Song of Renewal (2 page)

“Stay off your feet” had become a refrain she detested, especially when she felt the longing to dance. Feeling the baby’s fluttery movements had compelled her to obey, though. More than anything, she wanted this baby.

The huge, luxurious manse had become both blessing and curse. Blessing in the sense of comfort and space for a growing family, and curse in huge utility bills and mortgage payments. The big house pulled heavily on electricity for heating and cooling. To cut costs, they took to closing off the upper floor during extreme temperatures.

“It could be worse,” Garrison conceded during one of his morose, dark spells. Artistic Melancholy, Liza labeled it. “If I hadn’t had land to sell off to pay more up front, the mortgage payments would have tripled.”

Characteristically, Garrison soon segued from gloom to gratitude to seventh heaven. “I feel like I could conquer the world,” he exulted one night in her last month as he gathered Liza’s bulk to him ever so tenderly.

“You can, by George!” she agreed, then began to feel awkward, and huge, and disgusting. “I feel like a water buffalo,” she muttered glumly.

Garrison switched to Rhett-dialect. “Dah-ling Scarlett, you ah many things but a watuh buffalo you ah not. Nevah evah,
evah
.” He kissed her then, passionately, yet holding her as though she were made of delicate china.

Liza’s heart felt as though it would shatter from the wonder of their love.

In the next moment, something did shatter. Garrison felt warm liquid splash and cascade over his bare feet as he and Liza stood together, locked in each other’s arms.

“What?” He pushed back and gazed down between them at the pool still slowly gathering on the floor. Liza’s eyes were wide, her expression stunned.

“My water just broke,” she murmured, and in the utterance he heard both awe and dread. He knew she feared the unknown, had told him so.

He pulled her to him once more and embraced her with all the love in him.

“It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart,” he whispered, hand clasping her head to his bosom, willing his strength to enter her, to carry her through this ancient rite she now faced. And he knew
generations of women had survived it. But with Liza it was different. She was part of
him
. He felt her terror.

“It’s not fair,” he said through clenched teeth. “I should be able to share this with you more…not just with words but with my own body experiencing the labor – ”

He felt her quivering and shaking.
Oh no he was making her cry.

Garrison pulled back to peer into her face. “Honey, I’m sorry.”

Then he saw that she was laughing. Hard. He frowned, thoroughly perplexed. “What’s so funny?”

“Men,” she said and burst into fresh laughter. “If you had to do one hour of labor pain, there’d never be any babies.”

He watched her double over in a fresh upsurge of laughter and shook his head. Amazed as always at her great sense of the ridiculous, the humor hit him.

Yeah. She got that right. He did not do pain. Period. Not at all. His lips curled up at the corners and he began to chuckle along with Liza, who by now was somewhere between hysterical and manic in her doubled-over mirth.

Then, just as he began to scratch his head in comic relief, her laughter stopped. She slowly tried to straighten up, arms gripping her swollen belly. Her mouth rounded and her face began to contort.

“Garrison,” she hissed. “Get me to the hospital.”

They did a Caesarian section the next morning. Then, when complications set in, they did a hysterectomy. Liza cried. Garrison was slack with shock. He would never have a son.

But it was her tears that tore him up. He pulled himself together for her sake. He sat at her bedside holding one cold, clammy hand.

“Honey, you’re more important to me than a house full of kids. Besides, we’ve got our Angel.” As if on cue, the baby, nestled in the crook of Liza’s arm, began to stir, puckering her tiny rosebud lips as she stretched delicate little arms and flexed fingers so small the fingernails appeared transparent. Garrison leaned to kiss the small face, nuzzling its silken softness, then gazed upon it in worship. “She’s so beautiful,” he rasped hoarsely, blinking back tears. “So perfect. Like her mother.”

Liza felt as if her heart would break. No more children. Tears coursed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Garrison gently blotted her face with a tissue and leaned to kiss her, stopping her flow of words. “You have nothing to be sorry for. We have us. And now, we have Angel.” He grinned, warmth spilling from mahogany pools. “She’s part of the
us
now. We are blessed, Liza. Blessed.”

She gave him a wobbly smile and nodded. “Yes. We are, aren’t we?

“Darned right.”

He kissed her again.

“Mmm,” she murmured, “I felt that clean down to my toes.”

Eight weeks later, Garrison’s vision blurred as he went over the monthly bills. He could hear Liza bathing little Angel in the nearby bathroom. Charlcy, Liza’s older sister, was visiting, cooing absurdly.

“Stop crossing those eyes at your auntie, you little stinkpot,” she teased gruffly. Then with syrupy sweetness, she crooned, “You are one cool chick, Angel-Pooh.”

Liza chortled. “Come change this diaper, Auntie, and you won’t be so enthralled.”

“Not me, sis. You had her, you do poop duty.”

