Still Waters (10 page)

“Isn’t it though?” Bill flipped a switch and turned on the overhead light. “Well, don’t just stand there, son. Stick your head under the hood and have a look. I’ll grab us a couple beers from inside.”

But at the distinctive sound of the screen door banging open, the men turned toward the house. “Hey,” Bill said. “Look who it is.”

Adam’s stomach dropped into his feet when he saw Christopher come hopping down the back stairs and across the yard. He forced a smile onto his face, but inside his heart was pounding. “Well, I’ll be.” He looked around. “I didn’t see Jenna’s car anywhere out front. Is she here?”

“He stayed over here last night,” Bill explained. “Jenna’s going to pick him up after dinner.”

The little boy was wearing coveralls, and his cowboy hat had been replaced by a baseball cap. When he saw Adam, a dazzling smile came over his face, and he waved excitedly. He stopped a few feet away. “You’re my Uncle Adam, aren’t you?” he questioned.

Although Adam’s heart tore a little at the title, he had to laugh at Christopher’s bright, chirping voice. “Yeah, I guess that’s me,” he said genially.

“You got me that baseball stuff for my birthday!”

“That I did.”

Bill spoke up. “He loves that baseball equipment. He brought it over here where there’s lots of room to whack the balls around. Plays with it all the time.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re having fun with it,” Adam said. Then he added impulsively, “Would you like to hit a few balls before dinner?” He looked at Bill. “Do we have time?”

“There’s always time for baseball,” Bill said agreeably.

And so, late on that spring afternoon, Adam played baseball with his five-year-old son for the first time. They set up the game in the front yard, where there was room to run. Adam pitched, Christopher was at bat, and Bill dubbed himself the umpire. “I’m too old to go chasing balls all over the darn place,” he said. “You two young fellas will have to take care of that.”

The air was soft and fragrant with the smell of the green grass. As the sun began to drop behind the trees, crickets made their first tentative chirps of the evening. Christopher was a diligent batter, swinging with all his might each time the ball came close to him. Adam coached him on holding the bat, wrapping his arms around his son and helping him swing while Bill threw a few balls their way. Each smile that Christopher gave him, each laugh that erupted from the little boy’s lips, touched Adam’s heart in a new and lovely way. By the time Kitty called them in for dinner, Adam realized that he was beginning to feel like a father. And damn if that didn’t feel good, in spite of the circumstances.

* * *

Discomfort sat sourly in the pit of Jenna’s stomach while she drove to the Appleton’s house. She and Frank had had an argument — or what passed for an argument. With the two of them, a quarrel was usually more of a “you state your opinion, I’ll state mine, and never the twain shall meet” affair. It always left her feeling vaguely unhappy and without a real sense of resolution.

Over dinner, Frank had suggested that Christopher stay the night with his grandparents, so that Jenna and he could spend the night together, but Jenna had firmly negated the idea. Her biggest objection was that it violated what she called the Nine PM Rule, which meant that by nine o’clock at night, they usually went their separate ways. Sleepover nights were almost impossible, if only because there was no way she could allow Frank’s car to remain outside her house all night long. And she couldn’t spend the night at Frank’s apartment without informing Bill and Kitty first; otherwise they wouldn’t know how to reach her if there was an emergency. It seemed that there was no end of complicated machinations involved.

“Well, then,” Frank had said. “We should just get married.”

That statement had left her speechless, and not in a good way. She loved Frank; she enjoyed having him in her life. But….

But. B-U-T. There were always those three little letters. Although she couldn’t ever seem to put a finger on what came after them, wasn’t their very existence an indication that there was something that she wasn’t quite willing to face?

She went left on Lee Street and made her way to the end of the road. As she turned off the street and into the Appleton’s driveway, the wide arch of her headlights caught a strange car parked under an oak tree, and her heart skipped a beat.

Adam was there.

