The Hold (Catch and Hold #2)

1. Saturday, May 5, 2012

SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2012

A t midnight, when her mother straggled home smelling of fermented grape juice, Julia sat hunched over the sewing machine. Her mother heard the whir of the machine’s motor and stumbled into the in-law unit, seeking its source.

“What on Earth are you doing?” she demanded, gaping at the sewing patterns and bright bolts of fabric littering the den’s floor.

Julia removed the needle from between her teeth and held up the nearly-finished garment. “Do you like it?”

Squinting, her mother pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose until her bangs skimmed the top of the tortoiseshell frames. “What is it?”

Julia blinked. “You can’t tell? It’s a skirt.”

“Really?” Her mother hiccuped, then put a fist to her lips to stifle a burp. “Is that for Paige?”

“No!” Suddenly sheepish, Julia added, “You don’t think it’s too young for me, do you?”

Her mother stepped forward for a closer inspection. Swaying, she tucked a lock of her gray bob behind her ear. “Well, you always could pull off the younger styles.”

“Oh, gee, thanks.” Flushing, Julia snickered as she scrutinized the skirt anew.

Her mother eyed the grin spanning Julia’s face. “Are you okay?”

Julia lowered the skirt. “Mom, I’m so far beyond okay, I’m ecstatic.”

“Really? Then why are you sewing a skirt the size of a postage stamp in the middle of the night?”

Julia laughed. “Why are you staggering home drunk from a bridge game in the middle of the night?”

“Because I was having fun. Diane brought a nice bottle of wine from Sonoma – some varietal I’d never heard of called Cinsaut. It’s especially good paired with bridge. I might have had a little too much fun, because Diane had to drive me home.”

“Well…” Julia held up her hands in a shrug. “I'm just having fun, too.”

Her mother stared unfocused for another second, then shrugged right back. “Well, okay then. Maybe we should both go to bed.”

Julia barked out another laugh. She had never seen her mother drunk. She went to sit on the sofa and patted the seat beside her. “Come sit.”

Her mother complied after a moment’s hesitation, but flinched when Julia snatched her hand.

“Julia! You’re drunker than I am, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Mom, I’m drunk with happiness. And there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Apparently.”

“I’ve seen William.”

Her mother’s eyes widened a little – surprised, but not shocked. “Okay?”

“He came over here, both yesterday and today. To this house. He knows what I did for his family. And now he also knows about Robert.”

Julia had never explicitly discussed the facts of her son’s paternity with her mother. It had always been an unspoken secret between them and the rest of her immediate family. Breathlessly, her mother said, “You told him?”

“I didn’t have to. He took one look at Robert, and he knew. ”

One corner of her mother’s mouth lifted in a knowing smirk. “So now what?”

“I have no idea. But William is coming over for dinner tomorrow night. And probably most nights from now on, for that matter.”

Her mother sighed. “Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

Her mother squeezed Julia’s hand. “I have to admit, a big part of me is relieved that he knows. I’ve always felt bad about the role I played in all that.”

Julia frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You know… encouraging you to go back to Kevin after he abandoned you and Paige. Sharing my doubts about William.”

Julia took her mother’s hand in both of hers. “Mom, it was my decision, and no one else’s. Leave the blame and the past where they both belong.”

Her mother suddenly looked sober. “How are you going to explain to Paige and Robert why he’s coming over so much?”

“Paige already knows.” When her mother gasped, Julia added, “It seems Kevin’s mother told her a couple of years ago.”

“That Robert isn’t Kevin’s?” Her mother shook her head in dismay. “That woman.”

“And like everyone else, Paige needed only one look at William to figure out the truth.”

“Okay… but what about Robert?”

“Eventually, we’ll have to tell him, too. But not right away.”

Her mother‘s lips pressed into a straight line. “How on earth do you explain something like that to a five-year-old?”

“I don’t know, but I see a lot of family therapy in our future.”

After another moment’s contemplation, her mother ventured, “I suppose this means you and William are… you know.”

“Yes. We’re going to try this again.”

Her mother nodded. “I’ll pray for you.”

“Um, well... I’ll take all the help I can get.”

Her mother gave a dry chuckle, and then there didn’t seem to be anything more to say. But as she got up to leave, she stopped in her tracks and turned around again .

