Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) Page 9

  Sitting on the back step with a second cup of coffee, Zoe told her friend all about the day before, including the emergency room and the encounter with Adam.

  “And if you can believe it, his girlfriend and sister massaged my arms.” She flexed her hands, staring down at them with the phone in speaker mode. Her neck was still ridiculously stiff, and the foam collar prevented her from holding it against her shoulder and ear as was her habit. “She’s massively pregnant. His girlfriend.”

  “Oh my God, Zoe, really?”

  “Yeah.” Zoe found her arms wrapped around her waist, squeezing. That grief still felt as fresh as the day she’d lost the in vitro babies, a day like any other, which had ended with all her hopes washed away. “It was the perfect storm of all my issues. Here’s this guy I’m really attracted to, and he’s about to have a baby with another woman. It was Rex all over again.”

  “When do you have therapy next? Seriously, you need to talk this through with Dr. Suzuki. I’ll help you make a voodoo doll of him, though.”

  Zoe laughed, a weak chuckle. “I actually see her today, after the chiropractor. You know another sad thing? I really liked his sister and his girlfriend. The massage they gave me helped a lot.” She flexed her hands—they were still sore, but the frozen stiffness and bone-deep ache in the muscles was gone.

  “It’s actually a good thing to have all this come up. I need to get some sort of closure on it. I can’t get weird about every pregnant woman I come across. That’s how it’s become, though. I can’t even see a pregnant woman without this sort of ghost pain in my uterus. I don’t know when it’s going to be okay.”

  “You don’t have to know when. And maybe it will never be totally okay.” Michelle had a practical wisdom. She was married to her high school sweetheart, and they’d had kids early—three of them, approaching junior high age now. Somehow, she and Zoe had maintained the bond they’d had since they met in kindergarten. She’d shared everything with Zoe, had never excluded her friend from any of it by making it clear that their friendship was as important to her as any of her family relationships.

  “Maybe so. Well, I better go. I want to take a shower before the chiropractor.”

  “Call me tonight. Let me know how it goes.”

  “I will.”

  Zoe rang off and went back into the cottage, calling Sylvester away from investigating the nest a wild chicken had made under a nearby hibiscus bush—only in Hawaii, she mused.

  Taking a shower helped with her stiffness, and the chiropractor helped more, and Zoe was able to go to Dr. Suzuki’s without her neck brace.

  “I have an issue with pregnant women,” she stated baldly to the psychologist after filling her in on the essentials of the accident. “I can’t even look at them. And then here was this woman in the ER waiting room, sitting so close her belly touched me while she massaged my hands and arms. She was wearing a green shirt with a smiley face on it. Her stomach was so big it made the smiley face seem like it was on a beach ball.”

  “Hmm. What is it about pregnancy that bothers you most?” Dr. Suzuki had that tiny line she got between her exquisite brows when she was troubled by something.

  “I’m not sure. It feels visceral. Like, I’m actually afraid of it. It’s not just feeling sad because it reminds me of something that didn’t work out for me. I can’t explain it.” Zoe had taken the peacock chair again, and she restrained herself from shaking her head after a stab of pain. “I can’t look at pregnant women. I can’t even think about them without feeling sick and feeling this ache in my uterus.”

  “I don’t want this to turn into a phobia. Sometimes, when we’ve had a bad experience, the mind generalizes. Like if you’ve been bitten by a black dog, you may at first be scared of black dogs, then of all dogs; then you could become scared of anything large and dark. Could even be cows or horses. It’s important to stop the progression as soon as it begins.” Dr. Suzuki leaned forward. “Let’s do an exercise in guided visualization, see if we can get you a little more okay with pregnancy in general. Why don’t you lie down on the couch?”

  “Okay. Worth a try.” Zoe lay down and put her head on the couch cushion, setting it under her neck for support.

  “I’m going to put in some suggestions for driving too, to help with anxiety around driving as you get back behind the wheel. So let’s begin by focusing on your breath. Let your eyes fall shut, and notice your breath. Breathing in relaxation, breathing out the tension of the day.”