Jenna hadn’t seen Adam since Christopher’s birthday party. In spite of the fact that she had told both herself and Stella that she had no strong feelings for Adam, she had to admit that she’d spent an inordinate amount of time dreading the moment when they would see each other again. And she didn’t relish the idea of meeting him in front of others, even if those others were her family.

Her first impulse, much to her shame, was simply to run. She told herself that she could drive to a phone booth, call Kitty, and say that she would come get Christopher tomorrow. Kitty wouldn’t object, especially given the late hour.

As appealing as that idea may have been, it was so cowardly that she would never actually do it. Lucien would have been ashamed of her for even thinking about it, and Bud would have laughed himself silly at the thought of her running away. “The word ‘retreat’ just isn’t in your vocabulary,” he would have said. Besides, running away would have defeated the other reason that she didn’t want Frank to spend the night: she missed her son when he was away, and she wanted him home. With her.

She got out of the car.

On the porch, Jenna eased the screen door open and then closed again, trying to keep it from making a racket. From the doorway, she could see Adam sitting on the sofa with Bill, watching the news. Kitty was in the rocking chair, and Christopher was asleep on the braided rug, with an afghan over him for warmth. Jenna couldn’t be sure, but she thought that maybe he was clasping a baseball glove between his little hands.

At the sound of her footsteps on the wooden floor of the hallway, three heads swiveled toward her. She watched Adam’s eyes widen when he saw her. He smiled uncertainly.

“Jenna,” Kitty said sleepily. “I’m so glad you’re here, sweetheart. I was getting worried about you.”

“Sorry I’m so late,” she said. “Time just got away from me.” She smiled at them, including Adam in the expression with the hope he would understand that she wanted to be friendly.

Kitty stood up. “Well, honey, it’s too late for you to head back tonight. You’ll have to bunk here with us. You too, Adam. Bill, why don’t you take Christopher upstairs to the guest room? Adam can sleep on the sofa and — ”

“No,” Jenna said quickly. Stay here tonight, with Adam in the house? It would be unbearable. She groped for the fastest way to extricate herself from the situation. Kitty was already looking hurt. “What I mean is, I’m not the least bit tired, so I don’t mind driving back. Besides, there’s no one to watch Fritz if we’re gone all night.”

“Oh, well, Stella can keep an eye on him, can’t she? They live right across the street after all.” Kitty smiled firmly. “I know you wouldn’t want Bill to be losing sleep while you and Christopher drive all the way back to Arlington by yourselves, with all those miles of dark, deserted road between here and your house. He does worry so about you, you know.”

Jenna spared a glance at Bill, who stood half in the shadow of the hallway. His face was as unreadable as a carving on a totem pole. It was impossible to tell whether Kitty was speaking of his inclination to worry or her own. And it was equally impossible for Jenna to imagine putting either of them through any anxiety if she could avoid it. “All right,” Jenna said. She crossed the hallway to pick up the phone and dialed Stella’s number.

Kitty, having neatly disposed of one problem, turned to Adam. “You’ll stay, too, won’t you?” But it wasn’t really a question.

Just as Stella picked up on the other end of the line, Jenna heard Adam answer, “Of course.”

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

S
TELLA WAS A PAL, AS ALWAYS.
“It’s no problem. I’ll feed Fritz tonight and let him out for a little romp before bed. Rose can go back over first thing in the morning. Knowing her, she’ll spend some time playing with him, too, which will be good for both of them.”

“Thanks, Stella. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“Like I said, it’s really no problem.” Stella paused. “After all, we don’t want Bill and Kitty to worry about you driving home tonight, do we?”

“No, we don’t,” Jenna said, grateful as always that Stella grasped the situation so quickly.

“Well, then. That’s that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow. And thanks again.”

After Stella had brushed off Jenna’s gratitude, she hung up the phone. Jenna stood still for a moment, realizing that she was alone in the hallway. Kitty’s voice murmured in the kitchen, with Bill’s rumbling baritone occasionally breaking through. Jenna couldn’t tell where Adam was — maybe out on the porch or sitting silent in the kitchen.

