Free The Night We Met by Tara Taylor Quinn Page A

wasn't having any of it. He said he had a list of things to do before he planned to settle down. And when Nate started in on him, he said, "Hey, big brother, I seem to remember you were pushing what—
    thirty-four, wasn't it?—when you married my sister."
    By that standard, William, at twenty-seven, had some time.
    With a son on each hip, Nate didn't say another word.
    We didn't make it home that summer, after al . I was pregnant again—due in October. That would make three babies in just over three years. I wondered if I was going to have another boy. While I secretly longed for a little girl, I knew it would be more practical to have a son. I had all the clothes and toys already.
    Nate's job was going well. The resort had grown so much, Walt was talking about expanding into Utah and possibly Nevada. He sent Nate to scout out some sites in Tahoe. Nate wanted me to come and I called my mother immediately, hoping she could stay with the boys.
    She flew out the next weekend and seven months pregnant, I went on a romantic getaway with my husband. We were only gone four days, but they were days I'd remember for the rest of my life. I'd forgotten how observant Nate was, how attuned to everything around him. I'd forgotten how marvelous it felt to be the sole recipient of his attention. But the one thing I hadn't forgotten was how much I loved him.
    On the day Sarah Elizabeth Grady was born, Disney- world opened in Orlando, Florida. I knew this was an omen of the magic our little girl was going to bring to my life. I final y had a daughter.
    Nate couldn't have been more thril ed. He cal ed at least four times a day to ask how Sarah was doing and always went to her the second he got home at night. If I hadn't been so happy, I might've been a bit jealous that our daughter got his first kiss at the end of the day, but I couldn't find it in me to do more than grin and wait my turn.
    Life was hectic. Keith was potty training, Jimmy walking. I was breast-feeding again. And the house didn't get cleaned as often. I couldn't make myself care about that. I kept the floors sanitary, the laundry done and managed to cook healthy meals. The rest didn't seem to matter.
    I invited my parents for Christmas that year. My mother came alone—two days after the holiday. I was beginning to understand that my father was never going to forgive me. He thought I'd disrespected his greater experience and knowledge. He thought I'd dishonored him. I had a recurring dream in which he'd show up on my doorstep with presents for al three kids. The dream eased the constant ache I felt because of the hole in my heart. In a strange way it gave me hope.
    And, according to Mom, he still believed Nate was going to hurt me. He didn't seem to realize that he was the only man in my life who'd done that.
    Two days after Mom left, on the second of January, 1972, Sarah Elizabeth Grady died in her sleep.
    Crib death, they called it.
    I called it cruel. Unfair. Impossible.
    "No, Nate, she's not dead," I told Sarah's father as he pried my hands away from the tiny casket someone had chosen and mistakenly placed my tiny daughter in.
    "Come on, Liza, we have to go."
    The visitation had been over for almost an hour. My mother had long since taken the boys home to bed.
    "I'm not leaving her."
    "I'm sorry, baby, you have to." His words were little more than a whisper as he bent over me where I half lay against the smal pine box.
    "I can't." While my spirit was slowly crumbling, my voice remained strong.
    "Yes, you can." I had a flash of memory—Nate saying those same words to me in that same tone.
    The day he'd driven me to the hospital to deliver our first child.
    Forever ago.
    He'd been right then. I could do it. I had. And repeated the experience twice more.
    But this time he was dead wrong.
    Dead, dead wrong.
    As dead wrong as that precious little body lying so stiffly just inches from my face.
    As dead as I wanted to be.

    Sarah's sweet, chubby cheeks blurred as my eyes welled