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“I am,” he replied, looking unruffled. He sat down in the accent chair next to the couch, which, even though it was sturdy enough, always seemed dwarfed by his oversized frame. “I told you I was fine with whatever you wanted to do, and I stand by that. Still, this is all happening kind of fast.”
It was. Maybe if this baby wasn’t coming in the next ten days or so, I might have taken longer to consider my decision. At the same time, every instinct I possessed was telling me Chloe was a trustworthy person and that she was the right person to take care of the store while I was on leave. True, those same instincts hadn’t been functioning so well when I hired Melanie Knowles, but I was well past the brain fog of the early days of my pregnancy. Lately, I’d been feeling as sharp as ever, and I knew I could trust my gut on this one.
“I won’t argue with you about that,” I said. “But at the same time, I have to believe this is the right thing for all of us. I can tell Chloe needed a change of pace.”
“Any chance you’re going to reach out to her parents?” Calvin asked then, and I shook my head.
“Why should I? She seems young, but she’s an adult. She graduated from college and is at a point where she needs to make some decisions about her future. I don’t know what she said to her mother and father, but that’s between them, don’t you think?”
His mouth quirked. “I suppose it is. But I also think maybe your own history is coloring your judgment here. After all, you were pretty young when you left home.”
“I was,” I said. “And I did sit down and talk it through with my mother. It wasn’t as though we didn’t get along — I just knew deep down that I was ready to leave the nest, and that my mother had pretty much given up nineteen years of her life for me. It was time for her to come into her own as well.”
Another instance where my instincts had guided me well, as she’d started seeing Tom a few years later, leading to their eventual marriage. I didn’t think he’d been waiting for my mother to be fancy-free before he began to show an interest in her, more that the universe had arranged matters so everything would work out well for the two of them.
“I can see that,” Calvin replied. “And you’re right — Chloe seems like a kid, but there’s no reason in the world why she shouldn’t be striking out on her own at this point in her life.” He paused there, then asked, his tone quite different, “Do you want to watch some TV, or would you rather head to bed?”
Only a year ago, I would have been almost offended at the suggestion that I go to bed at barely eight-thirty. These days, though, I did my best to get as much sleep as possible, sometimes as much as nine or ten hours each night.
I might as well bank as much sleep now while I could, since I knew I wasn’t going to have the chance in the very near future.
“Bed,” I said promptly, and he reached out so he could help me up from the sofa and down the hallway to the bedroom. Sadie followed us, obviously glad that we’d decided to retire for the evening, since that meant she could curl up on her blanket at the foot of the bed and bunk down with her people for the night.
And really, after doing all my nighttime prep, it was closer to nine than eight-thirty by the time I settled myself under the covers. For most of my life, I’d been someone who shifted positions in bed as it suited me, but now I was pretty much stuck with sleeping on my back.
Which was fine. Calvin reached out to take my hand, and I closed my eyes, glad of his touch, glad of his nearness. Even if the baby came tonight, he would be there to handle things, and that was what counted most.
A breath or two, and sleep claimed me.
Next to my ear, my phone was shrilling. Or at least, it sounded shrill, even though my current ringtone was the opening bars of the “Spring” movement from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and shouldn’t have been shrill at all.
I jolted awake, laboriously forcing myself to a sitting position. Next to me, Calvin sat up as well.
“What time is it?”
I grabbed my phone and looked down at the screen.
“Twelve fifty-two.”
But once I got past the time, I made myself focus on the number. After all, no one called at that hour unless it was extremely important.
At first, I didn’t recognize the phone number. But then my sleep-addled brain saw it was from the 818 area code, which meant it could only be one of three people I knew well, and I sort of doubted that either my mother or Tom would be calling me this late.
“Chloe?” I said as I accepted the call and pressed the phone to my ear.
A terrible little gasp, and then she said, “S-Selena? I didn’t know who else to call — ”
“It’s okay,” I told her, even as I felt rather than saw Calvin’s body go tense. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s — ”She sucked in some more air in another of those shocked little gasps, then went on, “It’s Jack.”
“Who’s Jack?” I asked.
“M-my boyfriend,” she said, then made an odd little sound, almost like a hiccup. “I mean, my ex-boyfriend. We broke up right before I left California.”
Not so strange if she was planning to start over in Globe. Except….
“Did he follow you here? Did he threaten you?”
