she wished she’d used two of the four mismatched plates she’d taken with her when she’d left Dougie and the boys’ apartment. If she’d used washable plates, she could have at least kept what he’d eaten on.
Which was pretty pathetic, really. And God, this was too much of a profound loss for what was really going on. That man was nothing but a stranger coming and going out of her life, a storm passing after an intense sexual experience that had ended on an unsettling note.
Yeah, so where was the post-hurricane renewal?
Her phone ringing held little interest, but she went back over to her purse because she could use a distraction.
When she saw who it was, she answered fast. “Bill? Bill?”
“Hey,” her friend said. There was a pause. “I’m sorry I’ve been kind of out of touch.”
“Oh, no. Listen… how is Lydia?” Jo went over to the sofa and sat down. “How are you? Is there anything I can do for you guys?”
“No, I think…” Bill cleared his throat. “We are where we are, you know? The doctor says we can try again after waiting a month. And you know, at this early stage of things, it was probably a chromosomal problem that… well, was incompatible with life. That’s what they called it.”
Okay, compared to losing a child, the fact that Jo was in a funk over some guy seemed downright offensive.
“I am so sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. “Children are a blessing.”
“They are.” Bill took a deep breath. “They sure are, Jo.”
There was a long period of silence, and Jo closed her eyes as she thought about her birth parents, the mother who had brought her into this world and the father who had been in on the miracle at the ground floor, so to speak. When Jo had been growing up, she had given into the temptation to think the pair of those parental hypotheticals were totally different from the Earlys who had adopted her. She convinced herself that living in her real parents’ home would have been one long birthday party with balloons and cake and presents every day and all night. No more cold, drafty house with too many rooms. No more stiff, formal dinners in the dining room. No more sense that she was a nuisance, unwelcome in spite of the fact that her entering Mr. and Mrs. Early’s lives had been a willful, deliberate act on their part.
But yes, the stolen-princess narrative had been one she’d spun as a youngster, her true, virtuous parents out there somewhere in the world, swindled out of their rightful place in her life, mourning her loss as they fruitlessly searched for her.
She had waited for a rescue for so many years. So many. But now that she was an adult? She knew that there was no castle waiting for her on top of a mountain. No “real” parents still searching for her. No one that truly cared, one way or the other, about her future.
Which was why she had to be the hero in her own life.
“Jo? You still there?”
Shaking herself back into focus, she cleared her throat. “Sorry. I’m just… yes, I’m here.”
“I know this is awkward.”
“No, it’s not. What happened to you and Lydia is painful and very sad, and even though we haven’t known each other for very long, you’ve both been great friends to me.” Actually, they were her only friends at the moment, so there was that. “I just wish there was something, anything, I could do for you and her. But I can’t, and I hate this feeling that I’m failing you. And then there’s the suckage that you’re good people and this shouldn’t happen to good people.”
Bill’s voice got hoarse. “Thanks, Jo.”
“I won’t say you’re welcome because I wish I didn’t have to say it at all.”
“Amen.”
They talked for a little bit longer, and then they ended the call. Bill was going to take the rest of the week off as personal time, and that was the right thing to do. And when he came back? Jo told him she was ready to co-author everything she was working on.
Putting her phone down, she stared at the door. And thought about how she had made love to a stranger right where she was currently sitting just a half hour before.
Funny how losses were as much of a currency as happiness in life. Somehow, they were noticed more, though.
Jo got to her feet and went back into the kitchen. In a drawer