HE SHOULD never have stopped at the house.
If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have known. He wouldn’t have seen Julietta’s white face, wouldn’t have heard the panic quaver in her voice when she told him she was having contractions, that she thought she was having the baby...
“You can’t be!’’ he’d said as if he could somehow stop it just by command. As if he’d been able to command anything to do his bidding of late.
“I am,’’ Julietta said miserably. "They’ve been getting worse all day.”
“Did you call the doctor?’’
She shook her head. ‘‘I didn’t think it was going to happen. I’m not due for two months.”
"Tell that to the kid,’’ Damon said harshly. “Come on. Get on the couch. Lie down.’’
He took her arm and steered her in that direction. It wasn’t easy. He didn’t have good balance since they’d taken the cast off. He had an orthopedic shoe contraption that made him feel like he was stumbling every time he took a step. He felt like he was stumbling now.
What the hell was he supposed to do with his pregnant stepmother, for heaven’s sake? Getting involved with his father’s new family was the last thing he wanted to do.
‘‘Where’s the old man?’’ he’d asked harshly.
"Your father is in Athens.” Julietta had said faintly. She put her feet up on the couch and looked up at him as if he could somehow conjure up her husband.
‘‘Figures," snapped. His father was never around when he was needed. That, at least, hadn’t changed. "Have you called him?’’
‘I can’t...f-find him.”
‘‘What do you mean, you can’t find him?’’
"He was having some sort of top-flight meeting with a company he is thinking of buying. He said it was all hush-hush. He didn’t tell me where he was going to be.”
“Of all the idiotic—’’ Words failed him.
"Oh, Damon'’ She wrapped her arms around her middle. "Here it comes again.”
Damon swore. Then he called the hospital and then the family doctor. The doctor said he’d meet her there, while the hospital said to bring her right in.
"Me?’’ Damon said.
Who else?
"Yes, you, Mr. Damon Walter, as you are her only family member present."
It wasn’t his job. It was his father's job! But he was halfway around the world.
"Mr. Walter must be going through a lot," Julietta murmured as he bundled her into his car. ‘‘It’ll be just like last time.’’
Damon didn’t know what the hell she meant by that. Had the old man been on the other side of the earth when Alex was born too?
He got her to the hospital in record time. He handed her over to the nurses and turned to go. ‘‘I’ll call Adrianos and see if he can find the old man,’’ he said.
She nodded weakly. "And Alex. You have to tell Alex.”
Damon gaped at her. “Me?’’
"You’re his brother.’’
Nice of someone to remember that. Damon scowled. "Where is he?’’ he asked at the very moment he remembered. ‘‘Is he still with Lucia?’’ he asked, knowing what the answer would be.
Julietta nodded. She gave him the aunt’s address,
He shook his head. "I’ll leave a note at the house I’ve got a plane to catch.”’
Julietta caught his hand. She looked up at him with eyes as big as the moon. ‘‘Don’t let it be for him like it was for you, Damon'’ she begged. ‘‘Please!”
Like it was for him? He didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Go to him. Bring him to me!’’ Her nails were digging into his wrist.
"The old man—’’
"I'm not your father, Damon! And I’m not asking you for him! I’m asking for me. And for Alex. Please.”
The doctor appeared just then, his competent, soothing professional smile in place. “Well, let’s see if this little one is serious, Julietta,’’ he said.
Julietta didn’t even look at him. She only looked at Damon. ‘‘Please.”
So he went to Lucia's aunts’.
He saw her down at the dock before he made it to the house. The minute he saw her, he felt better, as if he wasn’t carrying the world on his shoulders anymore. Or if he was, at least he wasn’t carrying it alone.
Lucia was here. She would share it with him.
"Julietta?" she said now, her flushed cheeks paling at his news.
“‘She wants Alex.”’
“Of course. I’ll get him.’’ She started to run toward the house. ‘‘We’ll be right with you.”’
"I can’t stay. I’ve got a plane to catch. I just came to let you know.
She turned.
"So you came just to tell me?" she echoed. “And that’s all?”
He didn’t like the look on her face. It asked for things. Things he didn’t want to give. He shrugged irritably. ‘‘She’s not my wife.”
"Alex is your brother.’’
‘Interesting how everybody’s remembering that now,’ Damon said bitterly.
'‘What?’’ Lucia looked confused. And he didn’t really have the right to say that to her. She’d always remembered. She’d tried to get him to care, to be involved earlier.
He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Never mind,’’ he muttered.
Just then the sound of running footsteps approached them. ‘‘Lucia, time for sup—’’ Alex stopped dead at the sight of his brother.
"Damon."
“Hi, Alex.’’
The little boy looked from Lucia to Damon and back again, confusion and wariness on his face.
Damon didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want to see the flicker of hope there, either. It reminded him too forcibly of his own continually thwarted hopes as a child. But that was about his father, he reminded himself. Fathers were far more consequential than brothers, half-brothers, at that.
But Alex’s father was half a world away, and unlikely to be of much use even if he’d been there.
Damn it.
