Losing Gabriel Read online

  Lani wanted to slap the glee off Kathy’s face. “Really? Is that the only topic of the day?”

  Kathy cut her eyes. “I know it’s all about Dawson for you, but babies are so preventable. I’ll bet she wanted it to happen…maybe even planned it.”

  Lani saw no reason for Kathy to torture her. She knew how Lani felt toward Dawson, and Lani knew for a fact that Kathy not only had no boyfriend, but she also hadn’t even had a boy kiss her since seventh grade. Lani conquered her lock. “Well, I’m sorry it happened and very sorry people haven’t got anything else to talk about, especially you.” Lani gathered her books, shut her locker, and scuttled down the hall, knowing that she’d just cut some kind of cord between herself and Kathy. Most likely irreparable.

  Sloan ignored the gossip and stares as best she could. Let them talk! She’d faced them down for years, and she’d do it again. There were laws in place allowing pregnant teens to finish school and with graduation so close, the administration and teachers ignored her “condition.” She hid her growing abdomen under baggy shirts and pants with expandable waists. Ugly clothes.

  For his part, Dawson stayed by her side, walked her through the halls with his arm slung around her shoulders, even asked her if she’d like to do prom night. “If you want to go—”

  “And wear what? Do they make preggie prom dresses? Do I want to be stared at all night long by girls wearing size twos? Get caught by roaming photo-trolls for a spot in our yearbook? I’m not the sentimental type, Dawson. Prom doesn’t mean shit to me.”

  So while their classmates dressed in beautiful gowns and tuxes and rode in rented limos to the prom held in the ballroom of the local Holiday Inn, Sloan and Dawson went to a midnight showing of a blood-and-guts action flick.

  In the dark, nobody saw what you looked like.

  On the first weekend of May, Melody graduated from Vanderbilt Law School with honors, in an early morning ceremony held outdoors on the lawn of Curry Field. Heralded by the sound of a trumpet, the law graduates, dressed in black gowns and wearing black caps with purple tassels, followed a line of distinguished robed professors in a pomp and circumstance processional. When Mel crossed the stage to accept her diploma, her parents cheered and Lani imagined herself receiving her nursing degree in a ceremony at MTSU. She was already over high school, mentally comparing it to a cadaver. Her future, her dreams, lay beyond the walk in two weeks in her high school cap and gown. In three years she’d be an RN.

  Once the diploma ceremony concluded, a noon reception serving strawberries and champagne was held on the lush lawn of the Vandy library. The crystal-clear day glowed with sunlight and the scent of magnolias floated in the air. Randy put his arms around Melody’s and Lani’s waists, while Jane took endless digital pictures. Then Jane traded places with him and took more pictures. Mel gathered her family, held up her cell, and took several selfies. Lani groaned. “Enough already! My face hurts from smiling!”

  “Life event!” Randy held a finger high. “Must be thoroughly documented!”

  “We’re so proud of you both.” Jane hugged her girls, and Randy set out on another round of in-the-moment preservation.

  The family went to the Capitol Grille inside the stately Hermitage Hotel, a building rich with tradition and Southern charm, graced by an elegant lobby of arched ceilings, thick rich carpets, damask and velvet fabrics on sofas and chairs, and huge urns of fresh flowers placed on tables and credenzas. As soon as they ordered their food, Melody tapped her water glass lightly with the edge of her knife. All eyes at the table turned to her.

  She cleared her throat. “I have an announcement! I have a job. A real job in a law office.” She held them in suspense for a few beats, then leaned forward and said, “And it’s right there in Windemere. I’m moving back home.”

  CHAPTER 16

  For a moment no one spoke; then everyone spoke at once. Landing a job right out of law school wasn’t always easy for new grads. Mel interned two of her three summers while in law school with a firm in Nashville, but a job in her hometown? “Seriously?” Randy asked above the others’ voices. “That’s terrific!”

  Over the holidays, Melody had confided in Lani about the interview and how much she wanted the job. Lani had been surprised because she’d thought Mel would have gone with some big firm far away from Windemere. But Melody had told her, “I’m just like Dad…not a fan of big-city life. I want to come home.” Once she became an RN, Lani would take a job at any children’s hospital offering her one. Until then she would live at home, forfeiting the “going away for college” experience of many of her classmates.

