My Heart Can't Tell You No
Page 66
Joe looked at the boy. My God, I might as well be seeing myself twenty-eight years ago. How many times did I silently beg my father just to like me before I gave up completely and turned to another family for the love and affection I couldn’t get from him? He was not aware of stretching his arms out until the boy was on the bed with him, crying his heart out as he clutched his father’s shoulders.
“Like you?” Joe’s voice was soft as he held the boy close. “My God, Jackie—I’m your father—I love you.”
Jackie pulled away from him, wiping his eyes as he gazed up at him. “Ya do? I know ya don’t love me as much as ya do Robby. But that’s okay.”
Joe sighed as he looked at the small figure who resembled him so much in proportion, his tears turning into sniffs as he tried hard to be mature and not cry. “How could I not love you as much as your brother? You saved my life last night. You pulled me up that road and tried to get me to safety, when, by all rights, you shouldn’t even have been able to budge that limb off me, let alone pull me all that way.”
“It was easy. You slid on the ice—like pulling a heavy sled back up the hill.” Jackie looked quickly around the bed as if he were searching for something he couldn’t find, then began moving his hand up to his nose again, but Joe took his arm and looked over at Maddie.
“Hand me a tissue.” He glanced back at Jackie with a smile and gave him the tissue. “Here—wipe, then blow.”
Jackie did as Joe told him, then shyly looked up to his father as Maddie quietly moved to a chair at the foot of the bed. “I saved the dog too.”
“Did ya?” Joe leaned back against his pillow again as he listened. “I forgot about him. How did he pull through our adventure?”
“He’s okay. He’s up at Gram’s now. But we have a hard time getting him to go outside to the bathroom. As soon as we open the door, he turns and runs through the house and hides behind the couch. I have to send Robby back through to get him.”
“Does he get mad?” Joe smiled.
“Uh-huh. But I told him—like you told me. It’s part your dog, so you gotta do it.” Jackie wiped at his nose again as he looked up at Joe through sparkling eyes. Joe hadn’t noticed how dark the boy’s hair was getting. Almost as dark as his now. And, was it his imagination, or was his face starting to change too? He was losing the roundness of baby fat; he was only a few weeks away from turning eight. “He got mad anyway.”
“Excuse me a moment, gentlemen,” Maddie finally spoke up. “But I believe I asked you when you first came in how you got in here.”
“I snuck in. Pap told me to,” Jackie explained as he watched his mother rise and move to the other side of his father. “He brought me up to the nurse’s desk-then watched until no one was looking and told me to run back here.” He looked back at Joe. “Is that okay?”
“You and your mother are the two people I wanted to see most this morning. When you go home, you can tell your brother he can come in tomorrow with you. I hope I’ll be up and around and able to go out to the waiting room to see the two of you.”
“That might not be necessary,” came a voice from the door as it pushed open and a doctor entered, his eyes moving to Jackie. “How about if we scoot your dad outta here sometime this morning? Then you, your mom and your granddad can take him home with you.”
“We can take Dad home?”
“But he’s hooked up to this.” Maddie looked at the doctor. “I thought he’d still be in here for a few days.”
“It will go home with him. If he promises to keep his leg up and takes it easy at home, he can get just as much care there, if not more.” He moved to Joe, shining a small penlight in his eyes before straightening and smiling down at Jackie. “Everything seems just fine. I just might release him right now.” He got a thoughtful expression on his face, teasing the child. “Unless of course you think he’d get better care here with us.”
“No. We’ll take care of him,” Jackie said as he moved his legs until he faced the man.
“Are you sure? We can always keep him in here for a few weeks—just to make sure.”
“No—no. I’m sure. We’ll take care of him. I got a little brother at home—he’ll help. And on weekends my older sister and brother come out. But if Mom stops for them on the way home, I’m sure they’ll come out now and help us. There’s a lot of us kids—we’ll all take care of him!”
The doctor was laughing softly as he looked down at the boy. “I guess you will at that. How about if you come out to the desk with me though while your mom helps your dad get dressed to go home? We’ll go find your granddad and tell him he’ll be having an extra passenger on the way home today. Then I’ll take you down and buy you a cup of hot chocolate while the nurses get a pair of crutches for your dad. Anybody who can get past those watchdogs deserves some kind of reward.”
Jackie looked back at his mother with a proud smile, waiting for her approval. When she nodded, he looked to Joe.
