2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (26 page)

“Why does it matter?”

“It just does,” Catherine reasoned.

“To you, maybe,” Tara said breezily. “You can’t just
board up or tear down every building where someone died. What’s next? Tear up
the roads where accidents happened? Fill in the lakes where people drow—” She clamped
her hand over her mouth, stricken, falling off her high horse with a guttural
groan, looking to Elizabeth Hemmings with overwhelming embarrassment and
sympathy before letting her eyes dart to Catherine, pleading with them both for
understanding.

Instead of being angry, though, Catherine’s heart hurt
for her friend. Yes, Tara had been trying to put her in her place, but she never
would have gone
there
if she was thinking clearly.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Tara, it’s—”

But they were both stopped cold as Elizabeth reached
across the table and put her hand on Tara’s hand and squeezed. Catherine saw
her mother’s face had drained completely of color; she’d lost her veil of
unruffled perfection that she wore with grace in all situations. This pale
woman was no longer Elizabeth Hemmings, the quintessential perfectionist, she
was simply a mother who had lost a daughter. Shields down. Twenty-plus years
drained away. It was like Catherine was back at the kitchen table of her youth,
sitting with her mother and father after they heard the news that Josey’s body
had been found in the pond just beyond their neighborhood—her mother looking
like her whole body was going to crumble and cease to work anymore.

“God, Mom, are you okay?” she whispered.

In answer, her other hand reached out to clasp her
daughter’s, linking the three of them across the tabletop. “She’s right,”
Elizabeth said tightly, her eyes locking on Catherine’s, holding her gaze with
a force that she only wished she herself could muster—so much certainty and
strength. “That’s why we stayed there, you know.”

“What?” Catherine eked out.

“In that house. Near that pond…. That’s why we stayed
there, when it would have been easier—so much easier—to leave.” Tears surfaced
in her mother’s eyes.

She’d been to hell and lived to come back from it, but
it had changed her. Sometimes Catherine allowed herself to remember her mother
before Josey died. Because she was different then. Quicker to laugh. Quicker to
scream. More expressive in all ways. In an effort to survive her worst
nightmare, Elizabeth Hemmings had learned to contain her grief. Not pent-up but
controlled
. That was her mother.

“We didn’t want the house where we’d welcomed three
wonderful, happy, healthy children to become what houses like that—the ones
with stories or tragedies—become. We wanted
life
to define it. So we
stayed. Even though—”

“I’m so sorry, Elizabeth,” Tara said breathlessly, “I
really didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t trying to—”

But she shook her head no, denying the apology as if
it was completely pointless to try to make her take it. “You girls just need to
promise me that you will stop this.”

“Stop what?” Catherine asked.

“Stop all of the—whatever is going on between you.
This on-again-off-again thing.”

“It’s nothing, Mom.”

“Nothing,” Tara agreed.

“It isn’t nothing,” Elizabeth countered, sighing. “You
know what I see when I look at you two?” Both stayed silent, waiting, afraid to
contradict her or even to prod her along. “You complement each other in your
differences. I know you get into some crazy messes and I know that you don’t
always get along, but as I see it, you act more like sisters…” Her voice
weakened some and she turned to Catherine specifically. “Like Josephine and
you… the two of you would have been like this with each other. She was so much
younger than you, and more impulsive, and you wouldn’t have been able to help
but mother her, while she would push your every button with her free spirit. I
know you had your moments, but she looked up to you so much,” her mother
continued. “She just didn’t want to be left behind.”

Thursday, December 14
^th

“Thick as thieves again, eh?” Fynn asked, catching her
as she tried to sneak out the door before Tara could ring the bell.

“What have you heard?” Tara demanded.

He stopped Catherine on the threshold. “So you
are
up to something.”

“Us?” she played dumb.

“Yes, you. As in you two. As in Thelma and Louise. As
in trouble.”

“So long as I get to be Louise,” Tara said. “Thelma is
an old lady’s name.”

“Louise isn’t much better,” Catherine grunted.

“Can I put in my two cents for a second and say that
nobody is holding anyone up today, or driving off any cliffs.” A firm warning.

“Good luck finding a cliff to drive off around here.”

Fynn shook his head, not caring for Tara’s choice to avoid
the point. He focused on his wife. “So, let me ask again, what are you ladies
up to?”

“You got us. No good,” Tara interjected.

“She’s kidding,” Catherine said quickly.

