Apparently, Mercedes shared his opinion. She promptly set out the folding chair Wayne had carried and sat down. From her black bag came a half-finished quilt with a section clamped in some sort of frame. Her needle began flying in and out faster than he could follow.
Wayne got the job of climbing the tree and pushing the children out on the rope so they’d go higher and faster than they would on their own.
“He’s a good sport,” Brandon said, glancing at the branch above their heads. He’d had a slight case of vertigo since the chemotherapy and didn’t relish the idea of climbing the tree at all.
“Wayne’s always been a good father.”
I can be, too, Brandon wanted to say, but that would sound petty. Like a child trying to best another one.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!” screamed Joseph as he slipped from the rope into the water. He came up gasping. “Cold!”
Darrel laughed from the tree limb. “You wanted to be first.”
“Me next!” Scott cried.
“I’d better go wait for you in the water, just in case,” Darrel said.
“Okay,” Scott said, as Darrel climbed down the tree and jumped into the cold water to wait for his little brother.
Brandon tore his eyes away from his son. “He’s so . . . wonderful.”
Mercedes smiled. “Yes, he is. Well, they have their moments of fighting like all brothers, but he’s really matured a lot in the past year.”
“You’ve done a great job with him.”
“Thank you.” Her face creased with worry, and Brandon wished . . . What? Well, that he wasn’t the cause of so much heartache. Or at least that they could leave it for another day. This place held good memories for them. Couldn’t she feel that? Couldn’t she leave the present for an instant and remember?
“Brandon, don’t you dare!” Mercedes struggled in his arms. “If you throw me in, I swear I’ll drown you. Don’t think I won’t!” He tickled her, causing her giggles to change into shrieks of laughter. Then he tossed her into the river.
“You’ll pay for this!” Mercedes said when she came up gasping.
“She sounds serious.” This from his buddy Rob, a fellow resident, who sat with the others on the bank.
“I’ll help her.” Sandra, Rob’s date, launched toward Brandon, grabbing his arm.
“So will I.” Micky took Brandon’s other arm. She was bigger than Sandra, and her hands were strong from the daily work she did as a nurse at the hospital. It was all he could do to fend them off.
“Oh my, look at that,” said Micky’s husband, Chad. Everyone looked down the river in the direction he pointed, and in that moment Chad pushed both his wife and Brandon into the river.
Screaming and water-choked giggles filled the air.
“That’s it, Chad!” Micky shouted. “I want a divorce.”
Chad pulled her from the water. “Never.” He kissed her deeply while everyone hooted.
“Okay, okay,” Sandra said. “Knock it off, you two. Chad, you’re forgiven already. Can’t you tell by that kiss?”
“Well, at least I’ll wait until his residency is over,” Micky said, wrapping her arms lovingly around her husband. “That way there’ll be more money.” No one paid the threat any mind. The two had been married three years and were practically inseparable.
Still in the river, Brandon felt himself being pushed under the water. “I told you I’d drown you.” Mercedes was laughing, and he was surprised at how strong she actually was. Farm girl. He should have known. But she let him up after only a brief dunking. “Promise to be good?”
He took her in his arms. “Do I have to?”
“Of course. I only show good boys how to use the swing. Come on.” She slipped from his arms.
Afterwards they all lay on the bank, talking and eating. It was the first of several wonderful days with the group at the river, but Mercedes never took Brandon there alone. Not since that first time when Wayne had found them there together.
“Remember Rob and Chad and the girls?” he asked.
“Michelle—Micky, I mean—and . . .” She clicked her fingers. “The girl from admissions. What was her name? Sandra, I think. Yeah, that’s it.”
“I seem to remember you dunking me.”
She laughed exactly as she had in his memory of that day. “You threw me into the water. You deserved everything you got.”
“Couldn’t be me. Residents don’t do stuff like that. They need to protect their hands.”
“Oh, never the residents. Not them.” She rolled her eyes. “You guys were so full of yourselves.”
“Those were fun times.”
“I used to wonder when you’d all wake up and realize that I didn’t work at the hospital like you all did.”
“Are you kidding? That was what was so fun.” Brandon pulled a piece of new grass from the bank. “We were all so boring, but you had studied so many things, and you owned a farm.”
“Well, not me exactly, though I do own it now.”
They were quiet for a moment, watching the boys play. Brandon studied her face, now peaceful instead of worried. He was glad he still had the power to do that much. She smiled at something Scott was doing, and Brandon saw fine lines at the corners of her eyes, reminding him of the years that had passed. So much had happened to both of them.
“I heard about your daughter,” he said quietly. He wondered if the child had taken after Mercedes, as Darrel had, or if she resembled her father.
Mercedes’ needle stopped. She turned her face slowly in his direction, her smile becoming wistful. “Lucy.”
“What was she like?”
“She was . . . a fireball. Even had her daddy’s red hair. She got her way with all of us, knew exactly what she wanted. Always wanted to do everything herself.”
He understood without her saying that losing Lucy had been bad. Worse than being deserted by him? Worse than being alone to give birth to a fatherless baby? He thought it must have been much worse, and yet throughout the ordeal she’d had the support of Wayne and the children. He hoped that had made Lucy’s passing more bearable.