Damon turned to the little boy. ‘‘Listen, Alex,’’ he said quietly, “I came to get you. Your mother needs you. She had to go to the hospital.”’
“Hospital?’’ Alex looked at Lucia
“She’s been having a few contractions," Lucia said.
“You know? Remember when she’d let you put your hand on her tummy to feel it get all hard and tight?’’
Alex nodded. "How come she has to go to the hospital for that?’’
"Well, if it starts happening regularly it might mean she’s going to have the baby. It was sort of a surprise, having them now, so she wants you to come to see her, just in case she has to stay and have the baby.”’
"Now."
‘‘Now,’’ Lucia said.
‘‘What about supper?’’
‘‘Aunt Em can put our supper in some dishes and we can bring it along. We can eat back at your house after we see your mummy. We’ll have a picnic.”’
Alex’s eyes lit up. ‘‘Really?’’
Lucia smiled. "Yes. Run on up and tell Aunt Em we have to go.”
Damon listened to the whole exchange with awe. She seemed to know exactly what to say, the right note to strike. She didn’t make Alex promises she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—keep. She didn’t play down any fears he
might have, but she offered him support, and friendship.
“Where were you when I was growing up?’’ Damon muttered.
“Too young to be any use at all,’’ Lucia said. She started toward the house after Alex. Damon followed, curious still to see these aunts of hers.
When he’d met them, he had a good idea of how Lucia came to be the way she was. They were warm and welcoming, caring and kind. They told him what a handsome fellow he was, and how much Alex resembled him and wasn’t it funny that his name was Damon
‘“You know,’’ Aunt Em confided, ‘‘Lucia thought she was supposed to be a nanny to Damon . She smiled gleefully. "Imagine, being a nanny to you.”
"Imagine,’’ Damon echoed faintly. Lucia pretended not to hear. He could see that her cheeks were red though, as she gathered up the containers as Aunt Bett filled them.
‘‘We really need to be going,’’ she said, heading Alex toward the door. ‘‘Say thank you, Alex.’’
‘‘Thank you,” he parroted. But then he turned and gave each of her aunts a big hug. “Thank you for the cookies and for playing cards and for letting me go in your sailboat. Can I come again?’’
“Of course, darling,’’ Aunt Em said.
‘‘By all means. A born sailor like you should have lots of sailboat rides,’’ Aunt Bett said, then slanted a glance at Damon. ‘‘And bring your brother with you next time.
Lucia bustled in, gave them each a kiss, then grabbed Alex’s hand, and with the containers in the other arm, hurried out to the car.
Lucia started toward the car.
“I'll follow you,’’ Lucia said. ‘‘And don’t expect me to keep up if you drive fast.’’ She turned to Alex.
"You’ll make sure he drives slow enough for me, won’t you?”’
The little boy looked at her, speechless.
So did the big one. ‘‘Now wait a minute,’’ Damon began, but Lucia nailed him with a look.
‘‘I’m sure Alex would prefer a ride in a great car like yours to an old Clunker like mine." She went around and opened the Passenger door of the Jag. "Come on, Alex.’’
"just a damn—”
"A-hem!”
Damon scowled at her, but she shut his mouth.
"It’s the best idea,” she said lightly, but Damon heard the underlying firmness in her voice.
‘‘Fine,” he muttered. ‘‘See you there.”
The Jag had always seemed just right for two. When one of them was a pretty woman it almost seemed too big. When one of them was Alex, it wasn’t nearly large enough. The child seemed to be sitting right on top of him!
Damon drove fast, but not too fast, through the narrow back roads between the north and south forks of Long Island. Behind him, he could see Lucia's headlights in his rearview mirror.
Next to him, Alex sat unmoving, neck craned to see out the windshield. Only when the hospital came into sight did Damon hear a sound out of him, and it wasn’t a word so much as a tiny desperate gasp for air.
Instinctively Damon reached over and put his large hand over one of Alex’s small ones. Little fingers curled around his, tight. They hung on.
Damon glanced down. Alex was still staring straight ahead, teeth biting down on his lower lip. Damon pulled into a parking place and cut the engine, then gave Alex’s hand a squeeze.
The boy turned his head and looked at him with big worried eyes. ‘‘I want my daddy,” he whispered.
Damon's throat tightened, and his teeth clenched. He had tried consciously to ease the muscles in his jaw. ‘‘I know,” he said hoarsely. ‘‘But your dad isn’t here right now. Lucia and I are, though. We’ll come with you if you want.”
He didn’t know why he was saying that! Well, yes, actually he did. He was saying it because they were the words he’d needed to hear when he was a child when his own mother had been taken to the hospital and…
He couldn’t remember. Until this moment he hadn’t even remembered that his mother had gone to the hospital. Now he did. He remembered the long corridors. The odd metallic sounds. The hushed voices. He remembered sitting there alone, with people walking past him, talking around him, over him. Forgetting him.
It was as if he wasn’t even there.
But he was. It was his father who hadn’t been.
Just the way he wasn’t here now. Damon got out of the car and went around, taking Alex’s hand in his.
‘‘Come"
He had to do it, even though no one had done the same for him.