Leaving Haven by Kathleen McCleary Read Free Book Online Page B

out online or make a few calls.”
    Our trip. Next summer. Alice felt something stir inside her. It was fragile; it was whisper thin; but it glowed with a steady, white-hot light. Hope.

4
    Georgia
    A Year Earlier, April 2011
    O ver the next few days, Georgia thought about what it might be like to have a baby created from one of Chessy’s eggs. Would Chessy have maternal feelings for the baby? Would Georgia love the baby as much as she loved Liza? How did one go about asking such a favor?
    Georgia sat down on one of the tall stools at the counter in her kitchen, picked up a paintbrush, dipped it in blue food coloring, and began to paint the fondant peacock feathers she had made for the Bergdorf wedding cake. Getting pregnant with Liza had been so easy. Insert Tab A into Slot B and presto! Nine months later, a baby. She had taken so much for granted. She put down her paintbrush and reached for one of Amelia’s oatmeal butterscotch cookies, sitting where she had left them on the counter, wrapped in plastic wrap. John had eaten so many of them that he felt somewhat sick, so now here they were, tempting Georgia.
    Maybe she could ask Chessy over for dinner and bring up the idea of being an egg donor, she thought. But then, Chessy almost never came to dinner. She did stop by once a week to pick up wedding cakes and deliver them for Georgia, something Georgia paid her far too much to do, but Chessy needed the money. She couldn’t ask Chessy about something so important while they were rushing to get a cake out. She should ask her while they were doing something fun, like, like—Georgia searched her brain. For Georgia these days, “something fun” meant going to a book club meeting with a few friends and drinking wine. For Chessy, Georgia was sure, “something fun” meant going out for drinks at midnight after working on some play, and then going clubbing. Argh.
    Georgia swallowed another bite of cookie. I don’t even like these, she thought. Why am I eating them? The answer, of course, was that she was eating them because they were there, but she had to admit, petty as it was, that she was also eating them so she could feel superior about being a better baker than Amelia. As she bit into her third (or was it fourth?) cookie of the day, the phone rang.
    â€œHi,” Alice said. “What are you doing?”
    Georgia stopped eating and held the bite of cookie inside her cheek so Alice wouldn’t hear her chewing. Alice was supremely disciplined and didn’t eat anything with white sugar more than once a week. She never judged Georgia or chided her about her eating habits, but Georgia felt guilty anyway.
    â€œPeacock feathers,” Georgia mumbled.
    â€œPeacock feathers?”
    Georgia finished chewing and swallowed the last bit of cookie in a big gulp.
    â€œFondant. For a cake.”
    â€œI need to talk to you about Wren.”
    This was Alice’s one eccentricity in Georgia’s mind—the ridiculous name she had given her daughter. Wren: What kind of name was that? Georgia believed in good, plain names, like Liza. Or Ben— if I have a boy, I’ll name him Ben, she thought, although Ben would never work with a last name like Bing. Nicholas would be good. Nicholas Bing. Maybe Nicholas Franklin Bing, after her father, Frank. Of course the reason she loved simple names was because her parents had given her and her sisters such strange names. George, Paul, and Frank—the three sons her father had wanted so much—had turned out to be Georgia, Paulina, and Francesca, names all three girls disliked. Georgia was the only one who hadn’t shortened hers to a nickname, as Polly and Chessy had, because really, what nickname could you make from Georgia? Something even less attractive, like Georgie, or George. That’s why she’d given Liza such a lovely, easy name—Eliza Grace. Perfect. As Nicholas Franklin would be