His Baby (4 page)

What did that mean?
she thought. "You don't like
where you live? Or your job?"

"Where I live is fine but it’s just a place to live. Where
I work is relatively boring, but I do well enough and I enjoy the people I work
with. It wasn't what I thought I might do."

"I-- " What was there to say about that? He didn't
seem to need much response.

"I work for my father. I spend some time with my
parents almost every weekend and socialize in places they approve of, like the
country club." This was clearly a well-rehearsed complaint, Diana thought.
She put down her fork.

"What about your girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" He looked puzzled.

"Or girlfriends. I assume you have a girlfriend."
Or
are you still heartbroken
, she thought, then mentally chided herself for
meanness.

"Yes, I date. But there's no one special."

"Hasn't your father picked anyone out yet?" she
said, distracted by Lark's sudden toss of a cracker into her hair.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, he has, but she isn't sure
she approves of me. I think it depends on whether or not Dad makes me a partner
in the business."

Diana looked over at him. Was there a question about this
partnership business? "You
are
his son."

"But I don't think he's going to make me a
partner."

"I see," she said, not knowing what else to say. She
speared a piece of bacon.

"He says-- never mind what he says. You don't want to
know. It boils down to this -- I'm a big disappointment."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she murmured, trying the
potatoes next.

"I try to do what I'm supposed to, but it's not enough,
Diana. He doesn't approve of me. He never has." Zack sounded
understandably bitter.
But it was
, she thought,
only one side of the
story
.

"Why?" she asked him after a moment.

"I don't know. He says I don't try hard enough. I don't
know what he wants, exactly. I work hard, I do what I'm supposed to. I dress
the way I'm expected to. I go where I should. I stay away from the places I
shouldn't."

"Doesn't sound like fun. Although you have sports for
fun, right?"

He stared at her then, so intensely that she stopped eating
for a moment.

 "Let me tell you a secret. I hate sports. However,
I've been expected to be conversant in baseball, basketball, hockey, football
and car racing my whole life. So I am. I keep track, I know the players and the
scores, and I watch the games. I speak the lingo."

"I don't know what to say." She had thought he
loved sports. He gave that impression, trading statistics and stories with Carl
as comfortably as one rabid fan to another. Okay, Carl wasn't exactly rabid,
but he did love baseball dearly.

"You don't have to say anything," Zack said. "I
don't know why I'm telling you this. It's not really his fault, you know. I
should have given up a long time ago, tried something I wanted, but instead I
just coasted. In a way, I think that makes him the craziest."

"What does?"

"That I gave up."

Do I get points for obviousness? she wondered. "Why did
you give up?" she asked politely.

"I don't know. Look, Diana, people give up. That's the
wrong word.
People settle
. They decide what they're going to do and they
do it. Things don't always go according to plan, but then you make a new plan,
right?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"I'm not sure I do, either," he said, but he was
watching Lark.
"It must be a shock, to find out about Lark."

"Quite a shock," he said, "but the most
shocking thing was that it stopped my father in his tracks." He sighed,
took a breath, studied her. "Look, I don't know if I can explain this
properly, but I'll try. My father had decided, three weeks ago, he wasn't going
to make me a partner in the business. That's what he told me, in a very somber
discussion at the office one Monday afternoon. I found out about Lark this
week, and told him Friday. Now he's saying we have to reconsider everything. I
don't even know what he means by that."

"Maybe he means he'll make you a partner."

"Maybe I don't want to be a partner anymore."

Oh, dear.
"I see," Diana said, and she
thought she did.

"Glad someone does, because I don't. I don't see
anything clearly right now. Except, of course, that Lark's a beautiful child. And
that you're completely dedicated to her."

"I do love Lark," Diana said, trying to keep the
phrase a casual one. She adored Lark, actually.

"I know," he said kindly. "So, no matter what
it means to my father, I have to sort out what being Lark's father means to me.
I have to do the right thing, even if my father doesn't approve."

"What is the right thing, Zack?"

"We'll play the game by your rules, at least for now,
at least until I've proven myself. I'll come down here on weekends to visit. I'll
try to figure out how to be a good father to Lark. I'll give you what support I
can. We'll go from there."

He made it sound so simple.

"It sounds good," Diana said reluctantly. "But
I'm a little worried."
A little worried? I'm panicked.

"What do you mean?" He paused, fork halfway to his
mouth.
"I had my life all figured out. It's busy but I know how to make it work,
to take care of Lark and do everything else I have to. Now you-- " How
could she say this?

"Now I came along and upset everything."

"That's right."

