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Traveling downhill, Izzy went as fast as she dared push her trotting dog, desperate to outrun worry and the tears that, finally, would not be denied. She swiped the back of her hand across her nose and used her palm to wipe her eyes. Determined to keep the details of her home life private when she was younger, she’d kept to herself in middle and high school, flying as far under the radar as possible and even earning the nickname “Loner Chick.” After a while, she’d been largely ignored, which had been fine by her. She’d never traded one word with Nate Thayer until the summer after he’d graduated.
What a tangled web she had woven when she, a girl from as far over the wrong side of the tracks as you could get, fell in love with the golden boy of Thunder Ridge. And got pregnant.
That hadn’t been her biggest sin, though. No, not by a long shot. Her biggest sin had been believing Nate loved her back, that he would change his mind about the baby and that they would live happily ever after. Her biggest sin had been telling herself the lie that when you loved hard enough, all your dreams would come true.
Chapter Three (#u956479e5-3906-5364-8993-202a47e0b0ca)
For Izzy, “home” was the one-word description of the blood, sweat and tears she had put into constructing not just a building but a family. The deli had been her first real home, and she had happily painted its aged walls, twisted new washers onto leaking faucets and waxed its linoleum tiles until the memory of their former luster glinted through the wear and tear.
It was the same with the cottage in which she and Eli made their home. When she’d first laid eyes on the 860-square-foot space, her heart had sunk. The tiny house was all she’d been able to afford and even then she’d had to borrow the down payment (paid back in full) from her boss Henry, who by that time had become more of a surrogate father to her.
The prospect of owning her own home, a place she and her son could call theirs forever, had pushed her to overlook the dark wood walls, the ugly threadbare carpets and the cracked enamel in the ancient claw-foot tub, not to mention the spaces in the roof shingles through which she could actually see the sky. Izzy and Eli, who by then had turned seven, dubbed the little house Lambert Cottage, and she’d learned all she could about repairs and improvements.
Today their home was a sunny, whitewashed space with a scrubbed pine floor she’d discovered beneath the carpets, and pale pear-green furniture she’d reupholstered on her own. She made Thanksgiving dinners in her tiny kitchen and hosted birthday parties in a garden filled with azalea, honeysuckle and lydia broom. It was no longer possible to see sky through the roof, but there were times late at night as Izzy lay in bed saying her prayers that she gazed into the darkness above her head and was sure she could see heaven. Coming home never, ever failed to soothe and reassure her.
Except this afternoon.
Unleashing Latke, she set out a bowl of fresh water, chugged a tumbler of iced tea, rinsed her glass and set it upside down on the wooden drain rack, just as she would have done on any normal day. The difference was that today her hands shook the entire time, and she thought she might throw up.
Since she’d pedaled away from Nate, memories had been buffeting her so hard she felt like a tiny dinghy on a storm-ridden sea. Some of the memories were good. So good that yearning squeezed her heart like a sponge. Others were more bittersweet. But there was one memory that rose above the others, whipping up a giant wall of emotion that threatened to capsize her: the recollection of the day she’d accepted that the boy she loved was never going to love her back, not the same way, and that she’d rather be alone the rest of her life than beg for a love that wasn’t going to come...
Fifteen years earlier...
Nate ran his fingers through his hair—that famously thick black hair—then remained head down, elbows on knees, hands cradling his forehead. “Damn it.”
Izzy winced at the frustration in his tone, wondering if he was directing it at her, at the news she’d just given him or at both. Probably both. What hurt the most, she thought, was that the best summer of her life was now quite clearly the worst of his. “I’m sorry.”
What a stupid thing to say! Plus, she’d whispered the words, which made the fact that she’d apologized even worse.
She was no wimp. But sitting next to Nate on a bench in Portland’s Washington Park, exhausted and freaking terrified, she figured that if I’m sorry was the best she could do, then so be it. Seventeen had felt so much older and more mature just a week ago. Tonight she felt like a little girl afraid of the dark and of the unknown.
“You’re positive?” Nate demanded. His voice, which had always made her think of soft, dark velvet, tonight sounded more like a rusty rake scraping cement.
