A Baby for Christmas

by Anne McAllister

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Des had told him over and over. Everyone said the same thing. Even Gord’s wife—his pregnant wife—had said so when Piran had gone to her to break the news.

  But being told that he was blameless hadn’t helped. Even though the other vehicle had run the red light, he kept questioning himself. What if…? If only…But what had happened had happened. And all the what ifs and if onlys in the world wouldn’t bring Gord back.

  Piran knew it, but it was hard to accept. He’d done some mind-bending drinking right after it happened.

  And he’d met Wendy Jeffries.

  He should never have gone to that damned party Des had insisted on dragging him to. And he certainly should never have drunk as much as he did there—or left with Wendy halfway through. He couldn’t even remember what had happened after he’d left with her. The next thing he’d known was waking up in her bed the next morning.

  His eyes widened and he looked at the baby more closely. Had that happened? Was this child Wendy’s? Was that what she’d been writing about in all those letters he’d been pitching unopened into the trash?

  Had he…? Was he…? God, no, he couldn’t have slept with her, could he?

  He couldn’t remember having slept with her. But then, he couldn’t remember not having slept with her either.

  He felt sick.

  He shook his head and frowned down fiercely at the child. His child?

  The baby’s face screwed up and it started to cry.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ Carly admonished him.

  ‘Me? What I’ve done?’

  ‘Oh, poor thing,’ Carly crooned, bending closer.

  ‘It’s not poor—’

  ‘Damn it, Piran, shut up. Shh, now, baby, Daddy didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  ‘I’m not its daddy!’ He hoped.

  ‘Piran!’ Carly shot him a furious glance. She patted the baby ineffectually. It screeched on.

  Piran dragged both his hands through his hair. ‘For God’s sake, Carly, make it stop.’

  ‘You made it cry.’

  ‘So you can hardly expect I’d be able to make it stop,’ he said as reasonably as he could. ‘Do something.’

  She looked at him helplessly. ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Why should I? I don’t have kids. And I never had any baby brothers or sisters…as you might recall.’

  ‘You might’ve…after…’ But he didn’t want to get into anything about her mother. Not now.

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said flatly.

  ‘OK, you didn’t,’ he said desperately. ‘But hell, you’re a woman—’

  ‘Hardly a qualification.’

  ‘Better than I’ve got. Just shut it up,’ he pleaded.

  And he breathed a sigh of relief when finally Carly reached into the basket, scooped the baby up into her arms and cradled it awkwardly against her. It wailed, then hiccuped, then sniffled and stopped crying, looking at her with wide, curious blue eyes.

  ‘Thank God,’ Piran muttered.

  ‘Try thanking me,’ Carly said drily.

  ‘Thank you.’ He would have kissed her feet right then—anything just so she made it stop. Why was the crying affecting him so much?

  Maybe, he thought, because he wanted to cry himself!

  He couldn’t be a father! Could he?

  Carly pointed to the cardboard box of baby clothes, bottles and canned formula sitting next to the basket. ‘There’s a note in there.’

  Piran snatched it up. His lips drew into a thin line.

  ‘What’s it say?’ Carly asked.

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘His name.’ His fingers crumpled the note.

  ‘Which is…?’ Carly prompted.

  Piran let out a harsh breath. ‘Arthur.’

  ‘Arthur,’ Carly said brightly. ‘Imagine that.’

  Piran gritted her teeth, knowing full well what she was thinking.

  ‘Hello there, Arthur,’ Carly crooned. At that the child blinked and looked at Carly with more interest.

  ‘He knows his name,’ she told Piran happily.

  He jammed his hands into the pockets of his shorts. ‘Swell.’

  ‘And he has your nose.’

  ‘He does not! My nose isn’t beaky.’

  ‘Neither’s Arthur’s. It’s just—um—strong and determined.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like mine. And he’s not mine. No matter what that note implies.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re perhaps protesting a bit much, Piran? He’s called Arthur, after all. Your father’s name. And—’

  ‘I know it’s my father’s name!’

