The Next Little Thing: A Jackson Falls Mini Read online

  "Don't worry about it. Billy and Alison aren't in any hurry to move in. We can take our time."

  "Easy for you to say. You haven't been living out of boxes for the past week."

  "No. I've been living out of a backpack. That trumps boxes any day of the week. Don't worry. It'll all fall into place. You just need to focus on getting rested." He shot her a wink. "And eat your Wheaties every day, so you'll be ready to hoist heavy furniture over your head."

  * * *

  Without Casey here, the house seemed lifeless, suffocating. Paige had long since gone to bed, after spending more than an hour on the phone, rallying the troops for the big move. With her blunt, in-your-face assertiveness, Paige was nearly impossible to say no to. It probably hadn't hurt her mission that she'd enlisted her Aunt Trish as second-in-command. He had no idea how many people she had lined up for tomorrow, but he could pretty much guarantee it would be more than enough to get the job done.

  So here he was, he who'd been up for nearly twenty-four hours, left to wander the house alone with his thoughts. He would have loved to settle down and get some sleep, but it felt unnatural without his wife, and he couldn't seem to quiet the voices in his head. Instead, he took a Corona from the fridge, grabbed his Gibson acoustic, threw on his bomber jacket, and went out to the porch swing.

  He loved the feel of the old wooden swing, loved the creak it made as he swayed gently. Propping his ankles on the porch railing, he twisted open the beer and took a long, slow swallow. Set it on the floor and began fiddling with the guitar.

  This was how he always worked through his problems. Music was his religion, and it had gotten him through more than one crisis of faith. He pictured Emma's face, those eyes gazing into his with absolute trust. How was it possible that somebody so tiny could have rendered him utterly helpless with just a glance? How was it possible that holding her, looking into those wide, innocent eyes, made him feel like he'd been cut off at the knees?

  The first instant he held her in his arms, he'd recognized his inadequacies as a father, had clearly seen all his shortcomings and realized he couldn't possibly give her what she needed. How could he be responsible for the life and well-being of this tiny scrap of humanity when he couldn't even be responsible for himself? He'd never been Mister Responsibility. He was a musician, an artist, a creative soul. Translated, that meant he was disorganized, impetuous, a dreamer, and far too loosey-goosey for his own good. How could he hope to be a father to that helpless little baby until he cleaned up his act, pulled his head out of his ass, and became the sober, responsible dad that Emma deserved?

  The question gnawed at him, but the answer was elusive. Was he even capable of change? He'd always flown by the seat of his pants, with varying results. Suddenly the enormity of what he and Casey had done loomed over him, massive as the Hindenburg. If he couldn't change, if he couldn't become the father that Emma needed, would that dark and ominous dirigible crash and burn directly on top of him?

  He swallowed back the panic squeezing his insides and focused on his guitar. Here, he could be his authentic self. Here, he could pour out all the chaotic crap that had shredded his guts like raw hamburger, could try to forge that chaos into something comprehensible.

  It took him a half-hour of working long, lean fingers over the fret board, a half-hour of dredging and sweating and bleeding, to get what he wanted. When he was done, he had the unvarnished beginnings of a new piece of music. A Song for Emma, that's what he would call it.

  Exhausted, still needy and raw, he sat in the darkness, listening to the spring peepers, and finished his beer. He took the empty bottle and the Gibson into the house, left the bottle in the sink and carried the guitar upstairs and lay it on the bed.

  Back downstairs, he wrote a quick note to Paige, stuck it on the fridge, grabbed his car keys from the hook on the wall, and locked the house behind him.

  * * *

  At this time of night, he had to use the Emergency entrance because after 11 p.m., the front entry was locked. He wound his way to the elevator and took it to the second floor. Here on the maternity ward, the lights were dimmed, the corridors silent. A lone R.N. sitting at the nurse's station glanced up from her paperwork in surprise. "Hey," he said, and kept moving.

