The Unexpected Wedding Gift

by Catherine Spencer

  “You know the custody hearing’s all set for Monday, of course?” she said, folding crushed ice into a clean tea towel.

  “Yes.” Uncertainly, Marian hovered in the middle of the kitchen. “That’s one reason I’m here, but I came a day or two earlier in the hope that I’d catch you at home and you’d let me see the baby one last time. I wasn’t sure you’d bring him to the courthouse with you.”

  Somewhat reassured, Julia said, “Come and sit down, Marian, and hold this to your face. I’m going to make you a cup of tea, unless you’d prefer coffee or something cold?”

  “Tea would be nice,” she sighed, then said again, “but I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “It’s no bother. I was going to make some for myself anyway. I’ve got into the habit of having a cup while I give Michael his afternoon bottle.”

  “Is he better, Mrs. Carreras—from the operation, I mean?”

  “Yes, he’s better,” Julia said gently. “And Marian, won’t you please call me Julia?”

  “I don’t have the right.” The big blue eyes filled with tears. “I ruined your wedding day and probably your marriage, too. But I didn’t know what else to do. Ben—” She gestured helplessly “—it had been over between us for months, but he was the only person I felt I could turn to. He’s a decent, good man, Mrs. Carreras.”

  And you, Julia thought, her heart aching with pity, though misguided and weak, are a good woman and deserve better than what you’ve settled for. “How do you take your tea, Marian?” she said. “It’s Earl Grey and I like mine with lemon.”

  “I’ll have the same.” She eyed the delicate cup and saucer Julia handed to her with almost fearful awe. “What pretty china. I can never keep anything like this at my house. It always gets broken.”

  I just bet it does! Julia thought, her anger surging up afresh. “Wayne did that to you, didn’t he?” she said, indicating the bruise.

  Marian almost dropped her cup in shock. “Why would you think that?” she gasped. “I told you, I walked into my car door.”

  “A woman who accidentally walks into her car door doesn’t look frightened to death all the time. She doesn’t flinch at every little noise.” She waited for another denial, and when it didn’t come, said quietly, “Does he beat you up often, Marian?”

  For a moment, Marian’s stare was that of a terrified deer caught in the headlights, then, “Not often, no,” she said, and began to cry again. “And when he does, it’s usually my fault. I provoke him.”

  Was it early pregnancy that made the tea rise up in her throat, Julia wondered, or disgust? “And did Michael provoke him, too? Is that how he happened to have a bruise on his arm when you brought him to us?”

  “Wayne never hit the baby!” Marian insisted. “It was just that Junior cried a lot and kept throwing up. It got on Wayne’s nerves and he sometimes got a bit rough trying to make him be quiet.”

  Oh, God! Julia pressed a hand to her mouth to still its trembling and stood up. She needed to hold Michael close to her heart, to kiss his little head and tell him that she and his daddy loved him and would never let anyone hurt him again.

  “I think I hear the baby,” she said, when she could control her voice. “Help yourself to more tea if you like, while I go to get him.”

  Marian was sitting on the back doorstep, stroking Clifford, but when she heard Julia come back to the kitchen with Michael, she sprang to her feet.

  “Well, here he is,” Julia said, desperately trying not to show how terrified she was by the avid look in Marian’s eyes as she gazed down at the child she’d given birth to and then, so soon after, given away.

  “Oh, Mrs. Carreras, he’s beautiful!”

  “Thank you. We think so, too.”

  “He has his father’s blue eyes but he’s dark-haired like both of you.”

  “Yes.”

  There was something distinctly odd about such a conversation. Had she wandered into Alice’s Wonderland by mistake, Julia wondered, that they were both behaving as if she, and not Marian, was the birth mother?

  “Can I…would you let me hold him?”

  The unspoken fear clutched at Julia again. Instinctively, she hugged Michael closer.

  “Just for a minute? Please?” Marian held out her arms pleadingly. “I won’t drop him or hurt him.”

  What would Ben have done, had he been there?

