The Best Gift by Wendy Markham
“Wait—just let me figure this out for a second. I’m trying to figure out what my husband was thinking when he ordered it.”
“He was probably thinking he didn’t want to put together a crib and changing table.”
“No, I mean . . . we’re in the middle of a move.”
He shrugs. “One less thing to unpack and put back together.”
“Out. We’re moving out.”
“Yeah? Why?”
Your guess is as good as mine.
“We just need a change of scenery, I guess,” she says lamely.
“How long have you been here?”
“A couple of mon—years.” Yes, years. Just over three, to be exact.
“Yeah? So you were here for the quake?”
She nods.
Yes, she was there for the quake. In her car, on the coastal highway, scared out of her mind, her stomach hurting like crazy, bleeding, and Dickens jumped out of the car, and—
And that’s the last thing she remembers.
No. There were squealing brakes, too. A car . . .
“How much damage?”
She blinks. “Excuse me?”
“How much damage did you get here in the quake?”
“You know . . . quite a bit.” She shifts her weight, wishing the deliveryman would just get down to business.
“You’re lucky the house is still standing. Most of them around here aren’t.”
“No, I know. We’re really lucky.”
“So you want us to assemble, or not?”
Why would Drew have paid for assembly if they’re just going to move everything right back out again?
Wondering how complicated it will be to take apart a crib that wasn’t supposed to have been put together yet, she makes a decision. “Yes. Assembled. Thanks.”
As the deliveryman returns to the truck, she closes Dickens into the utility room off the kitchen.
“Shush, it’s only for a few minutes,” she calls over his barking protest.
Back in the front hall, she finds the men already rolling a dolly bearing an enormous crate toward the house.
After pointing them in the direction of the empty nursery, she tells them she’ll be in the living room if they need her. There, she sinks onto the couch.
Back to 2009—in her thoughts, anyway. The earthquake.
She shudders, recalling how close she’d come to being hurtled into the Pacific when the highway collapsed. If she hadn’t thought of the snow globe and headed back here . . .
Her eyes automatically go to the mantel, to the familiar spot where it once sat.
Of course it’s empty. The mantel has been cleared of any decor. Everything that once sat upon it is packed away for the move.
Given her conversation just now with the deliveryman, it’s hard to imagine that the fragile antique snow globe could have survived the violent quake. It probably shattered into a million pieces on the hearth.
Hearing a thump and voices overhead, she again wonders about the new nursery furniture Drew ordered. The delivery company probably made a mistake. It must have been designated for the new place.
When Drew shows up, he’s going to ask her why she didn’t tell them.
And she’s going to say . . . ?
Because I didn’t know.
I didn’t know where we were going or why you weren’t here or when you were coming back. . . .
All I knew was that it was going to be all right, because you promised me three years ago that it would be.
She sits staring into space for a long time, thinking about Drew and the little family they had planned. About this house, and happily ever after . . .
As her weary eyes droop closed, tears escape to roll down her cheeks.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The sound of barking reaches Clara’s ears, and she’s back—back from the dark, quiet place where there is no pain.
Back . . . where?
The car?
The earthquake!
Dickens!
Somewhere outside, a car door slams. She hears a male voice. More barking, urgent now, and much closer to where she is, lying helplessly on the seat.
“You shouldn’t go running out in front of cars, you know that, fella?” says the voice, and she’s heard it before.
Clara hears a jangling of dog tags, and then Dickens is beside her again, licking her face and barking. Footsteps sound on gravel. Human footsteps.
“It’s all right, boy, calm down, What are you doing in there?”
Then Clara hears a gasp.
She opens her eyes to see a familiar face looking down at her, eyes wide with concern.
“Thank goodness.” Officer Robert Shelton smiles faintly, but his eyes are worried. “I was just about to take your pulse. You don’t look so good.”
“I don’t . . . feel . . . so good,” Clara manages.
“It’ll be okay.”
“My baby . . .”
“Shhh, try to stay still.”
“Please . . .”
“I’ll take good care of you. One good turn deserves another, as they say.”
Clara closes her eyes, opens them again. He’s nodding at her.
“I took your advice.”
What is he talking about? Clara struggles to find her voice, but darkness is closing in, sweeping her away from the fear and the pain at last.
The last thing Clara hears before she blacks out are Bobby’s heartfelt words: “Thank you, Clara, for saving my family.”
Chapter Thirty
A loud ringing sound startles Clara awake.
She opens her eyes and slowly gets her bearings. She’s in her living room. In 2012.
Another shrill ring, and her heart skips a beat when she realizes it’s the telephone on the bedside her.
Grabbing the receiver, she blurts a breathless, “Hello?”
“Clara. It’s Nancy.”
For a moment, she’s so bitterly disappointed that it isn’t Drew that she has no clue who Nancy might be—nor does she care. Then she remembers—her next-door neighbor. Amelia’s mom.
“Nancy. How are you?”
