It Happened One Night

by Lisa Dale

  She gave him her best smile. “Have you got any news? Did Calvert leave town?”

  Andy laughed and shook his head. “You seem a little nervous. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just figured—I thought the reason you called me…”

  “I have my guys working on it, don’t worry. We’ve got a car outside the Madison twenty-four seven. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Karin nodded.

  “But there’s something else I thought you’d want to know.”

  “What?”

  “That he’s been hanging around your sister’s house. And dropping by the Barn every now and again—though he never makes a move to go in.”

  “Lana told me she saw him.” Karin leaned her head back against the headrest. “Can we do something? File some kind of harassment charges or get a restraining order?”

  “You could. But I don’t think you’ll need to. I don’t get the feeling that he’s out to do anything harmful. It’s more like he’s just… lonely. Give my guys more time to smoke him out.”

  Karin nodded and sighed. Maybe Andy was right. As much as she hated her father, some small part of her was beginning to understand his misery. If Calvert felt even a modicum of the heartbreak she felt over her children—those she could not have—then maybe she did feel a little sorry for him.

  “Are you okay?” Andy asked.

  “Just thinking.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  She looked at the man sitting next to her, this man who—despite all he’d done for her—was practically a stranger. There was heartwarming sincerity in his eyes.

  She and Gene had stopped talking about anything important these days—no more discussion about the baby, about Calvert, about their future. She couldn’t talk to Lana either—Lana, who preferred to share with Charlotte and Eli, not her.

  But here was Andy. An unbiased listener. A fellow churchgoer. A person who was unentangled in the problems of her life.

  “Actually, yes,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind someone to talk to.”

  “Let’s go inside.”

  Karin hesitated, turning to look at the dilapidated restaurant, attempting once again to see if anyone was inside. She did want to talk with Andy, but she wished there was some way she could do it without being alone with him.

  He opened the car door an inch. “The place may not look like much. But the hot dogs are killer. And anyway, no one will see.”

  “Why would I care if anyone saw?” Karin said quickly.

  Andy laughed nervously. “Well, you shouldn’t. I mean, I don’t care.”

  She swallowed. All she wanted to do was talk. She was doing nothing wrong. “We’ll have to split the check.”

  “No, really, let me—”

  “That or no deal.”

  “You are stubborn.” He laughed, then pushed the door open wide. The smile he gave her before he climbed out could have melted glass. “Your wish is my command,” he said.

  August 20

  Lana sat in the store alone, eating a sandwich of tomato and fresh mozzarella, and drinking occasionally from a single-serving carton of whole milk. It had been a moderately busy afternoon, but now the flow of tourists and locals had waned. The light slanted through the window in golden, razor-sharp beams, and outside the poppies in the wildflower meadow flared orange and red. The only car in the parking lot was hers. She had a feeling that people were more interested in grilling and swimming than planting flowers this late in the season.

  She was still hungry when she finished her sandwich—she was always hungry, it seemed—but instead of eating more, she busied herself wiping up the faint layer of dust that constantly emanated from the parking lot and coated every item in the store. When she was done, she flipped through a catalog showing pages upon pages of wreaths and holly, pondering orders for the upcoming season. She thought: By spring, I’ll be somebody’s mom.

  The little silver bell over the front door rang. And when she looked up, already launching into customer-service mode, what she saw made the words slip off her tongue.

  Ron.

  He wasn’t smiling. He wore slightly frayed jeans and a leather jacket. His hair curled toward his shoulders, longer than before.

  She dusted off her hands and smiled as she walked toward him. “Ron. You’re here.”

  “Here I am.”

  She mustered up some enthusiasm. “How are you? What have you been up to?”

  “Not as much as you, apparently.” He crossed his arms. He was as handsome now as when they’d met—the only two people in Burlington buying crepes in a snowstorm. He wore a striped dress shirt tucked into his jeans, and Lana couldn’t help but wonder if he’d dressed up.

  She wanted him to say something, to ask how the store was doing, how she was doing. But he remained silent, his face like stone.

  She forced herself to take a deep breath. “Do you want to sit down?”

  He lifted his chin. “I don’t think this should take that long.”

  “Eli told you I was looking for you?” she asked, though of course she knew he had.

  “You sent him to me, yes.”

  She shook her head but didn’t correct him.

  “I wasn’t going to come,” he said. “I tried not to.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because I don’t want your boyfriend to pick another fight.”

  She blinked, stunned. Eli hadn’t mentioned a fight. In all the years she’d known him, he’d never got in a fight.

  Ron went on. “If you’re going to say what I think you’re going to say, let’s just get it over and done.”

  “All right.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting a headache. “I’m pregnant.”

  She saw from the look on his face that he wasn’t surprised. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how are you sure? How do you know it’s mine?”

  “Well… I mean… I haven’t been with anyone but you.”

  He laughed. “That’s a little hard to swallow, if you get my drift.”

  Lana wanted to sit down, to step away from the situation and think. He was right to doubt her. Their relationship had been nothing more than a quick fling, and he had no reason to think she was seeing only him. In fact, she wondered now if he had someone in his life as well. She’d never asked.

