by Mya O'Malley
“We’ve only known each other a year. I didn’t expect this. I had no idea.” Liza burst into tears.
That he loved you enough to ask you to be his wife? Why should any of this come as a surprise to you, Liza? Don’t you know how lovable you are? And yet, is it entirely wise for you to marry so young? You’ve yet to truly experience the world.
With a protective cry, the women surged forward and Molly allowed herself to be swept to the back of the crowd. She glanced around and caught Susan’s eye.
“Wow,” Molly murmured under her breath. “Getting married, and so young, too. Looks like her dream of backpacking through Ireland this summer is over.”
“Our dreams do change,” Susan pointed out, “as we grow older.”
Molly winced. “She’s giving up a lot of opportunities and freedom by getting married before she’s fully explored the world.”
“Yes, dear. I know.” Susan watched her daughter a moment. “She is twenty-five, though, and a college grad.”
“Oh, I know, I know,” Molly said with a negligent wave of her hand. “But you know what I mean. I met Liza when I worked on the senator’s first campaign.”
Susan smiled. “I remember. You came to us, fresh out of college.”
“Back then, a determined little career girl of thirteen years, she fully intended on taking over the world.”
“True,” Susan noted with a wry smile. “I forgot about that. And then,” she added, her smile deepening, “you’ve got your own little career woman, don’t you?”
“Meredith’s planning on a big career.”
“She’s just biding her time, waiting till she can spread her wings and fly.”
“I know,” Molly said, sighing. “I find it hard to believe she’s already sixteen.”
“Children,” Susan said with a smile, “grow up right before our eyes and we still don’t see how fast they turn into adults.”
Molly shook her head. “There are times, when I wonder how in the world I managed with a baby.” She glanced at Susan. “If it hadn’t been for your help—”
“You’re a terrific mother,” Susan said, patting her hand. “And Meredith’s a fine, lovely girl.”
“I’ve always worried—” Molly pushed back the lump in her throat “—I’d ruin Meredith’s chances of a happy life if I raised her alone, as a single mother.”
“Your single mother raised you,” Susan replied, “and look how well you turned out.”
Molly grinned wryly. “You’re assuming people would agree with you and say I turned out well.”
“You know,” Susan said slowly, “I never did ask you, as I know it’s completely none of my business, but whatever happened to the father?”
Molly hesitated. It was nosy of Susan to ask, but in the past year, they’d grown so close; what really surprised Molly was how long it had taken her to ask. Rubbing a friend’s back as she vomits into a spit-up bowl, or picking up the tufts of falling-out hair from the floor, well, certain intimacies did develop.
“He’s alive,” Molly said. “He married the girl who broke up with him the day before prom.”
“And you went to prom with him?”
“Yes.” Molly chuckled. “Once she saw how fast he rebounded, she changed her mind over breaking up with him.” She shrugged. “He made her wait, though. I think he wanted to know if I wanted him.”
“Did you?” Susan asked.
Molly hesitated. “I did, I really did. I realize now, looking back on that time, I was hopelessly in love with him.”
“Why didn’t you marry him?”
“I thought, if I told him I was pregnant, he’d marry me the next minute. But I didn’t want him marrying me just because I was pregnant.”
“Hm,” Susan murmured. “But you did love him?”
“Yes.”
A silence. Molly felt suddenly, absurdly, on the verge of tears. She cleared her throat. In a lighter voice, she said, “Last time I bothered to look at my high-school alumni newsletter, I saw a brief mention of him.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Oh, happily married, living in Columbus, Ohio, with a daughter.”
“A daughter, did you say?”
Molly cocked her head, considering. “Their daughter must be fourteen by now. Yes, she’s fourteen.”
Molly cut her gaze away. She sensed Susan studying her. She inhaled and let her breath out slowly. She knew exactly what Susan would ask next.
And she did.
“And you say,” Susan ventured tentatively, “he’s never learned of Meredith?”
