Coming In From the Cold(28)

"No wonder he was so angry." Willow put her head in her hands. "I was  really reckless, Callie. My prescription was lapsed, and I ignored it. I  thought I could just skate by."

"Well … " Callie cleared her throat. "Someday he's going to look back on  this and realize that you did him a big favor. But it's really hard to  say when that day might be. First he's going to have to get past a whole  encyclopedia of issues. Survivor's guilt … "

"Anger," Willow added. "Denial, grief, isolation. Even his issues have issues."

Callie smiled. "At least you have the training to understand what he's going through."

"I knew there was something, Callie."

"You're a gifted shrink."

"He referred to himself as toxic."

Callie blew out a breath. "He wasn't kidding. He meant it quite literally, didn't he?"

Willow nodded. "And if that's why he was so adamant that I not have the  baby … " she rubbed a finger around the rim of her teacup. "That's  basically admitting that he wished he'd never been born."

"That's fear talking," Callie said.

"It's years of pain talking. He … he actually cried. Right after we … " She cleared her throat. "He sounded broken."

"Don't go all soft on me, Willow. I think you have to leave him out of  it, now. And make up your own mind. What does your gut say?"

"My gut is worried about money. How can I even weather a few months with  a newborn on nothing? It's not like my temp job will give me a  maternity leave."

Callie flinched. "Things could be pretty tight for a while. But with a  couple of lucky breaks, you could be a practicing psychologist in a  couple years with a great job. It's not impossible."

Willow put her chin on her fist. "If only I knew where to get a lucky  break. They are in short supply around here. I do want a child. But is  it even fair to have one, if I know I'm on the path to becoming a  welfare mom?"

"I'm not going to tell you what to do, Willow," Callie said carefully.  "But I do know that being a welfare mom isn't necessarily a permanent  condition."

"I just don't know the answer," Willow sighed. "If you have a crystal ball lying around somewhere, don't hold out on me."

"I would never," Callie laughed. "I'd be peering into it myself, trying to figure out if I'm ever going to meet Mr. Right."





Twenty-three





Even though it was March and the snow had already begun to melt, the  temperature outside plunged one more time. Lying on the sofa, Dane  listened to the wind howl.

He had spent the last few days in a stupor, barely speaking. After  whatever powerful drug Callie had injected wore off, he woke the next  day shaking. Coach had been treating him as if he had the flu, bringing  him soup and sodas. And at first, he'd felt exactly like a flu  patient-he'd had a crushing headache and zero interest in food. He slept  for hours at a time.

But as the chill crept in under the door, his shock slowly wore off.  This morning, his brain had suddenly come back online. He'd spent the  day trying to look at his life through a completely new lens.

And it was excruciating.

Every minute of Dane's past had been colored by dread. Intellectually,  he understood that his negative blood test ought to change that. The  problem, he was beginning to realize, was that words on a page didn't  change him. Not overnight, anyway. Instead of joy, he felt scared. He  would have fifty more years instead of ten. But since he'd tried so hard  to keep people out of his life-except for Finn, who was gone-it was  going to be a pretty desolate half-century, unless he underwent a  complete personality transplant.                       
       
           



       

And maybe it was too late. Once an asshole with a death wish, always an asshole with a death wish?

In a matter of days, Dane would get the go-ahead to put weight on his  leg and go back out into the world. He would have to start physical  therapy. He would have to look people in the eye. He wasn't sure he  remembered how.

A heavy cloud of self-loathing hung over him. And whenever he thought of Willow, it twisted his guts into a knot.

Slowly, Dane sat up. When he rose to a standing position, his good knee  wobbled. A tremor, Dane thought immediately. A beat went by before he  remembered the truth. Whatever "tremors" he experienced now were just  the sign of a little muscle weakness - the result of lying around like a  flu patient. The wobble he'd felt wasn't a harbinger of doom. It wasn't  the mark of death, or a warning of imminent demise. Any trouble he had  with his knees was now the sort of thing that any athlete who took  mountains at Porsche-speed might eventually develop.

That idea was quite difficult to swallow. Dane had feared the disease  for so long that he didn't know how to stop listening for it.

Picking up one crutch, he hopped over to the window. It was too early in  the day to look for Willow. She'd be at work for another hour or two.  But when he glanced at the barn, he saw the door bobbling in the wind.  As he watched, the latch shook in the breeze, opening and closing a  couple of inches with each gust. Her chickens were probably blasted with  cold air each time it happened.

That couldn't be good. And Dane had nothing better to do than to go outside and investigate.

While he was putting on his coat, Coach came out of the bedroom to put the tea kettle on. "Where ya goin'?" he asked, puzzled.

"Outside," Dane mumbled. He wasn't ready to discuss all the drama that  gone down here this week. The conversation was overdue, and at some  point he'd tell Coach how grateful he was for all the care-taking that  he had done. But talking about it didn't seem possible yet. He'd spent a  decade trying not to talk about it. He wouldn't even know where to  start.

The older man studied him for a moment, his eyes steady and kind. "Colder than a witch's tit out there. Bundle up."

"Yessir," Dane managed. He hobbled over to his boots in the corner,  hopping into the only one that he was allowed to put weight on. He put  on gloves and a hat.

Coach had not lied - it was bitter outside. When Dane crutched through  the packed-down snow toward the barn, his boot made the kind of squeaky  sound against the surface that only occurred during a sub-zero deep  freeze.

When he got close enough to see it clearly, it was easy for Dane to  diagnose the problem on the barn door. The latch was broken, with the  old metal fitting snapped in two. Willow had tried to solve the problem  by tying a string between the two pieces and lashing it shut. But the  wind was having none of it. Another gust or two, and it was going to  snap.

Dane tightened up Willow's temporary fix as best he could. Then he stuck  his head back into the apartment and startled Coach. "How do you feel  about a trip to the hardware store in town?"

Coach put down the sports section of the newspaper. "It's not like I have a better offer."





* * *



Two hours later, Dane stood inside again, waiting near the window. She  was late today. The sun was already setting by the time Willow trotted  across the crusty snow, her hand in her pocket where the raisins waited.

As Dane watched, Willow drew up short in front of the barn door. First,  she touched the new door latch, testing the slide of the bar through it.  Then she turned around.

Dane ducked back into the shadows where she couldn't possibly spot him.

After a moment, Willow turned back to the latch, inspecting it,  releasing and fastening it a couple of times. Finally, she opened the  door and went inside. Before she could even close the door, Dane  glimpsed the fluttering horde leaping at Willow's feet.

It was possibly the smallest favor ever done by a man for the woman carrying his child. But it was something.





Twenty-four





Willow was not at all sure why the fix-it fairies had suddenly descended on her property.

First came the new latch on the barn door. The small gesture touched  her, and Willow indulged in the romantic fantasy that someone wanted to  take a little care of her. But that was unlikely. The broken latch had  probably caused the barn door to bang open and shut all day long,  driving Coach and his ornery tenant crazy.

It was probably Coach who set it right. Dane couldn't drive, anyway. So  the older man was likely her helper. When she saw him next, she'd  planned to thank him.

But the following night, her outside light fixtures mysteriously lit  themselves. Both of the old-fashioned sconces framing her kitchen door  had been missing their bulbs for an embarrassingly long time. Yet when  she drove home from yoga that evening, they burned brightly, welcoming  her home.