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Barbara let a moment of silence go by. “Oh, I see. Jackie told you, right?”
“Told me what?”
She sighed. “That I invited my sister-in-law to come along.”
“Barbara…” he said, trying to sound stern.
“I know, I know. But she’s really cute. You’d like her. I know you would.”
Judging from the two other women Barbara had set him up with, he probably would. They were both nice. Both attractive. But neither had done anything for him romantically.
Nevertheless, it was good to stay in circulation—something he’d found difficult after his divorce four years ago.
Ross sighed. “This isn’t about your sister-in-law,” he said. “Jackie didn’t tell me anything. I’d come out if I could, but I can’t.”
“Okay, okay. I believe you.” Her voice softened. “Good luck with whatever’s going on.”
When Ross walked back into the kitchen, he found Jennifer still sitting quietly at the table. Her feet were propped up on a chair now, clad only in white socks, her sneakers on the hardwood floor below.
“Nine o’clock,” he told her.
“He’ll see me?”
Ross selected an apple from the basket of fruit on the counter, washed it and took a paring knife from the drawer by the sink. “He doesn’t know it’s you.”
“Oh.”
“I thought it would be best that way.” He sliced the apple in half and then in half again before coring the quarters.
“Where are we meeting?”
“Here.”
“Okay…” Briefly she closed her eyes.
Ross arranged the apple slices on a plate and set it on the table within her reach. “Help yourself,” he said, taking a seat.
He ate and she ate, and while they chewed they didn’t make eye contact. His gaze passed over the swell of her belly. She was six months pregnant with no family and not much money. He couldn’t help but feel compassion. He saw the courage it must have taken to come here and the strength of purpose that kept her here despite what he’d told her about her baby’s father.
Jennifer turned her head, looking around the dining area. He saw her gaze settle on a formal portrait of his mother and father, taken several years earlier, which hung on the wall.
“How are your parents?”
A standard social question. Basic politeness. He would have loved to give the standard polite answer—that they were well, thank you. “My dad’s fine. Mom just had a double bypass.”
She looked as surprised as he’d felt the day they’d discovered the blockage in his mother’s arteries. “Did she have a heart attack?”
“Yeah. Right on the tennis court. Luckily the ambulance got to her quickly.”
Katherine Griffin had always been trim and active, but her diet hadn’t been the healthiest and she wasn’t the most relaxed person. Still, Ross hadn’t seen it coming. And should have. But he’d allowed his schedule to get too hectic this spring, and had only visited his parents once, briefly, during the month before Katherine’s attack.
“How long ago?”
“Four weeks. She’s been home about three.”
Jennifer frowned. “And…is she going to be okay?”
Ross raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug. These things were hard to predict. “She came through the surgery well. Her heart sustained some damage, though. How much is hard to tell at this point.”
She sat silently. Maybe thinking about his mother. Maybe about her own.
“I suppose stress isn’t very good for her,” she said finally.
“No.” The cardiologist had felt stress was a major factor in Katherine’s disease. During the recovery period, Ross wanted to keep her mind on pleasant topics. Drew’s illegitimate baby didn’t qualify. “You can see why this whole situation is complicated.”
Jennifer reached for another slice of apple. He watched her eat it in three slow and deliberate bites. “I’m sorry about your mother. And I’m sorry the timing’s so bad.”
He nodded. After another pause he said, “I’m not trying to stop you from talking to Drew, but tell me—if it’s money you need, what’s the difference whether you get it from me or from him?”
She glanced up at him, then away. “You’re not the father.”
Of course he wasn’t. Naturally she wanted the father to take responsibility for his actions, but no matter which of them helped her, the result would be the same: financial security for her and her child.
“It’s that important?” he asked.
“A child should have a father. Not a stepfather. Not a series of stepfathers or a series of stand-ins who don’t particularly want the role. Not an absentee benefactor, either.”
He opened his mouth to say that a benefactor was better than nothing. Her look stopped him. It said she hadn’t forgotten Drew had another family. I know he won’t want me or his child, but I have to do this.
Yet he didn’t understand why she did. Was it masochism? Pure stubbornness? A self-destructive love for his brother despite everything he’d done?
Ross was glad, though, that it wasn’t just about the money. Irrationally. Because it shouldn’t make a difference to him. And he shouldn’t care, either, that she would probably be disappointed.
He tried to imagine how Drew might be a father to her child, but couldn’t. Drew paying visits every Saturday afternoon? Drew cherishing him or her, taking an active part in his or her life? That wasn’t how the world worked and it wasn’t how Drew worked. It certainly didn’t seem like something Lucy would be able to accept.
