The Miles Between Us (3 page)

Rob

Emma’s wailing,
at a heretofore-undiscovered decibel level, carried through the open windows and across the yard to the driveway. He heard her as soon as he got out of the car. There were two other babies in the house—Ali had recently given birth to twin girls—but his daughter’s cry was unmistakable. “Mum mum mum,” she wailed.
“Mum mum mum mum mum.”

Rob
closed the car door and approached the old farmhouse where he and Casey had lived for the first two years of their marriage. She and Danny had bought the place a few months before he died, and living there had been difficult for Rob. He’d felt Danny’s presence everywhere, had seen him around every corner, opening up old wounds and allowing them to fester. It wasn’t healthy for him, or for his relationship with his wife, and he’d finally realized that if they wanted their marriage to work, they needed to move away from the memories and focus on the future instead of the past. So they’d built a new house, one without any ghosts, and sold this one to Casey’s nephew Billy and his wife, Alison.

At the kitchen window,
the curtains parted, then fell back into place. Ali must have heard his car. When he entered the shed, she was waiting at the open kitchen door with a wailing Emma in her arms and relief stamped on her face. “Thank God,” she said over Emma’s screaming. “I didn’t know what to do. She’s been inconsolable.”

“Poor
kid.”

At the sound of his voice, Emma
swiveled her head around. With a choked sniffle, she said,
“Da!”
and held out her fat little arms.

“Hey,
Miss Emmy Lou Who.” He took her from Ali, bounced her in his arms. “I hear you’re having a bad day.”

His daughter snuffled and
hiccupped and, with a sigh, pressed her warm little body hard against his chest. “Da,” she said, playing with a button on his shirt.

He
kissed her patchy duck-fuzz hair. “It’s okay, baby. Daddy’s here now.”

“Unbelievable,” Ali said
. “She’s been screaming for hours. One look at you, and she goes silent.”

“Such is my
amazing effect on the female of the species.”

“Right
. I’m just glad you’re here. No matter what I tried, it didn’t work.”

“I’m sorry. I know you have your hands full with the twins.”

She waved him off
. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a human dynamo. How’s Casey?”

“
Stable. Stubborn. Alive and beautiful. Waiting to see Emma.”

When she crinkled her nose, all the freckles drew together, giving her the appearance of a
ten-year-old boy. “I thought the hospital didn’t allow kids under twelve on any of the wards.”

He
just looked at her, and Ali rolled her eyes. “Never mind,” she said. “I forgot you have magical powers.”

“I’m a wizard,” he said
. “Has she eaten?”

“Not since lunch
, and even then, she picked. She was too upset to eat. I still have to feed the twins, and Billy’s not home from work yet. I was just about to give her a cracker to get her through until supper.”

“I’ll take it from her
e. Car seat?”

He
expertly buckled Emma into the car and walked around to the driver’s side of the Beemer. His daughter, gazing wide-eyed around the interior of the unfamiliar car, said, “Hoo.”

“I hear you, kiddo
. Hoo, indeed.” He buckled his seat belt and started the engine. “Are you hungry? Want something to eat?”

“No!
” It was her first, and favorite, word. She’d quickly learned its power, and wielded it with the enthusiasm and effectiveness of a pirate wielding his broadsword.

“No?” he said, pulling out onto Meadowbrook Road
. “No crackers? No grapes? No Cheerios?”

“No!”

“Okay, then.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You want to go see Mom?”

“Mum.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Da.”

His finely-tuned parental ear automatically differentiated this “da” from her previous “da” and understood she meant yes. He supposed the kid wouldn’t starve to death if she went a little longer without eating. She’d been through a traumatic experience. What she needed right now was to see her mother, to know that Casey was fine.

“Okay, kiddo,”
he said, “the hospital it is.”

Technically,
they were probably between visiting hours, although most hospitals had relaxed their policies in recent times. Ditto for kids being allowed to visit. Although it had been standard procedure since the beginning of time to allow only visitors over the age of twelve, most family-friendly hospitals had eased back on that rule in recent times. But County General, a small rural hospital, was a little behind the times. Their medical care was outstanding, but they stubbornly adhered to administrative policies that had become obsolete at least a decade ago.

H
e wasn’t worried. For some inexplicable reason, the nurses grew giggly and flirty every time he walked by. He’d always had that effect on women, and he’d never been able to figure out why. It sure as hell wasn’t his looks. Now, take Emma—sweet, beautiful Emma, with her big green eyes and those tufts of yellow duck fuzz all over her head. There was somebody guaranteed to melt the heart of even the hardest nurse. But him? With his scrawny ankles, his bony knees, and the hair he still couldn’t seem to tame unless he cut it every month? His attractiveness to women was a mystery he would probably never unravel. But he wasn’t above taking advantage of it. He knew he could walk into his wife’s room with Emma in his arms and nobody would even question him.

At this time of day, the parking lot was sparsely
populated. Rob pulled into an empty space, got out, walked around and took Emma from her seat. She studied him solemnly through wide green eyes. Even after more than a year, it was still a shock to look into their daughter’s face and see both of them looking back. She had his coloring, his eyes, his strong jaw. The rest of her was all Casey. Through the magic of biology, she’d inherited the best of both of them. But Emma was her own person, with a strong personality that already displayed itself on a daily basis.

He blipped the locks and said, “Give Daddy a kiss?”

His daughter leaned forward and, with absolute trust, smacked her soft little lips against his. All six-plus feet of him melted into a soft puddle of goo. How had he lived four decades without experiencing this kind of love? He’d missed this with Paige. She’d come to him fully formed, fifteen years old and furious with the world. He’d made mistakes in his life, and Paige had paid the price. He was older now, and one hell of a lot smarter. This time, with Emma, he intended to do things right. He owed it to her, and her love was all the reward he needed.

