The Homecoming Baby Read Online Free Page B

You don’t have to atone for your sister’s sins.
    But she couldn’t. Trish had made it clear years ago that any deep conversation on the subject of Angelina was pretty much off-limits.
    For a few minutes, Trish busied herself straightening up the desk, and then she looked back up at Celia.
    â€œDon’t pout,” she said, smiling. She was clearly herself again. “It really is Friday night, you know. Don’t you have a date?”
    â€œAbsolutely not. I gave up men, remember?”
    Trish was still neatening the desk as she talked. “Of course I remember. I just didn’t believe it would last.”
    â€œWell, it has. And it will. The Scratch and Dent Club is officially out of business.” That was what Trish had dubbed the long string of flawed boyfriends Celia had, over the years, mistakenly believed she could “fix.”
    Trish chuckled as she arranged her pens in her drawer and lined up the paperwork with squared off edges. “Oh, sure,” she said. “It’s out of business. Until you meet another cute wounded puppy who needs saving.”
    â€œNope.” Celia sat on the edge of Trish’s desk, swinging her bare feet. “Never again. I’ve learned my lesson. No more losers. No more melancholics or workaholics, momaholics or liars. If I ever go back to dating—and I may not, I may become a nun—it would be because I found someone who doesn’t need any fixing up. No scratches. No dents.”
    Trish raised her eyebrows. “The perfect man.”
    Celia nodded. “That’s right. It’s the perfect man from now on. Or no man at all.”
    Trish leaned over, hoisted the large box of rejected dresses under her arm and gave Celia a smile that was half-teasing, half-wistful.
    â€œThen you’d better get on out to Red Rock Bridgeand wish for one before the moon goes down,” she said. “Because here in the real world, there is absolutely no such thing.”
    Â 
    C ELIA DID GO . Though she had been tired, when she got home she realized she’d been cooped up in the office too long. She needed fresh air and open spaces.
    She brought along a foot-long veggie sub and a bottle of white zinfandel, a romance novel and a flashlight. She ate half the sandwich and drank a quarter of the wine. She read a few chapters by flashlight.
    Then she walked out to the edge, right to where the formation grew narrow, forming the fragile “bridge” between the two red rock columns, and sang corny Broadway love songs at the top of her lungs.
    She gazed toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, so silent and endless in the moonlight. Then she lay on her back and dreamed up at the purple sky, which looked like one of Angelina Linden’s dresses, velvety smooth, sprinkled with silver sequins and the round cameo brooch of the moon.
    She heard a coyote howl in the distance, and she howled back, then laughed at herself because after that every tiny whispering noise startled her, as if the coyote might be loping her way, answering her call.
    And then, after she stuffed her uneaten food and undrunk wine back into her bag, she stood up and walked back to the edge of Red Rock Bridge. She looked up at the moon, and she made her wishes.
    She wished for rain to come and end Enchantment’s drought. She wished for courage for Rose Gallen. She wished for rest for Lydia Kane, prosperity for the clinic and swift, healthy deliveries for every pregnant woman in their care.
    She wished, especially, for peace to come to Trish Linden, who deserved it. After all that, it seemed too greedy to wish for the perfect man, so she agreed to take one with a little dent, if necessary. A tiny scratch that didn’t go too deep would be all right.
    Chuckling at her foolishness, she started to climb down from the bridge. But then she remembered one last thing.
    â€œAnd if you have time,” she called into the vastness of the purple night, “please let