The Mother of His Child

by Sandra Field

  Eventually, they did get up, Marnie putting her robe on and shaking out her tousled curls, Cal pulling on his trousers and shirt, leaving the shirt buttons undone. With frequent pauses for kisses that ranged from playful to passionate, they ate chips and dip and drank wine while Cal barbecued the trout on Marnie’s deck, where a sliver of moon was rising over the restless waves of the sea. Sitting at her pine table by the window, the roses in a vase, they ate and talked and held hands and laughed some more.

  Cal was happy. Marnie was convinced of it.

  And he loved her lemon meringue pie.

  She made coffee, which they drank sitting very close to each other on the chesterfield. Marnie had lit the candle; it flickered over Cal’s features as he told her about his up-bringing and his adventurous parents, who had drowned while rafting in the Arctic when he was only seven. “So I was brought up by my mother’s brother and his wife. Very staid, very safe, boarding school as soon as I turned twelve, holidays at canoe camps and Boy Scout camps…. Oh, they were good to me in their way and I’m sure they loved me. But I was also a duty to them, one they’d have been happier without. They were a self-sufficient couple.”

  He paused, his expression pensive. Marnie said noncommittally, “It sounds very lonely. You’ve had a lot of losses, Cal—your parents, Jennifer, even the fact you couldn’t father your own child.”

  He moved his shoulders restively. “I love Kit as if she were my own.”

  “I know you do. She’s very lucky.” Anyone who had Cal’s love would be lucky, Marnie decided, and didn’t pursue that thought.

  “I just wish she’d…but we agreed we weren’t going to talk about Kit, didn’t we?” He drained his coffee. “The way I was brought up is probably why I fell for Jennifer. She was so warm and loving. It was only as the marriage progressed that I realized she was hooked into safety like my aunt and uncle.”

  In a low voice, Marnie asked, “Do you still love Jennifer, Cal?” She hadn’t known she was going to ask that; tensely, she waited for his reply.

  He pushed a chestnut strand back from her cheek, his face somber. “She’ll always be a part of me, Marnie, and that’s as it should be. Because of her health problems and her inability to have children, we went through some rough times together in our marriage. She was a good mother, although sometimes we argued because I felt she had a tendency to overprotect Kit.” He frowned. “I’m not doing a very good job here, am I? I have so many happy memories of times Jennifer and I shared, times full of love. But if you’re asking if I’m still in love with her, then the answer’s no.”

  He added with sudden urgency, “Let’s go back to bed. I don’t think I should stay overnight in case Kit phones early in the morning. But I want to hold on to you again. Right now. Because you’re right—there are things we can say with our bodies that I don’t have the words for.”

  Things like, I love you? “All right,” Marnie said.

  As Cal stood up, he put his arms around her. “We’re in deep waters. You and I and Kit.”

  “A 5.11 climb.”

  “I don’t even want to know what that is,” he said with a grin that was almost normal. “I climbed up a lighthouse once, a very short and stubby little lighthouse, and thought for a while I was going to have to spend the rest of my days up there.”

  “I’m glad you managed to get down,” Marnie said, batting her lashes at him. “Or we wouldn’t have met.”

  “Or I wouldn’t be making love to you again,” he said, and suited action to words.

  Marnie had a very hard time getting out of bed the next morning. In her bathroom mirror, she looked just like a woman who’d had too little sleep the night before; some of the wonderment of Cal’s embraces still seemed to linger in her eyes. Christine, for one, would know right away what Marnie had been up to.

  She couldn’t let any of her students guess.

  She put on mascara, rather a lot of eyeshadow and a glossy lipstick, along with an orange silk blouse and olive green pants. Her toenails were still purple. Oh, well, she’d never been impressed by perfection.

  She’d hated Cal’s leaving the night before, she remembered, still gazing at herself in the mirror. It had been somewhere around three in the morning when he’d finally gone. While it was some comfort to her that he’d been as reluctant to leave as she’d been to see him go, her bed had been distressingly lonely without him.

  He’d had to go. Because of Kit.