“Ya better get going. You’ll need something warm in your stomach for the ride home,” Joe told him, then watched as he hopped off the bed and skipped toward the door with the doctor. Joe picked up Maddie’s hand, leaning back on the bed as he looked up at her and kissed it. “So much for a honeymoon.”
His words stopped the doctor in the doorway, making him turn back toward them with a puzzled expression as he looked at Maddie’s swollen stomach, then back to Joe.
“You’ve—got to be kidding.”
“We just got married yesterday afternoon,” Joe told him, amused at the confusion on the man’s face.
“And all those kids,” he said as if he really wasn’t aware of saying it. “Are they really all yours?”
“The two oldest are mine, the next three are ours,” Joe smiled again at his expression. “It’s a long story—but—yeah, we just got married yesterday.”
“Ya know, there are other forms of birth control not quite as drastic as breaking his leg on your wedding night,” the doctor suggested to Maddie, making her face turn crimson.
“I—I . . . .” Maddie stammered.
“Honeymoon,” the man murmured, shaking his head, then looked back at Joe. “Rest tonight. That much is doctor’s orders. After tonight—use your own judgment—just be careful!” He looked at them thoughtfully, then turned to leave. “And ya better be imaginative while you’re at it too—that cast is too big to be . . . just be careful.”
Joe watched him leave, then looked up at Maddie, seeing the pink in her cheeks. “I think we can manage that.”
“I think it would be better to concentrate on being careful before you concentrate on being imaginative.”
“I’ll have no trouble concentrating on both.”
“Somehow I didn’t think you would.” She bent to kiss him. “He called you Dad.”
“I heard him.”
“Well, Dad, are you ready to go home and start a life as my husband and your sons’ father?”
He didn’t need to answer.
EPILOGUE
APRIL 1985
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April 14, 1985
Kathleen Sarah McNier burst into the world during the morning hours of April 14, 1985, just as her father was lifting off from Scranton with an emergency transfer back to their local hospital. The swiftness of Maddie’s labor and delivery surprised everyone, including Tom who had to take Maddie to the hospital. Her swiftly accelerating groans almost immediately turned to thundering exclamations that
would have turned a truck driver’s ears crimson. The baby was coming so fast that Tom knew he had to go to the hospital in town rather than chancing the extra fifteen miles to the hospital where the men worked.
The fact that Joe McNier was nearly one hundred miles to the north didn’t slow little Katie in the least. In fact, Tom believed that was why she came so quickly, being born on her uncle’s front seat in the hospital parking lot. He said that, if it had been anyone else driving her mother to the hospital that day, she would have waited and not messed up anyone else’s upholstery. But even with no one else there to do it, Tom had heroically delivered the new baby, so skillfully, in fact, that he had even impressed the attending ER nurse. Then, after placing the newborn on her mother’s stomach—Tom being Tom—realized what he had just done, began to feel woozy, and fell into the arms of that same blonde nurse. That seemed to have caught the girl’s heart, because, before he left the hospital, she gave Tom her telephone number.
At seven pounds even, Katie looked almost miniature compared to her cousin, Tyler Baker, who had arrived the month before and weighed in at eight pounds, four ounces, but Maddie swore the size had to be wrong. She felt as if she had passed a fifteen-pound bowling ball, rather than the little angel she held in her arms.
Joe had decided on the name shortly after his stay in the hospital a few months before. He took his mother’s name and added it to Maddie’s mother’s name; just as Jack and Sarah had done when they named their daughter. Kathleen Sarah McNier would be the perfect combination of both women in her father’s eyes.
By the time Maddie was stitched, cleaned and put in a fresh hospital bed, Sarah had arrived with Jack, both eager to see their newest grandchild. Within another hour Joe was rushing through the door, his eyes searching out Maddie first; then, after reassurance that she was sore but fine, he let his gaze move to his in-laws and his daughter. The only surprise he felt when he looked at his new daughter was that she was as he had always pictured her; mostly her mother in appearance with a few traces of himself perhaps. He couldn’t have been more delighted.
April 20, 1985
Maddie and the baby had been home for nearly two days by the time the weekend arrived. The house was filled with all five McNier children as well as Sarah and Tom. It seemed that since the baby’s arrival and the coinciding new romance for Tom, he considered Katie his little Irish leprechaun.
By noon, they also had the addition of the Kersetter boys from down the road.
