Waiting Read online

  Acknowledgements

  Melanie, my wife, deserves a medal for her support and patience.

  Also, special thanks to Rina Wojcik and to the others who preferred to not be named. All of you helped me very much, and you all rock.

  Q.Kelly on the Web:

  http://qkelly.blogspot.com

  http://qkelly.wordpress.com

  I would love to hear from you!

  Email me at [email protected]

  WAITING

  Q. Kelly

  Ride the Rainbow Books

  www.ridetherainbowbooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance

  to actual persons living or dead or actual events

  is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced

  without the permission of the author.

  "Waiting" Copyright © 2010 by Q. Kelly

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 1

  Caris sighed, trying not to say her wife's name, even if it was just in her mind. But she could not help it. Dale. Dale. Where are you? There's no excuse. It's 10 a.m.!

  Their son was five hours old, and the labor had lasted ten hours. So why was Dale not at the hospital yet? Yeah, she and Caris had fought. And yeah, Caris had accused Dale of behavior bordering on emotional abuse—a completely justified accusation. Caris had threatened separation.

  But this was a baby, their baby. Maybe Caris was not worth more to Dale than the plastic crap at Dollar General, but the baby was. Dale getting a hotel room had nothing to do with the baby. So why was she not at the hospital yet? Caris and her mother, Phyllis Zinn, had left so many messages on Dale's voice mail that it was full. The front desk clerks at the Holiday Inn probably hated Phyllis's raspy ex-smoker's voice. No one at the law firm had seen or heard from Dale.

  Maybe because the baby had come a couple of weeks early, it had not entered Dale's mind that all the messages were about the arrival of their son. Better to believe that than other things.

  Caris reached for the picture a nurse had snapped of her and the baby. "For Dale," the nurse had said with a sympathetic smile. Caris hardly recognized herself. She usually had a perfect part in the middle of her head for the blond hair down to her waist. Not so in the picture. From the neck up, Caris looked like she was on the set of a horror movie, maybe having just fled Freddy or Jason. Her eyes were manic, her hair was in a careless ponytail, red splotched her cheeks, and sweat shone on her forehead, her cheeks and her chin. She looked forty-five, not thirty, and her body was a new mother's funhouse-mirror mixture of willowy and bulge. The photo did not show one of her prettier moments, but her son was worth it. If only she could focus on him and not on where his other mother was.

  "You're a good boy, good boy, yes, you are." Phyllis cuddled the baby and rocked him. Caris's mother was nearing sixty, but years of alcohol abuse, cigarette abuse, and sun worship had accelerated her aging. She was rail thin and had a fondness for gaudy jewelry. Today's necklace was centered around a plastic rhinoceros, courtesy of Dale. Dale knew the way to Phyllis's heart.

  Phyllis met Caris's eyes. "She'll come." Like mother, like daughter. They would not say Dale's name to each other, not yet. They would keep it unspoken that something could be gravely wrong.

  But things already were gravely wrong.

  "What the hell," Caris muttered. Time to say the name out loud. "Dale doesn't love me, Mom. Not anymore. We're done. It's too exhausting."

  Phyllis raised a disapproving eyebrow. "You'll work it out, whatever it is."

  Caris forced a deep breath. Dale, not Phyllis, should have been the one with Caris when the baby was born. Dale, of all people, was supposed to be different. She was older, fifty-six. She had salt and pepper hair and lines of wisdom crinkling her eyes. She admitted readily that she had used to sleep around but had not for years. She was done sowing oats. Wrong? Caris was not sure what to think anymore. If nothing had happened to Dale, that meant she was acting like a child, pouting and not coming to the hospital to be with her wife and new baby.

  "There must be an explanation," Phyllis said.

  Caris did not answer. No point doing so. Phyllis knew nothing about romantic relationships. She was a butterfly, a flitter. Kind of like Lena, Dale's daughter from her previous marriage to a gay man. However, Lena was in a relationship now, if on and off seemingly every other week for one year counted as a relationship.

  In any case, Dale had not slept in the same bed as her for the past three weeks and refused to say why. Dale barely spoke to Caris, except to criticize her or to inquire after the pregnancy. The freeze-out had begun about six months ago with no apparent cause. Was there another woman? Dale had said no.

  Dale got drunk and ran away with the other woman, the mistress.

  Dale's been in a car crash.

  Dale's ignoring me because she thinks I'm tiresome. Because I have crazy hormones.

  Dale's pulling a gigantic April Fool's joke on me.

  How long should I wait before calling the police?

  I'm going to kill her.

  The door opened. "Hello!" came two excited voices and a trail of blue balloons. Dale's parents. George and Shirley had driven the eight hours from Rhode Island to Northern Virginia, to the Inova Fairfax Hospital.

  "Hey!" Caris smiled. Dale's parents were good people, and she was glad to see them. Sometimes she had a hard time believing Shirley and George were eighty-two years old, because they looked more alive, more energetic, than leathery Phyllis.

  Shirley darted for the blue bundle in Phyllis's lap. "He's beautiful," Shirley exclaimed, awe filling her voice.

