The Mother of His Child

by Sandra Field

  Her mother had cut herself off from intimacy. Marnie didn’t want to be like her mother.

  Several days went by. The first leaves came out on the trees, vibrantly green. Christine and Marnie made rhubarb chutney; on the weekend, Marnie went white-water canoeing. The days were getting longer and the heat of the sun more convincing.

  Despite Christine’s best efforts at cheering her up, Marnie carried an ache of loss with her wherever she went: that Kit should be so close to her geographically and so far emotionally was like a form of unremitting torture. She endured it because she had to. But she didn’t regain the weight she’d lost, and her eyes had a haunted look she couldn’t seem to banish.

  She tried very hard not to think about Cal at all but failed miserably. In three meetings, all of which had been fraught with emotion, he’d forced himself into her life, awakening sexual longings that had slumbered for years, as well as other needs less tangible, although equally unsettling. The need for love? she found herself wondering. Surely not.

  She did her best to stifle all these longings. On the first really hot day of the year, when it seemed as though all the students in the school had made a pact to be uncooperative, Marnie went straight home at four o’clock, changed her clothes and went down to the beach below her house with her neighbor’s black Labrador retriever. A game of fetch ensued, during which both of them got very wet and Marnie laughed a lot. Maybe Midnight was laughing, too, she thought, amused by the dog’s gaping jaws and thrashing tail.

  She threw the rubber ball out into the sea again, watching Midnight buck the waves. Then behind her, Marnie heard the crunch of footsteps on the loose stones above the sand. Expecting it to be her neighbor, she turned with a smile.

  Her jaw dropped. “Cal!”

  He was wearing beige cotton trousers with a short-sleeved white shirt, his tie loosened; his eyes were watchful. Like a hunter’s eyes, Marnie thought fancifully, and shivered from more than the icy shock of a wave over her bare toes. Then she noticed something else: how grim he looked, how he wasn’t making even a pretense of smiling.

  In sudden terror, the color draining from her face, she stammered, “K-Kit…something’s happened to Kit.” Why else would he have sought her out? The sand lurched under her feet. She never fainted, she thought fuzzily. She couldn’t start now.

  In a blur of movement, Cal was at her side, grabbing her around the waist. “Kit’s fine. Nothing’s happened to her. I’m sorry, Marnie, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  As she sagged in his hold, Midnight raced up the sand, dropped the ball and shook himself, showering them both with cold water. Marnie took a couple of steadying breaths, her head settling back on her shoulders where it belonged, and heard Cal ask, “Is that your dog?”

  With Cal’s arrival, the zest had gone from the game and all the hurt of the past few days had resurfaced. Marnie said, “No, it’s not. I don’t want you here, Cal. We’ve got nothing to say to each other.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if that was true.”

  “I’m not going to have an affair with you, I’ve stayed away from Kit and now I’m going home. I wish you’d do the same.”

  Marnie marched up the beach, aware through every nerve ending in her body of Cal close behind her. After she crossed the shoal of stones, she sent Midnight home along the path that joined the two properties. Then she padded through the spruce trees behind her house.

  When she opened the screen door, Cal followed her inside. She turned to face him, folding her arms across her chest, wishing she was wearing anything but the briefest of shorts and an old fuschia shirt whose tails she’d tied under her breasts and whose color clashed violently with her hair. Each word like a shard of glass, she said, “How did you find out where I live?”

  His smile was ironic. “Following your example, I asked at the local gas station.”

  “Very funny. Do you make a practice of invading people’s privacy like this?”

  “Knock it off, Marnie. I didn’t bother phoning ahead of time because I was nine-tenths sure you’d slam the receiver in my ear,” he said. “Why don’t you go change? You’re cold. Then we’ll talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you, so why don’t you leave? And don’t bother coming back.”

  Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he said, “I’ve come to eat crow. Which will no doubt make you laugh yourself silly. But I’m not going to start groveling until you’ve changed. Right now, instead of focusing on Kit and what’s going on at home—why I’m here, in other words—all I can see is how long your legs are in those goddamned shorts. They aren’t even decent, for Pete’s sake.”