Izzy nodded. She was “positive,” all right. She’d bought four early-pregnancy tests, which had sucked up three hours’ worth of income from her job waiting tables at The Pickle Jar deli. Every single test had turned up a thin pink line. She’d never liked pink.
“I’m pregnant,” she confirmed. May as well get used to saying it out loud.
“How?” Raising his head, Nate looked at the evening skyline beyond the Rose Test Garden, where they sat, rather than at her.
How? How was obvious, right? They’d been having sex since May. Nearly four full months of his waiting for her when she got off work at the restaurant and then whisking her away in his old Toyota pickup. It could have been a limousine or a horse-drawn carriage—that was how lucky Izzy had felt to be driving into the night with Nate Thayer.
“I mean, we used protection,” Nate said now, trying to reason out her news. “Every time.”
Hardly the words of comfort—and solidarity—she’d been hoping for.
Suck it up, Izz. He’s shocked.
A year older and already graduated from high school, Nate had plans for his life...so did she...plans that did not include becoming a teenage parent.
“Not every time,” she countered.
“What?”
“Protection. We didn’t use it every time. Not on the Fourth of July.”
“The Fourth? Yes, we—” He stopped. And swore again.
Her heart, which for the past few months had felt as if it were unfolding like one of the roses in Washington Park, suddenly shriveled around the edges.
They’d made love in the bed of his truck nearly two months ago on Independence Day, atop a thick pile of sleeping bags. With most of the people in their hometown watching the fireworks down at the river, she and Nate had agreed to keep their romance as private as possible. Izzy hadn’t wanted to invite prying eyes or unwelcome comments. So on that Fourth of July, they’d driven to the resort where he’d worked over the summer. Parked near a small lake, with Santana cranked up on the radio, Nate had gazed down at her. The lights in the distance had illuminated his face—so beautiful, so serious. Wondering at his expression, she’d touched his cheek, and he’d whispered, almost as if he was surprised, “I feel better with you than I do anyplace else.”
Her love had exploded like the fireworks.
“Are you sure it’s mine?”
Sudden and sharp, the question plunged into Izzy’s chest with the force of a dagger. Her gaze fused with his and she saw the truth in his eyes, so obvious that she couldn’t catch her breath: he hoped another boy could be the baby’s father.
Suddenly, the scent of spent blooms from the end-of-summer roses became overwhelming. Running for the cover of the bushes, Izzy retched into the ground.
While her stomach surrendered its contents, her mother’s words from earlier this summer tumbled through her brain.
“Running off with that hottie? If you’re smart, you’ll get knocked up. Then maybe you can get him to take care of you.” Felicia had punctuated her advice by raising her beer can in a mock toast. “It never lasts, but it’s better than nothing.”
On her way out the door—yes, she had been going to meet Nate—Izzy had turned to give the woman who’d only sort of raised her a withering glare. “I would never do that. I’m not like you.”
Genuine laughter had erupted around the cigarette Felicia had put between her lips. “Oh, sweetie, you are exactly like me. The only difference is you think it’s classier to give it away for free.” As Izzy slammed the screen door, Felicia’s words tagged after her. “You’re going to wind up like me, too. Count on it.”
It took Izzy a while to realize that Nate was beside her, one hand smoothing her light brown curls from her face, the other supporting her shoulders as she bent over the ground.
“I don’t want your help.” With her forearm, she knocked his hand away. Nate reared back in surprise.
Of course he was surprised. Up to now, she’d never been anything but sweet and agreeable. She’d been so happy, so grateful to be with him.
“Hey!” He grabbed her arm when she attempted to rise on her own. “Stop. You’re going to make yourself sick again. Just relax a minute.”
“Relax?” Was he serious? “Good idea. Maybe I’ll sign up for prenatal yoga. I’m pretty sure Ridge High offers that senior year.”
Nate rubbed both hands down his face. “Okay, look, I was being an ass when I asked if it was mine. I’m sorry. I don’t... I don’t know how to do this, Izzy. No one has ever told me she was pregnant before.”
“Well, that makes two of us, because I’ve never said it before.”
