Anne Haven - Her Baby's Father

That would have been worse than this, she told herself. It was better not to have false hopes. But much more depressing.

Jennifer roused herself, scooting off the bed. She reached for the lilac knit maternity tank and shorts she used as pajamas.

Enough self-pity and despair. She had tomorrow to think about. She had to figure out where to go from here.

Buck up, honey. Time to be strong.

ROSS LAY IN BED, listening to the quiet creaks of the house settling onto its foundation for the night. Light from the street outside filtered through the venetian blinds, providing enough illumination for him to see the outlines of familiar objects around the room. The photographs of family and friends on the dresser. The carriage clock he’d inherited from his grandmother, silent since he’d allowed it to run down a few weeks ago.

To have Jennifer in his home, sleeping down the hallway, felt strange. It made him aware of the house in a way he usually wasn’t. Of how large it was for one person to live in. Of course, when he’d bought it he hadn’t been alone, and he’d imagined there would someday be children to fill it.

Probably he should move, he thought. Get a condo in a downtown high-rise. Give in to the inevitability of it. Accept what life had offered him.

But he knew he wouldn’t. What was really wrong, after all, with a big, empty house? Except that, sooner or later, it made you lonely. Made you enjoy having a houseguest more than you should, and look forward to seeing that houseguest in the morning with an unsettling amount of anticipation.

It was just one night, he reminded himself. One night and one morning, because anything more than that would be too complicated.

And Jennifer was once again off-limits.

But as his brother had demonstrated on more than one occasion, just because you shouldn’t get involved with someone didn’t mean you wouldn’t.

Nine years earlier

It’s not as if I want to be an uptight killjoy. I can’t help disapproving of Drew and his lame-brained cohorts, though. Constantly partying, sleeping until noon, watching MTV. Lying around the pool. Not doing anything redeeming.

And that girlfriend of his. She’s got to be the third blonde named Jennifer he’s dated in the past year and a half. Just once, I’d like to see him bring home a brunette named Roberta. Or Phuong-Mai. Someone interesting for a change.

I know I’m not being fair. But sometimes he just pisses me the hell off. I can’t count on him to do what he says he’ll do, like helping me move some furniture for Aunt Lenora.

“We’ll do it tomorrow,” he tells me, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, as he slouches on the kitchen chair, sockless in his dock shoes, taking a few seconds out of his busy life to shirk a commitment.

He’s just made plans to go to his friend Kurt’s house for a spur-of-the-moment party. They’re trying to figure out who can buy the beer. I guess he knows better than to ask me.

“Lenora’s not getting back until then, anyway,” he adds.

Our aunt broke her ankle a couple of days ago on a midnight hike, part of some New Age retreat in the mountains. Drew and I had plans to move her bed to the ground floor of her house so she won’t have to drag herself up and down the stairs for the next few weeks.

“I can’t do it tomorrow,” I tell my brother. “I’m working.”

And I’m not going to jeopardize my internship, which was damn hard to get, by scheduling it for my lunch break—since there’s no way he’d show up on time.

Drew shrugs. “Hey, you’re the one who offered to do this, not me. I said I’d help if I could. I never promised anything.”

“Jesus,” I say as Drew goes back to his phone call. Outside it’s raining but not windy. For a moment I watch the drops patter down onto the flat surface of the pool.

I glance over at Jennifer. She’s ignoring the whole exchange. For the past half hour she’s sat at the kitchen table while Drew’s been on the phone ordering clothes from the new J. Crew catalog and bullshitting with his friends. A copy of Smithsonian Magazine is open on the table, and I can see from the pictures that she’s reading the article about insects in the Amazonian forest. I’m surprised she knows how to read—then feel like a jerk for even having the thought.

Oh, what the hell. I decide to struggle with the mattress by myself. “See you later,” I tell them, and head for the front hall.

I’m reaching for my Gore-Tex pullover when Jennifer joins me.

“If you need help,” she says, kind of offhand, “I could do it. As long as it doesn’t take too long.”

I look at her. “You’re not going to the party?”

She shakes her head. “I have to start work in a couple of hours. I’d need a ride home afterward, though. Otherwise, I have to go catch a bus right now.”

“Where’s home?” I ask her.

She tells me the address and cross street. It’s not far, geographically, from where Lenora lives, but a different neighborhood. Not a great one, though certainly not the worst. “Where’s work?”

“The Beauty Barn. Over by Lloyd Center.”

“I’ll give you a ride,” I say. “I’d appreciate the help.”

Jennifer goes to the kitchen to say goodbye to Drew. Then she’s back. She’s only wearing a T-shirt and jeans and she doesn’t seem to have any rain protection.

“No umbrella?”

She shakes her head. “It was sunny when I came over. Anyway, this is Oregon, right?”

Oregonians pride themselves on not using umbrellas. Nevertheless, I get a large one from the hall closet and hold it over both of us as we dash to the car.

“The Beauty Barn, huh?” I say as we drive away from Council Crest. Water sluices along the gutters on both sides of the road and the wipers thwack back and forth at full speed.

“We sell discount cosmetics,” she says. “It’s probably not your kind of store.”

At the bottom of the hill we hit a knot of afternoon traffic in front of the intersection by the freeway, and come to a complete halt. An old Cutlass is stalled in the right-hand lane and everyone has to shift to get around it. The light turns green, but only a handful of people make it through. We’re still several cars back when the light turns red again.

I see Jennifer reach into her bag and come up with her wallet. She pulls out a five.

“I’ll be right back,” she says, then she opens the car door and steps out into the rain before I can reply.

As she crosses in front of me to the median and jogs toward the intersection, I spot a ragged-looking black man with a bucket of flowers to sell. He’s drenched and his flowers are, too. Before Jennifer reaches him, he goes up to a couple of cars, but no one wants to open windows in the rain. I watch her buy a mixed bouquet and say something that leaves the guy laughing. Just before the light changes, she gets back to the car and buckles up.

The flowers are yellow and purple and blue with a clump of ferns as a background. Water drops cling to the petals.

“I thought these might be nice for your aunt,” she says.

Following close on the bumper of the car ahead, I slip through the light on the yellow. I glance over. It doesn’t ring true that she would go out in the rain to buy flowers for a woman she’s never met.

“That’s really thoughtful of you,” I say. And then I add, “That guy sure looked miserable.”

She makes a sound of agreement. “I hope I wasn’t his only customer.”

I know she went out there just to give the guy some business. So he wouldn’t waste his whole day standing in the rain, making no money. I don’t know many people who would do that.

Damn. It would be a lot easier to see her as a silly teenage party girl like all of Drew’s past girlfriends. I don’t want to start thinking about her being kind and considerate. About how—come to think of it—she doesn’t seem to have much money, but she’ll give away five bucks just to help someone have a better day.