One Hot Doctor by Sarah J. Brooks
Chapter 25
Cora
I help Adeline carry dinner to the table while the twins run crazily around the coffee table in the living room area. The noise is deafening. I don’t know how John Mathews and Adeline cope with it every day.
One of them, I think it’s Tim, falls and lets out a loud wail, and seconds later, his brother joins him in crying. Adeline and John Mathews go to them, and within minutes, calm is restored, and the boys are on the floor playing happily with their toys. I look at them in admiration as they return to the table unfazed.
“It must be your careers,” I tell them.
“What about them?” John Mathews says.
“They’re what prepared you both for twins. I mean, it’s chaotic in the ER, isn’t it? And the courtroom is like a wrestling ring but without physical punching.”
They laugh, but I mean it. Watching my nephews as someone who is on the way to having her own child is frightening. I’m not as organized as Adeline is. Panic seizes me. What if I can’t take care of a baby? Maybe I’m not cut out to be a mother.
How do people know they can do it? Is there a survey that I should have taken before getting pregnant because from what I’ve seen this evening, I can’t hack it? I inhale deeply and shove those thoughts out of my mind before I go into full-fledged panic mode and start screaming.
I wait until dinner is under way before I tell Adeline my plan to get to know Ian. Her face becomes pinched, but before she can say anything, John Mathews speaks up.
“That sounds like a reasonable thing to do.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Adeline explodes.
“Maybe we’ve made him out to be a monster, and he’s not. And even if he is, you know what they say about keeping your enemies closer,” I say.
“No way. I’m not giving that man a minute of my time.”
I’m not surprised by her reaction. My purpose in telling her was not to change her mind. It was to inform her so that she doesn’t hear about it and go crazy on me. But now we’re on that topic, I can try to make her look at it from a different perspective as Thomas did for me.
Not that I’m holding out much hope with Adeline. She’s as stubborn as a mule. When she makes up her mind about something, it’s very difficult to dissuade her.
“I don’t want to either, but what if he’s in our mother’s life to stay. Then what?”
Adeline is stubbornly quiet.
John Mathews shoots me a sympathetic look, and then he stands up. “It’s bath time for the boys. I’ll see you later, Cora.”
“Bye,” I say and call out to the boys to enjoy their baths.
Adeline and I clear up the table and load the dishwashing machine. We make some tea, carry our mugs to the porch, and relax on the rocking chairs.
“This is perfect,” I say.
The sky is dark and dotted with the sparkles of a thousand stars. It looks like a magical night. A night where everything is a possibility.
We sip our tea companionably.
Adeline turns to me. “How is my niece doing in there?”
I pat my belly. “Good, no complaints so far. As long as he’s in there.” I let out a heavy sigh. “Watching you and John Mathews tonight frightened me. I don’t think I’m equipped to cope with a baby.”
To my surprise, Adeline laughs. “Nobody ever is, little sister.”
“But you guys look like pros. Nothing fazes you.”
“You’ll be fine, I promise. It also helps that when they’re born, they bring with them so much love that you just automatically know how to take care of them.”
“I hope so.” I sound as unsure as I feel.
“I have to admit, though, that an extra pair of hands do help. Maybe you and Thomas should move in together.”
I make a noise that implies that the chances of that happening are pretty slim. I don’t admit that I’ve entertained that very fantasy myself.
“Why don’t you think it’s possible?” Adeline asks. “People in a relationship do that all the time. Why not you and Thomas?”
Suddenly I’m tired of lying to her. “Thomas and I are not a real couple. We just happen to share a baby.”
She stops rocking her chair. “I don’t understand.”
I start at the beginning. How I planned to have a baby through a sperm donor.
“I didn’t know you wanted a baby that badly,” she says, clearly taken aback.
“Yeah.” The hard part is telling her how Thomas and I hooked up after three years.
“You slept with him less than a week after seeing him and then without protection?”
“Okay, I know I behaved slutty, but let’s move on with the story, okay?”