  ‘And he’s got your nose, regardless of what you think.’ She said this quickly, before he could object. ‘And his eyes are exactly the color of yours.’

  ‘His eyes are blue.’

  ‘The same blue as yours.’

  ‘And hundreds of thousands of other people’s…’

  ‘But he’s on your veranda.’

  ‘Well, he can leave any time.’

  Carly stared at him, then looked down at the baby. She made a tiny sound of dismay. ‘He can’t, can he?’ she said after a moment as if the realization had just dawned. ‘Oh, dear. What if whoever left him doesn’t come back?’

  ‘They’d damned well better. I’m not keeping him!’

  ‘But he’s—’

  ‘No, he’s not!’ Piran insisted, as if, by repeating it often enough, he could convince himself beyond a doubt that it was true. ‘I don’t care if the note said his name was Piran St Just the second—he’s not staying here!’

  ‘How’s he going to leave?’

  ‘Whoever left him can come and get him.’ He looked around suspiciously, as if whoever had left this baby might still be hiding in the bushes, thinking this was all a great joke. No such luck.

  ‘I think,’ Carly said after a moment, gesturing at the large box full of clothes sitting beside the basket, ‘that whoever left him doesn’t mean to come back.’

  Piran had just been thinking the same thing, but he didn’t like saying it. With his bare toe he traced the line between the bleached boards of the veranda.

  ‘Of course they will,’ he said with far more optimism than he felt.

  If they didn’t, he couldn’t imagine what was going to happen.

  What in God’s name was he going to do with a baby?

  By nightfall Carly was astonished to discover that she had a surprising, heretofore hidden instinct for motherhood. She wasn’t sure how far it extended, but for the moment at least Arthur seemed to think she filled the bill.

  But if she had a natural flair for mothering, Piran seemed to have no instinct for fatherhood whatsoever-beyond contributing the requisite sperm, at least.

  He’d watched her and Arthur with a combination of irritation and nervousness from clear across the room while she’d fixed lunch. When she’d put Arthur down, and he’d cried, and she’d suggested that Piran might like to hold the baby, he’d looked at her askance.

  ‘Not on your life,’ he’d said.

  When at last she’d set the meal on the table and settled down to eat with Arthur in her lap, Piran had picked up his plate and eaten his sandwich at the computer with his back to them both.

  ‘He’s not contagious, Piran,’ Carly said.

  ‘And thank God for that.’

  He buried himself in his work for the rest of the day. At least, he called it work. As far as Carly could see it was a means of avoiding Arthur.

  He didn’t seem to get much done, either. Mostly he muttered and glanced at the baby and Carly over his shoulder, as if he was hoping they’d vanished in a puff of smoke. Finally he shut off the computer. ‘I’m going to town. Someone must know who the devil he is.’

  But when he returned at suppertime he was moving much more slowly and he had no clues as to Arthur’s identity. There had been a sightseeing boat that brought forty or so tourists to the isla
nd that morning, according to Ben, including several family groups. No one had noticed a woman with a baby.

  Piran reported all this tersely as he stood glumly at the water’s edge while Carly bounced in the waves with a gurgling Arthur in her arms.

  ‘So it was a waste of time,’ he finished heavily.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘I don’t know. And you aren’t supposed to swim alone, if you recall,’ he added irritably.

  ‘I’m not alone, I’m with Arthur. Besides, I’m hardly going to drown in eighteen inches of water.’

  Piran muttered something under his breath.

  Carly looked at him closely. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked him. His face was red from the sun and the exertion of walking into town, but beneath his heightened color she thought she detected a pale tightness bracketing his mouth.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be? Getting some kid dumped on my doorstep, walking all the way to town and back in the middle of the afternoon, finding out no one knows anything about who he is!’

  Carly forbore reminding him that they knew who Arthur was, they just didn’t know who’d left him there.

  ‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘And you’ve done all you can right now. So why don’t you go take a rest? It might make you feel better.’

  ‘I’ll feel better when he’s gone,’ Piran snapped. Then he sighed and rubbed his hands down his face. ‘Sorry. This has just got me—’ He stopped and shook his head.