  “Of course, it’s contingent on my passing the bar exam in July.”

  “Piece of cake,” Randy said.

  “Not true, Dad. The exam’s hard and lasts two days. People choke.”

  Jane reached over and clasped Melody’s hand. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Where in Windemere will you be working?”

  “You remember Mr. Boatwright in that old Victorian house off Main Street?”

  “Of course. He’s been in practice for, what, a hundred years?”

  “Very funny, Dad. He’s a very trusted attorney with a big practice.”

  “Tax and real estate, if I recall.”

  “And plenty of insurance lawsuits after the tornado. My turf.” Melody, looking wolfish, rubbed her palms together. “Many people in town have held policies for decades, but when they wanted to rebuild, their insurers began holding back on the payouts. It’s not right. People deserve better. They need an advocate.” Melody’s impassioned plea turned heads at a nearby table.

  “I hear these stories every day at the paper….Some are pretty sad. The wheels of justice grind slowly. Can you speed them up?”

  “Going to try.”

  “You getting your name on Boatwright’s shingle?”

  “In gold script.”

  Randy grinned. “I like knowing my girl is taking up a cause to help people. Nice going, kitten.” He used her childhood nickname, and Melody did an eye roll.

  Lani giggled. Mel was “kitten.” She was “cupcake.” She swore she’d never dump a nickname on a child. Too embarrassing in mixed company once a girl started wearing lipstick and shaving her legs.

  The waiter arrived with their food, and conversation slowed while he set the plates around the table—steaks, fish, roasted chicken.

  “You moving back to your old room?” Randy bit into a fried mushroom.

  “No.” Melody said the word gently, glancing between her parents. “I’ll have my own apartment near the office. You know that old redbrick two-story house on Magnolia Street? Completely redone after the tornado. I’ve already signed a lease.”

  “You don’t have to pay rent.” Jane looked aghast. “It’s free to live at home. We can fix up your room, change the paint, new bedding…whatever.”

  “I’ll be getting a paycheck, Mom. I want my own space. But thank you for the offer.”

  While the waiter poured a round of fresh water from a glass pitcher, Lani watched the play of emotions on her parents’ faces. Her sister was wrapping up her childhood, closing out the chapters, making her own choices. The return to the town was not a return to the past, but to her future. So no matter how much Mom fixed up Mel’s childhood room, her sister would never live in it again. Lani wished she were on the same road instead of just beginning the journey.

  Franklin took Dawson and Sloan out to dinner and invited LaDonna to join them after the high school graduation ceremony on Saturday afternoon. Windemere had a couple of better eateries, both high-end chain establishments near the mall by the interstate. He chose the steak house. Once seated at the table, Sloan felt nauseated by the smell of the sizzling meats from a surrounding table, but she was determined to make it through the meal.

  LaDonna had dressed in her best outfit, a black skirt and low-cut red top. Her hair was newly bleached and had been poufed professionally at the salon. “Wasn’t that just lovely? My sweet little girl all graduated.”


  Sloan took a long sip of water to keep from gagging. When had she ever been LaDonna’s “sweet little girl”?

  “You must be so proud too, Franklin. Oh my…I can call you Franklin, can’t I? I mean, since we’re all going to be family soon.”

  Dawson glanced at his father, wondering why he’d invited Sloan’s mother to this meal. When Franklin had met with her after Sloan had moved in to their house, she’d acted belligerent and contentious. Until Franklin had mentioned money, and then LaDonna’s whole demeanor had changed. And now here she was eating a meal with them, all chummy and chatty. He saw that Sloan wasn’t happy about it either.

  “Of course you can call me Franklin. Graduation is a big deal, twelve years of schooling, done. We should all celebrate it together.”

  Dawson thought he and Sloan should be at a blowout grad party, celebrating. Instead his life was upside down. Inside out. Free-falling into…what?

