It Happened One Night

by Lisa Dale

  “I’m coming already!” The ringing was insistent, Westminster chimes vibrating through her last intact nerve. She flung open the door. “Yes?”

  Ron was smiling sheepishly, holding a few stems of supermarket roses. She could see their singular, signature red even from a few feet away. In the past she’d grabbed up his store-bought flowers and put them to her face as if the smell hadn’t been genetically bred out of them and replaced with perfume. Now, she only stared at them and wondered what she’d been thinking. Wildflowers were what she loved. Wildflowers. And Eli too.

  “Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you. What do you want?”

  “Can I come in?”

  She weighed her options. The air coming in through the door was chilly and biting. It had snowed last night—not a lot—but enough to suggest that a white winter was in store. A flurry of snowflakes sparkled and sliced the air, whipping in the cold wind.

  “Please?” His eyebrows were creased, pleading.

  She wobbled a little on her feet. She was weak and wouldn’t be able to have a conversation with him standing in the doorway. She had to sit down. “I really shouldn’t have visitors.”

  “I won’t stay long.”

  She sighed and stepped aside, feeling more than a little vulnerable when she compared her flimsy white nightdress to his big bomber jacket and boots. The baby elbowed her, wiggling as if anxious, and she found herself putting a hand to the spot and soothing the child in her mind. As Ron passed by he held out the roses. “No, thank you,” she said.

  She sat down gingerly on the couch, one hand cradling the underside of her belly, the other motioning for Ron to take the armchair a few feet away. He didn’t. He plopped right down beside her, close but not touching. The roses lay awkwardly across his lap.

  “You don’t look very good. How are you feeling?”

  “I almost lost the baby.”

  “But… I thought that’s what you would have wanted.”

  “You thought wrong,” she said.

  He looked at her closely. She didn’t know him well enough to be certain of the expression on his face, but she thought it was regret. “Listen. I want to apologize. I said some really terrible things to you in the Wildflower Barn that day.”

  She remembered the anger, the vehemence in his eyes. He’d stopped just shy of calling her a liar and denying that the child was his. He’d rejected her and the baby. “You made me feel terrible,” she admitted. “Like it was my fault. Mine alone.”

  He nodded, somber. “I thought it was your fault. I mean, that’s what it felt like. But that was then. I’d take it all back if you’d let me, now.”

  “Just tell me what you want.”

  He flinched at her tone. “I don’t want it to be like this. So awkward between us. We can start over, you know.”

  “We can’t start over.”

  “But I’m that baby’s father. Aren’t I?”

  “Of course you are.” Her throat went tight as if he’d wrapped his fingers around it and squeezed. The words custody battle raced through her mind. “What are you saying?”

  “I want to be in the child’s life. Maybe you don’t want me back right now. I can understand why. But I hope we might be able to make peace. I wigged out before. But I’m ready now—to do what I have to do.”

  She shifted in her seat, already weary from the conversation’s physical and emotional demands. “This seems like it’s coming out of nowhere. You were really mad that day in the Barn. It wasn’t just fear. You were furious.”

  “I was furious,” he admitted. “You trapped me. You might as well have backed me into a corner and put a gun to my head.”

  Lana nodded, her throat dry.

  “I have no way of convincing you, but I’ve been wrestling with this every day.” He leaned toward her, his expression pleading. “Lana, hear me out. I haven’t been sleeping at night, thinking about this. It wouldn’t be right if I never know my son and he never knows me. I just wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye ever again.”

  She began to tremble. He was right, of course. In her heart she wanted her child to know its father. For her baby’s sake, she hoped Ron would care. “So what are you asking me? What do you want?”

  “There’s only one solution I can think of,” Ron said, opening the flap of his coat and reaching into an inner pocket. “Lana…” He slid off the couch, the roses falling to his side, all his weight balanced on one knee. “I’ve been thinking about this a long time. Whether you say yes or not is your choice. But if you want that child to have a real father—a guy who will love it and do the best he can—I want to be there. For the baby and for you.”

  Lana sat still, speechless. She thought of her own mother, of the moment that Calvert had proposed and Ellen said yes. Had that turning point in their lives been a beautiful moment, one that made them both giddy and thrilled for the future? Or was it more like this, a complicated mix of relief, pleasure, and—she had to admit—resignation too?

  She put a hand over her heart. “Oh, Ron. I knew you were a good person.”

  His gaze darted away. “Does this mean you’ll say yes?”

  “Is that really what you want?”

  “Of course.” He shifted as if it hurt him to stay down on one knee. “But, I mean, I sorta thought you wouldn’t want to…”

  She took the ring from his hand, looking at it for a long moment. It was a showy ring, with a large diamond in the center and braided ropes of white gold. It was nothing like the ring Eli had shown her, the one he promised to slip on her finger the moment she said the word. That ring was a little tarnished, spartan, and entirely lovely—an authentic way of saying love.

  She closed the box in her hand, more certain now than ever before. She wasn’t sure what kind of life she could make with Eli—she hadn’t told him yes before because it had felt too soon, and because she could handle only one major life change at a time. But now, she knew that when the right time came, she would tell him yes with everything good and joyful within her. She didn’t know where her dreams of traveling fit in, nor did she know what kind of life she would make for herself with him, but she knew with perfect clarity that she never wanted to make a life without him. She loved him more than she could stand.