“What happened? I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it . . .”
She swallowed several times. “Maybe it’s something you should hear. For a year after her death I blamed you.”
He sat up. “But I wasn’t here.”
“Exactly.”
What was she saying?
When she saw that he didn’t understand, she continued. “She had a heart defect. The doctors tried everything, but they couldn’t save her. They gave her two weeks to six months if we didn’t find a donor heart. I knew you had planned to do research on the heart, so I looked you up on the Internet. I found an article that said you’d made great progress with children like Lucy. I thought if I called you . . .” She shrugged and looked down at the quilt in her hands. The needle started moving as though of its own accord, and the growing tenseness in her face relaxed slightly. “I did a bit of searching, found the number and called, but I couldn’t get through. For weeks I called, left at least a dozen messages. They said you were out of the country and they would pass on my message to you later. I begged them to give me your contact information there, or call you and tell them who I was. I thought because you knew me, because of what we’d been to each other . . .” She glanced over at the boys to make sure they were all out of hearing range. “I was even prepared to tell you about Darrel, so you’d help.”
It took a moment to sink in that she had thought he might have needed an incentive to help her. Did she think he had cared so little? He found it suddenly difficult to breathe properly. He remembered being in Brazil around that time on a charity mission, principally to do heart work on patients who didn’t mind being the first to receive his new, unproven treatments because they were dying anyway. He’d accomplished a lot of good there. When he returned to the States, the hospital had told him a lady had called repeatedly, but he’d been so busy he’d never followed up. She hadn’t called again. A few
months later he’d been diagnosed with stomach cancer, and his whole life had changed.
“The last time I called,” Mercedes went on, struggling to keep her face impassive, “I told them not to bother telling you. I knew it was too late. She died that night.” A single tear escaped down her left cheek. Mercedes didn’t look at him but concentrated on her needle as though it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.
“And I failed you again.” The enormity of missing those calls washed over Brandon. He stared at her miserably, wanting more than anything to wipe the sadness from her face, to comfort her in his arms. But he’d given up that right on the day he left, or maybe even before that when he failed to put her welfare before his own in their relationship.
The needle hesitated as Mercedes’ eyes met his and held. “You might not have been able to do anything. Besides, you didn’t owe me.”
“On the contrary. I’ll owe you forever. For Darrel.”
“You can’t take him.” More tears flooded her eyes, and her voice was low and urgent. “I know you have a lot of money, and I know you could sue for partial custody. But please, don’t think about taking him away from here. Let him have an untroubled childhood. He deserves that much.”
Brandon was saved from answering as a big splash drew their attention. Wayne had joined the boys in the water. “Hey,” he called to them, “it ain’t half bad.” Arcing his hand across the water, he sent out a spray of droplets that pelted Mercedes and Brandon.
Mercedes wiped her face with the edge of her quilt and laughed. Brandon could no longer tell her tears from the water. “Wayne, you aren’t dressed for swimming,” Mercedes said as he swam to the bank.
“So what? Aren’t you going to join me?”
She looked down at her jeans and T-shirt. “Dressed like this?”
“That never stopped you before.” There was a playfulness in Wayne’s tone that belied his age, a tone Brandon had heard hinted at that morning in the fields. Rising from her chair, Mercedes set aside the quilt and met him at the bank. Wayne touched her chin, bringing his lips briefly to hers, and Brandon had the sense they’d completely forgotten him.
Yet he remembered all too vividly a day when his role and Wayne’s had been reversed in this very place. He’d been the one with Mercedes and Wayne the one on the outside.
He had to look away.
In a few seconds the private moment was over, so brief that it hadn’t been anything to speak of—or wouldn’t have been if Brandon’s heart had been in the right place. But he found he envied Wayne and, yes, Mercedes for the life they had together.
He’s my son, he told her silently. That counts for something.
He couldn’t—wouldn’t—let anyone take that away from him.
Chapter 10
Diary of Mercedes Walker
October 1, 1994
Brandon has been sending me roses almost every day all week. That’s because I broke up with him. But I’m going to make up with him because it’s been the longest, most dreadful week of my life. I even went out to the farm alone. Daddy was there, and he started complaining about how I never cleaned the place. I don’t even live there! That didn’t mean anything to Daddy, though. I thought he was going to hit me, but Wayne walked in the room and asked me to come out to the barn to see a cut on the cow’s side that she got from barbed wire somewhere. He said he was worried about it getting infected, but I know he said it only to get me away from Daddy. I hate him. Daddy, not Wayne. I’m glad Brandon seems to have realized how important I am in his life. Maybe now he’ll finally get down to asking me to marry him.
The next morning Brandon hurt more than he’d ever hurt in his entire life. If he’d thought his muscles ached yesterday, today every movement was pure torture. How would he ever be able to work two more days in the field? Wayne was like a machine in his ability to endure, and Brandon felt like a weak child around him. Maybe in the old days of all-nighters at the hospital, Brandon could have kept up, or maybe before the cancer he’d have been able to muster more energy, but he’d grown soft in the past years. Worse than a child. Darrel had shown no signs of overexertion.
