On Mystic Lake

Chapter 23

Nick knew that Annie was making her arrangements to return home, but she was careful around him. She hung up the phone when he came into the room.

He tried to erect a shield between them, something that would soften his fall when she left, but it was impossible. Yesterday, he and Annie had driven to Seattle to see a specialist in high-risk pregnancies. He couldn’t stay detached. He was there for her every minute, encouraging her to keep drinking water when she thought she couldn’t take another sip, holding her hand during the ultrasound. When he saw the baby—that tiny, squiggly gray line in a sea of fuzzy black, he’d had to turn quickly away and mumble something about having to go to the bathroom.

Each day, he tried not to think about what was to come, but he felt the silent, insistent march of every hour, ticking away what he wanted most in his life.

Sometimes, in the middle of the day, when a strand of sunlight slid through an open window and highlighted Annie’s cropped hair, he was stunned by her beauty; and then she’d smile at him, that soft, sad, knowing smile, and it would all come crashing back. He’d hear that ticking in his head again.

She had changed him so much, his Annie. She’d given him a family and made him believe that love was a heavy winter coat that kept you warm all year. She’d shown him that he could pull himself out of the destructive patterns of his life; he could quit drinking and take care of his daughter. She’d given him everything he’d dreamed of.

Except a future.

When they were together, they didn’t talk about the baby or the future.

Now she was standing in the living room, staring at the pictures on the fireplace mantel. Absently, she stroked her still-flat abdomen.

As he walked down the stairs, he wondered what she was thinking. The steps creaked beneath his weight, and at the sound, she looked up, giving him a tired smile. “Hey ya, Nicky,” she said.

He went to her, slipped his arms around her, and pulled her against him. She leaned her head back against his shoulder. Tentatively, he reached a hand out, let it settle on her stomach. For a single heartbeat, he allowed himself to dream that the child was his, that she was his, and this moment was the beginning instead of the end.

“What are you thinking?” he asked quietly, hating the fear that came with the simple question of lovers everywhere.

“I was thinking about your job. ” She twisted in his arms and looked up at him. “I . . . want to know that you’ll be going back to it. ”

It hurt, that quiet statement of caring. He knew what she needed from him right now, a smile, a joke, a gesture that reassured her that he would be all right without her. But he didn’t have that kind of strength; he wished he did. “I don’t know, Annie . . . ”

“I know you were a good cop, Nick. I’ve never known anyone with such a capacity for caring. ”

“It almost broke me . . . the caring. ” The words held two meanings, and he knew that she understood.

“But would you give it all up . . . the caring and the love and trying . . . would you give it up because in the end there is pain?”

He touched her face gently. “You’re not asking about my job. . . . ”

“It’s all the same, Nick. All we have is the time, the effort. The end . . . the pain . . . that’s out of our control. ”

“Is it?”

A single tear streaked down her face, and though he longed to wipe it away, he was afraid that the tiny bead of moisture would scald his flesh. He knew that this moment would stay with him forever, even after he wanted to forget. “I’ll never forget us, Annie. ”

This time he didn’t care how much it hurt; he let himself dream that the baby she carried was his.

Annie showed up at her dad’s house bright and early. For a moment after she got out of the car, she simply stood there, staring at her childhood home as if she’d never seen it before. The windows glowed with golden light, and a riot of colorful flowers hugged the latticework below the wrap-around porch. She wouldn’t be here to see the chrysanthemums bloom this year, and though she hadn’t seen them flower for many, many years, now it saddened her.

She would miss seeing her dad. It was funny; in California she had gone for long stretches of time without seeing him—sometimes as much as a whole year would slip by without a visit—and she hadn’t had the ache of longing that now sat on her chest like a stone. She felt almost like a girl again, afraid to leave home for the first time.

With a sigh, she slammed her car door shut and walked up to the house.

She hadn’t even reached the porch when Hank flung the door open. “Well, it’s about time, I haven’t seen you in days. I was—”

“It’s time, Dad. ”

“Already?”

She nodded. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning. ”

“Oh. ” He slipped through the door, closing it behind him. He sidestepped around her and sat down on the wicker love seat. Then he motioned for her to sit beside him.