continued patting Greg’s back as she moved around the room, stopping to look at the architect’s rendering of the facade of the building where it was taped to the wall between the big front windows.

“Pretty spaced out on painkillers. She was worried about Greg. I told her we were staying with you. I promised to give her your phone number. I hope that’s okay.” It still felt strange to him to be in her home, even though the place was so big he never saw her unless she came into the kitchen while he was getting ready to feed Greg.

“Of course it’s okay. There used to be a separate line running into the maid’s room. We can have it turned back on. I’ll call the phone company today.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I’ll be sure to send you the bill.” She smiled. He didn’t like being in her debt, and she knew it.

“Thank you.” He didn’t smile back. He couldn’t. He never knew what to do, how to react to her teasing. Jessie had never teased him. But then their marriage had been based on her needs and his promise to his dying buddy to take care of his wayward sister. Love hadn’t been part of the equation.

“How did it go with the electrical inspector today?” she asked as she wandered over to look out the window at the street below. It was a humid and rainy afternoon. Business was probably slow. Maybe that’s why she had brought Greg upstairs in the middle of the afternoon.

“About like I expected. This place is a mess. A lot of the wiring up here is original. Scary as hell when you look at it.”

She turned, alarm on her face. “But downstairs—”

“It was rewired about ten years ago. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.” He didn’t want to worry her, but there were some areas on the ground floor that had been missed or skipped to save money. That wiring would have to be replaced, too. Another twenty thousand dollars he hadn’t been counting on.

“We have trouble with the computers sometimes when the air-conditioning is going full blast.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Thanks.”

She didn’t make any move to leave or to hand over Greg. Dylan weighed the prospect of asking her out to dinner. He owed her a lot for bailing him out of a tight spot. But it would have to be someplace quick and casual. There was no one else to leave the baby with, unless he got the salesgirl—what was her name, Brittany?—to baby-sit. His mom would have a fit at that. He barely knew the girl.

But if Lana didn’t think her employee was competent enough to watch his son, she’d say so. He’d learned that much about her already. She spoke her mind and was confident in her opinions.

She stood there rocking, humming snatches of a lullaby under her breath. Her eyes were closed, her lashes dark against her cheeks. She looked tired. That made up his mind. Taking care of his son on top of running her business and overseeing that big house with only a once-a-week cleaning service and part-time gardener must be taking their toll. Besides, he liked the idea of sitting down to a meal with her, not bringing home take-out to wolf down at the kitchen island with only Greg in his carrier beside him for company.

“Lana.”

“Yes.” She opened her eyes. They were hazel, he’d noticed more than once. Sometimes more green than gold, sometimes darkening almost to brown. When she was angry or upset they got that way. Lightning in river water, he thought. Like now. She was frowning, too.

“I’d like to buy you something to eat tonight. A little thank-you for all you’ve done for us this week.”

“I can’t.” Her frown deepened. She must have tightened her hold on Greg, because he began to fuss a little. She shushed him, settling him more comfortably on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so abrupt. It’s—”

“No apology necessary.” The words sounded perfunctory, and he regretted not being able to keep his chagrin hidden. Fine. She didn’t want to go out with him. That was all there was to it. She probably had a date and was trying to figure out how to tell the date she had Dylan and Greg living in her house. He’d never thought of that when he’d taken her up on the offer. On top of everything else he was complicating the hell out of her love life. “Look, if you need to be alone tonight, I’ll take Greg to the mall or something.”

“No. It isn’t that. I mean, if you’re asking me do I have a date, the answer is no. But I do have plans.” Dylan braced himself and didn’t know why. Possibly because he could see the agitation swirling in the depths of those green and gold eyes. Something had upset her. She brushed her lips across Greg’s hair, then took a little breath as though she wanted to get it all out in one string of words. “I’m meeting my sister and brothers at my aunt Megan’s. We were left on the doorstep at Maitland Maternity twenty-five years ago. Abandoned by a mother we never knew. We haven’t heard a word from her since then.” She shook her head as though she couldn’t quite come to terms with what she was about to say. “Until today.”

CHAPTER FOUR

FOR THE FIRST TIME in her life Lana was uncomfortable in Megan’s house. It felt alien to her, not the gracious, elegant home-away-from-home it had been for as long as she could remember. She had spent as much time growing up here as she had in her parents’ house. She had played with Ellie and Beth, Megan’s twin daughters, shared secrets with them, called boys on the phone with them. They had all swum in the pool and played in the yard, a tribe of healthy youngsters watched over by doting parents. Her memories of this place were all good ones.

But tonight it felt different because she was different. She was no longer Lana Megan Lord, beloved daughter of Terrence and Sheila. She was nobody. Alone and un-loved. It was as if memories of heartache and loss she’d never known she had suddenly forced themselves into the forefront of her mind. She clutched the little pink sweater Megan had given her tightly between her hands, staring at her name embroidered in crooked letters with darker pink floss. Embroidered by a ghost from the past, a woman of whom she had no conscious memory at all. Her mother.

She looked up. Shelby sat across from her on a matching sofa. They were in Megan’s private study, the place they always gathered when they were visiting her. It was a big, cozy room, filled with soft leather furniture and shelves of books and family photos, and almost always friends and members of Megan’s large family. But tonight the five of them were alone.

“She says this was the only fancywork she ever had time to do.” Shelby quoted from the note Megan had read them as she distributed the gifts. It had been handwritten, short and unsigned. “That sounds so sad.”

“I can’t imagine ever being this small.” Michael had placed the tiny blue sweater bearing his name on a table, as though distancing himself from the woman who had given it to him, embroidered it so lovingly and then walked out of his life. “At least we know now the names pinned to our shirts really were the ones she gave us.”

