His Baby Proposal

by Ivy James

She was crying? Oh, not good. “Yeah. Are we still on? I, um, kind of need to talk to you.”

  As the owner of Pat’s Hair and Nails, her mother took her appearance very seriously. She never let anyone see her unless she was perfectly put together and clothed in the latest style. Which made the fact she still sat at the table in her robe and pink fuzzy heeled slippers all the more frightening.

  “Whatever it is, it needs to wait.”

  Shelby braced for the flood. “What happened?”

  Fresh tears appeared. “Oh, Shelby. Oh, baby…You’re going to think I’m a horrible person.”

  Shelby dropped her purse onto the varnished oak table and pulled some tissues from a nearby box. Her mother released a pitiful wail and Shelby hesitated, then grabbed the whole container. The moment Shelby pressed tissues into her mother’s hand, she latched on, her many rings biting into Shelby’s skin.

  It was going to be a long afternoon. “Are you and Dad fighting again? You didn’t call him up and give him a hard time about my window unit, did you? I told you he was away on a job. He said he’d fix it as soon as he came home.”

  Her mother shook her head and dabbed at her face, but the tears continued to flow. Shelby grew more nervous with each passing second.

  “It’s not that. Oh, why didn’t I just tell you and be done with it?”

  Shelby snagged a couple tissues herself and pitched in on the cleanup effort, trying hard not to smile because her mother’s runny makeup reminded her of a clown on crack.

  Stop it. Her mother was…animated, flamboyant, always had been. There was nothing wrong with that. Shallow people did not stay up until 2:00 a.m. baking cupcakes for school bake sales, nor did they take part in walkathons for charity.

  They also don’t have to tell everyone under the sun that they’ve done those things.

  Yeah, well, back to that whole drama queen thing. Her mother liked attention. Of all the vices to have, hers could be worse. At least good things were accomplished in the process.

  “Shelby, I swear to you, I did what I thought was best. But now I’m not sure I did. I should’ve told you, despite what he said. But I didn’t want you to be hurt. You don’t tell a child something like that.”

  Now that really made her nervous. “Something like what? Mom, what’s going on?”

  “Shelby, please. You have to forgive me. Please say you forgive me.”

  Oh, here we go. Her mother asked for forgiveness from people the way others placed fast-food orders. It wasn’t really a request but a demand, an expectation, one made for show because her mother was too self-involved to truly get that she might have done something wrong and hurt someone in the process. “I’m sure whatever it is, it’ll work out.”

  Her mother broke down and sobbed. A new set of tissues was in order.

  Shelby sat on the edge of the chair and fell into the old routine. She rubbed her mother’s back in slow, soothing circles, and stared at the clock on the wall. Every time her mother and father had had one of their I want a divorce fights and her dad had walked out, this happened. The tears, the breakdown, the regrets and apologies. But once the flood had passed, her mother sprang into action and told everyone who’d listen how she was the wronged party. The saving grace here was that her mother was technologically challenged and couldn’t make a recording for YouTube. Thank you, God.

  But watching her, the door to Shelby’s past swung wide and in a split second she was a little girl again. How many times had she hid under her bed or in her closet because no matter how quiet they tried to be, Shelby heard them?

  “Oh, Shelby. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mom.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  And the pity party begins. Shelby patted her back. She loved her mother, she just didn’t always like her. How could two people have the same blood type yet be so different? “Of course I do. You’re my mom. Stop crying and tell me what happened.”

  Her mother lifted her head and met Shelby’s gaze. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Then why are you worrying about it now?”

  “Because you have to know. You can’t live the rest of your life not knowing.”

  Shelby sat back in the chair, startled by her mother’s words. What on earth?

  “Shelby, when I was twenty, I met a man.”

  Jerry Springer footage flashed in her mind. Her mother had married her father at eighteen. “You cheated on Dad?”

  “No. No, baby, Jerry and I were divorced. I never cheated on him. Not once. Your father has accused me of that, but I never did. The man, though—” she lowered her head “—he was married.”

