The Mummy Miracle

“Of course. Ask them. I’ll tell you everything as straight as I can.”

“I can’t.”

“Ask them?”

“Do this.” She tried to stand up, but her legs wouldn’t carry her.

“Sit,” he insisted. “You don’t have to say anything. Or do anything. Let me talk, if you want.”

“Okay.”

So he talked, keeping it a little impersonal because that felt safe, and leaving out a few things, because he couldn’t hit her with all of it at once.

He told her about the signs of labor, the quick delivery they’d all been praying for, to ease the stress on her body. Told her DJ’s length and birth weight and head circumference. Told her proudly that the baby had Jodie’s own strength. Despite her premature birth, DJ had been stepped down from the NICU into the lower-level special-care unit within a couple of days, and had come home from the hospital in less than two weeks.

“Home?” Jodie croaked.

“Here. And your parents’ place. She spends a lot of time there.” More than he was happy with, to be honest, but he hadn’t wanted to fight them on that at a point when Jodie’s full recovery had still been very much in doubt, and when his own future wasn’t fully resolved. Would she ever be able to take care of a child? If she could, did that mean he’d go back to New York?

“Why are you here? In Leighville?”

She was asking the wrong questions, wasn’t she? He took in a breath to suggest this to her, but then changed his mind.

Ah, hell, there was no script for this! She should ask whatever she wanted to, in whatever order it came. And if she didn’t have an instant, overpowering need to hold DJ in her arms, he should be glad of the reprieve. He couldn’t stand the idea of losing his daughter, not even with generous custody and access, when the bond between them had grown so strong.

“I’m still working at Dad’s law practice,” he explained, trying to stay practical and calm. “He’s in no hurry to get back into harness. I expect he’ll decide to retire. I’ll head back to New York … Well, that’s open-ended at the moment. All decisions on hold, I guess. My apartment is rented out. I have a conference coming up in Sweden in early October, followed by a couple of months consulting in London.”

“You were supposed to be back in New York by last Christmas. Was it your dad’s health that changed your plans?”

Shoot, didn’t she understand?

“They found out you were pregnant before I even had the plates put in my leg.”

“How?”

“Blood tests, part of assessing your condition. When they told me …” Again, how to say it?

“You knew you had no other choice,” she supplied for him.

He couldn’t argue. Not the words, anyway. Maybe the edge of—what?—bitterness, or anger, in her tone. He hadn’t had any other choice. Not then. He wasn’t going to abandon his child before it was even born. He wasn’t going to deprive her of a father, when she might never have a mom. But it was different now. “I don’t want another choice,” he said. “This all needs time to work out, and that’s okay.”

“You said you didn’t plan on ever having kids.”

“You remember that?”

“Over dinner. You had steak with pepper sauce. I had strawberry mousse cake for dessert.”

“Shoot, you do remember!”

“Yes. It’s like yesterday, that mousse cake.” The subtext of explain yourself, Dev was very clear. She wasn’t really talking about dessert.

He said slowly, “What was it John Lennon once said? ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’”

“Or while you’re in a coma,” she drawled.

“Yeah, then, too.”

Tentatively, they both smiled, and something kicked inside him. He had a couple of memories that were like yesterday to him, too. Her passion in bed, almost fierce, as if in lovemaking, too, she had to prove her own strength, had to fight against the wrong preconceptions. Her saucy grin when she undressed. And his ambivalence.

He really, seriously, hadn’t known if it was a good idea to take her to bed that first time, even though she said she wanted it, and said she understood there was no long-term, and no promises, and that was fine. He’d told himself a couple of times their first night that he would stop kissing her soon, that he would reach out and still her hands if she went to pull off her clothes.

But then she’d done it. Crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her top to show a hot-pink bra and neat, tight breasts. Shimmied her way out of her skirt. Grinned at him.

And there’d been no question of stopping after that point. He’d used protection, but—not to get technical, or anything—maybe applied it just a little too late.

“But the dates don’t fit,” she said suddenly. “She’s too old. She’s smiling. Lucy isn’t.”

“Because DJ was premature,” he explained again. “Healthy preemies learn to smile at the same age after birth as full-term babies, even if they’re smaller and a little slower in other areas. DJ and Lucy would have been born within a week or two of each other, if DJ had come at the right time. The doctors say it’s good that she didn’t. It was easier on your body that she was little, and early. Would you like to hold her?”

He asked it before he thought. Blame Lucy for that. Jodie had looked so happy and comfortable holding her tiny niece today.

DJ was different. DJ had baggage.

Jodie stiffened and stammered. “No, she’s—she’s—N-not yet, when she’s asleep. If I disturbed her and she cried …”

“It’s fine. We’ll transfer her in the sling. It’ll be easy, I promise.” Listen to him! Five minutes ago, he’d been scared about the strength of her maternal feelings and what they might do to his own connection with his child. Now he was trying to rush her into them. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

Which was weird and unpleasant, because he always knew what he wanted.

Her weakened left hand made a claw shape on her thigh. “No. No, I can’t. I just can’t.”

Jodie heard the note of panic in her own voice, but there was nothing she could do about it. The panic was there. She couldn’t explain it to Dev. Couldn’t even explain it to herself. But there was a huge, massive chasm of a difference between holding and clucking over Maddy’s little Lucy and holding this baby.

My baby. Half an hour ago, I didn’t know she existed. But she’s mine.

It was overwhelming.

It should have been wonderful. A miracle.

Dev loves her. I can see it.

But it didn’t feel wonderful, it felt terrifying.

Thank heaven Dev loves her, because I don’t.

No. No! She had to love her own child! She did. Of course she did.

But why couldn’t she feel it? Why wasn’t it kicking in at once, the way it had with Elin and Lisa and Maddy and all the other normal mothers in the world, the very first moment they looked at their babies? Dev clearly expected it to, with his urging that DJ would be safe in her arms. It wasn’t a question of safety. Why could she feel so tender toward Lucy today, and yet so distant and scared about this baby?