  Her shorts had shrunk in the drier. She tugged at the hem. “So am I supposed to feel flattered?”

  “I don’t give a damn whether you’re flattered or not! All I know is that when I look at you in that getup, I want to haul you to the nearest bedroom and make love to you until neither one of us has the energy to stand up, let alone talk about Kit. And what kind of father does that make me?” He swung around, staring moodily out to sea through the big window. “Go change. Please.”

  He looked, she thought with unwilling compassion, like a man at the end of his rope. “Is this your standard approach to women? You won’t win any prizes for subtlety, I’ll tell you that.”

  “The one way I don’t feel around you is subtle. For God’s sake, Marnie, will you go change?”

  The rebellion Charlotte Carstairs had never fully quelled in Marnie flared into life. Instead of running for her bedroom, locking the door and changing into her most unbecoming outfit, preferably something black that swathed her from throat to ankle, she announced, “I’ll never understand men, not if I live to be ninety. You don’t like me or trust me or respect me and yet you say you want to make love to me.” Bitterness spilled into her voice. “You’re not interested in making love, Cal. It’s all the other words, the cheap four-letter ones, that’s what you want.”

  He stepped closer; he could move very quickly for so big a man. “I want you in my bed, that’s what I want, and quite frankly I don’t care what words we use.”

  It was not the right moment for Marnie to remember some of the things she and Cal had done in her dreams. She said coldly, “I already said no. And the way you and Kit behaved at the school has given me no incentive to change my mind.”

  He said stiffly, “I came here—among other reasons—to apologize for that.” For a moment, he glanced through the window at the restless, sparkling ocean. Then he said hoarsely, “The way you kissed me at the picnic spot—were you just faking it? Was I way off base to think you wanted me as much as I wanted you?”

  Marnie flushed, her mind skittering among a variety of replies ranging from truthful to downright lies. Then Cal added with savage emphasis, “I know as Kit’s father I haven’t got the right to ask you that. But I need to know—it’s important.”

  She had no idea what he was getting at. “I’ve got a question for you first,” she said evenly, “a very obvious question, I suppose. Did you love your wife, Cal?”

  His fists clenched at his sides. “Yes.” As though the words were being dragged from him, he said, “Watching her die, feeling so helpless—it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  No wonder he’d suggested a long-distance affair, Marnie thought reluctantly. He didn’t want Marnie encroaching in any way on his life with Jennifer. This realization hurt rather more than she was willing to admit; but it did help her understand Cal a little better. She said quietly, “When you kissed me, I wasn’t faking anything.”

  His breath escaped in a small whoosh. “Come here,” he said.

  “Cal, neither of us should—”

  He rested a fingertip on her lips, then bent his head to kiss her, his hands resting on her shoulders. It was a long, exploratory kiss, his tongue dancing with hers, his mouth traveling the line of her throat to the hammering pulse at its base. He murmured, “You taste of salt,” and kissed her full on the lips again, deeply and passionately,
taking Marnie to a place she’d never been before, a place where sunlight glinted on white foam and waves of longing surged through her body. Unconsciously, she swayed toward him, feeling the tautness of his chest brush her breasts. Her nipples hardened under her thin shirt, and for the first time in days, she forgot about Kit and the pain of loss. This kiss wasn’t about loss. It was about discovery and wonderment.

  Roughly, Cal put his arms around her, drawing her to the length of his body so that she felt, unmistakably, the hardness of his erection. The shock ran through her body. Wary as a wild creature, she raised her head, in her eyes a mingling of passion and panic. “Cal, we mustn’t! Don’t you see? Kit’ll always be between us and—”

  “You think I don’t know that?” he muttered, and kissed her again.

  She was drowning, she thought confusedly, drowning in the throb of blood through her veins and the fierce impulsion to know more. Of what use caution when Cal’s hands were cupping her face, his lips searching the softness of her own, his body heat warming that place deep inside where no one had ever reached her before? In one kiss, Cal was teaching her something that Terry, in his awkward lovemaking by the lake, hadn’t even known.