"I want to say I'm sorry, but I'm not." He said it
almost defiantly. "I have a child. Why should I be sorry?"

"I know," she admitted. "I'll cope."
I
always do.
She felt dreadfully tired. It was too much. Then the moment
passed. She pushed her plate back a little and got up to take Lark from her
chair. Time for a bottle.

"Let me do that, okay?" Zack asked.

"You?" Her surprise wasn't flattering, she
supposed.

"I have to learn, don't I?"
Yes, Diana thought, but she was jealous. That was it, the tug in the middle of
her chest. It couldn't be anything else although jealousy was stupid. Why
should it matter if Zack fed Lark? Carl fed the baby all the time. What was the
difference?

The difference was simple -- Zack was Lark's father.

Somehow, knowing that Zack was Lark's father made her
remember, every single time, that she wasn't her mother. Lark wasn't her child,
Lark was her niece. That fact shouldn't hurt, but it did. It hadn't hurt before
Zack came into the picture. Before Zack, Lark had no one else, just Diana and
Carl and Mary.

Now she helped Zack get Lark settled in his arms, watched
him study his child with a fascination that was painful to watch. He was
falling in love, she could see it. He was falling in love with his own child,
as suddenly and painfully as being hit by lightning. Diana picked at her fruit
salad, miserable. "Diana?" Zack said softly. He waited until she was
looking at him. "You look pretty unhappy," he said.

Got me.
"I'm not happy," she told him. "I'm
not ready for another loss."

"Is that what this is? Are you afraid of losing
Lark?"

"Of course I am," she said irritably. "You
said you could take her away. Why do you think you can threaten me and then
just say, 'just kidding'?"

"I sure blew that one, didn't I?" he said after a
minute.

"Yes, actually, you did," she said and then paused
to consider how honest she could be.
Not could be
, she corrected
herself,
would be.
"You're a complication, too, Zack," she
said finally. "You and I might not agree about matters concerning about
Lark. I'm used to making my own schedule. Now you want to be part of it, part
of my life every weekend." She took a breath. "I have to share Lark
with you."

"That's a problem?" he said mildly.

"I get little enough time with her to just relax and
play, to hang out with her. Now you're going to be there too."

"I'm not such a bad guy, really."

"Really?"

The busboy peeked around the curtains for a moment, checking
to see if he could clear plates, hefting the coffee pot, filling their water
glasses. Diana sat back, watching Zack hold the now-sleeping baby in his arms. He
still looked tentative, she thought, as though he were afraid he would hurt
her, or drop her, or miss something. His face seemed to glow a little, lit from
within, when he looked at her.

Diana felt petty, fearful, argumentative and she didn't like
feeling that way. She didn't like to think of herself that way. After all, what
would it have been like if Zack had married Robin? Lark would be living with
Zack, wouldn't she? She, Diana, would be only Lark's aunt, would see Lark a few
times a year. That was assuming, she thought sadly, that Robin wouldn't have
died if she had been living with Zack.

Would the car accident have happened if Robin had been
living somewhere else? Were these things fate, sure to happen no matter what
you did?

"Diana," Zack said, glancing over to the hovering
busboy, "do you want some more coffee? Or do you want to get going?"

"What do you think?" she asked. "I think I'm
fine, but if you want to sit for a while that would be all right with me."

"Here or at your house," he said. "You
decide."

"Let's get Lark in her own crib for a nap then,"
she suggested. They busied themselves with settling the bill and the baby,
getting ready for the ride back to her house, staying with small talk mostly,
although Zack slipped in a few questions about Lark, about her habits and
preferences.

Back in town, Zack drove by Mrs. Hampton's. After he'd
dropped Diana back at her place, he went back to talk to the old lady. Zack
told Diana the whole story when he returned to her place. They had a peaceful
afternoon out under the trees, hashing things out, talking, not saying much of
any great importance it seemed at the time, but Diana felt better all week, not
worried about Zack being there, willing to talk herself out of fussing about
this new wrinkle in their lives.

She was caught completely off guard, then, when she returned
home Thursday evening and found a strange man standing next to his car in her
driveway. The car was a big one, a black, shining luxury car; the man was
equally big and imposing, even a little intimidating. He looked like trouble,
Diana had thought when she pulled into the driveway, blocking his car with
hers, since she couldn't get around him to stop in her usual spot in front of
the garage.

He frowned as he strode up to her, tugging a little at his
dark suit. His white hair seemed a little disarrayed. He looked hot, she
thought, hot and a little angry. Well, she was angry too, but not so angry she
would lose sight of what was going on here.