  Shelby blinked, her sleep-exhausted mind sluggish and much too slow to process what her mother wasn’t saying.

  Her mother and father held the record at the county courthouse for the most marriages—to the same person. They’d married each other and divorced five times over the past thirty years. After several years apart, things would settle down between them and they’d get back together again. But the result had been a hellish childhood wrought with one melodramatic episode after another. “Mom, why are you telling me this?”

  Her mother plucked at the tear-soaked tissues in her hand, shredding them. “Because your father—your real father—is dead. He died on Thursday.” She pointed a wavering finger toward the Sunday paper. “His obituary is printed there.”

  The words didn’t penetrate. A part of Shelby was shocked speechless, but more than anything she felt…numb. Detached. Like she had last night after seeing the results of the pregnancy test. Not even the increasing itch of her hives could break through the shell. “Are you saying Dad isn’t my…biological father?”

  Her mother’s lips trembled. “No, Jerry is not your father.”

  Shelby didn’t remember standing. Didn’t remember walking to the sink. She’d come wanting advice and assurances that no matter what happened between her and Luke she’d have her mother’s support.

  How do you trust someone with such a thing when they’ve lied to you your entire life? “You kept this secret for twenty-eight years?”

  “Shelby…Baby, come sit down. Please, let me explain. I was so young. I’d married Jerry right out of high school but neither of us knew what we were doing.”

  “You still don’t.”

  Her mother didn’t deny the statement.

  “We divorced the first time before you were born. You know that. But things weren’t over. I still loved him but…we had so many problems and obstacles to overcome. It isn’t easy being young and dirt-poor with big expectations.”

  Shelby understood expectations. She understood having a dream that seemed to cost more than the moon but—

  “Zacharias was older, dashing, but so sad. We knew it was wrong but at the time, we were exactly what the other was looking for.”

  She couldn’t breathe. This kept getting worse and worse. “Zacharias?” She wheezed the name. “Zacharias Bennington?”

  Her mother nodded. “He’d just taken over the bank from his father. I worked at the diner as a waitress while I went to cosmetology school, and every day I’d take the deposit to the bank and bring my dad a piece of pie to eat on his lunch break. One day Zacharias was there and we…talked.”

  “Grandpa’s boss? The one who gave him the—Oh, my word,” she said, collapsing against the countertop and feeling the sharp corner bite into her hip. “He did have an heir to pass the land on to—me?”

  Her mother nodded. “He left it to your grandpa and hoped that would keep the gossip down because they were friends.”

  “And now he’s dead?”

  “According to the paper, he died on Thursday evening. Shelby, please understand. I was young.”

  “He was married. And he was Grandpa’s age. How could you?”

  Pat’s face was bright pink, nearly the pink of her ridiculous slippers. It was the first time Shelby ever remembered her mother blushing. Embarrassment wasn’t her thing.

  “He was in his forties
at the time, hardly an old man. And there were extenuating circumstances. His wife couldn’t be a wife to him. She—”

  “Oh, please. Do not make it worse by making excuses.” Shelby snatched her purse off the table and turned toward the hallway. Of all the—How had this happened? How could she not have known?

  “Shelby, don’t go. Please, let me explain!”

  “I don’t want to hear any more. All my life you’ve been out of control. It was just one dramatic scene after another. There were no boundaries. You’d do it, say it, live it and worm your way out of the consequences later. But now you’re telling me I was a consequence—and you lied about it? You can’t explain away a twenty-eight-year-old lie!”

  “Baby, please.”

  Shelby yanked open the door but paused before stepping outside. “Who knows about this? Tell me, and whatever you do, don’t lie now.” Out of her peripheral vision she saw that her mother stood at the end of the hall, her arms wrapped around herself as she sobbed.

  Shelby hardened her heart at the sight. “Does Dad know or did you lie to him all of these years, too?”

  “He knows.”