Molly hung her head, shamefaced. “I know it isn’t something you’d do, Susan, but by the time I found out I’d gotten myself pregnant, well, he’d already gotten engaged to this other girl, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of staying trapped in Bellefleur and raising Meredith with him.”
“Not even a note, or a letter?”
“Nope.” Molly stuck her chin out defiantly. “When I went through college, and then law school, I’ll grant you, it was hard. If it weren’t for you and the Senator, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
“Wouldn’t it have helped to have him around?”
“Susan, don’t you get it?” Molly flashed with a sudden burst of irritation. “This guy’s never been outside the state of Ohio. He’d never move to Washington to be with me.”
“Not even with his daughter?”
Molly gazed at Susan, waves of frustration filling her heart. “He dumped me. He dumped me and went back to his lame girlfriend.”
“But their daughter wasn’t born until two years later. Wouldn’t he have given her up if he’d known you were carrying his child?”
“Susan,” Molly said evenly, “why are you prying so much?”
Susan bowed her head. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I’m upsetting you.”
“You’re making me out to be incredibly selfish, but you don’t get it. He dumped me. He didn’t want me. And I didn’t want him if he didn’t want me.”
“Sweetheart,” Susan said gently, “please forgive me. I’m so sorry to be upsetting you so.”
Molly dashed the tears off her cheeks. “It’s okay.”
“Did Meredith ever ask about her father?”
“She has,” Molly admitted reluctantly. “A few times.”
Molly opened her mouth to say something else, then closed it. Best not to say another word.
After a long moment, and with a tiny sigh, Susan finally, and mercifully, turned away to watch the bubble of excitement centered on her daughter. Molly closed her eyes. She started when she sensed someone reaching for her fingers. Without speaking, Susan took Molly’s hand in hers and squeezed. Molly fought back the tears brimming behind her eyelids. What could she say? Yes, of course she experienced regrets. She awoke every morning with regrets. What if she’d told him she was pregnant? What if he’d married her instead? And another sensation, a far worse one. She’d cheated him of the opportunity to help raise such a beautiful, bright little girl.
But what kind of an existence would they have lived? Not a very good one, she knew. He never would’ve agreed to move to Washington, D.C. No, she seriously doubted it. She’d stay trapped in Bellefleur. She would’ve attended school at Bellefleur College. And then, well, would he have let her attend law school? A guy like him? He might’ve let her go to law school, but she’d be commuting back and forth from Bellefleur to Capital Law School in Columbus, Ohio, every single day, and the trip to Columbus was at least two hours. She couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
Come on, Molly. Fess up. You were in love with him. You would’ve made it work. But living in Bellefleur, the backwater on the Ohio for the rest of your life? No way.
She’d tried to persuade herself it had all been for the best, but it had been a selfish decision on her part to keep the pregnancy a secret. She didn’t want anything holding her back, holding her to Bellefleur.
And yet, and yet. There would’ve been a partner, a husband, to help her raise her t
iny baby. A father would’ve been there to watch Meredith while Molly attended her classes. And when Meredith got sick, there would’ve been someone there to stay home with the baby.
With bitterness in her voice, she said, “Not everyone’s willing to settle for the house in the suburbs and the white-picket fence. Me, I couldn’t wait to escape the provincial life. I thought if I stayed one more day in Bellefleur, I’d suffocate.”
“Honey,” Susan said in a creamy voice, “I’m happy Liza’s getting married. I may yet see my first grandchild before I die.”
Molly instantly regretted every word she’d uttered. How callous, how unfeeling of her to carry on like this when Susan was getting the rare opportunity to share in a joyous moment with her only daughter, the moment when a nice young man asks her to marry him. Molly’s eyelids fluttered open and she gazed at Susan with concern. What did Susan know, in her heart? The doctors had given her a clean prognosis. They’d removed all the cancerous tissue and the chemotherapy had blasted out any rogue cancer cells in her body. And yet Susan carried herself with the air of a condemned woman.
“Don’t worry,” Susan said. “You’re only thirty-four, you know. Lots of women wait till their thirties to get married and start a family. One day, you’ll get your turn. Some nice young man will fall in love with you and ask you to marry him.”
