think you’re too good to be wasted on a collection of stray cats.” Though I appreciated the sentiment, I also found the meddling intrusive and the exhortations belittling. I didn’t want a husband any more than I wanted a festering rash. I had never had a serious boyfriend. I had never made a list of proposal scenarios. I had never designed wedding gowns in my head. Other girls’ dreams were my “nevers,” and I intended to keep it that way. But I had sworn off felines years ago in an attempt to outwit the old-maid stereotype.
And here I was in Germany, with just over twenty-four hours of international living under my belt, facing the same brand of matchmaking I’d battled all my life. I wasn’t sure if it was the jet lag or the impending start of a new career or the sight of the little girl galloping like a pony ahead of me, but the overt matchmaking didn’t feel funny at all this time. It felt invasive and insensitive and just a few notches too close to impossible on my sliding scale of life’s probabilities.
4
SIX AND A HALF MONTHS EARLIER
“DANA’S COMING OVER,” I said to Trey, pocketing my cell phone, “so I guess you’re finally going to meet her.”
“She’s coming here?” He was arranging pastries in his display window while we talked, stacking golden croissants in a basket and flanking it with twin towers of cream-filled religieuses.
“She wants to drive to the lawyer’s together so we can talk on the way.” I reached into his lighted display case and grabbed a coffee éclair.
“Hey! Put that back!”
I took a bite out of one end and went to put it back on the tray.
“You can’t put it back now,” Trey said in exasperation, pulling my hand away and rearranging the remaining éclairs to mask the gap where mine had been. “You owe me a buck twenty.”
I bit off another large chunk of éclair and spoke around it. “I left my purse in the car.”
“Then you can work to pay off your debt. I have another tray of those right over there that need to be filled.”
“I’ll help you with them if you help me figure my life out.” The last piece of pastry disappeared into my mouth.
“Not exactly an even trade,” he said, reaching for the pastry tube.
“Gimme the baggie,” I muttered, grabbing the bag of vanilla pudding from his hand. Filling éclairs just might offer the kind of distraction I’d been craving. I sincerely doubted it, but it was worth a try. Trey placed a tray of baked éclair shells in front of me and I picked one up. I twisted the top of the bag to force the pudding into its metallic tip, then inserted it into the end of the éclair and squeezed until the pudding evenly filled the pastry’s belly.
“So have you seen Shayla again?” Trey appeared next to me with a bowl of frosting. He took the éclair I’d just filled and proceeded to frost it.
I nodded. My eyes felt heavy from thinking, my mind a little raw. “We had a tea party.”
“And?”
“And she’s still an amazing child. And I’m still the furthest thing from a mother.”
Trey said nothing, and we worked in silence for a while.
“He was such a great guy, wasn’t he?” I said.
Trey glanced at me. “Dad?” He’d always been able to identify daddy thought lines on my face.
I nodded.
“You mean great as in he-beat-the-tar-out-of-his-wife-and-kids-because-he-couldn’t-stand-a-noisy-house or great as in he’s-a-loser-who-should-have-died-a-painful-death-before-he-got-old-enough-to-have-kids-of-his-own?”
“Great as in please-God-don’t-ever-let-me-turn-into-my-father.”
“That’s highly unlikely.”
“It could happen, though. You know what they say about the apple and the tree.”
“I know what I know about you. Period. Fear of becoming Dad should have nothing to do with this decision.”
I’d grown accustomed to the heaviness in my chest and the anxiety that came in viscous, lumbering waves anytime I allowed my mind to drift. And standing there beside Trey with images of Shayla superimposing their guilt on everything I saw and touched, I felt my mettle slip again. I was caged in by the dilemma. Trapped between a life that was me-shaped and comfortable and a beautiful child who threatened the predictability that defined my bland existence. I bit my lip to stop it from trembling and looked up into my brother’s compassionate face. “Tell me what I should do, Trey.” My voice was hoarse with urgency and doubt. My fingers clenched around the éclair as my eyes blurred with tears.
Trey wrestled the damaged pastry from my grip and turned me toward him, his hands