Page 2 of Caught Up In You

“You look like you just returned from ’Nam,” my sister says to me, her voice a dreamy whisper as she dips her chin to nuzzle the downy soft head of Eden Wyatt Hart. Yes, her middle name is mine, and frankly that’s the least I deserve after watching my sister’s vagina turn into a portal to hell.

“Well, you woke me in the middle of the night to smell a puddle, and the next thing I knew I had a front-row seat to what a placenta looks like, so it’s going to take me some time to recover,” I reply.

Though to be honest, I’m already starting to forget. Eden is only an hour old, but already her little pink lips, chunky cheeks, and fuzzy red head are turning the memory hazy. I carefully slide into the sliver of bed beside my sister, resting my head on her shoulder as we both stare at Eden. “So, red hair, huh?”

That was a surprise. Hazel and I are true brunettes, though we’ve both experimented with different hair colors over the years. Mine currently has hot-pink highlights, and Hazel’s growing out a copper balayage. But Eden? She came out looking like the love child of Pippi Longstocking and Carrot Top.

“Her dad,” Hazel whispers, her eyes going watery.

I hold my breath. In all these months since Hazel arrived home from college with her surprise belly, she’s barely mentioned Eden’s father except to say they spent only one night together and she has no idea how to find him. And I haven’t pushed her. She’s had a lot on her plate, what with trying to figure out her online classes for the spring so she won’t get too far behind and can finish her landscape design degree at Cornell, to say nothing of all the prep involved in becoming a mother. My book nerd little sister has approached it all with the same tenacity she applied to prepping for her SATs. I’ve always figured she’d tell me about the baby’s father when she was ready.

Which is now.

“It was winter break. I stayed at school to work in the botany lab, remember?” Her eyes never leave her daughter as she talks.

Herdaughter. God, it’s simultaneously shocking and absolutely right.

Hazel takes a deep breath, and I give a quiet nod, not wanting to interrupt, to break the spell. Laying eyes on her daughter for the first time has cracked something open in Hazel, and it’s my job to catch whatever falls out.

“It was the first week of January and bitterly cold, but it hadn’t snowed. If it’s going to be that cold, it really should snow,” she laughs, like it’s the first bit of wisdom she’s instilling in her daughter. “Otherwise it’s just miserable. But one night I left the lab late, and as I crossed campus, the first flakes began to fall. And there he was: tall, lanky, with this thick, wavy red hair. I could see the snowflakes landing on it. He was staring at his phone, lost. I asked him if he needed help. His name was Alex, and he was passing through on his way from Toronto to New York, where he had an audition for something. A play, I think? He was in line in front of me at the Botanist and we just started…talking. About coffee and plants and life. I honestly don’t even remember how it started, but it was incredible. I’d never had so much to say in my life.”

I can barely picture this, but I know how big of a deal it must have been. My shy, quiet sister was always more interested in the book in her lap than the people around her when we were growing up. It took her six weeks of living with me before she said more than six words in a row. There must have been something really magical about this meeting…abouthim.

“One thing led to another, and he said he had time to kill so he didn’t get to New York too early. He didn’t have a place to stay there, couldn’t afford a hotel. Anyway, I invited him back to my apartment, and we had this incredible night.” She blushes. “Anyway, when I woke up, he was gone. To be honest, I wascrushed. It seemed like we’d really connected. I didn’t think he’d ghost, but…there you have it. Same old story.”

She laughs softly to herself, then leans down and places a kiss on the top of Eden’s head. “But he left you behind, baby girl, and how can I be mad about that?”

I let out a long breath, turning the story over in my head. “You didn’t get his last name?”

She looks up and meets my eyes, her lips quirked into a grin. “Adams. Alex Adams. Can you believe that? Might as well be John Smith.”

“We could hire a PI, maybe. Or send Eden’s DNA to one of those ancestry places. Maybe one of his relatives will turn up.” I’m quickly slipping into fix-it mode, which is my standard operating procedure.

Hazel shakes her head. “We’ll find him. Someday, I know we will,” she says, then yawns. “If he’s meant to be found, we’ll find him.”

A nurse pops her head in. “Morning, Mama! How goes life with your new little miracle?”

I have to stifle a snort. Look, having just witnessed it, childbirth is indeed a miracle, and I will fight anyone who has something less than stellar to say about the wonder that is Eden. But all of the women on this ward talk like Precious Moments figurines come to life.

“Good,” Hazel replies. “Tired.”

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep. It’s vital for a healing body,” the nurse says, and that I can get on board with. “We can take her to the nursery, or we can pass her off to your sister.”

Hazel looks momentarily panicked at the thought of Eden leaving her arms, but I give her an encouraging nod. “I can take her, Haze. You’ve got to sleep.”

“You’re tired too,” she says, letting out another leonine yawn.

“Yeah, that’s what coffee’s for,” I say. “Grace and Carson are about to drop off provisions. So you sleep, I’ll hold Eden, and when you wake up, there will be muffins from Crimson ’n’ Cream waiting for you.”

“Oh, that sounds like heaven,” Hazel says as I take the sleeping baby, wrapped up tight like a burrito, from her arms. When I’ve got Eden nestled in the crook of my elbow, Hazel rolls over gingerly. As her eyes start to flutter shut, she whispers, “I wish we could call Mom.”

An ache rockets through my chest, because of course that’s the one thing I can’t give her. We’ll have to wait until Mom has time at one of the obscenely expensive pay phones at the prison where she’s being held. We’ll have to wait for the fuzzy, disembodied voice alerting us that we have a collect call. That’s when my mom will get the news of Eden’s birth.

Until then, we’re just a little family of three.

I don’t fall asleep, but at some point during the next hour or so, my brain definitely goes into hibernation. I alternate between staring at Eden, who’s sleeping in my arms, and the monitors beside Hazel’s bed. Now that the adrenaline from the birth has worn off, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this tired in my life. If I think too hard about all the ways my life is about to change, a wave of panic swells inside me. But I swallow it down, because panic won’t help me now.

I need to pull it together, just like I did eight years ago when the social worker called, letting me know that my mother had been arrested. That she wouldn’t be making bail. That Hazel was staying with a friend for the night, but if I couldn’t get to Cardinal Springs in the next day or so, my sister would be placed in foster care.

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