My Heart Can't Tell You No

by M. K. Heffner

  “I was hoping I could.” She looked up at him through pleading eyes. “Can’t we stay up until it’s all done?”

  “Ollie’s getting tired and he needs a shower before he goes to bed. I think we better go home after I’m done here.”

  “But I wanted to help finish.”

  “You want to sleep here?” Sarah asked. “You can sleep in Maddie’s old bed upstairs, if you want to.”

  “Can I, Dad?”

  Joe looked at her, knowing he couldn’t refuse the excitement he saw in her eyes. He knew Sarah had won the child’s heart, just as Jack had captured Ollie’s.

  “Just watch yourself. I don’t want a phone call in the middle of the night telling me you scalded yourself and need to be taken to the hospital.”

  “I will! ‘Watch myself’ I mean!”

  “Will you be up here until she goes to bed?” He looked over at Maddie, seeing the hint of amusement in her eyes as she watched him.

  “I’ll be here.”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  SEPTEMBER 1984

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  September 1984

  Purple and yellow pansies, golden marigolds and multicolored zinnias graced the basement wall of the Baker house. The sturdiness of the marigolds and zinnias, a contrast to the delicacy of the pansies, was comforting to Maddie; familiar signs that all was as it should be at summer’s end with autumn closely at hand. As Maddie entered her mother’s kitchen it took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the afternoon sun to the interior dimness.

  “Hi, Mom. Are the boys up here? I was just down home and the place was empty.”

  “Jackie is. Joe and Robby went for some ice cream. They didn’t know when you’d be home.”

  “Why didn’t Jackie go along? God, I thought everything was going to be fine while Ollie was here. Jackie would even go down and spend evenings at Joe’s. But it’s been over a week since Lisa and Ollie went home and Jackie seems to have gone right back to the way things were.”

  “Jackie likes Ollie. There’s just something on that boy’s mind that won’t let him get near Joe. So, where were you so late?”

  “At George Brewster’s office. I had a few things to take care of concerning the expansion of the store.”

  “Mom.” Jackie came from the living room. “Did you buy a new store?”

  “No. The expansion will be next year if all goes well,” she told him, then started back toward the doorway. “Come on, Sailor. Time for you to go home and get ready for school tomorrow.”

  “Yuk.” He walked toward Sarah. “Bye, Gram. I gotta go get ready for school.”

  “You like school. So, what’s all this about?” Maddie stopped in the doorway.

  “That was when Pat Rogers still lived down the road.” Jackie said of his schoolfriend.

  “That’s right. His family moved to Delaware, didn’t they?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, someone else is living down there now. Maybe they’ll have some boys your age,” Sarah told him.

  “Do ya think so?” Jackie brightened.

  “Maybe. So go get a bath and get your clothes ready, and you’ll probably find you’ll have a new friend first thing in the morning.”

  “I will.” Jackie hugged Sarah and kissed her cheek, receiving the same in return. “Thanks, Gram.”

  “You’re welcome. Sleep tight, Sailor.”

  “Night, Mom,” Maddie smiled her gratitude for her mother’s nurturing as she escorted her son out the door.

  Maddie was tallying receipts for the stores expenditures while Jackie took his bath and changed into pajamas. Although it was only eight o’clock, she knew he would go to bed very shortly. She remembered the long sleepless nights she had as a child before the first days of school. She had tried to prevent him from having to suffer through a muggy night by rousing him out of bed by six o’clock that morning.

  “Mom, can I look at last year’s report card?” Jackie asked from behind her.

  “Oh, Jackie. Mommy’s busy right now. Can you get it?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Over in the safe, in the filing side. Look under the R’s. It should be in the first file.” She opened her purse and took out a set of keys, handing one to Jackie. “Here, you’ll need this to open it.”

  “I’ll find it,” he said as he walked to the cabinet in the corner of the room.

  Maddie was lost in her reports when she heard Jackie laughing behind her. She didn’t think his report card was that funny, but then no one ever said Jackie had a usual sense of humor. His A-B average was great. She was very proud of him, but she didn’t think it was funny.

  “What are these little feet for?” Jackie’s voice sounded his amusement.

  “What little feet, Sailor?” She kept working, not thinking much about his question.

  “Never mind. I’ll read it myself,” he said lightly and moved to sit on the couch. “Oh—I see what it is. I was born February first.”

  “That’s right.”

  There was a short silence behind Maddie, then the sound of paper being ripped. She glanced over her shoulder to see what he was doing and a numbness flowed through her veins upon sight of horror in her child’s eyes as he was about to rip that familiar piece of paper for a second time. God, how could she have been so stupid as to leave his birth certificate in the filing cabinet? Although it was locked she should have moved those certificates to the safe on the opposite side of the cabinet. The boys had no reason to get into the safe. A simple request for last year’s report card proved to be her ruin as Jackie went through the Bs instead of the Rs.

  “Jackie, put that down!” She was on her feet in an instant, but he also jumped to his feet, anger and pain on his young face as he looked at her with the paper clenched in his fist.

