Marriage By Necessity

“No. It’s still here.”

“So’s the woman that was driving it yesterday, eh? Not like you to have overnight guests. At least not the kind you don’t bring down to introduce to your old granddad. Sit down. You give me a crick in my neck standing there like that.”

Nate did as he was told and Harm handed him a beer from the cooler. He twisted off the top and took a swallow, then cradled the longneck with one hand and stared past the fire at the lights of the yacht club on the other side of the lake.

“This overnight guest anyone I know?” the old man asked bluntly, making no attempt to hide his curiosity. Subtlety was not a Riley family trait. Just ask any of the members of the Cottonwood Lake Development Committee. They wanted to gentrify the hamlet of Riley’s Cove just like the lawyers and doctors and the professors from the university were doing to Lakeview, the larger town that sprawled along the north shore of the lake. But the stubborn old man, who’d lived in Riley’s Cove all his life, wanted nothing to do with upscale condos and art galleries, and even, God help them, a Starbucks.

Harm wanted things to stay the way they were. Simple and fairly inexpensive and quiet eight months out of twelve. So there was no way he would give in to the committee and move the dozen or so campers and travel trailers he rented back from the lakefront, or tear down the rickety boathouse at the edge of the property. And most defiantly of all, he would not hear of upgrading the name of his establishment. Riley’s Trailer Trash Campground was here to stay.

“It’s Sarah, Granddad.”

“I’ll be darned. Sarah? I thought she looked familiar but I don’t see as good as I used to, so I couldn’t be sure. Never figured to see her here again, though.” He shook his head. “Sarah. She’s got a little one with her, I noticed. Boy or girl?”

“A little boy. His name is Matthew and he’s three.”

“Hard to tell these days the way they dress them alike. Does he favor her?” Harmon picked up his cigar from the cut-down coffee can that served as an ashtray and took a long pull. Nate watched its ember glow red and then fade. Disturbed by the movement, or maybe just because he didn’t like the smell of tobacco smoke, the old cat jumped stiffly down off Harm’s lap and stalked away into the shadows along the shoreline, tail held high.

“He looks a lot like her except he’s blond and his eyes are blue, not brown. He’s a sturdy little kid, but not real big for his age.”

“Three, you say? Same age as Tessa’s hellion. Don’t know how your sister copes with that one! Sarah’s not here to tell you he’s yours, is she?” The old man’s voice had gentled but Nate pretended not to notice.

“You know he’s not mine.” The words were hard to get out. He would like to have a son. He’d never thought too much about having children before the blowup with Sarah. And afterward? There didn’t seem much point especially considering what he’d learned about himself after the accident. “She married again right after the divorce. Her husband’s dead, killed by a hit-and-run driver in a goddamned store parking lot before the baby was born.”

“That’s a darned shame, but why’d she show up here after all this time? Don’t make sense to my way of thinking. Want to tell me about it? Might help later on. Your mother’s going to ask much tougher questions than I am.” Harmon rolled the cigar between his gnarled fingers, then looked over at Nate. “She’s been up here twice today trying to nose out what’s going on. She’s not going to be thrilled to hear it’s Sarah come calling.”

“I’ll talk to Mom and Dad first thing tomorrow. There’ve been a lot of details to work out today.”

“Details? What kind of details?”

Nate leaned his head back and looked up at the night sky. He couldn’t see many stars, he’d been staring at the fire too long, but the harvest moon hung low over the lake, yellow and immense. He loved this time of year, the colors, the smells, the slow retreat of summer’s warmth that almost hid the quiet, stealthy approach of winter. He took a few moments to order his thoughts. His grandfather stubbed the butt of his cigar into the sand in the coffee can and waited patiently. The cigar smoke drifted away and was replaced by the tang of a wood fire.

“Sarah’s ill,” he said at last. “Some kind of growth on her spinal cord the doctors aren’t sure they’ll be able to remove. When she learned the best doctor was here in Ann Arbor at the university, she got the idea of us getting married again so I could take care of Matthew if…the worst happens.” He might have been giving his CO a status report back in the old days. It was easier that way, not thinking about everything that could go wrong. To imagine Sarah dead, or paralyzed, unable to care for herself. A fate he was certain held more fear for her than death.

“Hell’s bells,” Harm said. For all his rough edges he’d never been one to cuss up a storm. “I didn’t figure that. That’s a darned shame. It ain’t fair having to face dying so young, just like your Grandma, God rest her soul. Are you going to do it? Just like that, up and take responsibility for her boy?”

“She’s alone in the world, Granddad. How can I say no?”

“A lot of men would. Bringing up a kid on your own. That’s about the hardest thing you can do.” Harm had raised Nate’s mother and her younger brother by himself after his wife died of kidney failure. He’d done a good job with both of them, but Nate knew it couldn’t have been easy. Especially back in the days when single fathers were few and far between.

“You did it. And not one kid, but two. Mom and Uncle Dan turned out just fine.”

“They were mine,” Harm said bluntly. “Not some other man’s child. That might make a powerful difference down the line.”

“I can’t let that stop me. She’s got no one, Granddad. I loved her once. If I can do this for her now, I will. She wants a family for the boy, and a father. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at the job, but I’ve got to try. We applied for the marriage license this afternoon. The wedding’s Friday. Her surgery is Saturday morning at University Hospital.”

“So soon? Don’t give you much time to make up your mind. Only, it sounds like you already have.”

