Baby Girl

by Bette Lee Crosby

  After a sleepless night I knew I needed the advice of someone older, wiser and more understanding of life. Who better than Ophelia? She knew both William and me. I telephoned her and asked if she had time to talk.

  Less than an hour later Violet and Felix were off wading in the pond, and I was sitting across from Ophelia in one of the wicker chairs in her backyard. I told her of William’s proposal and explained that I was undecided.

  She looked at me with a bewildered expression. “You don’t love him?”

  “It’s not that,” I replied. “I do love him, but I’m afraid of what might happen.”

  Ophelia said nothing and waited for me to continue.

  “When I gave up Baby Girl I trusted Ryan would love me forever, but he didn’t. He fell in love with someone else and asked for a divorce. It took me a year to get over him. A year of living like a squatter on that boat, a year of being miserable and filled with hate. When I finally did get my life back together, I met Nick and trusted him. He swore up and down he loved me, but once Violet came along he walked out on us both.”

  “Do you think William is like either of those men?”

  I shook my head. “No, but now the stakes are a lot higher. Back then it was only me; now I’ve got a house and two kids. They’re already fond of William, and if he left us now we’d survive. Yes, there would be a hole in our life, but we’d still have a house to live in and we could go from day to day just as we have been. What if something like that happened after we moved out to the farm—in a year or two or three…”

  The possibilities overwhelmed me, and my eyes filled with tears. “I’ve made so many mistakes, and now…”

  Ophelia reached across and took my hand in hers. “Maybe they weren’t all mistakes. Maybe they were God’s way of teaching you what life is all about.”

  One by one Ophelia went through all of my disastrous relationships.

  “You were little more than a child when you left home with Ryan,” she said. “Not yet a woman capable of understanding life. You made a selfless decision in giving up Baby Girl and in doing so learned what it means to love a child.” She gave a saddened sigh and added, “Living through such a loss causes a woman to love more deeply.”

  She hesitated as her hand gave mine a comforting squeeze. “Then there was your handsome Nick Lombardi. He spoke the truth right from the start, but you didn’t listen. He was never meant to be your lifetime partner, yet he gave you Violet. Do you think such a beautiful child can be a mistake?”

  I shook my head. “Never,” I said, recalling how the moment I first held her in my arms my heart filled with love.

  Ophelia lowered her eyes and continued. “And then there was that one-night stand, which was definitely a lesson to be learned. But would you change things and give up having Felix in your life?”

  I thought of my son’s bright smile and eagerness to learn and again shook my head.

  “Think about it,” she said softly. “If you hadn’t trusted the instincts of your heart, you wouldn’t have had either of those wonderful children.”

  I didn’t have to think about it; I knew Ophelia was right. Although my life had not followed the pathway I’d envisioned, I wouldn’t have changed anything. Not even Baby Girl. Yes, I still missed her and thought of her often, but I knew she was loved and had given the Stuarts a great deal of happiness.

  Somehow in looking back I came to realize my life wasn’t nearly as disastrous as I had imagined it to be.

  “Thank you,” I said, then wrapped my arms around her neck and held my cheek against hers.

  ~ ~ ~

  That evening when William arrived, the ring he’d given me was on the third finger of my left hand. He noticed it right away.

  After a quick glance at my hand, he looked at me with a smile stretched across the full width of his face.

  “Does this mean…” he asked.

  Words were unnecessary. I nodded, and he saw the answer in my eyes.

  He pulled me into his arms and covered my mouth with his. It was a kiss that was both passionate and sweet.

  “I swear you will never regret this,” he whispered. “I’ll love Violet and Felix as if they were my own, and I’ll make you the most cherished woman on earth.”

  This time I did trust. His was a promise that would forever hold true.

  The following Saturday we took the kids out for pizza and asked how they would feel about living on a farm.

  “We’d have to sell our house and move there,” I explained. “Mister McLeod’s farm is in Burnsville. That’s where Aunt Ophelia lives.”

  Felix bought into the idea immediately. “Will I get to ride on the tractor? And pet the cows?”

  “I’m afraid cows don’t like to be petted,” William answered. “But I’ve got a whole litter of baby kittens who love to be petted. Plus, you can ride on the tractor any old time you want to.”

  “Oh, boy!” Felix gave a wide grin and asked if we could move there tomorrow.

  “Not tomorrow,” I said, “but soon.”

  I turned to Violet and asked for her thoughts.

  She’s my little worrier, and true to form she had her brows pinched together.

  “What about school?” she asked. “What about leaving Auntie Nicole and Aunt Margaret?”

  “There’s a really nice school in Burnsville,” William said. “And you’d get to ride on the school bus with all the other kids.”

  “You wouldn’t be leaving Auntie Nicole and Aunt Margaret,” I added. “We’d go visit them just the same as we go visit Aunt Ophelia now.”

  Violet’s expression remained the same. “Would Felix and I each have our own room?”

  “Absolutely!” William said. “And I was thinking maybe you’d like one of those fancy canopy beds.”

  “Really?”

