An Unexpected Addition

by Terese Ramin

  “Used to be, Hank,” she said flatly. “Important distinction. And even when I was, it didn’t mean I was asexual. If I had any impulses, I ignored them because they weren’t part of what I was. And to be perfectly frank, if you didn’t ring my chimes I’d be fine, but you do and just because I want to sleep with you, because I want...to be with you any time I can doesn’t mean I think it’s right, it just means I make the choice every time. I’m a grown-up, I can do that.”

  She held up a hand to stop him when he would have interrupted. “If I wasn’t pregnant the answer might be different, but also if I wasn’t I don’t think the question would be on the table right now. But the fact of the matter is that I am and it colors everything. The way I was taught, the first priority in a marriage should be the marriage, dam it, meaning we have to kind of be able to separate the two. I mean, marriage is a lot of work and so are kids. To go into both at once...” She hunched her shoulders, looked pleadingly at him. “Wouldn’t it be best if we were sure what’s between us first? Not to mention that in this day and age, a woman does not have to be married simply because she’s with child.”

  “True enough,” Hank agreed softly. “But wasn’t that the point of Noah’s Ark? Two by two? Two to make them, two to bring them up?”

  “Ah, geez, don’t get going on the two-by-two routine, Hank. In the nonhuman animal kingdom the father rarely does any of the child-rearing. Primates, maybe some, but mostly it’s the mother there, too.”

  The truth stung. “You don’t believe in Hillary Clinton’s axiom that it takes a village to raise a child? That they become better people the more care and love they have around them? The more people share in their growing?”

  “Sure, but...” She hugged the slight thickening that her tummy had become and turned away. He wanted what he wanted, she knew. He wanted her and the baby and all of them. And he would care for them all, she knew that, too. But marriage was not a windfall, an accident of circumstance, a commitment to take lightly. She couldn’t give him what he asked, not like this. Not without time.

  She shook her head, certain of her own arguments. Certain she loved him, but not certain if she loved him enough—or even, quite that way. Not certain that he loved her as well as he liked her—if at all.

  “We’re not talking about a village here, Hank. It’s more and less than that. You don’t many a village. You marry one other human being and you do it on the premise that it’ll last for life. And the fact is, you don’t have to marry me to be part of our child both legally and emotionally. Bottom line, I may never have borne a child before, but I’ve filled out a lot of birth certificates and I can give this baby any last name I choose, whether it’s yours, mine or the man in the moon’s. But I’ll give it yours, and you’ll sign the papers as the baby’s father with all the legal rights that implies and we’ll go on from there. Simple.”

  “In your dreams,” Hank said flatly, and stalked out.

  Troubled, Kate watched him go. For the first time in the almost eight weeks of her pregnancy, she felt queasy.

  Chapter 15

  The day did not get shorter from that point.

  After he left Kate, Hank avoided Anden stares and speculation and went looking for Megan. His mind was on damage control, his heart was troubled. Along the fringes of conscious thought ran a faint desire to chuck it all and let whatever would be run away with him if he couldn’t run away with it.

  When he found his daughter, Megan took one look at him and ran. He didn’t want to let her go, but she was too old to chase down, toss over his shoulder and tickle until she was ready to listen. She’d been too old for that for a long time.

  So, with communication with Megan stifled by years of restraining the truth and communication with Kate at an impasse, Hank set his back teeth and stubbornly did what he was best at: gathered up all the pieces of the puzzle around him and tucked them away for later perusal, moved forward as best he could.

  He didn’t want to win Megan’s confidence by destroying her image of Gen; as he’d told Kate, it would be almost the same thing as taking Gen away from her a second time. Not to mention it was probably too late for that anyway. Even if Meg decided to believe him, who was to say that she wouldn’t simply hate him all the more for being the bearer of bad tidings, however true?

  No, life, as he’d spent most of his learning, was not as simple as “telling” anybody anything. You had to bring a lot more evidence to any revelation than mere words—the justice system that employed him was ample illustration of that. And even when you had it in spades, evidence often lied or could be doctored, witnesses could be coerced or lose their memories, testimony—like statistics—could be manipulated and shaded to reflect what the defense, the prosecution or the coached witness chose it to reflect.

