On that day force of habit led her to follow the old way. She took a cab to a department store, walked through to the back and out again, down a block to a restaurant. The second cab dropped her off at a bar, and she walked through that one, her hands plunged into her pockets, through the bustling kitchen to the back. She lengthened her stride and the block to the apartment building went quickly. She wore a long blue woolen scarf wrapped snug around her neck and the wind whipped the sudden shining tears on her cheeks into mist.
The key was marked only with an initial. She took the stairs up, slowly, knowing she would find it empty. Sure enough, when the lock clicked back the door opened on a dark, still apartment. She walked inside, very quietly, the blue fade into twilight turning the furniture into indeterminate shadow.
A doll in one of the recliners, from Sam's last visit. She hadn't meant to leave it. Nancy swept it up into her arms and went into the kitchen, found a tall glass, dropped in a handful of ice cubes. Half amber liquid, half soda. She made a face when she swallowed the first mouthful, but the tears were shocked into submission by it. She took the soda and the glass to the coffee table and sat listening to the low mournful stereo, waiting for the deadbolt to click back again.
Today wasn't supposed to have been like this.
She shrugged out of her coat and finished her drink, the flush high in her cheeks. The warm haze expanded in her, until it overwhelmed the incoherent shock. She had no idea why she felt this way. No idea why she had come here still taking such care to make sure she wasn't followed.
The deadbolt clicked back and she put her feet on the floor, side by side, in front of her, but she couldn't stop herself from turning to meet his eyes as he walked in.
"Nan? You scared the hell..."
She pulled herself to her feet and came to him, and he tossed his coat and briefcase into a chair and opened his arms to pull her into them. Her eyes were welling, but gently, not enough to fall.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry, I should have called."
"Or at least turned on the lights," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice as he rested his head against her shoulder. "Something's wrong?"
She drew in a long breath and pulled back to look into his face, running her fingers over his cheeks. She leaned forward and their lips met in a slow, sweet, perfect kiss, her arms around his shoulders.
"The papers are signed," she said. "It's official."
He pulled her up until her feet were off the floor and kissed her again, hard. "I thought it wasn't until next week," he said, searching her eyes once he pulled back.
"Wasn't supposed to be," she said. "He was in town. He signed, it's settled, Dad will file them but as far as the law's concerned..."
"This calls for a drink," Ned said, kissing her again. "You taste like you've already started."
Nancy gave him a lopsided smile. "I had one," she admitted.
He put her down and started toward the kitchen, his fingertips trailing down the back of her arm, but as they touched hers he turned back, concern in his gaze. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she said, running her other hand over her face, following him into the kitchen. "I'm okay. I just... wasn't ready for it yet. I'm divorced. Frank has alternating holidays with our daughter. I haven't even been to my ten-year high school reunion, and I'm divorced."
"How do you feel?"
"Sad. Relieved," she admitted. "And now we can go on dates in public."
"After a suitable time period, of course," Ned said, a trace of laughter in his voice as he quoted her father's words back to her. "Although if you moved in with me tonight, I wouldn't mind." He looped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him, dropped a kiss on the crown of her head.
"Do you mean that," she said softly, putting her hand over his and lacing her fingers between. He filled a glass but she stopped him before he could pick it up, stilling his hand under hers, and when he turned to her she boosted herself up onto the counter, their faces level. "Ned, there's... something I've needed to say to you for a long time."
He laced his fingers between hers, traced his thumbs over the back of her hands, waiting, his brown eyes warm on hers.
