Worth the Drive

by Mara Jacobs

Of course, the baby. Darío was a fool to think that her interest in his heritage had anything to do with him.

  She waved a hand, as if to erase their current line of topic. “Anyway, no apology necessary for this morning. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I came here, but you’ve totally surprised me. It never occurred to me that you would feel so strongly about this baby.”

  She didn’t know what a statement like that could do to him. She couldn’t have, or she would never have thrown such a dagger at his heart. He was not the kind of man his father was. He would not turn away from his child. If this was his child – and Darío was not totally convinced of that – then he would never abandon it, would never allow his role to be played by uncles or a grandfather. The fact that Katie thought he could ripped him apart.

  That she lumped him in with the son-of-a-bitch who had fathered him made him furious.

  Determined to stay in control this time, he rose from the chair. “I see you’re planning on leaving tonight?” he asked. She nodded, and opened her mouth to speak, but Darío cut her off. “Have a safe trip back to Michigan, Katie. Please take care of yourself and the baby.”

  She must have sensed his slipping control, his barely masked rage. She unconsciously placed her hand across her abdomen as if to protect the baby from him. The thought made him even angrier.

  “But if you think that you will keep me away from a child of mine, you are sadly mistaken. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”

  He left the room, turning his back on her gasp.

  “Mamá, what’s a bastard?” four-year-old Darío asked his mother.

  She dropped the pot she’d taken from the tiny stove in the cramped kitchen, paella spilling everywhere, but she didn’t seem to notice. That in itself worried Darío. His mother was always so tidy in the kitchen, for her to not even seem to notice that their dinner was now all over her spotless floor…something was definitely wrong.

  She stepped through the rice, gobs of it sticking to her shoes – another sign that this was serious stuff – Mamá loved shoes, and she only owned two pair. She knelt down and pulled Darío to her, clutching his skinny arms in her warm hands. “Darío, where did you hear such a word?” she asked.

  Darío could see the color start to rise in her cheeks, just like when he had done something wrong and was about to be scolded. He didn’t know what he’d said, but he knew it wasn’t good. Best to come clean, he figured. “The women in the kitchen said it today, while you went down to the office.”

  “Those bitches,” she whispered, but Darío heard her. His eyes grew big. Mamá never said bad words. At least he thought that was a bad word. He didn’t dare ask now.

  “You shouldn’t be listening liket that,” she said, but there was warmth in her voice.

  “I didn’t mean to. Sergio sent me to tell you that he was taking me out on the back nine with him.”

  His mother nodded. “Yes, of course. It was good you came to ask my permission.”

  Darío didn’t bother to say he wasn’t really asking for permission, more like telling her. There was no way he would miss going out on the course with Sergio, it was the best.

  “What else did you hear the women say, mi corazón?” his mother asked.

  Darío shrugged, his arms falling free from his mother’s grip. “They said I was a bastard and you were a fool. But that I couldn’t help being a bastard and you could help being a fool.”

  His mother crushed him to her. His arms were trapped between their bodies so he couldn’t even hug her back. His face was buried in her hair, which she always let loose from the tight bun the minute they stepped into their tiny cottage. It smelled good, like flowers, and Darío buried his nose in it as he listened to his mother croon to him.

  “No, no, you are not a bastard. You are a gift. The most precious gift. You are a miracle. My miracle.”

  She released him and held him away from her, her grip once again strong on his arms. “You are a miracle. Tell me, are miracles wasted on fools?” Before Darío could shake his head – that was the answer he thought she was looking for – she went on. “No, of course not.”

  Her face was bright red now. Darío had never seen her this upset and it scared him. He reached out to touch her face and realized tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry Mamá, you’re not a fool.”

  His mother wiped her eyes across her sleeve – something she always scolded Darío for when he did it with a runny nose. “No. I am no fool. And you are no bastard. You are my son, and you are my everything, mi corazón.” Her heart.