When they were small, the triplets had sometimes climbed into the branches of the live oak tree in the back yard and wondered aloud who they might be. Garrett, older by two years, had scoffed at them. He remembered their names, he’d insisted when they picked others they liked better. He’d told Megan so from the very first day.

But one day when the three of them were ten and Garrett was twelve, they’d quit asking him about memories of their real mother. That was the day he and Michael had gotten into a fight over Garrett’s insistence that he could remember nothing about her anymore. And if he did he wasn’t going to tell Michael, or Shelby and Lana, either. She had thrown them all away, he’d said. Just like they were toys she didn’t want. If she didn’t want them, then he didn’t want to remember her. That had been the last time he’d spoken of her to Lana. And not long after that Lana had made the same promise to herself.

“Why do you think she sent these things to us now?” Shelby asked, her eyes sparkling with emotion. “Why, after all these years without a word?”

“Who knows.” Michael moved restlessly around the room, his hands shoved in the pockets of his pants. The physical resemblance between Shelby and Michael was marked. The same with Garrett. They all had tanned skin and dark auburn hair and strongly marked lashes and eyebrows that had somehow become muted to cinnamon and cream when they got to Lana.

“What if she’s in need? I mean, if she never had time for a hobby then maybe she still hasn’t got enough money—”

“You can’t go by that, Shelby. You can’t make any kinds of assumptions from that note. We may be dealing with a real nut case here.”

“Mike. You’re talking about our mother.”

“She’s not my mother. My mother was Sheila Lord. I don’t intend to go looking for some stranger to replace her.” Michael had taken their mother’s death hard. Their father had been sick for several months before his death. But Sheila had only complained of a headache, of needing to lie down for a few minutes. She’d died of a massive stroke only an hour later. Some days it was hard for Lana to believe she was gone, even though it had been almost three years.

Shelby winced at the vehemence in their brother’s tone. Some of the excitement faded from her eyes. “I…I thought you might want to help me find her.”

“Find her? What in hell for?”

“She said she loved us,” Shelby whispered. She turned to Lana. “What do you think, Lana? Shouldn’t we look for her?”

Lana glanced helplessly at Megan. The older woman smiled her understanding and encouragement. She knew how much Lana still missed her mother. “No,” Lana said, placing her little pink sweater on top of Michael’s blue one. “I’m with Mike. Let her come to us. She obviously knows who we are, how to find us if she wants to. I won’t go looking for her.”

“I’ll help you, Shel.” Garrett was standing with one shoulder propped against the fern-filled marble fireplace. He looked at the scruffy, bedraggled teddy bear that had been his gift from the past. If he remembered playing with it as a toddler, he gave no evidence of it.

“Oh, Garrett, will you?” Shelby’s smile returned, brighter than before.

“It would be easier if you helped us, Mike.” The words seemed pulled from somewhere deep inside him. Garrett didn’t ask favors easily, even from those closest to him.

But Michael was adamant. He was perhaps the most stubborn of them all. “No, bro, not this time. I have absolutely no interest in the woman who didn’t care enough about any of us to try and keep us together as a family.”

“But, Mike.” Shelby tried again. “You don’t know that. She left us for Aunt Megan—”

“Yeah, I know she could have turned us over to the welfare people to get sucked into the system, but she couldn’t have known we’d stay together. It’s only because Aunt Megan knew how much Mom and Dad wanted a family. We were damned lucky, that’s all. She doesn’t deserve any credit for that.” He picked up his sweater and Lana’s and went to put them in the plain cardboard box in which they’d come. “I don’t want anything to do with her.”

“Please, Michael. Don’t throw it away,” Shelby begged. “Lana, you, too.”

He turned to her, the little pink sweater still in his hands. “I wasn’t going to throw them away. I’m just not interested in looking at them anymore.”

“Me, too, Shel, honey. I…I just don’t want to take it home with me,” Lana said uncertainly. She’d been on her own for half a dozen years. She was able to take care of herself, but these relics of their past had hit her hard.

Michael handed the box with the three little sweaters to Shelby. “Don’t get in a huff, sis,” he said with that devastating smile of his that lifted one corner of his mouth higher than the other.

“I’ll take yours for safekeeping. I’ll take the teddy bear, too, Garrett, if you don’t want it.” Shelby held out her hand. “You can come and get them whenever you want.”

Garrett handed the bear over. “I don’t need anything to remind me that I was left on the doorstep of a public building without even a blanket to cover me.”

“It was quite warm the day you came to me, Garrett,” Megan said. “I remember very clearly. There was absolutely no question of you suffering from the cold.” There was a slight note of reproof in her low, cultured voice as she stood and walked from behind the big mahogany desk where she’d been sitting.

“There’s always something inside you that’s cold when you don’t know who you are or where you come from.”

Shelby and Lana exchanged looks. They had never heard their brother speak like that before. “I’m going to start looking for her first thing tomorrow,” Garrett said. “I could use your help, Mike. But if you don’t want anything to do with it, I’ll go it alone.”

“Like I said—deal me out.”

“I’ll help you, Gar.” There was a note of defiance in Shelby’s voice.

“Thanks, sis.”

“I’ve got to be going,” Michael announced. “Thanks for everything, Aunt Megan. Shelby, are you ready to leave?” Michael had picked Shelby up at Austin Eats when he left Maitland Maternity. He’d offered to drive Lana, too, but it was more convenient for her to take her own car. And besides, she’d been too upset to deal with introducing her brother to Dylan and Greg. And then having to explain their new living arrangements. Time enough for that when the shock of their mother’s gifts had worn off.

“I’ll drop Shel off at her place on my way to the ranch. It’s not out of the way. We’ve got some stuff to talk about,” Garrett said. “Lana, do you want us to follow you home?”