“I could be better. Christmas was hard. Jeff tried to change the custody order and keep me from taking the kids up to Tahoe, but that didn’t happen, thanks to Amelia. You know how she is about him.”
Her words fire at Clara like a round of pellets. Jeff? Custody?
Nancy sighs on the other end of the line. “It breaks my heart when I think of what a daddy’s girl she was when she was younger. Sometimes I think she felt even more betrayed when he left than I did.”
Clara doesn’t know whether to be jubilant that her neighbor is alive after all, or disturbed that he and his wife are so obviously divorced.
“It’s hard on children,” she murmurs, knowing firsthand.
“Harder on Amelia than on the boys, I think. Maybe they’re too young to remember what it was like when our family was intact. Josh doesn’t even remember the earthquake, if you can believe it. He was four.”
“Maybe he blocked it out.”
“Maybe.” Nancy pauses. “Anyway, I wanted to say that we’ve missed you, and see if you wanted to get together for lunch since—”
“Mrs. Becker?” the delivery man calls, and Clara hears footsteps on the stairs.
“Oh, Nancy—can I call you back in a little bit? I’ve got someone here right now.”
“Sure. I’m going out to run some errands but I’ll be back in about an hour.”
Hanging up, Clara hoists herself to her feet and rests a hand on her aching lower back as she makes her way back to the hall.
The moving man with the clipboard is waiting; through the door, she can see that his partner has already headed back out to the truck with the packing materials.
“You’re all set.”
She signs the paperwork and tips him with a couple of bills from her wallet.
“Have a great day.” On his way out the door, he calls back, “Hey, good luck with the bab
Trying to sound as casual as he does, she returns, “Thanks.”
I’m going to need all the luck I can get.
She locks the door behind the deliverymen.
Maybe she should call Nancy back right away, try to catch her before she goes out. She seems to be a good friend—she must be if she missed Clara over the holidays, like she said. Maybe she can shed some light on Drew’s whereabouts.
But remembering her neighbor’s brittle tone, Clara decides that the return call can wait a little while. She isn’t in the mood right now to hear about a divorce or heartbroken children.
Instead, she heads upstairs to see the nursery.
She’s done her best to ignore the room since the first time she opened the door and found it empty.
Now, the door is ajar.
Riddled with trepidation, she hesitates in front of it for a minute, then turns away.
No. I don’t want to see.
Why should she? They’re moving away. The nursery she imagined won’t belong to this baby.
She continues down the hall to the sun-splashed master bedroom she and Drew share—shared?—share, she thinks firmly. Eying the stacks of boxes, she notes that most of them are labeled clothes or bedroom.
One, however, reads simply clara. It sits on top of two others, at about her chin level, all of them stacked against the wall. She reaches out and gives the top box a cautious tug.
It feels heavy . . . but not that heavy.
And this stack, unlike the other, is braced against the wall.
She looks around the room and spots the bench Drew sits on every weekday morning to put on his shoes after getting dressed in his suit. A fierce pang of longing sweeps through her and she would give anything—anything—if she could blink and find him sitting there again, bent over a pair of wing tips with a shoehorn.
Stranger things have happened.
She closes her eyes for a moment, and a couple of hot teardrops manage to squeeze through her lashes. Wiping at them with her sleeve, she swallows hard, then opens her eyes again.
No Drew.
But the bench is still there, looking pretty solid. Solid enough to hold her, even at this weight.
Right. She’s pregnant. She can almost hear her mother’s voice, nagging, worried about her, and the baby—worried about everything, as usual.
You shouldn’t be climbing, Clara.
But it isn’t that high, and I’ll be careful.
She drags the bench over to the boxes, right up against the bottom two, then pushes it a little to see if it wobbles.
Not at all.
Still . . . this probably isn’t the best idea she’s ever had.
She looks down at her belly, up at the boxes.
clara
What’s in that one?
She has a pretty good idea—and right now, she really, really could use a look at the letter that reached her across more than six decades and gave her hope.
Right now, she could really, really use some hope.
Mind made up, she climbs—oh, so cautiously—up onto the stool. For a moment, she just stands there, braced against the boxes, making sure she has her balance.
Yes. You’re okay. You’re fine.
Just . . . do something. Fast. Before you . . . get dizzy and fall or something.
Nudging the top box, she notes that it’s heavy enough to contain a suitcase filled with clothes. And heavy enough to make lifting it a risk.
Lifting . . . but not opening.
She slides a fingernail beneath the edge of the packing tape stuck to the side of the box and pulls it loose. It comes up easily. In a matter of seconds, she has the box flaps open and stands on her tiptoes to peek inside.
There it is—the suitcase.
Relief coursing through her, she runs her fingertips over the reassuringly familiar marbled surface. Then, arms stretched above her head, she flips the latches and opens the lid carefully, propping it against the wall behind it.
Even on her tiptoes, she realizes she can’t quite reach the opening in the lining. Frustrated, she strains, her arms beginning to ache from the effort, to no avail.
