by Karen Young
“Hello, Michael.” To save her life, Rachel couldn’t smile. She wanted to, she tried to, but it just wouldn’t come.
“Hello, ma’am.”
He was so like Jake. Why did he have to look so much like Jake?
She realized she’d been standing and staring too long when Jake said, “Why don’t we all sit down for a minute.”
“Yes, fine.” She watched as Jake guided Michael around a table to a love seat and gently urged him down. He waited while Rachel sat down opposite them on the sofa. Seeing them side by side facing her, their expressions almost identical—wary, waiting, as though she were a black widow spider—she felt suddenly desolate. The space separating them might as well have been the Gulf of Mexico.
“I was just showing Michael around,” Jake said.
Michael looked at her. “This place is really nice,” he said earnestly.
“Thank you,” she murmured. He looked scared. Seeing fear in those eyes—so like Jake’s!—she felt a pang of something. Sympathy? Pain?
“I was telling him we’d get him all settled, but first maybe we could have something to eat.”
“Yes.” As Rachel started to rise, Michael scrambled to his feet. “Where are you from, Michael?”
“Iowa. Des Moines, Iowa. Have you ever been there?”
“No, I’ve never been to Iowa.”
“It’s pretty flat, like Florida in a way, but not so green.” His gaze went to the windows. “I’ve never seen so much green.” He laughed suddenly, softly, and Rachel’s heart caught. It sounded so much like Jake’s chuckle. “I even touched your lawn to see if it was real.”
She flicked a glance at Jake and found him watching Michael with an expression that scared her. He looked bemused, completely absorbed. And loving. There was no other word for it. Michael had been in Jake’s life less than a day, and Jake was ready to make a place for him in his heart. Oh, but what about Scotty! her heart cried.
“I thought it might be like at the Superdome or the Astrodome,” Michael was explaining. “You know, artificial.”
Rachel nodded. “Yes, I know.”
“I promised Michael something to eat, Rachel.” Jake spoke quietly, without force. He was leaving it up to her.
Rachel’s mind went blank. She’d prepared something, hadn’t she? Oh, yes, roast beef. Although it had seemed like forever since she’d felt like preparing a complete meal, tonight she’d wanted something special, not because of her new job, but because it was time she shook off the terrible lethargy that had claimed her since Scotty… Her eyes raked over Michael and bitterness welled up in her throat. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.
Looking up, she caught Jake’s eye. He was silently watching her. Waiting. She turned away, feeling bleak and very frightened. Pulling herself together, she turned and went into the kitchen.
CHAPTER FOUR
JAKE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY watching Rachel do the few last-minute things required to put their meal on the table. Standing just behind him, Michael watched, too.
“Do you need any help?” Jake asked. “We can carry something.”
Rachel lined a bread basket with a linen napkin and began transferring warm rolls from a pan. Looking up, she gestured to three glasses filled with iced tea. “The tea, I guess. And the salt and pepper.”
“Right.” Jake reached for the glasses. “Mike, you take the salt and pepper. I’ve got these.”
Leaving them, Rachel carried the basket to the table and scooted a couple of dishes around to make everything fit. Candles and fresh flowers adorned the center of the table. She’d picked them up at the market on the way home, along with the most substantial grocery order she’d had in months. Now she whisked the candles away, dropping them in the drawer of the antique sideboard that stood under the window in the dining room, and closed it with a sharp snap. Her celebratory mood was gone.
Michael’s eyes widened at the attractive table. He looked like a child watching his first magic show, Rachel thought, stubbornly holding on to her resentment. Wordlessly he handed the salt and pepper shakers to her. And after a slight hesitation, she took them and placed them on the table.
“Take a seat, Mike,” Jake said, still wearing that half-smiling, bemused expression.
Rachel spoke curtly. “Did you wash up?”
Michael flushed, looking quickly at his hands.
“Uh-oh, my fault, Mike.” Jake, in the act of sitting, stopped. “Everything smells so good, we forgot our manners. Remember me pointing out the bathroom through that door?” Jake gestured with his chin. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” Michael murmured, scraping the polished surface of the parquet floor as he shoved his chair back. “Uh, sorry,” he mumbled, shooting Rachel a quick look.