“Eravamo compagni di merende,” Tara said, hand over
her heart.

“What is that?” Fynn asked, and Catherine was just as
lost.

“An oath that we’re on the up-and-up. Nothing illegal
or immoral or otherwise distasteful on the schedule.”

“But something just the same,” he noted.

“It’s a little ass-holic to presume we’re going to get
into trouble, isn’t it?” Tara challenged.

His look said he didn’t agree, considering the track
record of the people in question.

She shook her head. “Eravamo compagni di merende.
We’re just picnicking friends, as my people say.”

“Your people?” he wanted to know.

“Yes, my people.”

“That can’t be good,” Catherine muttered, choosing to
stay out of the active volley.

“Italians,” Tara clarified. “They’re not all in the
mob, you know.”

“Italians or your family?”

“Either way it applies.”

“I thought it was too cold for a picnic,” Fynn
asserted, eyeing Catherine who’d said as much to Cara just the other night.

She shrugged. It was all she could do. This was Tara’s
fight. She didn’t even know what the heck was going on herself. They were
supposed to finish the shopping they’d started the other day, so why Tara was
playing hard to get with the information was beyond her. The fabric store was
hardly a covert operation. Although, on second thought, Catherine didn’t need
Fynn to burst out laughing at her decision to attempt a solo sewing mission for
Cara’s Gingermelon elephant. She didn’t want her mother to hear. This was
something she needed to do for Cara herself.

“It’s just a saying,” Tara sighed. “We’re not up to no
good. Just grabbing some lunch and doing some Christmas shopping, then home
again, home again, jiggity-jig.”

“Shopping at a store, right?” A challenge he enunciated
carefully. “Not dropping in on some poor unsuspecting bastard who’s just minding
his own business, living his life in peace, and trying to buy his possessions
out from under him.”

“Hey, that’s your wife’s deal, not mine,” she reminded
him.

“So, are you stepping out on me?” Fynn asked Catherine,
blocking her way as she tried to jockey past.

“I’m trying to make Cara’s first Christmas here
special. Whatever it takes.” She tucked her purse under her arm and led with
her shoulder like a running back pushing through a tackle. 

“Fine,” he relented. “But if I get divorce papers for
Christmas, I’m pointing to this pattern of yours and taking everything.”

They headed down the steps to the car as he closed the
door behind them.

“Where to?” Tara asked, rounding to the driver’s side.

Catherine settled into the passenger seat. “Let’s see,
I have the plans right here.”

“I’m hoping you mean blueprints.”

“Blueprints?”

“A diagram of Sophie Watts’s house,” Tara prodded.

“You thought we were breaking into Sophie Watts’
house?” Disbelief.

“That’s why you wanted me to come isn’t it? You and
me. A team. Back out there together.”

“No,” she said carefully, like Tara had her finger on
a detonator. “I just wanted you to help me get the stuff I need from the
store.
”

“So you mean we actually
are
just picnicking
friends?” Tara humphed.

“Whatever you want to call it.”

“I can’t believe I cased the joint for nothing.”

“You checked out Sophie’s house?”

“Well, yeah. Two birds; one stone. I wanted to see her
lighting display anyway and I figured it would be less obvious if I came by
during the day. Nobody’s home right now, by the way, in case you change your
mind.”

“I’m not changing my mind,” Catherine growled, though
a niggling part of her thought,
Yes. Do it. Now.

“But you heard that bitch,” Tara reminded her, “she
has Gingermelons to spare.”

“I’m not stealing gifts from her daughter.”

“They’re under the tree. That’s no-man’s land if
anything at all. A gray area.”

Catherine shook her head. “We’ve tried the whole burglary
route before. It never ends well.”

“You got a husband out of it!”

“I got a husband
in spite
of it.”

“Tomato, tomäto.”  Pausing. Waiting. Relenting. “Okay,
so what are you going to do then? You can’t even sew.”

“I already bought the pattern and the supply list. It
explains the whole thing. Every step.”

“That’s how a pattern works, you see,” Tara said with
a smirk.

“It says you don’t have to be an expert. That it makes
sewing mohair easy.”

“I don’t think it means that any non-sewer can do it. You
have to have
some
experience with a needle and thread.” She snatched the
pattern out of Catherine’s hand. “Look at this. I’m surprised it isn’t telling
you to weave your own fabric first.”