  But Terry’s lovemaking had given her Kit.

  Marnie dragged her head free and struck away Cal’s hands. “Stop it! Oh, God, what am I doing? I must be out of my mind.”

  She was trembling, her expression distraught. Cal said urgently, “Don’t tell me it’s wrong, what we’re doing—it can’t be. Not when we both feel—”

  “Cal, Terry and I were together just once and I got pregnant. Are you planning a repeat? Is that why you’re here? To make a little sister or brother for Kit?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! When you and I make love, we’ll use protection. Do you think I’m totally irresponsible?”

  “When we make love? You’re very sure of yourself!”

  In one searing glance, he traveled her body from head to foot, missing, she was sure, not one detail of her tangled hair, her flushed cheeks and heightened breathing, the thrust of her breasts against her shirt and the slim length of her legs, bared by the skimpy shorts. Then he looked straight at her, his eyes boring into hers. “Yeah, I came here today to talk about Kit. That’s true enough and it’s extremely important. But there was another reason I came. I couldn’t stay away. Even though I know I’m a fool for being here, I had to see you again.”

  “You’ve seen me,” she said stonily. “Now you can go home. Because all you want from me is sex.”

  “And what’s wrong with that? It’s been two years, Marnie!”

  “There must be a dozen women between here and Burnham—not one of them related to Kit—who’d be delighted to go to bed with you. But I’m not available. Please—just go home and leave me alone.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until we sit down like two reasonable adults and discuss my daughter. Who also happens to be your daughter.”

  “So what were you doing? Softening me up with a few kisses first?” she taunted, and watched him flinch as though she’d struck him. “Oh, hell and damnation,” she muttered, “I turn into the prize bitch of the year when I’m around you. I’m going to get changed.”

  Marnie shut the door to her bedroom with a decisive snap and stared blindly at the clothes in her closet. She shouldn’t have accused Cal of an ulterior motive when he’d kissed her. She was no expert, but she’d swear those kisses hadn’t been fake, any more than her own. He had, she was almost sure, been speaking the truth when he’d said he couldn’t stay away from her.

  And how he hated that.

  Absently, Marnie ran her fingers along the row of hangers. The truth was achingly simple. Cal desired her. But he loved Jennifer, who to all intents and purposes had been Kit’s mother.

  With a jagged sigh, she changed into a pair of cotton trousers and a loose green shirt, jamming her bare feet into socks. Then she brushed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. She didn’t put on lipstick or earrings.

  Let him see her as she was.

  Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and walked back into the living room.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CAL was standing by the bookshelves, holding a framed photograph in his hand. He said harshly, “Is this Kit’s father?”

  If she’d known Cal was coming, Marnie would have put away that particular photograph. She walked over to him, glancing down at the picture. “Yes. Her father and her grandparents.”

  The photo had been taken when Marnie was sixteen, shortly before the school dance; she was laughing into the camera, one arm around Terry, the other around Marylou, his mother. His dad, Dave, was also hugging Marylou. They all looked very happy.

  “Where do they live now?” Cal asked.

  “Marylou and Dave still live in the same house in Conway Mills. Dave’s retired. He used to work in the mill. Terry left there as soon as he graduated from high school. He studied commerce and got involved in international banking. He lives in Australia. He was back in Canada four or five years ago for a conference, and that’s when I told him about the baby he’d fathered. I felt he had to know— I should’ve told him long before.”

  “He’s a good-looking guy. So you’re still in touch with him?”

  “He phones out of the blue at all sorts of weird hours from places like Kyoto and Kuala Lumpur—he’s always hated writing letters. He hasn’t told his parents about the baby, and neither have I. What was the point?”

  Restlessly, Cal put the photo down, looking around him. It was a small room, welcoming yet unpretentious, the walls painted white, the wooden floor blue, clusters of scarlet geraniums in pots by the picture window that overlooked the ocean. “Lots of travel posters,” he commented. “You’ve been around. Did you like Costa Rica?”