"Can I help you?" she said, standing outside the
car, keeping the door between him and her. Lark was fussing a little in the
back seat.

"If you're Diana Stonehouse you can. Is that my
granddaughter?" He gestured to the car, stepped closer. She felt
intimidated, no two ways about it. She sighed, tried to hold her ground, tried
to resist jumping into the car and speeding away.

"Who are you?" she asked, making the question as
challenging as she dared.

He took a breath, which had the effect of puffing him up a
little. If anything, he looked bigger, more imposing. "I'm Sam
White," he said in an authoritative tone of voice.

"Any relation to Zack White?" she asked.

"I'm Zack's father," he answered.

"I see," she said. For a moment, she considered
smiling, offering her hand, inviting him in, but something about this guy set
her on edge. This was the man Zack White hadn't said no to for years. She was
beginning to understand Zack a little better than she wanted to. Instead of
speaking up, she got back in the car, slammed the door and locked it.

He came closer then, knocking hard on the window.

Despite her resolve, she flinched. After a moment, she put
the glass down about an inch.

"Mr. White," she said, as calmly as she could
manage, "you may not understand that you're scaring me. I'm going to drive
away now. I suggest you leave."

"I want to see my granddaughter."

"No," she said firmly. "Talk to your son. Arrange
it with Zack. Here. In town. At a time and place we agree on."

"What do you think you're doing?"

She stared at him. "I might ask you the same
thing," she said. "Just what do you think you're doing, Mr.
White?"

After she drove away from her home, Diana quickly decided
the best place to go was Carl and Mary's house. When she arrived, Mary had just
gotten home from work. Diana called Zack in Chicago from the kitchen phone at
Carl's house, sitting on a chair, breathing deeply, waiting for someone to
answer the phone at the other end. Lark was banging on something in the playpen
in the other room but she seemed happy. If Diana turned a little, she could see
the baby, check on her.

Mary was fussing around the kitchen, pretending not to
listen but exhibiting a lot of anxiety nonetheless. Mary kept moving: walking
to the door and staring at the baby, then walking to the kitchen table and
rifling through the stack of mail, then walking to the refrigerator and staring
inside. Diana sat at the kitchen table, receiver pressed to her ear, running
one finger up and down the glass of orange juice Mary had poured for her.

Zack wasn't home. Diana left a message for him to call her
here, repeated the number carefully, then hung up. Mary had ended up at the
sink, staring out the small window over it into the neighbor's yard. Nothing
was going on over there. She just stared. Mary looked tense, her shoulders up,
her head stiff, her hands tight against the tiled edge of the counter.

"Hey, Mary," Diana said softly, not wanting to
startle her. Mary jerked a little, then turned slowly. "Is it okay if I
stick around for a while? If you want me to go, I'll go somewhere else and you
can tell Zack to call me there."

"Where would you go?" Mary asked.

"I don't want to go anywhere, not really, but I don't
want to be any trouble."

"You're not any trouble. I just don't know what to do
for dinner. Carl's working some overtime at the plant. I should cook something
he can heat up later." Mary was frowning faintly.

"Don't you have any leftovers? Something to make a
sandwich with? It's too hot to cook."

Mary smiled faintly. "Peanut butter and jelly. Canned
tuna. I don't know."
"Both of those sound good," Diana suggested. "If you don't mind
company for dinner."

"But what will Carl eat when he gets home?" Mary
asked, looking around for her glass of orange juice.

"I don't know," Diana said. "We can make him
a sandwich, he can heat up some soup if he wants. If it cools off later."

"I like to make a meal for him," Mary said a
little sternly.

"Okay, but you don't have to make a meal for me. I
don't want to cause trouble."

"You're not causing any trouble. It's that Mr. White. Who
does he think he is?"

"Now, Mary, he's "Mr. White" so obviously we
should do whatever he says."

Mary giggled. It did sound odd, but Diana thought that's the
way the man seemed to think.

"Do me a favor, Mary?" she said.

"What's that?" Mary shifted a little.
"Sit down. You look so tired."

"I'm afraid to stop. I'll fall asleep."

"Does the word 'nap' mean anything to you?"

"I don't want to sleep while you're here."

"Okay, but I wish you'd sit down. Tell me what you want
to do for dinner and I'll make dinner. I mean, if you don't have a problem with
another woman in your kitchen."

"Not with you. I suppose if my mother showed up and
started wiping counters I'd have a problem with that." Mary crossed the
small kitchen and settled into the chair opposite Diana.

"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean. I promise not to
start wiping up your counters. Besides, they're very clean."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Diana."

