Baby 101. Marisa Carroll

I…I was really worried about getting a good one. I only have a few bucks…”

      “Whatever you can afford,” Lana repeated gently. “I think you’d like this one.” She picked up a car seat that doubled as a carrier. “This will do wonderfully until the baby’s about six months old.”

      The young mother’s face fell again. “But…they told me my baby will need to be in a car seat until—”

      “When he outgrows this one, you come back and trade up to a full-size model,” Lana said, giving her best imitation of a used-car salesman. “No extra charge.”

      “Great! I’ll take it.”

      “Fine, here it is. Janette will show you everything you need to know about fastening your baby in safe and snug.”

      “Thank you. This is a load off my mind.” She followed Lana to the counter.

      “You really should let me publicize this little program of yours. I could do a lot more for you if you’d let the PR people at the clinic run with it.”

      Lana turned to find the regal figure of her godmother, Megan Maitland, standing beside a mahogany reproduction of Prince William’s cradle.

      “Aunt Megan.” Her mother’s longtime friend had suggested long ago that the Lord siblings call her that, and Lana still did. “What are you doing here in the middle of the day? I thought you were going to take some time off to spend with Connor and Lacy and little Chase.” Megan had recently been reunited with Connor, the grown son she had been told had died at birth.

      “I’m on my way home now, but there’s something I need to talk to you about.” Megan motioned toward the back of the store. “Can we use your office?”

      “Brittany’s back there feeding Greg. Remember I told you at the party I was giving baby basics lessons to…my new landlord.”

      “That includes keeping his child here in the store?” Megan looked around.

      “It does for the time being. As a matter of fact, he’s staying at the house.” Megan looked surprised. Lana pointed to the ceiling. “Lead paint. It’s not safe for the baby. They’re staying in the maid’s room.”

      “Do your brothers know this?”

      Lana laughed, but it sounded thin and nervous even to her own ears. “Well, no. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell them just yet. Or Shelby, for that matter.”

      “Certainly, if that’s what you want.”

      Lana was surprised Megan didn’t pursue the subject. She seemed distracted, and Lana wondered what she was doing here at this time of day. It must be important.

      “Come over here. We can be private enough.”

      Lana led the way to an alcove filled with framed prints and quilts and Noah’s ark figures displayed in an antique cupboard. Once they stepped inside they were out of sight of Janette and her customer. “Now, what’s up?”

      Megan didn’t return her smile. “I’d like you to come out to the house tonight.”

      “You know I never turn down an invitation for dinner with you.”

      “This isn’t just a dinner invitation, dear. I received something in the mail yesterday that concerns you. All of you.”

      Lana began rearranging the Noah’s ark figures on the piecrust table in front of her. Something in her godmother’s voice set off an internal alarm. She flicked the switch on a music box and watched the little animals move around the ark, two by two, as it played Brahms’s “Lullaby.” Her hands were trembling. Only one person in the world would try to contact all four of them through Megan Maitland. “It’s from our mother, isn’t it?”

      “Yes, apparently it is.”

      Lana couldn’t quite trust herself to speak. After twenty-five years of silence, her mother had apparently just dropped back into her life—into their lives. “Apparently? You mean there’s no name on…the letter? Is it a letter? Did she give you a phone number, an e-mail address?”

      Megan squeezed Lana’s hand. “There was a note and a box of baby things. The note was just like the first one, Lana. The one that was pinned to Garrett’s shirt all those years ago. No return address. No signature. Nothing to identify who wrote it. For some reason, even after all these years, your mother doesn’t want you to know who she is.”

      “VAN ZANDT DEVELOPMENT.” Dylan tucked the cell phone between his ear and his shoulder and went on looking at the schematic for the updated wiring he’d have to install to bring the building up to code.

      “Dill Pickle? Is that you?”

      “Mom?”

      She giggled at his shocked tone. “Oh, dear, did I say that out loud?”

      “Yes, you did,” he said, turning his back on the drawing, giving his mother his full attention. “You haven’t called me that since I was two.”

      “It must be these painkillers. I swear my head feels two feet across. I had to dial you three times to get the call to go through.”

      “How are you feeling otherwise?”

      “I want out of this bed and this horrible contraption. I can’t even get up to go to the bathroom. How could I have been so foolish? I only fell two feet from the second step of the ladder.” In his mind’s eye he could see her shaking her head, her curly brown hair barely streaked with gray. “I really, really do have to lose some weight. The doctors have all been very nice, but I know that’s what they’re thinking. ‘If you weren’t so heavy, Mrs. Van Zandt, the injury to your ankle wouldn’t have been so severe.’”

      “Mom, you’re not fat.” But she wasn’t skinny, either. He couldn’t remember her as anything but pleasingly plump. His parents were both nearing sixty, active and healthy except for his dad’s high blood pressure and now his mom’s broken ankle. Nevertheless, they were looking forward to turning over the business to him in a few years and retiring. That’s why he had to make this project work. They’d put a big chunk of their savings into it and let him take out a loan against the company assets.

      “I’m not skinny, either. And I’m bored witless already, as you can tell. How’s Greg? How are you two doing? Should I send your father up there to help out?”

      “We’re doing fine, Mom. And Dad needs to stay there with you and the office. The bids for the new gymnasium at the high school are coming up next week. We’ve got a good chance at getting the job.”

      “I know, I know. But there are other things just as important as the school bid. Like my little Greggy. Are you sure he’s okay?”

      She was beginning to sound tired, her words slurring now and then, but Dylan knew better than to try to cut the conversation short. Even half zonked on painkillers, his mother wouldn’t stand for that. She sensed how conflicted he was about his son. She had accepted the little guy wholeheartedly, but Dylan wasn’t fooled. His mother could count. She and his dad had to be aware that Greg could have been conceived during the time Jessie had lived apart from him. But it made no difference to Linda Van Zandt. Greg was her grandchild, just as his sister Christy’s and his brother Trent’s kids were. “He’s fine. I…I’ve got someone to help with him.”

      “Who’s that?” His mother’s voice was razor sharp again, just like her wits.

      “Her name’s Lana Lord. She’s the tenant in the store below my apartment. The store called Oh, Baby!”

      “I’ve heard that name.”

      “It was on the architect’s drawing of the new facade, remember?”

      “Oh, yes, a baby store. I read an article about one of them in the business section of the Statesman once. Supposed to be a real growth industry. Lots of waited-till-it-was-almost-too-late professionals having