The Only Solution

by Leigh Michaels

  “Now if you’re satisfied about my credentials,” Mack Burgess said politely, “can I ask about the baby? What’s her name?”

  “Rory.”

  He winced a little. “Well, at least it isn’t Snowflake or something totally bizarre.”

  “Aurora Dawn, actually.”

  “That sounds like Marissa. It’s completely redundant – but rather pretty. Shall we sit down and talk this whole thing over?”

  She didn’t realize till then that he was still standing in the hallway, with the door open. It was rather clever of him to wait till he had possession of the baby, she thought, and then ask to come inside. She certainly wasn’t going to ask him to leave while Rory was in his arms.

  “Won’t you come in?” she said sweetly.

  He almost smiled at that – she thought, in fact, that he had to bite his lip to prevent it. But he meekly followed her into the small living room. Wendy thought she saw him take an appraising look around the room, especially at the small Christmas tree and the tiny stack of gifts under it.

  He chose a place at the end of the couch. Rory didn’t want to sit; she braced her feet against his thighs and pushed herself upright.

  “There’s obviously nothing wrong with her physical development, is there?” he said.

  “You expected there might be?”

  His voice was almost gentle. “Sarcasm isn’t going to get us anywhere, Wendy.”

  He was right, and she knew she was being petty. She twisted her fingers together and stared at them.

  “It’s obvious that this is Marissa’s child,” he went on, “and I wouldn’t have any doubt of it, even if I hadn’t spent an hour at the department of vital records this afternoon and found her birth certificate. Now we have to decide what to do about it.”

  “There isn’t anything to do. Marissa put her into my care.” It was the truth, but Wendy was uneasily aware that without a will which named her as guardian, she had nothing to prove what Marissa had said, what she had wanted. And she didn’t think Mack Burgess was likely to take her word for it.

  In fact, he didn’t even bother to answer. “What about the father? The name on the birth certificate doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  Wendy shook her head. “I know who he is, nothing more than that. He and Marissa dated for a while. They’d broken up by the time Rory was born, and he didn’t show any interest in the baby. When Marissa was–” She had to clear her throat. It was still difficult to think of the way that young life had been snuffed out. “When she died, I called him, and he just thanked me for letting him know and hung up.”

  “So you kept the baby.”

  “I told you, Marissa put her into my care.”

  “But of course you don’t have any legal papers to that effect. Marissa didn’t leave a will.”

  “No. But she told me that’s what she wanted.”

  His voice was crisp. “Any witnesses?”

  She shook her head, reluctantly. “We were alone, in the intensive care unit. At least, as alone as anyone ever is in those places. You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “I don’t see why I should.” His voice was low, but there was an intensity about it which brought a lump to Wendy’s throat. “I caught you in four separate lies within half an hour this afternoon.”

  Wendy felt soft color rise in her face. “A woman will do anything to protect her young.”

  “When there’s real danger, that’s understandable. But in this case, when you have no legal right to this child—”

  Rory was getting restless. She had dropped her keys, and she didn’t want them back, and she was starting to whimper.

  Wendy said, “It’s time for her last bottle and bed.” She was a bit surprised when Mack handed the baby over without comment. But perhaps he was the kind who only liked children when they were clean and charming and fun.

  She dimmed the lights, wrapped Rory in a blanket and sat down with her in the rocking chair. The baby sucked thoughtfully and watched the twinkling multi-colored lights on the small Christmas tree.

  “Why did you make that phone call, Wendy?”

  She sighed and tried to minimize the damage. “I started thinking that it wasn’t right for Marissa’s family not even to know about Rory. But I wasn’t asking for anything.”

  “That makes five.” He leaned back on the couch and crossed his legs. “Lies,” he added helpfully, as if there could be any doubt what he’d meant.

  Wendy hadn’t counted, but she thought his calculation was probably low. She’d have done a lot more than lie in an effort to protect Rory, particularly since it was her own stupidity and panic that had created this problem in the first place. Rory shouldn’t suffer for that.

  Still, though she wanted to declare that she had never intended to give the child up, she couldn’t quite bring herself to look straight at him and actually say it. Those ironic deep blue eyes of his seemed to look straight through her bones.

  “No matter what you think,” she said stiffly, “Marissa did tell me she wanted Rory to be in my care.”

  There was a long silence. “On the whole, and knowing Marissa, I can buy that.”

  She was afraid to let herself think that she’d heard him properly. “You do believe me?”

  “Let’s say, I can see how it’s possible. For one thing, it rings true for Marissa to tell you, not to ask. And considering the situation... you took the baby in sudden and shocking circumstances, feeling that Marissa hadn’t given you any other choice.”

  “She didn’t give me orders,” Wendy objected.

  He ignored the interruption. “Then when you had a chance to think about it, you concluded – quite sensibly – that Rory was too much responsibility. So you called for help, but once you got me on the phone, you chickened out and decided to keep her.”

  “I discovered you weren’t the sort I wanted to turn a baby over to!” Wendy snapped.

  “Or perhaps you decided that the bait had been taken and you’d get more by pretending to be unwilling to part with her.”

  “I beg your pardon—”

  “So that brings us to the moment. What do you want, Wendy?”

