Don't Look Back (24 page)

Before Natalie was born I had made the time to finalize the website for
Billi’s
boutique. Two of the other business owners had also wanted me to create websites for them, which I had done. So now I just needed to maintain the websites until I was ready to look for additional clients. Running my own business, even though it was so small, was very exciting and bolstered my self-confidence. The extra income I earned helped me to feel secure as I cared for Natalie and adjusted to being a mom.

Over the next few days I was able to get in to a loose routine. Natalie had her own schedule, but things were coming together. Though I didn’t have any visitors, I didn’t feel quite as lonely with Natalie and Greta always there. But when Natalie was about a week old, Trevor stopped by. In a way I was glad to see him. It had been so quiet with just Natalie, Greta and me, I didn’t mind that he had come over.

As soon as I invited him in, he wanted to see Natalie.

“She’s sleeping, but I guess I can get her,” I said.

“I’d appreciate that.”

I went into her room and picked her up from her crib, then brought her down and handed her to Trevor.

“She’s so tiny,” he said as he held her.

I watched him with her and again felt impressed with his confidence. Some men were scared to hold newborns, afraid they might hurt them, but Trevor obviously knew what he was doing.

He gently bounced her in his arms, with his hands held out in front of him so he could watch her. After a moment, her eyes cracked open and she yawned so big that it made her cry. Trevor laughed and she quickly settled back down.

He looked at her open eyes. “I think she has my eyes.” He looked at me. “What do you think, Lily?”

I nodded, a feeling of warmth for him settling in my heart. “Yes, she does. I hope they stay that color.”

“Me too,” he said, gazing at her once again. After a moment he put her against his shoulder and looked at me. “How are you doing, Lily? Do you need anything?”

I was touched by his concern. No one else had checked on me or asked about my needs. “I’m doing okay. She sleeps pretty well at night, about four hours at a time, so I’m able to get enough sleep.”

“What about groceries? Have you been able to get to the store?”

“Not yet. In fact I was thinking about going later today.”

“Do you want me to stay here and take care of her while you go?” he asked, looking eager to have time alone with his baby.

I wasn’t ready to give him that kind of access to Natalie or my home. “No, that’s okay,” I quickly said, then felt bad at the look of rejection on his face. “It’s just that I’m not ready to be away from her yet.”

He stared at me, apparently trying to decide what to say. Finally he said, “I’ve hardly spent any time with her. You’ve never been away from her.”

“I understand that, Trevor. But in some ways it’s different for the mother. I carried her inside me for nine months and went through an agonizing birth to get her here. I nurse her at my breast every few hours.” I shook my head. “It’s not the same.”

He nodded, seeming reluctant to agree. “Yeah, I guess I see what you mean. But I would like to spend more time with her. How is she going to know me unless I see her more often?”

“She’s so little now; I don’t know how much she notices who is with her yet.”

“Still, it needs to start at the beginning.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking of coming by two or three days a week.”

The thought of him coming so often was unnerving, but I didn’t feel like it was up to me to refuse. There was no court order and I really didn’t want to get the courts involved at this point. If we could keep our relationship civil, it would be so much better. “How about on Mondays and Thursdays?”

“Okay. Let’s try that and see how it works out.”

I smiled, relieved he wasn’t going to push for three days a week.

“Maybe you can use that time to run errands or something. You know, have some time to yourself,” he said.

“I’ll have to think about that.”

He nodded, apparently pleased with my response.

After an hour, Natalie began fussing. Trevor handed her back to me. With her in my arms, I stood and gently bounced her, but she was making it clear she was hungry.

“I think I’m going to have to feed her. Maybe this is a good time for you to go.” I didn’t want to be rude or mean, but I wasn’t about to have him watch me nurse her again. I hadn’t liked it in the hospital and there was no reason for him to stay and watch me now.

“Sure, okay.” He stood and walked to the door. “I’ll be back on Thursday. Probably in the late afternoon. Is that okay?”

I nodded, happy he was asking me and not just telling me. “Sounds good.”