  William nodded. “Really.”

  “If you marry Mama and we come to live in your farmhouse, does that mean you’ll be our daddy?”

  William answered her question with one of his own. “It depends. Do you think you and Felix would like to have me as your daddy?”

  “Unh-huh.” Violet nodded, and her face broke into a smile.

  “Well, then, I’d be honored.”

  Over the next few months each day brought some new pleasure, something more to look forward to, something else to be excited about. We visited William’s farm countless times; Felix got to ride on the tractor, ride a horse and name all five of the new kittens. They also saw the bedrooms that would soon be theirs, and one Saturday we all went shopping in Burnsville and Violet got to pick out the canopy bed she’d been dreaming about.

  As for me, I fell more in love with William with each day that passed. As Ophelia once said, how can you not love a man who adores you and both of your children?

  A New Life

  We were married on the first Sunday of November. The ceremony took place in Burnsville at the Good Shepherd Church, a small white clapboard building distinguished only by the steeple that rose above the red and gold of the treetops.

  It was a simple service with just a handful of friends and family in attendance. I was hoping Mama would come, but she didn’t. She sent a card and said her arthritis was acting up, so she wasn’t able to make the trip. Ophelia, who is almost like a mother to me, was there, as was Margaret. Nicole served as my maid of honor and she wore an ivory colored dress, the same as me.

  Both kids took part in the ceremony. William had insisted on it.

  “I want them to know I’m marrying them along with their mama,” he’d said.

  Felix was the ring bearer and Violet a flower girl. She looked like a little angel carrying the basket of yellow and white chrysanthemums clipped from Ophelia’s garden.

  William’s brother, Matthew, was his best man, and his parents looked on proudly from the first pew. The only other guests were four couples, farm families from the area and friends of William.

  It was the first time I’d met Leroy and Wilma, William’s parents, and I liked
them right from the start. Leroy was tall and settled looking like William, and Wilma had a sweetness about her that’s almost impossible to describe. After the ceremony she kissed William on the cheek then did the same with me. She then pulled the two of us into one giant hug and whispered that if either of the kids or us ever needed anything to call on her.

  “We’re family,” she said, and that thought nestled into my heart like a dish of sweet pudding.

  Following the service, we celebrated with coffee and cake in Good Shepherd’s Community Room then everyone went home and we came back to the farm. It was fall harvest season, which made it impossible for William to take time for a honeymoon. I was floating on a cloud of happiness, so the part about the honeymoon didn’t trouble me at all. In fact, I couldn’t think of a place I’d rather be than right there in my forever home with my forever family.

  After the wedding I took a week of vacation time and used it to settle into my new life. We’d carted over almost one hundred boxes from what was now called the old house, so I spent the entire week combining “my stuff” and “his stuff” into “our stuff.” Of course we ended up with more frying pans, coffee pots and toaster ovens than we could possibly use, so I loaded the car and took the extras to the Sisters of Mercy Thrift Shop.

  The next week I returned to work. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always worked so I had no reason to believe now it would be any different. Monday through Friday I woke the kids, got them dressed and fed, then backed out of the driveway and headed for Wyattsville. Truth be told, though, I missed being there when they climbed off the school bus and when William came in for lunch. I even missed the mindless tasks of sorting through drawers of cookware and stacking towels in the bathroom closet.

  I compensated by cutting back on the time allocated for client lunches and sit-down conversations. I replaced them with telephone calls from the office. I also kept a sharper eye on the clock and tried to start home by four at the latest. Despite my best efforts, I seldom arrived home before six. That fall when the days grew short, I didn’t make it home for a lot of the important things. It’s funny, but small things that had no part in my previous life suddenly seemed important. A new calf was born, Felix found a supposedly authentic Indian arrowhead and Violet had a playmate come to visit after school. I missed all of these things, but that was simply part and parcel of being a working mother, wasn’t it?

  ~ ~ ~

  On Thanksgiving Day I was out of bed before dawn, and by the time William and the kids sat down to breakfast I had a twenty-four pound turkey stuffed and in the oven.

  When we sat down to dinner that afternoon, there were twelve of us gathered at the table: our family of four, Ophelia, Margaret, William’s parents and the Lundmanns along with their two girls. Ed and Sally Lundmann were our next-door neighbors, so to speak, even though “next door” was a quarter mile down the road.

  Before we ate, William said the blessing and thanked God for both a bountiful harvest and his new family.

  “Amen to that,” Ophelia said and gave me a wink.

  When we were all so full we couldn’t eat another bite, we played games, told stories and spoke of all we had to be thankful for.

  “I’m thankful for getting to ride on a tractor,” Felix said.

  Violet rolled her eyes in typical big-sister fashion then stated she was thankful for having her own room and a new canopy bed.

  The Lundmann girls were both thankful they now had neighbors to play with.

  “And I’d be more thankful if I had a canopy bed too,” the younger one added.

  Later that evening after the kids had brushed their teeth, said their prayers and fallen exhaustedly into bed, William and I sat side by side on the living room sofa.

