Staking His Claim

by Karen Templeton

  "What? Oh…no, I'm fine. I…need to get some…sleep…" In a daze he stood up, watching Ethel clear his dishes. Then he asked, "Is that a true story? Or just something you made up to make me feel better?"

  "Of course it's true, you think I got time to go making stuff up? But tell me something—would it make any difference whether it was or not?"

  "No," he said after a moment. "I guess not."

  "Well, there you are," she said, then called out to Cal as he lumbered out of the kitchen and toward his bed, "Your daddy was one patient man, that's for sure. And I don't figure you for anything less."

  "Whatever," he said on a yawn, barely making it to the bed before he passed out.

  * * *

  Ivy plucked the phone off the receiver on the first ring, answering in a whisper. There was a pause on the other end, like it was one of those solicitors.

  "Hello?" she said again, just in case it wasn't, and this time, somebody cleared his throat and said, "Did she have it yet? Our grandchild?"

  She nearly wet her pants. "Sherman?"

  "Well, who the hell else do you think it is?" he said like they'd been having regular conversations every day for the past thirty years. "So did she?"

  "She had a boy. Nine pounds exactly. They're calling him Max."

  Sherman laughed softly. "Max. Sounds like something Dawn'd come up with."

  "She didn't. Cal did." Perturbed, Ivy smoothed a stray hair off her face. "And how'd you know she was even in labor?"

  Another silence. "Cal didn't tell you he came to see me last night?"

  Now she had to sit down. She dragged over one of the kitchen chairs and more or less fell into it. "No, he sure didn't."

  "You think he told Dawn?"

  Ivy glanced down the hall, not that she expected to hear anything. Last time she'd looked, mama and baby both were out like lights. "I doubt it. I think she'd've said something if she'd known."

  She heard Sherman take a deep breath. "I…already called Brenda and told her the truth."

  Ivy decided it was a good thing she was already sitting down, otherwise that would have knocked her over for sure. "What did she say?"

  "The first time? Or when she called me back after she'd calmed down?"

  "Oh, Sherman…I'm sorry," Ivy said, because amazingly enough, she really was. By the time a person reaches sixty-five, garbage like this should be behind him, shouldn't it?

  "Don't be. I had it coming. Although I gathered she wasn't mad at me so much because of what happened, but because I hadn't told her—"

  "Who's that?" Dawn said behind Ivy, scaring the bejesus out of her.

  "What are you doing up?" she said, slamming the receiver against her bosom.

  "Had to pee." She held out her hand. "Let's get this over with, okay?"

  Wordlessly, Ivy handed over the phone.

  Chapter 14

  She'd figured it out already, but going into labor had kind of shifted her priorities. Then, after the baby's arrival there'd been all that craziness with Cal, and then she'd been too worn-out…but now seemed as good a time as any to deal with this particular loose end. Especially since the loose end had initiated the call.

  "Hey, Sherman, it's Dawn."

  Nervous laughter. "Hey, yourself. Your mama told me you had that baby last night."

  "This morning, actually. So I guess I won't be in to work today."

  "No, no…I wouldn't think so."

  Then Dawn said, since at this rate her son would be graduating from college before anybody else brought this all to a head, "But you know…something tells me Max would really like to meet his grandfather."

  Silence. Then: "I think Max's grandfather would really like that, too."

  * * *

  After using up every drop of hot water in the tank, Dawn slipped into a pretty white cotton nightgown Luralene had given her and threw open the bedroom window. A warm breeze scrambled inside, stirring her damp hair and filling her lungs with the scent of childhood. She might have almost felt at peace, if it hadn't been for the squirming mass of unresolved issues inside her. On a sigh, she gingerly settled on the floor beside the cradle to stare at her baby, an obsession about which she had no ambivalence whatsoever.

  From the doorway, Ivy laughed.

  "You be quiet," Dawn said, her cheek resting on her forearm as she stroked Max's hair. "This is embarrassing enough as it is."

  "Why?" Ivy said, plopping into the armchair in the corner of the room. "Because you've discovered you're just like any other woman?"

