Island Of Second Chances

An annoyed wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. “Don’t tempt me,” she shot back, clutching the new empty cooler beneath one elbow, her green eyes shining like emeralds with just barely contained anger. “Maybe I should have. You were running around in a panic instead of dealing with the fire.”

Oh, good grief. He wasn’t panicked. He was calm and collected. He never panicked. What was she talking about?

“I wasn’t panicking,” he said. “I was going to get something to put the fire out.”

“By running around like a chicken with his head cut off.” A knowing smirk tugged at her mouth.

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

Now she was making him argue like a five-year-old. Unbelievable.

“Glad I was walking by because you clearly needed help. I saved your boat.” She nodded toward the husk of his boat. He glanced down and noticed that she’d also splashed one end, which carried the hint of char on one board, where the fire had lapped dangerously close to his baby.

He dropped to his knees to inspect the board and make sure it hadn’t been damaged. If he had to start the frame all over again... But, no, the damage was surface only, just a small smudge mark he could all but wipe off with his finger.

“I know you meant well, but I didn’t ask for your help.” He knew he was being ungrateful, and he didn’t like it, but she was like a cow skipping through a china shop, destroying everything in her wake and then demanding he thank her for the damage. He knew the woman was trying to help, but now he had to worry about his saw and whether the soda had damaged it.

But first, he inspected Timothy’s shoes, connected by a single string, and thankfully saw no damage. He gently placed them back on the nail, hanging by the particle-board backstop of his worktable. Then he picked up the saw. He unplugged it from the extension cord and wiped it down with a work rag nearby.

If it was damaged, he didn’t know how he’d replace it. And without a saw, what would he do? He’d never finish the boat on time.

Then he heard a sound. A high-pitched crying. A baby. His phone! Somehow, in the chaos, it had been flung into the sand. He grabbed it, noticing that the impact had started an old video of Timothy from when he was just a baby. He was crying, fussy for his nap.

Mark clicked off the video and wiped off the screen, which was covered in dots of sticky soda.

That’s when he realized she was still standing there. What was she doing? Hadn’t he made it clear she wasn’t welcome?

He glanced up and saw that she seemed frozen in place. She glanced at Timothy’s bronze baby shoes and at the phone he still held in his hand, her face a mixture of grief and pain. He felt all those emotions he saw fighting for control behind her sea green eyes. He knew them all—pain, grief and an aggressive, bottomless loss of hope. But why did hearing a simple video of Timothy make her feel this way? What had happened to her? Or was she just unhinged for some other reason?

“Laura,” he said, and then stopped. What was he going to ask her? Are you okay?

She turned then, eyes brimming with tears, and he knew with a certainty that whatever had triggered this grief was still fresh. Before he could say any more, she dropped the cooler and sprinted away from him.

He felt a sudden urge to go after her, but then what? Maybe she wasn’t grieving. Maybe she was just a crazy person. Maybe he was projecting his own feelings on her. What did he know?

Still, he felt guilty. Guilty because somehow he’d made her cry. And guilty because he knew she suffered in some deep, damaged way that only someone who’d lost something truly dear to them would know. It didn’t sit right with him. He felt the need to make it up to her.

“Well, damn,” he muttered beneath his breath as he swiped up the cooler she’d dropped. “Now I’m going to have to do something nice.”

It went against his gruff, no-nonsense, let’s-not-spend-time-talking-about-our-feelings self. He’d never been a touchy-feely guy, but he couldn’t just let her suffer alone. He knew what that felt like.

* * *

LAURA FLED TO her condo and flung herself on the bed, angrily swiping the tears from her face. She hated that she’d become so weak, so completely unstable that a simple video of a baby and some bronzed baby shoes could so undo her in the moment.

It wasn’t right. She should be getting better, and yet, she just seemed to be getting worse. She was a walking sponge, just oozing tears all the time. She just wanted it to stop, all of it. St. Anthony’s was supposed to be the place where she got away from all the things that hurt her, where she could finally heal. After all, the island was named for the patron saint of lost things. And she’d never felt more lost in her whole life.

Why did this happen to her? Why had God seen fit to take her baby away before he could even be born? Why was she the only one mourning him?

But then again, she knew why. She’d been wrong, so very wrong, to be in love with Dean. This was God punishing her, she felt, for the mistake she made: falling in love with a married man.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Dean was a mistake. She knew that. But, the baby wasn’t. No matter what anybody said.

Her sister had told her that she’d have other babies. But Laura didn’t want another baby. She wanted the baby she lost. She glanced down at her flat belly, hidden beneath her flowing cover-up. Now it might never be full.

She wished she could talk to her mother. Get some measure of comfort, but her mother had died years ago.

Feeling lost and alone, her willpower crumbling, she grabbed her phone and dialed Dean’s work cell.

He answered on the second ring. “Hello?” he sounded harried, his voice low.

“Dean?” She hated how angry he sounded that she’d called, how disappointed. He used to always sound happy when he heard her voice. Now he always sounded like she was calling to deliver bad news.

“What are you doing calling me?” he whispered, his voice a furious, low buzz. Then, she realized that he must be at his house. The house he still shared with his wife.

“Dean. I’m sorry... I’m just...” Lost. Alone. Hurting. Wishing that you still loved me...or that you’d ever loved me at all. She hated all the desperate feelings that bubbled up, determined to break the surface. Dean sure had been happy to hear about the miscarriage. Ecstatic, even. Why did she think he’d comfort her now?

Dean sighed, a sound full of patronizing pity, and she felt even worse. “Look,” he said, voice softer. “I’ll try to call you when I get into work, okay?”

She heard shuffling in the background, and then a voice. His wife’s? She felt her stomach tighten with jealousy.

“I’ve got to go. I have to take my wife to the doctor,” he said, louder this time, in a voice that sounded too businesslike, and she knew that Angela was in the room. He was pretending to talk to someone at work.

“Is she all right?” Laura asked, cautious. After all, she wasn’t heartless.

“Well, we were going to tell everyone at the office this week, but she’s sixteen weeks pregnant.”

The words hit Laura like a ton of bricks. She felt all the wind knocked out of her lungs. Pregnant? His wife was...pregnant? Laura was speechless. Words failed her.

“Oh, yes, thanks,” Dean prattled on in a pretend conversation with a coworker who didn’t exist. Completely oblivious or not caring that he’d shattered what was left of her world. “I’ll check in with you when I’m back in the office. Thanks. Bye.”

And then he hung up, the line dead as she clutched her phone in her numb hand. Dean’s wife was pregnant. She was going to have a baby.

Sixteen weeks along?

She’d been twelve weeks along just a month ago when she’d lost her baby. That meant...

That meant that he had to have known that his wife was pregnant at the same time Laura was. That also meant that he had been having sex with Laura at the same time he had sex with his wife. The wife he claimed he hadn’t touched in two years, the wife who apparently hated sex. But she didn’t hate it enough to get pregnant apparently, Laura thought bitterly.

She knew Dean had lied, but this...this was a whole other level.

No wonder he’d been so relieved when she’d lost the baby. There was no way he’d leave his pregnant wife. Besides, there was no reason he’d leave his wife, period, not if Angela was actually a loving partner rather than the cold, distant monster he’d described.

Suddenly, she felt a searing rush of rage. She ought to pick up that phone and call his home landline to try to talk to his wife. Or message her on Facebook. Shouldn’t she know she was married to the worst kind of liar?

But then the rage drained out of her and all she felt was pain. She’d been so incredibly stupid. Why had she ever believed a word he said?