The Homecoming Baby (19 page)

She frowned. “I'm not break—”

“You can't kid a kidder, kiddo,” he said, shaking his head. “Come on. Let's go tell those two we refuse to be kept on the back burner anymore.” He glanced at the oven and grinned. “No pun intended.”

And so, with her heart pounding a little too hard in her chest, Celia found herself following Mitch out to the restaurant.

Trish and Patrick saw them coming, and Trish waved them over with a smile.

“Join us,” she said. “We're just about finished.”

It was so awkward, Celia thought as she slid into the booth beside Patrick. Something hugely emotional had clearly taken place. Trish's eyes were puffy and red, but glowing with happiness. She had several bunched-up tissues on the table in front of her, as if she'd been doing a lot of crying.

“We've talked about everything,” she said. She took Mitch's hand, as if to reassure him she was fine. “Patrick and I both had so many questions.”

“Well, I've got a question of my own,” Mitch said. He looked at Patrick. “I hear you came to En
chantment looking for some ugly kind of payback for wrongs that got done to you.”

Patrick nodded. “That's true. I did come here with that agenda.”

“Mitch,” Trish said. “Patrick has already explained all this to me. He came here to ask my forgiveness.” She smiled at her son. “Which I have given him, with all my heart.”

“Still. I need to speak my peace. You see, I don't believe in vengeance, Patrick. Especially where Trish is concerned. So my question is, are you ready to put all that behind you? I'd like to see the both of us put our minds to making this woman happy.”

Patrick smiled at the older man. “I'd be honored to be your partner in that endeavor,” he said. He put out his hand.

Mitch, whose smile was broad and pleased, reached out, as well, and the two men shook on it.

Celia found herself having to swallow hard. She didn't look at Patrick for fear she might find herself crying, which would hardly be appropriate at such a moment. She truly was so happy for Trish.

Patrick pulled two long white packets from his pocket. “I bought two airline tickets,” he said, holding them out toward Trish. “Two tickets to Venice. I thought maybe you'd finally like to see it.”

“Oh, Patrick.” Trish looked at the tickets as if she couldn't believe her eyes. “How amazingly generous!”

“We could go together. I thought it might give us a chance to spend time together. To catch up.”
He paused. “And if there were anything over there you wanted to try to find…”

To Celia's surprise, Trish began to cry all over again. She moved her hand instinctively, ready to comfort, but Trish shook her head.

“It's all right,” she said. “I'm not unhappy. It's just that—”

She wiped her eyes with yet another tissue. Then she turned to Patrick with a wet, tender smile. “That may be the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. But it's not necessary. I promise you, it was just a dream. I don't really need to go to Venice.”

“But, Trish,” he said. “What about Angelina?”

“She's not there anymore.”

Celia, who had been struggling to follow the conversation, turned from Trish to Patrick, then back to Trish again.

“What are you talking about?” She leaned forward. “What does Venice have to do with Angelina?”

But Trish didn't seem to hear her. She was looking at Patrick with so much love and wonder it almost took Celia's breath away.

“You're the only one who ever figured that out,” Trish said. “How did you know that was why I kept the little snow globe?”

“I'm not sure,” Patrick said. “It started out as simply a hunch. When I saw it, and I saw how you reacted to my looking at it… It just felt as if it must mean something.”

“It did,” she said. She turned to Celia, and then to
Mitch. “I hadn't ever meant to tell this to anyone, but I think I owe it to you. And I know I can trust all of you.” She seemed to be steadying herself. “You see, right after they found Tee's body in the mine, I received a postcard from Angelina.”

Celia knew that she and Mitch both had the same openmouthed shock.
“What?”
she said, at the same time Mitch said, “You must be kidding.”

“It's true. It was a beautiful card of the Bridge of Sighs. Gondolas on the canals in the moonlight. It was postmarked Venice, Italy.”

Mitch pulled himself together first. “What did she say?”

“It was pure Angelina,” Trish said with a misty smile. “Short, and to the point, never pulling any punches. She said she had found out what happened between Tee and me, and she hoped I didn't blame myself, because it had been all Tee's fault.”