Garrison swiped his hand across his eyes, tired beyond words. In the next instant, he heard Charlcy changing the diaper.

“Phew,” she exclaimed, then laughed. “How can anything so precious smell so disgusting?”

“That’s life,” Liza quipped.

At those words, Garrison felt a rush of something foreign. It shot through him like a bad caffeine overdose.

Life.

He felt it sweep over him again, the freakish adrenaline OD. The strangeness.

Garrison swiveled and slid off the kitchen barstool. He climbed the stairs to his study and burrowed into an easy chair, propping his feet on a matching leather ottoman. The disquiet inside him refused to budge, even when he reasoned that he was simply exhausted from the second job he’d taken on. In desperation, he’d gone to their next-door neighbor, Rocky Bailey and asked for part-time work at the Baileys’ dairy farm.

Rocky Bailey was near Garrison’s age, thirtyish, tall, and rugged, with a shock of black hair and astute dark eyes that spared him from ever being called ordinary. His two-year-old son was a reflection not only in looks but in stride and mannerisms. Touchingly so. It drew Garrison.

Garrison stooped to eye level with the boy the first time he met him. “What’s your name?”

“My name Twoy.” The dark eyes surveyed him, curious. A touch shy. Trusting.

Garrison smiled and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Troy.” Something in his heart grieved that he would never father a son, but he quickly, shamefully, doused the thought.

The boy peered at the outstretched hand for a long moment, then reached to take it, a grin splitting his face, stealing Garrison’s heart forever.

Garrison stood and saw the father’s proud look resting on his son.

“How about it, Rocky? Think you could find something for me to do around here?” Garrison recapped their earlier conversation, heart in throat, hoping, praying.

Rocky Bailey immediately reached for Garrison’s hand and grasped it firmly.

“Well, Wakefield, I sure could use some help around here. And you living so close and all. It would be perfect. When can you start?”

From that point on, Garrison woke at five a.m. to rush over and help with the morning milking. He repeated this late afternoon for the evening milking. He still had enough time to do commissioned work, such as it was. Little was forthcoming these days.

Never quite enough. He’d been out of the art circles too long because his freelance commercial work took too much of his time.

Garrison’s gaze swung to one of his early paintings hanging on the wall. It had been done before the house was finished, depicting his idealized vision of the manse and the grounds. He huffed a dry laugh. Reality was a far cry from the canvas-vision.

Like his dream of an art career.

He stood suddenly, shoved his hands in his slacks pockets, and moved to gaze out the window that overlooked the Wakefield property.

Landscaping sprawled in myriad phases of development. Money was scarce. Labor was expensive. It wasn’t hard to do the math. The year before Liza had conceived, she and Garrison worked from sunup to sunset for months to seed zoysia
grass over an entire acre of land. They’d dug flower beds and created picturesque berms. The two of them could only complete so much, though, without help.

Now with the baby taking much of Liza’s time and energy, and Garrison working at the dairy to fill the gaps in his sparse art schedule the yard work had come to a stand still.

Though her figure had quickly returned to its elegant shape and suppleness, Liza refused to even discuss returning to the ballet. Garrison admired her devotion to full-time motherhood, even understood all the love and fears that drove that passion. But right here, right now, he needed help.

He needed Liza.

They’d resumed marital relations several weeks ago. But Liza’s former energetic approach to life – and lovemaking – had done an abrupt to-the-rear march. He prayed that it was merely a post-surgery childbirth thing that would, in time, reverse itself.

She was busy being a mother. And he was happy about that. But at the same time, he missed her undivided attention. He missed her being…his Liza.

His alone.

Hell’s bells
. He threw back his head and raked impatient fingers through his hair.
How selfish am I? Huh?
He plopped back into the easy chair, disgusted with himself.

Torn.

God only knew how much he loved his little Angel. He was not jealous of her in the least. Or was he? Heaven help him, sometimes he didn’t know for sure. Sometimes he seemed to be two people. One the devoted daddy. The other, a narcissistic jerk.

He just wished that Liza could spread herself enough to cover his hunger for her – his hankering for the days when their marriage was like a fantastic romance movie with the
proverbial happily-ever-after. When, for no apparent reason, he would invade her upstairs ballet practice, sweep her into his arms, and break into silly dance steps. She would improvise and they would end up clinging to each other, laughing so hard they couldn’t stop.

Then they would make love.

Now, the baby’s crying took precedence. Diapers. Feeding.

And it should.

But he missed it all. He missed the little rented house and few bills. He missed the once-in-a-lifetime passion of young love.

Most of all, he missed his dream.

chapter one

sixteen years later

“What do you remember most about your wedding day?”

Gwen’s question, posed across the Wakefield dinner table, brought Liza’s inner pendulum, one that swung lazily in a lulling motion that soothed and deluded, to a screeching halt.