Rachel Lee - An Unlikely Daddy

“John’s past caring,” she said bitterly.

“Not for me he isn’t. And if there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll do it, even if it’s just knocking down the icicles out front.”

She looked at him again and couldn’t mistake his determination. Wherever Johnny’s loss had forced her, it was clearly pushing this man, too. So they had something in common. Little enough.

She closed her eyes again, rocking gently, feeling her baby settle down, the pokes lessening. Peace returning. A hard-won peace. Acceptance hadn’t come easily, but it had come, although it hadn’t eased her grief one bit yet.

If there was any blessing in all of this, it was that during her marriage she’d grown accustomed to Johnny’s long absences. She didn’t expect to see him around every corner, didn’t expect to wake to find him beside her in bed, didn’t keep listening for the sound of his voice. Not every waking moment prodded her with reminders of his absence.

But the grief, anger and sometimes even despair often rolled over her like a tsunami, irresistible and agonizing. For all the holes in the past, there was a bigger one in the present.

Let it go, just let it go. The man nearby was grieving, too. Maybe together they could find some answers for each other. Not that life offered many answers. Things just seemed to happen.

She looked at Ryker again. He studied his hands, or maybe the floor. She couldn’t tell which. “How long will you be in town?”

“I don’t know. I do know that I’m not leaving immediately. And I have quite a bit of time.”

Meaning what, exactly? “So you were with Johnny in the Rangers, too?”

“We worked together on a number of missions.”

She accepted that, for now at least. “When he joined the State Department, I thought we’d be traveling a lot. I was looking forward to it. Only he got sent somewhere families can’t go.”

“I know. There are a lot of those places, unfortunately.”

“So what do you do?”

His smile was almost crooked. “Security. Keeping the embassy or consulates safe, and most especially the people who work there.”

“Johnny was a translator.” But of course he knew that. Her husband had a gift for languages. He soaked them up the way the grass soaked up the rain. She’d never found out exactly how many of them he knew. But then she’d never asked him to count them for her. When they’d been together, other things had seemed so much more important, the sharing and caring and lovemaking. The occasional time with old friends, but mostly... She lifted her head. “Our marriage was like one long honeymoon. When he was home we might as well have been on our own planet.”

Ryker’s face shadowed. “That’s wonderful.”

“I thought so. We never had enough time to take one another for granted.” Why was she telling him this? Was she reminding herself? Was it important somehow? “But one thing I took for granted was that we’d have a future. No matter where he went, I always believed he’d come home. I was a fool.”

“You were an optimist,” he corrected firmly. “How else could you do it?”

Good question, she supposed. No answer, but still a good question.

He spoke again. “Some of us do things with our lives that are very unfair to the people we love.”

“Are you married?”

He shook his head. “I envied John. He was happy with you, he trusted that you were strong enough to handle all this. I could never trust that much.”

“Maybe you were kinder.” She hated herself for saying it, but there it was. Johnny had trusted her to be able to handle this?

“No, I wasn’t kinder,” he said. “More selfish. Love ’em and leave ’em, that was me. My romantic past is strewn with ugliness. John at least made a commitment, tried to build something good. I not only envied him, I admired him for it.” Then he offered her something approximating a smile. “But then I never met a woman like you.”

“Meaning?”

“One who could put up with this. They always wanted me to change. You didn’t try to change John. Pretty special.”

“Trying to change someone is pointless.” Of this she was certain. “We are who we are, and if you can’t love someone just the way they are, then you don’t love them.”

“There’s a lot of wisdom in that.”

“Just truth.” She sighed. Facing up to reality again. Always painful these days. “So you weren’t with John when this happened?”

“I was in another country. A little far away to be of any use.”

“Johnny could take care of himself,” she said. “I guess that’s what’s bugging me as much as anything. He could take care of himself. This shouldn’t have happened.”

Ryker stirred. “No, it shouldn’t have. But a lot of things shouldn’t happen. I live in a world where things that shouldn’t happen often do. I’m just sorry you got dragged into it. I’m sorry John didn’t make it. I’m sorry as hell I got him the job. And I wish it had been my funeral, not his.”

She couldn’t doubt him, but this wasn’t right. She felt a stirring of self-disgust. All her dumping had done was make this man feel worse about something that had been out of his control. What kind of shrew was she becoming?

“Don’t say that, Ryker. Please. I’m not attacking you.”

“Why not? I deserve it. I saw my good friend talking about changing careers, and I found him a job. It’s my fault you’re grieving, and I know it. I should have just told him to come home to you and become a shopkeeper or something.”

That had the oddest effect on her. It booted her right out of her misery to a place where she could actually see some humor. The shift was instantaneous and shocking. She actually laughed. It sounded rusty, but it was real. “Tell me,” she said, “do you really think Johnny would have done that? Do you think he’d have taken that job you got him if it wasn’t what he really wanted to do? Come on, Ryker. Let’s be honest here. Johnny was Johnny, and he’d have made a lousy shopkeeper.”

Astonishingly, he smiled. It was a beautiful expression, erasing all the hardness from his face, nearly lighting up the room. Her heart quickened, but she barely noticed. “You’re right,” he said.

“Of course I’m right. He was an adventurer at heart. I knew it. I walked into it with my eyes open. That’s not making this hurt any less, but there was no way I was going to keep him stapled to my side for fifty years. If not this, then something else.”

He sat up, half nodding, half shaking his head. “Probably,” he agreed, then made an effort to change the subject. “Are you still teaching?”

“I’m on sabbatical until next fall.” She paused, then decided her reasoning needn’t be kept private. “It felt like too much to deal with—the baby, Johnny’s death. I couldn’t have focused on teaching. So I decided to focus on getting through this year, having the baby and taking some time to be a mother. Fall will be soon enough.”

Soon enough to try to resume a full life. Right now she wanted no part of it. Her life was all in a shambles, and she felt like she had to glue some of the pieces back together before she’d be any use to anyone. She tried to think of it as convalescence. Maybe it was sheer cowardice. An unwillingness to face more of the world than she had to, to deal with constant reminders that life went on. To deal with students who were young enough to be cheerfully falling in love or agonizing over not being asked for a date. For young people, even minor things were magnified. For her, she didn’t need a magnifying glass. She doubted she’d have patience for all that. She even doubted whether she’d be focused enough to be a good teacher.

Life had become an unending blur of pain punctuated by moments when she felt the joy of the coming child. A stark contrast that left her feeling continually off balance.