She took advantage of her solitude to study the house from where she stood. How well she remembered this long hallway, with its steep staircase, scuffed wood floor, and dented paint. Jenna had always been fearful that Kitty would have the place redecorated — floors buffed and walls sanded. But to polish this house would be to lose all the beauty it had acquired through the years.

For a fleeting instant, Jenna was tempted to rush into the kitchen, gather both Bill and Kitty into a long-overdue embrace and thank them from the bottom of her heart for having taken her in all those years ago, when she was just a lonely, awkward child who needed someone to show her what family was all about.

But as quickly as the impulse came, it faded away, and she was relieved to feel it go. Sentimentality was something she had never been comfortable with, and if she found herself actually initiating a scene as she’d just imagined, she would have inevitably concluded that she was losing her mind.

* * *

Eventually she did find her way into the kitchen, where Kitty had brewed chamomile tea with honey and set out the remnants of two pies she had baked earlier with Christopher.

“You should have seen him, rolling out the dough for the crust so carefully. He was quite the little helper,” Kitty said proudly, and Jenna couldn’t help but swell with happiness.

“He seems to be a very fine boy,” Adam said. He sat across the table from Jenna, and both of them were making every effort to be civil — but not too civil, in case their discomfort with each other would become obvious. It was exhausting, and more than once she wished she had something stronger to drink than tea.

Jenna risked a glance at Adam. His gaze rested on her, mild and blue and without any undercurrent of hidden meaning. “Thank you,” she said hesitantly. “I’ve been blessed to have such a good family to help out. Many women in my position wouldn’t be so lucky.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Adam answered quickly. “The world can be an unkind place to a widowed woman with a child.”

“Well, it hasn’t just been me and Bill that have helped, of course,” Kitty put in, looking pleased by Jenna’s compliment. “Frank has been a godsend. Hasn’t he, Jenna?”

“Oh, yes.” The introduction of Frank into the conversation was unexpected, and Jenna felt a prick of guilt. She wondered if Kitty might have an inkling of something between her and Adam and was trying to remind Jenna of her engagement.

“Frank was at Oak Ridge, you know,” Kitty said to Adam. “Of course he can’t discuss his work in detail, but I happen to know that he was recruited by the government right out of academia. His reputation as a mathematician was already growing when the war started, and naturally they wanted the best minds on the project.”

Kitty was just relishing the opportunity to brag about her future son-in-law. Jenna set her fears aside.

“Oak Ridge, Tennessee? Well, that
is
impressive. The best and the brightest were recruited to work there.” Adam smiled his ready smile, and Jenna was dismayed to feel her heart turn over at the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.

She spoke quickly to suppress her unwanted reaction. “Frank and I met at a party at Stella’s house about three years ago. He and Max had worked together at some point, and they’d become friends.”

“I liked him right away,” Kitty added. “So intelligent, so distinguished. And he took to Christopher immediately.”

Bill cut in. “Everyone takes to Christopher immediately. The boy’s got his father’s charm.”

Adam swallowed a bite of pie too quickly and coughed around it, while Jenna took a hasty sip of tea.

Unaware that anything unusual had been said, Kitty pressed on. “Well, of course everyone takes to Christopher! He’s the sweetest boy that ever lived — only my own boys could possibly be as sweet. And Adam, of course.” She gave him a tender look and continued. “But you don’t always expect a childless bachelor like Frank to enjoy the company of a little boy. Poor man, his wife died during the war, and they had no children. But soon enough, he and Jenna will get married, and then a new family will be born from all these broken hearts.”

Jenna reached out and squeezed Kitty’s hand. Her gesture was meant to be appreciative and affectionate, but she had to admit that she also desperately wanted Kitty to just shut up for a minute. Jenna had heard that kind of talk from her before, but with Adam sitting there, the content of the conversation had become unbearable.