The Saint Read online

  And I wasn’t scared. Standing there on the high wire of my life, I wasn’t scared of my feelings for this man I hardly knew.

  And maybe that should concern me, but I simply couldn’t work up the energy.

  The slam of the oven door and the crash of a roasting pan hitting the counter snapped me away from Carter.

  “Mom, you okay?” I asked, but the second I got a look at my mother’s face, I knew what was coming.

  “I’m fine,” my mother snapped. “But you need to get your head examined.”

  “Uh-oh,” Phillip muttered.

  “Mom,” I begged. “Please, don’t—”

  “Am I supposed to sit idly by while you pretend you’re not having a baby? While you run around acting like you have no responsibilities to anyone but yourself?”

  “I’m not pretending anything,” I said, forcing myself to keep my cool and not rise to this old and tired bait. “I’m living my life and enjoying myself—”

  “And how much are you going to be enjoying yourself when you’re raising a baby all by yourself, you’re exhausted and stressed out, and this man is nowhere to be seen?”

  “You don’t know that’s going to happen.”

  “Oh, please, Zoe. You never could be realistic. You’re going to be a single mother. Now is not the time—”

  “Then when?” I cried, my cool bolting away from me. “Look at you, Mom—you’re sixty years old and you’ve never had a relationship.”

  “I have you—”

  I took a deep breath and realized that Phillip and Ben had grabbed their coats and were headed to the door.

  “No,” I cried, heartbroken to see my holiday falling to pieces. “Don’t leave.”

  “I’ll call you later,” Phillip said. “You get this hashed out with your mom. Get it dealt with for good.”

  Ben and Carter exchanged manly nods and then my friends were gone.

  “Look at what you’ve done, Mom! You chased them away.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that. I am, but honestly, honey, I can’t watch you get hurt like this.”

  “I’m not hurt!” I cried. “I’m happy. I’m so happy.”

  “You’re going to have a baby,” my mother said, as if it were a death sentence, and I wondered, not for the first time, how hard it had been for Penny to be a single mother at twenty-three.

  Much harder than what I was about to face, being thirty-seven and ready for a family. Eager for one.

  “Ms. Madison,” Carter said, and Penny turned her furious eyes on him. “I know you don’t know me, and I understand that the way Zoe and I got together would concern any mother—”

  “Don’t try and smooth talk me,” Penny said. “You’re slick, but I can see right through you. She’s broke, you know. Teaching dance classes without insurance. No savings.”

  “I just got funding for the academy—”

  “Right, a new dance school and a new baby. You can guess who will be looking after this child.”

  “I want to help. I’m sure Phillip does, too,” Carter said.

  “Sure,” Penny practically snarled. “Where are you going to be in five months, when she’s fat and has cracked nipples and can’t stop crying?”

  “Please, God, just kill me now,” I whispered, but Carter reached over and took my hand.

  “I know she’s having a baby,” he said. “I’m excited for her. For me, and for whatever part I have in her life at that time. It doesn’t put me off, or scare me.”

  “Well it should,” Penny snapped. “You should both be scared.”

  “No!” I cried. “I should be happy. I should be thrilled. I’m having a baby, not serving jail time or enduring hardship. I’m bringing joy into my life.”

  “Well,” Penny said, pursing her lips. “It seems to me your constant search for joy is what got you into this mess.”

  Oh. Oh wow. Had mom just called me a joy-seeking slut? I glanced over at Carter, who was staring back at me.

  “I’m inspired by your constant search for joy,” he whispered.

  Sweet man. Whatever happened with him, I would not regret it. Not for a minute.

  “Mom,” I breathed, “you’ve failed to realize that I am all grown-up. I’m a thirty-seven-year-old woman. And I’m sorry you had me before you were ready. I’m sorry that life was so hard on you, but this was a decision I made.”

  “A decision after a mistake. An accident. I know all about it, sweetheart. I’ve been there.”

  Something snapped in my head and anger flooded me, filling my hands and my feet, coursing through my veins and siphoning through my lungs. I realized that by keeping my baby’s conception a secret, I was damning my daughter to the same relationship with Penny I’d had to live with. The same strange prison of love and resentment.

  And I wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it.

  My mother’s instinct roared to life, overshadowing the bond I had with my own mother, already stretched thin and worn down.

  “Mom, there’s something you need to know.” The tone of my voice, dark and loud, made both Carter and Penny turn to face me. Part of me recognized that this was my last secret from Carter. After this, I was just an open book, while he was still a mystery to me in so many ways. But I wasn’t about to tell him to leave.

  “This baby was a decision,” I said, and Penny opened her mouth to say something, but I smacked my hand down on the counter. “Let me talk. All my life I’ve let you say these poisonous things, these hurtful things, and I’m done. You won’t do it anymore. Not to me and never, ever to this baby.”

  “I never meant to hurt you,” Penny whispered, her eyes wide, and I knew that my mother was telling the truth. She just didn’t know how to be any other way—her years of sacrifice for me had worn her down to a blunt object with no finesse. No empathy.

  But with a baby coming, things needed to change.

