Firstborn

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  A synthesized bing announced the arrival of new customers. Erika’s gaze was drawn toward the door. And there was Paula Hurst, hanging on the arm of Warren Carmichael, the CEO of a major Northwestern grocery chain. Erika knew his name because she’d seen him in countless television ads during the past year.

  Paula’s throaty laughter carried across the coffee shop to the corner where Erika sat. Erika felt a breathless moment of surprise, followed by a sudden certainty of what was before her. There was no mistaking the intimate nature of Paula’s touch or the expression on her face. These weren’t business associates meeting over coffee.

  Erika sucked in a tiny breath, not sure what to do, wanting to look away, yet unable to make herself do so.

  As if hearing the sound, Paula glanced in her direction.

  Oh, the absolute finesse, the stunning self-assurance in the way Paula disengaged herself from her lover and made her way between the tables toward Erika and Barb.

  “Hello, Erika.”

  “Paula.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”

  No, I don’t suppose you did.

  “Are you planning to come to our Fourth of July bash? We didn’t get your RSVP.”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Paula’s smile was artificially sweet. “Why, it wouldn’t be the same without you and Steven. You know that. You’ve simply got to come.”

  Everybody who was anybody in Idaho—corporation presidents and chief financial officers, mayors from towns throughout the Treasure Valley, state senators and representatives, the governor and his wife— attended Mr. and Mrs. Dallas Hurst’s annual Fourth of July celebration. It was the event of the summer. Erika had always felt out of place among all the dignitaries and powermongers, but she’d gone because the Hursts were their friends.

  “I’ll check with Steven and let you know,” she said.

  Paula glanced over her shoulder. “Well, I’d better get back to business. Mr. Carmichael and I are finalizing the details for a multimillion-dollar complex.” She looked at Erika again. “No rest for the wicked, as my grandmother used to say.”

  Erika watched the younger woman walk away, then lowered her eyes, whispering, “Not this, too.”

  Steven had accomplished absolutely nothing that morning. All he could think about was his fight with Erika. It kept replaying and replaying in his mind, like a horror movie on late-night TV.

  Why was it that he could so clearly see the mistakes of his actions, his words, even his feelings, and yet do nothing about them?

  He left his office, too restless to sit still another moment. He was already out the front door of the school before he saw Dallas, leaning against his Lexus that was parked at the curb. Steven hadn’t seen his friend since the day he’d gone to Hurst Technology to apologize. He’d hoped time and space would change the way he felt. It hadn’t.

  Dallas straightened. “Got a minute?”

  Steven stopped but didn’t answer.

  “I told Paula I want to meet Kirsten.”

  Steven clenched his teeth.

  “The idea went over like a lead balloon,” Dallas went on.

  Steven wanted to hit him again. He’d like to smash a fist right into his friend’s pearly whites.

  Only maybe they weren’t friends. Maybe they hadn’t been for a long, long time. Or ever. Would a friend do what Dallas had done? Not in Steven’s book.

  “Have you met her?” Dallas asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “She came to dinner yesterday.”

  “How did it go?”

  It was better not to answer, Steven thought. It was better not to admit how much he’d hated having the girl in his home, at his table, how much he’d hated seeing Ethan’s easy way with Kirsten, how much he’d hated seeing Erika’s hopeful expression, how much he’d hated knowing that she loved her daughter, a daughter who wasn’t his.

  “I wanted kids,” Dallas said. “I’ve wanted kids of my own for a long time. I just never expected it to happen like this.” He muttered a curse. “She’s only eight years younger than Paula. Did you know that?”

  Sure, he knew. How could he not know, when he’d thought of little other than Kirsten for days on end?

  Steven’s stomach churned. He rubbed his sweaty palms against his slacks and tried to think of something to say to the man who’d slept with his wife.

  He winced inwardly, as he always did at the thought.

  Years ago. It happened years ago. You’re supposed to forgive them.

  Forgiveness was a decision, not a feeling. He’d come to believe that as he’d studied the Bible. He’d believed it for years. He’d even taught it when he led an adult Sunday school class a few years back.

  So why couldn’t he make that decision now?

  “Look,” Steven said gruffly, “I’ve got to get someplace, and I’m running late. We’ll have to talk about this some other time.”

  “Sure.” Dallas’s eyes said he knew it was a lie. Steven had no intention of talking about it later.

  Steven walked away with long, hurried strides.

  Feeling like a condemned prisoner on her way to the gallows, Erika stood on the sidewalk leading up to the front door of her father’s house. God, give me courage.

  She’d told her best friend. She planned to tell her pastor. Now it was time to tell her father.

  Drawing a shaky breath, she moved up the walk and rang the bell, then waited. Except in a dire emergency, she wouldn’t consider using her key to this lock. Her father had only agreed to give it to her after he fell two years ago and she’d come to look after him while he was laid up with a bum leg.

  The door opened, and her father frowned out at her.

  “Erika.” Trevor James glanced toward the street, then back at his daughter. “What’re you doing here this time of day?”

  Butterflies bounced off the lining of her stomach. “Morning, Dad.”