  Zoe found herself falling readily under the spell of hypnosis the psychologist wove, her muscles relaxing so much so that they felt like they’d slide right off her bones to the rhythm of her heartbeat. With Dr. Suzuki’s voice guiding her, her mind was able to imagine and picture driving home after the session: the winding, two-lane road heading down toward the ocean, vistas of pineapple fields and sugarcane on the left, the ocean dead ahead. Shower trees lining the road, their yellow and peach-petaled glory enhancing the blue sky. Feeling safe and calm behind the wheel. They went on to imagine Zoe’s uterus, healthy and functioning. Dr. Suzuki described it in detail, followed that with a visualization of a pregnant woman lying beside Zoe, the rounded belly brushing against her and no threat to her—in fact, a celebration of life Zoe did not begrudge. Mele’s belly was the one her mind supplied, seeing again Mele’s distended abdomen, the belly button popped out against the smiley face T-shirt design like a nose. In the visualization exercise, Zoe set her hand on the side of Mele’s belly. She felt movement under her hand, a powerful surge like a dolphin leaping through the water.

  Zoe felt longing and a deep happiness, and when the doctor brought her up from the visualization, the pillow beside her face was wet with tears.

  “I’m happy for them,” Zoe said wonderingly, placing her hands on her own abdomen.

  “I’m glad this technique was a good experience for you. Guided visualization can be very helpful.”

  Zoe trailed her fingers back and forth across her flat stomach, feeling the rise of her hip bones on either side, the scoop of them like an open cradle. The fact that it was an empty cradle hurt less. “No pain in my stomach anymore. I’m happy for Adam and Mele, Dr. Suzuki. I can’t believe I’m saying that.”

  “Adam?” The psychologist’s voice was sharp. “Adam who?”

  “Adam Rodrigues. He’s the guy I went on that bad blind date with and was so attracted to, remember? It was him I saw again in the emergency room—he and his pregnant girlfriend, his sister and husband and their toddler. His mother had had a heart attack.” Zoe glanced over at the psychologist, surprised to see the doctor’s hand had come up to cover her mouth and her tilted dark eyes had gone wide. Quickly, Dr. Suzuki glanced back down at her notes.

  “Oh dear. How awful for them. I hope his mother’s heart attack doesn’t stress out the pregnant young lady.” The psychologist made some notes on her clipboard.

  Zoe gazed back up at the ceiling. “Yeah, it seems like a lot for them to handle, but I’m still pissed at Adam for making such a big deal about ‘being true’ and then trying to cheat on his pregnant girlfriend.” She described her sense of horrified betrayal on seeing Adam outside the ER and then coming home to find he’d sent her a note on the dating site asking for her number.

  “The nerve. I couldn’t believe it. I told him where to go,” Zoe said.

  “Hmmm. It will be very interesting to see how all this turns out. In the meantime, I’ll see you in a couple of days. Rest that neck and keep going to the chiropractor. If you can get a massage, do that too.”

  “I think the visualization was really helpful,” Zoe said. “I wish I’d been seeing you when I was trying to get pregnant. I have a feeling it might really have helped. They never did figure out why nothing worked.”

  “Well, I’m happy to have met you now,” Dr. Suzuki said, walking her to the door. “Try not to think about Adam. I have a feeling that situation will work itself out.”

  “I’m not thinking about him anymore. He’s got plenty of ka
rma coming his way.” Zoe felt herself smile for the first time all day. “Thanks, Dr. Suzuki.”

  Back at her apartment, Zoe did a few stretches and sat down to work on the dreaded Ladies’ Home Journal piece. She had already decided not to include the whole debacle with Adam in the article; that left her needing at least a few more dates to round out her research. Maybe it was time to do as the doctor had ordered and change her dating profile to something more honest.

  Once she logged into the site, she saw that Adam had messaged her.

  Immediately, her heart rate picked up, a prickle of sweat breaking out on the palms of her hands. He was probably going to blast her right back for her comments to him about being a cheater. She rolled a bit of hair between her fingers and brushed it back and forth against her cheek, deep in thought.

  She should probably just discard the message without reading it. She hovered the mouse over the Delete box—but gave in to curiosity and clicked on the message.

