His Baby (18 page)

She faced him, but then was suddenly too shy. She couldn't
think of what to do, didn't want to pull away, so she closed her eyes. Her arms
and hands were between them, folded, not pushing him away, not pulling him
close, just there, a physical barrier. He kissed her eyelids, her nose, and
then, gently, her mouth. Diana felt she should say something, but couldn't,
couldn't think of it, couldn't formulate the words.

Instead she surrendered to the pure sensual feel of it, the
delight of being close to him in the bed, of hearing his breathing, feeling the
softness of the quilts, the weight of another body in the bed, the spreading
warmth. She opened her eyes and found that he had closed his.

His face looked rough in the early morning light, his beard
stubble showing sharply against pale skin, his lips opened just a little bit,
curved into a small smile, his jaw relaxed, his lashes dark. Lying there, she
remembered his eyes when she’d nodded her agreement to his proposal. A thrill
of excitement and fear shot through her.

What have I done?

I’m going to marry him
, she thought. Despite her
fears, her anxieties, her worries, her uncertainties. She was going to marry
him and he was going to sleep in her bed, touch her, hold her close, all of
that. She enjoyed the slight buzz of feeling in her stomach, spreading to her
limbs, making her feel a little more alive but very relaxed.

Where would they live? she thought, and the returning
anxiety almost wiped out the sense of relaxation she felt. She forced the
thought away, or tried to. It was the last thought in her mind before she
yielded to sleep.

The arrival of Carl Alan Stonehouse seemed to throw
everything into confusion. Carl took a few more days off at the plant, but
stayed home with Mary rather than dealing with a job change. Sam White's
secretary rescheduled all of Carl's interviews for two weeks later. Zack took
off for home late on Tuesday, after a couple of frustrating job interviews in
Whitney and the surrounding area. Beth spent most of her extra time in Whitney
with Lark, who did not go to the babysitter's on a weekday for the first time
ever. Diana scrambled around for a few very busy days at work and helped Carl
and Mary with the new baby.

At odd moments, she wrestled with herself then finally, on
Friday, told her boss she was planning on leaving Whitney and moving to the
Chicago area. They had the first conversation about it while everyone else in
the office was off for a birthday lunch. They were working on a deadline.

"I won't move right away," she went on to say,
disturbed by the real distress she saw on his face. "I haven't even looked
for a job there, and I haven't sold the house, and I don't know if my brother
is planning to move or not. But I wanted you to know right away," she
said, "so you can plan."

"Plan for what?" he said, leaning back in his squeaky
chair. "No one here can do your job. Where will I find someone to replace
you?" He dropped his pencil on the desk.

"Amber might be ready for the job," Diana said
slowly, watching the pencil roll towards the edge of the desk. "She's
going to be done with her technical degree in June."

"Not Amber," he said, but didn't explain. "You
can't leave me. I can't run this office without you. You're efficient. You get
things done. You keep people moving. You can't leave me." He closed his
eyes and put his hands on his face.

"Lark's father lives near Chicago," she said
softly. "I think she needs to live with him." Somehow she couldn't
tell him she wanted to live with Zack too, that she was probably going to marry
Zack. That she
wanted
to marry Zack. For a moment, she considered what
would happen if she let Lark go and just went to visit on weekends. For a while.
Until Mr. Harper got things sorted out.

"So you're going to go be a nanny?" he said. "I
can't believe that. You're talented and smart." He dropped his hand into
his lap then looked up and saw the pencil, half of it off the desk, still
moving very slowly. He picked it up and placed it carefully in the middle of
his yellow lined pad.

Diana looked at him with disbelief.

"I'm not going to be a nanny. I'll find another job
like this in Chicago," she said stiffly. "I'll take care of Lark
and," she hesitated, still unwilling to confess that she was in love with
Zack, "I'll live my life there instead of here."

"People think they'll be happy in the city, away from a
small town. You own a house here, you have a good job, you can make a place
here." He shook his head. "I don't understand."

I fell in love
she wanted to say, but strictly
speaking, that wasn't true. That wasn't all of it, anyway. At the moment, it didn't
even seem possible to explain. She didn't understand herself.

"I'm sorry Mr. Harper," she said finally, stiffly,
"I just thought I should give you as much notice as possible. Perhaps I
shouldn't have said anything."

He stared at her for a moment. "No, you did the right
thing. I'm just thrown for a loop. Take a lunch, take a break. I'll eat my
lunch by myself and get my thoughts together. I'll see you back here in an
hour?"

