The Mother of His Child

by Sandra Field

  Kit grinned at him, a grin compounded of relief and mischief. “You’ll spoil your appetite for lunch,” she said primly.

  “I’ll risk it,” Cal said, and slathered a biscuit with butter and jam. “These are great—you’ve been busy, Marylou.”

  “Oh, Marnie made the biscuits and the pies,” Marylou said.

  Cal winced, Marnie turned away to wash the dishes, and Dave said, “Bugs are awful bad on the river this year.”

  The afternoon dragged by. But finally it was time to leave. After a round of goodbyes, Marnie settled herself in the back seat and, as soon as they’d driven onto the road, closed her eyes. She didn’t wake until Cal was jouncing over the potholes in her driveway. Sitting up, she said stupidly, “We’re back already?”

  Cal’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “You slept the whole way. I’ll get your bag.”

  Marnie said rapidly, “Bye, Kit. I’m glad you had a good time.”

  “See you,” Kit said.

  A meaningless phrase if ever there was one, Marnie thought, and scrambled out of her seat, hoping she’d make it into the house before she started to cry. Whenever she’d imagined a reunion with her daughter, she’d pictured the two of them falling into each other’s arms in mutual delight. Reality had sure put paid to that particular scenario.

  Cal had taken her bag out of the back. Marnie took it gingerly, knowing if he touched her she’d fall apart in the driveway. “Thanks for doing all the driving,” she said politely. “I hope you’re not too tired.”

  “Are you going to Sandy Lake next Friday?” he demanded.

  Friday began the long weekend when she and Christine usually went camping at Sandy Lake Park, and Cal and Kit did, too. Not on your life, Marnie thought, and said coolly, “Probably not. Some friends are going to Cape Breton to rock climb. I expect that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Marnie, we can’t go on like this. I’ll phone you through the week and—”

  “No, don’t,” she gasped. “You mustn’t. You were right, we made a terrible mistake. Goodbye, Cal.”

  She hurried down the slope to her front door. By the time she’d inserted the key in the lock, the Cherokee was back on the highway. She stepped inside, locked the door firmly behind her and stared in blind misery at the restless waves of the sea.

  On Monday after school, Marnie told Christine she wasn’t going to Sandy Lake. “Why ever not?” Chris asked.

  “Mario and the crew are heading for Cape Breton and it’s a great chance to—”

  “Have Don and I done anything to offend you?”

  “Of course not, that’s—”

  “Come clean, Marnie!”

  “All right, all right. Cal and Kit go to Sandy Lake every year on the long weekend in May. So therefore I’m not.”

  “You and I have gone to Sandy Lake for the past three years. You’re going to let that man break a tradition that’s really important to me?”

  “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

  “You bet. Anyway, Don’s brother from Toronto is coming, too. I want you to meet him. Maybe he’ll take your mind off that hunk who’s Kit’s father.”

  “I wish,” Marnie said.

  “I could kill him,” Chris said theatrically. “We’ll go over the menus tomorrow and leave Friday as soon as we’re packed.”

  So that was that. Once again, Marnie thought unhappily, she was living dangerously. Although it was a big park and there was no real likelihood that she’d meet up with Cal and Kit.

  When the four of them registered at the park headquarters on Friday evening, Marnie saw with a sinking heart that the campsite next to the one they’d be occupying Saturday and Sunday nights was assigned to a C. Huntingdon, party of two. Both campsites were near a small cliff that she’d climbed in the past and intended to climb again this weekend. It must be pure coincidence that Cal had ended up with the adjacent site because theirs was listed under Don’s name, and Cal would have no reason to connect a Donald Whiteley with Marnie.

  Damn Cal anyway, she thought, and signed the registration form with an angry flourish.

  The two men had gone to the washroom. “What’s the matter?” Christine asked with rather overdone innocence.

  Marnie’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who registered us. Chris, how could you have put us next to Cal?”

  “It was easy, actually. I just asked.”

  “You’re pushing your luck!”