  Hi, Zoe. I’m sorry you had the wrong impression about me. Mele is my sister. Her husband is Pat, the blond guy. I didn’t get to introduce them all because the doctor called us over. I hope this clears things up because I’d like a redo on our Crazy Blind Date.

  Zoe clapped a hand over her mouth. “His sister! Oh my God!”

  Sylvester lifted his head and cocked his ears. She glanced down at his silky body draped over her feet. “Adam wants to see me again after I’ve showed him what a psycho bitch I can be. He needs his head examined.”

  She turned back to the screen, decided she needed a little more time to think. After all, she still needed to tell him she was a journalist, writing a story on Internet dating. She navigated back into her profile and changed her preferences to reflect her true tastes: action flicks, classic rock, beach walks, conservation, and her work as “independent journalist.” Under Seeking, she put, New friends to have fun with in my island home and people to interview for a piece on Internet dating. Under Children she put, I love kids but can’t have my own.

  Clicking Save, she was surprised at how good she felt: hopeful, vulnerable, and proud all in one complicated bundle. This was the real Zoe. A recently divorced, infertile journalist who liked classic rock, old cars, action flicks—and blues guitar too.

  She switched back to Adam’s message and composed her reply carefully.

  Adam pulled up into the driveway of his house—technically his parents’ house, but the longer he stayed there, the more his childhood home felt like somewhere he always wanted to live. That was particularly easy to think when he drove past the forty-year-old lychee trees, laden with knobbly red fruit that scented the air with tropical sweetness and filled with the giggling of kids trying to pick the fruit.

  He jammed on his brakes. There weren’t supposed to be any kids in his parents’ yard, picking lychees. Whose kids were these? He could see one of the trees shaking, hear their giggling and high-pitched voices. He got out of the vehicle and put a little scary into his voice as he yelled, “Hey, kids! What’chu doing in our tree?”

  The bouncing branches stilled.

  “Dad?” Serena’s voice, light and tentative.

  “Dad!” Diego’s voice, much more definite. The branches erupted into motion, and his wiry stepson dropped to the ground, hair a mess, eyes alight. Diego bolted across the grass, hit Adam like a linebacker with a hug that made him grunt. Adam’s arms came down around the boy, and he squashed him right back, tossing him from side to side—the tackle hug was their thing. Adam wrestled Diego toward the tree, looking for Serena.

  The little girl took her time, making her way carefully from the high branch, hopping down light as a bird landing. His heart sank as he saw the reserve in her wide brown eyes, the tangles in her long black hair, the bruises on her arms and legs that might be from play, might be from something else.

  “Serena!” He knew his voice came out harsh, but it was the emotion he was holding back that made his throat close on her name even as he opened his arms—and then she flew into them, burying her face under his sternum, clasping him right over her brother’s hug.

  He dropped to the ground and let them swarm over him, rolling with them like puppies until they settled, one on either side, on their backs on the grass under the tree.

  Serena’s fingers touched Adam’s cheek. “Dad. You’re crying.” She was tucked in her special spot, her cheek pillowed on the bulge of his shoulder muscle. She’d always loved to lie there and play with his hair or his ear. Diego was still a clinging opihi on his other side.

  “I’m so happy to see you is all. I missed you guys so much.” Adam cleared his throat. “Where’s your mom?”

  “She dropped us off.” Diego’s voice had gone small.

  “Great!” Adam injected his voice with enthusiasm even as he wondered how the heck he would manage it all. “How long? Overnight, I hope.”

  “She said—until school starts.” Diego sounded worried. “She said you would want us.”

  “Of course I do!” Adam sat up, keeping his arms around the kids, feeling the tension in their small bodies. “That’s awesome. School starts in two weeks. We’re going to make up for lost time.”

  He wrapped his arms around them and stood up, bouncing one on either side above the ground. They giggled breathlessly as he toted them down the driveway to the front porch, leaving his truck where it stood. On the front porch, two bulging brightly colored kids’ backpacks rested on the top step. An envelope with his name on it was stuck in the screen door.

