“Is there any other kind?”
“You don’t even know me,” she says. Her cheeks are rosy and pink all of a sudden.
“I know you. Without question.” I use the same words she used on me a moment ago.
“I think you’ve had too much cake. The sugar has gone to your head.”
“Something has gone to my head, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the cake.” I stare at her. Hard. But I need for her to know where my attention lies.
“Is this how you hit on women?”
“I haven’t hit on any women in a really long time. Not since my wife. So I don’t really know how you’re supposed to do it.” I scratch my head.
“A haircut and a cake are not worthy of falling in love over,” she says succinctly. “They’re only worthy of a simple thank you.” She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a folded handful of fabric. It’s lumpy and wrinkled. “Sorry I didn’t wrap it,” she says.
I unfold it and laugh when I see the slogan on the front. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
I reach back and grab the back of the shirt I’m wearing, and I pull it off over my head. Her eyes fall to my naked chest and she licks her lips.
“So all I have to do to get you to take your shirt off is give you a new one?” She gives me a thumbs-up. “You can expect a new one every damn day.” She grins at me.
I pull the new shirt over my head and let it fall down around my waist. I look down. “I look hot, right?”
“Sorry,” she says. She shakes her head like she’s coming out of a trance. “I was still looking at you without a shirt in my mind.” She laughs, which makes me laugh too. She jerks her thumb toward her cabin. “I had better get back.”
“Thank you for the cake,” I say. I hand her the empty cake plate and she accepts it with a nod.
“It was worth it just to see Mitchell enjoy it as much as he did.”
“He’s really something, isn’t he?” I ask quietly, still in awe of the fact that I made something as perfect as him.
She leans close to me and presses her lips to my cheek, lingering long enough that I can smell the lemon scent that always follows her around. “You’re really something too,” she says, and then she turns on her heel and leaves me sitting there, watching her as she walks away.
I look down at Wilbur. “Well, that was a shit-show.”
He quacks back at me and settles down to nap on my foot.
“That was my kid, Wilbur,” I explain softly. “He’s mine.”
Wilbur says nothing. And that’s okay, because there are no words that can ease any of the worries I have going on in the back of my mind. I’m going to have to step up and just take the leap, and then deal with the fallout—and there will be fallout—later.
I crawl into the tent, and as I lie there beside a battery-powered lantern, I open the card my mother gave me. Inside is a coupon book for babysitting, with twelve coupons for free babysitting inside. There’s a sticky note on the front that reads: For when he comes to live with you permanently. The last coupon in the book says Renewable for twelve more, at your request.
Tears brimming in my eyes, I look at Wilbur, who of course has followed me into the tent. “My mom plays hardball, Wilbur,” I say. But I’m so glad she came by tonight. I want my son. I want him with every breath in my body. I just need to
make it happen.
11
Abigail
The rain doesn’t start until around two in the morning. I get a weather alert on my phone and wake up to check it. The weather app says the rain will last about a half hour and it will be light. Immediately after I get the alert, my phone rings.
“Gran?” I say as I sit up on the edge of the bed.
“It feels like rain,” she says.
“Yeah, I just got an alert. It’s just supposed to be a sprinkle.”