“Hey, you two, glad I caught you.”
Mark wasn’t sure what that meant, but he paused. “Pardon?”
“Luca has been asking if he could have Braden over to play. The poor kid doesn’t have a lot of friends in the area and with my hours at work, I don’t usually get home early enough to arrange anything. But, I’m taking a personal day tomorrow—have to run out to Montevista Hospital to check on MaryAnn, but I’ll be back before the kids get home from school. I thought maybe Braden and Luca could play together at our house instead of going to the Hippo. We’ve got lots of toys. And video games. Age appropriate. Nothing violent.”
Mark looked at his son. “Would you like to go to Luca’s house tomorrow?”
Braden nodded vigorously. You didn’t need to be a mind reader to see the hope and excitement in his son’s face.
“Okay,” Mark said. “Sounds good.”
“Cool. Why don’t you two come over for a minute right now—after I get my kids, of course, and make sure you really want to do this, Braden? The place isn’t the neatest. Luca’s mom has been away.”
Mark didn’t have any reason to hurry home. “Sure. Why not? Let’s put your backpack in the truck, son.”
The timing worked out perfectly. Gregor and his kids returned almost immediately. The two boys shot across the street without really looking for traffic, which, thankfully, was nonexistent.
“I’ll be right there, Bray,” Mark hollered after his son. To Gregor, he explained, “I’d better tell Alex not to expect him or she might call search and rescue. We had an incident last week with Braden’s grandmother.”
“Yeah, I heard. MaryAnn’s mom is a pain in the butt, too, but fortunately she lives in Hawaii.”
Gregor turned and, with his daughter at his side, followed the boys across the street. Gemilla was a pretty little girl who never seemed too animated unless Maya was around. Once she and her father reached the driveway of their home, she dashed inside ahead of Luca and Braden.
His son had a friend. The fact was almost enough to make Mark choke up. Friends were important. He’d never had too many until he’d been in high school. With a father like his, bringing a buddy home was asking for trouble. He’d always assumed his son would have a different kind of life, but this was probably the first time anyone had asked Braden to come over and play. The thought made his chest hurt. He was a failure as a father. In so many ways he was losing count.
Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the pastel purple door of the Hippo. When Alex didn’t answer, he tried the knob—and was surprised to find it open. “Alex,” he called, walking inside.
She wasn’t at her desk and the lights were off in the day-care area so he headed toward the hallway leading to her rooms. He called her name again but didn’t want to disturb her if she was on the phone or something.
“Alex, it’s me…Mark. Alex?”
He walked into her bedroom. Nobody was there. He started to leave, thinking she might have slipped out the side door and walked to her mother’s when he heard a low moan followed by a voice crying, “Oh, my God. That’s not possible.”
He reversed course and charged into the brightly lit master bath. Alex was sitting on the edge of her oversize tub, holding a box in one hand and a plastic wand of some kind in the other. Between the look on her face—a mixture of disbelief and shock—and the overly large initials on the box that clearly stood for Early Pregnancy Test, Mark figured out what she was shaken up about.
Shock, hurt, fury—the combination of emotions hit so fast he could barely think, but one thought crowded out all the rest. “You lied to me.”
She looked up. “Huh?”
“You said there wasn’t anyone else.”
The box slipped from her fingers, which had started to shake. The color drained from her face, and Mark realized she was about to faint. He rushed to her side and carefully eased her head down between her knees. He felt her body trembling. She tried speaking but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.
“Twice in one lifetime,” he muttered. “How big a sucker am I? Not once, but twice. Were you going to try to palm this kid off on me, too?”
She reared back, her color greatly improved. “What are you talking about? Why are you yelling at me? Wait. Why are you here? Where’s Braden?”
“I’m the one asking questions. What is this?” He wrenched the white plastic stick out of her fingers.
“It’s none of your business.”
“I understand that. You slept with some guy a month or two ago and suddenly figured out you were pregnant. But you told me there wasn’t anyone else.”
“There wasn’t.”
“We slept together a week ago. Don’t tell me this thing works that fast. That kind of trick only works once.”
She shook her head and grabbed the stick back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been on the highest dose of birth control pills known to man for years. I stopped taking them a couple of months ago. I’ve had one period since then, and I was due to start yesterday. When that didn’t happen…”
“You whipped out your handy-dandy pregnancy test? Who keeps those lying around?”
“Someone who wants to—who plans to—get pregnant.”
“You planned this?”
She looked at the ceiling. “I didn’t plan on sleeping with you. I had no idea you were going to be here last week. I planned on using a donor from a sperm bank as soon as my doctor said I was ovulating and it was safe.”
“What do you mean safe?”
“The cysts may return. Nobody knows for certain if I can get pregnant.”
Mark glanced at the plastic indicator. “What does that say?”
She let out a sigh. “It’s probably a false positive. There’s no way we could have gotten pregnant from one time—okay, two, but still the same night. I mean, I know you said that’s how it happened with Tracey, but I never really believed you.”
“You didn’t?”
She shook her head. “If this thing is right, then I was wrong.”