  Or appear to reflect.

  In a world where Kodak commercials sang about pictures being worth a thousand words, where video-camera enthusiasts intruded everywhere, running rampant in order to capture and “show” everything, and where the axioms “actions speak louder than words” and “show, don’t tell” were preached to children by parents and English teachers, but where most people preferred—and thrived on and lusted after—the “tell all,” Hank was a man who lived the axioms. Words were items that too often got in his way—the way they had with Kate this morning. Words were not the things that had kept his parents together for what would be forty-three years come November. Words alone had not seen his grandparents through almost seventy years, were only a very little of what bound him to Gen.

  Words could be harsh or loving, argumentative, destructive or empty. The things he’d witnessed with his parents, grandparents, his life with Gen were the emotions on the other side of the words: the loving touch, the unworded apology, the welcome in the eyes, the light left burning all night for the absent, after everyone had gone to bed.

  So, since he couldn’t give Kate the words she seemed to want, couldn’t find Megan to tell her what she apparently didn’t want to hear, he did what he could: went on with the work at hand, the work he’d grown to appreciate and even love. The trees, the llamas, the kids...while he watched Kate. He knew gut deep and without words that a life with Kate, their baby, her children and Megan was what he wanted; knew it was the first and only thing he’d wanted for himself in years. Both because of and despite Kate’s too-blunt opinions and self-righteous, goody-two-shoes exterior. He was, after all, hardly perfect himself, what right had he to expect her to be? Not to mention that the woman underneath the sometimes imperfect exterior was warm and genuine and had a heart as big as the universe and an ability to love that was like bedrock. All he needed to view for evidence was her children, her farm, Megan...and himself. Without his willing it to happen, she’d become part of his blood, his peace...

  His heart.

  He didn’t know how to tell her that, the same way he wasn’t yet sure how to tell Megan everything she needed to hear, but in his soul he knew these things. And all he could do while his mouth sought the means to form the words his heart wanted to release was go on as he’d begun.

  And try to woo Kate without words by leaving wildflowers on her desk, fresh-picked wild berries in the fridge and keeping pints of the hard-to-come-by chocolate-raspberry truffle ice cream she’d lately begun to crave in the freezer.

  He also allowed himself the painful luxury of hope.

  With the exception of a few questions—like where would the baby sleep, who would have to change its diapers and could they dress it up and stick it on a backboard and sling it from a llama for authenticity in next summer’s parades the way some of the South American Indians used to do—the younger boys were much as they usually were.

  The older boys, particularly Jamal, had questions they couldn’t quite frame about her and Hank, about living arrangements and the chores Kate normally did. But for the most part, they, too, got over the news quickly and went about being who they normally were.

  Aside from going overboard about not letting her do any
thing she normally did, especially if it was heavy, Hank maintained a thoughtful distance.

  Li’s expression went back and forth between concern and romantic ideals, wistfulness and curiosity. She wanted to know everything from what sex felt like to what love felt like—and she assumed Kate and Hank must be “in love” or the pregnancy would never have happened—to how excited her mother must be about the prospect of the infant Li could hardly wait to hold. Not knowing quite how to voice her questions tactfully, she asked nothing, merely watched Kate from a strict distance and behaved awkwardly when they were near.

  Late in the day when she’d had time to work herself up to it, while they were alone together husking com for supper, she did let one opinion fly. And it was the one Kate least expected and would far rather she’d kept to herself.

  “You know, Mom, it’s hard enough living with a mother who’s such a saint that everybody expects me to be one, too, and who everybody else’s mother says—” Her voice went high and unftatteringly mimicky and Kate winced. “‘If Li’s mother says it’s okay for Li, then go ahead, you can do it, too.’” Her tone returned to normal—if a tad self-righteous. And painfully truthful. “But now I’m gonna have to live with a mother nobody’s gonna want to leave their kids around because she’s fallen from grace so far as to get pregnant by a guy she never used to like and won’t even marry to make things right.”