  The words stabbed deep. Everyone knew mothers and daughters didn’t always get along, but her father…No matter what had been going on between him and her mother, Jerry Brookes had always been there for her. Always. He’d never taken his anger or upset out on her. But all the while he’d known? Kept the secret?

  “You might as well hear the rest, Shelby. I’d rather you hear it from me.”

  A raw laugh erupted from her chest. “How commendable of you.” She leaned her head against the wood panel and stared at the cloud-darkened sky. A late-summer thunderstorm darkened the distance and rumbled over the mountains, perfect for her mood.

  “I lied about the pregnancy. Not only to my father, but to Jerry. I was so embarrassed, especially when I told Zack and he said he wouldn’t annul his marriage to his wife and marry me. The woman had been in an accident. She was in a long-term care facility. The marriage was on paper, nothing else, but he said he couldn’t leave her even though he loved me.”

  Every married man’s story. “So since the wife was technically out of the picture, the two of you decided it was okay to cheat on her. Nice, Mom, do you kick puppies, too?” Shelby stared at her mother. Had she ever known her at all? Her mother had always been a bit shallow and self-centered but…how could she do that? Shelby would never have guessed her mother would go so far. How deceitful could a person get? “Why are you telling me this now? Why the sudden urge to come clean?”

  “I wanted to tell you in case you wanted to go to the funeral and—and say goodbye to your father.”

  Unbelievable. Say goodbye to a total stranger? He wasn’t her father. She felt absolutely nothing for Zacharias Bennington except contempt. The man her mother had divorced time and again, he was her father. Her dad had known all of these years but he’d still loved them. And look what he’d gotten in return.

  Shelby stepped over the threshold, her heart aching, ripped open once more by her mother’s actions. Why now? Why today when she needed her mother so badly? “It’s no wonder Dad left you. What I can’t believe is that he ever bothered to come back.”

  Chapter 7

  SHELBY WASN’T SURE of the time. She wasn’t sure of much of anything, except that hours had passed. The rumbling engine and the crunch of gravel in her driveway sounded horribly familiar, and as she sat on the cool floor inside the mill house she debated if she could stomach another confrontation in such a short amount of time. What did you say to the man you thought was your father but now wasn’t?

  A door slammed and the sound of Jerry Brookes’s booted feet drifted toward her house. She didn’t move. Maybe he’d go away.

  Several knocks sounded, the echo bouncing off the rock-strewn mountains surrounding the valley where she lived. Her name was called. The screen door squeaked open as her dad let himself into her house. But no matter how hard she tried to make herself get up and face him, she couldn’t do it. Please just leave.

  “Shelby Lynn?”

  She hadn’t heard him approach the mill house. The newly installed wood and leaded glass door swung open and the last of the sun’s rays highlighted the dust motes floating in the air. Her father—Jerry—stood silhouetted in the doorway, looking broad and formidable, a man’s man. One she’d always known to be a big old teddy bear but who’d probably been devastated by his wife’s betrayal.

  “That’s more than a storeful of baked goods you got made up in there.”

  She’d gone a little overboard. Brownies. Cookies. Muffins and her special apple turnovers. She’d have to scramble to get them delivered to the grocery and hardware stores tomorrow morning before she went to work, but the managers liked her products and she’d see a little profit from her baking frenzy.

  If she could get the turnovers into the country club’s kitchen and to the chef before Mr. Long appeared, Betty might even feature them on the menu like the seasonal fruit tarts Shelby had made over the summer.

  Jerry lowered himself onto the polished plank floor beside her, his brown steel-toed boots black in places from dirt and grease.

  Shelby sighed. “She shouldn’t have called you.”

  Jerry settled his shoulders against the stone wall and nudged her gently. “No, she shouldn’t have. You should’ve called me.”

  Shelby closed her eyes in an attempt to combat the fatigue dragging at her. She’d eaten a banana while making the brownies but hadn’t had anything else and her body was protesting.

