by Elaine Fox
Michael leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Tea.”
“Oh, right.” She pulled a couple of mugs from the cabinet. “Plus—God, I’d forgotten about this—he practically told me he didn’t want to have kids.”
“You guys talked about kids?” Michael’s expression was incredulous. “Wow, you do move fast.”
She waved a hand and poured water into two mugs. “It wasn’t anything serious. He was basically telling me he didn’t like his sister’s kids. But then he said—and this I do remember—he said, he’d avoided it so far, becoming a father. And something to the effect that he didn’t want to find out if he’d like kids that were his own, the way everyone always says you will.”
She turned to look at Michael. “Doesn’t that sound to you like someone who doesn’t want to have kids?”
Michael shrugged dismissively. “It sounds like something a lot of single guys say.”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “He sounded serious to me. The bottom line is, though, sure, the father may have some rights—and I could fire off a litany of them right here because I’m a liberated woman who believes in being fair—you know that. But those rights pale beside the welfare of a child, don’t they?”
Michael said nothing. She turned away, not wanting to guess what the look on his face meant.
“Well, they pale beside the welfare of my child,” she said, then paused. She stood for a moment facing the stove, hot teapot in hand. “Good God,” she murmured as realization dawned, slipping like a tiny shaft of light into her brain. “I’m going to be a mother.”
Chapter 3
Harp Cove, Maine
July, one year later
Jack Shepard sat at a back booth in the dim cavern of the Hornet’s Nest. His fingers pushed a cloudy glass filled with Coke in a circle as he thought about the best tack to take in breaking up with Lisa Jacobson.
She would be there momentarily, with all her bounce, perk, and generally exhausting youthfulness, at which point he would have to have what he mentally referred to as The Talk.
Normally, he dreaded The Talk. The it’s-not-you-it’s-me conversation required to let women he didn’t want to date anymore down easy. He had a hard time with absolutes, and an even harder time hurting people’s feelings, which is why he always went so far out of his way to date people he wouldn’t have to break up with. Like tourists. When summer people went back to their homes there were no hard feelings. Not answering a letter or returning a phone call was far different from telling someone I’m just not interested anymore.
But though Lisa, a cute, buxom blonde, had been fun for the last couple weeks, Jack was pretty sure he couldn’t survive another night of nineteen-year-old bar talk without taking a swizzle stick to his frontal lobe.
He looked up as someone slid onto the cracked vinyl seat across from him.
“Kind of early to be sitting in a bar.” His brother pushed an envelope across the table to him.
Jack moved his glass to the side. “It’s just Coke, ask your bartender. What’s this?” He picked up the envelope and saw his father’s handwriting across the front. Kevin Shepard, The Hornet’s Nest, Harp Cove, Maine.
“Dad’s latest news. Read it.” Kevin inclined his head toward the letter, his expression grim.
Jack exhaled and closed his eyes. “You’d think he’d at least remember the zip code.” He turned the envelope over in his hands without pulling the letter out. It was not good news, he knew. Aside from the fact that it was never good news, he had spoken to his father a couple months ago and had a feeling he knew what the letter contained. For some reason his father always called Jack and wrote to Kevin.
The postmark was Boca Raton, Florida, where his father had been living the high life for the last year. Up until then it had been hard to keep track of the old man, but for some reason Florida had stopped his twelve-year whirlwind tour of wealthy retirement communities.
Jack rubbed his forehead. “Why don’t you just tell me what it says.”
“All right. Are you ready?”
Jack leaned back. “I’m sitting down.”
“He’s marrying her.”
Jack squinted across the table at his brother. “Marrying who?”
“That girl. Whatshername…the latest bimbo.” Kevin’s face grew red as he shook his head, agitated, and looked toward the door. A few dusty rays of sunlight squeezed in around its imperfect edges.
Jack felt a dull surprise momentarily stop him. This was something his father hadn’t mentioned, though it now made sense why he’d stayed so long in Boca.