“It isn’t going to be that bad,” Catherine pshawed,
trying to exude relaxed, cool confidence.

“What about a sewing machine? You don’t even have one
of those. And I certainly don’t have one.”

“My mom probably packed one in her suitcase,”
Catherine giggled.

“You should have her help you,” Tara said, grasping
onto the wrong point.

“
I
want to do this. Me. And Drew has a sewing
machine if I need it. Besides, it looks like it is pretty much hand-stitched
anyway.”

“I was just trying to make this easy.” Tara
relinquished the pattern.

“Stealing would be easier?”

“I was talking about your mom, but yes, stealing would
be much easier. Though getting caught could pose a problem,” she admitted.

“Let’s just go,” Catherine snapped, folding the papers
and shoving them inside her purse.

Tara put the car in gear and headed up the drive. “I’m
just sayin’ you’re going to need a
whole bunch
of thimbles. Like ten. Plus
a few extra in case you lose any along the way when you throw them across the
room and can’t get down on your hands and knees to find them. Because you’re
angry. And fat,” she added, like Catherine couldn’t well enough catch her
drift.

“You are just the sweetest person I’ve ever met.”

“Hey, tough love is hard, but I’m committed to it.”

Catherine gritted her teeth. “I think it’s happening.”

“I think so too,” Tara said, head down, rooting
through the bin of fabric remnants. “At least we’re getting close; there’s got
to be some mohair in here.” Because of course the store would be out of stock
of mohair by the yard, seeing as how this was the year of Gingermelon animals. They’d
sold more mohair through the fall than any year on record, the store associate had
shared. Like it helped in any way. The best they could hope for was to find a remnant
to use.

“Tara, I have some bigger concerns right now,” she
panted.

“What could possibly be more important?”

“Well, for one thing, having a baby,” She steadied
herself against a roll of upholstery fabric hanging across the rack next to her,
thankful that it didn’t unravel under her weight like toilet paper off its
holder.

“A baby? Now?” Tara looked up, stricken.

Catherine nodded, mirroring the same stricken look. So
much for her doctor’s professional opinion just a couple days ago that she was
locked up tight as a drum. No siree. Eve was making her way. Early. And
inconveniently.

Life is real, not ideal, as usual.

“Now what?” Tara demanded.

“Now you take me to the hospital.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“But what about an ambulance?” she offered.

“This isn’t an emergency. It’s just labor. Normal
labor. It can take hours before the baby comes.”
I hope.
She did not
want to give birth here in Jo-Ann’s on a pile of remnants.

“Or it could be minutes like those women on TV who
think they need to take a shit, cop a squat, and
voila!
a baby. I don’t
even want to know how that happens,” Tara shuddered.

“That’s not going to happen. I don’t even need to go
to the bathroom,” Catherine assured her.

“Should I call Fynn? He’s more prepared for this than
I am.”

“
I
will call Fynn. He can meet us there.”

“It’s on his way, can’t he come by and pick you up?”

“Tara,
you
are going to drive me to the
hospital. I’m not waiting here for him to come when you have a perfectly nice,
reliable car right outside.”

“A perfectly nice
new
car. With
new
upholstery.”

“I’m not going to explode. I’m just having a baby.”

“Women explode in labor all the time. Waters break.
Shit happens—as in
real
shit, Cat, like unintended bowl movements. And
I’ve heard an ugly rumor about a mucous plug,” she gacked.     

Catherine was offended and disgusted all at once. Was
this really about to get
that
gross? No wonder some guys lost their sex
drive after seeing their baby born. They talk about mothers getting PPD, but
the thing no one ever talked about was how many fathers got PTSD. It sounded
like war was about to wage down there.

“Fine. I’ll take you. Just let me finish searching
through this—”

“
Now
, Tara.” Catherine’s need for mohair was
already a distant concern. She just wanted to waddle on out of here before
anything gross did happen.

She waited until they were in the car before calling
Fynn. It was simply too much to walk and breathe and dial all at once. “Hey,
honey… um… it’s happening. Now.” She held the phone away from her ear as the
response was deafening on the other end. It seemed her parents were right there
in the room with him. “Tara is taking me to the hospital, so if you could grab
a few things for me and meet us there, that would be great. And quickly,
please. She doesn’t have the best bedside manner.”

“As if!” Tara exclaimed. “I’m doing all the heavy
lifting here, so you better show some appreciation.”