  Staring into the turquoise depths of her eyes, Marnie knew she’d finally discovered what it meant to make love. What was the old cliché? That the earth had moved? She’d been so ravished, so overwhelmed, that the entire universe could have moved.

  Certainly she’d changed in some radical way. Never again would she belong fully to herself. Part of her was Cal’s now, this man who’d brought her felicity beyond belief. Had she fallen in love?

  Marnie didn’t know. In the cool morning light, she rather thought not. Falling in love was supposed to be rapturous, exhilarating and joyful. What she felt—listening to the waves lave the empty shoreline—was frightened. As frightened as when she’d realized at the age of sixteen that she was pregnant.

  What had Cal said? “Once we make love, Marnie, there’s no going back.”

  He was right. What had happened to her was irrevocable. Cal, in putting his seal on her body, had laid claim to her soul. So much so that a fifty-miles-apart affair was out of the question. Yet what other kind of affair could she have with Cal? Kit hadn’t changed. Showed no signs of changing.

  If she fell in love with Cal, it could destroy her.

  With an impatient sigh, Marnie picked up the lemon meringue pie, which she planned to leave in the staff room for the teachers, and went to school. A shipment of books had come, some exactly what she’d ordered, others belonging to a school that, according to the label, was in Saskatchewan. Almost glad of the mix-up, Marnie got to work. She stayed away from the staff room at noon, going home for lunch; when she got back, she didn’t even blush when Christine said how well she looked. At three that afternoon, she had a gang of kids from grade eight in the library trying to make up their minds which novels to choose for book reports. This was a part of her job Marnie enjoyed, and it was a tribute to her skills that when the final bell rang, there wasn’t a concerted rush for the door.

  As she signed out paperbacks for a couple of the boys, something made her glance up. A girl was standing in the doorway, a haversack slung over one shoulder, her face tense: a red-haired girl in jeans and a purple sweatshirt. It was Kit.

  Marnie’s nerves gave an agitated leap, and it was only with an effort of will that she smothered the remembrance of how she’d spent most of the night in Kit’s father’s arms. Had Kit guessed? Is that why she was here?

  Marnie said with admirable poise, “Hello, Kit…can you hold on? I’ll be through in a few minutes.”

  Kit slouched into the room, ignoring the stares of three of the boys who were clearly taken with her mop of red curls. One of the girls looked from Marnie to Kit and back again, opening her mouth to say something.

  Marnie said smoothly, “Here you go, Alicia, this is the book you wanted. You’d better hurry. You wouldn’t want to miss the bus.”

  Alicia shut her mouth, took the book and left the room. The boys trailed after her. Marnie got up, feeling at a disadvantage behind her desk.

  “Would you like to come home with me?” she said in a neutral voice. “It’s only just down the road.”

  Kit nodded. She had yet to smile.

  “We’ll go out the side door,” Marnie suggested. That way, none of the other teachers would meet Kit and see the resemblance between the two of them.

  Within ten minutes, she and Kit had reached the house. Marnie felt as though Cal’s presence was in every corner of the room, and she could only hope the girl was oblivious to atmosphere. Kit was looking around with thinly disguised curiosity. The little house, Marnie thought wryly, was as different from the sprawling bungalow on the cove a
s it could be.

  “Would you like some pop, Kit? I’m addicted to chips. You can have any flavor you like.”

  Kit nodded again. She looked as nervous as Marnie felt, which made Marnie feel minimally better. She poured out two glasses of Coke, opened a package of barbecued chips and went back into the living room.

  “Does your dad know where you are?” she asked, trying very hard not to sound too parental.

  Kit said in a rush, “He thinks I’m in school…the teachers were only away for the morning. I skipped out after French class and got the Halifax bus. It stops just up the road from your school.” She buried her nose in her glass.

  “I don’t want him to be worrying about you.”

  Kit raised her head. She had a little mustache of Coke and looked both defiant and heartbreakingly young. She cried, “You can’t take my mother’s place!”

  Marnie’s lashes flickered. “I wouldn’t even try to do that, Kit. It would be very wrong of me. No one can take her place. And no one should.”

