One More for Christmas(32)

“That’s not—I don’t think—” she gulped “—you can’t come, Mom.”

“If it’s the money that’s worrying you, I’ll pay. I’ll pay for both of you.”

“It’s not the money. It’s—”

“Hello? Can I come in?” A deep male voice interrupted them, and Samantha and Ella spun round together to see a familiar figure standing in the doorway.

Samantha managed not to groan aloud. Was it possible for today to get any worse?

Ella gave a whimper. “Michael?”

He gave a lopsided smile. “Instead of calling again, I thought I’d come in person.”

“Why?” Ella’s voice was a squeak.

“You said you missed me. I wanted to be here to support you. I’m your husband, and that’s what husbands do.”

There was a tense silence.

Michael was the only one smiling.

“Husband?” Gayle’s voice sounded thin and stretched. “You have a husband? You’re married?”

“I—yes—” Ella looked so traumatized Samantha forgot that a moment before she’d wanted to kill her and took a step forward.

“Five years is a long time, Mom. Things have happened—”

Gayle wasn’t listening. She was staring at her younger daughter with laser focus.

“Married. When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Your mother doesn’t know?” Michael, smile gone, glanced from Gayle to Ella.

Ella looked in desperation at Samantha.

This, she thought, was why people shouldn’t keep secrets.

Before anyone could find a way to extract themselves from what was possibly the most awkward situation they’d ever encountered, a small figure pushed its way around Michael’s legs.

Holding tightly to her father’s hand, Tab surveyed the room, caught sight of her aunt and then Ella and a broad smile spread across her face.

Before Michael could stop her, she sprinted across to her mother, coat flapping, hair flying, giving Ella no choice but to swing her up in her arms.

“Hi there, bunny.” Ella buried her face in her daughter’s coat, presumably to take respite from a sea of stunned expressions.

“Ow, you’re squeezing me. We missed you! I made your friend a card!” Tab thrust a creased card at Ella, showering the hospital floor with glitter. From the safety of her mother’s embrace, she studied the woman in the bed. “I made you a card.”

“Yes.” Gayle sounded faint. “I see that.”

Tab looked concerned. “Do you hurt? People usually stay in the hospital when they hurt.”

Gayle floundered. “Yes,” she said finally. “I do hurt. A little.”

Tab turned to Ella, confident that she could fix this. “Mommy, kiss it better.”

Samantha could have sworn Gayle made a gulping sound.

“Mommy? Mommy?”

“This is my mommy, and that is my daddy.” Helpfully Tab gestured toward Michael, who hadn’t moved from the doorway. He appeared to have turned to stone. Unimpressed by the lack of engagement from the adults around her, Tab turned back to Gayle. “My name is Tabitha Melody Gray, and I’m four and three-quarters. And I don’t know your name or who you are.”

There was a taut, agonizing silence and then Gayle finally spoke.

“My name is Gayle. And I think,” she said faintly, “that I must be your grandmother.”



Ella


“All this time we’ve been together, and your mother didn’t
know?” Michael spoke in an undertone, but that didn’t conceal the steely note in his voice.

“Why did you say Scotland?” Samantha was pacing like a predator caged in a zoo.

“Mommy—” Tab tugged at her coat “—can I have this dollhouse for Christmas?”

They’d escaped from the cold into a toy store on Fifth Avenue, and Ella was fighting a temptation to crawl into the oversize dollhouse along with her daughter and never emerge. But there was no hiding from this. She needed to apologize to her sister and have the conversation with Michael. The conversation that was five years overdue.

But she didn’t need her daughter to hear any of it.

Maternal responsibility took over.

She gave Tab a bright smile. The ability to produce a smile when life was collapsing seemed to have been born along with the baby. “Is there a kitchen inside that house? Go and see if there’s a kitchen.”

Tab didn’t budge. “I don’t want a kitchen I want a library.”

“Then go and see if there’s a library.”

“I want you to come, too.”

“I’ll be there just as soon as I’ve talked to Daddy and Aunty Sam.”

“I want to talk to them, too.”

“But we’re talking about Christmas.” Ella gave her daughter a conspiratorial look and ushered her over to the dollhouse where Tab was immediately distracted by the delights of the miniature home.

Satisfied that her daughter’s attention was elsewhere, Ella turned back to her husband.

Michael was looking at her with confusion. “She didn’t even know you were married?”

Ella rubbed a hand over her churning stomach. “The wedding was our day. Our special day. If she’d come, she would have ruined it, the way she has always ruined and diminished every choice I’ve made that wasn’t hers.”