“I do appreciate you—ou—ou,” she said, breathing out
the last in puffs, trying to find her center. No matter what position she tried,
in the limited range of motion she had, she was still uncomfortable.

“You doing okay?”

“I’ll be better when they epidural my ass, but I’m
hanging in.”

“I’ll let that one go,” Tara said of the unsavory
word.

“Of course you will,” Catherine snapped back.

Muffled music suddenly filled the car.

She focused her attention on her phone. It was
Georgia. Who she’d never called back the other day not because she wasn’t ready
to patch things up, but because she’d completely forgotten. “Hi, Georgia!” she
said as brightly as she could. “I am so sorry I didn’t call you back. I got caught
up. But it was wonderful to hear—”

“Are you really in labor? On the way to the hospital?”
Georgia exclaimed, cutting her off.

“Well, yeah, how do you already know?”

“I heard from Lacey who heard from your mom. I can’t
believe it! You’re about to have a baby!”

“I can’t believe it either,” she admitted carefully,
waiting for the other shoe to drop—the angry one.

“It’s the best thing ever, Cat. The most wonderful
experience of my life,” Georgia gushed.

“Labor?”

“All of it. It was truly a miracle. I would have ten
more if I could.”

While she seemed to be wearing rose-colored glasses or
maybe she had a case of labor amnesia, it was still better than listening to
Tara extoll the worst of the worst possibilities.

“Are you going to go natural?”

“No. Not at all. Knock me out and wake me up when it’s
over.”

“That’s not the way it works, you know,” she
cautioned.

“Of course I know. I’m just saying that I don’t want
to feel what I don’t have to feel.”

“To each his own, I guess.”

Catherine sneered on her end. “So is everything okay
with you?” Trying to mend fences all the way around even in her condition, pain
and pressure slicing through her midsection.

“You’re the one with all the big news. I have nothing here.
I won’t keep you. But I expect a call as soon as that little baby is born. And
don’t forget me this time.”

As she hung up her side, she saw Tara
blah, blah,
blahing
the conversation. Still not terribly thrilled with Georgia and her
superiority complex.

They pulled up to the emergency entrance and Fynn
arrived seconds later. Catherine knew he couldn’t have accomplished that within
the law, but she was thankful. Tara looked thankful as well, to have Catherine
out of her car without a drop of bodily fluid hitting any of her interior.

“I’m going to park and I’ll be right in,” Tara said.
“Leave your keys, Fynn, and I’ll park your truck too.”

“Great. Thanks,” he called over his shoulder, already
guiding Catherine through the automatic doors.

“Where are my parents?” Catherine asked in a panic.

“They stayed at the house to wait for Cara to get off
the bus and offered to feed her dinner and bring her by later to see you and
hopefully the baby too.”

Catherine breathed a sigh of relief. This
was
ideal.
It was so nice not to have to worry about Cara. If her parents hadn’t been here
they would have had Drew taking care of things, but it was good that Cara could
stay at her own house while all of the new-baby madness ensued.

An orderly came at them fast with a wheelchair,
guiding her into it and wheeling her toward the nurse behind the desk while Fynn
followed behind.

“My wife is in labor,” he said in a controlled
breathlessness.

“How far apart are the contractions?” the nurse asked.

Fynn looked to Catherine.

“I—I forgot to keep count,” she admitted. That part
had been lost in her shock.

“Can you give me an approximate?”

“Actually, I don’t think there’s much if any time in
between. I’ve been feeling a constant pressure all through my midsection.”

“Tell you what, Dad,” the nurse said to Fynn, making
his face light up with a smile, “you fill out some paperwork and we will just
wheel Mommy into the back and have a look.” Nice, but
almost
patronizing,
Catherine noted.

***

She puffed short breaths through the pain.

“Are you okay?” Fynn asked, coming straight to her
bedside and lovingly brushing loose hairs away from her face.

“Do I look okay?” She wanted to swat his hand away
like the hovering gnat it felt like.

“Well, I finished the paperwork, so I guess you’re
officially a patient.”

“Does that mean they can give me some drugs now?” she
asked wryly, though she meant it. An epidural. Now.

“What did they say when they examined you.”

“They didn’t. Examine me, that is. Not yet.”

“Oh, I just thought that they would have done that. Or
at least taken you up to labor and delivery.”

