Proud Papa stood. "Yeah, that's me."

"Your wife said to tell you that she needs you p.r.o.nto." Then she smiled. "Those were her words, not mine. And, she suggested this is where I might find you."

Steven couldn't help but snicker as the man quickly followed behind the nurse like a private behind a drill sergeant. He then looked at the prospective grandparents. The woman returned to her needlework. The man, who had been reading a year-old Reader's Digest he'd plucked off the scarred coffee table in front of him, winked at Steven.

Man code, Steven thought.

And he was a man now. No longer just a kid frolicking without a care in the world in Cedar Key. No longer just a college student trying to keep his grades above failing. Now, he was a husband and he was about to become a father.

The mouth chewing started again.

"Your first?" the man asked him.

Steven moved away from the window and to the chair previously occupied by Mrs. d.i.c.kerson's husband. "Yes, sir," he said, sitting. He ran his palms down the length of his jeans, hoping to remove some of the sweat pooling there.

"Boy or girl?"

"We don't know," Steven admitted. "Brigitte-my wife-and I are among the remaining few who really don't want to know until it's born."

The woman stopped in her needlework and said, "My husband and I are awaiting our first grandchild, so I suppose we're in the same boat as you. The forever 'wait and see' for the family members. Except that we know we're having a boy." The woman grinned.

"Our son's son," the man said, smiling just as broadly. "Our daughter-in-law didn't want to be surprised, and that settled that." He sighed. "I guess it makes some sense to find out beforehand."

"The nursery is all set up for a boy," the woman said. "We've had several baby showers, and, of course, all the gifts were for a boy."

Steven nodded. He and Brigitte had sc.r.a.ped up enough money to buy a secondhand crib. One evening while she read to him from a "what to expect during delivery" book, he'd put it together and then pushed it into one corner of their already cramped bedroom. Some of Brigitte's friends had put together a shower for her. About ten or twelve giggling near-adult women gathered in their joke of a living room, playing diaper pin games and asking way too many personal questions . . . all of which he could hear behind the closed bedroom door.

They had brought some pretty good gifts, though. Mostly disposable diapers and bottles and the kinds of things babies need and he couldn't afford. Not on the meager salary he earned in the kitchen at Pizza Hut.

Life sure had changed for Steven Granger . . .

"Do you mind if I ask you a question, son?"

Steven looked up, unaware that his mind had drifted off until that moment. "Yes, sir?"

"My wife and I had our first child when I was twenty-eight and she was twenty-one. You don't look like you could be a day over seventeen."

It wasn't really a question and it wasn't really a statement either. But Steven understood it. He nodded. "I'm nineteen, sir. And yes, I'm too young to be a father. If you want a second opinion on that, you can just ask mine." It wasn't said to be harsh; it was just the reality of the thing.

The wife placed her needlework in her lap. "Now you listen here. Many a nineteen-year-old boy has become a father in the course of the world's history and no doubt did a fine job of raising their children. Why, there was a time when most young people were parents multiple times over by the time they hit their twenties."

The man chuckled. "But honey . . . they were dead before they hit fifty."

Steven couldn't help but laugh with him.

The woman poked her husband in the side with an index finger, and he jumped before she asked, "So is there a reason why you aren't with your wife right now? Most young people today-both the husband and the wife are in the delivery room together."

Steven shook his head. "My wife's . . . um . . . there's some complications. They're taking the baby by caesarean."

"That's too bad," she said. "She'll have a longer recovery, you know. The next couple of weeks, you'll be nursemaid both to her and to your baby."

He hadn't thought of that. He brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles, wondering how he was going to manage that, work, and school. At least the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were coming up and he'd have a break in his cla.s.s schedule.

But there was also another complication, one he didn't bother to mention to the kind couple across the room. Brigitte was only eight months along in her pregnancy. Before they had scurried off to surgery with her, the doctor said not to worry. Still . . .

"Yes, ma'am," he said finally.

They smiled at each other then. The woman returned to her needlework and the husband to his magazine. Steven stood, walked over to the window again, and peered out. He wished, oh, how he wished, that his mother were here. He wasn't sure about his father-they'd hardly said two kind words to each other since he and Brigitte had married six months earlier. Since he'd told them what they'd done in the cold confines of a judge's office. He now winced at the memory. Even the news that they were going to be grandparents hadn't softened it. His dad was angry. Perhaps rightfully so. Like he'd said, he hadn't worked his fingers to the bone carting people all over the island for the last twenty years so that Steven could waste his college education on some two-bit- "Mr. Granger?"

