The Swallow's Nest. Emilie Richards

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СКАЧАТЬ stirred in Marina’s arms. Lilia glanced down, noting several canvas bags at her feet before her gaze lifted to the bundle resting against the woman’s chest. For a moment she fumbled for something to say, coming up with the blatantly obvious. “A baby.” She leaned over, searching her memory for a husband, boyfriend or even a lover. “He’s adorable. How old is he? She?” She looked up in question.

      “Toby is three months.” Marina didn’t sound happy, and certainly not like a doting mother. Most of Lilia’s friends with children answered the same question in weeks and days.

      She tried a second time for a better look so she could say something complimentary. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know you were pregnant. I would have—”

      Marina cut her off. “I doubt you would have. And whether you found out about the pregnancy wasn’t up to me.”

      The baby seemed to be asleep, and Lilia couldn’t get a good look because, despite moderate temperatures, he was swathed in blankets. She stepped back and met the other woman’s eyes. Marina’s expression was as hostile as her tone.

      She searched for the cause. “I hope you know he’s welcome at the party. There aren’t any other children, but he’s really too young to need a playmate, isn’t he?”

      “I don’t think he’ll be welcome, Lilia. But here he is.” Marina held out her arms. “Let’s just see.”

      Lilia felt her smile disappear. She had no idea what she was expected to do. “I’d love to hold him, but I’m still taking food out of the oven—”

      “You’ll get used to that. Wanting to do other things and not being able to.”

      Now she was completely at sea. This time she said nothing. The conversation obviously belonged to Marina.

      “Take him.” Marina lifted the bundled baby higher. He whimpered, beginning to wake, but Lilia shifted her weight back and away.

      “Take him!”

      Lilia knew better than to let this continue. “Let me get Graham, or maybe I can call somebody else for you?”

      “You know, I’m glad it worked out this way. I’m glad you were the one to answer the door.”

      Lilia stepped back, preparing to slip inside, but Marina tucked the baby against her own chest and grabbed Lilia’s arm with her other hand to stop her. “Take him.”

      The baby’s name finally registered. “Toby?”

      “Toby. Right. Toby Randolph. After his father. Don’t you think a boy should carry on the family name? Tobias is Graham’s middle name, right?”

      Lilia managed another step back, trying to shake off the other woman’s hand, but with no success. “You need to leave right now.”

      “Oh, I’m leaving. But I’m leaving Toby here when I go. With you. With his father. I’ve finished my part of this bargain. Now it’s up to Graham to take care of the rest.”

      She thrust the blanketed bundle forward so forcefully that Lilia grabbed at it. She had no choice, panicked that Marina would let go and blame the resulting disaster on her.

      Satisfied, Marina stepped back and dropped Lilia’s arm. “You’ll have lots of time to think about this moment and what a horrible person I am. But while you’re at it, don’t forget, I gave this baby life. Think about that, Lilia, when you’re feeling superior. I did something you couldn’t be bothered to do. And think about what it was like for me to manage everything on my own up to this point, when I was promised so much more.”

      She didn’t glance down at her son for a final goodbye. She turned and walked along the flowered brick pathway to the street. She was out of sight almost before Lilia could form another thought.

      In her arms the baby stirred. Stunned, Lilia looked down, and the tiny infant opened eyes the china blue of her husband’s. With shaking fingers she pulled back the blanket. What hair the baby had was blond, like Graham’s. But Marina was blond, and surely her eyes were blue, as well.

      This was a scam, a horrible, ill-advised prank.

      She lifted him slowly for a better view, and then, without a legal document, without confirmation from anyone except a crazy woman, with no proof whatsoever except a vague resemblance that might not even exist, she was 100 percent certain this was no scam.

      This child belonged to her husband.

      She wanted to drop the bundle and run. She wanted to race after the near-stranger who had just handed off her beautiful baby like a football in play.

      But most of all? She wanted to scream right along with Graham’s son, who was now wailing inconsolably in her arms.

       2

      Marina Tate pulled into her private space in the parking lot of the three-story apartment building that had once symbolized how fast she was rising in the world. Her one-bedroom was on the top floor, not exactly a penthouse, but still superior to anything she’d grown up with. The view from her narrow balcony was a freeway, but sometimes at night she sat in a folding chair and watched headlights blooming through banks of fog. She’d sat there many times after Toby was born. She hadn’t been able to get away from his screaming, but closing the door and listening to the roar of traffic had been an improvement.

      As she had during the trip home, she wondered again if the baby was okay.

      Clearly Graham hadn’t gotten around to telling Lilia about his son. Maybe announcing a love child between one dose of chemo and the next just hadn’t seemed sensible. Maybe in his shoes she would have kept silent, too. After all, if he’d made the announcement, who would take care of him? No man could drop a bombshell like that one and expect even the most supportive wife to spoon-feed him chicken soup, much less clean up his vomit and wash his sheets.

      But no excuse was really good enough, was it?

      She was still behind the steering wheel, and she drooped forward to rest her forehead against it. She was so tired she wasn’t sure she was going to make it up the stairs to her apartment. She was so tired she considered taking a nap before she tried. In the end, after two cars screeched into the lot with radios throbbing, she pushed away, opened the door and swung her feet to the asphalt.

      In the midst of flipping her seat forward she remembered she had no baby to retrieve from the back. For a moment she stood staring at the infant seat. She had considered carrying the baby to Graham’s door nestled inside, but the seat was used and worn, and at the last minute—not blind to the irony—she’d rejected the idea. She had been embarrassed to give Graham and Lilia the car seat, but not the infant.

      Tomorrow she would chuck it into the Dumpster.

      So many months had passed since she’d had an entire night’s sleep. She couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been sleep-deprived. Even in the weeks before the birth she’d slept fitfully because she was so huge, getting comfortable was a joke. And no man had been around to rub her aching back or get her a glass of water.

      One of those nights Graham had called. She couldn’t remember which, but why was stamped on her heart. He wanted СКАЧАТЬ