“Sure. Yeah, of course.”
“She might be interested in how this came to happen,” Noah said. “How she came to land in your family. Can one of you describe that to me?”
They were both quiet for a moment. Then Paul said, “Terri wanted me to be the father of her child from the first minute she realized she was pregnant. Well, maybe not the first minute, because we hadn’t talked in months. She went to Hannah’s biological father first and he told her she’d have to sue him to get any kind of support. But then I happened to call her, spent the evening with her and she made up her mind—she was going to try to convince me I was the father. She wanted to get married. In the end, when she admitted she’d lied about the whole thing, she said she did it because she thought I’d be a good father. She said she thought I was a good man.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how she figured that—I wasn’t good to her. I told her I was in love with Vanni, that I couldn’t marry her because I’d always be in love with Vanni.”
“And when the lawyer told you Terri had named you as Hannah’s guardian? How did you respond?”
“I said I couldn’t do it—that Vanni and I were just starting our lives together. We wanted to have a baby together—now that’s on hold.”
“You’ve made a decision then?” Noah asked. “You’ll keep her? Adopt her?”
“Not until we get more comfortable with the idea. But even though Vanni doesn’t really want another child now, she doesn’t want to let Hannah go.”
“Is that right, Vanni?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. Her voice took on some emotion. “Look at them together,” she said, glancing at the kids in the playpen. “They’re perfect together. And Paul adores her. But I’m scared to death—when I hold her, it’s as if I’m holding someone else’s baby, a stranger’s baby. What if I never bond with her? What if I never think of her as my daughter? What if I’m always a little angry that her mother, Paul’s old girlfriend, just gave her to Paul without checking with me first?”
“Paul, you obviously changed your mind,” Noah said. “You told the lawyer no, but then you brought her home. What changed your mind?”
“I don’t know,” he said sincerely. “Honest to God, I don’t know. Before I saw her, I knew it was a bad idea, that it would complicate our marriage, our family, and my wife and little Matt are everything to me. Then here comes this little, chubby, rosy-cheeked kid who has no idea her mother’s dead, has no idea she’s being given to a family she doesn’t know. A family that doesn’t want her, that considers her a total inconvenience. And she looked at me and smiled so big I thought her face was gonna crack. It just shot me in the heart. I thought I was gonna die on the spot. I just couldn’t…let…any more bad stuff happen to her.” He inhaled for control. “On the way home, for hours in the truck, she was so good, so sweet and quiet. I stopped to give her a change and she grabbed me around the neck and gave me sloppy kisses. Before I knew it, I was crying like a girl. She didn’t even know all she’d been through. She had no idea how precarious her future was.”
“See how good he is?” Vanni said. “Oh, Noah, that’s why I fell in love with Paul—because he’s that kind of man. What’s the matter with me?”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Vanni. It’s a shock, it’s an intrusion. And not a baby abandoned on your doorstep, but the child of a woman your husband had a relationship with. Add to that, Paul took one look at her and was hooked. Your adjustment is more difficult. You have to cope with the bite of jealousy, which is a burden you shouldn’t be embarrassed about. I think it’s pretty natural.”
Paul scooted forward anxiously. “But I’ve told Vanni over and over, there was no reason to be jealous of Terri. Even if Matt hadn’t been killed in Iraq, even if Vanni and I never got together, even if Hannah had been my daughter, I don’t think I would’ve ended up with Terri. She was a good person, had lots of nice qualities, but I just wasn’t in love with her. I’d have taken care of them, but I knew the way I felt wasn’t enough to make a good marriage. And Noah, it probably wasn’t right for me to be seeing her, knowing that, but I never led her on, I swear.”
“Easy, easy,” Noah said. “Vanni’s not jealous of Terri. She’s jealous of Hannah.”
You could have heard a pin drop. The silence stretched out.
“That can’t be,” Vanni finally said. “That’s impossible! Jealous of a defenseless baby? I’ll go to hell for that.”
“No,” Noah said, smiling, shaking his head. “Not in a million years.”
“But that’s irrational! I’m not mean enough to be jealous of an innocent child! A child who needs me!”
“A lot of emotions are irrational, but that’s not really the case here, if you think about it. You wanted to have a child with your husband. You planned, waited until your son was a good age to space the children so you could manage, and you were looking forward to it. Paul told me—you love children, want a bunch of them. And before you even had your chance, the little babe of an ex-girlfriend needs Paul, and Paul was immediately hooked. Your husband fell in love with another woman’s child.
“The thing is, this could have worked out differently. For example, if you’d been present for the reading of the will, it might’ve been you who was pulled in by her rosy cheeks and pretty smile. Her need for a loving family. But the way it went down…”
“I told him—he should have called me from Oregon. Rather than just bringing her home like he did,” she said.
Noah was shaking his head again. “That might have been even harder, because Paul couldn’t stop himself. He had to try. And if you’d told him no, don’t accept that baby, then he would have defied you. No, I think this worked out the way it was supposed to.”
