Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Unlike the night of the party, Lucy kept track of how much she was drinking at the bar and didn’t overdo it.
That said, Cecilia was right. After her third drink, she couldn’t help but open her mouth and spill everything about her very long, very emotional day.
Cecilia listened intently, but because she was on her fourth drink of the night, she often interrupted the story to give her own two cents or to tell Lucy just how much disdain she had for Brendan, which often made Lucy laugh.
By the end of the night, they were both too tipsy to drive home, so they walked to Lucy’s cabin, which was only a couple of blocks away.
From there, Cecilia called Liam to come pick her up.
Her teenage son came right away and was behaving so politely that Lucy had to wonder whether he was still trying to get back on his mom’s good side after his own drunken night.
“Your place is really nice,” he said, looking around the main floor of the cabin while his mom used the bathroom.
“Thanks. It’s just a rental; some friends of my parents own it, but they only come here a few times a year for vacation.”
“Well, I like it.”
She smiled. “I do too. I’ll be sad to leave it.”
He made a face. “Are you moving or something?”
“Well, I can’t stay here forever,” she said. “At some point, they’ll want to use it for themselves, or maybe find a long-term tenant.” She rested her hand on the kitchen counter as if it were a beloved pet. “This was never supposed to be permanent.”
“I thought you had moved to Northampton?”
She didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about staying—she thought about it all the time, how nice it would be to live here—she just didn’t understand why Liam had an opinion on the matter.
“Everything’s a little up in the air in my life right now,” she said after a while. “But I am really happy here, and if I don’t stay for good, I’ll definitely come back all the time.”
“Ah, okay.” He nodded and put his hands in his pockets. “Good. I think my mom would be really sad if you left. She’s grown really close to you, and it’s been good for her to have someone to hang out with while my dad’s overseas.”
“I’ve really enjoyed getting to know your mom, too,” she said. “She’s quickly become one of my best friends. But what about you? How are you doing with your dad being gone?”
He shrugged. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah, that sounded convincing.”
This elicited a half-hearted laugh from him. “You know, it’s tough. I don’t like it when he’s gone this long, but I understand he has to do it for his job. It’s not like he enjoys leaving us. I just hope he doesn’t keep leaving like this after I move out. I’m worried my mom will get lonely.”
“I’m sure he’ll be considerate about that. And don’t worry, if I’m here, I’ll make sure she doesn’t get too lonely.”
He smiled. “Thanks. That actually means a lot.”
“She means a lot to me,” Lucy said honestly. “So it’s really not a problem.”
Cecilia came out of the bathroom. She had clearly splashed some cold water on her face. “All right, let’s hit it.”
“Have a good evening, Lucy,” Liam said, speaking like he was at a job interview. “I’ll make sure my mom gets home okay, don’t you worry.”
Lucy laughed and waved to them from the doorway. “Okay, Liam. Thanks for picking her up. I’ll see you around.”
“Bye!” Cecilia said. “Call me in the morning! We still have stuff to talk about!”
“Will do.”
Lucy went back inside, wondering what the two of them could possibly have left to discuss.
It was probably that Cecilia was just tipsy and wanted to hear more gossip about Brendan.
Lucy wasn’t sure she’d be nearly as open in the sober light of day, but if Cecilia wanted to ask follow-up questions, she wouldn’t stop her.
Now alone, Lucy had time to gather her thoughts.
She had just endured a very tough day and was emotionally and physically exhausted.
She sat on the couch and took a few deep breaths as the weight of everything pressed down on her.
In some ways, she felt relief. She had a newfound sense of closure about her divorce from Brendan and had left her job in New York City, which meant she was free to focus on the diner and what was next for her in Northampton.
But on the other hand, she still hadn’t heard from Noah, and she couldn’t act like it didn’t hurt.
She believed he was finally starting to trust her. After everything they’d been through over the past week, why would he call Cecilia instead of her? Why would he hide what he was doing from her in the first place?
And then, of course, there were her other feelings to contend with.
The “strong feelings,” as Cecilia had put it, that she had for Noah.
But feeling this way about a man who was so unpredictable and secretive was a recipe for disaster.
Before Megan showed up and threw everything in to a tailspin, there was a part of her that really wanted to see where this might lead.
Before things got too out of hand, she needed to know what kind of person Noah Hitching really was.
So, she got up from the couch and went upstairs to get her laptop.
She needed to at least make sure Noah wasn’t dangerous.
A quick search on a government website would tell her everything she needed to know.
That’s all I’ll do. Just a search for arrest warrants.
This seemed like a fair compromise. If Noah got mad at her for making sure he wasn’t a convicted murderer or a fugitive, that was a red flag in itself. Or, at least, that’s what she told herself as she typed Edward McMillen’s name into the search bar.
At first, a lot of results popped up, most of which were clearly unrelated to Noah.
She checked a few websites and looked at some photos, but ultimately became overwhelmed by the information.
Knowing she needed to narrow it down, she thought back to the few times he had actually shared something about his past. She couldn’t be certain any of his memories were accurate, but she remembered the day he had worn a Philadelphia Flyers hat.
So, she added “Philadelphia” to the search and finally got somewhere.
An arrest warrant.
Her heart sank. This was exactly what she had been searching for, but she really wished she hadn’t discovered it.
Her hand trembled as she moved the cursor over the link to the government website.
After a few seconds of a tug-of-war between curiosity and anxiety, curiosity prevailed, and she clicked the link.
Relief flooded her.