  A waiter appeared asking for drink orders. Franklin went for ice tea and Dawson and Sloan went with colas. Sloan saw her mother teeter on the edge of ordering alcohol but retreat to ice tea. A relief because LaDonna drinking wouldn’t be a good thing.

  Feeling as if she were going to jump out of her skin, Sloan excused herself and hurried to the restroom. She slipped into a stall and rested her forehead on the cold metal door, telling herself to get a grip, that the meal wouldn’t last forever. But when she came out of the stall, LaDonna was waiting for her at the sink, her eyes glinting like marbles. “You’ve been avoiding me ever since you moved over to the boy’s house, and I want to talk to you in private.”

  Sloan’s stomach knotted. “This isn’t a good time. How about next week?”

  “Now is a good time.”

  Resigned, trapped, Sloan turned on the water. “What?”

  “I just want to remind you that that baby inside you is a gold mine. Play your cards right, and we can make out real good with that doctor and his son.”

  Sloan backed away from the sink, where LaDonna was crowding her. “What do you mean, a ‘gold mine’?”

  “Don’t act dense, girl. That man, Franklin, he wants this grandchild. Bad.”

  “What are you saying? That you don’t?”

  LaDonna drummed her fingertips on the countertop, ignoring the question. “His boy don’t seem as happy about it, but hell, why didn’t you tell me sooner? I’m your mama! At first I couldn’t figure why you’d dragged those two with you when you first told me.”

  “They wanted to be with me when I told you.” Not the exact truth, but close enough in Sloan’s mind. “To explain how they would take care of me. I like that, Ma. Being taken care of.”

  “If that’s a way of spitting on me, save it! No reason at all for you to have this baby if you don’t want to. Why didn’t you just take your ass to one of them clinics? You could have had it taken care of like that.” She snapped her fingers to make her point. “You didn’t even have to tell the boy he was going to be a daddy.”

  As if the day’s events—the boring ceremony, the endless speeches from magna-this and magna-cum-that, of being seated alphabetically rows away from Dawson, of wanting to run screaming out of the auditorium—hadn’t been hard enough. Now she was cornered by LaDonna and being verbally flogged. “But I did tell him.”

  LaDonna’s eyes narrowed, and she poked Sloan in the abdomen. “Well I’m not stupid, girl. I got to thinking, Why? Why would you choose to have this baby? Babies are a lot of trouble, you know. And expense. And then the wheels in my head started to turn. And I realized you had a plan.”

  LaDonna’s voice was soft and slithery. Sloan backed against the cool tile of the wall. “A plan? What are you talking about?”

  “You want to have that baby because you know Franklin will pay money to keep it in his life.” LaDonna looked triumphant.

  “What are you saying? I didn’t have a plan. All I wanted was to get out of this place, go somewhere else.” Her mother’s conclusion washed over her like muddy water. True, she hadn’t wanted the baby at first, but after learning what it meant to Franklin and Dawson, things had changed.

  “Just what the world needs. Another unwed teen mother!” Catty.

  “Dawson wants to marry me.”

  “Well, girlie, your daddy said he’d marry me too when I told him I was PG. So I had you, and six months later he was gone. Like the wind. Just walked out the door and left me with a squalling baby and not a dime. I had nothing!”

  LaDonna had said he’d walked out when she told him she was pregnant, but now Sloan heard another truth leaking through the fabric of the story: I would have aborted you if I’d known he would leave. Her mother had never wanted her! She rushed to the sink and retched.

  LaDonna ripped paper towels from the dispenser, wet them, and pressed the wad to Sloan’s mouth. She patted her on the back.

  Sloan shuddered, not from nausea but from her mother’s touch. She had just learned that she had been a tool, a way to make the man who’d contributed half her DNA to stay. The gamble had lost. He’d left them both.

  “There, there…I do recall that terrible feeling of wanting to puke when I was pregnant with you. I thought I would throw up my toenails some days. I was over six months along with you before it passed. But it does pass, I promise.” Her tone had changed to a cooing, which was worse than being yelled at.