“But now what am I to do?” she said, tears leaking out of her eyes. “How can I ever bond with her if I resent her? If I’m jealous of her?”
Noah smiled patiently. “It’s not going to be this way forever, Vanni,” he said gently. “Your feelings aren’t shameful or sinful, but predictable. They’re human. You’ll need a lot of reassurance from your husband, and we’ll work on the issues—anger, jealousy, remorse, guilt. Paul will learn to let himself off the hook for bringing this challenge to the family, and you will learn to forgive yourself for responding in a completely understandable way. It’s going to be all right. We’re going to walk through this, nice and easy, and reach a conclusion that works for your marriage, your family and for Hannah. You have a wonderful, deep, committed love for each other. In the end, this is going to be all right.”
After an hour with Vanni and Paul, Noah called Gloria and pushed his coffee date at Valley Hospital off to the next day. He called her and said he’d had a rough afternoon. Instead, he went to the nursing home in Eureka to watch Andy Griffith with Sal Salentino. An hour with Sal was like sandpaper on his emotions, smoothing down the bumps. He bought six large cans of soup at the grocery store and drove out to the transients’ camp on his way home. Those old boys were starting to like him, he could tell by the way they drew near when he showed up.
He thought he’d done a decent job of reassuring Vanessa and Paul that things would work out for them, but it left him tired and feeling sorry for himself. Vanessa and Paul grappled with adjustments to a new marriage and growing family, but at the core they had health, love and passion.
Noah missed passion.
The next day Noah met the nurse, Gloria, during her dinner break at the hospital. She was a nice lady, but then he had expected nothing less. She was short and cute, kind of round but pleasantly so, around thirty years old. She had a heart-shaped face, lots of yellow curls that she had pulled back into a tie to keep out of her face and her work, big luminous blue eyes, rosy cheeks and full lips. Of course she was wearing scrubs to work in, but he imagined she looked quite pretty in her regular clothes. And she was very excited to meet with Noah.
They had a pleasant conversation in which it was established that she was completely available and he admitted to being widowed. Within thirty minutes she was offering to cook him dinner. And he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Gloria. I didn’t mean to mislead you—I’m seeing someone.”
He had absolutely no idea why he’d said that and was enormously grateful she didn’t respond with, “Who?” It was just that he knew, almost instantly, that he didn’t want to have dinner with her, didn’t want to date her, didn’t feel that lustful tug that accompanied attraction.
People probably assumed that a man of the cloth didn’t experience all the usual emotions. Maybe just the tidy and manageable ones. Noah was eternally grateful such was not the case, especially when it came to things like desire for a woman. He was so glad it didn’t feel like a warm bath to want a woman, but rather like a firestorm. For Noah, when it was the right woman, it was not quiet yearning, but a desperate and hot wanting that threatened his control. That was definitely the best part, that it was bigger than him, that it had a life of its own, that it was more like a fire-breathing dragon than an angel of comfort. When that feeling came over him, it was so good it was scary.
He did not have that feeling for a nurse named Gloria.
Nine
After meeting with Gloria, Noah was heading back into town when he drove by the Fitches’ house. He pulled up in front, parked, got out and went up the garage stairs to the apartment Ellie rented. He knocked on the door and momentarily he heard, “Who is it?”
“Noah,” he answered.
She opened the door wearing loose shorts, a big T-shirt, bare feet, and was towel drying her hair. “Hi,” she said. “Is something wrong?”
“No. I was just wondering…You’re having the kids on Saturday, right?”
“If nothing goes haywire. Why?”
“What will you do with them?”
She shrugged. “A park, maybe. I thought about packing up some PB&J, chips, sodas, and heading to a playground for the day. Or Jo would love us to spend the day here, with her, but I don’t want to take advantage. We’ll play it by ear.”
“How about a kid movie?” he asked. “Could I tag along? If I treat and promise not to get in the way too much?”
She tilted her head and frowned as she looked at him. “What’s the matter, Noah? You look like something’s wrong.”
“No, no, nothing’s wrong. I’m just kind of looking for something to do, and I like your kids. They’re nice.”
She made a face of disbelief. “Something’s wrong. Why don’t we just cut to the chase here and you tell me. That’ll save badgering time.”
“I had dinner with that nurse,” he admitted. “At the hospital. Not a date. I meant it to be coffee, but it was her dinner break.”
“Oh. And she’s after you.”
“Yup. Sort of,” he said. “She’d like to make me dinner. It wasn’t easy to stop her. She was almost quicker than me, and I thought I was ready for her.”
Ellie laughed. “Come in—I have popcorn. You can tell me all about it.”
“I shouldn’t. I’m imposing.”
“Yeah, you are, but you’re also in the clutches of a horny nurse and I want to hear about it. Come on.”
“Horny is stretching it,” he told her, entering.
“Uh-huh, and let me guess,” Ellie said as she closed the door behind Noah. She hung her towel over the sink. “She’s kind of pretty, aggressive, works the conversation around to the next time you’ll be together and has a totally futuristic tone. It goes something like, ‘And when would you like to do that?’”