He walked through the main entrance,
Emma in his arms, and moved swiftly and purposefully across the lobby to the elevator. They rode in silence to the second floor with a young nurse who played peek-a-boo with his daughter while shooting him surreptitious and curious glances, as if trying to place him. It was doubtful that she’d even recognize his name; she wasn’t much older than Paige, and kids weren’t listening to his brand of music anymore. She’d probably seen him in an MTV video she was watching with her mother, back when she was nine.

On the second floor, he passed the nurse’s station, nodded politely in response to the embarrassing chorus of greetings, and paused at the door to Casey’
s room. Apparently he wasn’t the only one flouting convention; perched on the edge of his wife’s bed, his red-haired sister Rose looked as comfortable as if they were at a garden party. Casey glanced up, saw him at the door, and pleasure lit her face. “There’s my baby girl,” she said, and Emma, at sight of her mother, began struggling to get away from him.

He crossed the room and deposited
his daughter in her mother’s arms. “Guess we know where I stand,” he said. “Hey, Rosie.” His sister offered her cheek, and he kissed it.

“
Hey, brat,” she said. “I need coffee. Come help me find it while Emma visits with her mom.”

Rose was uncharacteristically silent as they walked together down the corridor to the vending machine
. He popped in a couple of quarters and watched the paper cup fill with steaming sludge. Rose offered it to him, but he shook his head. His sister shrugged, said, “Let’s go out on the patio,” and he followed her.

They found a
café-style table bathed in dappled early-evening sunlight, and Rose, being Rose, went directly for the jugular. “You can’t let her get pregnant again,” his sister said. “It’ll kill her.”

“I know that, and you know that
. Maybe you’d like to try telling her that.”

“J
esus Christ, Rob, grow a pair. Put your foot down. She’ll listen to you. She thinks you hung the moon.”

“
She may think I hung the moon, but Casey has her own agenda, and if I get in the way, she just bulldozes over me.”

Rose’s eyes, MacKenzie green like his and Emma’s, narrowed
. “This was too damn close, Rob. If Trish hadn’t come along when she did, you’d be planning a funeral right now.”

“Twist the knife a little harder, why don’t you?”

“I’m looking out for your welfare! And hers! And that sweet little girl’s! What would Emma do if she lost her mother?” His sister, who excelled at aggression but hated being vulnerable, shook her head and turned away from him. But not before he saw the tears in her eyes.

He l
eaned over the table. “Do you think I don’t know any of this? Do you think I’m not scared shitless?”

She swung back around.
“Then do the right thing! Get a vasectomy. Put the issue to bed.”

“It’s not that easy
. I can’t do that to her.”

His sister snorted
. “Why not, for the love of God?”

“Because Danny did it to her,
and it destroyed their marriage!”

Rose’s eyes clouded, and she wrinkled her forehead
. “I don’t understand.”

“After Katie died
, Danny decided to be a dick. He went behind her back and had a vasectomy. When she found out, she left him.”

“That’s why they separated
? I thought it was because of Katie. So many couples, if they lose a child, have trouble holding it together.”

“There was that, too
. But it was the vasectomy that tipped the scales. That’s why I can’t do that to her. Don’t you think I’d get snipped tomorrow if I could?” He drummed frustrated fingers on the tabletop. “I won’t betray her trust like that.”

Rose sipped her coff
ee and considered. “Of course,” she said, “there’s always celibacy.”

It was his turn to snort
. “As if.”

“I’m just weighing the options.”

“Yeah? Well, you can toss that one out. Been there, done that. Don’t plan to do it again in this lifetime.”

Rose snorted
. “You haven’t been celibate since you were twelve.”

“Seventeen, for your information, Ms
. Smart-Ass. And I have. After Danny died. For two frigging years.”

Rose’s eyebrows went sky high.
“No way. My brother, the rock star? The one with a girl in every port? No way in hell.”

“Two years,” he repeated
. “Two of the longest, loneliest years of my life. And I’m not a rock star. I’m a professional musician.”

“
Semantics,” she said. “Nothing more than semantics. I don’t get it. Two years? Why?”

“Because!
” he snarled. Then he sighed, leaned his elbows on the table, and rubbed his temples in an attempt to dislodge the headache that hadn’t been there five minutes ago. “Because,” he said, “I was waiting for her.”

* * *

Without Casey here, the house echoed with emptiness. His wife was everywhere. In the ceramic floor tiles ordered direct from Italy, in the stained glass windows that showed up in delightfully unexpected places. In the smell of freshly-baked bread that permeated the air. Even in the colors they’d painted the exterior. Casey told everyone who’d sit still long enough to listen that they’d designed, planned, and decorated the house together, but in all honesty, it had been her baby from start to finish. He’d done little more than give his approval to her ideas. He trusted her implicitly, and what did he care, anyway? He just wanted to be with her, in a place they could call their own, a place where she hadn’t slept with Danny, a place where the memories belonged to just the two of them. If she wanted to paint the living room ceiling purple, he wouldn’t care, as long as she was happy.

He made macaroni and cheese for Emma, the kind that came in a box with a foil packet
. It was quick and easy, and she usually loved it. But tonight, she picked at it fitfully, still traumatized, still unable to understand why her mother wasn’t here. He’d had one hell of a job peeling her away from Casey when it was time to leave the hospital. By the time he managed to separate them, his wife and his daughter were both in tears.