Steven's head jerked toward the door, his breath caught in his chest. "I'm Steven Granger," he said to the same nurse who had come to get Mr. d.i.c.kerson.

"Come with me," she said. "Dr. Lang would like to see you."

For a moment Steven felt dizzy. Something was wrong-he knew it. Instinctively, he knew it. He blinked, unable to move.

"Mr. Granger, are you all right?"

He blinked some more. "Yes," he said, his voice no more than a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

He moved toward the door on legs made of quicksand. A quick glance over to the couple on the sofa-he'd not even asked their names-and what he knew was a weak smile. He scolded himself. He needed to be a man now. Not a little boy wishing he had his mommy nearby. A man.

"Good luck, son," the man called out to him.

Steven could only nod in response.

Then, as the door closed behind him, he heard the woman say to her husband, "That young man needs our prayers, Jack."

"Then let's pray," her husband answered.

Three weeks later and Steven had never known this kind of fatigue before in his life. Even summers working the tour boat with his father with the sun beating down on his body, draining it of every last drop of water, weren't this strenuous.

Dr. Lang had met with him in the hallway near the nurse's station immediately following the caesarean. He brought more than just the good news that he was now a father. His daughter, the doctor informed him, needed to stay in the neonatal wing for a while. "She weighed in at just a little under five pounds, which isn't the worst it could be, but still under where we'd like. And her lungs are weak," he said. "I don't expect you to remember all the details so I'll just keep it at that." The doctor peered over his gla.s.ses at Steven. "I can see the worry on your face, Mr. Granger. Don't worry. She'll get round-the-clock care from our specially trained medical staff." He gave Steven a weak smile as his brows peaked in the middle. "We'll take good care of her, I promise."

Steven squared his shoulders and stretched his back, hoping to look older than the bare nineteen years he'd lived. "But she'll be okay. I mean, she'll make it." He spoke the words as though it were and not as though it may not be.

"I don't foresee any further complications," Dr. Lang answered. "But I'm not G.o.d either, Mr. Granger."

Steven understood. Clearly understood.

Dr. Lang tilted his head then. "Would you like to know how your wife is doing?"

Steven was startled by the question, knowing he should have asked that already. "Um . . . yes, sir. Of course."

"She's in recovery right now. And she's going to hurt like the d.i.c.kens when the anesthesia wears off. But she's young and healthy, so she should do just fine. Before she leaves the hospital we'll have some paperwork for you."

"To sign?"

"No, Mr. Granger. To read. It will tell you everything you need to do for her." He cleared his throat. "And not do."

Even at nineteen, Steven understood.

Brigitte came home after a week. They were given a list of things to do and not to do. She wasn't to drive for the next couple of weeks. She could shower but not take a bath. Even then, she had to be extra careful washing around the incision. Afterward she was to pat dry, then rub Neosporin over the wound. She was to take Tylenol for pain unless it became too great; then she was to take the medication prescribed by the doctor.

Brigitte never took the Tylenol, instead opting for the narcotics. The one time Steven made a comment about not wanting her to become addicted to something she'd soon run out of, she yelled at him. Steven didn't understand what she was going through, she whined. If he ever had a scalpel cut him like a pig across his stomach, then he could say something.

Steven said nothing else about it after that.

Eliza stayed in the hospital five days longer than her mother. Every day, Steven was there to hold her and feed her. Not once did Brigitte go with him, even though the doctor had said she would be fine to do so. When Steven asked if she wanted to go, she shook her head, then turned her attention back to whatever she was watching on television.

For Steven, it was just as well.

On the third day of visiting his daughter alone, he was surprised to find his mother waiting for him at the entrance to the neonatal unit. She wrapped him in her thick arms, and in spite of his resolve to be ever the mature father, he cried. When he was done, he introduced his daughter to her grandmother.

Their bond was both instantaneous and unbreakable.

On the day he brought Eliza to the tiny apartment her mother and he called home, he found Brigitte lying on the sofa, watching her daily dose of The Young and the Restless. "We're home," he said in a near whisper.

"So I see," she replied, then stretched out her arms and cooed, "Bring her to me."

For a moment, Steven felt elated. Maybe, he thought, just maybe they would make it as a family. Maybe they'd one day find themselves out of this place and in a starter home. And years later, with a few more kids in tow, they'd build their dream house. Steven would be a successful businessman and Brigitte could stay at home . . . or continue working at the Estee Lauder counter at Dillard's.