"What for?"

"Carl told me that you've always been the one to do the
cooking and the cleaning up."

"That's because he and Robin never wanted to do the
dishes. Because I couldn't stand coming down in the morning to a dirty
kitchen." Diana stood up. Peanut butter or tuna? The peanut butter sounded
a little decadent. She hadn't had any in ages.

"I never thought about a dirty kitchen when I was
growing up," Mary said. "My mother did all that."

Mary,
Diana thought,
was so normal and I'm not
.
"Sometimes I envy you, Mary." She pulled down a plate from the
cabinet and got some bread out of the bread box.

"Sometimes I don't know how I'll live up to you,"
Mary said, mumbling.

"Live up to me?" Diana stopped on her way to the
refrigerator.

"Carl adores you. He says if you hadn't done what you
did, you would have all had to go live with relatives in Illinois."

Separate relatives in Illinois
.
None of the
relatives wanted to take all three of us. It was too much, that was the
consensus
. "As it was, we had to live with our dear, dotty old
grandmother. Where do you keep the peanut butter and jelly, Mary?"
"In the cupboard, right there. But you all got to stay together. You got
to stay in town, too, the place you grew up."

"That's true. But sometimes I wonder if Carl wouldn't
have been happier if he could have gone to Uncle Melvin's, worked on the farm,
ran around with a bunch of his cousins." All of whom were big louts like
him. It would have been a little like a fraternity, Diana suspected. She found
the peanut butter and some blueberry jelly and put it on the counter.

"Maybe," Mary conceded. "But would he have
come back to town for me? I'm glad you kept him here."

She wanted to make a glib answer, but Diana saw the emotion
on Mary's face. "I don't know, Mary. I know he loves you. You can drive
yourself crazy thinking things like that."

"I guess so," Mary said slowly.

For example
, she thought, then spoke the thought out
loud. "I was thinking the other day about Robin. If Robin had married
Zack, left town, would she have died in a car accident?""Well, she
wouldn't have been running around with Jay Peters," Mary said, shrugging. After
a beat, she froze, and brought the glass of orange juice to her lips.

"What do you mean by that?" Diana put both hands
on the counter and stopped for a moment. Mary's hand jerked a little.

"Oh, dear, I shouldn't have said anything." Mary
looked flustered. She was fiddling with a napkin, dabbing at some juice she had
spilled on the table.

"What do you mean, she was running around with Jay
Peters?" Diana asked. Robin had been in the car with Jay Peters when the
accident happened, but that was all. "He gave her a ride home from
church."

"Look, you're right. I guess I..." Mary looked at
Diana for a moment then looked away.

"Is that what people say, that she was running around
with him?”

"It doesn't matter what people say," Mary said. She
put her glass down on a napkin. "What are you going to do about this bully
Mr. White if you can't reach Zack?"

"Don't change the subject, Mary Stonehouse. What did
you mean by that remark?"
Mary started pleating the edge of the napkin. "Carl should talk to you
about this. It isn't my place to tell you anything."

"Carl hasn't told me. Maybe you should. Tell me
now," Diana knew she had slipped into bossy mode, but she didn't care. There
was something here, Mary knew it, Carl knew it and she was going to know it. Even
if it was just town gossip.

"Tell you what?"
"All of it," Diana suggested firmly. "Mary, tell me. You're my
sister-in-law. Shouldn't you be the one to tell me? Whatever it is!" Diana
took a breath. It wouldn't do to snap at Mary and she was very close to it. To
cover her frustration, Diana opened the peanut butter and pulled open a drawer
for a flat bladed knife.

"You'll be mad at me, you know, shooting the messenger
with bad news," Mary said. Diana turned, watching Mary shake her head
sadly.

"I won't shoot you, I promise. But I will be seriously
mad at you if you don't tell me," Diana said, slowly spreading peanut
butter across one slice of bread.

"You really don't know? I mean, Carl told me you
didn't, but I didn't think he meant it. I thought you were just putting a brave
face on it."

"On what?" She studied Mary for a moment.

"Jay Peters and Robin."

"What about them?"
"You really think that she was going to church that night?" Mary
asked softly, "And before Lark was born?"

Of course that's what I thought. That's what she told me. "She
wasn't?"

"Technically she was walking to the church, but Jay
Peters picked her up there and they'd go away for a few hours."

"But Jay Peters was married." She distinctly
remembered the picture of his wife in the paper. Actually, it might have been
their wedding picture. Diana finished the first sandwich and found a plate for
it. She cut the sandwich diagonally. It needed something else, she thought
vaguely.