  You have to eat. It’s not just for you anymore.

  How could she forget? But on the other hand, how could she eat when her stomach was knotted up like a hangman’s noose? “I was divorce number two, wasn’t I?”

  It wasn’t really a question. She hadn’t been able to distract herself completely this afternoon, and her mind had wandered down turbulent paths and revisited memories with X-ray eyes and an adult’s perspective. “You got back together and remarried because you thought I was yours. She told you I was yours. Then you found out I wasn’t and divorced the second time. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  She rolled her head against the wall to look at him. With only one of the double doors partially open, it was fairly dark inside the stone building, but she was able to make out his bearded face and the glint of sorrow in his soft brown eyes. She looked nothing like Jerry, or her mother, for that matter. Why hadn’t she ever noticed?

  “You weren’t the cause of anything,” he told her. “You were the prize, not the problem.”

  “But that’s when you found out?”

  Visibly reluctant, he nodded slowly. “That’s when I found out. We’d moved into the little house where your mama lives now. I was putting some boxes away and dropped one of them. Inside were all the notes and letters he’d given her, Polaroid pictures of them together.”

  Shelby let that sink in before she let her mind go to the next question. How must he have felt to find his wife—even an ex-wife at the time—had kept mementos from her lover? “But after a few years you came back. Remarried.” A laugh left her chest, rough and scathing. “The third time was supposed to be the charm, wasn’t it? Then I got sick and you left again. What did she do?”

  “Shelby—”

  “I need to know the truth. I need—” her voice cracked with strain “—for someone to be honest with me instead of lying to me.”

  Seconds passed. Jerry exhaled and the gush disturbed the sunlit dust. The particles jumped and whirled.

  “I was laid off. Your cold turned into pneumonia and your fever went sky-high. We had to give you ice baths to bring it down. But the damn doctor didn’t want to treat you because he knew we couldn’t afford to pay and we didn’t have any insurance.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She…went to him.”

  Of course. “And knowing Mom, she probably rubbed it in your face.”

  “She didn’t have to. I was ashamed I couldn’t provide f
or my family. Your mother was scared out of her mind because her baby was sick and there was nothing I could do. Then she disappeared. I figured she’d gone to get Alex’s daddy, but when she came back she walked into the house carrying a wad of cash like nothing I’ve ever seen.” He snorted, shook his head. “Thousands of dollars. Just like that. I wanted to give you everything and couldn’t, and here was a man who wouldn’t acknowledge you publicly, but he’d toss his money around so long as no one knew.”

  “I was his dirty little secret.”

  “You were a beautiful little girl he missed out on raising because of his own stupidity.” He growled the words, making it clear he didn’t like her reference. “But seeing her with that money…I’d never contemplated murder before but I did that night.” Beneath the scrub on his face, his jaw firmed. “I even accused her of sleeping with him to get the cash, called her a whore. I know it wasn’t true. Your mama has her faults but she’s not like that.”

  A sound came out of her throat, derisive.

  “She’s not, Shelby-girl. Your mama is…She’s like a child. She’s bright and colorful and wants a lot of attention, demands it and finds a way to get it if she thinks she isn’t getting enough. But if you look below the show you see she’s got a good heart and, most of the time, she means well. She’s just…needy.”

  Immature and self-centered were better descriptives. “You’re making excuses for her.”

  “I’m tryin’ to get you to see that people are who they are. You can’t change them.” He inhaled and sighed again. “Shelby, the point is that many a man has gone to prison over stupid things done in anger. I was this close to going after that son of a—” He broke off and wiped a hand over his mouth like he wiped away the curse. “He wasn’t worth the dirt on my shoes, but I was that mad about it. Your mother and I—We could’ve conquered the world together, but when we fought we rubbed each other raw and bleeding. And after I knew the truth our fights always revolved around Bennington. Maybe we were divorced during the time you were conceived but she was my wife. It’s a wonder someone didn’t get hurt.”