  "He's the spitting image of Dale," Phyllis agreed, letting Shirley take him. The donor from the sperm bank had done his job, and then some.

  Shirley grinned at Caris. "He has your beautiful blue eyes."

  Thank goodness he doesn't have George's ears. George was a beanpole with high, floppy ears. Shirley was her husband's opposite, plump and barely topping five feet tall. Her hair was mostly white, but a few black skunk-like streaks survived. She and Dale both had brown eyes, but Shirley's tended toward friendliness, while Dale's were almost always intense. No gaudy jewelry for Shirley; she would not be caught dead with a plastic rhino on her chest. Her necklace was pearl, simple and understated. She was from old Providence family money and had married George, a poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

  "What's his name?" George asked.

  "I haven't decided." Caris liked the name Milo for a boy; Dale liked the name Donovan. The baby was one of the few subjects Dale talked about with her in more than one-sentence or two-sentence replies. They had been discussing a compromise: Milo Donovan Ismay or Donovan Milo Ismay.

  "I called the hotel
right before we arrived," George said. "Seems like Dale hasn't been back to the room." He did not ask why Dale and Caris had been fighting, although the curious lilt of his voice gave his interest away.

  "Did we miss Lena?" Shirley asked.

  Caris stifled a snort. Dale not being at the hospital was unsettling. Lena's absence, on the other hand, was not unusual. Caris and Lena were not close. Lena's choice, not hers. Probably the curse of a same-age stepdaughter. Well, mostly same-age stepdaughter. Right now, Lena was twenty-nine, but four months out of the year, they were the same age.

  Caris could not resist Shirley's beaming, expectant face. Shirley wanted good news, and by golly, she would get good news. "Lena's coming," Caris murmured. "She's out searching for Dale." Lena had not answered her cellphone either, but Caris would give her the benefit of the doubt. Be a good stepmother. The baby will need his big sister. Especially if I'm going to be his only mother.

  *****

  Caris's best friend, Jennifer, and her husband, Oliver, stopped by and threatened to kidnap the baby because he was too adorable for words. Jennifer was one of the most open-minded people Caris knew. They had been friends since they were in diapers, and Jennifer was a big reason Caris had come through the past few months relatively sane.

  And then there was Lena, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, but without its usual efficiency. Lena liked her hair tight and hated loose strands. This ponytail was a mess, reminding Caris of her own Nightmare on Elm Street hair in the picture with the baby.

  "Door was open," Lena mumbled. Her voice was slightly off, and if this were just another day, Caris would not have picked up on the tremor in her words. Caris looked closer at Lena, noticing dirt and grease streaking her hair. The lower half of her left arm was in a fresh cast.

  "Lena!" Shirley passed the baby off to George. She placed a delicate hand on the cast and tried to look into Lena's avoiding eyes. "Your arm! What happened?"

  Lena muttered something, Caris had no idea what, probably a little platitude to tide her grandparents over. Her eyes were white. Clear. Unmarred from crying. Largely uncommunicative, yes, par for the course when Lena was around Caris. The key was, Lena had not been crying. Everything was okay with her mother. Had to be, or she would be different.

  Not really.

  Caris's stomach became a lump of clay. Dale's daughter had come out of whatever happened with a broken arm. Dale had come out without her life. She's dead. Dead. And the last time we saw each other, we were angry. Caris's last words to her had been: "Fine. Run away! You know what that tells me? That you're guilty. You're hiding another woman! Is she waiting for you at the hotel?"

  Lena shuffled over to Caris's area of the room, and Shirley took the baby back from George. "Look. Isn't he precious? Your little brother."

  Lena managed a look and a tight-lipped smile. At least she was trying.

  "Hey Caris," Lena said. She ran her right hand over her cheek, in what Caris recognized as a nervous habit and sometimes, a stalling tactic.

  "Hello, Lena. Are you okay?"

  A quick nod, hooded gaze. "Fine. Yeah."

  Caris let the lie linger a long moment. Finally, she broke the silence but still was not ready to hear that her wife was dead. "Your eyes are brown right now."

  Lena blinked. "What?"

  "Sometimes they're brown. Green other times. But rarely both at the same time."

  Lena frowned. "My eyes are brown. Period."

  "They're hazel," Shirley put in. She held the baby in the crook of one arm and used her other hand to lift Lena's chin. "Yep. Beautiful hazel, just like your father's."

  "Grandma, they're brown."

  Shirley chuckled and summoned George for his opinion.

  How's that for a stalling tactic.

  Hard to believe sometimes that Dale and Lena were mother and daughter. While Dale was finicky and fussy about her appearance, keeping her short hair spiked and gelled and her business suits vibrant and crisp, Lena was all about jeans, T-shirts and comfort. Lena did have one skirt, dark green. She'd had the skirt for years, and as far as Caris knew, the skirt was the sole one Lena owned. It was so worn in and comfortable that Lena treated it as if it were another pair of jeans. Forget about dresses.

  Dale was flat-chested, with parallel hips, while Lena had curves and enough cleavage to fill out a dress. Lena was soft and lovely in a way that Dale, with her sharp lines, intensity and drive, was not. They were both toned, however. Both jogged and worked out, although the middle-age battle of the bulge had a thirty-pound advantage on Dale.