The charge was over twenty years old. Noah was probably no older than nineteen back then, and it was a minor theft.
He spent just one night in jail and was then ordered to do sixty hours of community service, which was marked as “complete in the allotted time frame.” As far as arrest warrants went, this was pretty much the best outcome she could’ve hoped for.
He was a reckless teenager who, based on another Google search of the address for the crime scene, likely stole snacks or maybe some cigarettes from a gas station.
She could live with that.
She returned to the results list, but nothing else seemed particularly important. She had found enough information to satisfy her for now and was willing to leave the rest for when Noah came home.
If he came home.
She deleted his name from the search bar, and her fingers instinctively started to type something new.
Megan McMillen. It was a dumb thing to Google, she knew that.
Even if Megan’s last name had already been updated in the system, what was she expecting to find from the last couple of months since the girl was supposedly adopted?
Nothing came up.
Well, a lot came up. There were several Megan McMillens in the world, but none of them was the little redheaded girl she met the week before.
Lucy had no right to feel disappointed by the lack of results, since she knew this would happen before she even hit enter on her last search, yet she still was.
She just wanted to know who this little girl was and whether she came from a safe home with her new adoptive mother.
Anything to help her feel better about having to say goodbye to Megan for good sometime soon.
Perhaps she had already missed her chance to say goodbye.
There was a chance she would never see the girl again, and all she wanted to know was whether Megan would be okay.
But her eyes were now stinging with tears, and her vision blurred. She wasn’t getting anywhere, so she shut her laptop and lay back on the bed with a heavy sigh.
Maybe things would look better in the morning after a good night’s sleep.
Maybe Noah would be back and ready to tell her everything.
She held onto that hope as she dragged herself to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and as she crawled under the covers, she clung to it desperately in the moments before she finally drifted off to sleep.
“Hello?”
Lucy walks down the hallway toward the open door at the end.
A soft light is coming from the room, while the rest of the apartment remains dark.
She’s in her New York City apartment, the one she once shared with Brendan, but now it looks different.
As she passes the living room, she notices that a green couch has replaced the stiff, dark gray one, now adorned with cozy pillows and a striped yellow throw draped over the back.
There’s cute, colorful artwork on all four walls of the room, and the television on the far side is the one from the Northampton cabin, not the flat-screen Brendan overpaid for a few years ago.
She isn’t sure how, but she knows someone is in the other room. Soft music drifts from the open door, and a low voice sings along. It’s not Brendan’s voice, she’s sure of that. But who else could be in her apartment?
She passes the master bedroom next. There’s a beautiful quilt on the bed, made from what looks like a patchwork of fabric from different T-shirts and maybe a few towels.
It’s adorable, but the kind of thing Brendan would never allow in his house.
The side tables are mismatched, and a photograph hanging over the bed is one she doesn’t recognize.
It’s hard for her to make out any faces in the low light, but it seems to depict two people gazing down at a third.
A child.
No. A baby.
Her heart starts pounding, and suddenly, she needs to find out who is in the room at the end of the hall. She runs and bursts through the door with enthusiasm that surprises Noah.
“Shh,” he whispers once he’s recovered from the surprise. “She’s sleeping.”
He’s standing by a crib across the small room.
The light is on, making the cartoon-animal-print wallpaper come alive.
He signals her to come over, and she moves to sit beside him.
He drapes an arm around her shoulders and looks down into the crib, where a beautiful baby wrapped in a purple blanket is sleeping peacefully.
Tears come to Lucy’s eyes as she brings her hand down to gently caress the child’s cheek.
“It took a while to get her down tonight,” Noah says. “But she should be pretty tired after today, so I’m hoping she sleeps through the night again. It was so nice not being woken up at three o’clock in the morning, wasn’t it?”
She smiles but doesn’t know what to say.
“Not that I’m complaining,” he goes on. “You know I love her more than anything, and I’m so glad she’s officially ours.”
“Officially?” The word catches Lucy off guard. Why would their child be anything but officially theirs?
“Did I not tell you?” His face lights up. “The papers were finalized today! The adoption went through, and we are legally her guardians. We’re her parents.”
“You mean—” She looks back down at the baby.
“We adopted her?” But then she notices the child’s bright red hair and fair skin and realizes it must be true.
She has no redheads in her family, and Noah’s skin tone is a rich olive.
Maybe the two of them could have a baby with this color combination, but she doubts it.
In the end, it actually makes her happier to know the baby is adopted. She loves the idea of providing a safe, loving environment for a child who needs one, and now that she’s in her forties, she doesn’t think it would be a good idea to carry a child herself anyway.
“She’s perfect,” Lucy says.
“Just like her mom.” Noah plants a kiss on Lucy’s cheek, and she nuzzles closer to him.
Her heart is so full in that moment, and she’s certain she’s never been happier.
Even when the baby rolls over and opens her mouth to cry, Lucy isn’t fazed.
She scoops the girl into her arms, instinctively knowing what to do even though this is her first child.
She sits in the rocking chair in the corner with the baby and begins to sway, singing softly a song her mother used to sing when Lucy would get upset.
“Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me… Small and white, clean and bright, you look happy to meet me…”
Noah smiles down at the two of them before slipping silently out of the nursery, mouthing a promise to move the laundry. Even though he’s off baby duty, he’s still willing to take care of chores.
“Your father is a dream man,” Lucy says to the baby. “We’re both so lucky to have him.”
The baby settles down, and Lucy sings with her eyes closed, nearly falling asleep herself.
“So very, very lucky…”