Chapter 14
After Owen left with Holden, Laura tried to go back to sleep for a while.
The vomiting always took a harsh toll on her, but with so much to be done before their trip, she couldn’t seem to turn off the busy brain that refused to get onboard with the fact that the rest of her was a hot mess in need of more sleep.
She reached for her cell phone on the bedside table and made an appointment to see Victoria Stevens, the local midwife-nurse practitioner, before the trip on Tuesday.
Luckily, the clinic was open seven days a week in the summer, and she was able to book an appointment with Vic late tomorrow afternoon.
Laura had resisted Victoria’s suggestion that she take something for the nausea, because she was convinced she could power through it the way she had with Holden.
She also hated the idea of taking something that had even a small chance of harming her unborn children.
But there was no way she could “power through it” and accompany Owen to Virginia, too.
Desperate times indeed called for desperate measures.
She got out of bed and took a shower, hoping her stomach would calm down enough to allow her to be productive.
She thanked God every day that Sarah was with them and could manage the hotel as efficiently as she could herself, but Laura still felt guilty about deferring so much of the responsibility to Owen’s mother when she was collecting a paycheck from his grandparents.
She forced herself to consume a handful of saltine crackers and some weak tea before heading downstairs, where the smells of breakfast coming from the dining room had her heading directly for the ladies’ room, where the crackers and tea came right back up.
Afterward, she sat on the floor of the lobby bathroom and tried to collect herself. She was so damned sick of being sick. At times she wondered what Owen saw in her when she’d been in this condition for much of the time they’d spent together.
A light tap on the door had her standing and rinsing her mouth. She opened the door to find Sarah outside.
“Are you okay, honey?”
“I’ve been better. It’s been going on since about four o’clock this morning.”
Sarah winced and slid an arm around Laura’s shoulders. “Come with me.” She led her around the reception desk past the front door just as Abby came in.
“Morning!” Abby said.
“Morning,” Laura said.
“Ugh, not feeling good again?” Abby asked.
“Another day, another battle,” Laura said with a weak smile.
“I’m getting her away from the smell of breakfast,” Sarah said. “We’ll be in the sitting room if you need us.”
“Go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on the front desk for you.”
“Thanks, Abby.” She ran the gift shop, Abby’s Attic 2, in the lobby of the Surf, so watching the front desk certainly wasn’t her job, but like everyone else around her, Abby had stepped up to help more than once this summer.
“No problem at all. Hope you feel better.”
“So do I. Thanks again.” Laura went with Sarah to the sitting room, where they’d spent a lot of family time over the last year. During the winter, they’d passed many a cold, stormy night in front of the fire while Owen played for them and Holden slept in his mother’s arms.
“Stretch out on the sofa and get comfortable,” Sarah said, fluffing pillows and tossing a light throw over Laura.
“This is ridiculous. I’m supposed to be working and packing and getting ready to leave the hotel for a week or more, and what am I doing?”
Sarah ran a gentle hand over Laura’s hair. “You’re taking a few minutes to yourself while you can. Relax. I’ll be right back.”
Laura forced herself to follow Sarah’s orders.
From her vantage point on the sofa she could see the ferries coming and going from the harbor and the sparkle of the sun on blue water as another summer day on Gansett began in earnest. Outside the front side of the hotel, voices and cars and mopeds blended into a cacophony of noise from town that had become as familiar to her as the crash of the ocean on the breakwater out back.
“Here, honey,” Sarah said when she returned with a steaming mug. “Try this.”
“What is it?”
“Mint tea. It worked for me when I was pregnant.”
“You’ve suggested that before, and I’ve been meaning to try it.”
“As I recall, you said mint flavor isn’t your favorite thing.”
“It isn’t, but at this point, I’m willing to try anything.” She sat up and took a tentative sip of the brew. When it went down easy and stayed down, she took another. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry you’re feeling so poorly.”
“I keep waiting for Owen to say enough already with the hot mess he’s shackled himself to.”
“That’s not going to happen, and you know it. He’s crazy about you.”
“I’m still trying to figure out why when all he’s seen me do is breed and puke since we’ve been together.”
Sarah’s silent laughter brought tears to the older woman’s eyes. “I’d venture to say he’s probably seen a few other things in you besides those two endearing qualities.”