  At the nursery window, he paused. There were only two babies, but even if there'd been a dozen, he could have picked out Emma without hesitation. She was asleep, tiny fists curled, her lips pursed and moving every so often, as though she were suckling in her sleep. He lay his hands against the glass and drank her in, her essence filling him, melting and spreading through his veins like warm honey.

  When he'd drunk his fill, he made his way to Casey's room. He silently pulled up a chair next to the bed and, elbows propped on the edge of the mattress, he watched her sleep.

  She must have sensed his presence. Her eyes opened, solemn and unsurprised, and gazed into his, mere inches away. She reached out, brushed her knuckles across his cheek, slid her hand around to the back of his neck, and drew his mouth to hers in a kiss so sweet, so gentle, it left him shuddering.

  "It's the middle of the night," she whispered, fingers playing in his hair. "And you've been up since yesterday. Why aren't you home, sleeping?"

  "I couldn't. I didn't want to be there. I couldn't be there without you."

  She rubbed the tip of her nose against his cheek. Said, "My poor baby. Climb into bed with me. There's plenty of room for two."

  "I'll get tossed out on my ass."

  "I'll tell them you're a necessary component of my recuperation from the rigors of childbirth."

  He ran a fingertip along her jaw. Said, "You make everything seem so easy."

  "It is easy. Get your carcass into bed, MacKenzie. I need to hold you."

  Sometimes love was so damn complicated. And sometimes, love just was. He crossed the darkened room, silently closed the door. Kicked off his sneakers and tucked them beneath the chair, shucked off his jacket. His goddess scooted over on the bed, lifted the covers, and he crawled in beside her. He took her in his arms and buried his face in her dark cloud of hair.

  "There," she said, winding her arms around him. "Isn't this better?"

  It was. And finally, gratefully, he slept.

  Paige

  Her Aunt Trish was the first to arrive, and she came bearing gifts: two sleeves of Styrofoam cups and the biggest coffee urn Paige had ever seen. Fifteen minutes later, the house was filled with people and awash in the intoxicating smell of fresh-brewed coffee.

  Five minutes after that, her dad showed up, carrying three dozen donuts from Dunk's. His clothes were wrinkled and he needed a shave, but he looked rested. While the assembled multitude fell on the donuts like slavering beasts, Paige and Trish went over their game plan for the day. They had two trucks and sixteen people to tear down and move an entire household, then set it back up, in just a few hours. They would take turns visiting Casey and the baby at the hospital, so she wouldn't be suspicious. If she gave birth and nobody showed up to meet the new little princess, she would definitely know something was going on.

  Once everything was loaded and driven to the new house, Paige would be there with Casey's diagram in hand, ready to direct traffic to various rooms. She and Trish made a list of names and assigned a team of two people to work in each room, taking down furniture, carrying boxes, then setting it all back up, unpacking, and organizing the new place. It was a daunting undertaking, but together, they could manage it.

  They started with the furniture. While her dad and Uncle Jesse unscrewed table legs and headboards, Grampa Bradley backed his big farm truck up to the front door, and her cousin Luke and his bandmates started loading furniture onto the truck. Trish wandered off to do what she did best—give orders—and Paige started removing the food from the fridge.

  She'd nearly finished packing the contents of the freezer into two picnic coolers when she turned around, a frozen beef roast in her hands, and there he was, the one person she hadn't expected to see here. He stood casually in
the midst of all the stacked boxes from the IGA, watching her with those dark eyes of his. Of their own volition, Paige's fingers loosened, and she dropped the roast. It hit the floor with a dull thud, barely missing her foot. "Shit," she said, aggravated beyond belief. "What the hell are you doing here?"

  Mikey bent and picked up the roast. "Same thing you are. Better be careful. You keep this up, you might lose a couple of toes."

  She scowled. "We don't need your help, so you can just get out of my house now."

  "It's not your house. It's my Aunt Casey's house." He handed her the roast. "You can't throw me out."

  "Watch me." She chucked the roast into the nearest cooler and closed the lid. "Luke!" she shouted. "Come get these damn coolers and drive them over to the new house!"