  “I can’t stand seeing you so miserable. Maybe you could try drowning in front of him so that he’ll rush to your rescue and realize he’s madly in love with you.”

  “Maybe you should try minding your own business.”

  Chris wailed, “I only want you to be happy.”

  Marnie, of course, wanted the same thing. But she didn’t think camping next door to Cal and Kit was the way to achieve it.

  They stayed on the shore that night since it was too dark by then to cross the lake. On Saturday, they paddled to their other site, which was tucked among the trees on a small peninsula, with a good breeze to keep the flies away. Cal’s campsite was quite a distance away; Marnie saw no sign of him or Kit that morning and in the afternoon did her climb.

  At sunset, she and Don’s brother, William, who was as chubby as Don was lean, took her canoe out on the lake. William wanted to learn some bow strokes, so Marnie steered him among the rocks, showing how the draws and pries worked. He was slashing away at the water with more enthusiasm than accuracy, Marnie steadying the canoe from the stern, when around a rim of boulders came a sleek cedar-strip canoe, the gunwale keeled over almost to water level, a man kneeling amidships; the last rays of the sun lit his bare chest and thighs with gold. His hair was black, his eyes like shadowed pits.

  Marnie almost dropped her paddle. The breeze swung the bow around and William yelled, “There’s a big mother of a rock straight ahead.”

  Hastily, Marnie did a J-stroke. Trying to look calm and unflappable, she said, “Good evening, Cal.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CAL brought his canoe to a swirling halt, impaling Marnie with a look of such hostility that for a moment her heart quailed. Then he transferred the hostility to William and demanded, “Is this the friend you were going climbing with in Cape Breton?”

  Ridiculous, Marnie thought, a scene right out of True Confessions. Discovering that no matter how alienated she felt from Cal she didn’t want him thinking she and William were a number, she said spiritedly, “William is my best friend Christine’s fiancé’s brother, who arrived from Toronto on Friday morning and who’s going back to Toronto on Tuesday. He can climb in and out of a canoe. Just.”

  William said, “You left out the separate tents, Marnie.”

  “So I did. Thank you, William,” Marnie said composedly.

  William then glanced from Cal back to Marnie. “I gather you two know each other.”

  “You could say so,” Cal snapped.

  “Why don’t I jump overboard and swim back? That way you can be alone together,” William said helpfully.

  “Stay put,” Marnie said with ferocious emphasis. “I’m a mistake Cal made—he doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “That’s about as far from the truth as you’re likely to hear, William,” Cal snorted, sculling with his paddle to bring the two canoes closer.

  “Where’s Kit?” Marnie asked with a mutinous toss of her curls.

  “Back at the campsite cooking supper. She’s a much better basketball player than a cook, so I’m trying to work up an appetite.”

  Marnie was too flustered to bother with a minor detail like discretion. Giving his naked torso the once-over, she announced, “You’re working up other appetites. In me. Not that that could possibly interest you.”

  “Wrong again,” Cal said bitterly. “That particular appetite never lets up, night or day.”

  “But you’ve decided we shouldn’t do anything about it.”

  “Marnie,” Cal exploded, “Kit exists and she doesn’t want
you replacing her mother. You know that as well as I do. I had to back off!”

  “Sex should never have been invented!”

  Cal said an unprintable word, bringing his canoe around in a flurry of spray. “Nice meeting you, William. I bet you’ll find Toronto dull after Sandy Lake and make bloody sure the tents stay separate.”

  William said with genuine amusement, “I wouldn’t dare do otherwise. When are you two going to figure out that you’re in love with each other?” Then, with a cherubic smile, he did a vigorous forward stroke and sailed past Cal.

  “We are not!” Marnie choked, and dug her paddle into the water with vicious strength.

  If Cal said anything in reply, she didn’t hear it. But the image of his dark-pelted chest and narrow hips had burned itself into her brain, and a nasty combination of physical longing and sheer misery kept her awake for a long time after darkness fell. Kit was avoiding her like the plague; Cal desired her yet wished her a million miles away. No wonder she was turning into an insomniac.

