The Sweetest September

A baby. Good God.

“So,” she said. “I’m feeling a little better. I’m embarrassed I sort of freaked out. Guess it was everything built up. I’m not usually so...wimpy.” Her smile was embarrassed, almost pained. “I won’t keep you from your work.”

John cradled his beer in both hands. “Are you staying in town?”

“No, I’m going back home to Seattle tomorrow. Besides, staying in town a few days is what got me in trouble in the first place.” She gave a humorless chuckle.

“This is crazy,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” she agreed with a nod, “but it’s not the end of the world. I can deal.”

“I’d like it if you could stay at least a day or two,” he said, suddenly alarmed about the finality in her voice. Did she think she could drop this bomb and walk away...and he’d just go back to cutting cane like the news she’d brought was equal to “I sideswiped your mailbox” or “I accidentally broke your window.” This wasn’t something a person confessed to and then walked away. This was about a child...his child. “Just give me some time to wrap my mind around this and help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” she said, pushing the teacup away. “I’m not trying to interfere in your life. Just thought telling you about the pregnancy was the decent thing to do.”

“And that’s it? I get to know and that’s all?”

Shelby’s eyebrows knotted. “I didn’t think you...” She paused and looked hard at him. “You don’t have to do anything. I didn’t come here asking for money or a way out of this. I’m not a girl in trouble. This isn’t the ’50s or ’60s. I can take care of the baby myself. I’m financially secure and mentally stable...mostly.”

He made a face.

“I’m kidding,” she said, her complexion pinking, her eyes resuming a less-tragic glint. “I’m mentally stable.”

“But it’s my baby, too.” John set his beer aside and leveled her with the same look his father had used on him when he thought to take the easy way out. John wasn’t going away. If that’s what she’d thought, she’d been wrong.

She gave an exaggerated, slow nod. “Okay, so technically speaking, it’s your child, but you don’t have to be involved.”

“Too bad,” he said. “You came here to tell me I’m the father of the child you’re carrying. Did you really think I’d say ‘thanks for the info’ and go about my life as normal? What kind of man do you think I am?”

“I have no idea what kind of man you are,” she said, scooting her chair back, looking as if she might run for the back door. “I didn’t think you would—I never considered anything other than...” She knotted her brow, twisting her lips as if searching for the right way to say she didn’t want him to care.

“Doing the right thing?” he finished. “I believe that’s the way you put it. So why even tell me if you don’t want anything from me?”

“Because you have a right to know.”

“But not a say-so?”

“Why would you? You ran,” she said, looking up at him. “Remember? You left me in that bathroom, drunk, ashamed and...knocked up. Why on earth would I think you’re the kind of man who would stand with me? And why would I want you to?”

John felt as if she’d just hit him in the face with a wet dish towel. The kind of man who would run? Yeah. She wasn’t wrong. He’d been running for the past year...from his family, his friends and the grief that consumed him. The only thing he hadn’t run from was the incessant work he did in the fields as some kind of penance to his wife’s family. As if he could make up to Carla Stanton the loss of her daughter by keeping the Stanton legacy alive in some way. Rows of cane and this empty house were all he had left in his life. Even knowing how pathetic it was to close out the people who loved him hadn’t stopped him from soaking himself in work and regret. “Okay. I’ll give you that. I ran. I was a total dick. For that I apologize.”

Shelby’s sculpted eyebrows lifted. “Oh. Thank you for apologizing.”

“I know this is a hard situation. I’m not asking you to do anything other than stay a day or two so we can figure some things out together. Obviously, you’ve been carrying this burden by yourself. Maybe you could use my help. Maybe fate threw us together and gave us, uh, a baby for a reason. So whether you wanted me involved or not, I am.”

Shelby looked annoyed. “You’re making this complicated. It’s not. I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby. I’m making the decisions. You provided the sperm. Job over.”

“No. It’s not that simple and you know it. I’m not going away just because you want me to. You’re not being fair.”

“What? I’m being more than fair. I flew down to tell you. I didn’t have to do that.”

“But you did. It was the right thing to do, and you can’t legally keep me out of the child’s life. I’m the father. You said so yourself.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you doing this? I live thousands of miles away. I can’t give you what you’re asking for.”

“Well, I’m not satisfied being a phantom figure who mails a check once a month. Is that what you thought I would do? Never want to see my child?”

Anger burgeoned in her eyes. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“But you did.”

“So you keep reminding me,” she said. “I only wanted to tell you about the baby. I didn’t want anything else from you...not even a check.”

“Too bad.” John stood and scooped up her cup. He walked to the counter and set the half-filled cup in the depths of the scarred farm sink. His feelings were twisted into a giant ball of so many emotions he couldn’t begin to identify them, but in the midst of the disappointment, regret and anger was something that surprised him.

Joy.

Seemed impossible, since he hadn’t felt an inkling of happiness in well over a year. But despite feeling out-and-out terror, inside John thrilled at the warm thought of a child in his life. “We made a mistake a few months back. Not you. Not me. We. Which means going forward is something we’ll do together.”

Shelby eyed the empty spot where her tea had been. “Why did you pick up my tea? And why do you think you have the right to decide anything about my future?”

John eyed the cup in the sink before turning back to her. “Sorry.”

She glared at him.

“You’re carrying something inside of you who is as much a part of me as you. You would deny me the right to know my own son or daughter?”

Shelby paled but said nothing.

For a few minutes, they stared at each other, once strangers with a compulsion...an urge to feel something that dark September night, now tied together by the tiny life growing within Shelby.

“I need to use your restroom before I head back to Baton Rouge,” Shelby said, her voice firm and teacherlike. She seemed set on ignoring his last question. As if she could make him go away.

John studied her, seeing too much or maybe not enough of the woman beneath the highlights and sophisticated clothes. The woman beneath the expensive leather boots and jewelry that probably cost more than his broken-down truck. This was a woman nothing like his wife. But this was a woman he wasn’t going to run from this time. He conceded the battle, but the fight wasn’t over. “Down the hall to your left.”

She stood up too quickly and hit the table with her thigh. His beer fell, emptying its contents on the table he’d inherited from his grandmother May Claire. He scooped the bottle from the table, droplets of yeasty beer mixing with the scent he remembered from that night long ago—a sultry warmth that belonged to a woman he’d never thought to see again.

A scent that belonged to a woman who carried a part of his future.

John grabbed a dish towel and wiped up the spilled beer, wishing he could fix his world as easily.

* * *

SHELBY WALKED QUICKLY down the dim hallway, looking for the bathroom...looking for an escape.

God, why had she come?

Of course, she knew why. She’d put herself in the shoes of a man who’d had a one-night stand and convinced herself she would at the very least want to know she had a child out there somewhere. Seemed ethical. The right thing to do.