  Later that night, when he was supposed to be asleep, Darío crept out of the bed he shared with his mother and poked his head around the flimsy partition that pretended to separate the one room apartment into two. His mother was at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, her beautiful black hair swung forward, ruining any chance Darío had of seeing her face.

  But he didn’t need to see her face to know she was crying.

  It was the earliest memory Darío had. And the hardest one to forget.

  Chapter Eleven

  The trouble with me is I think too much.

  I always said you have to be dumb to play good golf.

  -JoAnne Carner, professional golfer

  Katie pushed the grocery cart down the dairy aisle. She’d never been one for milk, but she was now drinking a couple of glasses a day. The stupid wheel on the cart did another three-sixty, sending her nearly into the butter. Nothing was going right today.

  A typo in an obit had gotten through. Not good to have someone’s last statement to the world have the wrong name. They’d already gotten seventeen calls on it before she’d left the office. No telling how many more they’d get tomorrow. Ah, the joys of a small town paper.

  It had been three weeks since she’d seen Darío. Three weeks and she still hadn’t heard anything from him, and that made her nervous. That last evening in her motel room, he hadn’t seemed like he was going to let the subject of giving up rights drop. The papers she’d taken to Memphis sat on her dining room table, untouched since she’d thrown them there after returning home.

  Nearing the checkout, she remembered she needed toilet paper and returned to that aisle, nearly colliding carts with someone as she rounded the corner.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I…” The words died in her throat as she recognized the driver of the other cart, and more importantly, its passenger. Strapped into a car seat that settled into the purse compartment of the cart was Crystal Lipton, being driven by her proud papa.

  “Ron,” Katie gasped. She was lucky she’d avoided him this long. She’d obviously seen him since he’d left her, to talk with their lawyers, to hash out financial arrangements, even in the Commodore one night having a beer with his friends. But she’d been fortunate not to have seen him or the baby since she was born. Now, her eyes were drawn to the pudgy arms waving, seemingly to her.

  “Katie,” Ron said. He looked uncomfortable to see her. Good, this was no picnic for her, either.

  But he still looked good. Great. His blond hair was made even lighter from the summer sun. He wore a tee shirt with the arms ripped out, showing off his muscular, tanned biceps. Denim cutoffs hugged his toned thighs, flip-flops adorned his long feet.

  He looked casual, carefree, gorgeous. He also looked like the man who had broken her heart.

  She tried to think of something to say. Something that wouldn’t come out in a shriek of recriminations. She could think of nothing and her eyes once again turned to the baby. Her cheeks were huge and solid, her arms never rested and she was bound and determined to stuff her entire fist into her mouth. Miniature versions of her father’s blue eyes twinkled and a cropping of blond fuzz peeked through a pink, elastic headband. “She’s beautiful, Ron.”

  He looked at his daughter, then at Katie. For a moment, the past year fell away, and they looked at each other with the mutual affection they’d once shared. “Thanks. I think so too.”

  Maybe it w
ould feel different if she weren’t pregnant herself, but Katie felt a little of the animosity she’d felt for Ron slip away. If given the choice, would she have cheated on Ron to have a bundle like Crystal looking up at her? Would her desire to have a child have allowed her to be unfaithful if she’d known that Ron’s sperm and her body weren’t in sync?

  It was a question she could not answer, did not want to even think about, afraid she might say yes. She’d wanted a child for so long, she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t sacrifice her marriage vows to have one. Inadvertently, that was what Ron had done. She could – almost – forgive him. She could certainly understand him a little bit better.

  “Well…” she disengaged her cart from his and started to roll past him.

  He reached out and placed his hand on her arm, stopping her. “You have no idea how much I wish she was yours, Katie. Yours and mine.”

  “I…I have to go,” she said and went down the aisle. Her mind buzzed and her heart seemed to slow. Hadn’t she secretly had the same thoughts? Certainly when she’d first found out about Crystal, but even about the baby she now carried? How she wished this baby were hers and Ron’s, conceived in love, not out of a one-night stand. She felt she was betraying Darío to have such thoughts, but her history with Ron was much more complex and layered than anything she and Darío had shared.