  "Like I said." Max's eyelids fluttered in his sleep, and joy and wonder and fear all knotted together in the center of her chest, and she thought of Cal and the love in his eyes, not to mention the understandable anger, and those wedged themselves into the knot, too. "When I look at him, everything else just…goes away. As if nothing is even remotely important except my baby."

  "That's the way nature planned it, honey. To make sure babies get taken care of."

  "So I'm not weird?"

  Ivy chuckled. "Didn't say that." Then she added, "You hungry?"

  Dawn shook her head, her cheek rubbing against her arm, then tore her gaze away from her son to look at her mother.

  "Tell me about…all of it. You, Jacob, Sherman. Everything."

  Ivy tilted her head at her. "What difference would it make?"

  "Because maybe knowing the truth might help me finally figure out who the hell I am, okay? Why I do what I do and feel what I feel. So I don't screw up my life any more than I already have. Or my kid, if I can help it."

  This resulted in a staring match. For, oh, at least a minute. Then, on a gust of air, her mother said, "I suppose it's hard to see how I could ever have been madly in love with Jacob Burke."

  "No arguments there," Dawn said.

  Ivy grimaced. "First off, at nineteen, he was one fine, sexy young man. And secondly, at twenty-five, 'in the moment' was the only place I ever wanted to live. So when this fine, sexy young man crossed my path, all I was expecting was a good time, for as long at it lasted. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I realized how devastated I was after he took off. Then I got mad at myself for being devastated. And looking to…I don't know. Get even? Restore my ego?"

  "Like I did with Cal," Dawn said with a wry smile.

  "On the surface, maybe. But only on the surface. Jacob and I are no more like you and Cal than melons are like marshmallows." She paused. "You sure you want to hear the rest of this?"

  "Hey. I just pushed a nine-pound baby out of my body. I can take anything."

  "Wait until you've heard the story before you say that," Ivy said dryly. She crossed her legs underneath her loose skirt and said, "Somewhere around two weeks after Jacob left, I fell apart. I was missing him like nobody's business, clients weren't exactly beating down my door, and all in all, I was feeling pretty damn sorry for myself. So I decided to get out, ended up in some honky-tonk out near Bushyhead, God knows why. And while I was sitting at the bar, nursing a beer I didn't even want, this tall, well-dressed man who looked even more out of place than I was hauled himself up on the stool beside me.

  "We got to talking. And I swear, that's all I'd figured was going to happen. But if you think Jacob was different thirty years ago, you should've seen Sherman. Big. Handsome. Smart. Oh, Lord…I'd just about forgotten what it was like to talk to somebody who not only could talk politics—" she laughed "—but who didn't turn tail and run when the discussion didn't go his way. Anyway, his wife had filed for divorce a couple of days before, he hadn't seen it coming, even though they'd been having problems, he hadn't thought it was that bad…you get the picture."

  "Unfortunately, yes," Dawn said, making a face.

  "Hey. I warned you. So, we fell into bed. Once. Which is all it took for this cloud that had sabotaged my brain to clear and I thought, What the hell am I doing with this man? We had nothing in common, for one thing, and we were only using each other to numb our pain. And frankly—" she leaned over, lowering her voice "—t
he sex wasn't even that good, if you wanna know the truth."

  Frankly, Dawn thought, she didn't.

  "Anyway," her mother continued, "we both agreed there was nothing to pursue, and that was that. A week later, I found out Barbara'd changed her mind about the divorce, mainly because she was pregnant. A week after that, I realized I was. And yes, we were being careful—"

  Dawn held up a hand. Ivy nodded and went on. "At first I thought about not telling him, letting him think, maybe, that it was Jacob's child—since I didn't figure on ever seeing him again. But then my conscience got the better of me and I thought I at least owed him the truth. What he did with it was his business.

  "With the possibility of fixing his marriage so close, my news flattened him. He was sure if Barbara found out, she'd leave him again. For good, this time. Whether she would have or not, nobody'll ever know. But Sherman wasn't about to take that chance. And I don't guess I can blame him, really. I mean, Barbara might have been the most clueless woman I'd ever met, but I couldn't find it in myself to hurt her, either. Especially as I didn't have anybody but myself to blame for what happened."

