Finding Their Son (16 page)

He handed her one of the towels and used the other to clean himself up.

She grabbed her half-empty water bottle then opened the door. The air temperature was a stark thirty or forty degrees cooler, but she didn’t mind. She finally understood how sauna enthusiasts could go from the hot box to the snow pile with apparent rapture.

After drying off, she deposited her towel in a hamper marked Used Towels then put on her robe. Eli was a step behind her. She waited in silence until he was ready, too.

“The concierge gave me the name of a good restaurant right around the corner, if you’d like to eat before we go back to the hospital.”

The hospital. Their son. Wanda and the future facing them all.

When they were back in the room, she turned to him and asked, “Did you mean it when you said you loved me or was that sex talk?”

His blue eyes didn’t blink or look away—a sure sign of a lie, she’d read. “It wasn’t sex talk.”

But he couldn’t bring himself to repeat it, she guessed.

“I’ll shower first,” she said, grabbing a few things from
her suitcase. She’d have her bag repacked by the time Eli was done getting ready.

Despite sharing the most mind-blowing sex of her life with him, she knew with certainty their happily-ever-after wasn’t a sure thing. Eli was a complex person with a history that didn’t include her. She’d loved him all her life; he hadn’t even known she existed until a few days earlier. But he was right about one thing. They both needed to put Damien first.

She could do that. Even if letting go of today’s Eli hurt a thousand times worse than the boy she’d first adored. She didn’t try to stop her tears from flowing once she was standing under the shower. They were a freebie—and well-deserved.

C
HAR CALLED
L
IBBY
from the restaurant while Eli was in the restroom.

“Hi, Lib, it’s me. I decided to take you up on your offer. Not Thanksgiving. I can’t stay that long, but I thought since I was in the neighborhood…well, um, the state, I’d come see you. Could you meet my train tomorrow?”

“Char, that’s wonderful,” Libby exclaimed with a little woo-hoo that did Char’s bruised heart good. “Jenna and I will pick you up. But why the train? I thought you had a rental car.”

“Eli’s keeping it. He got someone—” his estranged wife, she assumed “—to fax him a copy of his insurance and his credit card. We were able to take my name off the rental car and put his on. It was impressive to watch. Eli doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“And you do?” Libby asked with a laugh. “You’re the most doggedly determined person I know. It’s one of the things I respect and admire most about you.”

You do?
Before she could ask, though, Libby continued. “Eli…Damien…your few meager text messages have been intriguing me. You’re going to tell me everything when you get here, right?”

The inspiration to visit Libby instead of making a fool
of herself by hanging around waiting for Eli to come to his senses had struck Char as she walked to her motel room after the sauna. After having breakup sex in the sauna. Something she never in a million years could have seen herself doing. She wasn’t sure she recognized herself anymore.

Your friends’ll know ya, chickadee.

“It’s a long and complicated story, Lib. True fiction, if you know what I mean. Speaking of stories, maybe we could talk about our next book while I’m there. We could call Kat and put her on speakerphone.”

They discussed the possibility a minute or so longer, then Char told Libby she had to go because her food was coming. In truth, Eli was returning. But he was like food to her. Nourishment for her soul. However would she be able to go back to her old life without him?

Mebbe you need a new life, chickadee.

“More wine?” he asked, taking the seat across from her. They’d been terribly civil and polite to each other since the moment he stepped out of the shower and spotted her suitcase sitting by the door.

“Do we have time? I don’t want to miss Wanda at the hospital.”

“She told me she was going to be late because of some function at her younger son’s school.”

Char put down her napkin. “Damien’s been alone all this time? I wish you would have said something becau—”

“Damien’s ex-girlfriend was planning to visit. Wanda said this girl was a good influence on Damien when they were dating. She wanted them to have some time alone.”

“Oh. Well, then, sure. More wine. You’re driving.”

The meal at the Flying Fish had been delicious—unlike
anything she’d ever experienced before. A Japanese soup that was prepared and cooked
shabu-shabu
style at their table in a clay pot.

“Are you sure leaving now is the best thing? I thought we were in this together.”

We were until your ex-wife called and laid a guilt trip in your lap.
The word
lap
gave her pause. She cleared her throat and said, “If I’m not a part of the agreement regarding Damien’s care and support, then what business do I have hanging around? The court regards you as perfectly capable of transporting him back to South Dakota. Call me when you have a release date and I’ll get your ticket switched. I’ll even pay for his flight if you want me to.”