“But that’s not the worst of it.” Kevin took the envelope back and shoved it into his breast pocket.
Jack waited a second. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the worst of it?”
“He wants to sell the place.” Kevin glared at him, chin raised, as if Jack might dispute the fact.
Ah, Jack thought, this was what he’d been expecting. Still, hearing the words out loud again made something inside of him lurch. The place—the only one the brothers had in common—was the house where they’d grown up, where Jack lived now. The fieldstone house on the coast where his family had flourished and floundered for the last hundred and fifty years. Give or take.
For a second Jack thought of his mother, thousands of miles away in California, free from the shrinking band of struggling Shepards camped on the windy shore of Maine. He should do the same thing, he thought. He should leave Harp Cove. Start fresh somewhere else. What difference did it make if your family had slept on the same piece of land for over a century? Really, he wanted to know, what difference did it make?
He took a deep breath and picked up his Coke. “I know. That’s why I’ve been fixing the place up.”
Kevin gaped at him. “What are you talking about? You knew?” The words were practically a whisper, as if he were too stunned to speak at a normal level.
Jack nodded and looked away, toward the door through which Lisa would pop at any moment. I should move away, he thought again.
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Kevin. “Look, it’s just a house. You didn’t want it. Dad doesn’t want it. And I can live anywhere.”
The words were colder than he felt. The truth was that when his father had told him about selling the house Jack had spiraled into an angry sort of depression. But his anger, unlike Kevin’s, was not directed at their father, and his depression was something inscrutable even to himself. Both emotions, however, sprang from disappointment in himself. Why didn’t he have a house of his own by now? Where was his future taking him?
But he was not about to get into listing his own shortcomings with Kevin, who would be all too willing to help catalog them.
“Just a house?” Kevin slammed his palm down on the table and looked at the ceiling, his jaw working. “I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with this family. Am I the only one who doesn’t want to throw away generations of work? If Great-grandfather Elias were here, this would not even be discussed. He’s probably spinning in his grave right now.”
“If Great-grandfather Elias were here, we’d be selling it to pay for his nursing home. But it’s Dad’s house now. He can do what he wants.”
And he wants to sell, Jack thought. For a lot of money—much more than Jack would be able to scrape together. He knew. He’d checked.
“What Dad wants is to marry a bimbo,” Kevin said.
Jack shrugged.
“He’ll probably use the money to buy some prefab condo in Florida and a big fat diamond for his trophy wife. Makes me sick.” Kevin scoffed and looked down at the table. “So that’s why Dad told you to fix the place up.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah. So he could sell. That’s why I put in the new furnace and redid the front hall. I’m working on the carriage house now.”
“Well, thanks a whole helluva lot for telling me.”
Jack laughed once. “Call me crazy, but I was a little worried about your reaction.”
<
br /> “Jesus Christ,” Kevin muttered. Then, with an accusatory glare, he added, “I thought you rented the carriage house.”
“I did. Or rather, Bill Knecht did. I decided to let Knecht Realty handle the arrangements. Being a landlord isn’t exactly my style.”
“No, I can see where there’d be a little too much responsibility in that role for you.”
Jack didn’t even blink at the familiar denunciation. “Yep. But I told him I’m going to have to work on the place while the renter is there, so I’m lucky he found a taker. And you know who it is? The new doctor. A Dr. Poole. He’s moving in next week, after I finish the second bedroom. Apparently he’s got a kid.”
Kevin looked at him shrewdly. “How much are you getting?”
“Three-fifty.”
“A month?” He pushed his hands back through his hair and looked scandalized. “That’s ludicrous! You could get twice that, easily. Especially from a doctor.”
“Not while I’m working on it. And when was the last time you were in there? It’s pretty rough. The kitchen hasn’t been updated in God knows how long, and the laundry room was home to a whole community of mice. Besides, in order for me to have access to it anytime I want while fixing it up, I had to rent it cheap.”
Kevin sighed. “This is a crime. Jesus. So how long have you known about it?”