  Marian’s basically decent…she’s trying to make up for her mistakes, he’d once said. She’s not inherently vicious…she’ll always be Michael’s birth mother but she gave him to us because she wanted what was best for him….

  The answer was clear enough. If Marian could show such unselfish generosity, the least Julia could do was return the favor. “Here,” she said, placing the baby in her arms. “Why don’t we sit outside and you can give him his bottle?”

  “You’d let me do that?” Marian’s voice was hushed, her expression awed, as if kindness was the last thing she expected from anyone.

  Should she? Was she being magnanimous, or merely a fool?

  The question nagged at Julia while she warmed the formula and refilled the teapot. She could see Marian beyond the French doors, sitting at the table in the shade of the patio umbrella and singing softly to Michael. What if, while Julia’s back was turned, she made a sudden dash for her car and drove off with him? What if holding him again recemented the powerful bond between birth mother and child. Blood was thicker than water, after all.

  Julia hadn’t thought much about her own pregnancy, but she knew at the moment that nothing could ever induce her to part with the baby she was carrying. Could Marian be so very different?

  Panicked, she piled everything on a tray and raced outside to discover something that hadn’t been apparent from her standpoint in the kitchen. Clifford lay stretched out about six feet away from Marian, his head on his paws, his eyes tracking her every movement.

  Breathing a quiet sigh of relief, Julia bent to fondle his ears. How could she have forgotten Clifford, their self-appointed guard dog? If Marian were to try to bolt the scene, she wouldn’t get very far. Clifford would see to that.

  But Marian was too engrossed with feeding Michael to have thoughts for anything else, and for the next while, the only sounds disturbing the silence were the faint sea breeze ruffling the leaves of the dogwood tree and Michael’s little grunts of satisfaction as he downed the milk.

  “Look how he loves you, Mrs. Carreras,” she said, turning him so that he was facing Julia when he’d finished. “He never takes his eyes off you for a minute. He knows who his mommy is, that’s for sure.”

  “I think,” Julia replied unsteadily, “that’s the nicest thing anyone could say to me but for you to be the one, Marian…!” She swallowed. “I can’t begin to tell you how moved I am.”

  Fortunately, Michael eased the emotional tension of the moment by letting out a resounding burp. Marian sat him on her lap and if she didn’t quite laugh out loud, she at least managed a real smile. Unimpressed, the baby wriggled in her arms, looking for Julia and breaking into an endearing gummy grin when he found her.

  “Well, I guess I’ve got what I came for,” Marian said, handing him over to her. “Thank you for being so kind, Mrs. Carreras. Now that I know for sure I made the right decision and that he’s in such good hands, I can go.”

  An hour ago, Julia would have welcomed the idea. She’d have thought even allowing the woman inside the house was above and beyond the call of duty. But suddenly, what she’d done didn’t strike her as nearly enough.

  “No,” she said, spreading a blanket on the grass and laying Michael down on it so that he could kick his little legs and gurgle at the leaves shimmering against the sky. “Please stay a while longer. We’re women, Marian, and women can talk to each other in a way that men don’t seem able to do. And I can’t let you walk out of here without urging you to try to find your way to a better life.”

  “I’ve got a good enough life,” Marian said, the scared uneasy shadows returning to her
eyes.

  “How can that be? Wayne Dawes is a bully.”

  “He’s my husband, Mrs. Carreras. I love him.”

  “He’s a monster,” Julia said determinedly. “He hit you, and if you hadn’t brought Michael to us when you did, he’d have hit him by now. How can you love a man like that? Leave him, Marian, before he hurts you really badly.”

  Before he kills you is what she wanted to say, but the woman was deaf to persuasion.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I need him. It’s not as if he’s a bad man. After all, he forgave me for cheating on him with Ben and let me come home again. It wouldn’t be fair for me to walk out on him again, just because he lost his temper with me.”

  Julia ground her teeth in frustration. “He isn’t worth what he’s costing you, don’t you see that? And it’s not too late for you to start over again. You’re young, you’re pretty, you’re smart. There are people who’ll help you. Please, Marian! When Michael asks when you’re coming to visit, I don’t want to have to tell him that you can’t, because your husband beat you up and put you in a body cast.”

