Miranda
“I can arrange for you to work at the winery in France where your father and I worked when we were first married. I’ll tell them this is your child, and that you need to be away from home for a while.
They love children and I’m sure they will take you in.
I had a letter from them recently, and they are having some financial trouble, so I suspect they could use your help. ”
“Could Tom come with me?”
Joan hesitated, then said, “If that’s what you want.”
Since that first day, neither of them had spoken of Tom.
The thought of leaving Hartley for a time was unexpectedly and completely thrilling to Miranda. She hadn’t even realized how much she wanted it until suddenly it felt like her only option. France. Dawn. An entirely new life.
Emilio and Raul would run Hartley beautifully while she was gone. Miranda felt a wash of relief, and for those glorious moments of daydream, she felt entirely unshackled.
But first Tom.
When she finally met him for dinner at his place, she was pretty sure she looked like someone who’d had the flu, because of her nerves and her inability to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Her hands shook.
Tom had made a risotto with mushrooms he knew she liked, and it felt like her heart started to bleed at this tender gesture.
“I need to talk to you,” she said, right after he kissed her on the cheek in greeting.
“That sounds ominous,” he said.
She went to the couch and sat down. He remained standing. The whole place smelled like white wine and mushrooms and butter.
“Please, will you sit with me?”
Frowning, he sat a cushion down from her so that their legs made a triangle at the place their knees almost touched.
“You haven’t really been sick, have you?” he said.
“No,” she admitted. “It’s a very long story.”
“Let me just take dinner off the stove.”
He was up and back in less than a minute, and when he sat back down again he looked like he was bracing himself. His jaw was set and his gaze was intensely on her.
“Winnie had her child, a daughter, and she brought her to me because she said she can’t raise her.”
“Knowing what I know about her, which isn’t a lot, that seems remarkably self-aware.”
Miranda nodded. “I talked to her, and I asked if she thought she’d change her mind, and she said she wouldn’t. She wants me to be the girl’s mother.”
“And you accepted?” He pressed his lips together.
“I did.” Miranda’s whole chest hurt. He looked angry.
“I wish you had talked to me.”
“There wasn’t time. Winnie was trying to get out the door. She was scared and sad, and I don’t blame her.”
“You could have made her stay so you could talk to your future husband.”
They both looked down at her left hand. She’d put on the ring that she hadn’t worn since her miscarriage; she’d only taken it off because her fingers had swelled so much, and then caring for Dawn had made wearing it feel impractical.
She’d put it on before coming to Tom’s because she was only 80% certain of what she needed to do.
His suggestion about Winnie put it closer to 85%.
“There wasn’t time,” she reiterated.
He surprised her by asking a question. “What happens when Winnie changes her mind? When she comes back and wants to be her mother?”
“That won’t happen.”
“Of course it will. Winnie has not shown herself to be reliable in any definition of the word.”
“She was serious this time. I’ve never seen her like that before.”
He nodded, his expression inscrutable.
The two of them were silent for what felt like much too long. Tom looked down at his clasped hands, and Miranda angled her gaze there, too, because she didn’t want to look at the ring.
When he looked up at her, he asked, “Are you here to invite me to be your partner? I can’t tell what you want.”
She was still shy of 100% certainty. Could they do this together?
“I know you want to be a father,” she said. “We could be this girl’s parents. Winnie gave me, gave us, her blessing.”
“Which is it, Miranda, you or us?”
“She included you.”
“Great. Nice to be included.”
She’d never heard him be so sarcastic.
He was right, though. He had been an afterthought to Winnie, and in her heart, Miranda thought of Dawn as hers alone, not hers with Tom.
And that was not fair to him.
Tom was a good man. The best. But she saw the years of bitterness unrolling before them like a red carpet. His favoring a biological child, if they could have one; uncomfortable visits from Aunt Winnie.
100%.
“I think it’s better for both of us if I raise her alone.” She’d rehearsed this simple line over and over, many more times than she’d rehearsed the alternative: Do you really think we can be happy together?
“Is that really what you want?”
No. “This isn’t about what I want. It’s about what’s best for Dawn.”
“Dawn? You’ve already named her?”
Miranda nodded, chagrined again by the glaring truth that she hadn’t included him in any of the important decisions. She hadn’t even thought to.
“I assume you want me to keep this secret for you?”
She swallowed. “I know it’s asking for a lot, and I know I’ve put you in an impossible position. If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to France for a while to put some distance between all this and my coming back with a child.”
“So everyone will think I don’t want my own child?” He sprang up from the couch.
“No, definitely not. I’ll tell people I miscarried, then got pregnant over there.”
“Miranda Hartley. She always has an answer for everything. Even when it doesn’t make any sense.”
Now she was angry, too, so she stood and they were closer to eye-to-eye. “I’ll make sure no one thinks she’s yours.”
What he said next surprised her: “I always knew I didn’t have you completely, that you were holding parts of yourself back.”
Did you want me completely? The idea stunned her. How could she give what she couldn’t accept herself?
“I’m so sorry” was all she could think to say. It was, at least, true.
He didn’t reply, and she waited.
And then there was nothing for her to do but set the beautiful ring on his coffee table and leave.