Once Eric decided he was “Hart-ready,” as his dad had called it, he headed for his office door. And his thoughts—on the woman he’d seen outside. The fairy-tale would have them bump into each other in the coffee shop, then spend hours talking, laughing, getting to know each other. They would make plans for dinner that night—someplace slow and dim, where they could talk quietly and tell secrets. Then they’d go back to his place...and that was where it stopped.
Those days were behind him even though he was only thirty-six, and now he was all about the corporate life where everything ran on fear and promises, and most of those promises were empty, like his social life.
“Sure you don’t want something?” he asked Natalie again, as he headed out the door. The fact that she didn’t even take her eyes off her computer screen didn’t surprise him. Now, as she did so often, she was looking through her gallery of pictures of the only man she’d ever loved. Lost in his world. Reliving the life she’d never had. Sad. But sometimes the choices people made weren’t easily shed. For Natalie, that was his father. For him...trying to please a man who would never be pleased. And now it was too late.
Would that be him someday? Sitting at a computer, looking through reminders of a life he had never had, and an undertaking in which he’d failed so miserably. He sincerely hoped not.
IT WAS A cozy little café. Pastries, teas, coffee, flowers, and all sorts of gifty things that were cute, but not practical. And the café was full to overflowing with people. Loud, but nice. Michi had managed to snag the last table available, the one in the corner, the one with the worst view in the shop. But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t in the mood for being social or enjoying views. All she wanted was a tea, and some time by herself to think.
She was worried, naturally. Riku would be in great hands with Dr. Kapoor. She was sure of that. But right now, that wasn’t her biggest concern. It was Eric, and what to do about that whole situation. He had a right to know he had a son. He also had a right to know his son had a heart defect. But hadn’t she tried to contact him early on her pregnancy? Then later, after Riku was born, hadn’t she tried again?
Well, that was the way she pacified herself when she got in the mood. Telling herself she’d tried. That she’d been so overwhelmed that her thinking hadn’t been sharp. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Today it wasn’t even coming close because her motivations were not even clear to herself anymore. Except for one. But that had nothing to do with Eric, and it was something she surely didn’t want him to know: being accused of being an unfit mother.
So, there was that weight she always carried, as well as not telling Eric the truth from the start. And, of course, her default excuse...yeah, right, she’d tried. What of it?
Yet he was right across the street now. Easy, convenient. All she had to do was walk over there—and then what? Would she produce papers proving Riku was Eric’s? Wait, she didn’t have papers. Hadn’t even put Eric’s name on the birth certificate. So, would he simply believe her? Hello, Eric. I had your baby two years ago. Probably not. Then there was always the question of whether he’d want to be an involved father. She knew he’d be a good father, just from the little she knew of him. But would he want that?
There were so many questions with answers awaiting her. Answers she feared. So, for now, she’d sip her tea and hope for an angel or something to drop down from the sky and give her the solution she needed because she sure wasn’t in any state to figure it out on her own.
“Would you care for a refill on your tea?” a young man asked, startling Michi out of her thoughts. “Another tea bag, more hot water?”
She looked up at him and smiled. “That would be lovely,” she said, gazing beyond the server to the table where four women sat chattering away as they ate their pastries. “With a little more lemon,” she added. “And maybe one of those scones I saw earlier when I was at the counter.”
“Happy to oblige, ma’am,” the young man said, then scooted through the tangle of people who weren’t lucky enough to have a place to sit but who obviously weren’t ready to go back outside and face the rest of the day.
Michi leaned back in her chair, trying to relax, but she was too wound up for that, so she simply sipped her tea, ate her scone when the server brought it, and stared out the window at Eric’s building, like that was going to give her some kind of resolution. Intermittently, she flipped through her phone to various photos of Riku and only then did that feeling of despair go away. One perfect little face with such a calming effect. Who would have ever guessed that she could have fallen in love so deeply. But she had, and she would literally give her life for that little boy.
“I hope you like blueberry, because I’ve bagged up one to take with you. You look like you’re in a blueberry kind of mood,” the server said, handing over a bag. “On the house.”
“Thank you,” she said, as she repositioned herself in the seat. “So, tell me—what, exactly, identifies a blueberry mood?”
“Someone who’s worrying or being contemplative. You’ve been in here quite a while and it’s obvious something’s on your mind. Something heavy, judging from all the frowning.”
Was she so transparent that the young man with the scones could identify her mood? He was right—it was definitely blueberry. “Maybe if I come back, I’ll be in a strawberry mood. Would that be better?”
“Yes, because our strawberry scones are one of the most popular and strawberry is a very happy state of mind.”
“Then make sure you save me a strawberry and I’ll work hard on my strawberry mood before I get here.” She took a bite of her blueberry scone, then a sip of her tea, and started to pop back into her photo gallery, but a voice at a nearby table startled her out of her plan.
“Help! Somebody, please, help. She’s choking.”
Instantly alert, Michi jumped up and ran to the table where the ladies she’d observed were sitting. Sure enough, one of them was choking. Sitting up straight, confused, trying to breathe, the woman rolled her eyes up at Michi, and her expression was beyond frightened. She was dying, and she knew it.
“Please, stand back,” Michi yelled to the crowd, as she leaned the choking woman forward and slapped her back five times. She’d hoped that whatever was lodged in the woman’s windpipe would come loose, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.
So, from behind again, she wrapped her arms around the woman’s ribcage, forming a fist with both hands. Then she pulled the woman toward her, giving an upward thrust each of the five times she tried. Still, nothing happened. And now the woman was turning blue. Her lips, her fingernails. Oxygen deprivation, Michi knew as she started the whole procedure over again. “Has somebody called for an ambulance?” she shouted to the crowd.
One deep, smooth voice stood out over the noise of the crowd. “ETA less than five,” he said, pushing himself through the crowd, then kneeling next to Michi. “And she doesn’t have five minutes left in her,” he continued.
Michi looked over to see who was working with her, and gasped. “Eric?”
“Michi?” he said, as he took over the upward thrusts Michi was doing. One, two—on the third thrust it worked and the woman sucked in a deep breath.
“Stay still,” Michi cautioned her, trying not to think what would happen next, when the ambulance took her to the hospital. “The paramedics will be here shortly, and they’ll take you to the emergency room so the doctors there can run some tests to make sure you’re good.”
Gasping for breath, the woman nodded her understanding as Eric took her pulse again. “Much better,” he said, giving her a reassuring pat on the arm. “You’ve come through the hard part like a champ, and this next part in the