  She looked up at Ron, who appeared a bit stricken. She hadn’t realized she’d been smiling. He must have thought she was going to say yes. “Ron, I do want you to be in our baby’s life. But I don’t think that having a false marriage would be good for any of us. I like you and I know you like me, but it’s not love.”

  He nodded solemnly, distance in his eyes. She knew what it had cost him to come here and ask for her hand. She understood what he was prepared to sacrifice. His proposal wasn’t one of love; it was a commitment to do right by their child, to put himself second. In some ways, the proposal took more guts than if he’d thought her the woman of his dreams.

  “Oh, Ron.” She smiled gently and leaned to wrap her arms around him. He hugged her back. “Thank you,” she said, resting her cheek on his shoulder. “I’m so happy you want to be a part of the baby’s life. And mine too.” She let him go after a moment and then placed the ring back in his hand.

  His sigh held a hint of relief. “And what about the baby?”

  She tried to keep the concern off her face. Until now, she’d thought of herself as her baby’s sole parent. She made all the decisions—just her. Now Ron was asking to be a part of the baby’s life. And by extension, her own. How much control was she obligated to give him? How much would he want? She cleared her throat and spoke as calmly as she could. “Do you… are you going to want full custody?”

  “Not if you don’t want me to have it. I mean, I figured we’d kinda share or something like that. Like maybe I could see him every other weekend?”

  “It might be a her.”

  “Maybe.”

  She smiled, relieved. The hard part of the conversation was over now; she could see it in the subtle relaxation o
f his face. She stood, gesturing for him to do the same. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Don’t you want to see the pictures from the ultrasound?”

  “Yeah,” he said. His voice sounded oddly young and shy. “I’ll look at pictures. But just so you know, I don’t want to be, like, in the delivery room when the baby’s born. If that’s okay. The whole thing sorta freaks me out.”

  “You and me both,” she said. She laughed and squeezed his hand as they walked into the next room.

  Eli juggled his grocery bags and attempted to pull his wool mitten off with his mouth so that he could unlock Lana’s front door. But instead of finding it locked, he felt the key slip in and turn too easily. And in the same instant that adrenaline hit his brain, he heard her voice in the living room, and he saw the shape of her through the white curtain of the window.

  She wasn’t alone.

  The image was like a punch to the gut: Ron down on one knee. And Lana, smiling at him—beaming, really—and gazing down at the ring in her hand.

  Eli’s body remembered before his brain did, as if his reaction had been stored up in his muscles all this time. He felt as if it was happening again, the moment of pushing open the door of her dorm room all those years ago. The last decade of mustering up friendly smiles each time she introduced him to another date. The hope of offering her his grandmother’s ring, and the knowledge that he might as well have held it out to empty air. Each day of his relationship with her, he’d faced down the specter of how easily he could lose her. How suddenly she might pull away from him. And that moment had come.

  He watched as Lana looked at the man beside her, then embraced him. Eli backed away and almost tumbled down the concrete stairs. He hugged the grocery bags to his chest, his heart beating hard.

  She didn’t want to marry him—the man who was not the father of her child. The message was loud and clear.

  There was no point in waiting around. And he wasn’t going to walk into the same losing battle twice. As he headed back to his car, he let his anger become a hard, icy chill, his heart falling in temperature like the cooling, freezing air. He’d prepared for this. Expected it. He would not waste a moment replaying the scene in his mind, trying to decipher what he’d seen or not seen. If he doubted himself, uncertainty would only make the pain worse.

  The wind picked up, blowing hard against his whole body, a chill slicing through his jeans. But he didn’t duck his head or hunch his shoulders. He just stood up straighter, narrowed his tearing eyes, and pushed on.

  December

  Common mullein: A rodlike roadside weed that can grow to five feet, this wild plant has gone by many names but was called candelaria by the Romans. The clusters of flowers were dried, soaked in fat, then lit on fire, giving light during the darkest time of year.

  December 3

  Eli stood alone in Moe’s cramped living room, the weight of Moe’s cordless phone pressing his hand. He stared hard at the number pad, its keys that were sticky with what he hoped was soda or beer. His thumb brushed over the number 1, but he did not press down.

  For days, he’d disciplined himself. Don’t call her, don’t call her. He’d gone round and round with himself about the logic of staying silent. He’d pummeled his feelings to a pulp, shaking off self-pity and holding tight to anger and betrayal. He stayed busy, went out with Moe to drink and flirt madly with women, and at night he never got in bed or closed his eyes until he was utterly spent with exhaustion—to keep his mind from wandering in those dangerous moments before he fell asleep.

  Yesterday, he’d offered to help out at the amateur astronomical society in Vermont. The Geminids meteor shower was only ten days away, and he’d said he’d be happy to drive out to their mini-convention and give a talk. It was late notice, but since it was being run by an old colleague, they’d readily agreed to have him. He liked the idea of getting away and being distracted. The convention was just far enough that he would need to get a hotel room, but not so far that he couldn’t rush back home if called.