  But William was wrong. She wasn’t in love with Cal. Or he with her.

  By eight-thirty the next morning, feeling grumpy and heavy-eyed, Marnie was in the stern of her canoe attempting to show William, who was in the water, how to get back into the boat. His attempts made the canoe rock and sway. “If you dump me,” she said, “I’ll never let you hear the last of it—not like that, William!”

  “Marnie!”

  Marnie’s head slewed around; it was Cal’s voice, raw with urgency. With a jar to her nerves, she saw him standing on the beach, breathing hard as though he’d been running. He was wearing the same blue shorts he’d had on last night. She said sharply, “Let go, William,” and raced her canoe to shore, jumping out into the shallows and hauling the bow up on the sand. “What’s wrong?”

  Cal said in a strained voice, “When I woke up this morning, I found a note from Kit saying she’d gone to climb the cliff back of the campsites, so I went over there as fast as I could. She’s got herself stuck halfway up. She can’t go up or down and there’s no one else there. You’ve got to help her, Marnie.”

  Kit in danger. Marnie’s heart gave a great thud in her chest and for a moment her throat closed with terror. “Two seconds,” she gasped, then hurried to her tent. She dragged on shorts and a T-shirt over her bikini, thrust her feet into sneakers and grabbed her climbing bag. Then she backed out of the tent. “Let’s go.”

  The two of them ran down the path, taking the narrow trail that led to the cliff, Cal in the lead. He was setting a killing pace; she wasn’t sure she’d ever forget the look on his face when he told her about Kit’s predicament.

  Nothing must happen to Kit. Nothing.

  There was a boggy area at the base of the cliff, where rhodora bloomed in purple profusion and mosquitoes bred in equal profusion. Marnie saw Kit immediately. The girl had sensibly tackled the easiest slope but had run into difficulties near an overhang and lacked the skills to go either forward or backward. She was now splayed against the rock in a position that put maximum strain on her arms and hands.

  If she fell, she could do herself a lot of damage.

  She’s not going to fall. I won’t let her.

  Marnie bent to put on her climbing shoes. “Don’t worry, Cal, I’ll get her down from there in no time.”

  He said hoarsely, “I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to her. She’s the one who wanted us to camp at this end of the lake—we usually go near the stillwater. She must’ve planned this all along. I was just too stupid to catch on.”

  Marnie stuck her bare foot into her second shoe. “She’ll be fine. I promise.”

  “Last Wednesday,” he went on in the same hoarse voice, “the way I felt with you in bed—it was earth-shattering, turned my whole world upside down. Scared the hell out of me. So I backed off. Yeah, it had a lot to do with Kit. But it had to do with me, as well. Being terrified of losing you if once I gave in to the way you make me feel. Just like I’m terrified of losing Kit right now.”

  Marnie straightened. She couldn’t begin to take in what he’d just said, not when she needed all her focus on the job at hand. “We can’t talk about it now,” she said tightly. “I have to get Kit down as quickly as I can.” It was one thing to tackle a climb on her own; quite another to rescue her own daughter. She turned her back on him, forcing herself to assess the rock face for the best route.

  “Aren’t you going to take any ropes?”

  “No need.”

  “What if you fall?”

  “Cal, I won’t fall and neither will Kit. Trust me.” Which was an all-important statement if ever there was one, she thought, and deliberately put Cal out of her mind.

  Having made a decision about her route, Marnie started to climb, continually searching for holds, her body moving with confidence and a kind of elegance up the granite slope, almost as though she were an extension of the rock, a creature whose natural element was granite.

  When she was within easy earshot of Kit, she called, “Hang in there—another few minutes.”

  Kit said nothing.

  Marnie brought herself level with the girl, then traversed toward her along a ledge, crossing one foot behind the other. She smiled at Kit, who looked very relieved to see her and thoroughly ashamed of herself. Marnie said, “If you only had that one lesson, you did well to get as far as this.”

  Kit looked startled; plainly she’d expected a scolding. “But I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Probably not, especially on your own. It’s only the past couple of years I’ve started to go solo. For starters, how about if you take a little rest?”