  Carefully Kate put down the ear of corn she’d stripped and looked at Li. Li flinched but didn’t look away, letting her mother know this was important to her. Kate worked her jaw, straining for composure.

  “Look, Li,” she said quietly, evenly, “I’m not going to tell you that the way I got pregnant is right, but what’s past is done and it’s how we go on with it that counts. Second, you don’t marry someone just to ‘make things right’ because a make-things-right marriage rarely works. If I ever marry it will be—I hope—for the right reasons, not just because I’m pregnant or because you think I should. And if you or anyone else can’t deal with that, tough. Third, I like Hank Mathison more than I’m going to tell you, but he and I each have more on our plates than we can easily manage right now and neither of us needs to add a hasty wedding to the pot. Whether he knows it or not, he needs time and I never planned on bearing a child or getting married ever in my life and that means I need time, too. Now.” She collected the big pot of corn and rose. “I’m going inside to start supper. If you want to talk about the baby, fine, let’s. But back off marriage, Li, because much as I love you, it’s not your opinion that’s going to make me decide.”

  Then, heart striking painfully inside her chest, she turned and headed smartly for the mud-room door.

  Usually almost as forthright as his mother, Tai avoided Kate as long as he could, which was most of the day, since he was out inventorying their salable trees while she was busy ordering wreath rings, wire, tree tags, flagging ribbon and advertising. Determined to get rid of the awkwardness between them, Kate shooed the other kids out the back and joined her oldest son on the front porch after supper.

  “C’mon, Tai,” she prodded. “I know you’ve got some judgment to pass, so dump it and let’s move on.”

  He looked at her, pursed his lips over a comment, then let them relax and shook his head regretfully. “I can’t. Sorry, Ma, but I really don’t know what to say. You’ve never been pregnant before.”

  Kate nodded, deciding frankness was the best policy. “I never had sex before, either, Tai.”

  “Is that what it was?” Disillusion colored Tai’s voice. “Sex, curiosity, not love? After all the things you told me?”

  Kate sighed. “Tai, when I started talking to you about sex, I was parroting the things I was supposed to say, the things I believed, not speaking from experience. I still believe most of the things I told you, but...I wouldn’t say this to the younger kids, but even brief experience offers insight. There were things I didn’t understand when I talked to you.”

  “Like what?” He was both vulnerable and curious.

  “Like...” Kate shrugged. She’d gone this far, she might as well go all the way. “Like—and I’m sure you’ve already found this out with Carly—how difficult it is to stop when the right person touches you.”

  Tai made a sound of wry disgust, avoiding the backhanded invite to reveal the extent of the relationship she suspected and he knew he had with his lady. “Geez, Ma. You used to be a nun. I think of me that way, not you.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Kate puffed a breath of laughter. “And I prefer not to think of you that way, either. Guess that’s the growing-up part for both of us.”

  “Yeah, but for pity’s sake, Ma, a baby? Now?” Tai canted a quick glance her way, grinned wickedly when his mother raised her brows in question. “I mean, you’re old enough to be its grandmother.”

  Startled laughter worked its way out of Kate’s throat. “Oh, well, thank you very much, Mr. Smarty-pants. I’m barely what, sixteen years older than you? And my body tells me I’m plenty young enough.”

  There was a crunch of gravel as Carly’s car came down the drive and parked beside the house. Grinning, Tai moved toward the steps to welcome her.

  “Yeah, but,” he said over his shoulder to Kate, “you’ve got to think about chasing a toddler around when you’re forty.”

  “Go suck an egg,” Kate advised him tartly. “If I’m too old to chase a toddler when I’m forty, I’ll let you know, and you and Carly can come do it for me.”

  “Do what for you?” Carly asked, coming up the steps.

  “Chase toddlers for me when I’m forty,” Kate said—uncomfortably.

  Carly eyed her curiously. “What, did you find another kid to adopt? Hi, love.” She leaned into Tai for a kiss, then murmured, “Did you tell ’em?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Tai nodded, sounding aggrieved. “Now wait’ll you hear what they’ve got to tell you.”

  “Who’s got to tell me?”

  “Ma and Hank.”