He nodded. Then, ignoring her protest, he put his arm firmly around her waist and led her back to the bench. Finding a napkin in the picnic basket she’d packed for them, he wiped her brow. His touch and the fact that he insisted on helping her was sweet torture. She’d spent her whole life relying on herself, no longer daring to hope for one person she could lean into until she’d met Nate. When he collapsed against the bench, not making physical contact with her, she had to fight the urge to scoot closer.
He stretched his neck up, as if searching for an answer in the dark sky. “I’m supposed to leave for college in two weeks,” he said.
“I know.” He had told her from the beginning, and lately she’d hoped... Never mind what she’d hoped.
Don’t panic. Panicking won’t help.
“I’ve got to tell my parents.” He sounded as if he was about to tell them he’d found out he was dying.
“Maybe they’ll be supportive.”
Nate’s laugh told her otherwise. “Izzy, my father works twelve-hour days on a dairy farm and moonlights as a handyman so I can have a college fund. My mom taught piano and cleaned hotel rooms to pay for my after-school sports fees, because she thought it would help me get a scholarship. You think they’re going to enjoy hearing this?”
“Don’t yell at me, I didn’t get pregnant alone!”
“I know that!” His energy felt explosive as he rose from the bench. “I’m just saying this changes everything. Not only for us. For other people.”
“I can get a full-time job,” she said, hearing the desperation in her voice. “I can work while you go to school, so—”
“You can’t support three people.”
“You said you were going to work while you’re in college.”
He nodded. “I’ve got to help with tuition and books.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “If I’m lucky, I’ll have enough left over for living expenses.”
“I can pay my own way. I have for years. I don’t expect you to—”
“Izzy! Who’s going to take care of the baby while you and I are in school and at work and studying? I’m going to college in Chicago. We’d be two thousand miles away from anyone we know. No,” he said when she opened her mouth to protest. On a giant exhalation, he plowed both hands through his hair, then moved as if he were slogging through thigh-deep sand to sit beside her.
An anchor of fear pulled at Izzy’s heart. Looking at the Portland skyline, she blinked as the city lights blurred. No tears. Absolutely no tears.
They didn’t live in this sprawling city. Both she and Nate were from a Ridge community three and a half hours away. They’d come to Portland to soak up a view that was a taste of the bigger life awaiting them.
He was going to build skyscrapers.
She had planned to be the first person in her family to earn a high school diploma and go on to college.
Suddenly, Izzy felt as if nothing was holding her upright, as if she might slide off the bench. Stiffening her spine, she sat side by side with him—silently and with space between their bodies, which had not been their way this summer. The August evening felt hot and oppressive.
At the point where the silence was about to become unbearable, Nate spoke again. This time he sounded like someone who’d been running in the desert. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll talk to my parents. There’s got to be something... We’ll figure it out together.” Nate’s large palm and beautiful long fingers curved around the hands she clutched on her lap. Chancing a look at him, Izzy saw that he was staring at the ground.
The warmth that usually flooded her body when he touched her did not come.
Not once in four months had Nate actually said the words I love you. Izzy had counseled herself to be patient. Told herself she didn’t have to hear the words to believe he felt them.
She shook her head. Stupid...stupid! How could a girl like her possibly know what love looked like?
With the rose-colored glasses off, the truth became painfully clear. Now, even though she was right next to Nate, even though he’d said they would find a solution together, she felt the heart that had warmed and softened this summer turn as cold and hard as stone.
* * *
“So the waitress says to the man at the counter, ‘We have two soups today, sir, chicken with noodles and split pea—both delicious. Which would you like?’ And the customer says, ‘I’ll take the chicken.’ But, after the waitress calls in the order, the man changes his mind. ‘Miss,’ he asks, ‘is it too late to switch? I think I’d prefer the split pea.’ ‘Not at all,’ the waitress replies, and she turns around and hollers to the cook, ‘Hold the chicken, make it pee!’”
Henry Bernstein leaned back in the guest chair in The Pickle Jar’s tiny office and smiled the sweet, mischievous smile that usually warmed Izzy down to her toes. Henry had told her at least one new joke every week for the past seventeen years. At seventy-six years young, he liked to claim he knew more jokes than a professional comic.
“Where’d you hear that one?” Izzy tried to smile, but she wasn’t up to her usual hearty laughter.