Anyway, who’s to say the letter is still hidden in the lining? Drew knows now. Maybe she keeps it somewhere else. Maybe even tucked it in among the layers of clothing. She doubts it, but still . . .
Her fingertips encounter neatly folded garments, and then . . .
Something else.
Not a letter. It feels like a ball of tissue paper, but when she lifts it, it has some weight. It’s something wrapped in tissue paper—and she has a good idea what it might be.
As she lifts it out, the bench beneath her wobbles slightly. It’s enough to throw her off balance. She teeters, grabs blindly for something to hold on to, and the tissue-wrapped object flies from her hands.
It hits the hardwood floor and rolls under the bed as Clara cries out in dismay. After quickly regaining her balance, she climbs down from the stool, shaken and angry with herself.
That was stupid.
She could have fallen and hurt herself—hurt the baby.
And why? Because she needed to see a letter as proof that Drew is out there somewhere? To be reminded that he’ll find his way back to her again?
She kneels beside the bed and feels gingerly around underneath it, not wanting to cut her hand on the broken glass.
But when her fingertips encounter the tissue paper, it’s still wrapped around the fragile object it was meant to protect.
Pulling it out, Clara gently peels away the layers, and there it is: somehow intact.
The dark-haired angel with the broken wing smiles up at her through a watery glass dome swirling with flakes of white.
Slowly, clutching the snow globe in her trembling hand, she gets to her feet and makes her way back into the hall.
This time, reaching the nursery, she pushes the door open and peeks inside.
Aglow with sunlight, the room seems to radiate promise even before she allows herself to look directly at the new furniture.
Both the crib and changing table are white and crafted in vintage style, just as she always pictured. Clara swallows hard and looks down at the rounded swell of her stomach, imagining the sweet baby nestled there.
“I so wanted to be a mommy in this room,” she whispers, her throat aching.
Somewhere deep in her womb, the baby moves.
“What? Are you trying to tell me something? What is it, little one?”
But she already knows. Knows that it’s not about the room. It’s not about the house, or the snow globe, or the letter . . .
It’s about something that can’t be shattered in an earthquake.
Love.
As Clara’s left hand—the one that wears her wedding band—rests against her stomach, her child’s tiny hand nudges her as if to say, Good. You get it now. Don’t ever forget it.
From somewhere outside, she hears the distant rumble of an engine.
It must be the delivery truck leaving, she thinks vaguely—then realizes it’s been quite a while since she locked the door after them.
And the noise is getting louder, not fading away.
She goes over to the window and looks out.
An unfamiliar dark sedan is pulling in, parking.
From up here, she can’t see who’s behind the wheel. Can it be . . . ?
It is. I can feel it. It’s him.
Pulse racing, she goes for the stairs, carefully holding the snow globe in her right hand, tightly grasping the banister with her left, and forcing herself to descend carefully when she wants to jump down them two or three at a time.
Reaching the front door, she stops short, reminding herself that it might not be Drew, no matter what her heart is telling her.
Just don’t get your hopes up.
She throws open the door, steeling herself for disappointment but certain, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it isn’t going to come. That her husband is home at last.
The sun glares on the windshield, making it impossible to see inside the car.
But the driver’s side door is open.
A man is getting out, and . . .
And he isn’t Drew.
Chapter Thirty-one
In the aftermath of perhaps the worst earthquake the region has ever seen, the streets surrounding the nearest hospital—twenty miles away from San Florentina—are jammed.
Realizing he’ll never get close to the parking lot, Drew leaves his car in a no-parking zone on a side street and runs the rest of the way. The hospital itself is in chaos: shell-shocked victims, frantic loved ones, scurrying personnel, media, law enforcement, clergy.
With growing trepidation, Drew all but pushes his way through the throng in the lobby. At a security desk near the elevators, a guard stops him with a stern, “Sir!”
“My wife, she’s here. She’s hurt. The quake—I got a phone call on my cell phone from someone here. They said she was in surgery, and—”
“Okay, okay, hang in there, buddy.” The guard swivels his chair toward the computer screen. “What’s her name?”
“Clara Becker.” As he watches the guard search the files, he braces himself for the worst.
“She’s on three. Take this and go on up.” The guard thrusts a pass into his hand.
She’s on three. She’s on three. Thank God, she’s on three.
It doesn’t mean she’s okay. It might not mean anything at all. If something had gone terribly wrong, they wouldn’t let the security guard break the news to her next of kin right here in the lobby.
Next of kin.
The phrase sends a chill through him now, just as it did when he first heard it almost an hour ago.
He was still in the car at the time, still trying to fight his way home through the traffic, desperate to find Clara. He couldn’t reach her at home or on her cell phone; he couldn’t reach the Tuckers, couldn’t reach anyone who could tell him that she was okay.
All he knew was that there had been a catastrophic earthquake in San Florentina. As the radio announcers reported the breaking news, it sounded more and more grim.
When his phone rang, he was so sure it would be Clara.
It was a nurse, asking if he was Clara’s next of kin, telling him that she had been taken from her car out on the highway south of town and was in the hospital.