Diana left, because she felt she wasn't really being asked,
she was being told to leave. Pushing her hands into the pockets of her wool
coat, she walked into the parking lot and stood next to her car. It was
bitterly cold with a biting wind, the sky grayish blue, a few small high clouds
being pushed rapidly across the horizon. She debated whether to walk somewhere
or to drive out to the highway and eat at the diner, something she hadn't done
in months. As soon as she thought about it, she decided on the diner.

Besides, the day felt too cold to walk anywhere and she
didn't want to run into the office crowd. She drove quickly out of town,
speeding along the empty country road to the highway, then north a couple of
miles and off at the exit. There were a number of trucks at the edge of the
parking lot, big ones, as well as a small collection of pickup trucks and
utility vehicles parked in front of the buildings. A man in a business suit and
a trench coat was pumping gas into his late model sedan.

The diner was very warm and very noisy and offered a mixture
of aromas: meat and French fries and something sweeter and more elusive. Diana
sat at a spot near one end of the counter right in the middle of several empty
seats, ordered, then pointed and told the waitress she would be right back. The
woman nodded and moved away to put the order into the kitchen.

There were two ancient pay telephones in the cramped narrow
hallway leading to the bathrooms. Diana put her purse on the tiny shelf in
front of one and dug her cell phone out. If he was busy he wouldn’t answer. After
all, it was lunch time in Chicago as well.

She had to resist the urge to start talking the moment she
heard his voice.

"Hey, Diana, what's wrong?" Zack spoke up.

"My boss needs me," she said abruptly, not at all
what she was planning to say. "I can't come. What am I going to do?" She
was amazed to find she could barely control the tremor in her voice.

"I need you too, Diana," he said softly.

"No you don't," she said crying despite her
resolve not to. "You want Lark and you love her. You're just being nice to
me."

"Why would I do that?" he said quietly.

"Because I've taken such good care of Lark," she
said. "I suppose I'm not so bad looking, either. You do seem to be
attracted to me but you don't want-- ."

"I'm
very
attracted to you," he said firmly.
"You know I like you. I'm not
just
being nice to you. I want to
marry you, Diana Stonehouse."

"But he says he doesn't want me to leave. He says no
one else can do my job." She sniffed hard and tried to stop the crying. She
wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"No one is irreplaceable, Diana. Besides, if you really
don't want to leave Whitney, we'll work something out." For the first
time, she realized, she believed him. He'd never changed what he said, but
somehow, for some reason she couldn't figure out right now, she believed him. Maybe
she should tell him the truth.

"But I do want to leave," she said slowly, trying
to make it clear what she was telling him, "I didn't know it until now.” Maybe,
she thought, she believed him because he always said what he meant. He always
seemed to say it at the right time, too.

Neither of them spoke. Diana heard the crash of some dishes
in the kitchen, which was, after all, probably just on the other side of this
wall.

"You want to come here," he said, not quite
asking, not quite stating, sounding cautious.

It was time to tell him what she had been thinking, what she
had realized. "I think you are going to have better luck getting a
different job there. I think I can get a job anywhere."
Perhaps I'm
ready for another job anyway
, she added silently.

"Are you okay with this though? You sound so
upset."

"I am upset," she said, sniffing again, "but
I'm better now that I've talked to you. I should eat lunch and get back to
work."
That‘s the simple truth
, she thought. She needed to tell her
boss she was grateful to him for everything he'd done for her, for giving her a
few good years, but that she needed to move on. He'd be fine.

"If you'll be all right," Zack said. "Don't
go back to work if it’s too much for you. They can cope. I'll be there in a few
hours. Do you want me to come sooner?"

Yes,
she thought, but it was impractical. There was
no emergency. "I'll see you tonight?"

"Yes. Usual time. Or earlier if I can get away from
here. I just have to talk to Dad. I'm proposing some changes here."

"Good luck," she said, and hung up the receiver. She
decided to make a pit stop in the rest room and clean up her face a little.

Her hot tea was waiting at her spot at the counter.

She sat down, staring absently past the clutter of
condiments and holders, finding the little stack of pies in the dessert case
next to a couple of different cakes, unidentifiable from here. When she looked
a little to the right, she caught a glimpse of her wavy reflection in the
polished metal behind the counter. She looked wind-blown, wild, completely
unlike herself. Like the woman in the bathroom mirror, she was unknown, new,
well, changing, anyway. Not practical, not controlled, not plain. Not plain at
all.

