A Morning Like This

by Deborah Bedford

David mindlessly caught Braden’s throw and sidearmed it back. “You want me to get that?” he asked Abby.

  “No, I will. The grill has to warm up before I put on the meat.”

  “I’ll cook if you want me to.”

  “Nope. I’m in the mood. Just don’t let Brewster get into this chicken.” Two decks down, the diners began to scoot back their chairs. Two little girls began to joust with shish-kebab skewers. David heard Abby’s faint voice answer the phone indoors: “Hello?”

  Brewster loped onto the deck and began nosing around the table. “Hey, you dog. Get away from that chicken.”

  With a sidelong, disappointed glance, the dog sauntered away and, heaving a sigh from the very depths of his soul, slumped into the grass.

  “Dad.” Braden opened and shut his glove like a clamshell. “Throw it back to me. I want to show you how I changed my knuckle ball.”

  The screen door slid open. Abby stood framed in the dark rectangle, her bewilderment illuminated by the backyard sun. “David? The phone’s for you.” Her voice sounded uncertain and confused. “It’s a woman. I can’t imagine who.”

  The moment she said it, David knew. When Braden threw the ball, David missed it. It nicked the edge of his mitt and bounced onto the grass out of reach. He ignored the ball completely and laid his glove with precise care on the patio table.

  “Well. Guess I’d better go find out what this is.”

  He squeezed past Abby where she stood scraping the grill with a wire brush. He tried to take his time, tried to pretend it didn’t matter, tried to pretend he wasn’t in a rush. Once inside, though, he seized the receiver off the counter. As an afterthought, before he answered, he searched for Abby again, outside the window.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m sorry.” Susan’s voice, no surprise. “I know you wanted me to phone you at the office.”

  The snare of guilt clamped tightly around him. He said cryptically, “I certainly did.”

  “I couldn’t get you there. First you were gone yesterday afternoon. And then I didn’t think you’d want to wait over the weekend to hear.”

  “Why not, Susan?” He wouldn’t give himself away. He wouldn’t let her know how disconcerted he’d been, thinking of them. “I’ve waited all these years. Why not a little longer?”

  To Susan’s credit, she floundered a bit at that. “I thought you wanted me to hurry. On the phone, you sounded odd. Anxious. You said you needed to know.”

  “Of course I sounded odd.” He stalked around the kitchen stool, yanked it up to the counter with one hand, and straddled it like he would a saddle. “I thought this chapter of my life was over.” He said one thing, and was thinking another: I heard her, Susan. This little girl is for real. “I’ve been trying to put an end to this for nine years.”

  “Well,” Susan said quietly. “I see you haven’t changed a bit. You never were one to let your heart get in the way of what was really important.”

  Back to the measured words—unresponsive and impenetrable. “You have news.”

  “I do.”

  “And?”

  “It didn’t work, David. You’re only a marginal match.”

  “What?”

  “It isn’t good enough.”

  The barstool creaked beneath him. He leaned forward, as if changing his posture could change her answer. For a long moment, he stared at himself in the reflection of the stainless steel over the stove, seeing nothing. “You want to explain that to me?”

  “There could be better matches. With you, we’d run the risk of graft versus host. That she’d reject. That it could be fatal.”

  The constriction in his heart pressed clear through into his spine. None of the emotions he’d expected came to liberate him. Not anger. Not blame. Certainly not relief.

  His ears rang. He tried to cope with her words, but couldn’t. All of his running away, and now this. “Oh, Susan. I’m so sorry.”

  “If one more person tells me how sorry they are, I’m going to break something.”

  The screen door scraped open and in came his wife. Brewster followed, his toenails clicking on the linoleum. Abby rummaged through the utensil drawer, her back toward the counter where he sat. When David spoke now, he was deliberately vague. “But you said it was close. Would that make any difference at all?”

  Abby fished a long, two-pronged barbecue fork out of the drawer. Something to stab meat with. When she started scrabbling again, he figured she was searching for a knife. He could tell from the angle of her back that she was listening.