  He grunted—a welcome of sorts—opened the door wider, turned, and walked away, leaving Erika to follow after him.

  The ground floor of her girlhood home was not more than nine hundred square feet in size. It had a small living room, a breakfast nook off the tiny kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath. The laundry was in the unfinished basement, along with the furnace and the curtained-off corner that Grams had called her room when she’d lived there.

  Erika noticed the threadbare spots in the gray wool carpet in the living room. She had been in junior high when it was installed. The wallpaper throughout the house was in worse shape, yellowed and curling in all the corners. Erika had pleaded with her father to allow her to strip the walls and paint them. He’d vetoed the idea on more than one occasion. He’d never given her a reason why, but it wasn’t because he couldn’t afford to make some improvements.

  Her dad sat in his La-Z-Boy recliner and picked up that morning’s edition of the Idaho Statesman, snapping open the local section and beginning to read.

  The gesture stung—as his rejections always did.

  Erika sat on the sofa. “I came to talk to you.”

  He glanced over the top of the page.

  “It’s important, Dad.”

  He refolded the newspaper and gave her a long-suffering look.

  Why does he have to be so impossible? Would it be too much to ask that he love his own daughter?

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “I have something difficult to say. Something from a long time ago, but it’s going to affect all of us a lot from now on.” She licked her lips, her mouth and throat bone dry. She considered going to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  “Spit it out, girl. I haven’t got all day.”

  February 1973

  “Turn around,” Mommy said, “and let me have a look at you.”

  Erika was happy to pirouette for her mother, especially in her new taffeta dress.

  “You look so pretty, honey. We’d better go show Daddy.”

  Erika’s smile slipped a lit
tle. She’d heard her parents arguing last night about her birthday party. Daddy hadn’t been happy about the money Mommy spent. It seemed like they argued about a lot of things.

  Mommy put an arm around Erika’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Don’t think badly of your daddy, Erika. He doesn’t mean to sound so gruff.”

  “Then why does he?”

  Mommy knelt on the floor. “It’s hard to understand adult things when you’re just turning ten, but maybe you can understand a little. Daddy’s worried about his job. There hasn’t been a lot of work for him lately, and he isn’t making as much money as he used to. He’s afraid he won’t be able to provide for us.”

  “Can’t he write another check?”

  “If only it were that easy,” Mommy answered softly.

  It seemed easy enough to Erika. If that’s what would make Daddy smile once in a while, she thought he ought to do it. Her best friend’s daddy didn’t growl at his family the way Erika’s did. Anna’s daddy teased Anna and her brother, and he kissed their mommy, and he smiled a lot. He even played dolls with Anna when she asked him to.

  The thought of asking her daddy to play with her made Erika’s stomach feel funny.

  Mommy gave her a hug. “We need to just love Daddy a lot. Okay?”

  “Maybe he’d be happier if he went with Grams and us to church sometimes. Everybody smiles there.”

  “Yes, they do, don’t they?” But Mommy’s own smile looked kind of sad to Erika. “I wish your daddy believed.” She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “It’s important to know Jesus, Erika. There’s nothing more important than—”

  The doorbell rang, interrupting her mother’s words, and Erika squealed with excitement. Her birthday guests were arriving. There would be games and presents and cake and ice cream, and that was what seemed most important to Erika right now.

  Even her daddy’s scowls couldn’t spoil things for her today.

  Twenty-four

  On her lunch hour the first day on her new job, Kirsten went for a walk on the Greenbelt, a pathway that followed the Boise River for miles, right through the heart of the city. Ancient trees—cottonwoods, box elders, birch—with gnarled trunks and leafy branches shaded the cyclists, skateboarders, and joggers from the hot July sun, the air cooled by a gentle breeze off the river’s surface.

  Kirsten’s pace was more leisurely than most. She wanted to take in all the sights and sounds. Already, she’d seen two raccoons, countless squirrels, an industrious beaver, and what she thought was a fox, although she supposed it could have been a small dog. She had been told if she kept a sharp lookout, she might even see an occasional bald eagle, bear, or bobcat.

  Now those were things she’d never stumbled upon in Philadelphia.

  Her wireless phone played the William Tell Overture, drawing the gazes of others on the path. Kirsten answered it quickly. “Hello?”

  “Kirsten? It’s Erika Welby.”

  She stepped off the pathway and sat on an empty park bench. “Oh. Hello.”

  “Am I calling at a bad time? Are you at work?”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m at lunch.”

  “I was wondering if you’d care to join us for dinner again next Sunday?”

  Care to? Since leaving the Welby house yesterday, Kirsten had thought of countless more questions she wished she’d asked.

  “Before you answer,” Erika continued, “I plan to invite a few more people this time. I don’t know if they’ll be able to come, but I want to ask. If it’s all right with you. And if you can come, of course.”

  “Who else did you want to ask?”

  “Your fa—” She broke off, then continued, “Dallas Hurst and his wife. And your grandfather and great-grandmother.”

  My father.