Brandon had thought at least he’d be far ahead intellectually, but Wayne and Darrel had read a lot together and were well versed on many subjects. Gone were the days of the stereotypical uneducated farmer, at least where Wayne was concerned. And his intuition was uncanny, something Brandon wouldn’t have believed possible. It was similar to Brandon’s ability to feel his way through a heart operation in a way that gave the patient a greater chance of survival. He’d long ago accepted this “knowing” as part of his profession, though not all doctors he’d worked with possessed it, but that farming should have an equivalent was not something he’d ever considered. Did every profession have such a thing? Writing? Construction work? Mail delivery? No, he couldn’t believe it. That would mean he wasn’t unique, as he’d always believed.
Mercedes, if she could see his thoughts, would say his ego was showing again. Hannah might say the same thing. Good thing he was alone to nurse both his thoughts and his aching body.
The only reason Brandon figured he was alive at all this dreadful morning was that yesterday afternoon Wayne had sent both him and Darrel back to the house early. “I don’t like him to have to spend all his Saturday out here working,” Wayne had said, as he refilled the planting drill with seed. “And you’ve no reason to be here if Darrel isn’t.” Brandon had been grateful and took his leave without even glimpsing Mercedes again. At least she wouldn’t guess what a wimp he’d become.
His first course of business now was to take something for the pain and then to soak in a hot bath. Tomorrow he’d call his attorney and start feeling out his options. Mercedes wouldn’t likely concede anything except permission to visit Darrel at the farm, but he wouldn’t settle for that. He craved more. He’d missed out on the first twelve years of his son’s life, and he wasn’t about to let more time escape them. He wanted to have a say in his son’s future, to be seen as more than a family friend. Surely custody on holidays and summers would be a fair agreement, and California held a lot of wonders for a boy his age. Perhaps Darrel would choose to attend high school there. Or at least a university. For a moment Brandon lost himself in the vision of himself and Darrel, sitting by the sea and talking about Brandon’s growing up years. Of course, the only way Darrel would ever care about Brandon’s stories was if he knew the truth.
But first Brandon had to get his foot in the door.
And make it through these next days at the farm without making a fool of himself.
Or dying.
His throat felt suddenly dry. After the cancer, death jokes didn’t seem so amusing, especially when he told them to himself.
An hour later the phone rang as he was climbing gingerly out of the bath. Pulling on a robe, he hurried to his cell, hoping without real hope that it was Mercedes calling to ask him to dinner. Any time with Darrel would be welcome.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Hannah. Hi.”
“I wanted to see how it was going. Have you resolved anything yet?”
“No, I spent most of yesterday with him. Well, with the family. But nothing’s resolved. I think they’re hoping I’ll just go away, or maybe they plan to work me to death.”
“Work you?”
“It’s planting time, and Darrel’s helping. If I want to be with him, I gotta plant.”
She laughed. “How barbaric. I would give a lot to see that.”
“Every inch of me hurts. But you should see Darrel’s stepdad. He’s impossibly strong. Has the endurance of a bull.”
“Well, you know farmers.”
“That’s just it. He isn’t like any farmer I ever imagined. I thought all they knew were crops, but this guy’s smart. He could have been anything.”
“Apparently, he chose to be a farmer.”
“Apparently.” He stayed where Mercedes was, he added silently. He couldn’t fault Wayne for
that.
“Must like the job.”
“Clean air, hard work, nice family. Why not? I think he really does.”
“You sound almost jealous.”
“There’s a peace in knowing where you belong.” Brandon sat down on his bed, feeling again every sore muscle. “One thing’s sure, I’d never survive this life. Physical work aside, there’s a lot of stress. I gather last year’s crop wasn’t very good, and they have some heavy bills. For the past few years, they’ve been trying their hand at raising cattle, which seems to pay better, but that comes with a whole new set of worries. Do you know they actually immunize cattle against diseases?”
“It’s good for you, the money thing. If they don’t have funds, they won’t want a long court battle, right?”
He’d had the same thought, but hearing it out loud seemed crass somehow, like he was plotting against Mercedes. “I guess. But they do have the farm. I get the sense they’d sell the whole thing if that’s what it took. Then I’ll have been the one to take that from Darrel.”
Hannah was silent for few seconds. “Maybe you can come to a peaceful arrangement.”
“I hope so, because as much as I want my son, I don’t want to hurt them.”
“Them or her?”
Brandon stared down at the quilt on the hotel room bed. He’d thought it beautiful when he’d arrived, but now the varied colors made him dizzy. Hannah’s question had merit. As much as he was growing to respect Wayne, it was Mercedes he didn’t want to hurt. “It would be easier,” he said slowly, “if they were bad parents. But they seem quite perfect. I keep wondering if I could do any better.”
“They’re probably on their best behavior.”
He was relieved that Hannah let him dodge her question. When they were married, she wouldn’t have let him get away so easily. “So am I, I guess. But honestly, they’re just so stinking normal. No dysfunction—not like with my parents.”
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