“What do you think we should serve William for dinner tonight?”

Julia shrugged. “Just make whatever you were already planning.”

Again, her mother nodded. “I’ll let your father know.”

Julia offered a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

After her mother left the den and trudged upstairs, Julia inspected the skirt again. She couldn’t help but laugh at herself. It was a bit youthful. And very, very tiny.

She had often fantasized about the last two nights’ turn of events. She had even dreamed about it, only to wake to the bitter reality that she was alone – utterly alone, even before Kevin moved to Santa Barbara. Trapped in San Jose, an hour’s drive from her family. With William still out there somewhere, oblivious to his own son's existence.

And it might have stayed that way, had William’s mother not clued him in to what Julia did for their whole family – fighting to restore his dying father’s health insurance, and saving William’s whale watching business in the process.

And even then, she and William might never have re-declared their love, had it not been for Paige.

Paige , of all people. Her force-of-nature thirteen-year-old, who lately never had a kind word for Julia. Until, just tonight, she said, “Mom, do you know what carpe diem means?”

Somehow, Julia had found the courage to take her daughter’s advice. And then she and William spent a blissful hour or two, catching up on each other's lives in the six years since their last, ill-fated attempt to rekindle their relationship – the attempt that resulted in Robert.

The first thing William had wanted was to see pictures of Robert as a baby. Julia cast him a sheepish look and warned, “Kevin is in a lot of them.”

“Of course,” William said, his voice a near-whisper.

She retrieved the photo albums and brought them to the living room sofa. Sitting beside him again, she thumbed through them, beginning with the photos of just herself.

“This was when I was in the hospital, not long before he was born,” she explained.

“You were in labor? ”

She shook her head. “I was in the hospital for a few months because of the HG.”

His eyes whipped to hers in obvious alarm. “HG?”

“Hyperemesis gravidarum – severe morning sickness. I was vomiting twenty or thirty times a day through my whole pregnancy. I had to be monitored around the clock and receive IV fluid and nutrition. And the drugs they gave me to try to stop the vomiting made me so dopey, it was impossible to function.”

He reached for her hand. Turned a pained look on her with those same intense blue eyes as ever. “My God; I’m sorry. That sounds like an absolute nightmare.”

“It was.” She gave a shaky laugh. “But you see? Here was the end result.”

She turned the page to reveal the photos of a newborn Robert. Kevin was there in many of them, cradling Robert in his arms. Julia studied William’s reaction from her peripheral vision, but he barely flinched, and his expression remained composed.

She turned the page again, revealing photos of an eight-year-old Paige meeting Robert for the first time. Of Robert coming home, his face already losing some of its puffy redness. Of the grandparents meeting Robert – including Kevin’s parents, who looked like they had just bitten into a lemon. With the timing, they knew Robert was conceived before Kevin returned from his self-imposed exile in Brazil. Just like everyone else knew – except, unfortunately, William.

Julia’s pulse slammed in her throat, and her face burned. But again, William remained unfazed. So she kept turning the pages, one by one, to reveal more of Robert’s milestones.

His first smiles. Batting at the toys on his play gym. His first solid food and first tooth. First holidays and first steps. The whole time, his face and his beautiful, enormous blue eyes growing more and more like William’s.

Then came the first birthday pictures, with Robert smashing his cake into his face. After that: Robert toddling around the zoo, unassisted. His first day of preschool. His tee-ball photo.

And all the while, Kevin’s appearances in the photos grew increasingly, glaringly irregular.

“After Robert was born,” Julia explained quietly, “Kevin went back to Santa Barbara to finish his PhD in Marine Biology. He got his pilot’s license so he’d be able to fly himself back and forth. But after the first few months, he mostly just stayed down there. And then, last summer, he got a chance to do some field studies in the Galapagos, but it was going to take at least a year, and the kids and I couldn’t come. By then, there was no point keeping up the pretense, anyway.”

William’s gaze was sympathetic as he stroked her hand. Her pulse quickened at the simple touch, and her cheeks blazed.

“What about you?” she prompted, her voice thin with nerves.

“Me?”

She wasn’t going to come right out and demand to know about his romantic relationships. “What have you been up to all this time? Besides getting the business up and running.”