“Oh, my God.” Celia held her breath. “And was that all? She didn't say anything else?”

“Yes, there was more.” Trish toyed with a tissue, not meeting their eyes. “The last part I know by heart. She said, ‘What a bastard he was! But even so I didn't really push him. It was an accident, and if they ever try to blame it on you, show them this card.'

“But—” Mitch looked stunned. “Why didn't you ever mention it to anyone?”

“I don't know. I guess I was afraid my father would hunt her down. Or maybe I was afraid that she really had pushed Tee, and that if the police knew—” She shook her head, as if she were trying to shake
off that horrible thought. “Besides, I liked picturing her there, in Venice, being wild and wonderful and living happily ever after.”

Patrick was obviously thinking more clearly than the rest of them. He was the one who remembered how the story had begun.

“But you told us she's not there anymore,” he said. “How do you know that?”

Trish looked up, then, and her eyes were full of tears. “Last year I hired a private detective to find her. He brought bad news. Apparently Angelina died in Italy about ten years ago, in an automobile accident.”

Mitch put his arm around her. Patrick reached out and took her hand across the table.

“I'm sorry,” Patrick said. “That must have been difficult to hear.”

“It was.” Trish took a ragged breath. “I felt very alone right then. But now—” She encompassed them all in a watery smile. “Now, because of the three of you, I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.”

T
HE COURTYARD WAS SILENT
in the after-midnight air. Celia sat on the dry rim of the fountain, wishing it were filled and running. Then at least she'd have the water's gurgling chatter to distract her from her own thoughts.

She'd been waiting out here for more than an hour. When the four of them had come home from the restaurant, she and Mitch had said good-night right away. But Patrick had walked Trish to her apartment. Mother and son must have had a million things to talk about, because their good-night seemed to be stretching on forever.

The night was very cool and dry. Celia shivered, wishing she had a jacket, but not daring to run into her apartment to get one, for fear she'd miss the moment he emerged.

Trish's window remained lit, the one warm, yellow square in the black-and-silver darkness. Celia was exhausted, but she wouldn't have dreamed of interrupting this time Trish and Patrick were spending together. She wrapped her arms across her chest, leaned her head against the fountain's upper bowl, and tried to relax.

She must have dozed off, because sometime later she opened her eyes, startled by the sound of an opening door. She looked at her watch. It was about one-thirty in the morning.

She heard Trish's soft laugh, and Patrick's deep answering murmur. The lock of Trish's door clicked, and the window went dark.

And then, finally, there he was.

“Patrick,” Celia said, standing.

He paused and looked toward the sound of her voice, obviously surprised to discover he wasn't alone. He seemed to hesitate a moment, but then, to her relief, he moved in her direction.

“Hello,” he said. “It's very late. What are you doing here?”

The echo of her comment, made when he'd first arrived at the restaurant earlier tonight, felt like a mild rebuke. She flushed and was glad the moon was too dim to reveal it.

“I was waiting for you,” she said.

“Why?”

The silence was almost painful while she tried to think of an answer. She wanted to speak, but her voice wasn't working right. All the vicious things she had said at their last private meeting seemed to hang in the air between them, an impenetrable wall of injustice.

“I guess I just wanted to say that I'm—”

She touched the rough, pocked concrete of the fountain. She shouldn't have let herself doze off. It
had scrambled the mental script she'd so carefully prepared.

“I'm so happy that you and Trish—”

He kept looking at her, without speaking. She took a deep breath and started over. “I mean, I want you to know I'm sorry about all the things I said the other night and—”

“Celia, stop.” He moved a little, and his body was outlined, tall and dark, against the silvery sky. “You know you don't have anything to be sorry about.”

“Yes, I do. I said awful things. I was so—frightened. And hurt.”

“No. You were right about everything. Especially about me.”

“Clearly I wasn't,” she said. “I was furious because I thought you were going to bring misery to Trish, but look how happy she is. I've never seen her so peaceful and strong.”