  “What does this mean? What does it mean?”

  “What does what mean, Sailor?” she asked very quietly, her throat feeling raw as she kept her eyes on the paper he held tightly.

  “Mother—Madelyn Kelly Baker Green! Father—f-father . . . .” He opened the paper and looked down at it, reading very carefully. “ . . . Joseph Daniel McNier! Is that why my name is John Joseph? Is he . . . Is he . . . .” The boy couldn’t say it. He seemed repulsed. Maddie reached for the paper, but he twisted away from her. “No! Answer me!”

  “I—don’t know exactly what you’re saying Jackie.” Her tears were brimming as she watched his eyes reluctantly drop.

  “Why isn’t Dad’s name there? Why doesn’t it say Robert Green was my father?” His words were weak as his slim shoulders seemed to slump forward in defeat. “Why does it say he’s my father? He isn’t my father.”

  “Sailor.” If only she had Bob Green there to talk to him, she thought. It was his idea to have Joe’s name on the certificate, to eventually let the boy know. But why now? Why when everything was going so smoothly and coming together for them? She was numb, shocked, frightened. She couldn’t think straight. It took everything in her to remain standing in front of him. “I didn’t want you to see that. It’s my fault. I should have gotten up and found your report card for you. I never wanted you to find out this way. Come, sit down. I have to talk to you.”

  “No!” He yanked away from her, staring at her through accusing eyes that were spilling tears. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true, Jackie?”

  “Who’s my father?”

  “Bob Green took us into his home and took care of us
. He raised you until he died. He loved you in all the ways a father could love his son.”

  “But he wasn’t my real father—was he?”

  She could have stood there and argued the point, that Bob Green was a father to him until those last months, in every sense of the word except one. But she wasn’t about to insult the boy’s intelligence any further. He had to find out some time. She wasn’t prepared for it to be now, but she knew she had only a matter of seconds to prepare herself before the boy doubted anything she had to say. Taking a deep breath, she sat on the couch, reaching for his hand to pull him to her, but he resisted again.

  “JOHN,” she said sternly, hoping to break through that shock-like state from which he was staring at her. “If you want answers, you had better sit down, because I have no intention of yelling it for the world to hear because you don’t want to be near me. And if you plan on having these answers—if you think you’re big enough to ask these questions, and big enough to handle the answers—then you’d better behave like it. I won’t have you yelling at me anymore. You’ll sit down, and act like a responsible person who deserves answers. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, sitting on the couch a few inches away from her.

  “Okay. Now first, I want you to give me the certificate. You have no right to destroy it. It’s mine until you turn eighteen. Then the law says it’s yours, but not until then.”

  He looked up at her through sullen eyes, then hesitantly gave it to her. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Well.” She spread it open again and inspected it. “You tore it along the fold, it’ll be repaired easily. I’ll tape it together. Then I’ll get Robby’s and put them both in the safe. Other than the doctors and nurses at the hospital, you, Bob and I are the only ones who ever laid eyes on this. I don’t want anyone else finding them.”

  “Does—does Robby’s say the same thing?” he sobbed. “That’s why you named him Robert Daniel?”

  “Yes. His says the same thing,” she answered with difficulty. “Now. You have questions. Ask them.”

  “Is he our father?”

  “Is who your father, Jackie? We’re talking about two different men. You’ll have to specify which one you mean.”

  “I mean Joe.”

  “Yes,” she breathed. “He’s your father.”

  “Were you married to Dad? I mean Bob?”

  “Yes I was.”

  “Then how can Joe be our father?” he cried.

  “Jackie. This is even more difficult for me than it is for you. I want you to understand that before I answer you,” she told him, seeing his nod before going on. “You know how babies are made.”

  “It happens when a man and woman love each other. When they have sex.”

  “I want you to remember that it has very much to do with the loving one another part of it where you and Robby are concerned. Joe and I were in love with one another before I married Bob. We were young, and very much in love. Joe’s father had just passed away and he was down here all alone. He needed me to help him, Jackie, and when two people love each other they don’t think twice about helping one another when they are needed. We spent a lot of time together those days after his father died. It was after the funeral, when we were alone, that we went to each other and made love. And, Jackie, that’s what it was, because we did love each other, very much.”

  “If he loved you so much, then why didn’t he marry you?”

  “He couldn’t. He wanted to. But he was already married to Felicia and Oliver’s mother.”

  “He was married? Mom—you weren’t allowed to do that!”

  Maddie smiled gently down at him, her smile as painful as the look in his eyes. Oh, how nice it must be when you are seven and a half years old and everything is either right or wrong, black or white.

  “We loved each other, baby. And that love for each other made you. And I see nothing wrong with having you for my son. I love you so much. You’re my oldest, my little friend. And I really don’t know what I would do without you.” She stroked his brown hair back from his forehead. “Joe wanted to marry me, but there were two other people involved. People we were foolish enough to let come between us. Those two other people turned what we had into something we both regretted at some point. I thought Joe didn’t love me. And he thought I didn’t love him. We were just too young to open our eyes and look at how things really were.”