He slumped forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “No, you weren’t.”
“Really?”
He hadn’t expected her to sound so hurt. “I really only slept with her that one night. One time. Honest. What I meant was, that’s not how she got pregnant.”
“Huh?”
“Her mother told me last week that I’m not Braden’s father. Tracey was sleeping with another guy. She knew she was pregnant when she and I…” He stopped short of using the only word that applied. “According to Odessa, Tracey set out to seduce me because she figured I’d feel so guilty I’d marry her.”
“Why?” Alex cried. “Why not just marry the other guy?”
Mark could barely bring himself to repeat the horrible possibility that had been haunting him for a week. “He was a drug dealer, for one thing. He also had a bad temper and most people considered him dangerous. Why she slept with him in the first place is anybody’s guess, but apparently she didn’t want that kind of life for her kid.”
“Oh.” The compassion in her eyes made Mark feel like a jerk since he’d felt nothing but fury toward his ex-wife when Odessa had told him about Tracey’s supposed plan to sucker him into marrying her.
Neither spoke for a minute, then Alex grabbed his arm. “Oh, no, don’t tell me that man is still around. He’s not going to try to get custody of Braden, is he?”
Mark shook his head. “No. He’s dead. He died with Tracey. That day. In the fire.”
She clapped her hand to her mouth as if she might be sick. Suddenly her eyes went wide with horror. “No. You didn’t know. They don’t think…please, tell me they don’t think that was your motive. If they put you in jail, then Odessa…no…no…she really does have a claim on Braden, doesn’t she?”
She started to cry, tears spilling down her cheeks, but she dashed them away with her hands and a second later stood up. She turned to face him, legs spread in a fighting stance. “No. She can’t have h
im. I’ll take him. Or…or one of my sisters if…if not me. She’s a horrible, horrible person, Mark. She can’t have that precious little boy. She’ll destroy him.”
He stood up, too, and crushed her, sobbing, to his chest. Such a kind heart. An honest heart. He should have known she’d never lie to him. She and Tracey were as different as good and evil.
Chapter Seventeen
Alex wasn’t sure how long they stood there, Mark holding her, providing comfort and reassurance that all would be okay. She could almost believe it in his arms, but slowly the reality of the situation took over.
He had a son—a little boy who thought of Mark as his father. A little boy who needed Mark’s entire focus. And she wasn’t helping things.
She gently pushed away from him and walked to the vanity. Bending over, she splashed cool water on her face then used a towel that Mark handed her. “Feeling better?” he asked.
She nodded. “I think so. I’ve been on a bit of a hormone roller coaster today. Sorry I yelled at you.”
“It’s okay. You should have been there when I found out. Odessa was damn lucky there were three cops present.”
“Do you believe her?”
He took a breath and let it out. “I don’t know. Zeke ordered a DNA test. Just a swab on the inside of your cheek, but I don’t give a damn what the results say. Braden is my son. Blood or not.”
Alex knew she’d never loved Mark more. But that didn’t solve her problem. His first response to seeing her with the pregnancy kit had been to accuse her of cheating on him—and they weren’t even dating.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
She stood up and took a breath to clear the fuzzy dots from her vision. Her legs were as wobbly as heck, but she was entitled. Her world had turned upside down—a good reason for wobbly legs.
“Nothing?”
She wanted to crawl under the covers and hide, but that would only postpone the inevitable, and procrastination wasn’t her style. “Okay. Let’s talk. Just us. Now. Where’s Braden?”
“At your cousin’s. I came back to tell you he was going there tomorrow after school to play.”
Luca and Braden’s friendship was the one good thing to come out of all of this, she thought. “Let me call Gregor and see if he minds keeping Braden a little longer.”
Minutes later, she and Mark sat down across from each other in her little TV nook. “Here’s the deal. My body is kinda screwed up—partly from the operation, partly from the birth-control pills. The pamphlet that came with the test says the results may not be accurate this early. I might not know for sure for a month or two. And given the state of my reproductive organs, anything could happen in that time.”
“A miscarriage?”
She nodded. “I’m in my mid-thirties, Mark. Nine years ago, this probably wouldn’t have been an issue. But my body has been through a lot since then.” She looked down and tenderly rubbed her belly. “Getting pregnant this soon after going off the pill…? That just doesn’t happen. I honestly don’t know what to believe.”
“How do you feel?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer. Living with the monthly pain that came from her cysts had made her acutely sensitive to changes inside her body. But since she’d never been pregnant, she didn’t know if the symptoms she was experiencing were pregnancy-related or just premenstrual.
“Um…different. My breasts are tender. That used to happen when I got my period, but this time I haven’t had continuous severe pain—only a little nausea. That’s why I used the test.”
“Did your doctor say there was any reason—physically—that you couldn’t carry a baby to term?”
A baby. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—get her hopes up. “Not really, but he didn’t seem very confident about my ability to conceive. He was worried about scar tissue blocking my fallopian tubes.”
“What if you are pregnant?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“Why? Because of the fight we had?”