  LaDonna turned Sloan’s face toward hers, wiped a mascara smear from her cheek. She smoothed Sloan’s hair. “My, you look a fright, but that’s okay. Creates sympathy.” She peered into Sloan’s eyes. “I’m right, aren’t I? You let yourself get knocked up by a doctor’s son because you understood what you’d gotten hold of.” LaDonna, seeming completely sure she’d drawn the right conclusions, smiled as if congratulating herself.

  “What would that be, Mama? What do I get?”

  “An eighteen-year meal ticket if you handle it right. Those men will do anything to keep that baby near them. So here’s what I’m thinking. You have this baby, and you bring it back to the trailer. We’ll take care of it together. And they’ll give us money to raise it up for a real long time.” She flashed a smile. “That sound like a good idea, honey?”

  Sloan’s insides turned cold and solid as ice.

  LaDonna patted her again. “Now let’s put on our smiley faces and go have a big old dinner that Franklin’s just itching to pay for. It’s graduation day.” She beamed a smile, grabbed the door handle, and stood back so that Sloan could pass in front of her.

  “Little tummy episode,” LaDonna said once they sat down at the table, her hand on Sloan’s elbow. “You know how delicate a mama-to-be is at this stage.”

  Franklin gave Sloan a concerned look, and Sloan offered a weak but hesitant smile to assure him she was all right, although it wasn’t true. When the waiter returned, she ordered a salad, unsure she could keep it down. She felt battered and bruised. Under the table, she felt Dawson grope for her hand; he captured it and held on until her icy fingertips warmed from his touch.

  CHAPTER 17

  When he was a kid, Dawson had owned a furry brown and white hamster he named Earl. Earl’s lifestyle commitment was to live in a cage where he slept, ate, burrowed into fresh sawdust changed every week, and exercised like a demon on a hamster wheel most of the night. Now all these years later, Dawson knew what it was like to live like Earl. Except that Earl probably didn’t think much about his life, while Dawson Berke dwelled constantly on his own life and what it had become—mind-numbing, pathetic, lonely. Lucky clueless Earl.

  The first thing he’d done after Sloan moved in was to open the file folder with his college letters of acceptance, brochures, forms, and applications and stuff each one into his dad’s paper shredder. He didn’t want to be reminded of what he wouldn’t have come September. Plans deferred due to unforeseen circumstances.

  After graduation, Dawson took a job with a lawn service and came home every day hot, sweaty, and covered with grass clippings. He hated the job, not because of the hard, sweaty work but because
he felt trapped, hammered in place, and without options. Months before, he’d had plans for college. He’d had choices. Now he was on the hamster wheel, spinning and spinning and going nowhere.

  Franklin had told him that after the baby was born, they could live with him so that Dawson could save up money, maybe get his own place. He also said he’d pay Dawson’s tuition at MTSU community college. Dawson knew his dad was attempting to help, but no way could he think about his impending fatherhood plus classes, studying, and holding down a job. In truth, not much was helping him during this long hot summer of Sloan’s pregnancy. Gone was the fun they once had together. She was moody and temperamental, but the good news was that they rarely argued. That would have required talking to each other. He kept reminding himself that he loved this girl—didn’t he? Still he was unhappy, angry, and scared. And yet watching her belly expand, feeling the baby kick when he lay beside her in bed, was a head trip.

  The baby, seen only in sonograms, had a human shape in shades of gray. Once, the image caught the fetus sucking its thumb. They also learned it was a boy. All the little guy had to do was gain more weight, turn his head downward into the birth canal, and be born in mid-September. All Dawson had to do was figure out how to take care of his…what? Family?

  He wished he could talk to his mother. Would she be heartbroken over what was happening? Would she like Sloan? Would she still love him? Endless unanswerable questions. Another hamster wheel.

  Sloan was sharing the guest room with a crib and a changing table. Dawson and Franklin had painted the walls pale blue, set up a dark wood crib, and draped a blue baby blanket over the railing. She usually slept in the room’s double bed but would sometimes venture down to Dawson’s bed and the comfort of his arms. Most of the time, she felt bewildered and disconnected, unable to get her head around the idea that a living human being would emerge from her body and that she would instantly turn into a mother.