“I knew something was not right about the whole thing. There’s no way you’d have had a hunk like Thomas for three years and kept him hidden away.”
When I’m done with the whole story, she stares at me as if I’ve grown horns on my forehead.
“I always knew you were not right in the head, and this proves it. But something good has come out of it.”
“Kindly do tell.”
“You reconnected with the love of your life,” Adeline says happily.
“Didn’t you just hear what I said? Thomas and I are not involved romantically. To be honest, we scratch each other’s itches, but that’s about it.”
Adeline covers her ears with her hands, making me laugh. “No details, please.”
“There will be no grand proposal here. We just want to co-parent and raise our baby.”
“You two love each other. Even a blind person can see that.” Adeline takes my hand. “I’m really sorry that you felt you couldn’t tell me all that so I could be there for you. I guess I haven’t been the most approachable big sister.”
“No, you haven’t,” I tell her, and she makes a face at me.
***
I’m in my car on Wortham Street, motivating myself to get out and walk up to the bar that’s clearly under renovation. In a moment of cowardice, I wish I’d taken up Thomas’s offer to come with me.
There’s nothing as difficult as treating someone with disdain and suspicion and then trying to be friendly. It feels like trying to put spilled milk back into the cup. I’m a step away from changing my mind when I remind myself why I’m doing this. It’s to give all of us peace of mind. As Thomas said, maybe if we know what kind of person he is, we won’t be so suspicious of him. I grab my purse and get out of the car.
It is not much to look at from the outside, and when I push the door and step in, it’s not any better. It looks like a bomb has gone off. There’s a lot of work to be done, and I can’t help wondering whether it’s my mother’s money that is funding all this.
“Hi, what a nice surprise,” Ian says, emerging from the shadows.
“Hi,” I say, relieved that his tone is friendly considering that Adeline and I have made our feelings very clear regarding his affair with our mother.
“Would you like a tour?” he asks, and I nod.
He talks to me the way you would a friend, and soon, my tension eases. There are builders everywhere, and we end the tour at the back garden, which is ready. It’s a lovely addition with a nice green lawn and tables covered by sky blue umbrellas.
“This is really nice,” I tell Ian as I sink into a wooden chair. “I can see myself here sipping a glass of chardonnay on a hot summer evening.”
He chuckles. “That’s the aura we want to create. Excuse me for a moment.”
The sun is warm against my skin, and I kick off my shoes and let the grass tickle my feet. Heaven.
“Here you go,” Ian says as he returns with a box of orange juice and two glasses. He serves us and sits down opposite me.
“I’m glad you came to see for yourself what we are doing here.”
I sip my juice and almost sigh as the cold drink goes down my throat. “We don’t know each other very well, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” he says. “I think that I know more about you, though. Your mother talks about you kids a lot.”
I smile, hoping that my silence encourages him to continue.
“Just to be clear, I’m not offended that you’re curious about me. Were our roles reversed, I would be too.”
He’s smooth I have to admit.
“So, where do I start? Ah, the obvious one. My age. I turned fifty this year. I don’t have kids or a wife or ex-wife, though I was married for a very brief time when I was twenty-five.”
“What happened?”
“She died in childbirth, and my boy survived for an hour, and then he joined his mother.” His voice sounds so sad, and he has a faraway look on his face.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago,” he says.
“How come you didn’t marry again?” I ask and immediately realize that the question is too personal for people who are relative strangers. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“It’s okay and a fair question to ask after what I told you,” Ian says. “She was the love of my life, and I was heartbroken for a very long time. After that, I just never met anyone I really connected with until I met your mother.”
I have tears in my eyes. Ian is either a very good actor or he really does have feelings for my mother and is not out to use her. Only time will tell.
***
In the evening as I’m relaxing reading a book, my mother calls me.
“I just want to say thank you for spending some time with Ian and going to see the bar. I appreciate it.” She sounds teary, and in that instant, it dawns on me how lonely it must have been for her since Dad passed on all those years ago.