  “They’re getting married, too?” Carly guessed, teasing. “They’ve only been dating a couple of weeks.”

  “Yeah, but they’ve known of each other for eleven years,” Tai pointed out, thunking his mother with an elbow to her ribs.

  “It’s not the same thing,” Carly said flatly.

  “My point exactly,” Kate agreed, poking Tai in the chest.

  “Yeah, well.” Tai crossed his arms and stared at her. “Now tell her why the question came up at all.”

  “The question came up? Really?”

  “Well, I suppose it would,” Kate said, forestalling any comment Tai might make. She settled a hand on her stomach, already a habit, she was surprised to note. “I’m pregnant.”

  “And the baby’s due less than a month after our wedding,” Tai added.

  Speechless, Carly blinked at him, then turned to Kate. For maybe half a heartbeat she viewed her prospective mother-in-law with amazement then she started to chortle, then to laugh so hard the tears ran. Tai watched her with concern, fearing hysteria when she kept trying to say something her mirth kept choking off. But all she said when she could finally pull herself together enough to wipe her eyes and say anything was, “And I was afraid the wedding would just be pomp and dull.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. She should have known this was how Carly would react. Even as a teen, the young woman had been the cheeriest, least flappable person Kate had ever met.

  “You don’t think your parents are gonna freak?” Tai asked. “They’re having a pretty hard time with this, as it is.”

  “They freak over everything,” Carly reminded him, still chuckling. “So tough Tootsie Rolls. It’s not their wedding, it’s mine.” She toasted Kate with a glass of iced tea. “Congratulations, Ma. How’s Hank feel about it?”

  Kate shrugged. “He’s not talking to me because I won’t marry him.”

  Carly laughed again. “Sounds committed to me.”

  “Or like he should be,” Kate muttered and, to the sound of their chuckles, left her son and almost d
aughter-in-law to spark alone on the front porch swing.

  Megan kept her distance by simply staying out of sight, keeping solely to herself, ignoring everyone and basically not showing up until her ten-thirty curfew. And then she came in obviously wired and obnoxiously loud. At that point Kate, up to her eyeballs with worrying about Hank’s daughter, pulled Megan into the main-floor den, shut the door in Hank’s face and reamed the teen up one side and down the other about the example she was setting for the younger kids and about living by the house rules if she wanted to continue to be welcome at Stone House. Megan blinked at her in some astonishment over the choiceness and quality of a lecture she’d never before gotten from Kate, but aside from one or two surly comments about hypocritical adults presuming to tell her what to do, she kept her mouth shut.

  Affronted and royally peeved by Kate’s chutzpah in taking on his child without a by-your-leave or at least inviting him to be present, Hank set his back teeth and crashed the reaming out.

  “Back off my daughter, Kate. If she needs to be cussed out, I’ll do it.”

  Kate swung on him as though ready for the confrontation. “This is what it’d be like if we got married, Hank. Equal partners in the kids and their discipline. And she’s high in my home right now, she’s sleeping under my roof, she’s interfering with my kids, I’m going to say what I’ve got to say and if you don’t like it, think hard about what you asked me this morning.”

  Well and truly flummoxed by a truth he’d spent nearly three months accepting—that Kate had tiptoed pretty carefully but had nevertheless called Megan out whenever necessary, the same way he’d chided her kids, if less often—but had ignored this morning, Hank shut up long enough for Kate to return her attention to Megan.

  Intent on each other, neither of them saw Megan pale and clutch for something to hold herself erect when Kate mentioned the word “married.”

  What Hank did see, however, was that the same parts of Kate’s chidings that struck home with him also bull’s-eyed with his daughter. Kate yelled at a child because she cared about the child, and somehow that concern and affection came across. Not because of anything she said, although she said plenty, but in the tone of her voice, in her refusal to lay guilt, in her request for Megan to take responsibility for her actions and choices, in the way she reached for Megan when she talked. Touching Megan’s shoulder, earnestly taking her hands, speaking not only to her but with her both physically and emotionally on several levels at the same time. Showing disappointment but accepting responsibility for the fact that Megan might also have reason to be disappointed in her.