  He looked so miserable that Carly felt almost compelled to go to him and put her arms around him. Only knowing that if she did he’d probably only get angrier kept her where she was.

  ‘It’ll work out,’ she assured him.

  He gave her a bleak look, but he did turn and walk back up the beach. He didn’t go clear up to the house, though. He stopped instead where Carly had dropped her towel. He spread it out and sat down on it, then turned to stare at her watchdog-fashion the way he always did.

  ‘He’ll come around,’ Carly said to Arthur. ‘I hope.’

  Arthur grinned at her and waved his arms.

  They played in the water for only another fifteen minutes because, though she’d put sunscreen on Arthur, it wasn’t a very strong variety and she didn’t want the sun to burn his baby-soft skin.

  She stopped beside Piran on her way back to the house. ‘May I have my towel, please?’ She hoped he would offer to take the baby from her while she dried off.

  He didn’t. Though he did get off the towel and hand it to her. ‘Would you?’ She held Arthur out to him.

  He backed away, shaking his head.

  ‘Come on, Piran.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Carly rolled her eyes. ‘He’s only a baby.’

  ‘That’s precisely the problem.’

  ‘Pretend he’s a football. Here.’ She stuffed Arthur into his arms before he could stop her, wedging the baby against his chest. ‘There. Like that. Hug him close. See? Couldn’t you run fifty yards with him?’

  Piran looked at her in dismay, his body almost rigid as he held the baby. ‘I’d rather run fifty yards from him.’

  Carly grinned. ‘You’re doing fine.’

  ‘You do better,’ he said, an edge of panic in his voice. ‘Hurry up and dry off.’

  Not willing to push her luck, she did just that, then took Arthur back from him. Piran almost sagged with relief.

  ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ she asked him.

  Piran just looked at her.

  She hoped he would volunteer to help with Arthur while she took a shower. He didn’t. So she took one with Arthur lying on a towel in the middle of the bathroom floor. She dressed with Arthur lying in the middle of her bed. Then she changed him and carried him out into the living room where Piran sat staring at the computer.

  ‘Do you suppose your father was an ostrich in a former life?’ she said to Arthur.

  ‘Don’t try laying guilt on me,’ Piran said without looking at her.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Carly said lightly. The look he gave her made her smile.

  When Ruth came, bringing dinner, she also brought a rattle that her last child had long outgrown, and some bananas for Piran to mash, and lots of suggestions for dealing with a surprise baby.

  ‘I bet you was that amazed,’ she said to Piran, smiling all over her face.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Piran agreed in the only case of understatement Carly had heard from him all day.

  ‘Well, he sure be a handsome boy,’ Ruth said, looking at the child in Carly’s arms. She winked. ‘Just like his daddy.’

  ‘I’m not—’ Piran began, but before he could say it Ruth grinned and tickled Arthur’s bare belly.

  ‘Sure can see that baby done got the St Just nose!’

  ‘Does she think I want to claim paternity?’ Piran groused at Carly after Ruth left.

  ‘Maybe she just thinks you ought to.’ Carly yawned mightily. ‘I wouldn’t mind if you’d show a little responsibility, either. I’m tired.’

  ‘So’m I.’

  ‘Unfortunately Arthur’s not.’ In fact he was staring at her wide-eyed and batting at the bottle she was trying to give him. ‘Why don’t you take him for a while?’

  He shook his head. ‘You’re doing fine.’

  ‘Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I’m tired of doing fine. Come on, Piran. Just for a few minutes.’ She got to her feet, walked over to him and plunked Arthur down in his lap.

  ‘Carly!’

  ‘Relax, Piran. You’re fine. He won’t hurt you.’

  ‘But I might hurt him!’

  ‘You won’t. If I haven’t so far today, you won’t. Believe me. Just give him the bottle.’ She handed him that too.

  Piran fumbled with the bottle, finally succeeding in getting it into Arthur’s mouth. Arthur took two sucks, then batted it away. Piran looked up at Carly, dismayed.