  “That doesn’t make it okay anymore. You need to know.” I looked over at Carter, who was steadfast and serious, watching my every move. My every breath. “Maybe both of you do. I was pregnant about a year and a half ago.” Penny exhaled hard and slumped against the counter. “I was dating a violin player in the orchestra and…it just happened. It wasn’t planned, but it wasn’t a mistake.” The word was a barb I threw right at my mother.

  “I was thrilled. Delirious. Victor, not so much. When I…miscarried—” the lump in my throat, the sudden tears were a surprise but I rolled over them, undeterred “—Victor was relieved. I broke up with him, and as months passed, I realized that I wanted a family. A baby. My baby. And I knew that I could wait for another man to come along and make this happen for me, or I could do it myself.”

  Oddly, I wasn’t looking at my mother. I watched Carter, told Carter. I watched my words, the words I’d never said out loud, sink in.

  “What are you saying?” Penny asked.

  I ran my hands over my belly.

  Sorry, baby, I thought, because I was breaking my promise. But I realized that my promise was just a different kind of jail than the one my mother put me in, but a jail nonetheless, with its own walls and locks. And, I thought, glancing at Carter, maybe I’d kept this secret out of embarrassment, and I didn’t want to be embarrassed about my child. About wanting a child.

  I was proud, and it was time for this to end.

  “The baby’s father is sample 1371D.”

  16

  ZOE

  * * *

  The silence filled the room until the pressure in the air was so thick, so ominous, my head hurt.

  “He’s tall, but not too tall. Brown hair, blue eyes. No history of cancer or heart disease. He’s a student at U of T—a double major in biomedicine and earth science.” I started to babble out of sheer nerves. “I wanted someone good at math and science, you know, who would balance me out.”

  “Of course,” Carter said, sincere and earnest, not a hint of mockery in his voice or face. Nothing but… pride. Affection. “That makes sense, Zoe. Perfect sense.”

  �
�Are you saying you went to a sperm bank?” Penny asked, her face creased in horror and confusion. “You… did this on purpose?”

  “I wanted a family, Mom.”

  “I’m your family.”

  “You’re my… I don’t know, jail cell. And I’m yours. You love me, but you resent me. And I love you, I do. But I sure as hell am beginning to resent you.”

  “Resent me?” Penny whispered, her eyes welling up with tears, and I felt awful. Really awful. But there was nothing I could do. These walls needed to be broken down so that something new could be built.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Penny whispered, folding up a tea towel into precise corners. “I think…maybe…” she sighed and looked around at the turkey and the potatoes growing cold on the counter. “I’m going to leave.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to stop her, to tell her it was okay, to wipe all of this away, but Carter reached over and twined his fingers with mine, gathering them all up until our palms were pressed together. Tight. I felt his heart beating in the center of his hand, just as I felt the beat of the baby’s heart in my belly like the flutter of a small bird, the tide of an ocean…of life.

  Family, I thought, knowing it was true no matter how unlikely.

  This man, the baby, me. That was family.

  “I’ll call you in a few days, Mom,” I said, as good a compromise as I could come up with. I walked toward the door where my mother stood, gathering her things. “Do you want to take some food?” I asked quietly, but Penny shook her head.

  When I looked up, my mother’s green eyes, so familiar, so much a part of my life and my memories, were wide and wet with tears. “I never meant to be this way,” Penny whispered. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “And I don’t want you to be hurt now,” she said, still managing to shoot a sharp look over my shoulder at Carter, and I fought a smile. Good old Penny Madison— she took a beating but kept on swinging.

  “I’m a big girl,” I said. “A woman with my own life. I can take care of myself and my baby.”

  Penny cupped my face, a tender touch. “You were always so dreamy,” Penny said. “So lost in your own little world and I…I guess I am just used to worrying. I’m sorry,” she said, wrapping my once-favorite scarf around her neck as she walked out.

  I shut the door behind her and rested my head against it, wondering if Carter was going to leave, too. If maybe this was all just a little too much for him.

  It was way too much for me and it was my life.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave,” I said, talking to the door.

  His hand stroked my back, a warm touch through the cowboy shirt with the lassoing hearts I almost wore on our first fake date.

  Funny, I’d known this guy less than a month, but his mark was like a thick bold tick on my time line. My whole life was split into halves—before Carter and after Carter.

  “Can I tell you something?” he asked, his voice in my ear, his breath a warm breeze on my neck that made my skin do a shimmy.

  “Please,” I said, “the more embarrassing the better.”

  “I’m proud of you,” he said, still rubbing my back, and I almost started to cry. All the emotions of the day welled up and nearly drowned me, but I pressed my head hard into the door, the pain barely keeping the tears at bay. “I’m proud to be in your life.”

  I waited for the but. The “but I’m going to be mayor, and you’re way too nuts to have kicking around City Hall.”

  It never came.

  His hands kept making those wide warm circles on my back, drugging me, and suddenly I found a lot of courage, enough courage to do stupid things. But in for a penny, in for a pound, was pretty much how I operated.

  I turned, wiping away the tears that clung to my eyelashes. “What if I told you I was falling in love with you?” I asked. His eyes got wide and he stepped back, his shoulders slumping slightly as if I’d just punched him in the gut. “I’m not saying I’m there, but it’s not far off. You still want to be in my life?”