  “Did you ever dream our life together would be this good?” he asked.

  I smiled at the thought and confessed that I didn’t.

  “I thought we’d be good together, but this…” I lifted his hand to my mouth and dropped a kiss into his palm. “I never knew something this good even existed.”

  We talked for a long time that night, and for the first time in many, many years I opened my soul and let the truth of my life spill out. Until then I had not spoken of the feelings I’d kept hidden for so long. I’d told the facts and spoken of the events but never the feelings. Alone I’d battled my way through hard times by keeping my heart hardened; I swallowed back the bitterness of loss and stood my ground. I did what I had to do because I was the only one I could count on. I was the only one the kids could count on. Now it was different. William and I were so much more than a man and woman sleeping together; we were a family.

  That night when the moon was high in the sky and everyone else fast asleep, William and I made love. Afterward he held me in his arms and I knew that for as long as we lived our souls would be intertwined, one to the other.

  ~ ~ ~

  A week before Christmas I was in the kitchen fixing breakfast when a sudden bout of nausea overcame me. I ran for the bathroom, threw up my morning coffee and was still nauseous. My first thought was I’d had too many of the cookies we’d been baking, but when I threw up a second time I suspected otherwise.

  I washed my face, forced down a piece of dry toast and then left for work. On the way home that evening I stopped at the drugstore and bought a pregnancy test. I waited until after the kids were in bed then slipped into the bathroom. The stick turned blue.

  Hopefully William will see this as good news, I thought.

  He was sitting on the sofa watching a basketball game. I walked in and dropped down beside him.

  Without thinking about it, he reached across and laid his hand on my thigh.

  “How was your day?” he asked.

  “Eventful,” I answered.

  He turned to me. “Eventful? In what way?”

  I gave him the whole story of how I had been sick this morning, and when I got to the part where the stick turned blue he broke out in the happiest smile I’ve ever seen. I didn’t have to wonder if he was pleased with the news; the answer was in his smile.

  “So we’re having a baby,” he said. “Wow, imagine me having a baby.”

  I laughed. “Actually I’ll be doing all the heavy lifting on this one, but I’m definitely going to need a birthing coach.”

  “I’ll be there,” he swore. “Every minute, every second.”

  He kissed my mouth as tenderly as you’d kiss a sleeping infant, and I was filled with the joy of knowing this baby would have a loving father.

  That night I dreamt of my own daddy. I saw him up in heaven smiling down at me.

  “This is good,” he said and gathered me into his arms the way he used to do. When the dream ended I could still feel Daddy’s arms around me, but once I opened my eyes I realized it was William who had snuggled close during the night.

  I usually jump out of bed as soon as my eyes are open, but I didn’t that morning. I stayed there for another ten minutes just to enjoy the good feeling I had in my heart.

  Dilly Beans

  That week William chopped down a pine, and we decorated it with colored lights and ornaments of every shape and size. I had never seen the kids as excited as they were that year. They hung decorations in every room of the house: snowflake cutouts, hand-drawn angels, paper chains. Glitter sparkles were everywhere, even stuck to little hands and noses.

  On Christmas Eve we went to church as a family. Not since before Daddy died had I felt so loved and complete. As I sat in the pew listening to the choir sing of that holy night I understood how it felt to be Mary, not as the mother of the Christ Child but as the mother of a baby who would be born into a world of love and adoration.

  They say time waits for no one, and it’s true. It hurries by whether you want it to or not. That holiday season was so filled with laughter and happiness I wished it could last forever, but it came and went in the blink of an eye. Christmas Day was a frantic flurry of ribbons, wrapping paper and squeals of excitement. Our living room was cluttered w
ith new dolls, toy trucks and even a sled.

  I’d laughed at William when he brought the sled home.

  “We get very little snow in Virginia,” I said. “Why buy a sled?”

  He’d shrugged. “Felix had it on his list.”

  As fate would have it, we had a seven-inch snowfall in the second week of January. School was canceled, and William took the kids sledding on the hill behind the orchard. I was back at work by then and with the slick roads didn’t get home until almost eight.

  When I came in, Felix ran to greet me.

  “Mama,” he shouted, “guess what? We had snow, and Daddy took us sledding!” By then both kids had begun to call William Daddy.

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, a bit jealous that I hadn’t been home for such an event.

  “I was great!” Felix said.

  “I was great too,” Violet added, but not quite as enthusiastically.

  Their comments were reflective of their personalities. Felix is my little fireball, Violet as soft and lovely as her name.

  That winter Virginia had more than its share of freezing rain, snow and ice. Driving back and forth to Wyattsville was slow and at times treacherous. More than once William suggested I not go to work, but I did nonetheless. I figured with the baby due in July I’d be taking most of August off, and that was enough.

  ~ ~ ~

  The first notice came in late February. It was a short and simple e-mail sent to everyone who worked for the Tribune. The message said that Drummond-Hill, a Richmond-based publisher, had purchased the paper. While there would be some minor restructuring in the coming months, for now we were to continue operations as they were.