“No problem,” Jake said quietly. “We’ll wait.”
With the sound of the bathroom door closing, silence descended. Rachel busied herself shaking out her napkin, fiddling with the place mat, rearranging the silver alongside her plate. All her satisfaction in landing a job was forgotten, a ripple on the surface of her mind washed away by the tidal wave of Michael’s appearance. How was she going to bear being around him, seeing him, being reminded of Jake’s…
“I’m going to take him to school tomorrow and get him enrolled,” Jake said.
Rachel lifted her glass and put it down again, refusing to look at him. “What’s the point? School will be out in a month anyway.”
“I know, but he needs to get to know the kids. I’m going to talk to the guidance counselor about summer school. He’s been on the road six weeks. He’ll need to catch up.”
“In two months? Good luck.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just look at him, Jake.” She kept her voice low. “He doesn’t exactly strike me as a model student. He doesn’t know—” She shook her head, deciding not to go into all the things Michael obviously didn’t know. “I’m no expert, but from the way he acts, it’s going to take more than a couple of months. I don’t think his…family placed a lot of importance on school or, for that matter, on other things that we take for granted.”
“How can you tell after only forty-five minutes with him?” Jake demanded.
“How can you tell otherwise after only one day with him?”
Jake clenched his hands. He dropped his head and stared at his plate for a long moment, then pulled in a deep, slow breath. “Why don’t we finish this later, Rachel?”
“Fine.”
From the vicinity of the bathroom came the sound of a door opening, then footsteps. Reaching the dining room, Michael hesitated. Jake looked up.
“Hey, all set?” Jake sent him a reassuring smile. “Okay, I don’t know about you, but we’re starved. Let’s eat.”
For Rachel, only one other day had ever been worse: the day Scotty disappeared. By the time bedtime rolled around, she was hanging on to her fragile composure by a thread. She seethed with emotions too intense to identify. Every time she looked at Michael she felt as if her body was charged with explosives about to shatter her into a million pieces. Every time she looked at Jake she felt such an overwhelming rage it almost scared her. Almost.
They hadn’t talked yet. There really hadn’t been an opportunity. Michael’s presence at the dinner table prevented her from doing what she longed to do: annihilate Jake with words, spew out her sense of betrayal, her bitterness. But not jealousy. No, indeed not. She comforted herself that she wasn’t jealous because he’d turned to some conscienceless woman all those years ago. She couldn’t be jealous if she didn’t love him. And she didn’t love Jake anymore. Focusing on that thought, she discovered, brought a numbing sense of calm.
The French doors opened suddenly. Jake and Michael came in looking relaxed and totally at ease with each other. They had been outside a good thirty minutes. After she’d waved aside their offer to help with the dishes, they’d escaped—there was no other word for it—to the garage and boat shed. Scotty had loved to spend time with Jake there. Man
stuff, he’d informed his mother with endearing male superiority. The boat was out there, Jake’s power tools, his fishing tackle, his archery equipment, the spiffy new bow rigged with some kind of apparatus that made it possible for even a six-year-old to cock and shoot. Jake had been teaching him. Pain caught in her throat.
Pulling the door closed behind them, they were halfway across the den before catching sight of Rachel. Jake’s expression became guarded, Michael’s wary. From outdoors wafted the scent of sweet olive. She’d planted the shrub there so her family could enjoy its unique fragrance. Her family.
Jake and me and Scotty! Not this scruffy, needy adolescent.
“We’ve been in the boat shed looking at the Pelican,” Jake told her, reaching around Michael to flip off the light switch for the shed.
“So I assumed.” Rachel swallowed hard. Scotty had named the boat for his favorite bird. She and Jake had laughed, unable to figure out why he had chosen such an awkward, unattractive bird when he could have chosen the exotic flamingo. Or white crane. Or even the small egret that inhabited every spot in Florida that held water. But Pelican it was, and because Scotty had named it, the Pelican belonged to Scotty. Jake had no right…
“It’s a real beauty,” Michael said, bright eyed with excitement. And happiness. A blind person could see the joy in the boy’s face, Rachel thought.