  “So you broke up.”

  “Yeah, Sailor, sort of. We broke up.”

  “And you were pregnant with me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But if he loved you—why didn’t he want me?”

  “Because he didn’t know about you, honey. I never told him you and Robby are his sons.”

  “But you were married to Dad when you got pregnant with Robby. I know that. I remember that.”

  “Yes, I was. But although I was married to Bob, I still loved Joe. And he still loved me. We were trapped together during the flood. And like I said before, when two people love each other that much . . . .”

  “They do it,” he said sullenly.

  “Well, that’s one way of putting it,” she breathed.

  “Is that why Joe came back here to live? Because we’re his sons?”

  “No. He doesn’t know.”

  “Are you going to tell him?” He started crying again.

  “I’m not going to tell him. I can’t tell him.”

  “Why?”

  “Jackie, it’s too complicated.”

  “No it’s not. I’ll understand.”

  “No. You have to allow me this privacy. Maybe when you’re older, much older, I’ll try to explain it to you. As of now, I’ll only say Joe wouldn’t forgive me for lying to him.”

  “Tell him, Mom. Tell him so he’ll go away and it’ll be the way it’s always been since Dad died. We don’t need him, Mom. I can take care of us.”

  “No, Jackie. I won’t tell him. I won’t send him away. Because Robby and I do need him.”

  “More than you need me?”

  “Never more than you. You are a part of me. You’re a part of the man I love, and I need you so very much. But then, you need and love me too, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you need and love Gram, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then can’t you see I need and love all three of you? You, Robby and Joe?”

  “I don’t need him and love him. I hate him!” He ran to his bedroom, then back with his framed picture of Bob. “And I don’t need or love him anymore either.”

  Maddie watched with shock as he tossed it into the wastebasket and picked up his baseball bat and smashed it down on top of it.

  “Jackie!! Don’t!!” She pulled the bat from him before he could bring its tip down on the already smashed frame. She might be able to save the photograph. “I said don’t!”

  “It’s mine! I can break it!”

  “It’s broken already. So let it be. I know you’re upset—but don’t destroy the picture. You’ll want it again after you’ve calmed down.”

  “Why? He’s not my father. You told me all about that.”

  “No. But he’s the man who raised you until he died. He’s the man who gave you his name.” She delicately picked up the broken frame, emptying the glass in the wastebasket before dusting the rest of it off with a paper tissue.

  “And you gave me Joe’s name!”

  “No, I didn’t. I gave you John’s name. Bob named you Joseph. And it was Bob’s idea to put Joe’s name down as your father. He wanted you to know who your father was for your medical history.”

  “What’s that?” he asked skeptically.

  “Your mother’s side of the family—my side—has a lot of heart disease and diabetes. On my father’s side very few of his brothers and sisters died of heart ailments. Only two out of thirteen children. But everyone else in Pap’s family is living up into their seventies and eighties, and Pap’s father died when he was n
inety. That is half of your family medical history, Jackie. Doctors want to know this, so they know what to look for and know what signs, if any, you might come up with so they can treat them before it’s too late. They want to know Gram’s dad died of a stroke and cancer, and her mother died very young of a heart attack. They want to know Pap’s mother died of cancer, and his father lived a full, long life. That’s why Bob wanted you to know Joe is your father. Because half of you is Joe too. If he carries any illnesses, you’ll know.”

  “So, do you know what his family died of?”

  “His father had a heart attack.”

  “Does that mean Gram will die soon? Because her family history says so?”

  “Gram is very sick. She may die soon, because her heart is like her mother’s. But she has her father’s side to consider too. He lived well into his seventies.”

  “Does that mean you’ll die soon too from a weak heart?” His tears were brimming his eyes again.

  “I may take after Pap’s side of the family. My Grandpap Baker lived a very long time.”

  “So me and Robby need to know. I understand. But I still don’t like him. And I never will.” He turned and went back to his room.

  “Oh, Jackie,” she sighed as she watched him go.

  She glanced at the clock, seeing it was his bed time anyway, although she doubted his early rise that morning would do him any good now. She put the picture on her desk, then moved into the bedroom to find him lying on his bed with his back to her. She moved to sit next to him and leaned down to kiss his cheek.

  “I love you, Sailor.”

  “I love you too, Mom.”

  “I know this is very hard for you. I’m just asking you to come and talk to me when you feel you need to.”

  “I will.”

  “Are you sleepy?”

  “Yes. I think I’ll go to sleep real fast now.”

  “All right. I’ll stay home from the store tomorrow and see you off to school if you want me to.”

  “I’m too big for that, Mom.”

  “Too big for me to make you breakfast and see that you’re dressed properly and your hair is combed? How about if I promise not to stand with you while you wait for the bus? This year you can wait for it by yourself, as long as Tom or I watch from the window, and you don’t cross the road until the bus has come to a complete stop. How does that sound?”