“The way I see things, it was the only choice I had.”

He and Sarah had talked for a long time the night before after Matty fell asleep on the couch. Or, more accurately, he had let her talk, outlining in minute detail all the arrangements she’d made for Matthew’s future. She wouldn’t be a financial burden, she insisted. And neither would her son.

That was when she’d asked him if there was a woman in his life. He had thought briefly of green eyes, a smattering of freckles, the brush of tapered fingers over the surface of an antique rocking horse, then dismissed the image. “There’s no one,” he had said, and meant it. Sarah had ducked her head for a moment. He suspected she had done that to hide the relief that hadn’t quite faded from her eyes when she looked up again.

“I…I should have thought to ask you that earlier,” she said.

“I would have told you earlier if it had been a problem.”

She had nodded and stood up, swaying just a little. “It’s getting late. We should go.”

“Why don’t you stay here tonight,” he’d offered before he could change his mind. “It’s too late for you to be driving back to Ann Arbor. You’re not used to country roads and there will be fog in the low spots.” She was pale, he noticed, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. Sarah had never been sick when they were married. It bothered him that she looked so frail and tired.

She had surprised him a little by agreeing. “All right. It is a long drive back.”

He’d put them up in the compact spare room of his trailer and then lay awake long into the night listening to the furnace kick on and off as the temperature dropped, wondering how in hell he was going to raise a child alone.

Harm must have taken his prolonged silence as a sign their conversation was at an end. He stood up, a short man, slightly stooped from years of manual labor but still strong, and began to pour water from a bucket he kept by the fire over the red-gold coals. Steam lifted into the cold air to mingle with the curling fingers of mist lying just above the surface of the lake. The cat reappeared at his feet and twined around his ankles, waiting to be let inside for the night. Harm stopped what he was doing and looked at Nate, his eyes narrowed against the smoke from the drowned embers. “You’ll do right by the boy,” he said. “I don’t doubt that. But are you doing right by yourself taking her back?”

“SARAH. ITISYOU. My dad said you were here but I just couldn’t believe he wasn’t mistaken.” Arlene Fowler’s words were as blunt as ever. She looked exactly as Sarah remembered her, too. She was a woman of medium height, a little overweight, but not fat. She had a pair of reading glasses pushed into the haphazard knot of hair on top of her head, glasses that she hadn’t needed the last time Sarah had seen her. There was still very little gray in her light brown hair, and only a few laugh lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, although she would have turned fifty-seven on her last birthday.

Arlene wasn’t alone. She had a little girl with her. The child was wearing a pink satin windbreaker with “Barbie” stenciled on the front. She carried one of the dolls, frizzy-haired and naked, in each hand. Her little jeans had flared legs and her running shoes flashed hot pink lights along the side with each bouncing step. Her red-gold hair and turquoise-blue eyes matched Tessa’s, Nate’s youngest sister.

“Hello, Arlene.” Sarah wished she didn’t have to face Nate’s mother alone, but she’d given up putting stock in wishes a long time ago.

“Is Nate here?”

“No.” They had planned to see Arlene and his father, Tom, together as soon as Matty finished his breakfast. But that had obviously been too long for Nate’s mother to wait. “He’s in his workshop. He had to check on an overnight delivery of parts for the motorcycle he’s restoring.” It seemed odd that Nate had an ordinary job, and an ordinary life now. She had only known him as a soldier, a man with a dangerous MOS—military occupational specialty—performed under hazardous conditions, in war zones half a world away from those he loved.

“What are you doing here, Sarah?” Arlene’s tone was brusque but there was an undertone of hurt and confusion in her question. “We haven’t heard a word from you for over four years. Now you show up out of nowhere.” The little girl leaned back against Arlene and bounced up and down on her toes, her crystal blue eyes fixed on Sarah like laser beams.

“Nate and I were coming to talk to you and Tom later this morning.”

“I saved you the trip.” Arlene’s mouth thinned into a straight line. The momentary vulnerability Sarah had glimpsed in the older woman’s eyes disappeared.

Sarah hadn’t expected this to be easy. She liked Arlene. When things were good between her and Nate, she had felt they were on the road to becoming friends. But when they separated, Arlene had withdrawn her friendship. Sarah had hurt one of Arlene’s own. That betrayal would not be easily forgiven.

“Mommy!” She looked down to see her son tugging on the leg of her jeans. He was wearing his Spider-Man pajamas that she’d bought for him for his birthday. He was growing so fast they were already an inch too short in the sleeves. He rubbed his eyes and grinned up at her.

“Hi, baby.” She knelt down to give him a hug. If she didn’t make it through the surgery she would consider herself in heaven if she could take the memory of that smile with her into the hereafter.

Arlene’s little granddaughter quit jumping and stared at Matthew with her head tilted to one side. “Who are you?” she asked in a clear piping voice. “What are you doing in Unca’ Nate’s house?”

“Hush, Becca. Is this your son?” Arlene asked.

“Yes. This is Matthew. Matty, this is Mrs. Fowler. Nate’s mother.”

“My father said you had a child with you.” She smiled as she shifted her gaze to the little boy. “Hello, Matty. My name is Arlene.” Sarah relaxed. She should have known that Arlene wouldn’t let whatever animosity she might still feel toward her spill over onto an innocent child. “This is my granddaughter, Rebecca.”

“Hello.” Shyness overcame him. He hid his face against Sarah’s thigh.