“We’ll take it out soon,” Jake promised, taking pleasure in Michael’s enthusiasm.
“That’ll be great!”
Jake smiled. “Yeah, it will.”
“You won’t have to worry about me, either,” Michael said.
“Worry? How’s that, Mike?”
“I mean, I can swim and all. I don’t know much about fishing, but at least I won’t drown.”
Jake laughed and clapped him gently on the shoulder. “To tell the truth, I assumed you could swim, Mike. And as for learning to fish, there’s nothing to it. A couple of times out and you’ll be pulling ’em in so fast we won’t have enough room in the freezer. Trust me.”
Trust me. Rachel turned and headed toward the hall, unwilling for them to see her face, to know her thoughts. How could Jake even speak those words in front of her? And to Michael, the very embodiment of his own betrayal! “Rachel?”
“I’m going to check the linens in the guest room,” she said stiffly. Let him figure out which room she meant. His or his brand-new son’s.
AS THOUGH HE KNEW where to draw the line, Jake assumed the task of showing Michael where he would sleep. He helped him make the bed with fresh linens, easing his awkwardness in unpacking his meager belongings and placing them in the drawers of the chest. Pausing in the hall, Rachel heard them, Jake’s tone deep and calm, Michael’s hesitant at times, then responding like a puppy to kindness. When she heard Jake send him to the bathroom to shower, she drew in a tense breath. Finally bedtime. Now she and Jake could have it out.
Leaving Michael’s bedroom, Jake caught her eye. He stopped, and for a few long seconds they studied each other by the soft glow of the night-light on the wall. With the insight learned in eighteen years of marriage, both knew they’d reached a crossroads. The certainty thrummed in the air around them. What they did, what they said tonight might sever the fabric of their relationship beyond repair. Neither of them was prepared for the heartbreak that seemed to have come to them. First Scotty, now Michael. Eyes clinging, searching, they stood motionless as if moving would set in motion something both feared. After a while, they heard Michael turn off the shower. Then, still without speaking, they turned to head for the den.
The telephone rang just as Jake was fixing himself a drink. Jake picked it up, and from the tone of his voice and his terse replies, Rachel knew it was business. She got off the sofa irritably, only half-aware of his conversation. Surely he wouldn’t be called out tonight of all nights!
At the French doors, she stopped. Considering what they had to talk about, it would probably be best to do it out on the patio. She glanced at Jake, who lifted a hand to signal he’d be a minute.
He covered the phone and spoke in a low tone. “Check on Michael, will you? I think he’s got everything he needs, but—” He removed his palm and spoke suddenly into the mouthpiece. “This is not in the city’s jurisdiction, Frank. Tell Gonzales—”
He glared at the palm tree on the patio while listening to Frank Cordoba. “Okay, okay. Then tell Gonzales’s man that he can check with us tomorrow, and if I think it’s legitimate, and if it’s city stuff and if they have the paperwork, we’ll cooperate. You got that?” He dropped his eyes to his feet, listening. “All right, all right. Put Milt on.”
Rachel walked out. There was no telling how long Jake would be. Reluctantly, she stopped at the door of the room where Michael was, her hand raised, ready to knock. The door was ajar, but the only light in the room came from the fluorescent tube on the aquarium that was built into the bookcase. She blinked a little in surprise. Fresh from the shower, wearing only a towel and a rapt expression, Michael was standing in front of the aquarium watching the fish. As she watched, he hitched the towel up with one hand and reached for a can of fish food.
He was gangly and adolescent and slim as a reed. Still, he was so like Jake. He had the same stance, one hip thrown slightly forward, his feet cocked at almost ninety degrees. Even the slope of his shoulders was familiar. How many times had she seen Jake tip his head just that way to study something that particularly interested him? Moving closer, she could see the tiny brown birthmark on his shoulder that was identical to the one she’d kissed a thousand times on Jake.