  “I won’t be coming to see Michael anyway. He’s not my child anymore.”

  “He might be living with us, but in the most basic sense Michael will always be your child. I didn’t want to acknowledge that at first, but I know now that it’s true.” She touched her still slender waist. “I’m pregnant and even though it’s early days yet and I don’t look any different, I already know nothing can ever sever a mother’s blood tie with her baby. So if you won’t make a change for your own sake, Marian, do it for Michael’s. Make him proud of you. Don’t let him grow up thinking you traded him for a man like Wayne Dawes.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, but the long defeated sigh accompanying her words told Julia she wouldn’t. Wayne Dawes had done a good job convincing her that the abuse he heaped on her was no less than she deserved. “I’ve got to go now. Wayne’s waiting at the motel and he’ll get mad if I’m late. I guess,” she said, offering to shake hands, “I’ll see you in court on Monday?”

  “Yes.” Julia did something then that she’d never have envisaged herself ever doing. She put her arms around Marian’s thin shoulders and hugged her. “But if you ever need help…”

  For a moment, Marian clung to her like a lost child, then stepped away and said, “I’ll be okay. Wayne and I might fight sometimes, but we always make up.”

  She bent to touch Michael one last time, but backed away quickly at Clifford’s low growl. “Take care, little guy,” she said in a choked voice. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”

  Close to tears herself, Julia took her arm. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Fists clenched, Ben remained hidden in the kitchen and waited until he heard the side gate clang shut before stepping out into the garden to rescue Michael.

  To think he’d rushed home two days early, just to be with his wife! His beautiful, conniving, manipulative wife, who’d seized the first chance she got to sabotage his efforts to gain legal custody of his son! He hadn’t heard everything she’d been saying to Marian, but he’d caught enough to get the gist of the conversation.

  Oh, a fine mother she was, so busy dishing out self-serving advice that she didn’t care one whit that the child she professed to love could be mauled to death while her back was turned! Her great hairy beast of a dog was practically lying on top of Michael who’d managed to grab a fistful of its mangy fur and was trying to stuff it in his mouth.

  “Out of the way, dog,” Ben practically snarled, scooping the baby into his arms.

  He scarcely made it inside the French doors before Julia came haring back along the side path, took one look at the dog and the rumpled blanket where the baby was supposed to be, and went into a fit of shrieking hysterics.

  “Something wrong, darling?” Ben inquired, stepping out of the shadowed breakfast room and into the sunlight.

  She spun to face him and for a moment he almost felt sorry for her. Her face was the color of putty, her eyes blank with shock and her chest heaving. When she saw he had Michael in his arms, she went so limp with relief that he thought she was going to faint.

  She recovered, though. Pressing her hand to her heart—or the place he’d always assumed it was supposed to be—she fell into the nearest patio chair. “My heavens, you scared me, Ben!”

  Good! he thought. “Sorry, darling,” he said. “I thought you’d be glad to see me home again. If I’d known it was going to cause you such distress, darling, I’d have stayed away a bit longer.”

  She seemed to realize then that all was not well in paradise. Those atypical darlings he was throwing around, his too-smooth tone of voice and the fact that he wasn’t acting like a damned fool and slobbering kisses all over her, finally penetrated the fog of panic that had briefly possessed her.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “How would you like me to look at you, Julia?” he returned coldly.

  Warily, she got to her feet and leaned against the patio table. “As if you’re as glad to see me as I am to see you, instead of as if you were confronting a stranger.”

  “But I am,” he said. “You’re not who I thought you were.”

  “Ben!” She came toward him, every soft, deceiving feminine wile on full alert. “You’re not making any sense. I’m your wife, and I love you.”

  “Yes,” he said, tossing the words over his shoulder and returning to the house. “I suppose in your own warped way, you do. I suppose you think that justifies stabbing me in the back.”