“No. Well, partly. I…love you, Mark. I always have, but that doesn’t mean we’re good for each other. Producing a baby together doesn’t guarantee we’d be a happy family. Two children right off the bat? With our history? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.”
He didn’t argue with her, but he didn’t look convinced, either.
“I promise to let you know as soon as I know something. I’ll make an appointment to see my doctor right after the holidays. Why stress about what might happen if this is just a false alarm?”
Her fatalistic tone was so unlike the Alex he knew and loved, Mark wasn’t sure how to react. She was right about one thing, though, this development was a lot to absorb, and until he knew for certain that he had a job—and wasn’t going to prison for a crime he hadn’t committed—he wasn’t in a position to make promises he couldn’t keep.
But he knew her. And he could picture her spending the rest of the night worrying and pacing and fretting, so acting on impulse, he said, “I’m taking Braden to buy a Christmas tree. Will you come with us?”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t. Oh, heavens, I’m a mess. And I have a million things to do. Christmas is only five days away.”
“And knowing you, you have every last detail taken care of. I’ve put off getting a tree because…well, frankly, I just can’t get in the holiday spirit.”
“Not surprising,” she said wryly. “I’d probably be pretty grinchy myself if not for the thirty-plus kids in my care.”
“Then maybe the two of us together could produce enough Christmas spirit to fool a little kid whose previous holiday experiences have been pretty shaky.”
“What do you mean? Tracey didn’t celebrate Christmas?”
“She did. I’m sure she tried to make special memories for him, but with her mother involved…”
“Say no more. I’ll get my coat. Do you have decorations?”
“A few.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place, my friend—Christmas Central. If I don’t have what you need, my mother does.”
About forty minutes later they left Alex’s with two giant boxes of Christmas decorations in the back of the truck. Braden was so excited he could barely sit still.
“T-tr-tree? A b-b-big one?”
The more excited he got, the more pronounced his stutter became, but Mark had learned not to correct him. For the most part, he understood what Braden was trying to say, so why draw attention to his problem—especially on a special night like this?
“Mom and I always get our trees from the Boy Scouts. The lot is a couple of miles down on Charleston Boulevard. Shall we try there first?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“J-jingle b-bells,” Braden called out from the backseat.
Mark glanced at Alex, who leaned forward and turned up the volume on the radio. The kid certainly had acute hearing. Mark hadn’t even realized there was music playing.
He found himself tapping his toe as Braden and Alex harmonized to a country-western version of “Jingle Bell Rock.” His smile grew as he realized that this was exactly the kind of holiday memory he’d hoped to create for his son, but it wouldn’t have been the same without Alex.
Just at that moment, she looked at him and touched his arm. With a quick look toward the backseat, she put one finger to her lips and pointed toward Braden. Mark cocked his head and listened.
“Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock…” the little boy sang. Without stuttering.
“What the—” he exclaimed.
The singing stopped.
Alex shifted in her seat and said, “You sing really nicely, Braden. Good job.” Then she quickly turned and pointed toward a cheerfully lit tree lot. “There it is. I hope they still have some good ones.”
Mark wanted to ask her about his son’s temporary cure, but he didn’t get the chance. Moments later, Alex and Braden, hand in hand, disappeared into a forest of dark green spruce
and pines. To Mark’s surprise, the place was packed with shoppers. He’d figured he was the last person in town to buy his tree. Not so, apparently, but the stock was going fast. There was a long line at the checkout counter.
“Alex? Braden?” he called.
“We’re over here,” she answered.
He found them examining a shoulder-high, candle-shaped tree that looked healthy and smelled great. “This variety is my personal favorite, but I can never remember what it’s called. White spruce?”
Mark found a tag, but the black scrawl only gave the price, not the kind. “Doesn’t matter what it is. I like it. How ‘bout you, Bray? Is this the tree for us?”
Braden nodded exuberantly.
“Okay, then.” He rubbed his hands together and picked it up. The night was brisk, but the trees and the crowd of people made him feel as if he’d been transported to a forest with a festive group of revelers. Tinny carols from a boom box filled the air. The line moved with surprising speed, and soon they were headed home with their eighty-dollar tree.
One quick stop for take-out tacos and they were set.
“I appreciate your cousin giving me his old tree stand, but I can see why he got rid of it,” Mark complained an hour later—from beneath the branches of his new tree. “It’s a pain in the butt to adjust.”
His house smelled of pine and burritos. He could see Alex’s ankles and stocking feet since she was holding the tree upright. Giving his arm a rest from the awkward position required to tighten the oversize screws that braced the trunk, he laid his head on the carpet and tickled her toes.
“Stop. Braden. Come help your dad before I kick him,” she said with a squeal. She hopped back slightly and leaned down enough to give him stern look. A preschool-teacher look that probably worked on a four-year-old but only made him want to kiss her.
Braden left his job of sorting ornaments and raced to Mark’s side, dropping to his knees. “You hold this one, bud, while I crawl around to the other side. Without the right leverage,” he said with a grunt of effort, “the darn thing doesn’t want to turn.”
The Quiet Child Page 15