After he left I was able to feed Natalie and put her back down for a nap. As I watched her sleep in her crib, I thought about Trevor and found I was actually glad he wanted to be part of her life. It would be good for her to have both of us loving her and caring for her. We just needed to try to get along and it would all work out.

Chapter Forty-One

Christmas came and went. Beyond putting up the tree, this year I didn’t have the energy or the interest to do the whole Christmas celebration. Thankfully, Trevor’s day to visit didn’t fall on Christmas, so I was able to focus on my new little family on that day and just relax and enjoy being with Natalie.

Over the next few weeks Trevor stuck to our prearranged schedule and it was working out well. I hadn’t taken him up on his offer for me to run errands while he stayed with Natalie, but I was beginning to feel more comfortable with having him around. Though a few times he’d brought up the subject of us getting back together, when I’d asked him to stop asking me, he’d respected my request.

When Natalie was six weeks old, he came over at the appointed time and we sat on the couch like usual. I had tried to feed her before he came so that she wouldn’t get hungry while he was playing with her, but she wasn’t hungry yet. When Trevor had been there for forty-five minutes, she began to get fussy.

“Sorry, Trevor. I tried to feed her earlier, but she wasn’t hungry.”

“It sure would be nice if I could feed her,” he said, trying to get her to take a pacifier.

I laughed. “Well, you don’t exactly have the right equipment.”

He smiled. “I know. But I could always give her formula.”

“No,” I said, maybe a bit too emphatically. “I mean, that would mess up my milk production if she had formula instead of nursing.”

“Oh. Well, it was just a thought.”

I watched the two of them interact. At first the pacifier had satisfied her, but pretty soon it wasn’t enough and she began to cry.

Trevor handed her back to me. “Since I can’t do anything about feeding her, and you don’t want to feed her in front of me, maybe you should let me know when she’s eaten and I came come over earlier or later so that she doesn’t get hungry while I’m here.”

I could tell he was irritated with me, like he thought I had done this on purpose. Controlling my annoyance, I nodded. “That’s fine.”

He stood abruptly and grabbed his coat off the chair. “I guess I’ll see you Monday,” he said as he jammed his arms through the sleeves.

I didn’t respond as he stomped out the door, nearly slamming it as he left. As soon as I heard him drive away, I locked the door and turned on the burglar alarm, then I settled onto the couch and nursed Natalie.

An hour later I heard a knock on the door and felt my heart race as I imagined Trevor returning. Natalie was sleeping in her crib and I didn’t want to have to take a chance on waking her up to let Trevor hold her. I peeked through the blinds, but didn’t see Trevor’s car.

“Who could that be?” I asked Greta as she barked a few times at the door.

I peered through the peephole and was surprised to see Marcus standing on my porch. Opening the door, I smiled tentatively, wondering why he had come over.

“Hi, Marcus.”

“Hey. How are you?”

“I’m doing okay.”

“You look good,” he said, glancing at my stomach, which was nearly back to its pre-pregnancy flatness.

“Thanks,” I smiled at his compliment. “Do you want to come in?”

“If you’re not busy.”

“No, I was just reading.”

He followed me to the couch and we sat on opposite sides.

“How’s the baby?” he asked.

My smile widened. “She’s great. She’s asleep right now, but if you want, you can go look at her.”

“Okay.”

We walked up the stairs and entered Natalie’s room. He went to the crib and stared down at her.

“She’s as beautiful as I remember,” he whispered.

I nodded. “She’s getting bigger too.”

He looked at me. “It was really cool being there when she was born. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.”

I smiled. “I was really glad you were there.”

He looked at Natalie again, then back at me. “Can we talk?”

My smile diminished. “Sure. Let’s go back downstairs.”

He nodded and followed me back down. Once we were on the couch, I waited for him to begin. I was certain this was about the lies I’d told him and I could feel the tension in the room.

“I’m sorry I reacted like I did in your hospital room,” he said.

“It’s not your fault,” I quickly assured him.