  As he stood silent and stared at me, I died, over and over again, and wondered if spontaneous combustion really happened.

  “I’ve…ah…turned away from love a lot in my life, for a lot of stupid reasons,” he finally said, his fingers reaching for mine, and I couldn’t help reaching out for him. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

  “But there’s something you need to know about me,” he said. “Something that might change your mind.”

  “Are you donor 1371D?” I asked, making a joke because he was suddenly so serious, sucking all the air and light out of the world. “Because that would be weird,” I finished lamely.

  His smile was cockeyed and distant. “You know about my family,” he said.

  “The Notorious O’Neills,” I said. “Don’t tell me there’s more—a grandfather in the mafia or something.”

  “No,” he said and then paused. “Although, maybe.”

  “Carter—” I laughed.

  “It’s me,” he said. “It’s about me. About what I’ve done.” His fingers became stiff in my hands, and I squeezed them, feeling suddenly like despite the fact that he was standing right in front of me, he wasn’t really present.

  “It can’t be that bad,” I whispered.

  “I lied in court,” he said. “For my mother. I gave her an alibi ten years ago so she wouldn’t go to jail.”

  My jaw dropped open. “You?” It was like hearing Smokey the Bear admit to being an arsonist.

  “Me. She said if I didn’t do it, she would go back to Bonne Terre and ask my sister. Or my brother. And I knew…God, I knew my sister would do it. Savvy was so desperate to have her mother back, she would have done anything. So I lied, in court, but I made her promise that she’d never bother Savannah or Tyler again. Ever. Not that I honored the agreement, but at the time I thought I was protecting my family.”

  “Of course,” I said, able to see every bit of convoluted logic. “You were doing what you thought was best.”

  “I’ve been doing what I thought was best ever since. I thought that if she came back to me once, she’d come back again, so I stayed away.” He shook his head, looking so lost and alone it broke my heart. “I stayed away from my family and my home and I’ve been lying ever since. Everything I’ve done…” He shrugged. “It’s all been a lie.”

  “No,” I sighed, cupping his face in my hands, holding on to him as hard as I could as if pushing the truth—the truth of him as I saw it—right into his skull. “No, it hasn’t. Wanting to do good, wanting to help this city, even staying away from your family to protect them—that’s you. That’s who you are.”

  “Not a liar?” he asked, his laugh thick with scorn, and there was a terrible desperation in the sound. “A criminal? Just another Notorious O’Neill, despite every effort I’ve made to be something else?”

  “Oh, no,” I sighed. “You’re a good man, no matter what your last name is.”

  His smile was tender, like early-morning sunshine, and he ran his fingers through my hair, tugging a little at the ends. “And you are going to be a good mother.”

  I laughed, feeling as if I’d stepped off a bridge. It wasn’t air beneath me, but it wasn’t the ground, either, and it was going to take some serious getting used to.

  “So,” he said, looking around my kitchen at the dinner that was intended to feed four with leftovers for a week. The air was thick with the smell of garlic and turkey. Sweet potatoes and cranberries. His grin was wicked and knowing. “What are we going to do with all this food?”

  “Eat,” I said, putting my arms around his waist, reaching up to kiss those beautiful lips. “But not just yet.”

  JIM

  * * *

  I lifted my finger and within moments another shot of Beam was at my elbow. Drinking in the day got you much better service. Much better. Maybe I should write a story about that—the benefits of daytime boozing.


  “You mind putting on the mayor’s press conference?” I asked the brunette behind the bar who looked like she’d been tending bar for about twenty lifetimes.

  She glanced back at the soap opera flickering on the TV above the bar and clicked around on the remote until Mayor-President Higgins’s face filled the screen. The old man was about to endorse Mayor Pro Tem Carter O’Neill for mayor, and I was sitting in a bar.

  Off the story. Off the goddamned story. And who knew Noelle was so uncrackable, unbribeable. Maybe I should have been nicer to her before I’d needed a favor.

  Ah. Hell.

  The bourbon burned on the way down.

  “Jim Blackwell.” The soft purr of a woman’s voice was a very welcome distraction from my own sad life.

  “Hello there,” I said, swiveling on my chair and nearly falling off it when I saw who it was.

  The blonde that had to be Carter O’Neill’s mother. The HR bitch out at The Rouge hadn’t confirmed it, but this was the same femme fatale who’d been in that alley with Carter.

  I could only gape as she sat next to me and ordered a Diet Coke.

  “Stop staring,” she muttered, not once glancing my way. “You look like an idiot.”

  “How…how did you find me?”

  “You’ve been drinking here every day for the last three days,” she said. “You’re hardly incognito.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, unable to contain my delight at the story coming back to me like a lost child.

  She stared down at the ice cubes melting in her glass for a long time, and I decided I needed to nudge her along.

  “You’re Vanessa O’Neill, aren’t you?” I asked, and she nodded, finally taking a sip from the thin red straw.

  “You’re here about your son?” I led her down the only path I wanted her to go.

  She took a deep breath, like a reluctant diver on the high board, then spun to face me. “I have information,” she said. “On him.”