And it wouldn't matter how old she got, either. For sure she would still be pretty enough. If there was one thing Steven couldn't deny, it was that his wife was and would always be incredible to look at. She exuded a beauty that-from the moment he met her-taunted him, drew him, and then sucked him in. Wrapped him in creamy skin, pouty lips, fire-green eyes, and long blonde hair that forever looked as though she'd just gotten out of bed. Not once had the sight of her not turned him on. Even at that moment, dressed only in one of his T-shirts and a pair of dingy white socks and without a st.i.tch of makeup and her hair hastily scooped into a ponytail, she looked good to him.

Too good.

Thanksgiving was a non-holiday that year. He'd hardly known it came and went. But Christmas was another issue. Brigitte's family-who hailed from Maine-wanted them to come up and spend the holiday with them. Brigitte wanted to; Steven could see it in her eyes. But they couldn't afford the trip. He reminded her of their dire circ.u.mstances over a dinner consisting of bowls of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Brigitte nodded. She held her spoon vertically between her thumb and index finger. Every so often she touched the tip of it to the soup and watched the orange-red wake reach from the center to the sides. "What if they said they'd pay?" she finally asked.

"Will they pay for my days off from Pizza Hut? I've already arranged to get extra shifts, what with most of the guys who work there going away for winter break."

She made a pouty face. "I know. I was just hoping . . . I haven't seen them since before you and I started dating."

"Have you thought about asking them to come here? I mean, not here to the apartment but here to Tallaha.s.see? To a hotel?"

Brigitte shook her head. At that moment she looked like a china doll that some little girl had played with too hard. Forlorn. Forgotten. "No," she said finally. "They won't hear of anything outside of a white Christmas."

"Even to meet their granddaughter?"

Her eyes met his. "Let's not talk about it anymore," she said.

In the end, they'd spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Cedar Key with Steven's parents. His father-who up until then had pretty much avoided them-had been swept away by Eliza's loveliness from the moment Steven brought her into the house. At nearly two months of age, she wrapped the leathery seadog around her curled pinky. He even managed to soften in his att.i.tude toward his son and daughter-in-law.

Christmas evening, Steven drove his young family up Highway 24 toward the mainland. He had to work both shifts the next day, and he was tired just thinking about it. He took a sip of the coffee his mother had prepared for him, then glanced over to the truck's pa.s.senger seat, where Brigitte stared out her window at the pa.s.sing tropical scene. Between them, their infant daughter slept soundly. Tiny milky bubbles from her last feeding formed on her lips.

He sighed in contentment. It had been a good day.

But when he pa.s.sed the road leading to the Claybourne house, his eyes cut ever so slightly to where, he imagined, Kimberly was celebrating the holiday with her family.

And he wondered if she knew . . .

18.

I took a shower after Steven left then went ahead and dressed for the evening, choosing a long spaghetti-strap dress of teal and espresso. I decided to wear my hair down but slipped a dark brown scrunchie around my wrist just in case. After stepping into a pair of dressy Bare Traps sandals and deeming myself presentable, I practically skipped to Patsy's.

She answered the door, coughing.

"Patsy? Are you all right?"

She waved a hand at me. "Nasty summer cold, is all." She paused and squinted. "What's got into you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come on in," she said as she stepped back. "No need in letting the mosquitoes in."

I followed Patsy into the kitchen, where Lipton tea bags simmered on the front burner of the stove. I took a seat and watched as she added sugar, then clamped a lid on top and flipped the switch to "off."

"Sit," she said. "I've got some tea already in the fridge. Want some?"

I shook my head. "I'm fine."

She poured two gla.s.ses anyway, then walked them over to the table, where I had taken my usual place. "So, what's going on with you? And don't bother saying nothing. I saw that young man over there a little while ago. And now here you sit at my table looking all spiffy."

I sighed and smiled as I took a sip of the iced tea. It slipped down my throat like a perfect summer's night, cool and delicious. "I don't know, Patsy. I thought I didn't want to see him again . . . that the past had somehow settled things between us. But maybe he's right. Maybe we were just kids back then."

"You've lost me," she said. "Maybe you'd best fill me in?"

And so I did. I told her everything about the summer romance I thought would carry me through my whole life. I choked back tears when I got to the part about his getting married and how I'd gloated over his divorce. I told her how I'd felt like an utter failure when Charlie left and that I still didn't know why our marriage had ended. When there was nothing left to say, she blinked at me before commenting. "That's quite a story."

"And now Steven wants to show me something," I said. "But I have no idea what."

"Well you just be careful of a man who says he wants to show you something," she said, her eyes twinkling.

"Oh, Patsy." I laughed.

"So is that why you came over?"

I shook my head. "No. I need to borrow your computer."

"You ready to set up Facebook?"

"No . . . well, yes. Actually, I am. But right now I need to do a background check on someone."