  Momentarily, Kit looked surprised by the adamance of Marnie’s reply. Then she went on the attack again. “If your mother really did take me away from you, she must have hated you. Why did she?”

  Wincing as much from Kit’s lack of subtlety as from the question itself, Marnie answered, “That’s something I’ve asked myself over and over again. You see, years ago, my father left her for another woman and we never saw him again. I don’t even know where he is. That caused a lot of gossip in the town. My mother and I were never close. She was too busy being the mill owner, the most powerful person in Conway Mills. Then I got pregnant after a high school dance. My turn to disgrace her. So she made sure I wouldn’t go home with a baby by putting you up for adoption. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, for her, position and pride came before love.”

  Her voice was low; recounting even that much of her youth still had the power to hurt.

  “My mum loved me,” Kit said with an edge of defiance.

  Marnie met her eyes. “Then you were fortunate to have each other, even if it was for such a short time. Far too short.”

  In another tumble of words, Kit said, “I spent last night at Lizzie’s house. Lizzie’s dad is my dad’s best friend, and Lizzie’s mum’s real neat.” Kit paused for a moment. “I had to tell someone—I felt mad at the whole world, like I’d bust if I didn’t let it out. So I told Lizzie’s mum. She listened really hard, said she knew someone once who sounded just like your mum and perhaps I should give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  The phrase was obviously a direct quote. Sending up a private prayer of thanks to Lizzie’s mum, Marnie said, “I’m glad you confided in her.”

  “Dad said I shouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “If Lizzie’s parents are such good friends, I doubt he’d mind.”

  “Lizzie’s mum said if Dad believed your story, then probably I should, too.”

  “But you don’t,” Marnie said dryly.

  “I don’t know!”

  Marnie would have much preferred that Kit believe her outright. She said, feeling her way, “I’m glad you came here, Kit. And that you’re being so honest with me. Maybe that’s enough to go on for now. On the weekend, you’ll meet Terry and your grandparents, and we’ll just have to see what happens.”

  Kit chomped on a mouthful of chips. “I had to tell you about not taking my mum’s place. I don’t know why, but I just had to,” she said vehemently.

  “I do understand.” Oddly enough, Marnie did. And although she wanted nothing more than to take Kit in her arms, she knew better than even to touch her.

  Kit gave her a look compounded equally of distrust and conjecture. Marnie bore it bravely, then said, “Maybe you should give your dad a call.”

  “He’ll be mad,” Kit said philosophically, and picked up the phone. The conversation at her end was brief. Replacing the receiver, she said, “He’ll be here in an hour.”

  Marnie said, “Would you like to see a photo of Terry and his parents?”

  “I—I guess so.”

  Marnie passed over the photo from her bookshelves, her heart aching as she saw how voraciously Kit’s gaze roamed over the four faces. She talked for a while about how good Marylou and Dave had been to her and about some of the outings she’d had with her surrogate family. Kit said little, but Marnie could tell she was listening; that in itself was a big step. Then they went for a walk on the beach, joining up with Midnight. Marnie was delighted to see Kit forget her dignity, chasing after the dog and screeching in dismay when she got splashed with cold ocean water. Eventually, Marnie said, “We’d better go back. Your dad should be here soon.”

  Kit’s face lost some of its animation. She scuffled up the pebbled rise and through the trees, the breeze playing with her vivid curls. As they both went indoors and Marnie poured more pop in their glasses, Kit said, “Dad told me you go rock climbing.”

  Marnie nodded. “I started about five years ago.”

  “Our gym class had a minicourse on the university wall. But I never did it again.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “It was scary and fun. Both. I tease Dad, tell him the reason we have a bungalow is so he won’t have to go upstairs.”

  Marnie chuckled. “Different strokes for different folks.”

  Kit picked at the hem of her sweatshirt. “Maybe it’s hereditary,” she said. “Me liking it, I mean.”

  Marnie’s smile faded. Tears pricked at her lids. She said unsteadily, “Maybe it is,” and heard a vehicle turn down her driveway. She blinked hard, adding, “Sounds like your father.”