“The business was the main thing, yeah. But I also finished my degree.”

Her jaw dropped, and at the same time, she couldn’t stifle her smile. “Really? That’s fantastic!”

“It was just a business degree online. I finished this past December.”

“That’s impressive, Will! Congrats!”

William gazed at her, searching her face. His eyes softened, and the color rose to his cheeks. Julia's heart leaped at the sight. He was still so overwhelmingly beautiful, even after all this time. Even with his uncustomary beard and close-cropped hair, which had darkened over the years to a shade more brown than blond.

Julia felt the heat rising in her own cheeks, and her mouth twisted into an irrepressible smile. In response, William drew her in for a long, lingering kiss. Her pulse skyrocketed, hammering in her chest; and when they finally broke away, they spent a while studying each other’s faces.

She murmured, “Every Sunday night, my sister comes over, and we all eat dinner together. Can you join us?”

His eyes grew wary. “Are you sure your parents would be okay with that?”

“Of course. I’ll let them know what’s going on. I know they’d love to see you. ”

He considered a moment. “As long as it’s really okay with them, I should be able to.”

Julia beamed at him. “Come over around five.”

“What can I bring?”

“Yourself.”

But he shook his head. “I can’t show up empty-handed.”

“Then bring a bottle of wine.”

That seemed to placate him; and after that, they kissed their goodbyes in the tunnel entrance out front. Julia glanced up and down the street, looking for his old motorcycle. Failing that, she searched for any unfamiliar vehicle that might have been his.

“How are you getting home?” she finally wondered.

“Oh.” He gave a sheepish laugh. “The old Yamaha V-Max finally bit the dust. This is my conveyance now.” He gestured to a bicycle locked around a telephone pole.

She couldn’t help coughing out a laugh. “You’re going to ride all the way to the Mission on that thing?”

“Well, a combination of riding and transit, yeah.”

“Up and down all those hills? On a bicycle?”

“Okay, so it has an electric assist,” he confessed good-naturedly.

She laughed out loud now, watching as he strapped the bicycle helmet on. They waved their farewells, and she shook her head in amusement as he pedaled down the street.

That’s when Julia – her stomach giddy with butterflies and her mind alight with inspiration – had settled down at the machine to sew a too-skimpy skirt. Not long afterward, her father had come home from work, his tread on the staircase heavy with weariness. Finally, her mother had returned from her bridge game to hear the news and go to bed.

Now, Julia sat motionless on the sofa in the den. But though her body was drained, her brain would not quit running its treadmill.

She cracked open the downstairs bedroom door, just enough to confirm that Robert slept soundly, then meandered upstairs. After checking on Paige, she resumed her seat on the living room sofa, where – just an hour or two ago, against all odds – she and William had re-declared their love.

She ran her hand over the spot where he sat, imagining she could still see him there. She touched the mermaid pendant around her neck – the promise he had given her when they were still teenagers. The empty necklace box still sat on the coffee table, where she had placed it after returning his Saint Peter chain to him – the same chain that had kept him safe all those years ago in Alaska. The chain that had snapped from his neck the night she told him she was going back to Kevin.

Now the doubts came tumbling in, one after another. How would they find time to get reacquainted when they lived apart and she had the kids full-time?

How would they ever explain to Robert that Kevin – the man he had known all his life as Daddy – was not his biological father? How would they deal with the inevitable fallout?

And besides, what were the legal implications? Who would get custody of Robert, and when? Who would pay child support?

She reached into her sweater pocket and found the watermelon tourmaline her Uncle Rob had given her nineteen years ago, when she told him about William. She turned the polished cross-section over and over in her hand.

What had Uncle Rob told her then? “If it’s meant to be, the details will work themselves out.”

“Rob,” she murmured out loud to the empty living room. “I wish you were here to tell me what to do, and make me laugh at myself.”

Her eccentric uncle always had a ready pearl of wisdom in the toughest moments of her youth. Even if those pearls had been some New Age-y thing he was into, like Wicca, or crystal healing.

“You make your own magic,” he said when he gave her the watermelon tourmaline. “This will help.”

Only after he died did she fully appreciate what both he and the crystal meant.