“That he’s going to sell? About two months.” Long enough to discover there was no way he could save the place, not without a huge influx of money from God knew where.
Kevin stared at him, shaking his head. “You know, this is just like you, Jack. You and Dad. Not only do you not care about losing the place, but you’re not even valuing it while you’re there. Is there anything on earth that is important to you? Three-fifty, my ass. Next thing you know you’ll be marrying a bimbo yourself. Like father, like son.” He slid jerkily out of the booth, knocking the table so hard Jack had to catch his glass with one hand before it could spill across the table.
“Kevin, give me a break.” He scowled. “It’s Dad’s place, and it’s Dad’s decision. There’s not much we can do about it if he wants to sell. You know how he is.”
Kevin looked down on him. “Yes there is. You could buy it from him. He’d sell it to you.”
Surprise, disguised as a laugh, escaped Jack’s lungs. “What?”
“I said you could buy it. You’re already living there. It’s about time you put down some roots anyway.”
“Roots? I don’t need any roots. Besides, what makes you think I could even afford that place?”
“Oh come on. You’ve been working at that school for five years. You’ve got to be making decent money.”
Jack laughed at his brother’s naïveté. Didn’t everyone know teachers were notoriously underpaid? Football coaches were even worse, but he had no intention of setting Kevin straight on the matter. Why give him yet another reason to consider his brother a failure?
“Why don’t you buy it if it means so much to you?” Jack retorted.
“I can’t. You probably don’t remember since you obviously can’t think about anything but yourself, but Carol and I are buying the salon so she can set up on her own. Besides, we’ve got her place. And this place.” His arms flopped out from his sides as he momentarily surveyed the empty bar around them. “I even talked to the bank about it, but with three mortgages already they practically laughed me out of the office.”
“Well, they’ve got a point. With all those places, what do you care about Dad’s house?”
Kevin shook his head. “It’s our history, asshole. Our heritage.”
The bells on the front door clattered, and both looked over to see Lisa push through the door. She squinted into the dimness, clutching a large metal object to her chest, then smiled when she saw them and waved.
“Here comes your bimbo now,” Kevin said.
“What in the world has she got with her?” Jack asked.
Kevin shook his head at Jack’s latest mistake. “I can’t be sure. It looks like a bust of some sort…Wonder Woman, maybe?”
Jack resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands. God help him, The Talk couldn’t take place soon enough.
Kevin looked down at his brother and issued a reluctant laugh. “Guess I’ll leave you to your day-care duties. We’ll talk about this later.” He walked off.
“Hi, baby,” Lisa chirped as she approached. She bent down to kiss him on the cheek as she dropped the metal bust on the table. It landed with a solid thump. “I got you something.”
Jack stared mournfully at the chrome bust—and he did mean bust—of what did indeed appear to be Wonder Woman. The figure was sculpted down to just below a pair of impressively pointed torpedo tits, as they’d been affectionately known in junior high school. The chrome was pocked along the back of the flowing hair and on portions of the forehead. One of the breasts was dented, too, creating a point at the nipple that looked lethal.
He glanced at Lisa. “Is that…Wonder Woman?”
Lisa’s brow furrowed, and she tilted her head to look into the figure’s face. “Who?” she asked, looking back at him, perplexed.
Jack sighed. No, The Talk couldn’t take place soon enough.
Delaney put her hands on her hips and bent backwards to stretch her spine. It was only her first day on the job, but it had seemed interminable. Emily had woken up at four that morning screaming her head off with a dirty diaper, and though Delaney had changed and fed her, she hadn’t gone back to sleep.
“Can’t leave yet,” Nurse Knecht said with a tone of resigned irritation that was rapidly becoming familiar to Delaney. “We got a walk-in.” She handed Delaney a chart and took the one Delaney had just finished from the examining-room counter. “A head laceration. Not too serious but probably needs stitches.”