  “Yeah,” Kit said, and braced herself.

  Marnie went to the door. Cal was loping down the slope, a tall, black-haired man wearing cords and a plaid shirt, a man who’d brought her infinite delight only hours ago. She said with artificial brightness, “Hi, Cal.”

  His eyes roamed her face with some of the same intensity with which his hands had roamed her body. “You okay?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Come on in, Kit’s inside.”

  As she preceded him through the door, Kit stood up. “Hi, Dad,” she said warily.

  Cal went right to the point. “If you’d told me you wanted to see Marnie, I’d have brought you here.”

  Kit stood a little taller, suddenly looking more than her age. “But I needed to do this on my own.”

  “To see Marnie, you mean?”

  “To tell her something. I just had to, Dad!”

  Cal, Marnie noticed, didn’t ask what it was that his daughter had needed to say. “I’m glad at least that you came on the bus. That you didn’t try hitchhiking.”

  A gamine grin lit up Kit’s face. “Hey, I didn’t want to be grounded for life.”

  “So are you done?”

  Kit looked over at Marnie, who was standing like a stick at the door. With the volatility that Marnie was already recognizing as very much part of her daughter, Kit’s face clouded. “She’ll never take Mum’s place,” she said fiercely. “That’s what I had to tell her.”

  Cal’s mouth tightened; a flash of sheer agony whipped across his face and was gone so quickly Marnie wondered if she’d imagined it. “Of course she won’t,” he said. “No one can take your mother’s place.”

  It was Marnie’s turn to feel pain as sharp as a shard of ice. If Cal was saying Jennifer had been a unique person and hence irreplaceable, she could accept that. But perhaps he was saying he had no intention of remarrying as long as Kit was under his roof, which wasn’t the same thing at all.

  Kit was chewing on her lip, her dark brown eyes suddenly swimming with tears. She said raggedly, “You didn’t stop Mum from dying, Dad. I kept waiting for you to make it better—to make her better—and you never did.”

  For a moment, Cal looked as though Kit had punched him hard in the gut. “I couldn’t,” he said hoarsely.

  “Then you should have told me you couldn’t!”

  “But…didn’t you know?”

  “I thoug
ht you could fix anything,” Kit quavered. “You were my father. You’d stopped Tommy Hartling from bullying me and you’d mended my bike after I crashed it into the fence. Of course I thought you could make Mum better.”

  “Oh, God, Kit—”

  “I was only ten years old, Dad! I knew other people died, but not my very own mother.”

  By now, tears were streaming down Kit’s face. Marnie forced herself to stay by the door. Not by even the smallest of movements could she break into this confrontation between father and daughter: a confrontation two years overdue, unless she was badly mistaken. But she also longed to comfort Cal; he was gazing at Kit as if he’d never really seen her before, as if an abyss had opened right in front of his feet too late for him to avoid stepping into it. He said blankly, “You blamed me for her death.”

  “Of course I did!”

  “Kit, she had cancer—”

  Marnie doubted that Kit even heard him. “Who else could I blame?” the girl burst out. “I couldn’t blame her! Not Mum…”

  As she scrubbed at her wet cheeks, her eyes wild with remembered pain, Cal walked over and put his arms around her, folding her to his chest and patting her awkwardly on the back. “Honey, I’m so sorry…I had no idea you felt like that.”

  Kit abandoned herself to a storm of sobbing, the heart-broken sobs of a child who’s had to grow up too quickly. Marnie held her breath, wondering if she dared hope that this would somehow heal the rift between Kit and Cal. And couldn’t healing in one direction lead to acceptance in another? Kit’s acceptance of Marnie’s presence in her life?

  Eventually, Kit quietened, sagging in her father’s embrace. Marnie brought a box of tissues from the bathroom, mentally going over the contents of her refrigerator to see what she could produce for supper. Kit’s visit today had been the essence of unpredictability; but there was some lasagna in the freezer and chocolate chip cookies she could serve with ice cream.

  Kit straightened, blowing her nose and scrubbing at her eyes. Then she muttered, “Take me home, Dad.”

  “Sure,” Cal said.