  Luke didn't answer. "This is my family, too," Mikey said. "And if you want to get technical, they were mine first."

  She reached into her pocket, pulled out a coin, and heaved it at him. "Here's a quarter. Go call somebody who cares."

  "Come on, Paige. I've managed to avoid you at school, haven't I? I even let you have custody of Christmas with the family. Are you planning to hate me forever?"

  Considering how totally intermarried their families were, they'd actually done a bang-up job of avoiding each other over the past six months. "I don't hate you," she said. "I don't feel anything for you. As far as I'm concerned, you're persona non grata."

  Of course, it wasn't true. But it felt better to say it anyway. What he'd done to her was unforgivable. He'd broken her heart and walked away like it was nothing. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. As far as Mikey Lindstrom was concerned, there would be no going back.

  "Why are you so bitter?" he said.

  "Why are you so incapable of getting a clue?"

  "I'm leaving in a month, you know. Right after graduation."

  "How nice for you."

  Ignoring her gibe, he said, "You know Jeff Morrison? He's going to Stanford, too. We're driving cross-country together. We'll be bumming around until school starts in September."

  "Have a nice life. As a matter of fact, why don't you start it right now? Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

  "I'd really like to stay in touch. Can I write to you?"

  She gaped at him, wondering how he could possibly be this dense. She didn't need this shit today. Today, of all days, she needed to keep her wits together. "You can do whatever you want," she told him. "Just don't expect me to read the damn things."

  And she turned and left him standing in the kitchen, surrounded by cardboard boxes.

  Casey

  It had rained overnight, and the storm was breaking up. Heavy, mottled clouds scudded across the sky, randomly punctuated by patches of brilliant blue. They swung through Dunkin' Donuts for coffee on the way home from the hospital. Decaf for Casey, because she was breastfeeding; good old-fashioned hi-test for Rob, who’d been unnaturally subdued ever since he’d come to her in the middle of the night and crawled into her hospital bed. Something was off with him, and she couldn't put her finger on it. Rob MacKenzie ran on one of two speeds. His normal mood was laid back, sunny, easy. Almost bubbly. Until he was crossed, and then a black and fiery Irish temper would emerge to scorch everything in its path.

  But this mood was like neither of those. He'd occasionally been known to brood when something weighed heavily on his mind, but this seemed less a matter of brooding than one of distance. It was as though he'd surrounded himself with a force field that swirled with strange energies. She could see him, could tune in those odd vibrations, could almost feel them physically. But she couldn't read them at all.

  For a couple who knew each other so well they could finish each other's sentences, it was puzzling. Even more so because Rob never kept anything from her. They'd been each other's support, each other's sounding board, since the beginning of time.

  Which left her only one conclusion. Whatever was bothering him had something to do with her. She'd never, not once since the day they met, had a single doubt about Rob. Even when they fought—and some of their fights held legendary status—she’d never doubted his devotion. Rob was the real deal, a warm, affectionate man who loved too easily and too hard, and wore his heart on his sleeve.

  Was it possible that the unglamorous experience of labor, rife with every body fluid known to womankind, had changed his feelings for her? That the sight of her all sweaty and bloody and straining had somehow rendered her distasteful to him? Or that, having witnessed her giving birth, he now saw her as a maternal figure, and not as a sex object?

  If so, being Rob, he would struggle painfully with that kind of change. He would hide the truth from her, because he loved her. She didn't question that he loved her; it was a given. It was just that for a decade and a half, his love had been platonic. They'd been friends first, for years and years. Only in recent times had it ripened into something sexual. What if, with the birth of their first child, that love had reverted back to platonic?

  It was a ridiculous notion. One that, once thought, she couldn't unthink. Anxiety knotted her insides, even as she reminded herself that Rob wasn't Danny and she shouldn't paint him with that brush. But she couldn't shake it off, the trauma she'd gone through during those thirteen years she'd spent as Danny's wife. It had left a vulnerable place inside her that was far bigger and far more tender than she had realized.