“That’s not necessary. I’ll cover it. And I told you I intend to pay you back for everything.”

She took a sip of the cold, refreshing wine. “My leaving has nothing to do with money, Eli. You know that.”

He didn’t reply.

There had been several long silences throughout the meal, but Char was determined to keep things cordial—at least on the surface. She wasn’t a crisis junkie like her mother, drawing and redrawing line after line in the sand. No matter what happened between them, she and Eli would need to get along—for their son’s sake. Her broken heart was her business.

They skipped dessert, paid the bill and walked to their car, which was parked on the street a few blocks away. She would have loved to stroll along, hand in hand with Eli. Window-shopping, maybe picking up a few souvenirs for the kids, like many of the tourists around them appeared to be doing.

No storybook ending for her.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Char. That was never my intention.”

He’d stopped in the middle of the flow of walking traffic. She took his hand to pull him to one side. She didn’t want to do this in public—even amongst strangers. “I know, Eli. You’re a good person. I never doubted that for a minute.”

He squeezed her hand. “Don’t go.”

If he’d included the words
I love you, Char
in that petition, she’d have caved in. But he didn’t.

She carefully extricated her hand from his. “I have to. I can’t pretend to be happy about the way you’re handling this. Damien doesn’t need more drama right now. If the situation changes when you get home, you know where to find me.” She faked a smile. “Heck, you managed to stumble across my big white teepee when you were on foot and broke. Now, you have my e-mail address and my cell phone number. It’s not like we’re going back to being strangers.”

He didn’t dispute that, but he seemed downcast and less sure of himself than usual. A part of her hoped that meant he was questioning his decision to go back to his wife. She wasn’t betting on him miraculously making a clean break from Bobbi and choosing Char instead, but she couldn’t let go of her dream entirely. Not yet.

“When we get to the hospital, I’d like to talk to Damien alone. If you don’t mind.”

I
MIND
,
HE THOUGHT
.
I mind you making plans without me. I mind you leaving. I mind the fact that I screwed up and now I don’t know how to fix things between us.
But he
didn’t say any of that. He’d lost any right he might have had to try to influence her decisions.

He opened the car door for her then hurried around to get behind the wheel. The rental car was in his name now. He hadn’t wanted to call Bobbi again, but given the fact she had a key to his house and knew where he kept his credit card file, his options were limited. Except for that mysterious e-mail, Eli hadn’t heard from his uncle. He hoped Joseph still had the contents of Eli’s wallet, but he doubted the older man would have been able to figure out how to fax him copies.

Bobbi had responded faster and with fewer questions than he’d expected. Maybe Sue’s attempted suicide had had an impact on Bobbi. The two had been friends at one time. A fact that made the difference between Bobbi and Char all the more obvious. He couldn’t picture Char faking friendship with a woman whose husband she’d loved for nearly twenty years.

“What are you going to tell him?” he asked, following a string of cars that was turning left onto the main road.

“Goodbye,” she said simply.

He fumbled with the control knob for the wipers. A light rain had started.

“Strange weather, isn’t it?” she asked, leaning forward to peer out the window. “It’s like a fog bank moved onshore.”

Her tone was too conversational for his taste. They’d been utterly civilized during dinner. As polite as strangers.

He hated the way things stood between them, but when he tried to bring up the subject of what might happen in the future, she’d cut him off. He didn’t understand that. Bobbi would have talked the subject to death.

“I meant, what are you going to tell him about us?”

“What’s to tell? Remember those helium balloons I delivered to the party the first day you showed up at my shop?”

Everything about those balloons had pissed him off at the time. He remembered thinking how frivolous, impermanent and wasteful they were. “Uh-huh,” he answered, glad he hadn’t said anything to her at the time. He would have come off as Oscar the Grouch. She probably would have beaned him with her talking stick to put him out of his misery. “What about them?”

“Well, if we had released two balloons at exactly the same moment, I guarantee they wouldn’t have wound up within five miles of each other. That doesn’t reflect badly on either balloon. It simply proves that everyone is subject to the whims of fate. And if anyone happened to reach out and grab one of the balloons’ strings, then all bets are off. No one can account for those kinds of variables.”

“You’re saying I’m full of hot air?”

“No more than I am.”

“Are you sure you want to spend the night at Wanda’s?”

She nodded with conviction. “I can’t wait to see Damien’s baby photos.” She sighed softly. “I’ve been waiting seventeen years for this, Eli.”