Finally sensing her presence, Michael glanced around. “Oh, hey, Miss Rachel. I didn’t see you there.”
“Probably because you didn’t turn the light on.”
He shrugged sheepishly. “I had it on, but the fish were so neat that I wanted to look at them in the dark. You know, with only the light of the aquarium.”
“Do you like goldfish?”
“I guess so. I mean, I never had any.” He turned his eyes back to the tank. “But, yeah, I do like them. I was just watching them sort of cruising around, their fins waving so slow and easy, like they don’t have a thing in the world to worry about. It’s nice.”
Rachel looked at the aquarium. It held nothing exotic, only common fantail goldfish, but she knew exactly what Michael meant. Just watching them made her feel peaceful and relaxed. Or it used to.
“When I’m in bed, I’ll be able to hear the sound of the water bubbling like that. I like it,” Michael said. He chuckled suddenly. “It sure beats a freight train.”
“Freight train?”
“I was thinking about where I used to live. We were pretty close to the railroad, and when I lay in bed at night, I’d hear every train that went by until I finally fell asleep.”
“It must have been…irritating.”
He stared silently as a big spotted fantail made its way slowly across the tank. “You get used to it.”
She felt a tug of emotion, the first that wasn’t resentment or anger or injury, then quickly stifled it. “Do you think you’ll miss Des Moines?”
He shook his head, still watching the fish. “Nah. There’s nothing there for me anymore.”
He stated it without emotion, but for some reason it touched Rachel more than anything he’d revealed yet. Fourteen years, the sum total of his whole life, dismissed almost casually. Hadn’t there been a single special friend? Someone at school? Something at school? Sports? A part-time job? Church? A relative, for heaven’s sake. How could there be nothing a boy would regret leaving? As she pondered it, he hitched at the sagging towel again.
“Are your pajamas in the laundry?”
He glanced down and for the first time seemed aware of his near nudity. “Ah, well…”
Before going outside, she had heard the washing machine and assumed Jake was putting in a load of Michael’s things. Laundry and pajamas and settling a boy into bed were things she handled a lot better than the sort of deep water she might wade into t
alking about—thinking about!—Michael’s past.
“I’ll just run and get them,” she told him.
“Uh, Miss Rachel—”
“It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes for them to dry.” Her tone was brisk. Enough of this boy and his unfortunate upbringing. She didn’t want to think about it anymore tonight.
“Miss Rachel, wait.”
With her hand on the doorknob, she turned. “What is it, Michael?”
“You don’t need to get the laundry. I don’t have any pajamas.”
“What?”
“I don’t have any.”
“At all?”
“No, ma’am.”
She drew in a sharp breath, wanting only to get away, then recalled her original purpose in checking on him. “Jake wondered if you needed anything,” she said without looking at him.
“Oh. I’m fine. Thanks, Miss Rachel.”
“Well, in that case—”
“Ah…”
She closed her eyes then faced him again. “Yes, what is it?”
He set the fish food on the shelf. His gaze, meeting hers, was hesitant. “Is it all right to call you Miss Rachel? I thought about names and all, and Miss Rachel seemed the best thing.”
Rachel stared at him, her heart beating with pain and confusion and a fierce desire to reject Jake’s illegitimate son no matter how appealing he was, no matter how disadvantaged a life he’d had.
“I know it’s kind of hard for you,” he went on in a low tone when she didn’t reply right away. “Me showing up here like this and you not even knowing I was ever born. I mean, it’s different for Jake since he’s my dad and all.” His expression as he met her eyes held regret and apology. Then he straightened up, as though bracing for the worst. “You’re probably real upset.”
“It is difficult,” Rachel murmured, rubbing a temple that suddenly throbbed. For a moment, she and Michael simply looked at each other, much as she and Jake had done a few minutes ago in the hall. From the fish tank came the soft gurgling sounds that both found comforting. None of this was the boy’s fault. Surely she still had enough compassion left in her soul to acknowledge that.