  Dawn frowned. "You didn't get pregnant by yourself, Mama."

  "I know that. And maybe I would've handled things differently today than I felt I could then. But I decided I'd rather be labeled a loose-moraled hippie than a homewrecker." Ivy got up and went over to the bed, tugging at the covers so hard she nearly yanked them out. "Or having people think I 'tricked' Sherman into getting me pregnant so I'd have a meal ticket. And once the lid was sealed on the secret, there was no openin' it."

  "Then why'd you stay in Haven?"

  She swiped a stray hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. "Because some folks in this town have a way of putting out tentacles and hanging on to anybody who comes through. Especially people like Ruby and Luralene and Mary Logan, who made a far greater impression on me than the few around here with bugs up their butts. Besides, stayin' here was the only way Sherman would've gotten to see you grow up. And before you say I didn't owe him that, let me remind you that he did indeed provide for you from the day you were born, despite the constant risk that Barbara might find out."

  "How did he do that?"

  Ivy shrugged and picked up a pillow to fluff it. "All I know is I got a money order every week, in a plain white envelope with a Tulsa postmark." Shaking her head, she replaced the pillow, smoothing out the case with her palm. "He never missed a single week. And there'd always be more for your birthday and Christmas, too. I stashed away at least half of it for your college fund." She laughed. "Of course, you would decide to go to one of the priciest schools in the country. If you hadn't gotten that scholarship, we'd've never made it."

  "Does it bother you that I might not ever be able to pay you back?"

  Ivy frowned. "Would you expect Max to pay you back for something you gave him out of love?"

  "Of course not."

  "There you are, then."

  Right on cue, the baby started to make little hungry squeaks; Dawn hauled herself to her feet, then scooped him up and carried him over to the chair Ivy had just vacated, her breasts tingling in anticipation. The baby's first tug on her nipple brought a gasp. And an unexpected image of Cal's dimpled grin.

  "It hurt?" Ivy asked.

  "No. It's…" She blushed. And cleared her throat. "Not at all what I expected."

  Ivy continued fluffing and yanking for another few seconds, then said, "Got news for you, honey—the hormones that get all fired up from loving are the same ones that make us feel good when we feed our babies." She arched a brow in Dawn's direction. "And many women say they feel even more bonded to their babies' fathers right after giving birth."

  Great. Now she was blushing clear down to her…

  Never mind.

  "That's called leading the witness," she said.

  "Whatever works."

  "You know," Dawn said, annoyance making her even warmer, "you've got some nerve pushing Cal and me together when you never got married yourself. I mean, okay, so obviously Sherman was nothing more than a sperm waiting to happen, but what about Charley? What happened there?"

  Ivy plucked another pillow off the bed and punched it into shape. "To tell you the truth, I never really knew. I thought things were going as well as you did. Then one day he up and announced he didn't think it was working after all—" she tossed the pillow back on the bed "—and he left. And I decided then and there I obviously had no talent when it came to picking men, and I no longer had the energy to keep trying." She looked at Dawn. "And damned if I was going to let you get hurt again like that if I could help it."

  Somehow Dawn figured there was more. So she waited. And sure enough, Ivy looked at her and said, "But you want to hear the irony of the whole thing?" She came around and dropped onto the edge of the mattress. "I'd always felt that marriage depleted a woman, robbing her of her identity, if not her soul. And it certainly robbed her of her freedom to make her own choices, as far as I could tell. And yet, as you got older, there were times I was so lonely I thought I'd lose my mind."

  She glanced down at her hands, strong, sturdy hands that had brought hundreds of babies into the world and cooked thousands of meals and stroked away Dawn's fears when she was little. "And those were the times I would have given my eye-teeth to have a man look at me the way Hank, Sr., looked at Mary, or Jordy at Ruby. Or even Coop at Luralene," she added on a chuckle. "Like they couldn't quite believe how they'd lucked out." She paused. "Which happens to be exactly the way Cal looks at you. But what I bet you don't realize—" she got up and laid one hand on her head "—is that's the way you look at him, too."