  “Please say there’s something else you can do.”

  “We keep searching is what we do. But that takes time.”

  Without Susan explaining further, David knew the dire implications: Samantha doesn’t have that much time. He eyed the camber of Abby’s spine, hating how still she was, hating how he encrypted his words. He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered a lame explanation to her. “This is somebody from the bank.” Well, Susan used to be from the bank. She’d walked in the front door one day, hadn’t she? Maybe a half-truth now was better than no truth at all.

  He spoke into the receiver again. “There isn’t anything else?”

  A pause. Then, “Well, yes. There is. But, how badly do you want to hear it?”

  Abby found the knife. “Braden!” she said. “Can you bring the chicken back in? I decided to cut those breasts apart.”

  “Abby’s there,” Susan said. “I can hear her.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t say much then, can you?”

  “No.”

  “Then listen,” she said. “Only listen.”

  “Yes.”

  “We have one hope.”

  “What?”

  Susan waited what seemed like forever, while Abby struggled to hacksaw through chicken bones with a knife he’d mail-ordered from TV because it claimed to cut baling wire and pennies. “I want you to think about it. If you do, you’ll know.”

  He did think. And knew. The truth dawned on him, unspeakable and preposterous, the very impossible thing he’d feared. “No.”

  “They say that siblings are the ones, David. The chances are very high.”

  “No.”

  Piece by piece, Abby hacked through the chicken. When she finished, she arrayed the pieces on the cutting board and situated them to her liking. They sat largest to smallest, perfectly ordered, the way she liked to keep their lives. “Braden? Can you open the back door again? I’m ready to put these on.”

  David waited, the receiver held slightly away from his mouth, until his wife and his son had gone. “I can’t let that happen, Susan. You know that.” Only Brewster remained in the room, lying on the floor and peering up at David, his eyes pools of melancholy amber. “Don’t you understand? I was willing to do this myself, but there’s too much at stake if we get Braden involved.”

  “I thought you cared about Sam. When you called, I heard it in your voice.”

  “You’re asking me to risk everything that’s good in my life for a mistake I made nine years ago.”

  “You can’t call Samantha a mistake.”

  “No, Susan. I didn’t mean Samantha. It was us that was the mistake.” After all this time not telling me, living her life out according to her own plan.

  “I can have another test sent for him. We could find out. We could just try.”

  “Susan, do you realize what you’re asking me to do?”

  “I’m asking you to involve your son so we can save our daughter’s life. She’s your daughter, too.”

  “You’re asking a lot.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  You already know what’s going to happen here, don’t you? You’re going to lose your family. The harder you seek forgiveness, the farther it will slip away.

  “Susan,” he said. “I want to do something to help you. Financially, with the medical bills. Anything.” But to do anything would take David deeper and deeper away from Abby, and he knew it. “Anythi
ng but telling my wife and involving Braden. Anything that doesn’t come at a cost this high.”

  Braden dug through the junk drawer, making way too much noise for this early in the morning. “Mom?” he asked in a loud stage whisper. “Where’s the Scotch tape?”

  “It’s in there.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Keep digging. You’ll find it.”

  “Mom, it isn’t here.”

  “Sh-hhh. If you talk so loud, you’re going to wake up your father. If you want to surprise him in bed, you’ve got to be quiet. You know when he wakes up, he always sets out for a run.”

  “Oh, here’s the tape.”

  “I told you it was in there.”

  “Where’s the wrapping paper?”

  “In the closet. Do you still need to sign your dad’s card?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  When Abby returned minutes later with the Father’s Day greeting cards she’d stashed away, she found Braden with an entire roll of blue foil paper slung across the floor. Brewster was sprawled out on top of it, punching holes with his toenails while Braden kept trying to shove him off. “Mom, get the dog, would you? He’s messing up my paper.”

  “Sh-hhh. Don’t wake your dad.”

  “Will you cut this so it’s straight, Mom? I never can do that.”