"I made a mistake," she said quietly. "I love you more than anything but I gave in to that, that little spark, that attraction, and I found out I was pregnant. And I didn't come to you. I didn't explain and apologize and beg your forgiveness, I just thought it would be easier to never tell you. I didn't want to see the look on your face. I didn't want to know you were disappointed in me and I knew you would be. I thought you might hate me. I thought if I came to you then that you would shut me out of your life forever, and it was easier... Ned, I always thought you would be my first, and in a way you were," she said, and glanced up into his eyes, her lower lip trembling, the first tear streaking down her cheek. "I owe you more than I've ever given you, for not walking out of my life the second you walked back into it, knowing what you did. I should never have married him, but he was her father. He will be her father for the rest of her life, but she doesn't know him the way she should, and now she never will. I've tried... I've been trying to make the best of this. With you I finally feel like I have a chance to be happy. Even if..." She ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back, her eyes red. "No matter what happens between us after this," she said. "No matter what, I'm not going back to him. Sam is the most important person in my life, and she... and she's not yours. I love her so much, and I did this because I thought it was best for her, I married him and I left him for her, not just, not just because Frank is gone so much, but because I don't want to show her what life is like when there's nothing else to live for. I want her to have a happy mother. And you make me happy. And I guess what I'm asking you is, for a little while, for now... whether you think you'll be able to answer that question I should have asked you four years ago. Whether you'll take me back, even though I've screwed up so very, very badly. I know this isn't the way things were supposed to be for us. I'm sorrier than you can ever know, for that. But this is what we have now, this is who we are, and... I'm just trying to make things right."
He searched her eyes for a long moment. The album ended and the ice shifted in the glass and everything was silent around them.
"Ned, say something," she whispered. "Even if it's just that you need time." She smiled sadly. "I can give you time. I can give you space. Whatever you need."
"I need you," he said. "All of you."
"Even Sam?" she said, rubbing her palms over her tearstained cheeks, his hands resting on either side of her hips. "We're a package deal, after all. Two for the price of one."
"I know," he said softly, and pressed a kiss against her cheek. "Both of you. I need you and Sam in my life. I need a gorgeous brilliant detective in my life, and her beautiful little daughter."
She smiled, then, slowly, and took his breath away.
--
Samantha was their flower girl.
Nancy's first wedding had been small, witnessed only by family and friends who were aware of her situation. Her second was outdoors, in the spring, when everything was bright and green again. She had been a divorcée for a year and Ned had given her a diamond for Christmas.
When Sam walked up the path in front of her mother, distributing the petals as she had been painstakingly taught, she reached the altar and stopped in front of Ned and held her hands up in wordless request, and he swept Frank's daughter into his arms and dropped a kiss onto her gleaming hair before Hannah took her.
Nancy was in cream-colored silk with a sage-green sash knotted around her waist, her hair piled on top of her head, carrying blush-pink roses, her skirt falling just below her knees, barefoot. Ned couldn't take his eyes off her.
She took his arm and Sam clapped from Hannah's lap.
Nancy had spent the previous night on the phone with Ned until they were both on the point of exhaustion, Sam asleep in Nancy's arms, in the apartment they would soon give up. Ned and Nancy and Sam would be moving into the house Ned had just bought, on the lake, once they came back from their honeymoon. Nancy and Sam had been on their own for a year, with her father and Hannah's help, Nancy working part-time at the newspaper and stealing hours, nights, with Ned. Lazy Sunday afternoons while the three of them watched movies and Ned surprised Sam with little presents and tickle fights and arms to sleep in.
"Why doesn't he go away?" Sam asked once, and Nancy, blinking back the beginning of tears, explained that Ned becoming her stepfather didn't mean he would leave like Frank had.
Her hand, ringless for a year, warm in his as he said the words. His vows were different. Her first wedding had been so swift that there had been no time for anything other than traditional vows, conventional cake and punch and a wedding dress cut generously to disguise their daughter from view, and Frank's solemn face in the pictures. But Ned couldn't stop smiling, and she couldn't stop smiling and touching him, her fingers laced between his as they faced the minister for the pronouncement.
He was hers.
She had believed it impossible. She'd never known such sinking desperation as she had during her pregnancy, the final dawning knowledge that she'd crossed the unforgivable line and destroyed any future with the man she loved. But he was here, now, in spite of everything.
"I love you."
Hannah had been working on their wedding feast for days. The tiered cake, in green fondant and pink icing; meatballs and croissant sandwiches and petit fours and fruit trays. She had outdone herself. It had to be Ned, Nancy knew; Hannah had always had a soft spot for him and his boundless appetite for her cooking. Nancy paused over the chocolate groom's cake and returned Ned's wide grin.