  “I have done no such thing!” she exclaimed vehemently.

  Such righteous indignation was enough to set his own anger boiling over. “Oh, can the act, Julia!” he snapped, spinning to confront her. “I witnessed your touching little scene with Marian. I know what you’re up to.”

  “Then explain it to me,” she shot back, “because I obviously missed something! Exactly what do you think you saw and heard?”

  “Enough. I’m not stupid, Julia, though I’m beginning to think you must be, to leave a baby unattended around a great slobbering dog.”

  “Oh, baby, what happened?” Face mirroring commendable concern, she went to take Michael from him. “Did that big old Clifford scare you?”

  “If it didn’t, it’s no thanks to you!” Ben said savagely. “Michael’s no better off in your care than he was in Marian’s!”

  “That’s unfair, Ben! To me and to Marian!”

  “Oh, really?” he sneered. “And when did you and she become such bosom buddies?”

  She looked at him then the way her mother usually looked at her father: as if he weren’t playing with a full deck and needed someone to lead him around by the hand and take charge of his life. “I can’t imagine why you’re asking me that, since you seem to think you have the answers to everything. But you’re right on one score. Any explanations you feel you’re entitled to can wait until I’ve looked after Michael. Stop hanging on to him as if you think I might kidnap him and let me take him up to the nursery and change his diaper.”

  “No,” he said. “He’s my son and I’ll do it.”

  “I thought he was my son, too.”

  “Yeah, well, we all make mistakes, Julia. Some of us more than others.”

  She lifted her elegant shoulders in mystified surrender. “Go look after the baby,” she said in a saintly voice, “then you and I had better sit down and talk like rational adults.”

  “Rational adults, my ass!” he fairly bellowed. “We’ll lay everything out on the table, all right, but you can forget the polite society small talk! When I’m faced with a down and dirty fighter, I retaliate in like fashion. And you, my darling, are one down and dirty fighter!”

  When he came back downstairs with Michael fifteen minutes later, he found her sitting at the table in the breakfast room, spine as straight as a yardstick, and staring out at the ocean with her face frozen in a kind of distant calm. T
he dog lay at her feet.

  “How is Michael?” she said politely, not deigning to look at him.

  “Okay, considering.”

  “Considering what? He wasn’t alone for more than a couple of minutes.”

  “A couple of minutes is all it takes, Julia,” he said, resenting the flicker of guilt stirring inside him. “How you could even think it was okay to leave a helpless little kid with a big dog like that escapes me.”

  “If you’re suggesting I’m an unfit mother—”

  “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting, sweetheart. I thought I could trust you to care for my son, yet the first time I leave you in charge, this is what happens to him. And that’s only the half of it. What the hell were you doing, encouraging Marian to walk out on Wayne and take Michael back again? I thought you were on my side, Julia.”

  “Where ever did you get such an idea?” she cried, her face paling.

  “By listening in on your sickeningly sympathetic conversation. They do say eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, but I have to admit, I hadn’t bargained on your betraying me quite so thoroughly.”

  “That’s insane! Nothing about our conversation could be construed as disloyal to you.”

  “Oh?” He parked Michael in his swing, planted both hands flat on the table and recited, “Michael will always be your child… Nothing can ever destroy a mother’s connection with her baby… Don’t let him grow up knowing you traded him for a man like Wayne Dawes…. Does any of that ring a bell, Julia? Have you got the nerve to sit there and deny you said those things to Marian?”

  “No,” she said defiantly. “I said all that, and more, but you’re obviously not nearly as smart as you’d like to think you are, or you’d have listened to all the things I said instead of a select few. You’d know, for instance, that I’m pregnant.”

  Trying not to let her see how that rocked him, he straightened up and raked his glance over her. “Well, of course you are, honey. It’s what you’ve been after all along, after all, hasn’t it? And you always get what you want, don’t you, regardless of any agreement we might have reached to the contrary? No wonder you’re so anxious to be rid of Michael. He’s served his purpose now. You don’t need him to fulfill your maternal yearnings any more, do you?”