  Like a coward, she hid in the back of the store, behind a deli display, until there was no way Ron could possibly still be shopping. When she got home, she only had enough energy to put the perishable foods in the fridge, letting the dry goods sit on the counter. She didn’t have any desire to make herself dinner, though she knew she had to eat. She sat down on the couch and tried to relax, willing the bad day away.

  She’d gotten used to living alone, but she still didn’t like it. Coming from a big family, she’d never been alone, though with four brothers she’d always had her own bedroom. She’d lived with Lizzie and Alison at State and then she and Ron had married after graduation.

  Lizzie’s husband, Finn, and his son, Stevie, came over on a Saturday now and then with a tool box in his Jeep and asked if she needed anything done. Lizzie and Alison and she still went out once a week for pizza at the Commodore, even with Lizzie now married and with kids. But Katie always came home to an empty house. Slept alone in bed. Made meals for one.

  She thought back to seeing Ron at the store and wondered why she didn’t tell him she was pregnant? It was still early in her pregnancy and something could go wrong, but she knew that wasn’t why. She tried to come up with an answer when the doorbell rang.

  That was odd. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone rang the bell. Alison and Lizzie barged right in, as did her family.

  Lifting herself from the couch, she made her way to the door, only to open it to Darío Luna. He looked tired, Katie thought, and his face didn’t hold the teasing, crooked smile that he’d given her in the past.

  “Katie, we must talk. And this time I brought the legal documents,” he said.

  Katie looked across the car to Darío sitting silently in the passenger seat as she drove. She hadn’t even let him pass the front foyer of her home before grabbing her keys and hustling him out the door. She didn’t want to have this conversation – whatever it turned out to be – in the home she had shared with Ron. Somehow, sitting amongst the accumulation of thirteen years of marriage while you discussed the pregnancy that was the result of a one-night stand with a near stranger seemed inappropriate.

  Katie inwardly snorted. Nothing about this situation was appropriate. It would be appropriate that the child she was carrying were Ron’s. It would be appropriate that the child she’d seen with Ron earlier were hers. And it would be appropriate if it were Katie, Ron, Crystal, and the baby on the way in the car driving to dinner.

  She didn’t take Darío to the Commodore. She’d know too many people there. Anywhere she went she was bound to run into somebody she knew. That was the price of living in a small town your whole life. Not to mention working at its only daily newspaper.

  Katie didn’t want to pay that price tonight. She wasn’t quite ready to explain to the Copper Country why Darío Luna had come to town. She wasn’t sure herself. To lessen her chances of bumping into any acquaintances, she drove Darío along the man-made Portage Canal, past Hancock to the town of Calumet. The drive was beautiful, the water sparkling like diamonds in the early evening light. A sight that usually soothed Katie, but not tonight.

  Neither of them said much during the drive. Katie wasn’t sure if that was because Darío seemed to be intent on the view, or if they had nothing to say to each other.

  They were having a child together. Certainly they had something else in common that they could talk about. Something besides the baby.

  But the twenty-minute ride remained silent as Katie racked her brain and came up empty.

  They got lucky, and the small pizza joint Katie picked was near deserted, and those few people eating were strangers to her. They chose a booth near the back, and they both studied their menus like they held the secrets of the universe. It was a no-frills pizza joint with only about six items on the menu, but Katie and Darío both perused the laminated sheets for several minutes, hesitant to put them down and start a conversation.

  Soon the waiter, a teenager fighting the worst case of acne Katie could remember seeing, took their order and they were left to stare at each other. Katie’s pregnancy resembled a pink elephant that pulled up a chair and joined their table.

  Just as Katie prepared to start off with Darío’s latest top-ten finish, and Darío opened his mouth to say something, a man and what appeared to be his daughter entered the restaurant and sat down at a table parallel to Darío and Katie’s booth. Katie and Darío both seemed relieved to have something else to look at besides each other and their menus.