Jennifer slipped her feet into her shoes. She pushed back from the table and stood. “Well, thank you for calling Drew.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to go get settled and find something to eat. I’ll be back a little before nine.”
Ross walked her to the front hall. “Where are you staying?”
He’d wondered if she still had any friends here who might put her up, but she said, “A motel in Beaverton.”
Upstairs he had two spare bedrooms. For her to waste money on a motel room when she could just stay here didn’t seem right. True, he would probably be better off to keep his distance from her. She affected him more than she should, more than was right, and in the past that had only caused problems. But he didn’t want to think of her completely alone in some cheap, depressing motel room after the conversation she was bound to have with Drew. If he, Ross, couldn’t give her money, at least he could give her a pleasant place to stay the night. And maybe some support as she tried to decide what to do next.
He didn’t open the front door. “Have you checked in?”
“No.”
“So don’t. Stay here, instead.”
“Ross—”
“Save your money for the baby,” he said. “You’ll need it. And it’s no trouble to have you here. I’ve got room upstairs and plenty of food for dinner.”
CHAPTER FOUR
JENNIFER BROUGHT IN the bare minimum: her toiletries and a few clothes. She’d allowed Ross to talk her into staying at his house but knew she shouldn’t get too comfortable. This was just for one night. It would save her fifty bucks, but tomorrow she would still have to find an apartment.
And Ross’s offer of a place to sleep didn’t mean she was now one of the people he cared about and protected. All it meant was that he was a gentleman, a considerate host, or perhaps that he felt he owed her a small favor due to their past acquaintanceship.
The room he’d given her was at the back of the house, directly over the kitchen, with windows that looked down into the garden. It had pale-peach walls. A cream-striped duvet covered the double bed and the spindled headboard wore the soft patina of age. Summer evening light slipped in the window and warmed the eastern side of the room.
Much better than an anonymous motel, she admitted.
Jennifer took a quick shower in the attached bathroom, which also connected to another guest room. She dried off with a butter-soft towel and dressed in fresh clothes, feeling a lot more human without the layer of dust and grit from her drive up from San Francisco. After running a comb through her still-damp hair, she joined Ross in the kitchen.
He stood at the island, snapping the ends off a pile of green beans. “Feeling refreshed?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm.” She walked over and took a seat. The dog, Frank, was curled up on a cushion by the back door. She wagged her stumpy tail at Jennifer and then put her head down on her paws.
“I overestimated the contents of my pantry,” Ross said. “I need to run out to the store for some tomato sauce. Do you want to come along? You’re welcome to stay here if you don’t.”
She slipped off her stool. “I’ll come.”
He was her child’s uncle. To spend some time with him, to learn more about his life, wouldn’t be so bad, right?
Ross wiped his hands on a tea towel and led her to the front door, where he grabbed his keys and let them both out. He glanced over as she descended the steps beside him, not offering to help but seeming alert to the possibility of her needing it. She wasn’t so pregnant that her movements had become that difficult, but she knew the day would arrive.
He opened the passenger door of his Camry for her. As she settled herself in the seat and fastened her safety belt she studied his hospital ID card, which was clipped to the dash. The photo was a few years old. His dark hair was longer and he wore a haggard expression. He had deep bags under his eyes. It looked as if it had been taken in the middle of the night, partway through a grueling shift.
She watched him for a minute as he drove down the hill, leaving the residential area and entering the outskirts of downtown Portland. “Is being a doctor what you expected?”
Ross smiled a little ruefully, perhaps remembering things he’d said to her a long time ago. “I was an idealist, wasn’t I?”
“Reality is different?”
“Reality is always different. Especially from what you imagine it’ll be when you’re barely out of your teens.”
“So, what’s it like?”
“Harder. Sometimes more boring. You wouldn’t think so, but even emergencies can feel routine sometimes. And I can’t say I like the business aspects of medicine.”
“But helping people?”
“Oh, that’s gratifying,” he said. “Especially at the free clinic my friend Kyle runs.”
“Where’s that?”
“Old Town. We get lots of patients who are homeless. Also people with low incomes who can’t afford any other kind of health care.”
He talked about it in a matter-of-fact tone, and answered several more questions. She sensed he wouldn’t want her to make a big deal about his volunteer service there, but she was, actually, impressed. Impressed he’d found a way to follow through on some of the ideals he’d professed nine years ago.