  She stepped toward him. She knew exactly what he was going through right now—the fear, the disbelief. She was prepared to let his insults roll off her back. “I know this is scary. And I’m sorry it happened. I really am. I didn’t want this either.”

  “Let’s be clear on one thing,” he said quickly. “I don’t have any money. Nada. None.”

  Her head throbbed. “Why would I care if you had any money?”

  “All that stuff I told you about having a condo in Denver and a house on Lake Tahoe? I lied. Yep. I don’t even race anymore. I got hurt a few years back and now I’m just a has-been. A nobody. Completely washed up. I run a store out of a bedroom in my brother’s house. You can take me to court for child support if you want to, but I’m flat busted broke.”

  The room tipped; she half expected her terra-cotta pots to slide off their shelves.

  “Now who’s surprised?” Ron said.

  Lana stared at him. Everything he’d told her had been a lie. And she’d fallen for it. Or rather, she’d let herself fall for it. All the questions she should have asked, the details she should have demanded… she hadn’t wanted to know. She’d kept him, like every man she’d ever dated, at arm’s length.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” she said.

  “Come on, Lana. It would have killed the fantasy for both of us.”

  “I still would have liked you if I knew you weren’t racing. It’s not your fault that you got hurt.”

  “Maybe,” he said, looking away from her. The pain in his expression was real. “But let’s be honest. Neither one of us wanted something serious. It worked better when you thought I
lived out west.”

  She crossed her arms. “I didn’t need you to lie to me; I knew what I was getting into.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She pressed a hand to her belly. “Look. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not telling you this because I want your money. I just thought you deserved to know.” He was quiet, and her heart went out to him. Getting hurt had obviously done a number on his self-esteem. She felt the urge to reassure him that everything would be okay. “I’m thinking of putting the baby up for adoption. But I wanted to clear it with you. I mean, technically it’s yours too.”

  He snorted. “Oh, how kind.”

  “Would you rather I didn’t tell you?”

  “Honestly?”

  She felt her fists clench tight, and she thought of her father, a man who’d had the task of parenting foisted on him long after he’d rejected the job. The anger that exploded came from a place so deep she hadn’t known it was there. “How dare you!” she said, her voice rising. “You bring another human being into this world and you can’t even bring yourself to acknowledge it?”

  “You’re the one who decided to keep it, not me.”

  “I didn’t get this way by myself. But I’m the one who’s been dealing with it—all of it. It’s my body that this is happening to. Mine. While you’ve been walking around without a clue. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been?”

  Lana touched a hand to her throat, the muscles there tightening painfully. She heard the soft sound of a footfall on the concrete floor of the Barn, and she thought, Please, don’t be Eli. She couldn’t stand the idea that he would see her in the middle of this mess. But when she looked up, it wasn’t Eli she saw, but her sister, with her stout shoulders squared and her chin stuck out as if she’d seen the battle and was ready to plunge in tooth and nail.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Karin said, her voice almost a growl and her eyes boring into Ron. “But I suggest you get out right now.”

  Lana forced herself to relax. “Ron was just leaving.”

  He pointed a finger at Lana’s face. “I’m done with this, Lana. And I’m done with you. Do whatever you want with it. As far as I’m concerned, that baby is not mine.”

  He barreled out of the Barn; she could feel the moment he was gone, as if the plants around her, with all their delicate green leaves and thin stems, trembled with reverberations of his anger. The silence in the Barn was thick.

  Karin stood stone-still, her eyes wild with the instinct to fight, but her whole body seeming suddenly very small. “What baby?” she said.

  “Kari. Oh, Kare. I’m so sorr—”

  “Don’t,” Karin whispered. “Just don’t.” She stood for a moment as if trying to get her balance or her bearings. Then she turned around and left.

  Karin drove ten miles over the speed limit on the cramped city streets. There were no cars in the parking lot when she got to her church. One small blessing: She was alone.

  Inside was dim but airy, the cathedral ceilings letting in clear white light. She walked to the front of the church, crossed herself, then slid into the second pew from the front. She waited for a prayer to rise up in her heart, impulsive and genuine and unscripted, as her prayers usually were. But she felt nothing.

  She put her head in her hands.

  Lana. It made no sense. Her own sister, who didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. Who was still a child herself. How could Lana be pregnant?

  A smarmy, coiled-up voice from inside her gave the answer: Because God loves Lana more. Everything was always so much easier for her. When Lana graduated from high school, Karin had spent countless hours searching for scholarships and scrounging pennies from her job at the grocery store so that at least one of them could get a college degree. Then, when Lana had graduated and they didn’t know what to do, Karin was the one who came up with the idea of the Wildflower Barn, Karin had done all the legwork so they could have a means of supporting themselves, and Karin had found a way to make Lana’s passion for flowers into a practical way of life.

  She looked up at the cross above the altar.

  For a moment, rage clouded her vision. Her teeth gnashed together so hard she thought they might crack. Her muscles clenched from head to toe.