  They both watched as the father and daughter sat down and immediately picked up their menus, hiding their faces behind them. Katie smiled as she thought the scene similar to her and Darío. She sneaked a glance at Darío and saw him watching the little girl.

  She was probably about ten, Katie guessed, with jet-black hair that probably made her stand out in her class of what would most likely be fair-headed Finns. Lizzie had stood out like that in their class years ago.

  The little girl faced Katie, but Katie was only able to see the top of her head. Everything below her enormous green eyes was hidden by the menu. The little girl’s forehead was furrowed. In concentration, Katie wondered? That much work over the menu? But that wasn’t it, for soon, the little girl took a deep breath, braced the bony shoulders that stuck out of her pink tee-shirt and placed the menu down on the table. Her brow was still furrowed, but now Katie recognized the emotion. Determination.

  “You know what you’re having, Peaches?” the father asked from behind his menu.

  Katie saw the little girl’s grimace at her father’s pet name. She had probably outgrown it years ago, Katie thought, but the father didn’t realize it. Of course not, how could he possibly notice it when he doesn’t look at the girl?

  “Yes. I’ll have the personal pizza, plain cheese.” Her voice was small, quiet, and Katie felt herself leaning toward the table to hear her. Catching herself, she took a sip of her water, sat back and looked at Darío, only to find his gaze on the twosome as well.

  She tried to think of something to say to him. “You had a great showing at the British last week. Another top ten, that’s great. I’m sort of surprised you’re back in the States so soon. I would have thought you’d play a few more tournaments in Europe while you were over there,” Katie said.

  Darío turned his attention back to Katie as she spoke. He nodded at her congratulations. “Sí, it was a good tournament for me.” He paused, watching as the father finally put down his menu when the waiter came and took their order. “I usually do play in Europe from the British until the PGA, but, I decided to play over here instead,” he said.

  It being a Wednesday, and Darío being a th
ousand miles from Connecticut where the Tour was playing this week, Katie deduced he was taking a week off. And had decided to spend part of that time in the Copper Country. Great. Just what she needed on top of her crappy day.

  Not that she didn’t want to see Darío. She had to admit, her insides had done a tiny flip-flop when she’d opened the door and saw him standing there. After his initial pronouncement, her eyes had gone straight to his forearms, even more deeply tanned than they’d been in Memphis. He’d followed her gaze and smiled that crooked smile. She hadn’t thought she could feel more vulnerable than she had earlier that day when she’d seen Ron in the aisle of Pat’s IGA, but seeing Darío at her door, in her hometown, on her turf, smiling at her, made her curse the hormones that coursed through her body.

  “Not playing Hartford?” she asked, though the answer was obvious. He wouldn’t be here right now if he were teeing off in Hartford tomorrow morning.

  “No, not playing this week.” His attention was back on the father and daughter, and Katie followed his gaze. The father was asking questions of the little girl. Stuff about her everyday life that he’d have known if he were in the house. A quick look at the man’s bare ring finger and Katie’s suspicions of a divorced father out with his daughter for their weekly Wednesday night dinner were confirmed.

  “So, Peaches, what’d you do today?” he asked his daughter.

  “Um…played on the computer, watched a video,” she trailed off.

  “You didn’t go swimming today? Not to the beach? It was a beautiful day,” the father said.

  Katie agreed with the man. It had been one of those idyllic days in the Copper Country. Mid-eighties with a nice breeze coming off Lake Superior, so no humidity. A day to be at the beach. Certainly not a day to go grocery shopping at Pat’s.

  “There are too many of us at daycare to go to the beach.” Peaches took a sip of her Mountain Dew. A pop that Peaches’ mother probably wouldn’t have let her drink so late in the evening, Katie thought, but how was the father to know that you didn’t let a ten-year-old have so much caffeine and sugar at nine o’clock at night.