  At home last night, Kirsten had sat in the chair near the phone, the directory open in her lap, images of her father from Erika’s photo album still fresh in her mind. She’d discovered there were thirty Hursts listed in the Boise directory. Dallas Hurst wasn’t one of them. When she’d called information, she was told his number was unlisted.

  “Kirsten?” Erika said. “Will you come?”

  “I’ll be there,” she answered softly. “Can I bring anything?”

  “There is one thing, if you don’t mind.”

  Kirsten hoped the ingredients wouldn’t cost too much or be too difficult to prepare.

  “Do you have any photographs?”

  “Sorry. What?”

  “Photos, from when you were little.”

  “A few,” she answered.

  The Lundquists hadn’t owned a camera while Kirsten was growing up. Her mother had always said she was going to buy one, but year after year went by and she never did. There was always something else they’d needed more. All Kirsten had were some school photos and a few snapshots taken by the mothers of friends.

  “Bring them with you,” Erika said. “Please.”

  “Okay. If I can find them. They’re still in a box someplace.”

  “Well, if you can find them, then.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, just bring yourself. Come at one and we’ll plan to eat at two.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good-bye, Kirsten. See you Sunday.”

  “Yeah. See you Sunday.”

  Kirsten pressed the End button, then realized there were tears in her eyes.

  Photos. Photographs that showed her childhood, her life. Erika wanted to see them. But Kirsten realized she was ashamed at what little she had to show compared to Erika’s large album. In addition to a number of snapshots of Dallas Hurst with various members of the Welby family, she’d seen photos of Ethan’s growing-up years. Ethan as a toddler. Ethan with a missing front tooth. Ethan as the lead in a school play, wearing a ridiculous Sherlock Holmes costume. Ethan playing golf with his dad. Ethan’s baptism, the boy surrounded by his family. Ethan on a trip to Mexico with the youth from his church.

  She couldn’t help wondering what it might have been like to see similar photos—photos of her—inside Erika Welby’s large album.

  What if…

  But Kirsten knew there were no answers to the what-if’s in life. It was better not to let herself wonder.

  Twenty-five

  The annual Hurst Fourth of July celebration was its usual enormous success. The house and yard overflowed with people, drinks, and food. Paula was in her element, flirting and laughing with the men, gossiping with the women. Dallas played the crowd like a politician the week before an election. But in the end, after everyone was gone and the clean-up crew drove off with several pickup loads full of trash bags, Dallas was left feeling empty and low.

  As he wandered through the house, checking the locks on the windows and doors before activating the security system, he wondered if he was merely exhausted or if what troubled him was the absence of the Welbys. They hadn’t missed a Fourth at his house since the very first one.

  Or maybe it was something else entirely. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  He supposed he could blame Kirsten Lundquist. If not for her unexpected appearance, things wouldn’t be so tense between him and Paula. Nor would he be on the outs with his best friend in the world.

  But he thought it was something more than that.

  Lately, he hadn’t taken the same pleasure in beating out his closest competitors for a new contract. He didn’t feel the same excitement when faced with a new challenge. There just seemed to be something missing from his life.

  Kids. He’d wanted kids of his own. He still did. But his gut told him even children wouldn’t fill this strange void.

  Maybe I’m just getting old.

  Dallas climbed the stairs, deciding it might help his mood if he could resolve things with his wife.

  He knew she wasn’t asleep, although she pretended to be as he slipped into bed beside her. He could tell by the stiff set of her shoulders as she lay on her right side, her back turned toward him. He could tell by the forced steadiness of he
r breathing.

  “Paula?”

  No response.

  He rolled onto his right side. “Paula, we need to talk.”

  Still nothing.

  “I’m going to Steve and Erika’s Sunday.”

  She held her breath.

  “I want you to go with me.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  He considered her comment for a few seconds, then said, “No, I’m not.”

  “This isn’t right.” She rolled onto her back, turning her head toward him. “Why can’t you understand that?”

  “Explain it to me.”

  She swore softly. “Why should I bother? It’ll be like talking to a brick wall. You don’t care what I think. My opinions don’t matter. You’ve made up your mind, so go.”

  “I want you with me.”

  “No.”

  “Please. You’re my wife. They’re your friends.”

  “They’re not my friends. They’re yours. Erika hasn’t ever liked me.”

  “Why would you say that?” He gently placed his hand on her shoulder.

  She jerked away from him, turning onto her right side again, her rejection final.

  Dallas stared at the ceiling.

  Lately, being with Paula was like stepping into a deep freeze. He couldn’t think of another time when things had been this bad between them. They’d had their share of ups and downs, sure. What couple didn’t? But something told him this was different.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe he shouldn’t meet Kirsten.

  But the girl claimed to be his daughter. His daughter, for crying out loud. He had to at least meet her, if only for curiosity’s sake. Paula ought to be able to understand that.

  What difference would it make to them in the long run? It wasn’t as though he were bringing home a toddler in diapers for Paula to raise. Kirsten was a grown woman. According to Erika, she had a job and a place to live. She didn’t appear to be in Boise to make trouble. Erika promised the girl wasn’t after his money, which seemed to be what Paula feared more than anything.