“I’ll go back to that when I’m ready. I needed a break.”
For the last four months of her pregnancy, Candace hadn’t seen her mother. She’d established a fiction that she’d decided to travel overseas—Jilly had even generously offered her the funds to make the story a reality. It hadn’t taken the needy expression in Jilly’s eyes to affirm what a sacrifice she was making with the offer. Candace had known Jilly would miss visiting her, seeing Jennie grow as Candace’s pregnancy progressed.
Candace had declined. She hadn’t felt comfortable accepting the gift. Instead, she’d dropped out of sight, renting a cottage on the rugged West Coast, an hour’s drive from Auckland, where she’d lived quietly while her family and friends assumed she was on the other side of the world.
There was a certain irony in the fact that during the time Candace had been living that deception, Jilly had been practicing her own deception with a surreal fake pregnancy.
Perhaps that was why Jilly had visited the cottage so often—sometimes even spending the night in the cramped second bedroom that was little more than a closet. It would have been the only time Jilly could break out of her lie because it was only with Candace that she wasn’t pregnant. The charade must’ve been exhausting, waiting for someone to catch any slip…
Yet now Candace knew that those visits to the cottage, the nights away, would only have added fuel to Nick’s belief that his wife was having an illicit affair.
By the time Jennie had been born, Candace had been drained. The strain of the imminent parting from her baby had taken its toll. After nine months spent caring for her unborn baby, suddenly there was a dark, black hole of loss that threatened to swallow her.
Her mother had known instantly that something was wrong. She’d assumed—wrongly—that her daughter must’ve fallen in love with someone across the ocean.
Of course, Candace hadn’t been able to confess the enormity of what she’d done. The only way to survive was not to think about Jennie. To get back to work. It hadn’t taken her long to realize her days as a pediatric nurse were over.
She couldn’t bear to work with babies and children. Every time she looked into a little girl’s face, Candace wondered about her baby girl. What she was doing. And, most important, if she was loved.
The decision to switch to working in the emergency room—as far away from young babies as she could get—had been inevitable.
Then her mother had almost died.
Catherine had fallen off a ladder while packing winter blankets into storage and cracked her skull. It had been touch and go—and had taken a week for her to regain consciousness. The doctors had feared she would be permanently brain-damaged.
Looking at her mother now, Candace marveled over the amazing changes time had wrought.
Her mother wasn’t out of the woods yet and she still suffered memory lapses, but with every month that passed, Catherine grew stronger. The chances of the stroke that the doctors had initially feared were lessening.
“I’d like to go sit in the garden,” her mother said suddenly. “And I’m sure Jennie would like that far better than being cooped up in an old woman’s room.”
“You’re not old,” Candace said automatically, though her mother had aged since the accident. Being outside would lift her spirits and the vitamin D would be good for her, too. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“Oh, yes. The sunshine is beautiful.”
Candace helped her mother into a wheelchair and planted Jennie on her lap. Then she pushed them both out into the sunlight.
“Let’s go to the rose gardens,” Catherine suggested.
Halting the wheelchair in her mother’s favorite spot, Candace said, “Here, let me take Jennie from you. She must be heavy.”
“She’s fine.” Catherine gave her a faint smile. “It’s been a long time since I held a baby. She smells just as I remember you did…of that special fragrance babies have. Clean skin, well-laundered clothes and something else—” she bent her head and inhaled “—lavender?”
“And tea tree.”
“Lavender will help her sleep.” Her mother looked startled. “I’d forgotten that.”
“It has good antiseptic properties, too.” Candace didn’t want to look too elated at the tiny breakthrough in her mother’s ability to recall information.
“But the lavender doesn’t always work.” Reaching out a hand, Candace touched the baby’s head tenderly.
“She doesn’t sleep?”
“Most of the time she’s an angel.” That instantly reminded her of Nick. He’d called her an angel…