  “Looks like she left me a note.” He was still sounding a little overhearty, he knew, but his mind was racing, thinking about care for the kids while he went to work. He’d have to call his sisters right away—they’d have ideas. In the meantime, he had them all to himself and the evening ahead.

  “Grab your backpacks. We have to set up the bunk beds for you. Your mom knew I’d come to live with Tutu,” he said as he unlocked the door. “When you guys first left, I called every day.”

  “She said you didn’t call, but I heard you guys arguing on the phone,” Diego said. Adam turned back. With their arms around the backpacks, the kids seemed so unkempt, so pathetic, he almost felt himself tearing up again.

  “I called every day after you left. Your mom, she was mad at me.”

  “We know.” Serena, always a little more cautious. “But we kept asking to see you. Finally she said yes.”

  “Only after Nannie and Papa said we had to move out,” Diego said to his sister, frowning.

  “Huh.” Adam kept his voice neutral as his blood pressure spiked, thinking about what the kids had been through. “Well, c’mon in. You guys must be hungry.”

  “Starving!” Diego dropped his backpack on the couch.

  “We ate some lychees without asking.” Serena sounded nervous.

  Adam turned back, took the backpack from her and set it beside her brother’s. He scooped her into his arms. “Mi casa es su casa. Mi lychee es su lychee.” Diego laughed as he trotted into the kitchen, and Adam followed, carrying the serious little girl.

  The kitchen sparkled with cleanliness and smelled of something lemony, thanks to Tami and Auntie June.

  “Where’s Tutu?” Diego opened the fridge. It was stuffed with casserole dishes and Tupperware, carefully labeled. Without putting Serena down, Adam reached in and took out a glass dish marked “pork laulau.”

  “Pop some holes in that plastic, will you, Diego?”

  Diego pulled open the drawer, took out a fork and poked holes in the plastic covering the glass dish. “I can do it, Dad.” He put the dish into the microwave, set it on five minutes. “I make our food all the time.”

  Adam’s breath hitched, thinking of the kids alone to fend for themselves. He squeezed Serena in response, got out a pitcher of lilikoi juice and poured each child and himself a glass, then pulled out a kitchen chair and sat. “Okay. I have to fill you kids in on what’s happening so we can figure it out together.”

  Diego sat down, sipping his juice, eyes
wide over the rim of the sturdy glass. Serena had tucked her face into Adam’s neck, arms tight around his shoulders. She hadn’t loosened her grip since he picked her up.

  “So here’s the deal. Serena, sit up. I want you to hear this.”

  Serena lifted her head, spotted the juice glass. She sipped thirstily. When she set it back down, he continued.

  “Tutu is in the hospital. She’s had some health problems. That’s why I moved here—to help her out. She had a heart attack yesterday, and an operation. But it went very well, and she’s going to come home day after tomorrow and be feeling much better soon.”

  Diego’s eyes had gotten even bigger. “Is she going to die?”

  “No, of course not.” Adam wished he felt as confident as he sounded. “She had an operation to clean her heart out just like a car that’s not running good, and she’s going to be a little tired at first, recovering, but she’s going to be a lot healthier in the long run. She’s going to be so excited to see you guys.”

  The microwave dinged, and Diego hopped up, opened the door with his fork in hand.

  “I know what to do, Dad.” Proud to demonstrate his independence, Diego peeled back the Saran Wrap and turned the laulau with the fork, stretched the plastic back over the dish, and reset the microwave for two minutes.

  “It should sit for a few minutes after it’s done,” he said.

  “How old are you now, Diego? Twelve?” Adam squinted, scratched his head as if he couldn’t remember.

  “Almost eight. And Nannie, she had me help in the kitchen.”

  “Do Nannie and Papa know where you are?”

  “I don’t know.” Diego appeared downcast.

  “They were fighting with Mama after we were in bed,” Serena piped up. “They told her this can’t go on, and we’d have to move. And then Mama came in and told us to pack our backpacks, and we spent the night at Uncle’s house.”

  “Uncle who?”

  “Uncle. He never said. But he was mad we came.” Diego’s voice went shaky.