“Have you ever hung out with her and not slept with her?” Law asked.
“Of course. It’s not like…” He’d been going to say that he liked her. It wasn’t like he’d been using her for sex. But they wouldn’t understand the nuance. They’d talked him into a trap.
“You’re dating,” Law proclaimed. “You’re just not calling it that. Or doing it publicly.”
“The thing is, in my line of work, I see a lot of heartbreak associated with pregnancy. People who’ve lost babies. People who wanted babies but waited too long.”
Nora was standing on the pier with Maya and Eve, preparing to tell them what she had decided to do about the bomb that had exploded in her life.
“And you want a baby?” Eve asked gently.
“I think so. Someday.”
“It’s okay if someday isn’t now, though,” Maya said, just as gently.
Her friends were being so good to her. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but she was overcome with affection for them—and gratitude. She sniffed. “I know. I just always thought there would be some future point at which I had my life together. But actually…I hired that receptionist today.”
“You did? That’s great!” Eve said.
“I hired a receptionist today for my medical practice—my successful medical practice in a town that I am growing surprisingly fond of. That kind of sounds like someone who has her life together, doesn’t it?”
“Aww.” Maya slung an arm around her shoulder.
“Mind you, I also live in a tiny pink room and appear to have lost custody of my dog to my baby daddy who I’m maybe kind of estranged from for reasons unknown.”
“Well, one,” Maya said, “you can’t have everything. I don’t think living in a tiny pink room and having your life together are mutually exclusive. And two, um, hello? Did you just refer to Jake as your baby daddy?”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?” Maya’s voice was rising.
Nora took a deep breath. “It does. I decided this morning.”
She’d known it all along, though, hadn’t she? Even as she’d allowed her conscious, scientific mind to go through a rational decision-making process, somewhere inside she had known from the moment she’d seen that plus sign. It wasn’t that she’d gone all gaga-gooey maternal. Not at all. She could only trust that that—or enough of that to get the job done—would come later. Maybe it was just that she was so fresh off a death that she couldn’t, ultimately, let herself get too fussed over timing.
The timing was bad. There was no question.
But would it be better in a year? In three years?
She had thought of Wynd and her alpacas. When the universe gives you what you want, are you going to complain that it’s too early? Those had been her exact words.
And Nora knew right now, better and more viscerally than she’d ever known before, that nothing was guaranteed. People got sick and stopped recognizing you. People died.
Time went fast.
“Oh my God!” Maya was squealing and jumping up and down. “Oh my God! You’re really going to do it?”
“I’m going to do it.” Nora’s voice was shaky, but her intentions were not. “I have no idea how, but I’m going to do it. I also decided that…”
Oh, man. Why was this part so hard? Probably because she felt terrible about leaving Erin in the lurch. She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.
“What?” Eve said gently.
“I’m going to do it here. I’m going to stay.”
The girls started shrieking—and Nora started panicking.
It wasn’t that she didn’t feel sure in her decisions. She would miss Toronto and her family something terrible. But she had a sweet life here. As her own boss, she had flexibility. And she was betting the network of elders could be guilted into babysitting.
But more than that, she wanted her kid to grow up with access to its dad—assuming its dad wanted to be accessed. She wanted her kid to grow up by the lake.
Still, despite her elemental certainty that she’d chosen the right path, the how of it made her feel like hyperventilating when she thought about it too hard. How was she possibly going to do this?
“We’ll help you.” As if she had heard Nora’s unarticulated fears, Eve laid a hand on her arm, and Nora was overcome anew with gratitude for her friends. This phase of her life was supposed to be about her career, her finances—about getting over Rufus. She was beginning to see, though, that the unplanned dividend of her big move was these women.
“Totally!” Maya agreed. “We both have flexible jobs. And you know that whole it-takes-a-village saying? This town may have its drawbacks, but it’s your village, lady.”
“It’s my village,” Nora echoed. That felt right. That helped tamp down the fear.
“Yeah, this town really stepped in when Sawyer was younger, to help him with Clara,” Eve said.
“You know who helped him a lot?” Maya said, looking at something over Nora’s shoulder. “The Ramsey family. Jake.” She lowered her voice. “Who is on his way over here right now.”
Nora’s stomach dropped as she twisted around to confirm that Jake was indeed approaching, along with Sawyer. “Don’t say anything!”
“Of course not,” Eve whispered.
“Even I’m not that much of a drama queen,” Maya said.
“Hey,” Sawyer said as they approached. Jake, of course, did not say anything. “Making wishes?”
“Not yet.” Maya held up a small basket that contained their flowers.
Everyone was silent, the women no doubt because they were all—Nora included—processing Nora’s big news and the men probably because the women were being so weird.
“Plotting something, then?”
Sawyer was teasing, but when Maya said, quickly, “No! Why would you say that?” more awkward silence descended.
Okay, she had to do something about this. She looked Jake square in the eyes. “How’s Mick?”
“He’s, uh, fine.”
“Good.”
“I can bring him by the clinic Monday if you like. I thought you might be busy catching up these first couple weeks back, so I didn’t come very often.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I was. But, uh, yeah, if you want to bring him by Monday, I’ll try to take a break. Things are…still really busy, though.” She was trying to let him off the hook.
No, that was a lie. She was trying to let herself off the hook. She had to tell him. She knew that. She just didn’t want to face it yet. She needed to get…her village lined up before she did.
Jake nodded. He was staring at her really intently, but he didn’t say anything else.
After a few beats of more of that awful silence, Eve said, “Well, girls, shall we get on with it?”
“Yep!” Maya held her basket up to Nora and Eve but spoke to Jake and Sawyer. “Skedaddle, boys. It’s ladies’ night at the wish factory.”
Sawyer and Eve made moony faces at each other, which caused Maya to roll her eyes. Jake just stared at Nora until Sawyer, who’d already turned and started walking away, came back and shoved him to get his attention. Even then, he looked for a beat longer before he turned and trudged off.