"I love you too," she said. "And judging from all this, Hannah loves you almost as much."
Sam came up to the table in her floating white dress, a garland of flowers and pink ribbon in her hair, reaching for a petit four before Ned swept her up into his arms again and she giggled. "Having fun, little girl?"
Sam nodded, grinning. "Will you dance with me?"
"I guess so," Ned said in mock reluctance and resignation. "If your mom says it's okay."
"Don't tire him out," Nancy told her daughter. "We have a long trip and he needs to be awake for it."
"You're going to be gone a whole week?" Sam pouted. "Can I stay home from school?"
"No," Nancy said, laughing. "Grandpa will take you."
"Okay," Sam groaned, and started squirming. When Ned put her down she grabbed his hand and tugged on it hard, until she was leaning forward. "Dance now."
"You do take after your mom," Ned said, reaching over to loop an arm around Nancy's waist and bring her to him for a kiss before he allowed Sam to drag him away.
--
In a way life had been easier when she slept over at Ned's place, before they were married. With Sam asleep and safe at her father's house, Nancy and Ned could make out on his couch, tease each other until one of them broke and dragged the other to the bedroom, but those mornings were always rushed, pressed kisses at his front door and promises of calls and dinners and dates.
She wouldn't have gone back to it for worlds, though.
Ned kissed her slowly, and she stretched underneath him, her arms loose around his shoulders. "Love you," she sighed.
"Love you too," he whispered, tracing his lips down her cheek, nuzzling against her neck. She pushed him onto his side and turned to face him, her arm bent up under his, the tips of their noses touching. "Did you say you had something to tell me?"
She nodded, but couldn't resist the urge to tilt her face and claim another kiss. "Yeah, something," she repeated, and met his eyes. "I'm pregnant."
"You're..." He reached up and cupped a hand over her cheek, his eyes glowing. "We're...?"
She nodded, again, giggling softly as he swept her into his arms and hugged her tight to him. "We're going to have a baby. Which is sad, really."
"Sad? How is that sad?" He couldn't stop touching her, couldn't stop kissing her, pressing his lips against every available inch of skin.
"We barely have any time alone together now," she said, her eyes sparkling. "Now it'll be twice as difficult."
"It's worth it," he said, his voice low, and kissed her.
--
Her rings in his palm. He closed his fingers around them.
He had managed to select the most expensive diamond in the store for her. It was exquisite. Perfect clarity and sparkle, no hint of a blemish. Three days after he had picked it up, he had put it on her finger, and she hadn't taken it off. Until now.
"How much longer?" he asked a nurse just outside her room.
The nurse smiled at him and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Not too much longer," she told him. "She's near the end now."
Ned pulled in a long breath and pushed back into the hospital room with the glass of ice water she'd requested. "Any better?" he asked.
Nancy glared at him from the bed, her hair plastered to her forehead. "Tell them to give me drugs or I am going to twist your leg off with my bare hands."
"So, no, then," he said, handing her the water. He watched her eyes flash, but she took a sip and put it on her bedside table just before her face clenched with another labor pain. He laced his fingers between hers and she squeezed them.
"It shouldn't be too much longer."
The doctor came in and pushed Nancy's knees apart, which she bore with little reaction. "All right, here we go," he said, gesturing for the nurse. "Ready?"
Nancy squeezed her husband's hand again. "Okay," she gasped.
They were both trembling at the edge of exhaustion when the first cry rang out, the first breath, and the nurse smiled at them both.
"Congratulations. It's a boy."
Nancy took their son into her arms and Ned pushed back the edge of the blanket to see his face, for the first time, flushed red and angry like his mother's, and beautiful.
"Hey little boy," Nancy cooed softly, tracing his cheek with a soft fingertip. "Hey little Cole." She moved and soft blue eyes were gazing up into Ned's, taking his breath away. His son. Their son.
"Say hello to your daddy."
The title of this story, and the genesis of the idea, came from the Julie Roberts song of the same name.
Definitely influenced and inspired by, but not limited to, Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," Henry James's "Portrait of a Lady," and the movie "Closer."
Thanks for reading.