“How do you have time to do that?” she asked as they pulled into the little grocery store parking lot. “I thought doctors worked eighty-hour weeks.”
“I worked that much as a resident. Now it only feels that way. I spend less than fifty hours a week at the hospital, though I have to do a bit more at home. Paperwork and keeping up on my reading.”
Ross explained how the shifts were set up at Northwest Hospital. He had day shifts for a few weeks and then a series of night shifts, with a break in between to adjust his internal clock. She’d caught him at the end of a night series, so he had a few days free.
They did their shopping and returned home. Ross picked up the meal preparations where he’d left off. Half an hour later he presented a meal of chicken, pasta and green beans.
As they ate they ranged over many subjects, but stayed away, as if by mutual consent, from anything that had to do with babies or sleazy brothers or family illnesses. In the security and ease of Ross’s house, Jennifer allowed herself to imagine, briefly, what it would be like to have had a child the traditional way. The way she’d always fantasized about. To be married and live in a nice house. To plan to conceive a baby and enjoy the act of making it. To share in the expectations and fears of pregnancy, to raise a child together in a house like this one…
Dreams. Just dreams. As Ross had said, reality was always different. She shouldn’t waste her time when her life was so unlike the fantasy, when she had a meeting with her baby’s father in less than two hours—the father who was married to someone else and expecting another baby.
So she let herself enjoy the rest of the meal and even Ross’s company. But she didn’t fool herself that the interlude was anything other than a temporary glimpse into another person’s life.
Nine years earlier
I’ve heard all about Ross Griffin by the time he gets home from college. Drew calls him Mr. Perfect because he always gets a four-point, does tons of community service, was student body president in high school, excels at sports, speaks two foreign languages, gets his car’s oil changed every three thousand miles without fail, and never, ever leaves dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. You can tell Drew kind of resents him for it, but you can tell he worships him, too. He tries to be like Ross. Like, he’s into this weird band called The Others that nobody in high school’s ever heard of, and three weeks ago when we went into Ross’s room to check out his vintage skateboard I saw an old concert ticket sitting on his desk.
Molly and Heather think Ross is gorgeous. But I’ve seen pictures of him all over the Griffin house and I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Sure, he could pass for that British actor, what’s-his-name, but so what? Drew’s better looking. Plus he’s laid-back and fun, while Ross is probably an uptight prig.
We’re sitting on the deck, Brian and Heather and Drew and I, when Ross gets home from a shopping trip with Mr. and Mrs. Griffin. He flew back from Cambridge a couple of days ago, but I haven’t run into him yet.
They come out onto the deck to say hello and I try to stand up because I’ve been sitting on Drew’s lap, which seems a little trashy in front of his family, especially when I see his mom’s gaze go to his arms around my waist. But Drew tightens his grasp, so I’m stuck there, embarrassed, when I meet his big brother.
Ross greets Brian and Heather and then turns his attention to me. “Jennifer, right? Nice to meet you.” He actually offers me his hand.
I don’t know if college kids go around shaking each other’s hands when they meet, but I’m not used to that, at least not from anyone under thirty. Which is probably why I get such a funny, off-balance feeling inside, as if I just miscalculated where the ground was when I stepped off a ladder.
His hand is big and warm, his grip firm. He doesn’t hold mine any longer than necessary or seem particularly stirred by the experience of meeting me.
“How are you?” I say, trying to look as comfortable as I can while I sit on his brother’s lap.
We all chat for a moment. I ask a few polite questions about his trip back from college and he asks where I lived before Portland, and then Mrs. Griffin reminds Drew to keep the screen door closed so insects don’t get into the house—he’d left it open this afternoon—and she and her husband go back inside.
Ross sits down on one of the dark-metal deck chairs his mom special-ordered from Europe last month. Drew and Brian start to talk about their new game systems and nobody’s talking to me anymore, so I just stare at Mr. Perfect, curious to see if he’s as arrogant as I had expected.
“So, how was your semester?” Heather asks him.
From her voice and expression it’s obvious she’s got a crush on the guy. I hope he’s too self-absorbed to notice, because otherwise I’m going to feel embarrassed for her.
Heather gushes at him and he answers all her questions about Cambridge and Harvard and what his dorm was like. He’s perfectly nice about it, but I start to get the feeling he thinks she’s a ditz. That’s not really fair. Heather may not be a super-brain, but she’s not stupid. Plus, she’s nice.
Finally I open my mouth to get into the conversation, just because I’m feeling left out. “What’s your major?”