  He sighed. There was no dignity in his behavior, in his longing. The spot in his heart that ached for Lana was like the dark, dense center of a black hole, so heavy it warped the fabric of his whole being, tugging not only at his loneliness, but at his sense of humor, his interests, his basic human needs. The world, so vibrant and shining two weeks ago, had gone dull.

  Part of him wanted to speak to her, to find out the details of what he’d seen—or what he hadn’t seen—that afternoon. But that was the emotional part of his brain—the untrustworthy and sniveling part of himself that he couldn’t stand. The rational part of his brain knew that what he saw or what he merely thought he saw had the same effect. The instant Lana reached for that unmistakable little box, two things became clear.

  First: She hadn’t rejected Ron immediately. Her body language, her posture, the look on her face—nothing he saw suggested that she was uncomfortable or appalled. That worried him. Even if Ron’s proposal had ultimately been turned down—he had no way of knowing if it was or wasn’t—Lana’s reaction wasn’t the blatant and outright refusal he’d hoped it would be.

  Second: There was the crushing realization that no matter what, Ron would always share something with Lana that Eli did not. It hurt to think of it—that another man had fathered a child with the woman he loved. When he’d been pursuing Lana, his focus had been single-minded and driven—nothing could distract him from his goal. And so he hadn’t given a second thought to Ron. But now it was clear Ron wanted some kind of future with Lana and her baby. And where did Eli fit into that? Was he totally pathetic to hope that he even fit in at all—he, who had nothing to do with the tightly bound circle of Lana, her baby, and Ron?

  He bounced the weight of the phone in his hand, thinking. He’d let himself start believing that his future with Lana was one of stability—a quiet family life. He’d even begun to start thinking of her child as his, welcoming it with the same warmth and care that he would have if it had been his baby in her womb. But at the end of the day, facts were facts. The baby was Ron’s, not his. He remembered the way Lana had looked on her birthday, the way Ron had come out of her bedroom with his open shirt—buttons she had opened. It killed him to think of it, then and now. Lana had liked Ron. Liked him enough to sleep with him. And if Lana wanted to consider marrying the man who had fathered her child… who was Eli to confuse things or stand in her way?

  He had to give Lana some space—to give them both some space—so they both could be sure she would pick the man she wanted—not just because of a whim or an instinct, but a decision that was once and for all.

  “Just call already.”

  He turned around, surprised to see Moe standing there in his pressed khakis and button-down shirt. His apartment was a mess, but his clothes were always movie-star neat.

  “You’ve been staring at the phone for five minutes. Just dial.”

  Eli shook his head, glad to have been caught because it meant that the argument about whether to call Lana or not had been settled—at least temporarily. This was precisely the reason he was crashing at Moe’s instead of sitting around and stewing in his own apartment. At least at Moe’s, he wasn’t surrounded by memories at every turn and he could get away from his own unhappiness from time to time. “Nah. Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “What would I say?”

  “I would imagine that after everything you’ve been through, there would be a lot to say.”

  Eli sighed hard. He thought back over the last few weeks, images arriving in colors so vivid and stark it hurt to remember. Lana’s eyelids lowered when he slid off the straps of her bra. The swell of her belly, naked and softly lit in his room. He loved her so much, a bigger love than he’d even thought himself capable of. And yet because of how much he loved her, he needed to give her room and step aside.

  “Well,” Moe said, lifting his black leather jacket from the coatrack and slipping it on, “I’ve got some errands to ru
n, and then I have a date, so it looks like you’ve got the place to yourself.”

  “Great,” Eli said, no hint of enthusiasm in his voice.

  “Throw a party. Invite over some women. See if that girl you used to date… what’s her name…?”

  “Kelly.”

  “See if Kelly wants to come over. Tell her you need some rebound therapy.”

  “That’s the last thing I need.”

  Moe adjusted his coat on his shoulders, lifting it by the collar and letting it fall. “All I’m saying is, don’t sit around and mope. We’ve gone over this a hundred times. I don’t think she was setting you up to walk in on her and the mountain biker.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether she was setting me up or not.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “The phone hasn’t exactly been ringing off the hook because she wants to talk.”

  “You don’t know what she’s thinking,” Moe said.

  Eli shrugged. “I don’t really know what I’m thinking either.”

  “Up to you. But I think you should call.”

  “Have fun,” Eli said, but Moe had already half closed the door behind him and probably didn’t hear the words. And then Eli was alone.

  Slowly he put the phone back in its cradle, wondering where Lana was, what she was doing now. Lana would have the baby shortly. He’d wanted to be there for the birth. They’d planned for it. He’d looked forward to the baby’s birth day, not only because he’d wanted to be part of it, but because he’d been thrilled that Lana had wanted him to be part of it. But now that Ron was back… it made more sense to have the child’s father in the delivery room. Not him.

  His dreams for a future with her—for a family with her—had been so close, almost promised. He hadn’t directly spoken aloud of the life he wanted to anyone, so afraid that saying the words would somehow stop his heart’s dream from coming true. And yet silence had brought him nothing. Just him, the telephone, and his endless, humorless grief.