“That's true,” he said. “Trish and I are coming to understand one another pretty well. We've both made mistakes, terrible mistakes, but forgiving each other was surprisingly easy. It's much harder to find a way to forgive ourselves, but we're working on that together.”

His eyes were in the shadows, so no matter how she tried to read them, it was impossible. The uncertainty made her heart knock with light, frantic thumps against her rib cage. She couldn't tell if there was any hope at all.

If only she knew what he really thought about her. About
them.
Had she simply said such unforgivable
things that they could never find their way back to each other? Or was the problem worse than that? Was it that he didn't care at all? That, as she'd feared that first night, his attentions to her had never been more than a calculated exploitation?

“Actually,” he said, “Trish and I were talking about you just now.”

“You were?”

“Yes. About how you were the only truly innocent person in this whole terrible situation. You're the only one who didn't in any way deserve to be hurt. I took advantage of you, Celia. I tried not to, but I did.”

Why should that make her want to cry? She looked down, trying to stop the stinging behind her eyes.

“I wanted what happened that night as much as you did,” she said. “More, as I recall. And I will never regret it. Even if it meant nothing to you, even if you really were just using me. I'll never, ever regret it.”

He didn't answer at first. He wasn't even looking at her anymore.

He was so stiff, so straight. Why wouldn't he bend? Why wouldn't he thaw? Did he regret it so very much, then?

“Why won't you look at me?” She reached out in sudden desperation. “Why won't you tell me what you're feeling? If you feel nothing at all, just tell me, please. I need to know if there's any hope—”

He turned suddenly. He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his heart.

“I love you, damn it,” he said. “Surely you know that.”

She shook her head. His heart was pounding hard against her palm.

“I didn't even recognize it at first,” he said. “If I've ever loved anyone before, it wasn't like this. It wasn't real love, this kind of love that takes everything you think you know about the world, about yourself, and tears it into a million pieces. Not this kind that makes you long to be better than you are.”

Something in her throat was blocking words. Only the warm slide of tears seemed able to make it through.

“I know you may not be willing to believe me,” he said. “I wouldn't blame you for that, after everything I've done. But I want you to know that I'm not ever going to give up. Whatever it takes, I'll do it. Somehow I'll show you. I'll make you trust me, Celia. Somehow I'll make you love me.”

She shook her head again, helplessly. Maybe, she thought from a distance, these tears were just the overflow of her melting heart, like a spring flowing down from the frozen tops of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

“But don't you see?” She looked up at him. “You don't need to do anything. I already love you so much I can hardly hold it all in one heart.”

Her lips were trembling, and she tasted the warm, salty tears that pooled in the corners of her mouth.

“I've loved you since that first day,” she said. “At Silverton, when I thought you were a ghost.”

He made a low sound, half disbelief, half triumph. He began to pull her toward him.

“You were so damn beautiful,” he said. “Your bare feet in the water, your arms full of flowers, your hair drenched with sunlight. I thought you were a mirage.”

She took a deep breath. “I even loved you when I thought I hated you, when I thought you had come here just for the pleasure of breaking our hearts.”

He wrapped his arms around her, until she was safe and close, the warm planes of his chest meeting her like a wall of strength.

“You were so powerful that night,” he said with a low undercurrent of laughter…and another, too, of admiration. “So flooded with righteous fury.”

“And I even loved you when you tried to boss me around, that night at my office.”

“Even then? Even when I made it clear I couldn't qualify as the newest member of your Safe and Dull club?”

“That's
Scratch and Dent
club,” she corrected him sternly.

His eyes sparkled in the moonlight. “Whatever.”

She smiled up at him, though her lips still felt wet and shaky.

“And, of course…I loved you on Red Rock Bridge.”

He closed his eyes and touched his lips to her forehead. They were hot and hard.

“Yes.” He had no teasing rejoinder to that one. “Yes.”

“And, no matter what happens from this day forward,” she said, though her throat was so tight she could hardly speak, “I'll go on loving you forever.”

His answering laugh had a hitch in it, as if it were tangled up with what might have been a sob if he had let it.

“Now that,” he said as he lowered his head to kiss her, “is the promise I've been waiting for all my life.”