Delaney took the chart and bent over to touch her toes. Standing around on the tile-covered cement floor was doing nothing for her back, she decided. She should start doing yoga or something. Ever since Emily’s birth she’d been meaning to get back to some kind of exercise program, but it wasn’t easy. Especially with the move.
“You should take a hot bath when you get home,” Nurse Knecht said. “I hear that hotel’s got a whirlpool.”
Nurse Knecht—who insisted on being called by the archaic “Nurse Knecht,” pronounced “connect,” instead of “Miss Knecht” or her first name, “Janet”—was the sister of Delaney’s realtor, a wonderful man named Bill Knecht who cleverly used the name in his logo: Knecht Realty…Connecting People to Places. Bill was as friendly and warm as his sister was odd and had managed to find Delaney the most amazing little stone house to live in. Not only was it ridiculously affordable, it was right on the water. The only catch was it wouldn’t be ready until next week.
“I’m not in the hotel. I’m staying at the Reynolds’ B&B.”
“Down there near the harbor? Why, they don’t even have TV.” Nurse Knecht looked irritated afresh.
Delaney smiled. “I know. That’s what I like about it.”
Which wasn’t exactly true. She’d stayed at the B&B the last time she was in Harp Cove, which was the weekend Emily was conceived. Though it was probably a classic symptom of guilt for not providing Emily with a father, Delaney had the desire to expose her daughter to the things leading up to her existence. As if it would constitute some sort of communion with her history, Delaney thought, which was, of course, ridiculous. For one thing, Sailboat Jack was little more than a sperm donor, in her opinion. For another, he was nowhere to be found.
She knew this because after all her soul-searching of the year before she had eventually decided to try to find him. She’d looked up Shepards and Shepherds from Harp Cove to Provincetown, Massachusetts, and there’d been plenty. Three hundred and twenty-one of whom were Johns or J’s. She’d even called a few—a John Shepherd in Truro, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, who was sixty-eight years old and hard-of-hearing. And a J. Shepard in Harp Cove, whose number was disconnected. She’d even tried an L. J. Shepard i
n Harp Cove who turned out to be a woman and a Jack Shepherd-Johnson in Boston who was British.
Still, Delaney had mostly fond memories of her weekend with Sailboat Jack, and she was determined to keep them fond. Someday, maybe, she’d be called upon to tell Emily stories about her absent father and remembering him well would help that, she’d decided.
She’d already had to tell one story about him, but that was not to Emily, and it was fairly simple. To head off any questions about Emily’s existence she’d told her employer, Dr. Jacobson, that she was divorced; and she was ready to tell anyone else who might ask the same thing. After all, this town was not about to accept the truth, and Delaney was not about to offer it.
It wasn’t as if it was a huge lie, however. It just simplified things and was relatively easy to pass off. She was divorced, and Emily’s father had very little contact with them. Sometimes it happened that way, and anyone who pressed her for more details would get a curt “I don’t wish to talk about it” in response.
“Give me a minute before sending the head-lac in,” Delaney said, straightening from her latest stretch. “And could you ask the receptionist to call Tiny-Tot Daycare and ask Cora to bring Emily here on her way home? She said she’d be happy to do that if I ever got busy. Of course I didn’t expect to have to take her up on it the first day.”
“All right.”
Delaney tried to judge from the nurse’s tone if she was annoyed at this request, but it was impossible to tell. The woman sounded perpetually annoyed anyway.
Oh well, Delaney thought. Too bad if she was annoyed. Delaney missed her daughter, and if Cora was willing to bring Emily to her, then Nurse Knecht was just going to have to deal with it.
Emily, Delaney thought with a smile. It was funny, after her shock and terror at finding herself pregnant it was amazing how much she enjoyed being a mother. Nothing had ever made her feel so useful—not even medicine—or so loved. Emily had become everything to her and she could not imagine her life without her.
“I’ll give the head-lac a pressure bandage,” the nurse said, and left, her back ramrod straight as she closed the door firmly behind her.