  Dale liked the more material aspects of life, while Lena did not care about money or status. She had gotten her bachelor's degree in art history, and a month after graduation, decided art history was not for her. She spent the next three years backpacking around Europe and "finding herself." Much to Dale's relief, Lena was back in school, working toward a master's in business administration. Lena was also working full time as a bartender. She refused financial support from Dale for graduate school.

  "Did you find your mother?" Jennifer asked.

  "Mom is…" Lena glanced toward the doorway. As if on cue, a policeman and an unfamiliar doctor appeared.

  The fight flashed before Caris's eyes again. Dale's scowling. Dale's biting voice. Dale's squint. I'm about to find out my wife is dead. Think of something good about us. Dale whisking her away on a picnic. See. We used to have good moments. A decent marriage. More nice moments poured out: skiing at Snowshoe, getting lost in Paris on their honeymoon. Where and why had their marriage gone wrong?

  Lena sank onto the bed and met Caris's eyes. That was how Caris knew for sure that something was wrong. Nothing hostile was in Lena's gaze. Just sorrow. Pity.

  We're on the same side now, her eyes said.

  Lena looked up at her grandparents. "Please give us a minute."

  "No," Shirley said, choking on the word. "I'm staying right here. What's happened with your mother?"

  "Please give us a minute, then I'll explain."

  "I am staying right here. She's my daughter!"

  "All right," Lena whispered. "Mom's been in an accident."

  "What kind of accident?" Shirley asked.

  "Car accident." Lena returned her focus to Caris. Took Caris's hands in hers. Lena's cast was sandpaper rough, but her skin was warm. Alive.

  Caris's flesh prickled. "You're touching me." Lena and Caris had known each other four years, Caris had been her stepmother for three and a half years, and Lena had rarely deigned to touch her. When Lena did, it was for a quick handshake, or in stiff acceptance of a hug. Now here Lena was, touching Caris to comfort her.

  Lena lowered her eyes, and Caris became even more conscious of Lena's hands on hers. Of Lena's heated, smooth skin. Feeling a new woman's warmth after months of being frozen out was nice.

  Got Caris's mind off her dead wife, at any rate.

  "Should I let go?" Lena asked. Her eyes were still brown, but now they had gold flecks, too. Must be the lighting.

  Pretty eyes. Beautiful, alive eyes. Please don't tell me your mother is dead.

  Lena let go.

  Caris missed her contact immediately but did not reach out. A couple of messages, both in thin green Sharpie, were scrawled on Lena's cast.

  Heal quickly! – Gino

  Plenty of fish in the sea – Mom

  Dale's message stopped Caris cold. She's alive. She's okay.

  "What?" Lena synced her gaze with Caris's. "No, no, that…oh, geez."

  Caris barked a brittle laugh.

  "Listen," Lena said earnestly, and Caris caught a whiff of minty gum. In that moment, Lena was unbearably lovely, with her pale face, dirty hair and pained brown-gold eyes. "Listen to me. Mom's alive, but..."

  Lena continued speaking, and Caris escaped to a dark place in the recesses of her mind. Words filtered through, anyway: Almond's bar...crash truck thirty-five miles per hour, surgery...might not...driver's okay…but she has to, she will because of the baby, ribs, arms, legs, brain trauma
…

  Caris realized just how many things could happen in sixty seconds. Eating a candy bar. Texting someone. Making a phone call. Going to the bathroom. Orgasm. Crashing your car. Devastating a family's life.

  *****

  Lena told her stepmother what needed to be said. She was faintly aware of her grandparents, and of Jennifer and Oliver, hovering at her side, of their sharp inhalations. No whimper from Caris, though. Just wide, unbelieving blue eyes. Thank God Caris was not crying. Her grandmother crying, okay, she could handle that. But not her mother. Not her stepmother.

  "Your arm," Caris said. "What happened?"

  "Did you hear me? Mom is—"

  "I heard you. Your arm, what happened?"

  "It's her wrist," Shirley said. "She fell." That was what Lena had mumbled to her grandparents: I fell, you know how I'm clumsy…

  "Fell where?" Caris asked.

  "My place."

  "How?"

  "Mom is—"

  "Yes, I heard. How did you fall?"

  "Tripped on a shoelace while I was running down the steps."

  "Why?"

  Lena snorted. "For the hell of it. A lark, eh?"

  Caris narrowed her eyes. "Plenty of fish in the sea. Something happen with Caroline?"

  "Mom is fighting for her life, and you're asking about Caroline?"

  Caris's chin trembled. Maybe tears coming now. "I heard. Maybe I don't want to think about it."

  You're a shit, Lena. She rose from the bed and waved the policeman and her mother's surgeon in. She let her grandmother hold Caris and imagined she had told the truth: Well, Caroline and I were at my place. She was drunk out of her mind. She accused me of being in love with you. I denied it, walked out of the apartment to the staircase, Caroline tried to block me from leaving, we struggled, and I ended up kerplunking down the steps.