She turned in her seat to look at him. “I used to go to places like Chuck E. Cheese’s and the roller skating rink on his birthday. Not because I thought I’d see Damien, but because I wanted to imagine him somewhere like that having fun with his family and friends. Does that sound creepy?”

It sounded so sad he had to make himself grip the steering wheel to keep from reaching out to touch her,
comfort her. “Uh-uh,” he grunted, his throat too tight to speak.

“Last year, I took Kat’s sons to see a 3-D action-adventure movie on Damien’s birthday. Afterward, we went out for pizza. It was fun. Almost like the real thing.”

He wondered if he would have done the same thing if he’d known about Damien from the beginning. He doubted it. Look at how maturely he’d handled finding out the son he’d raised wasn’t his—booze and a half-assed vision quest.

They arrived at the hospital a few minutes later. He drove to the main entrance and stopped. “Go ahead. I’ll park the car.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t think to bring an umbrella. What about my suitcase?”

“I’ll bring it with me.”

She got out without a backward glance and hurried inside. He drove slowly looking for a parking place. The upper and lower lots were both more crowded than he’d expected given the time of night, but he found a spot under a bright light.

He turned off the engine and sat without moving, his gaze fixed on the shimmering moisture collecting on the windshield. Char was leaving in the morning. He didn’t blame her. She had as much right to be Damien’s legal guardian as he did. Maybe more. Damien had been in her heart for seventeen years. Ever since his first breath. Eli had spent those years giving his love, attention, hope and heart to other children. His children, but still…

“I’m an ass.”

That you are, chickadee.

He put his head in his hands and groaned. The voice was back. Just what his guilty conscience needed—an ally.

“H
E’S STILL AWAKE
,”
a nurse—one Char hadn’t met before—told her.

They’d exchanged greetings outside the door of the ICU while Char was waiting for the buzzer to sound. “I think they plan to move him to a regular ward tomorrow.”

“Really? That means he’s improving. Do you know when he’ll be released?”

The woman, who had a good ten years on Char, made an offhand motion with her hand. “Hard to say. He developed a slight infection around the wound so he has to stay on IV antibiotics. They’re testing it for staph, but we’re not taking any chances until the results come back.”

Char was glad to know her son was getting the best care available.

Wanda wasn’t in the room, as Char had expected. Damien was sitting up, the television remote in his hand. “Hey, Damien, what’s new?” she asked, trying to keep her voice casual. She didn’t want him to know how difficult it was for her to say goodbye.

There was a sparkle in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. “Have you seen this show? It’s set in the Black Hills. My sister told me about it but I never watched it before.”

She drew up a chair near the head of the bed. “You must be talking about
Sentinel Passtime
. This is going to make me sound like a terrible name-dropper, but my best friend’s husband is Cooper Lindstrom.”

“No way.”

“Yep. And my other good friend, Jenna Murphy, is engaged to the show’s producer, Shane Reynard. She’s
also a writer on the show. You can check out the credits when it’s over.”

“Wow. That’s cool.”

She leaned closer, ostensibly so she could see the TV set, too. In fact, she wanted to absorb as much of his scent as she could.

“Did they actually film this around where you live?”

She nodded. “Yeah. They did a week or so of location work. The film crew was great for business. Honestly they’re the reason I could afford to make this trip.” She cocked her head, realizing for the first time how true those words were. If not for Libby, whose initial contact with Cooper set the entire
Sentinel Passtime
production in motion, Char might never have met her son.

“Libby—Cooper’s wife—is in Malibu at the moment. She lost her grandmother recently and I’ve decided to visit her, since I’m so close. To cheer her up, you know.” Or was it the other way around?

He hit the mute button to silence the commercial hawking some wonder cloth that was supposed to absorb a gazillion times its weight. “When?”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Your mom’s going to take me to the train station in the morning. Eli will stay so he can visit you and meet with the lawyers.” She tried to keep her tone upbeat. “Hopefully, in a few days you’ll be on your way back to South Dakota. Your birthplace.”

His frown looked so much like a young Eli her throat closed up and she thought she might weep. “I don’t remember it. Dad used to say he was going to take us to the Air Force base where he was stationed when they got me, but he never did.”

“Ellsworth. It’s in Rapid City. I live about thirty miles from there.” She faked a smile. “I’m the only big white teepee in the area. You can’t miss my place.”