Fynn was right. She’d been too busy moaning and
breathing to think about why she hadn’t been put on an elevator to the third
floor like they had been told would happen in the birthing class they’d taken
from this very same hospital. At least she had a room though. It could be
worse, one large space with fabric curtains separating the beds.

“Can I get you anything?” he offered, pulling his hand
away suddenly, like maybe the fact that she was considering biting it was
obvious on her face.

She shook her head, asking between breaths, “Did…
Tara… leave?”

“She’s out in the waiting room, I think. I was kind of
preoccupied,” he admitted.

“If she is, could you get her to come in here?”

“Are you sure?” he asked, knowing how she felt about
having people witness her giving birth.

“It seems like it’s going to be a while before
anything… happens, so I want her… to be here… too.”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug that more or less agreed
with the old adage that it was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.

In all honesty, she wanted Tara here
instead
of
Fynn right now. For some reason his expectations and the excitement he was
exuding, with none of the downside she was dealing with, was borderline
infuriating. She kind of wanted to punch his face in, actually. Tara, on the
other hand, seemed completely nonplused by the whole event, and that was much
easier to take. Besides, if Tara pissed her off she felt free to unleash her
fury, while with Fynn she didn’t have that latitude without tainting the momentous
occasion of their child’s birth by becoming a mean shrew of a woman he couldn’t
help but to wonder why he married.

“Mrs. Trager, how are we feeling today?” A booming
voice out of a small man with a clipboard and white coat. “I see you are
complaining of pains through your abdomen.”

Complaining? Is that really the right word for a
woman in labor?
“It started at the store about an hour ago. Midway and high
in my stomach.”

“Around your diaphragm?” He pointed at his own just in
case she was too stupid to know basic anatomy.

She nodded, biting the inside of her lip and holding a
firm set line, trying not to freak out at this man who was here to help no
matter how badly he went about doing it.

“Let me see here.” He laid his hands upon her stomach
and felt around, then said he would step outside while she disrobed and put on
the smock a nurse had laid out on the counter for her.

As the doctor and nurse left the room, Fynn stuck
around like he owned the place, and Catherine had to swallow the desire to kick
him out too. What was she supposed to say?
I know you’re my husband, but it
feels weird and creepy to strip in front of you here.

Tara came bursting through the door as if catapulted.
“You rang?” she asked, looking to Fynn, who must have texted rather than going
to get her like Catherine would have preferred.

“You know what, I could use some ice chips, honey,”
Catherine decided suddenly.

“Ice chips?”

She was just as confused by the request. All she knew
was fake pregnant women on TV shows asked for them all the time, so it seemed
like a valid wish that would get him out on the hunt. She watched Fynn leave,
shaking his head faintly at the errand or her or why she’d chosen him when
there was a perfectly good Tara around to do it. As soon as the door closed
behind him she started to undress.

“Caution, you could start a brush fire with that,”
Tara said with a giggle.

Catherine had tried her best to get her gown on first
and then shed her pants, but the gap down the front was going to show what it
was going to show when you were like a walrus in your movements. “You try to
keep it neat with this in the way,” she growled, pointing to her stomach. “I
haven’t even seen my bikini line in months.”

“Well, it’s very ‘70s. Which I’ve heard is coming
back, by the way,” Tara offered. “So, are you ready for this?”

“No.” Catherine got back up on the examination table,
cold now, definitely cold enough that she didn’t want to even touch an ice chip
if Fynn found some. “I’m pretty well terrified, actually. I have too many
things left to do before Christmas and this, well,
this
changes
everything…. What about Cara’s party at school tomorrow? I haven’t missed a
thing for her yet.

“She’ll be fine. You just birth this baby so we can
start drinking again.”

“You know I’m planning to nurse,” Catherine pointed
out.

“And?”

“Drinking will be limited for a while more.”

“You suck.”

There was a knock on the door and the doctor popped
his head in, followed by a nurse. “I’m going to need you to lay back on the
table.” he said, coming toward her.

Catherine obeyed, holding the slit closed on the gown
the best she could.

“The opening actually goes in the back here, but no
worries,” the doctor said with a bless-your-heart smile. But she’d been going
to the OB/GYN her entire adult life, and he was supposed to be an OB/GYN, and
there
it was slit to the front, so it was an understandable mistake.

“Now, I spoke to Dr. Sombrarian, who is not on shift
or on call at the moment, and he said he wanted us to do an exam while we have
you here.” Like she was in a holding cell or pattern or something.