“Oh, Susan, it’s way too late for me. More likely, it’ll be Meredith, but not me.”
“You say this,” Susan said with a wise smile, “but I know better.”
“Says you,” Molly rejoined, but gently, so as not to give offense. “Susan, you do realize I’m not a girl of twenty-five anymore? I may have had a chance at getting married, back when I was eighteen, but I let the chance slip away from me.”
In response, Susan opened her arms and Molly moved to embrace her. “It’s my thing, don’t you know?” Susan joked in a trembling voice. “I want to see all my women friends happily married.”
“I know, Susan,” Molly murmured into her shoulder, “I know.”
“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, Molly,” Susan whispered into her ear. “Don’t forget that.”
“I know,” Molly agreed. “I know.”
“Mom!” Liza called out. “Come over here. One of the girls wants me to use the caterer who did her sister’s wedding.”
“Duty calls,” Susan said dryly. “See you later.” She released Molly and drifted back into the crowd. Laughter followed. Molly overheard snatches of conversation, but she’d lost interest. She moved away from the crowd and wandered back to her office. Loads of work to do — better get cracking. One of her big dreams, her biggest by far, was to run for a congressional seat, in the Sixteenth Congressional District of Ohio; she needed to discuss the chance of this happening with Senator Winbourne. Through the grapevine she’d heard Rob Latham, the incumbent, planned on retiring next year and didn’t plan to run for re-election. It would leave a vacancy. And she’d decided she wanted it.
The only problem: was she dreaming too big?
****
“Hey, Mike, you wanna head out, grab a beer?”
Michael Carson turned to gaze at Jerry McBride, his young assistant. They’d been working hard at a construction site all day long in Belpre, a small town just outside of Bellefleur, and Mike sure could have used a drink. But if he went out with Jerry, he’d never make it to his sister’s house on time, and she’d told him to be there in time for dinner. He pulled off his baseball cap, ran his hand through his hair and sighed.
“You can’t,” Jerry said flatly.
“No,” Mike said. “Sorry. My sister wigs out if she smells beer on my breath.”
“She doesn’t let you drink beer?” Jerry asked, aghast.
“No, it’s not that. Her husband’s been clean and sober for three years now, and she doesn’t want to jinx his good record. She thinks if I walk into the house with beer on my breath, Carl will run to the nearest bar.” He shrugged. “He wouldn’t do that, even if I showed up with a six-pack, but I like Carl and I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”
“Fair enough.” Jerry loped toward his fire-engine red mustang. “See ya tomorrow?”
“Don’t forget,” Mike reminded him, “we’re up in Bellefleur, tomorrow. At the Judge’s house.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. The house on Front Street?”
“Yep. Eight o’clock sharp.”
“Okay, see you then.” Jerry jumped behind the wheel, gunned the engine, and tore out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust and gravel.
Mike tossed the last of his tools into the bed of his battered pickup truck, started the engine, and drove out of Belpre, heading north on Highway 7 to Vienna. His sister owned a really nice, snug little home, but the back yard proved to be the real attraction; it boasted an amazing view of the Ohio River. Stephanie was just one of those amazingly fortunate people for whom life worked out seamlessly. Like Mike, who had gotten married right out of high school, Stephanie had married Carl Waterman, her high school sweetheart.
Unlike Mike, though, her marriage had stayed the course. She’d been married to Carl for fourteen years now, the mother of adorable nine-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. Not including the issues leading to Carl joining Alcoholics Anonymous, her life had been filled with joy and fulfillment. Their house on the Ohio River was just one of those rare things. They bought the land shortly after their wedding, and it wasn’t until the past five years, when land values skyrocketed, that their investment in the river-side property turned into a goldmine.
But Mike didn’t resent his sister’s success. He may not have enjoyed nearly the same success, in marriage or in property, but he hoped to reverse the tide, at least when it came to the property. For sure, he knew it had taken him long enough.