  “I want the baby. So let’s just forget I ever called you, shall we?”

  “That’s exactly what you can’t have.”

  “It’s what Marissa wanted. She begged me to keep Rory.”

  “But we have only your word about that, don’t we?”

  Tears were stinging her eyes. He’d said he believed her, but now he was snatching away even that bit of comfort. “It’s true, damn it!”

  “It may well be true, but it’s also beside the point. How do you think a judge would decide the question?”

  Wendy didn’t even have to think about that. If Marissa had only left a will, it would have been different. But Wendy wouldn’t have a prayer in a court case, and she knew it. Even if she could afford a lawyer, she couldn’t battle the sort of ammunition the Burgesses could bring to bear. No attorney could change the fact that she was only a friend; they were Rory’s family. And it was her word against theirs.

  He was watching her as if he could read her thoughts. His voice was almost soft. “You don’t think I’m going to just vanish, do you? I feel a responsibility for this little girl. She is my sister’s child.”

  “You can’t expect me just to hand her over to you this instant.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? You should have handed her over months ago, when Marissa died.”

  “Your family cared so little about Marissa that no one even came to Phoenix when she died!”

  His gaze flickered a little. “Obviously we should have. But at the time, the decision seemed very clear. She was gone, and the details didn’t matter.”

  Wendy bit her lip. She didn’t agree with that, but she could understand it. “Still, you can’t just snatch Rory like this. What do you plan to do? Check into a hotel tonight and demand a crib and a nanny and a full range of supplies?”

  “You don’t think the Kendrick Hot
el would be up to the challenge?”

  She didn’t answer. She looked down at the baby, who smiled sleepily and reached up to pat her cheek. “I’m good to her,” Wendy said. Her voice had a rough edge.

  “I understand that, and I’m not belittling it. But she has a family. You said yourself that they shouldn’t be closed out of her life.”

  Wendy couldn’t look at him.

  He sighed. “Would you mind if I got a glass of water?”

  “In the kitchen. There’s soda in the refrigerator if you’d rather have that.”

  “Water’s fine.” She heard the cabinet doors open and close till he found a tumbler, and she thought he stayed so long in the kitchen to give her a chance to pull herself together. It was thoughtful of him, if that was what he’d intended – though it didn’t make a lot of difference to Wendy. A few minutes couldn’t soothe the ache she felt.

  When he came back to the living room, he wasn’t carrying a glass. “There’s a piece of dried-out toast covered with peanut butter on the counter next to the infant seat,” he said.

  “Don’t worry. I wasn’t feeding peanut butter to Rory.”

  “It never occurred to me that you might try. Was that your dinner?”

  Rory’s bottle was empty, and she was almost asleep. “There wasn’t time for anything else,” Wendy admitted.

  He didn’t comment. He sat down again, reached for the telephone book, and riffled through the pages till he found the section listing restaurants which delivered. “Is Chinese all right?” he said. “Or would you prefer pizza?”

  Wendy would prefer dry toast with peanut butter, if he’d just take himself away so she could eat it in peace. But of course that meant Rory would go, too. “Chinese,” she said.

  She waited till the order was placed before she set Rory’s bottle aside and slid carefully to the edge of her chair. “I’m going to put her to bed.” The words were commonplace, but the tone was almost defiant – as if she’d announced that he would not take the baby tonight, at least not without a struggle.

  “She might as well be comfortable while we’re waiting,” Mack said genially. He didn’t add anything about what would happen afterward, but it was perfectly clear to Wendy what he meant.

  Rory murmured sleepily and rooted around till she got into her favorite position, with her head firmly lodged against the padded corner of her crib and her fist curled next to her cheek. Wendy thought the baby liked to keep her thumb handy just in case she needed something to suck.

  She stayed beside the crib for a moment – any longer and she’d burst into tears. Then she gathered up a basket full of sleepers and shirts and tiny socks. She could at least keep her hands busy for a while – though it would serve Mack Burgess right if she packed everything up and sent it with him just as it was. Let him cope with laundry on top of everything else... though of course he’d just turn it over to the hotel staff.

  Or maybe he was experienced. He’d said he was a connoisseur of babies, and the way he’d used that simple toy to bamboozle Rory into making friends had definitely not been amateur. For all Wendy knew, he could have half a dozen kids of his own. Rory would fit right in – or be lost in the crowd.

  He didn’t wear a wedding ring. Wendy hadn’t realized till then that she’d noticed.

  He was sitting on the edge of his chair, his elbows braced on his knees, his fingertips stroking his temples as if his head hurt.

  Wendy paused in the doorway, the basket propped on her hip, and looked at him. He looked tired, too, and drained...

  Damn it, she didn’t want to feel sympathetic for the man who was going to destroy her life. “I’m going down to the laundry room,” she said crisply. “If she wakes...”

  He only nodded.

  By the time she’d treated all the stains – how did a baby who couldn’t yet move herself from one end of a room to the other manage to get so dirty, anyway? – and started the machine, the restaurant delivery man was at her door. She helped Mack unload the bags on the coffee table and went to get plates and napkins.

