Bethany Campbell - The Baby Gift

She walked him to the door. He wanted to kiss her goodbye. He confined himself to the lightest brushing of his lips against her cheek. She did not return the caress. She only gave him a small, pensive smile.

“So I guess it’s good-night,” he said.

“I guess it is.”

She opened the door for him. He paused halfway through it and turned to her again. “Call me as soon as Nealie wakes up.”

“I will,” she said. “Get rested. Do you remember the way to the motel?”

“I think so,” he said. He remembered. He had been back to it in his memory too many times to forget.

He closed the door and walked alone into the night.

BRIANA HEARD HIM drive off. Then she sat in the silence, rotating the stem of her wineglass and staring at the dancing flames in the fireplace.

She had not been surprised by the fervor of Josh’s embrace or the hunger of his kiss. Her eager response didn’t shock her. Perhaps it should have shamed her, but it did not.

In spite of everything, they still desired each other. And they both loved Nealie. Those two things would never change. Perhaps loving Nealie made them want each other more—pain sometimes needed the narcotic of touch, fear needed the consolation of nearness.

Briana put her hand to her temple, for it ached. She considered herself a simple woman whose life had become too complex. Josh was a wonderful man and a devoted father. She loved him, and he loved her in return, but they could not live together.

She loved this place, this farm, this work, and she could not leave it. It was her home, and her father needed her. The business could not survive without her. Her father could not survive without her. He was an unhealthy, absentminded man who, left to his own devices, forgot to take his pills or eat right or do his exercises.

No, Briana belonged to this place as surely as if she were one of the plants rooted here.

But Josh belonged nowhere, or else he belonged everywhere. The far places on the map called him, the siren stories chanted out for him come and help tell their tales, and he always went.

For five months he’d tried to stay on the farm, pretending to be a steady man committed to a steady place. He worked to learn a business foreign in every way to his nature. What he learned was to hate compost and pruning and predatory insects.

Then his agent had phoned with the irresistible offer to cover the trouble in Albania, and Josh had wanted to go. He wanted Briana to go and wait for him in Italy. Briana thought it all sounded too unsafe, especially with a baby on the way.

With horror, she realized her husband liked danger, that it tempted him with a lure just as strong as that of distant lands and exotic sights. Then her father had his heart attack. She could not leave him.

After that, the marriage swiftly unraveled. But their love for their daughter never changed. And the old undercurrent of desire that had drawn them together, that, too, stayed strong as ever. Briana had found that although pride was a cold bedmate, it was a safe one.

She rose to empty the wineglass and tidy the kitchen before she went to bed. She was emotionally exhausted, and Nealie would be up early, wanting her daddy.

Halfway to the kitchen, she heard a knock at her door. She turned and went to answer it. Her father stood on the little cement porch, a knitted cap pulled over his ears, a matching muffler wound around his neck.

“Poppa,” she said in surprise. “It’s cold. Why are you out?”

“I came to see if you were all right,” Leo said, stepping inside. He looked at her living room suspiciously, as if were somehow contaminated. Then he gazed studiously at the wineglass in her hand. “Does he have you drinking alone? I hope it’s not come to that already.”

Briana gave him a rueful smile. “I was about to throw it out. Do you want a glass for yourself? A cup of cocoa?”

He waved away the suggestion, then sat down heavily on the couch. He unbuttoned his jacket but didn’t take it off. He watched her go into the kitchen, pour the wine down the drain, then rinse the glass.

She turned to face him. “Make yourself comfortable, Poppa. Can I take your hat and coat?”

He shook his head, but took off his cap and held it scrunched in his fist. “I won’t stay. Like I say, I just came to see if you’re all right.”

“Of course, I am,” she fibbed.

“He stayed a long time.” Leo said, his tone unhappy.

“Not so long. He read Nealie to sleep. Then we talked a little.”

“He made you cry,” Leo said. “I can see the streaks on your face.”

She felt shamefully caught. She put her hand up to her cheek. “It’s nothing,” she said.

“What did he do to make you cry?” Leo demanded.

“Nothing. He did nothing.”

“Then what did he say?” Her father’s face was grim.

Briana sat in the armchair, trying to look as composed as possible. “He didn’t say anything. Really, Poppa, it’s—private. It’s not easy having a broken marriage. I’m sorry for Nealie, that’s all.”

Leo didn’t look as if he believed her. “He wants you back, doesn’t he?”

“No.” She bit off the word. “He doesn’t.”

“It would never work,” Leo warned her. “He’s not a man who’ll settle down. The roaming—it’s in his blood.”

“Poppa, you don’t need to tell me that.”

“He’ll certainly never make a farmer. Not him. Not that one.”

“He doesn’t want to be a farmer,” she retorted. “He’s a photographer, a world-class one. He’s got a gift, and it’s his duty to use it.”

Leo’s face turned sad. “He’s got a family. It’s his duty to stand by them.” He paused. “He doesn’t want you to come with him, does he? That wouldn’t be good for Nealie. All that moving around. She’s a delicate child. And this is the only world she’s ever known.”

Briana clutched the arms of the chair so tightly her fingertips were numb. “He hasn’t asked us to come with him.”

“That’s good,” Leo said, nodding. “This is the only family Nealie has. Josh has none to speak of.”

“No. He doesn’t.”

Josh had no one. He had grown up in a series of foster homes in Detroit. His mother had abandoned him when he was four, saying she was too sick to keep him. She died a year later of hepatitis. He did not know who his father was.

A difficult child, he was moved from home to home. He didn’t begin to find his way until he was fourteen, when he’d traded a stolen fifth of rum for a used camera.

No, Briana thought bitterly, Josh had no family, and why shouldn’t such a rootless boy grow up into a rootless man? The camera was his real soul mate, the great love of his life.

“I don’t know what I’d do if you and Nealie left us,” Leo said. “I guess I’d have to curl up my toes and die.”

An infinite weariness sank into Briana’s bones. “We’re not leaving. And he’s not staying. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Please.”

“Well, it bothers me,” Leo said, crushing his cap into a ball. “Every time he shows up here—every time he even phones, you moon around as if your heart’s half broke.”

“I do not.”

“And Nealie.” Leo rolled his eyes. “He goes away, and you’d think the sun had fallen out of the sky forever. It takes her days to get over it. The longer he stays, the worse she gets. So how long is he staying this time?”

“I don’t know.” That, at least, was the truth.

“Sometimes I think it’d be better if he never came at all.”

“That’s wrong. He loves her. And she loves him.”

“Indeed he does, and indeed she does. But it’s a painful thing to watch, that’s all I’m telling you,” Leo said.

“Poppa,” she said, “I understand how you feel. I really do. Just be civil to him, that’s all I ask.”