"Of course, yes. Right," Mary was murmuring.

"Does everybody in town know this except me?"
Diana asked sadly. Mary seemed to consider this very seriously.

"No, not everybody. Probably not very many people when
it comes down to it. When Carl went to talk to the church group about why Robin
had left the meeting, they didn't know what he was talking about. He heard that
Jay Peter's wife thought he was having drinks with a few friends. She didn't
know anything about a church meeting. She said they weren't churchgoing
people."

"What did Jay Peters' wife think when Robin was found
in the car with him?" For a moment, Diana couldn't remember what she'd
thought. She'd been puzzled, she decided.

"The guys he usually hung out with told her he'd given
a woman in the bar a ride home. She had been sick, they said."

Was there a simple explanation for all this? "Was Robin
in the bar that night?" She started the next sandwich.

"No, not that night. But they knew about her. They knew
who she was."

 "Why was that?" Diana worked on the sandwich; when
she realized Mary hadn't answered her, she looked up. Mary seemed very
distressed.

"Because it's the same crowd, they've hung around
together since high school."

"How did Robin meet him?"

"She hung around with Jay since high school. These guys
were all his friends since then," Mary said flatly.

Diana cut the second sandwich in half. She was trying to
remember, but she couldn't picture Jay. Not from high school. "I never met
Jay," she said. "I don't remember him."

"Of course you never met him. You'd have killed her if you
knew she was hanging around with him," Mary said confidently.

"Why is that?"
"Because he's the classic bad boy. No one wants their daughter or their
sister to be around a bad boy, but they're irresistible to women!" Mary
grinned ruefully. "Well, some women. That's what I've been told,
anyway."

"Why was she going anywhere with him after Lark?"

"I don't know. I can guess, but nobody told me
anything."

"He was married to someone else," Diana said
reasonably.

Mary sighed again, sipped her juice, put the glass down and
studied it. Apparently she needed to decide what to say. "He got married
to spite her. You know the summer after Robin's freshman year, when she talked
about not going back to college in the fall?" Mary waited for the
confirming nod from Diana. "That was Jay's doing. But you talked her into
going back. After she went back to school, he found this girl and got married
so when Robin came back home for Christmas she had to meet this woman, you
know, had to be polite."

"You knew about this at the time?" Diana was
trying to remember. She didn't remember any of this.

"No, Carl told me later, after Robin died. He said he
hung out with the guys a bit and they filled him in."

"I never knew about this. How did Robin hide this from
me all these years? Why didn't she just tell me about him?"

"I don't know," Mary said quietly.

"Why did she think I wouldn't understand?" She
brought the plates over to the table.
Peanut butter and jelly with no side
dish.
Mary seemed not to notice because she picked up a sandwich half and
took a bite before she answered.

"Because you were so hard on them. You felt you had to
be, I understand."

"But I knew about you, I mean I knew you and
Carl..."
were sleeping togethe
r, she finished silently. She had
guessed anyway but never managed to confront Carl about it.

"I know. It was different somehow with us. I guess Carl
never thought we needed your approval. Besides, you always treated me
fine," Mary said firmly, as if that were all that mattered.

"Did I?" Diana felt confused again. She had
remembered Mary being around, actually that Mary had been around the house a
lot, but Mary had never been underfoot. She had never been trouble. "I
don't know anymore."

"You were tired all the time, I remember that. You had
school and a job, then you went to work full time after trade tech. You were
taking care of your Ma and Papa, too, and Carl and Robin, and then Grandmother
Stonehouse got sick."

Diana didn't know what to say. It sounded like one long
struggle put that way. She felt relieved when the phone rang. Mary started to
get up, but she was slow moving. Diana had time to reach up behind her for the
phone and hand the receiver across the table.

"Hey, Carl," Mary was saying. "Un huh, she's
right here. A Mr. White showed up in front of her place and got real aggressive
so she left and came here. The cops?" Mary said with surprise and waggled
her eye brows at Diana for a minute. Cops? What had Mr. White done? "Oh,
he didn't hurt her, he was just a jerk, bossy and nasty. She didn't give him a
chance to do anything." Mary was smiling. "They did? Well, that's
interesting. Are they going to keep him there? Okay, well that makes sense. Will
you tell them she's here? Okay, Hon, I will."

She listened for a few long minutes. "Okay. No, we're
okay. I mean we're having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We'll make you
some dinner later." She giggled at whatever he said next. "Okay, I
can do that," she said. "Love you too." Mary handed the phone
back to Diana who carefully hung it up before she turned back to her
sister-in-law, who seemed about to burst.