  Dawn shut her eyes, then opened one enough to see her mother's insufferable grin. "Oh, hell," was all she said, and Ivy chuckled.

  The doorbell rang. Ivy went over to peer out the window. "It's Sherman," she said. "You ready?"

  "As I'll ever be, I suppose." Ivy took Max so Dawn could propel herself out of the chair, only to draw her into a hug when she was on her feet. "Tell me something," Dawn said into her mother's hair, then pulled back to see into her eyes.

  "If the opportunity to fall in love, maybe even get married, came along…would you take it?"

  "In a heartbeat," Ivy said, then gave her another quick hug, whispering, "God gave me a precious gift when he sent you to me. But He's given you two. So don't blow it, you hear me?"

  * * *

  "Can I hold him?" Sherman said, his customary self-assurance nowhere to be seen. All around them, a boatload of baby gifts attested to both the man's guilt, she surmised, as well as his desperate need to atone for the past. A small shard of bitterness, that he'd never asked to hold her as a baby, worked loose from her heart and kept on going, far less painfully than she might have expected.

  "Sure." Sherman leaned over to take Max from her, then settled back in the corner of the sofa, grinning down at his sleeping grandson. A minute or so later he looked up, asked Dawn if she was okay.

  She wasn't sure how he meant the question; she was even less sure if she wanted to find out. "Much better than I thought I would be," she replied, deciding that pretty much covered all the bases.

  "I don't suppose you'll ever understand why I did what I did," Sherman said after a while.

  Dawn glanced out the window, her fingers worrying the button on her cotton robe. "I know that no matter what you'd done, you would've been screwed. Which means I've got no right to sit here, thirty years after the fact, and judge the decision you and Mama made. A decision based on what boils down to nothing more than extraordinarily bad luck." She shifted her gaze to his. "But that doesn't stop the hurt."

  His forehead creased, Sherman stared down into his grandson's face for another several seconds, then said, "Secrets are like acorns, you know? Always taking root someplace you don't want 'em to." He looked up at her. "For a long time, the seedling's easy enough to overlook. You keep meaning to yank it out, but you never seem to get around to it, and before you know it you've got a big o
ld oak tree that just seems easier to leave be than to dig up. Until you realize the damn roots've worked their way into your pipes and are about to destroy your foundation. And it's not like you can blame the tree, when it's your fault for letting it grow to begin with."

  His smile was sad. "When you walked into my office that day, looking for a job, I suddenly realized that I'd cheated on my wife a hundred times more by not tellin' her the truth than I ever had by sleeping with your mother."

  Dawn picked up a stuffed frog he'd brought, wiggling its legs for a second before asking, "If you'd intended on keeping your secret, why did you hire me?"

  He let out a long sigh. "Because at that point I figured it was only temporary, for one thing. And that it would've looked suspicious if I hadn't." He smiled. "But if you notice, I went away right after."

  "Because you couldn't stand being with me?"

  "Because I wasn't sure I could keep my mouth shut. Although, even if it hadn't've been for Jacob, I'd like to believe what little good sense I have left would've eventually worked its way to the surface. But I don't know." Sherman paused, then shook his head. "The stupid thing is, whether or not your Mama and I should've fooled around that night, I was separated at the time. Barbara'd even filed for divorce, for God's sake. Why I thought I had to act like a little kid hiding the broken pieces of his mama's favorite vase, I do not know."

  His gaze shot to hers, so intense she started. "I have always loved you, honey. And I couldn't be more proud of the fine young woman you've turned out to be." A grin stretched across his mouth. "Not to mention you're one damn fine attorney. Damn fine. In fact…I'm thinking of retiring for good in a few months. Maybe trying my hand at writing that legal thriller I've always dreamed about. And…before all this, I'd been thinking about asking you if you'd be interested in taking over the practice for good."

  Not exactly what she'd ever thought she'd be doing. Or want to do. And God knows, it wouldn't be easy on many fronts—making any real money at it, raising a kid and working full-time….