  Post-traumatic stress. Danny'd had it because of the time he'd spent in Vietnam. She had it because of the time she'd spent with Danny. How else to explain the recurring nightmares that turned her late husband into some kind of fanged monster? She had always considered herself a well-adjusted person, but if you scratched that smooth surface, if you dug deep enough, you'd inevitably uncover her unique brand of neurosis.

  And right now, that neurosis was in full control.

  She clutched her coffee cup so hard her knuckles went white. She hadn't expected this kind of stress today, of all days. They were headed home from the hospital with their new baby, the baby they'd waited so long for. This was supposed to be a joyful occasion. Her stomach wasn't supposed to feel like it was spinning circles on some upside-down carnival ride.

  When Rob passed the intersection with Meadowbrook Road and continued driving, she said, "Where are we going?"

  "I need to swing by the new house for a minute." He didn't offer any further explanation, and she didn't ask for one. He reached for her hand and threaded fingers with hers. She shot him a quick glance, but he was concentrating on his driving. Maybe she was reading too much into this. Maybe she was imagining those weird vibes. Maybe it was some kind of post-partum psychosis. She was certain such a diagnosis must exist somewhere in the DSM.

  He swung onto Ridge Road, and she tamped down the negative emotions swirling inside her and tried to enjoy the scenery. At this elevation, it was spectacular. Beyond vivid spring foliage, the White Mountains stood majestic in the distance, the highest of them still capped with snow. The car rounded a curve, and their house came into view. Her gaze was immediately attracted by something attached to the mailbox at the end of the driveway, something that bobbed and dove like a live creature. She narrowed her eyes in an attempt to identify it. As they drew closer, she finally recognized the flapping object as a cluster of pink and white balloons. What the hell?

  Then she saw the cars, at least a dozen of them, lined up on one side of the newly-paved driveway and circling around the back toward the studio. Several of them had Massachusetts plates. Above the front door, hanging from the porch eaves, a hand-lettered banner said, WELCOME HOME, BABY EMMA.

  She gave him a pointed look. He clicked on his blinker and said, "Just roll with it, okay?"

  "Flash? What have you done?"

  "Nothing. I've done nothing. Except give the okay. This is all Paige's doing."

  "I don't understand. Why are we here? The house is empty."

  "Not any more, it isn't. Welcome home. We live here now."

  Her eyes widened in
disbelief. He nodded. She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Said, "How? When?"

  "Yesterday. With a little help from our friends. Otherwise known as the whole damn family."

  "And Paige organized all of this? Why?"

  "Because she worships the ground you walk on. In case you hadn't noticed."

  "But…how'd you manage to carry it off? Everybody came to visit me yesterday at the hospital."

  "Paige and Trish choreographed the whole thing. The rest of us just followed directions. We took turns going to the hospital, so you wouldn't get suspicious."

  He turned into the driveway, squeezed past the line of cars and came to a stop near the front porch. "You and Emma need some down time," he said, turning off the car, "which is why everybody has strict orders. Two hours. That's it. When we hit the two-hour mark, I'm tossing everybody out on their collective asses. Then you can rest, and it'll be just us."

  "Rob, your parents are here. They drove all the way from Boston. You can't throw your parents out!"

  "They can spend some time with Rose and Jesse for a change. Rose is always complaining that they never visit."

  "I think I might cry."

  "Save the waterworks for later. Paige needs to see a big smile first. Then you can leak all over her if you need to."

  * * *

  They were waiting for her inside, all of them, with tears and hugs and smiles. Family. Hers. His. Brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, in-laws and outlaws, two families brought together as one by the birth of this child. Trish took custody of the baby while Rob went back outside to bring in Casey's overnight bag and the rest of Emma's gear. Mary MacKenzie drew her daughter-in-law to her ample bosom and they embraced with ferocious affection. "Sit," her mother-in-law said. "Your favorite chair's right over there." And whispered in her ear, "Be sure to tell Paige what a good job she did, darlin' mine. She worked hard to make this special for you."