“You are far too kind,” Laura said with a smile for the woman who would be her mother-in-law before too much longer. “Enough about me. How was your night with Charlie?”
Sarah’s cheeks flamed with color.
“That good, huh?”
“I had no idea,” she said softly. “All this time… I didn’t know.”
“I’m so happy for you, Sarah, and for Charlie, too,” Laura said. “You so deserve this amazing second chance.”
“When I think about how I could’ve lived my whole life without knowing that was possible…”
“So you…” Laura rolled her hand, hoping Sarah would dish the details.
“Not everything, but what we did was incredible. And,” Sarah said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “he said he loves me.”
“Why are you even here this morning? You should be with him!”
“Because I knew you’d need me, and being here for you is also important to me.”
“Sarah! For crying out loud, go back to him.”
Sarah laughed at Laura’s outrage. “It’s fine, honey. I’ll see him again later.”
Laura’s eyes filled with tears, and before she knew it, they were sliding down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, alarmed by Laura’s sudden breakdown.
“Nothing.” Laura swiped at the stupid tears that were almost as annoying as the nausea.
Both were a by-product of pregnancy that she would rather live without.
“I’m so happy for you. I can’t even begin to tell you…
Having you here with us, helping me through this first year with Holden and taking care of all of us and teaching me so much about the hotel…
It means the world to me. I feel like I have a mother again for the first time since I was nine. ”
“Oh, Laura…” Sarah brushed at her own tears as she took the mug of tea from Laura so she could hug her.
“That’s about the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.
It’s such an honor to know you think of me that way.
Thank you, honey.” She drew back so she could see Laura’s face.
“Being here with you and Owen and Holden truly saved my life, and I’ve loved every minute I’ve gotten to spend with you. ”
She tucked a strand of Laura’s hair behind her ear.
“For the longest time, I worried that Owen would never take a chance on love or have a family of his own. He’d given up so much of his childhood to help raise his siblings and seemed content with his footloose existence.
But the minute I saw him with you, I knew.
I just knew you were the one for him, and I was so very thankful that he’d found you. ”
“I’m thankful, too. When I think about the condition I was in when we first met… And the beautiful friendship I found with him before anything else ever happened between us. He’s an amazing man, Sarah.”
“I know he is, and I couldn’t be prouder of him.”
“I’m worried about what the trial and the thought of seeing his father are doing to him, though.
” She eyed the guitar that sat in a stand on the other side of the room.
“I haven’t heard him play or sing in days.
Evan told me yesterday that Owen turned down a couple of gigs this week, which isn’t like him.
He loves having the chance to play with Evan, which doesn’t happen as often these days because Ev is so busy with the studio. ”
“That is worrisome,” Sarah said. “I think we just need to have faith that once the trial is over, the Owen we know and love will be back with us.”
“I hope you’re right,” Laura said. “More tea, please.”
Smiling, Sarah handed her the mug.
“Now let’s talk about this amazing night you had with Charlie.”
Once again, Sarah blushed furiously. “Girls my age don’t share the dirty details.”
“So the details are dirty?” Laura asked with a coy grin.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” Sarah said primly.
“Oh come on! You know you want to.”
Sarah laughed and the sound filled Laura’s heart to overflowing with love for the woman who’d come to mean so much to her. “I really do want to.”
“Spill it, sister.”
Returning to the hotel after his visit with Evan, Owen carried the sleeping Holden and followed the sound of laughter into the sitting room to find his mother and Laura gabbing on the sofa. He immediately noticed Laura’s pallor and the cup of tea she held in her hand. She’d been sick again.
“What’s going on around here?” Owen asked them. Was it his imagination or did his mother look mortified to see him standing there?
“You didn’t hear any of that, did you?” she asked.
“Any of what?”
The question set off another wave of laughter between the two women, giving him a warm feeling of homecoming that had been so rare in his life before the last year.
While this hotel had been the only true home he’d ever had during a childhood marked by frequent moves and the strife of his violent family life, it was even more so now that he and Laura were living here together.
Having his mother with them only made it that much better.
“Why do I feel like I’m missing the punch line to a joke—or maybe I am the joke?”