Karen Rose - Their Child?

“It was…I wasn’t thinking straight. I got home and I looked at Lena and I felt so low, so bad, like I’d done something so awful, behind her back.”

“Because you had.”

She pulled her shoulders back. “Yeah. Yeah, I know it.”

“And the next night—that guy everyone thinks you met. What about him?”

She said, in a whisper, through her clutching throat, “There was no guy.”

He grunted again. A sound of purest disgust. “No guy.”

She coughed to make her throat open up. “That’s right. Only you. I…well, I always wanted you, when we were kids. I would see you in town and at school and I would hope and pray that you would notice me. But you didn’t. It was Lena you noticed, Lena who got to be your girl. I accepted that—or I thought I had. And then Lena broke up with you and she didn’t want to go to prom with you and—”

He waved a hand. “Back to that other guy. The one who didn’t exist.”

She made herself nod. “Okay. What about him?”

“You didn’t hesitate, did you, to let people think what was easiest for you? The whole damn town jumped to conclusions about how you ended up pregnant—and you let them. You let everyone think some stranger was Brody’s father.”

“Oh, Tucker, my dad was yelling all the time, making threats. He said he was going to find out who got me pregnant and—”

“I don’t want to hear it. I have more questions.”

Her mouth tasted of sawdust. The long gash at her temple felt like someone was sticking needles in it.

Too bad, she thought.

She knew it was only right, that she sit there. That she take whatever he felt he had to dish out. It wasn’t much, wasn’t anywhere near enough, but it was the very least she could do.

And it was a first step. She had to believe that. For him to be so angry, he had to care. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t be facing her down now. If he didn’t care, he would have just informed her of what he planned to do about Brody and left it at that.

“Your husband,” he said. “What lies did you tell him about my son?”

“I didn’t tell my husband lies. Henry knew the truth. I told him everything, before we were married.”

“And what? He told you not to worry, that it was just fine with him that Brody’s father had no idea he existed?”

She stopped him on that one. “No. Brody does know, that he had a…a natural father, that Henry was his stepdad.”

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. “And just what does Brody think happened to his natural father?”

“I told him it didn’t work out, between his father and me. That his father went away before he knew that he had made Brody. That someday, when the time was right, we’d find his dad somehow.”

“When did you tell him all this?”

“Years ago. He was three. It was right before I married Henry.”

“And since then?”

“He doesn’t ask. Oh, Tucker. You have to see. He’s had a…happy life. He loved Henry and he accepted him, as his dad. I always knew that someday he’d have questions, that someday he’d need to know you.”

“Someday…”

“You have to understand…”

“But I don’t, Lori. I don’t get it. I don’t get any of it. You’re telling me that your husband knowingly stole my son from me.”

“He didn’t. He never could. It’s only…well, Henry was sterile. And he’d always wanted children. He said that you were long gone and he thought it was for the best if we just let things go along the way that they were. I’m ashamed to say it, but, by then, that was just what I wanted to hear. We got married. Henry treated Brody like a son. We were…happy, the three of us.”

“Happy.” He made it sound like a dirty word.

“Yes.”

“And you gave up all attempts to get a hold of me?”

“Yes. That’s right. It was all wrong, what we did, Henry and me. And he knew it in his heart. It was his last wish, before he died, that I track you down and tell you the truth.”

“So what you’re saying is that whenever you finally did get around to telling me—if you ever did—it would have been for your dead husband’s sake.”

“I didn’t say that. I never said that.”

“And your husband’s been dead, what? Over a year? And I’ve been right here, in the Junction, just about the whole damn time.”

She refused to let her gaze shift away. She looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t expect you to understand. I loved my husband. He had come into my life at a time when I was barely holding on, feeling…so bad about myself, about what a mess I’d made of my life. I was disconnected from my family, working overtime to take care of me and Brody, trying to be a good mother to him. Henry…showed me how to live. Really, I grew up, took charge of my own life, while I was married to Henry. I wasn’t much good for a while there after I lost him. I couldn’t…deal with anything beyond getting by, day to day. I knew—even before Henry died—that I would tell you. But after I lost him, I needed time to face up to the job.”

“More excuses. More lies.” A cold smile curved the corners of Tucker’s mouth. “It’s time to get straight about this, Lori. You were never going to tell me. Not really. Were you?”

Outrage had her heart slamming against her breastbone. She quelled that outrage, ordered her damn heart to slow down. From the way she’d behaved, what else was he to think, but that she would have always found some reason to keep the truth from him?

She spoke flatly. “I was going to tell you Monday. I made that appointment to do it. I would have done it then.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She pressed her lips together, holding in the hot denials that rose to her lips. What good would denials do? He didn’t believe her and she had no right to imagine that he should.

He said, “Why Monday? Why did you think you had to wait? Why not any one of those times you saw me after you got into town? Why not that night you came out here with Brody, that night we talked for hours about everything but the one thing that mattered most. Why not then?”

“It wouldn’t have been right, not with Brody there. And I had planned from the first to wait until after the wedding. I wanted Lena to have her big day. If the story got out, I was afraid it might ruin things for her.”

He shook his head. “Excuses,” he said. “That’s all you’ve got for me, isn’t it?”

“No. That’s not so. There are no excuses and I know there aren’t. But you asked. So I answered you. I came here, back to town, for two reasons. My sister’s wedding—and you. I planned to stay an extra week after the wedding was over. That week was so I’d have plenty of time to see you, to tell you what you had a right to know. I had it all worked out. Once the wedding was over, I’d get in touch with you, meet you someplace private and tell you that you had a son. I assumed I’d have zero contact with you until it was time to say what needed saying. How was I to know I’d run into you the minute I drove into town. How was I to know I’d keep running into you? How was I to know that I…” She faltered.

He prodded, “That you, what?”

Her cheeks burned with a sudden, hot blush. “Look. It doesn’t matter.”

He wouldn’t let it be. “What? How were you to know what?”

“It doesn’t—”

“What?”

She shut her eyes. It didn’t help. When she opened them again, he was still there. Waiting, his square jaw set and his brown eyes hard as agates. She told him, very quietly, “How was I to know that I would find myself falling for you all over again? That one look at you and I’d feel like I felt back in high school, that I’d be mooning around, longing for a glance from you, a gentle word. A sweet, tender kiss.”