After a few moments she sighed and shrugged out of her coat,
put her purse by her feet, unfolded her napkin and picked up the spoon,
balancing it on a finger. Thinking.

Then not thinking. She couldn't think anymore. Nothing that
had happened since that day Zack showed up weeks ago made any sense whatsoever.
She was annoyed with herself, angry that everything had to change but, in
another sense, relieved that something had come along to knock her off the
staid course she had started on.

 She ate her lunch when it was delivered a few minutes
later, then lingered over a piece of cherry pie and a small scoop of melting
vanilla ice cream with a strong cup of coffee.

People came and went to the right and left of her, although
the chairs directly on each side of her stayed empty. She imagined that there
was an invisible shield, protecting her. That shield might be simply the
intensity she felt, the deep concentration she made on rearranging what she
thought and how she thought about it.

When she checked the clock, she was amazed to discover that
she had been gone from the office for about two hours. She swung her seat
around, slipped out of her chair and started to put her coat on.

Someone put a hand on her forearm and she swung around.

"Diana?" Susan Henry, Jay’s widow, was standing
next to her, dressed in the diner's waitress outfit, long hair wrapped in a bun
hung low on her neck. She looked tired under the impeccable makeup.

"Can I talk to you for a minute? Outside?" Susan
looked as though she expected to be rejected.

"Let me just pay for my meal, okay?" Diana lifted
the check up to show her.

Susan snatched the small rectangle of paper out of Diana's
hand and slipped it into the pocket of her apron.

"My treat. Look, I can only take a couple of minutes
away from my tables," she said, looking behind her. "It'll just take
a minute, okay?"

"Okay," Diana said carefully and followed the
other woman through the narrow interlock of doors into the sudden chill of the
outdoors.

"Aren't you going to be cold without a coat?"
Diana asked when they stopped at the outer edge of the building. Susan already
had goose bumps and had tightened her shoulders a little against the chill wind.
But she shook her head, no.

"Diana, I thought a lot about what you said that time
you came to see me. I tried to remember some things that Jay had told me. Then
I talked to his mama and she told me something I think you need to know." She
paused and took a breath, as if gathering her courage. "Jay had mumps as a
teenager. They told him he could never have children."

"Never?" Diana couldn't quite process what Susan
had said.

"Never. No chance. Apparently he had wondered about the
possibility that your sister's baby was his and asked his mama if she was sure.
He never worried about birth control. I never thought about it because, well, I
thought we were trying to have a baby. But Jay's mama told him the doctors said
there was no way he could have a baby. It was just not possible. He got pretty
upset, I guess, but you can't change it. I guess he told your sister too, but
Jay's mama said it didn't matter to her. Then I went and looked up the record
in the city hall. Robin didn't put Jay down as the father, did she?"

"No. I thought she did that to spare you, or Jay."

"No. I guess Jay must have told her. Maybe not. But I
thought you should know. I told his mama because I was a little worried. What
if that baby was her grandchild? I thought maybe she would want to know."

"I know what you mean," Diana said, but she closed
her eyes for a moment. She hadn't really seriously thought about that aspect of
Lark's parentage.

"Anyway, when I saw you sitting there, well, I decided
to tell you right now. I haven't been able to get up my courage to come and
tell you."

Susan looked sad
, Diana thought.

"I appreciate that you told me, Susan," trying to
think about whether to ask Susan what was really wrong. Was it this or
something else?

Susan just nodded.

"I'm sorry my sister caused you so much pain,"
Diana said gently, feeling a wave of sadness for Susan.

"It was Jay's fault, as much as hers," Susan said,
eyes filling with tears. "I wanted to blame her somehow, to hate that poor
little baby, but I can't."

"Doesn't matter whose fault it was, it still
hurts," Diana said, hoping what she said will ease Susan’s paid.

Susan lifted her eyes and studied Diana. "It's getting
better, though. I guess I'm relieved she's not Jay's baby."

Diana moved without thinking and folded Susan in a quick hug.
"Thanks for telling me. You get inside now, it's cold out here."

"Okay. I'm glad I saw you."

"Me too."

Diana crossed the gravel parking lot and slipped into her
car, turned on the ignition and then pulled the parking brake on. Jay couldn't
have fathered Lark? Then why name her Lark, create the triangle of Jay, Robin
and Lark? Had Robin hoped to make Jay care about the baby? Was Robin hoping
that Jay would leave Susan and marry her? But Robin named Zack as Lark's father.
He
was
Lark's father.