  “My arms are aching,” Kit said in a rush. “And my fingers hurt.”

  “That’s because you’re putting too much strain on them. Transfer all your weight to your left foot and really dig it into the rock. That way it’ll stick. And keep your heel down—it’s easier on your leg muscles that way. Bring your other foot up to that little ledge…feel it? You’re doing great.” Kit did as she was told, her face intent in a way Marnie found heartening. In the same easy voice, Marnie said, “Now bring your hands down one by one to the same crack I’m holding…got that? And last of all, move your hips away from the rock—that way you’re balanced over your feet and legs.”

  As Kit awkwardly obeyed her, her expression changed. “Wow,” she said, “what a difference—I can really feel it!”

  Marnie laughed. “You’re a natural. But you were making a common mistake for beginners—not letting your legs bear most of the weight. Hauling yourself up by your arms defeats the strongest of climbers.”

  Kit looked over at Marnie, studying her stance. “Your hands are down low,” she said. “Mine were way over my head.”

  “Low works much better. Helps me to remember to look down for holds. Not up.”

  “I’ve got a lot to learn.”

  “You think I haven’t?” Marnie grinned. “Feeling better? Ready to head back down?”

  “Yeah,” Kit said. “Will you keep on showing me what to do? It’s cool.”

  “Of course I will.”

  Suiting her actions to her words, Marnie began a series of calm-voiced directions, always keeping level with Kit as she pointed out possible holds, insistent that the girl keep her body in balance over the rock. When they took another short rest about halfway down, Kit said humbly, “I’m not nearly as tired as I was—I was making some pretty dumb moves.”

  “But you’re willing to learn from your mistakes. Which is probably one of the most valuable assets any climber can have.”

  Kit shifted her fingers, pressing her palm into the rock face as Marnie had shown her. Then she said very fast, looking straight at Marnie, “I’ve been a real jerk since I met you…I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, Kit,” Marnie said helplessly.

  “You’re neat,” Kit said. “Real neat. C’n we start over?”

  “We sure can,” Marnie said. “I’d like that.”

  Kit gave her a dazzling smile.
“Great! Now we’d better get down before Dad has a heart attack.”

  Marnie laughed. “Right on. Why don’t you see if you can find the next toehold yourself?”

  Frowning in concentration, obviously going over in her head everything Marnie had told her, Kit did a creditable job with her next holds. The slope was leveling out; nevertheless, Marnie was pleased to see that Kit didn’t rush the last few feet. Finally, they were both standing on flat ground. Kit turned around to face her father. “Sorry, Dad,” she said.

  In a cracked voice, Cal said, “You’re safe,” and took her in his arms.

  He was white about the mouth. Considering his phobia for heights, Marnie knew it must have been torture for him to watch the two of them inching down the slope. Then Kit raised her head. “Dad,” the girl said, “I want to take climbing lessons.”

  “Oh, God,” Cal groaned.

  “With Marnie, if she wants to,” Kit said, her brown eyes full of pleading as she looked over her shoulder at the woman watching them.

  “I’d love to teach you,” Marnie said truthfully. “But it’s up to your father.”

  Cal took a long breath and exhaled it, moving his shoulders to rid them of tension. He looked down at his daughter. “You liked that? Being stuck halfway up a cliff? Clawing your way down by your fingernails?”

  “I didn’t like being stuck and not knowing what to do. But Marnie showed me such a lot. It’s cool, Dad. Awesome. Better than basketball.”

  Cal swallowed. “If you really want to, I guess you can.”

  Kit squeezed him hard, giving a whoop of pleasure. Then she wriggled free of his embrace and walked over to Marnie. Standing tall, she said seriously, “Thank you, Marnie.”

  Instinctively, Marnie knew what to do. As she held out her arms, Kit walked into them. Marnie dropped her cheek onto Kit’s bright curls and closed her eyes, knowing she’d longed for this moment for nearly thirteen years, all the while never believing it could possibly happen.