  So there they sat, mother and son on the floor, brandishing the scissors and the tape and tying bows with the dog edging in close beside them. What David’s gifts lacked in originality, they made up for in enormous love. A pair of fuzzy camping socks. A ratchet set that Braden had picked out himself at Sunrise Lumber (tools were always a sure winner with David). A pair of plaid pajamas from Coldwater Creek.

  Abby showed Braden once more how to miter the corners on a package. While she folded each paper triangle over each box end, her head welled with gratitude. So many years had passed since she’d wrapped Father’s Day gifts for her own dad. So many years since she’d been innocent and had thought every man who was a father ought to be revered and admired.

  I don’t know how my mother did it, staying with that man all those years.

  But no, this morning wasn’t the time for remembering her past with remorse. It was a time for celebrating. David was different from the man her mother had married. David was everything Abby had ever prayed for. A loving dad. A man who revered the Lord. Someone she could trust with the deepest needs and hurts of her heart.

  “Mom,” Braden whispered. “Can I go wake him up yet?”

  “Have you signed his card? Don’t get so involved in his presents that you forget to sign his card!”

  “Oh, nope. I’d better write it.”

  For the next ten minutes, one little boy and one ball-point pen made lines and drawings and ink smudges all over the envelope. Then came the laborious words and the signing of his name, which couldn’t be done without the tongue stuck between his teeth in concentration.

  Abby stood behind him for a moment, watching his effort with pride, her fingers curled over the back of the chair. She wanted to squeeze him, as mothers do, but she knew she’d only annoy him.

  Oh, Braden. You’re so lucky, having this life you have. Everything we’ve been able to set up for you.

  Braden licked the envelope flap so thoroughly Abby didn’t see how it would ever stick. He pounded it shut with the heel of his hand. “There we go. Completely ready.”

  Abby couldn’t resist the urge. She leaned over and gave him a huge kiss right on the cowlick, right on the top of his head.

  “Mom!”

  “I had to do it, Braden. I had to.”

  “Can I wake him up now?”

  “Oh.” A deep, happy, frustrated sigh. “Go ahead.”

  Braden gathered the presents in his arms and started away. Halfway to their bedroom door, he turned back to grin at his mom.

  “It’s going to be really good, isn’t it? Dad is going to like this.”

  “Yes,” Abby agreed. “Your dad is going to like this a lot.”

  “Happy Father’s Day, Dad.” Braden’s voice feathered, wet and tickly, into David’s ear. “You awake?”

  “What? Hm-mmm?” For a moment, David basked in the comfort of the thick, weightless blankets around him and the sweetness of his son’s small arms encircling him. And then the dog jumped on the bed. “Ah…” David shoved Brewster aside as his son’s words sank in.

  Happy Father’s Day.

  No, not Father’s Day. Please, I can’t do Father’s Day.

  “Open your card. And I got you presents.”

  “Braden.” Abby’s voice. “Give your dad a chance to open his eyes.”

  “Here, sport.” David used his elbows to prop himself up out of a dead sleep. “I’ll open something.” He scrubbed his nose and sniffed. Rumpled his own hair.

  “This one. Open this card first.”

  David tore open the envelope and began to read. The card said “A Dad Like You Deserves To Have A GREAT DAY.”

  Oh no, I don’t. I don’t deserve a great day at all.

  “So have a big sundae, drink plenty of pop, sit in the sun or fish till you drop. Have a picnic with your kids or go to the zoo… but whatever you do, DO IT FOR YOU!!!”

  “To the greatist dad in the world,” Braden had written in elaborate cursive. “Anybody to have you is lucky, which means I am lucky!!! From the boy in your life. Braden.”

  David almost couldn’t hold the card. A lump of emotion wedged itself behind his sternum and stayed there.

  “Hurry, David, and open your presents,” Abby said. “Church starts in an hour.”

  “It’s Father’s Day,” Braden reminded her. “Maybe Dad doesn’t want to go to church. Maybe the rest of us don’t have to go, either.”

