Eileen Wilks - Midnight Choices

Since becoming a mother, she’d especially appreciated being able to do a large part of her work from home, plugged into various databases.

Gwen’s chair was already occupied by what looked like a shabby fur pillow. The pillow opened its eyes and blinked balefully at her. “You know what I’m going to do now, don’t you, Natasha?” Gwen said. Careful of old bones, she scooped the cat up and deposited her on the floor.

Natasha glared and stalked to the window, where she levitated onto the broad sill and began licking her ruffled fur back into place. Gwen smiled a little sadly. Natasha was old, cranky and set in her ways, no pet for a lively four-year-old boy. But the cat had been with Gwen for almost sixteen years, ever since she finished high school. She was one of the reasons Gwen hadn’t given in and gotten her son the puppy he craved.

Natasha wouldn’t appreciate being deserted for two weeks, but she’d be all right. Gwen’s mother might be deeply unhappy with her decision to go to Highpoint, but she’d never refuse to take care of the cat. She’d done it before. The two of them had an understanding. Natasha let Deirdre know what she wanted, and Deirdre gave it to her.

Gwen smiled as she settled in front of her monitor. The old cat was the one being other than Zach who pretty much always got what she wanted from Deirdre Van Allen.

Gwen turned on her computer. Distantly she could hear water splashing and Zach giggling. Natasha had turned herself into a purring lump again. The computer hummed.

But what she saw as she brought her fingers to the keyboard was the careful sterility of a doctor’s examining room. She remembered the chart opposite the examination table—why did doctors always put up those colorful drawings of people’s insides for their patients to brood over? The paper covering the exam table had crinkled every time she moved.

She’d shifted a lot.

Sitting at her desk with the cursor blinking imperatively at her, Gwen’s heart raced as it had that day. Her palms felt clammy.

Until the diagnosis, she hadn’t known fear. Not really. Now the two of them were intimate. Gwen inhaled slowly: I breathe in and my body is calmed; breathe out, and I smile.

According to the therapist who led her cancer support group, meditation kept you anchored in the moment, and anxiety was reduced or eliminated when you dealt only with the present moment. So far Gwen hadn’t had much success with it. Meditation required stillness, and that didn’t come naturally to her. She was working at it, though. Even the stodgiest western medical practitioners these days agreed that the mind affected the body.

After a moment, her heartbeat slowed.

Maybe I am getting better at it, she thought, pleased, and called up the land plat she was researching.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t the day she’d been diagnosed with cancer that had come back to her so vividly just now, but the day of her last checkup. When Dr. Webster had told her everything looked good. That was the day she’d broken down and bawled like a baby, her nose running and sobs choking her.

It was also the day she’d known she had to make some changes in her life. The day she’d decided to find her son’s father.

Maybe it wasn’t so odd, after all, that she would remember that day.

Gwen took another slow breath and started to work.

“Are we there yet?”

Gwen rumpled the silky hair on her son’s head. “Has the plane landed yet?”

“No, but we’re almost there, aren’t we?”

“About thirty minutes still to go, champ.” Assuming the flight was on time. She prayed that it was. If Zach got wound up any tighter, he’d be bouncing off the walls.

“An’ my dad will be waiting for us when we get there, right?”

“He sure will. At the baggage claim.” That question had been asked at least as often as the traditional “How much longer?” Gwen bent and pulled a book from the tote that held a few small toys, some dried fruit and her laptop. “How about a round of Green Eggs and Ham to fill in the time?”

Gwen had read the Seuss story too many times for it to provide any distraction from her own thoughts, but she hoped it would work some of its usual magic on Zach. She began reading, with Zach chiming in loudly on the parts he knew.

A father, it turned out, was at least as exciting as a puppy.

Gwen had spoken with Ben briefly two days ago. He’d asked to speak to Zach—and Zach had been hanging by eagerly, waiting for his chance. Of course, as soon as the phone was in his hands, her ball-of-fire, never-met-a-stranger son had turned shy, barely able to breathe a yes or no to whatever Ben had asked him. He was always like that on the phone, she’d assured Ben. The rest of the time, his mouth worked just fine.

“‘Would you like them in a house?’” she read, thinking about last Christmas and wondering if the next one would be different. If she would have to share her son for part of the holidays. “‘Would you like them—’”

Zach tugged on her arm. “What does his house look like?”

“Well…like the picture here, I guess.”

“My dad’s house,” he said impatiently.

Of course. What other “he” was there these days? “It’s painted white and has a staircase and a big front porch. I think all the bedrooms are upstairs, so we’ll probably have a room on the second floor.”

“Will we be next to my dad’s room? Or my uncle’s?”

“You have three uncles now, remember? Your dad’s two brothers are your uncles, and his sister is your aunt, so his sister’s husband is your uncle, too. That makes three.” Ben’s sister and her husband were someplace in Africa at the moment, and the youngest brother was a long-haul truck driver who lived with Ben when he wasn’t on the road. And the other brother, the one she’d met, would be there at the house, though he didn’t usually live there. “Which uncle did you mean?”

“The army uncle,” Zach said. “I forgot his name.”

“Duncan,” she said, her mouth oddly dry. “He’s your uncle Duncan. I don’t know where our room will be, sweetie. We’ll just have to wait and find out.” She began reading again, hoping to stem the flood.

Zach had been brimming over with questions ever since she told him about his father—but they weren’t the ones she’d expected. And dreaded. He’d wanted to know what his dad looked like and if he liked little boys. How long would they stay there? Were there other kids to play with? Could he take his army guys with him? How big were the mountains? Could he climb one? Did his dad have a dog?

Puppies hadn’t been entirely eclipsed by the advent of a father.

Gwen didn’t fool herself that the other questions wouldn’t come up at some point. When she’d told him about his father, she’d tried to scale her explanations to a four-year-old’s understanding, saying simply that she hadn’t known how to get in touch with Ben when Zach was born, so his dad hadn’t known about him. “You didn’t have his phone number?” Zach had asked.

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t have his address, either, so I couldn’t write him.”

“So how come you found him now?”

“I hired a private investigator.”

Zach had been desperately impressed. A real private eye? Wow. He’d wanted to meet the man and maybe see his gun. Gwen had been glad the investigator and his gun, if any, were safely distant in Denver…and selfishly relieved she hadn’t had to face the other questions. Yet.

When they finished the book, Gwen judged it time to make a trip to the rest room or else Zach would undoubtedly need to go the moment they were instructed to stay in their seats. “C’mon, short stuff, time to take a walk down the aisle.”