He turned off the highway, drove into town. A few minutes later he parked the truck in his sister’s gravel driveway. Ostensibly, his stated purpose in wanting to see his sister was so he could collect a stack of old newspapers for a job he was starting tomorrow. Judge Paul Williams had hired him to renovate the house he’d inherited from his mother. The judge planned on modernizing and freshening up the house before putting it on the market. Mike needed papers to spread out across the lovely parquet flooring, which he, and the judge, deemed too valuable to rip out of the kitchen. And, in the interest of keeping his life as simple and as inexpensive as possible, he had yet to take out a subscription to The Bellefleur Times. A recent transplant from Columbus, Ohio, Mike had re-acquainted himself with his old hometown in the past year, but he’d not yet fully immersed himself back into the life he left behind, seventeen years earlier.
He jumped out of the truck, hurried up the sidewalk and knocked on the door. He chuckled as his sister’s dog Max, an Alaskan malamute, flung his body against the door, barking like a mad thing.
“Uncle Mike!” High-pitched voices cried out, and his grin widened.
Between the cacophony of the dog barking and the nine-year-old twins howling, Mike knew he’d been noticed. The door flew open and Mike met the gaze of his sister’s husband, Carl. “Hey, Carl,” Mike said.
“Hey, Mike. Good to see you.” Carl pulled the door back to let Mike in. As Mike walked into the house, two pairs of arms wrapped themselves around his knees.
“Uncle Mike!” the twins cried. “You’re here!”
“Yep,” Mike said, “I sure am.”
“Where’s Emma?” Tresa asked. “Why isn’t Emma here?”
A lancing of pain pierced Mike’s heart.
“Silly!” Troy retorted. “Emma lives in Columbus, with her mommy.”
Tresa looked up at Mike with indignation. “But why isn’t she living with you, Uncle Mike?”
“I wanted Emma to live with her mother in the house we bought,” Mike said simply, straining to keep the tension out of his voice. “I wanted her to be comfortable in the house she grew up in.”
“Oh,” Tresa said. “So, when are we gonna see her again?”
“This week
end,” Mike promised. “And I’ll bring her over for a visit, okay?”
“Sure,” Tresa said, but she still didn’t appear to be too convinced. Mike couldn’t blame her. He didn’t like the fact his daughter didn’t figure into his day-to-day life anymore than her cousin did. Divorce being what it was, he’d made the hard decision, the one favoring his daughter. A hard decision, because he’d given up his family home. He had agreed in the divorce settlement to let his wife keep the house. Emma would finish out her high-school years in the same house she’d been living in since the day she came home from the hospital.
Mike needed to be close to family; now that his own had fallen apart, he’d moved to the eastern side of the state, to Bellefleur. A two-and-one-half-hour drive every weekend to collect Emma, both ways, and yet the drive felt like nothing at all. With every mile he drove, it brought him closer to his little girl. Hardly a little girl at fourteen years, but he figured he’d continue to think of her as his little girl for the rest of his life.
“Okay, kids,” Carl said. “Go wash your hands. Dinner’s ready.”
Carl helped Mike extricate the children’s wiry arms from around his legs and as the kids scampered off to the bathroom, Mike sauntered into the kitchen. Stephanie pulled a roast from the oven as he slid up to the sink. “Wow, Sis,” Mike complained as he rolled up his sleeves, “you’re gonna get me fat if I keep eating your homecooked meals.”
“Says you!” Stephanie retorted. “That wife of yours didn’t feed you enough.”
Mike closed his eyes, inhaling the mouth-watering aroma of the savory roast. “That smells good.”
“Would I fix you slop?” Stephanie smiled. As she took the meat out to the dining room, she called over her shoulder, “Grab the potatoes, will ya, Mike?”
“Sure thing, Sis.” Mike quickly washed his hands. Drying them on a dishtowel, he grabbed the bowl of potatoes and followed his sister into the dining room. The entire family assembled and sat down.
“Take hands,” Stephanie commanded, and once they’d all taken hands, she uttered a brief prayer, and they dug into their meal.