“I’d appreciate the help,” he told his friend. “I was going to get around to asking. I just wanted to give you time to realize I wasn’t completely insane, first.”
“Oh, Rick, we haven’t ever thought that. You’re the most together guy I’ve ever met,” she said. “You’re hurting, that’s all. And it’s our job to have your back while you do.”
It was after eight o’clock. His mother’s time was up. Rick drove home with mixed emotions. He missed Sue. But he was far richer than he’d dared to remember. He might not have a family living in his home yet, but he had a great job and true friends.
All in all, Rick was a very lucky man.
SUE FINISHED THE WORK due to Joe’s office in the morning. Put in a call to arrange courier pickup at eight. She checked on Carrie for the third time. Finished the laundry. There were fresh sheets on the three vacant cribs.
She called her parents, who were home. And Belle, who wasn’t. She read old birthday cards from Grandma Sarah. And tried to look at pictures of her, but couldn’t.
She carried her phone into the kitchen to pour a glass of tea, with Rick’s number in her head. She was not going to call him. He’d be there in less than twenty-four hours. As a potential adoptive parent.
W
hich was as it had to be.
As she wanted it to be.
Too restless to settle in front of the TV, too wired to go to bed, unable to concentrate on the book she’d started six months ago, she ended up in her bathroom, filling the tub with the relaxation crystals Belle had bought her last Christmas, and got undressed.
She thought about Rick, and the last time she’d had a long soak in the tub. Her phone was on the counter, but she was not going to call him.
But if he called—because he probably needed to know how his mother’s visit had transpired that night—she’d answer. She’d talk to him.
Be nice to him.
Maybe even apologize for being too outspoken the day before.
He might be willing to be friends with her even though she couldn’t help him with Carrie. He’d been willing before.
The thought comforted her. They’d had something special. He’d call.
He didn’t call.
Sue went to bed with a depression that seared her to the bone.
RICK HEARD AN unfamiliar cry when he approached Sue’s place Wednesday afternoon. Someone was hurt. Someone little.
He knocked and then tried the door. It was locked, but Sue was there, crying baby at her shoulder, unlocking it.
“Sorry,” she said, meeting his gaze almost shyly for a brief second. “He’s not feeling well.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Sue had turned while he was asking the question, and he caught a glimpse of the baby’s face. “What happened to him?”
The vision of his daughter’s accident spun through his mind. But this child was alive. The baby was crying.
“His father.”
“His father what?” Died in the crash?
“Jake’s father didn’t like it when he told his son to be quiet and Jake didn’t do it.” Sue shuddered. Inhaled. “He decided to teach him discipline.”
The entire left side of the baby’s face was discolored. Swollen. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Yeah, they say he got lucky.” Sue kissed the unharmed side of the baby’s face, murmuring in his ear, and then said, “He’s got a couple of broken ribs. And lots of bruises, but no internal injuries. And no brain damage. Thank God.”