  ‘Keep trying.’

  ‘But—’ But Piran poked it back in to his mouth.

  This time Arthur glommed on and began to suck. He snuggled down into Piran’s arms and sighed.

  Piran stared at him, an expression of amazement on his face. ‘I’m feeding a baby.’ He sounded thunderstruck.

  ‘Will wonders never cease?’ Carly said drily. But he really did look astonished, and she had to ask, ‘You really haven’t ever held one before? Or fed one?’

  Piran shook his head. ‘I tried once,’ he said after a moment. ‘When Des was born. I was six. Once I heard him crying and nobody came to get him, so I did.’ He hesitated, then went on. ‘I’d just got him out of the crib.

  He was maybe about as big as Arthur—and probably wigglier. My mother came into the room, saw me and shrieked, “Be careful!” and I dropped him.’ Even now she could hear an echo of remembered anguish in his voice.

  ‘Oh, Piran!’ Carly’s heart went out to the little boy he had been. ‘You were only trying to help.’

  ‘Yeah. But I wasn’t much, was I?’ ‘She shouldn’t have yelled at you.’

  Piran shrugged. ‘She was afraid I might hurt him. She was right.’

  ‘Was he hurt?’

  Piran thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I don’t think he was. He yelled a lot, though. And so did my mother. She told me never to touch him again.’

  ‘It’s amazing the two of you are friends now.’

  Piran smiled wryly. ‘He’s taller than I am now. He can stick up for himself. And I need him. He writes better.’

  ‘But you do the hard work,’ Carly said. ‘The day-today stuff. The painstaking stuff.’

  ‘I do what I like,’ Piran said simply. ‘We work well together because we like different things.’

  As he talked he relaxed into the chair and adjusted Arthur’s weight in his arms almost unconsciously. Carly, watching him, smiled.

  ‘What?’ Piran asked her when he saw the smile.

  ‘I was just thinking that fatherhood becomes you.’

  He stiffened. ‘Don’t start that again.’

  Carly p
erched on the arm of the sofa. ‘You really don’t think he’s yours?’ she asked, not wanting to admit how much she really wanted to believe that.

  Piran shifted uncomfortably and ran his tongue over his lower lip. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last.

  ‘How can you not know? Have there been so many women?’

  ‘No, damn it, there haven’t. It’s just…’ He hesitated, leaning his head back against the chair and shutting his eyes for a long moment; then he opened them again and looked at Arthur. ‘How old do you figure he is? Like six months maybe?’

  ‘I guess,’ Carly said slowly. ‘I mean, I’m not really good at babies’ ages. I’d guess he was born in the summer—June or July. So if you count back nine months he would’ve been conceived in autumn sometime. September or October.’

  Piran nodded grimly. ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘So, the question appears to be who was the flavor of the month last October?’

  ‘There wasn’t any “flavor of the month”.’

  ‘Well, then you must have some idea. If there weren’t hundreds of them. Just think and I’m sure—’

  ‘I told you, damn it, I can’t think! I don’t know!’

  He almost got up, realized he was holding the baby, and slumped back in the chair, a defeated look on his face. Carly watched him, mystified.

  He stared at the fan whirling lazily in the ceiling. He didn’t look at her. She saw his Adam’s apple work in his throat. ‘Remember Gordon Andrews?’ he said finally.

  ‘Gordon? You mean the boy you went to university with? Tall and thin? Fair-haired?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Of course I remember him. I met him in New York with you. He was nice to me. A lot nicer than you were. I liked him.’

  ‘You and everyone else,’ Piran said, his voice so soft that Carly could hardly hear him. ‘Gordon was the best.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘He died a year ago last August. In a car accident coming back to the airport. We’d been in Washington consulting with a couple of museum staffers, trying to put together an exhibit, and we were almost at the airport and.. .and a truck…ran a red light.’ He stopped and swallowed. ‘Hit us broadside. Behind the driver’s seat. I came out with only scratches. Des had a broken arm. Gordon was in the back seat. He was killed.’