  Mack speared his first bite of Peking duck. “You’re not at all what I expected, you know.”

  Wendy shot a look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I expected any friend of Marissa’s would be just like her. Heedless, short-sighted, and with no visible means of support.”

  The cynical note in his voice bothered her. If that was what he thought of Marissa... And he’d said something else unflattering about her, too, just a few minutes ago.

  But if she took the description at face value, Wendy wasn’t so sure that she was different from what he’d expected. As far as being heedless and short-sighted – if she’d thought things all the way through she’d never have made that phone call. And with her job gone...

  “Marissa didn’t seem to have trouble making ends meet,” she said mildly. “At least, she never borrowed money from me.”

  “Did she work?”

  “Well, no.”

  “That’s what I mean. She no doubt complained about Mother and Dad being leeches on society, and at the same time she was cheerfully spending the income from her trust fund. At least, there didn’t seem to be much of it left when the attorney closed out her bank account.”

  Wendy shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “There was the baby to take care of,” she pointed out. But there wasn’t any value in pursuing that line of argument; Marissa was gone, and how she had spent her money hardly mattered now.

  Mack didn’t seem to want to talk about it anymore either, and they lapsed into silence. The food was good; it had been so long since Wendy had had a really hot dinner that she had almost forgotten what a pleasure it could be. But each bite was also spiced with sadness, for every morsel brought her closer to the moment when he would stand up and say that he was ready to go... and take Rory with him.

  He scooped the last bite of duck onto his plate and pushed the cardboard container away. “I’m going back to Chicago tomorrow.”

  No amount of time to prepare herself would have diminished the black despair which surged over Wendy now that the moment was at hand.

  He looked at her very directly. There was compassion in his eyes, and for a moment she almost hated him for it. If he felt so sorry for her, why was he doing this?

  “I don’t want to take the baby with me this time.”

  For a moment, Wendy thought she was hallucinating.

  “You’re right about the shock this is going to be to my parents,” Mack said. “They’re not young, and even good news can be traumatic. I think it will be better to break it to them first, and not just hand them an infant. In the meantime...” His voice trailed off as if he didn’t know what he wanted to say.

  Wendy swallowed hard. “Do you mean you might trust me to keep her for a while longer?”

  He nodded.

  She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t keep silent. “Why? After I lied to you, and –”

  “I guess because I didn’t have any trouble finding you.”

  Wendy frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I came out here prepared to hunt you down, no matter what it took or where the trail led. But all I had to do was look up Marissa’s old address in the city directory, and here you were.” He smiled a little. “If you’d been planning to hide Rory, you’d at least have moved.”

  She shook her head, not quite understanding. “But you didn’t even know my name. How did you know who you were looking for?”

  “I didn’t catch your whole name when you called, no. But the attorney who took care of winding up Marissa’s affairs knew that she had a roommate named Miller.”

  “I’m amazed he remembered,” Wendy said. “The only thing he was interested in was getting her name off the lease. He didn’t even care what happened to her clothes – I packed everything up for the charities.”

  “He didn’t even come out here?”

  “Of course not. I never saw the man.”

  “No wonder he didn’t know
about the baby,” Mack said. “I’ll have a few things to tell him about that.” He stood up. “Just one thing, Wendy. Don’t make any mistakes now. When I get back, Rory had better be right here.”

  *****

  Wendy knew better than to let herself hope, but she couldn’t help it. All weekend, as she tended the baby and took her for walks in the park and played with her, there was a little bubble of hope growing larger within her. As the hours went by and there was no telephone call, no knock on the door, the little voice grew stronger. It whispered that perhaps he wasn’t coming at all. Perhaps the family wasn’t interested in Marissa’s baby. Maybe they just wanted to let the whole episode die.

  Mack had said his parents were old, and that the news would be a shock. Maybe they’d have a family conference and decide to let her keep Rory after all. Maybe Mack had even told them how happy the baby was with Wendy.

  She knew she was a fool, but when Monday, too, passed without a word – no phone call, and no handsome arrogant man invading her cubicle at work – she stopped trying to keep her hopes within bounds. Why dwell on the bad possibilities? she asked herself. Everything might work out all right yet.

  She left the office a little early, picked up Rory, and took her to see Santa at one of the downtown malls. It was silly, perhaps; the baby was more curious than impressed, and she would never remember her first visit with the jolly old man. But Wendy would always have the picture to treasure – Rory with her knitted cap askew, her tiny forehead wrinkled in puzzlement, and one hand tugging at a very realistic silver beard.

  Back at home, she gave Rory her last bottle of the day and sang her to sleep, and she was sitting on the floor in the living room, watching a Christmas special and folding tiny clothes into neat stacks, when the doorbell rang.

  Her heart plunged to her toes. There was something about the urgent sound of it which told her who was standing there.

  “You knew he’d be back,” she reminded herself. “You always knew anything else was only a dream.”

  She waited a moment, trying to compose herself, practicing a smile. She couldn’t greet him with honest cheerfulness, but she could try to be pleasant. And maybe she could keep herself from crying, when the moment came to say goodbye. It looked as if her pride was all she was going to have left, so at least she could try not to shred what little remained.