“Hello, Matthew,” Maddie said as she saw him watching her from the kitchen doorway. “Did you come up to see the baby?”
“No, Ma’am,” he answered quietly, watching as she gingerly made her way toward him. “Are you all right, Mrs. McNier?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Wouldn’t you like to come in with us and see her? It looks like your brother is getting all her attention already,” Maddie coaxed, allowing him to follow her into the room. She moved to sit between Joe’s legs as he leaned back in a chair and watched his brother-in-law holding the baby on the couch.
“Matt, come look!” Kyle sighed as he gazed down at the new child.
“No.” Matt moved to sit on the floor next to Ollie and Jackie who were building a parking lot for their miniature cars. “Later.”
“She’s really pretty, Mrs. McNier,” Kyle beamed over at Maddie.
“She looks like Maddie,” Felicia told him from where she sat with Robby and helped him with his coloring book. “We think she’s beautiful.”
“Aren’t you gonna take a look?” Tom asked the dark-haired child who was inspecting the cars his friends were working with.
“No,” Matthew Kerstetter answered him, petting the puppy asleep on the floor.
“Why not?” Tom asked.
“Because. It made Mrs. McNier walk funny. What would I want to look at it for?” Matt answered.
“Well, you’d walk funny too if you had something the size of a watermelon come out of your . . . ,” Tom started.
“Thomas!” Sarah warned as she entered the living room from the kitchen.
“ . . . bellybutton,” Tom finished, looking at his mother with a smile.
“She’s not as big as a watermelon,” Ollie laughed at Tom.
“Is that how she came out?” Kyle asked Tom with wide eyes. “That would hurt!”
“See.” Tom looked back at the reluctant boy on the floor. “Ya can’t blame this little thing for just wanting to come out.”
“But how did she get in there? That’s what I want to know.” Kyle looked at Tom earnestly.
Tom stood up with the child and laid her in the bassinet near him. “Kyle, you’re gonna have to ask Joe about that. He’s got a lot more experience at how to put them in there than I do.”
“How’d she get in there, Mr. McNier?” Kyle turned to look at Joe.
“My daddy pulled my mommy’s shirt up one day and said, ‘Let’s make a baby.’ And then he spit her in,” Robby explained to the older boy, making Felicia laugh at him. “Just like this!”
“Don’t you dare spit in this house!” Maddie warned as she watched her youngest son rolling saliva in his mouth.
“Well, Lew said!” Robby told her.
“Well, that’s my cue to leave,” Tom said as he moved toward the door.
“Where ya going?” Robby asked his uncle as he followed.
“I gotta go and get ready.”
“Get ready for what?” Robby was already climbing up over Tom’s legs and into his arms.
“He’s got a date,” Felicia sang as she grinned at him.
“What’s a date?” Robby asked.
“He’s got a girlfriend,” Felicia chanted with amusement. “He’s gonna take her to a movie and kiss her.”
“Eww!” Robby looked from his sister to his uncle. “Are you, Tom? You’re not are ya?”
“I am if I’m lucky,” he murmured.
Joe and Maddie watched as, one by one, their children followed Tom through the door, the older ones teasing him as they followed him up toward the Baker house. Maddie followed too, and stood in the doorway gazing out after them before glancing back at her husband. He was smiling back at her, a smile she hadn’t seen leave his face since the birth of his newest child. He complained that she had him smiling like a damn idiot most of the time these days.
“Mrs. McNier says babies are gifts,” Kyle whispered to his brother, who finally moved to stand next to him and looked in at Katie. “Isn’t she pretty?”
Matt didn’t answer right away. Instead, his gaze moved over the lovely vision before him as he slowly reached into the bassinet. He touched his finger to the softness of her cheek, then moved it to the small fullness of her lips, almost immediately getting a response from the child as she turned toward the warmth of his caress. “She’s beautiful.”
Maddie watched Joe’s eyes slowly turn to the boys; his smile evaporating as he looked at them.
“Oh, Lew,” Sarah breathed, as she watched. “Not again.”
THE END
Table of Contents
My Heart Can’t Tell You No
Copyright © 2007 by M.K. Heffner.
Contents
DEDICATION
THE PLAYERS
PART I
THEIR PAST
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
PART II
THEIR PRESENT
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
; CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
PART III
THEIR FUTURE
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLII
CHAPTER XLIII
CHAPTER XLIV
EPILOGUE