“Yes, it is. You had just had a baby and I got mad at you and wouldn’t listen to you when you were at your most vulnerable. I was just thinking about myself and how I felt.” He paused and I waited to see what else he wanted to say. “I’ve been thinking about you and what you said ever since that day. You said something about hiding from your husband and then I thought about the self-defense lessons you had wanted me to teach you and I started putting it together and realized you were telling the truth.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before. I just didn’t want to take the chance on Trevor finding me.”

“But he did find you.”

“Yes, he did. Despite my best efforts.”

“So are you going to get back together with him?”

“Oh no,” I said without hesitation. “Not a chance.”

“Do you mind my asking how he feels about that?”

“No, that’s okay. I haven’t had anyone to talk to about this, so I’m glad to talk to you.”

“So you’ve been doing this all on your own?”

“Well, yeah. I thought you knew that.”

His face reddened. “I guess I assumed you had other people to turn to. I feel even worse now.”

“Don’t, Marcus. It’s not your fault. And I’ve discovered I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was.”

“Can I ask why you left this guy?”

Even though Marcus was my friend, I didn’t want to get in to all the details. “Well, I’ll put it this way. He wasn’t the man I thought I had married.”

“Okay. Based on the fact that you got Greta and took self-defense classes, I can only assume you were afraid of him.”

I nodded, willing to confirm the obvious.

“What about now? Has he been bothering you?”

“Not exactly. I mean, he wants to see Natalie and I’ve been letting him come over two days a week and play with her. It’s been going fine.” I thought to earlier that evening and how he had stomped off like a toddler throwing a tantrum and wondered how much longer he’d be happy with me constantly supervising his visits. But I wasn’t ready to leave Natalie with him. Maybe next time I can at least leave him alone in the room while I do some cleaning, I thought.

“I guess I can see why he was so mad when he saw me here that night.”

I raised my eyebrows briefly in a gesture of
That’s what I expected of him
. “Jealousy is one of his problems.”

“Oh.” He paused. “I should probably get going. But I just wanted to come over and say I’m sorry for how I reacted.”

“I appreciate that, Marcus.”

He seemed to hesitate.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you want me to call you Kate or Lily?”

I laughed a little, embarrassed to have such a question asked. “Lily, I guess. That’s my real name. Now that Trevor’s found me, there’s really no reason to use Kate.”

He smiled. “Lily. I like the sound of it.”

He stood and I walked him to the door. “Feel free to stop by anytime.” I paused. “Unless there’s a blue Camaro here, that is.”

“Okay.”

“He usually comes over on Monday and Thursday evenings.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll see you later. Lily.”

I liked the way my name sounded coming from him. “Bye, Marcus.”

Chapter Forty-Two

The next time Trevor came over, I asked if it would be okay if I did some cleaning while he was taking care of Natalie.

“Yeah, go right ahead.” He held Natalie close to his face. “We’ll be fine.”

I felt happy as I watched them. Natalie was starting to smile occasionally and I hoped she would smile for Trevor. I knew he would be thrilled if she did. I left them in the living room and got out my cleaning supplies, taking them to the upstairs bathroom. I gave the bathroom a good scrubbing, then worked on the half bath downstairs. On the way to the half bath I glanced at Trevor and Natalie and they were doing fine.

When I was done with the bathrooms, I scrubbed the kitchen sink, then got some dust rags and cleaned all the dusty surfaces in the house. Then I used the special broom/mop I had gotten for wood floors and cleaned all the floors.

By the time I was done, it was the end of Trevor’s visit. I went back in to the living room to see how they were doing. Trevor was rocking Natalie in his arms and she was drifting off to sleep. He smiled at me as I came in the room.

“Did you ever know you could love someone so much?” he asked.

I smiled back. “No. It’s a special kind of love, isn’t it?” I walked toward the two of them, ready to take Natalie. When I stopped next to them, Trevor used his free arm to pull me close to him.

“We need to be a family, Lily,” he said with intensity. “How can you deny it?”

With him holding Natalie, I didn’t want to push him away. His grip was strong and I couldn’t easily get any distance without risking him dropping the baby.

“Trevor, you’re hurting me. Let go.”