We had met many times before, he told me. We attended monthly family game nights, during which Hayes said I was a crazy competitive player. Up until the accident, I used to meet his sisters and mother for lunch.
My nerves were unacceptable. It wasn’t like they were vampires or assholes. They were warm, caring people who had produced Hayes, the man I adored. I could do this.
Tucking my arm between his and his side, Hayes led me up the path and to the entrance. The door swung open to reveal a diminutive woman with blond hair liberally streaked with gray. She was wearing a lovely full-skirted gown in a deep ruby, and her eyes, the same warm hazel as Hayes’s, shone with welcome.
“I was beginning to think you two were going to sit in the car all night! Birdie, darling, it’s so good to see you!” She pulled me into a tight hug, keeping hold of my arm after loosening her grip. “Come along...everyone is dying to see you. We’ve all been so worried...”
I looked helplessly back at Hayes, who gave me a small smile and shrug.
She pulled me into a gathering room with groupings of chairs and a large sofa in its center. One wall was lined with floor to ceiling French windows that opened to a terrace, lit currently with strings of light that set it aglow. Both room and terrace were filled with people, but she steered me efficiently past them with a nod here, a wave there, until we were in a short hall. “Everyone’s in the kitchen,” she explained. By everyone I assume she meant the family, as there was no shortage of “everyones” in the room we had just passed through.
We stepped through an arched entry and were in the kitchen, a large, inviting room with a center island and flagstone floor. A handful of people stood around the island, laughing over something and snacking on a tray of cold cuts.
“Look who’s here, everyone!” his mother sang out. Hayes’s hand came to rest on my shoulder, a reassuring weight, and I leaned back into his chest as the assault began.
“We’re so excited about the baby!”
“Thank God you’re okay!”
“Nice to see you again, sis.”
“Have you picked out any names?”
“When can we go shopping?”
Suddenly I was drowning. It was too much. Too much stimulation, too much noise and expectation and people looking at me. “I-I’m sorry. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“This way.” Hayes steered me swiftly away and into a tiny powder room.
He held my hair, which I’d left loose, away from my face while I heaved into the toilet. When I finished, he handed me a damp towel and a cup of water from the sink. “Better?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry. I just —”
“Stop apologizing. Between the baby and the amnesia and everyone swarming you, it was bound to happen. Take a minute and get your bearings. I’m going to go tell everyone to ease up.”
I rested my hands on the edge of the sink after he left and stared at my reflection in the ornate mirror hanging on the wall. Blue eyes glittered feverishly against the pallor of my skin, and I could see the tracery of veins under it in places. I looked ill, when I ought to be bursting with health. Didn’t pregnant women look healthy and vibrant? I needed some of that.
There was a knock at the door, and it opened an inch. One of the twins stood in the hall, peering in through a scant crack. “Birdie? Can I come in? It’s Ava.”
Ava and Averie. Those were the twins. “Yeah, sure.”
She pushed the door the rest of the way and then closed it behind her. “Are you all right?”
I had probably answered that question a thousand times since November, but I stifled the dry laugh that rose, turning it into a cough. “I’m fine.”
She sat on the toilet lid beside me, the light from the ceiling fixture setting the unusual copper strands in her dark hair on fire. She looked like Hayes, with eyes that looked sleepy and a dimple that flashed in her cheek. “What am I asking…of course, you’re not fine. You’re probably wondering who the hell all these people are. We practically attacked you back there.” She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and smirked up at me. “Hayes said not to bombard you with stories about what we used to do, so I won’t tell you that I was your favorite.”
I laughed. “It’s fine, really. I don’t think I was ever a big crowd person to begin with.” I thought back to the baseball house party and my aggravation with the press of people around me.
“Nah, you’re more a homebody than a party animal.” She held her hand out toward my stomach, tentative. “May I?” I nodded, and she placed her palm on the hard little bump of my belly, visible beneath the sweater dress I was wearing. “Oh, Birdie. This little baby’s going to be so loved. I wish you knew.”
I placed my hand over hers. “I’m starting to realize that.”
“Where’s your ring?” Ava caught my hand in hers studying my hand as though she could make the ring appear on my finger.
I had forgotten I was missing it. “I’m not sure, exactly. I didn’t have it when I woke up in the hospital and so far, I haven’t been able to find it. Hayes said he’d check his office, but he hasn’t mentioned it since.” I rubbed my thumb over the space where it should have been sitting. “It’s end of term, though. I know he’s busy. Maybe I’ll bring lunch to him one day this week and look for it, myself.”
“Ava! Are you monopolizing Birdie?”
Ava made a face. “One minute! Damn. Caught.” She stood and put an arm around my shoulders. “You ready?”
I took a deep breath and opened the door. “Ready.”
My time in the bathroom and chat with Ava ended up being the stabilizing factor I needed. Hayes and I didn’t stay long, but by the end of the evening, his father had me teasing him about his incredibly bad taste in sweaters, and his brothers had charmed me with their protective sides. Any time Hayes left me to go chat with someone, one of them would take his place by my side, politely managing to ward off most of the crowd who were curious about the girl with amnesia. At the moment, it was Graham, his oldest sibling. We sat in a little alcove next to a ginormous fireplace with Jeannie, his mother, Ava, and Averie. Jeannie and I were making plans to meet next week and shop for nursery linens.
“Are you hoping for a girl or a boy, Birdie?” Jeannie asked. “I wanted a little girl so terribly. Kept getting these big old grubby boys.” She patted Graham’s knee. “And when I finally did get my wish, I ended up with two of the biggest tomboys you’d ever seen.”
Averie stuck her tongue out, showing a mouth full of food.
“I really don’t care,” I answered, trying to curb my snickers. “I just want him or her to be healthy.”
“Goes without saying,” Dean, Hayes’s father said, nodding. “It’ll be nice to have another little one underfoot.” His gaze landed on Mercy, Hayes’s older brother’s child. She toddled around the room, in and out of the adults fearlessly. The legs were her jungle; she was Tarzan. Or Jane, I guessed.
“Where’s Mercy’s mother?” I asked of no one in particular. I hadn’t seen her once the entire evening. The sudden silence was my first indication that I shouldn’t have asked. Ava sent a started glance my way, and then to Graham.