  Her screaming was silent: How could you do this to me?

  Maybe she would go to the doctor again. She and Gene had promised themselves that they would have a baby by God’s grace or not have one at all. But that was before Lana ended up with the baby that should have been Karin’s.

  She put her head on the lemony-smelling wood in front of her.

  What was she saying? Lana hadn’t gotten pregnant on purpose. She knew that. It wasn’t rational to be this mad. But that single kernel of knowledge was nothing compared to the wild storm of her emotions.

  Karin had forgiven her sister for a lot of things. Year after year. Time and again. And in all those instances, she’d never once considered what she was considering now: If she refused to forgive her sister for this one last act of injury, she would never, ever have to forgive her again.

  September

  Sunflowers: Sunflowers are loved as much for their many uses as for their beauty. The stalk of the sunflower is one of the strongest and yet lightest natural substances in the world. The sunflower is also a willful seedling: In the early twentieth century, naturalist John Burroughs reported having seen a sunflower pushing up through the pavement “like a man’s fist.”

  September 1

  The water sucked and sloshed against the slatted sides of the rowboat in the center of a wide lagoon. From where she lay on her back in the bottom of the hull, Lana could see nothing of the mountains and houses along the lake’s shore. There was only sky, endless and vast as the universe beyond the blue.

  Evenings like this, longing and loneliness never failed to rise up from the marrow of her bones. As a teenager she hadn’t been able to place it. But as an adult she recognized what it was. She missed her mother; she wished for her soothing voice, her steadying hand. Ellen was the bridge between Lana and her sister, the first word between them and the last. Ellen would know what Lana should say to Karin, words that not only apologized but healed as well.

  And maybe she would know what to say about Eli too, about the war waging between Lana’s mind and heart. Eli had broken up with Kelly. He hadn’t told her why, but she knew that something was different within him. Something had changed. The desire growing hotter by the day in his eyes spoke to her at the deepest level of her being.

  She closed her eyes. The wind washed into the bottom of the boat and blew over her skin. There was a story her mother used to tell. Lana couldn’t remember the specifics anymore. But it was about a beaver and a bear, and it ended with the bear feeling guilty that the beaver was sentenced to cutting down trees for all time because he’d kept silent when he should have spoken up.

  There was a moral to the story, as there was a moral to so many of Ellen’s stories. When truth is known, it should be spoken. How many times had Ellen said that to her daughters? And yet decades later, the lesson still hadn’t sunk in.

  Lana should have told Karin about the baby. Immediately. She should have insisted, even though she knew the truth would cause her sister pain.

  And as for Eli, she was keeping secrets from him too. Perhaps she should talk to him. To get it out in the open. She could confess that she was attracted to him, but didn’t want to change the balance of their friendship. There was logic in confessing her true feelings. She could appeal to the rational side of his brain, the side that would want to protect their friendship as much as she did.

  Or she could just sleep with him.

  Wasn’t that what she wanted deep down? She could offer him a bargain. They would go to bed together just to get it out of their systems, and then their relationship could go back to normal. For all she knew, it might be terrible if they tried to sleep together. Maybe fifty years from now, they could look back on their awkward efforts and laugh…

  W
ho was she kidding?

  Sex with Eli wouldn’t be terrible. When he’d wrapped his arms around her the other day, her whole body came alive in ways that it never had with any other man but him. In all the years since they’d made love, she’d never felt as overtaken and devastated by passion as she’d been with him. If a man flirted with her, drew her out, then she could often convince her body to enjoy the act of making love. But with Eli, she hadn’t seen it coming. One minute, they were strictly friends, and the next… the next…

  They’d tried going down that road before, and it had almost ruined the most meaningful and lasting relationship she’d ever had. If she allowed herself to sleep with him once more and only once more, it wouldn’t be a compromise. It would be devastation. Friendship was what worked for them. Friendship could unite two people on two very different paths. Lust… that was fleeting. Dangerous. One night could ruin ten years of their lives.

  A heron flew overhead, its great wings dark against the filmy remnants of the sunset. She had to get back. And when she did, she had to start dealing with things. With Karin, she needed to bring her secrets out into the clear. Once and for all. And with Eli, she had to talk to him. Really talk to him.

  He’d been away on a trip for over a week—sent by the university to procure more meteorite samples for their collection—but when he returned she needed to set down some rules. He wouldn’t push the issue. He never did.

  When truth is known, it should be spoken. She gave a long, deep pull on the oars, and then dragged the tips of her fingers on the surface of the water, watching the trail her fingers left behind.

  September 3

  Eli stood before his intro to astronomy class, and he could only hope that his chronically tired students wouldn’t notice their professor’s exhaustion. He’d been away on an expedition and had taken a red-eye back to Burlington last night in order to make his class—his first of the year, and the only course he was scheduled to teach for the fall. He always loved the first class because it set the stage for all the mysteries yet to come. Today he was introducing his students to dark matter, which made up more than 99 percent of the mass of the universe but constantly eluded scientists’ grasp.