  “Oh, yes, we do,” David said, even though that was the last thing he wanted. How important it was, he thought, keeping up appearances. How important, making sure no one around him knew anything was wrong.

  With resolute determination, David opened his gifts. With each personal item he uncovered from the layers of frothy tissue paper—the socks, the pajamas, the amazing set of gleaming ratchets all in a row according to size—his self-contempt and his survival instinct dug itself deeper.

  “Hey, Brade.” David smashed the paper into a ball and sank a swish shot into the trashcan beside the dresser. “You’re a good kid, you know that?”

  “Yeah.”

  Without looking at his wife, David grabbed their boy and rolled him over onto his belly on the bed. Fiercely, maybe not quite gently enough, David set out to win a war of tickling. Braden shrieked and wrestled and giggled and tickled right back.

  When the Treasures arrived at the Jackson Hole Christian Center later that morning, the spaces were full and latecomers had already begun to park off the pavement in the hayfield. Praise and worship had started inside; they could hear music through the windows and across the meadow. They took their bulletins from Harold Maddox at the door, Abby gave Harold a hug, and they wove in and out along the crowded aisle to their usual pew. Abby laid her Bible and her purse in her seat and began the thing that David knew made her the happiest of all: she lifted her hands outspread to the Lord, swaying lightly with her eyes closed, and began to sing. David sat down. Braden roosted between them and did his best to poke his hand into David’s pocket for a pen.

  “Wait a few minutes, sport. You aren’t bored enough to start drawing yet.” David moved away, standing up beside Abby in self-defense.

  And immediately wished he hadn’t.

  The sight of Abby trusting the way she did, with uplifted hands and lilting voice, evoked the full turmoil in David’s heart. Look at me, Abby, he wanted to say. Look at me and see who I am.

  Everyone tended to trust David in this place. Because he worked as an officer at the bank, they’d signed him on to the church financial board. He served on the presbytery committee and on the groundskeeper advisory group, and just about every other place people would let him put his name on
a list and volunteer.

  He tithed regularly, rotated-in whenever they were short-handed on sixth-grade Sunday school teachers and, yes, as Nelson had mentioned, he often drove up Mosquito Creek to cut firewood with his new Husqvarna for the wood-burning furnace in the church basement.

  Ab, look at me.

  Nelson took the microphone at the altar, led his congregation in one last song, and challenged them to hug one another and greet visitors and welcome others around them in their seats. For long moments, everyone’s arms became a web of proffered handshakes, hugs, and God-Be-with-You greetings. Several friends sitting nearby congratulated David. “Happy Father’s Day! Happy Anniversary!”

  And just as Nelson Hull began to signal that it was time to return to their seats and quiet down, here came Viola Uptergrove shuffling toward them with her walker. She was at least eighty-five years old, hunched and darling in a pink dress with pink blush powder caught in the wrinkles along her cheeks, pink lipstick staining her lips, and a pink silk butterfly bobby-pinned behind one ear. The butterfly sparkled and flickered on tiny, spring-balanced wings, as if it had recently flown in and alighted itself in Viola’s white, sugar-spun hair.

  Viola Uptergrove, David knew, was always the one to pray.

  She finished traversing the aisle and came near to him right as Nelson Hull took to the pulpit again and brandished the microphone. David glanced up and saw Nelson waiting, watching Viola’s progress with his patient, loving smile.

  When she spoke, her voice was so gravelly David had to bend close to hear her. She patted his hand a long time. “You have such a beautiful family,” she said at last, her rheumy blue eyes shining up at him like stars. “Happy Father’s Day.”

  He waited for more, but that was all she said before she began her journey to her seat again, trundling her walker back across the aisle.

  As soon as Viola got back to her seat, the sermon began. Because Nelson Hull had long been his friend, David felt in harmless hands whenever Nelson preached. He settled into the pew, making himself comfortable. But for some strange reason, Nelson’s eyes caught David’s from the pulpit. And David didn’t feel quite so safe anymore.