“I spent a week with two hundred senior citizens.” Henry shrugged. “It’s a laugh a minute in those retirement homes. Lots of company, three meals a day and all the Bengay you want. Not a bad life.”
Henry and his younger brother, Sam, had just returned from visiting their friend Joe Rose, who lived at Twelve Oaks, a senior residence along the Willamette River. “I’m glad you enjoyed it, but I’m even gladder you’re back,” Izzy told him sincerely. “It’s never the same around here without you. And I hope you’re ready to get back to work, because I’ve been putting together some marketing ideas. I think I know how we can pump up business.”
Raising the elegant, elderly hands that had scooped pickles out of an oak barrel back in the day, Henry said, “In a minute, in a minute. First, tell me what’s so awful that you haven’t been sleeping.”
“Who says I haven’t been sleeping?”
“Your eyes tell me. Is it business that’s keeping you awake, Izzy girl? Remember—” He raised a finger. “‘Tension is who you think you should be—relaxation is who you are.’”
Now she did laugh. “You heard that from someone at the retirement home. Only someone retired would say it.”
“It’s an ancient Chinese proverb.”
“Written by a retired ancient Chinese prophet.”
Henry grinned.
“Business isn’t all that’s keeping me up at night,” she admitted. In her life, she’d had only one person to whom she could turn with any problem, and that was the thin, wise, gray-haired man in front of her.
“Nate Thayer,” Izzy said, speaking the name aloud for the first time since yesterday afternoon. She’d avoided it, as if not saying his name might make his presence less real. “He’s here, in Thunder Ridge. He came to the deli yesterday. He saw Eli.”
Henry was rarely given to quick or exaggerated expressions, but now his brows arched above the line of his glasses. “He knows?”
“No. He didn’t recognize Eli. And Eli had no idea, of course. He held the door open for Nate. They smiled at each other.”
“But you and Nate spoke?”
“Yeah. I was wearing the pickle costume, and I fell on the floor, and— Never mind.” Shaking her head, she pressed her fingers to her temples. “It was awkward.”
Henry folded his hands above his belt line and nodded. “I thought he would come back someday.”
Too agitated to sit still, Izzy rose, wrapping her arms around her middle as if it was nineteen degrees outside instead of close to ninety. “He took his time. Not that I’m complaining. I wish he’d never come back. I wish I didn’t have to think about Nate Thayer again until Eli is an adult.”
“Did he come here looking for information?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t asked anything yet. But he’s not entitled to information.” Henry gazed at her. “He’s not,” she insisted before Henry could share some ancient wisdom about fathers’ rights—fathers who hadn’t wanted to raise their children to begin with.
“Nate and his parents wanted me to put our baby up for adoption. He was willing to wait until Eli was eighteen before he ever saw him. So let him wait a little longer.”
“You’re worried,” Henry said, nodding. “It’s understandable. But you’re speaking out of fear.”
“You’re darn right I am.” The tiny office didn’t leave much room for pacing, but Izzy made use of the space that was available. “You remember how Eli was a few years ago. His self-esteem was terrible. He hated everything about himself, including the fact that he had a father who didn’t want him.” She had never told Eli that, of course, never even hinted, but short of lying and saying that the man who had fathered him died or was living in Tunisia, what else could a father’s absence in his son’s life imply? She had told him only that his father was a boy she had known. A boy who hadn’t been ready to be a father and who had moved far away. Eli had never asked for a name, an act of self-control that seemed to give him a sense of power. He had referred to the man who’d fathered him once as “the guy with the Y chromosome.” Then he’d stopped talking about it all together.
“He’s on the right track now,” she said emphatically. “He’s a good student. Responsible and productive. He’s happy. I intend to keep him feeling good about himself. I won’t allow Nate to waltz in here and mess up my son’s life.”
Behind wire-rimmed glasses, Henry’s brown eyes watched her closely. “Eli is on the right track. And circumstances are very different now. Eli was also upset about being deaf in a hearing world. The cochlear implant made a great difference.”
“Yes. Because being able to hear took his mind off what he doesn’t have. He never talks about not having a father anymore. It doesn’t make him unhappy now. He has you, and Sam and Derek. He knows you love him.”