  “Cal, those are all the places I want to go. Not the places I’ve been to.”

  He raised one brow. “Teachers earn good money. You could afford to travel.”

  She said sharply, “Am I on trial again?”

  “That heap outside your door you call a car—it doesn’t even look safe.”

  “It nearly always gets me where I want to go.”

  “Do you own this house?”

  “I rent it.”

  Again he looked around. All her furniture was obviously secondhand, yet carefully refurbished. “The paintings,” he said in a neutral voice. “Who did those?”

  “Me.”

  He walked over to one of them. They were all abstracts, swirls of bright colors infused with energy and abandon. He said with a genuine smile, “I like them—they’re very like you.”

  “Ever since I saw an article in the newspaper about that painting that was nothing but a few vertical stripes and the National Gallery paid a million dollars for it, I figured I could paint, too.” Her smile was mischievous. “Sometimes I do stripes. But mostly I do blobs.”

  “Nonrepresentational postmodernism,” he said solemnly.

  “So how come nobody’s offering me a million dollars?”

  “Don’t quit your day job.” Cal chuckled, adding spontaneously, “I like the way you can laugh at yourself, Marnie—you’d be surprised how few people can do that.”

  “I don’t think you laugh enough. At anything.”

  He said dryly, “You haven’t exactly been seeing me at my best. One of these days we should try something like a normal date. You know the kind of thing—pizza and a movie.”

  She didn’t think that was very likely; nor was she about to tell Cal that when he did laugh she wanted to throw herself at him regardless of the consequences. Why had she never realized how sexy a man’s laugh could be? She said casually, “You came here, I believe, to eat crow. Or so you said. Would you like coffee or a beer to wash it down?”

  He yanked at his tie, tossing it over the back of the wooden rocking chair. “A beer’d be great,” he said, and followed her into the tiny kitchen, his eyes, she saw, not missing one detail.

  To her dismay, he walked straight over to
the two photos hanging by the sink. In one, a red-haired woman was bracing her canoe in the rapids of a rock-strewn river; in the other, the same woman was gripping a cliff face, the edge of rock and sky a knife-sharp line.

  Bending forward to see them better, Cal said, “That’s you.”

  Marnie would have moved those photos, too, had she known he was coming. “Mmm…I told you I don’t like to play it safe.”

  “Rephrase that. You like to play it dangerous.”

  There was a note in his voice she couldn’t decipher. “You’ve got a problem with that?”

  “I used to do white-water kayaking and deep-sea diving before I got married…but never rock climbing. I’m terrified of heights. Why do you flirt with danger, Marnie?”

  “So I won’t end up like my mother,” she said flippantly. “Better to love danger than power.”

  “Yet for thirteen years you’ve stayed away from men. So you told me.”

  He’d cut to the heart of it. She said in an unfriendly voice, “Yeah…aren’t you the clever one?” and reached into the refrigerator for the beer.

  “And why no travel and a wreck of a car and a rented house not big enough to swing a skunk in?”

  Marnie uncapped the beer and took out a glass, plunking both down on the counter, her nostrils flaring. “You’re like the Grand Inquisitor! Let me ask you something, for a change. You’ve got money. I saw your house, I know the cost of waterfront properties in towns like Burnham. How can you afford that on a university salary?”

  “My parents and Jennifer’s both had money,” he said.

  Nothing in his voice had changed, but Marnie had never been insensitive to implication. “I suppose you inherited Jennifer’s share. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be unkind. But, Cal, I left home at seventeen. I stole money for bus fare from my mother’s wallet the day Kit was born and I pawned my grandmother’s diamond ring to pay the rent on my first apartment. I got jobs in restaurants and grocery stores to put myself through university because I have this little problem—I like to eat. I’m still paying off my student loans, and until I’m debt-free, I’m not traveling anywhere or buying a house or a new car.” Her smile was full of self-mockery. “However, I do own my own canoe and my rock-climbing equipment—all top of the line.”