Somebody's Baby

Some news to deliver.

The town came into view. A streetlight glistened. Houses dotted the side of the road, growing more dense, and she saw her first Shelter Valley citizen, an older woman, carrying a plastic grocery bag, walking a dog without a leash. Her stomach fluttered with comfort. And then panic.

She thought she might throw up. She hadn’t thrown up in years.

She watched for Mojave Street. And promised herself that whatever lay ahead, whatever his response, she could accept it.

She pulled into the driveway. Knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again. And eventually returned to her truck. What did she do now? Every single time she’d imagined the beginning of her new life, this stop had been first—as though nothing else could happen until it was done.

It was stupid to sit there. He might not be home for days. Or maybe he’d be back in an hour.

The journal in her glove compartment drew her, as though the answer to her current dilemma lay in the revelations she’d decided to avoid.

Ignoring the impulse, she waited another half hour. Reached for the key in the ignition. And ended up at the glove compartment instead.

Wednesday, December 1, 2004

I read an article this morning and I can’t think of anything else. An architect from Shelter Valley is going to be in Frankfort this weekend to dedicate a building he designed. His name is John Strickland. I read in an old Shelter Valley newspaper last week that Will Parsons hired an architect named John Strickland to design the new classroom building at Montford University. Will’s the president of Montford. He hired Phyllis!

Oh, God, I know I’m crazy, but I have to go! This man might actually know my twin sister!

JOHN SHOT ONE HELL of a game of golf Saturday afternoon. Probably one of his best. Meredith would have teased him about his bragging. And later, she would’ve congratulated him with a kiss filled with pride—and a passion that never seemed to lose its urgency. He congratulated himself instead with a mug of beer at the bar, joining the other guys who didn’t have wives and children to hurry home to. There were three of them that afternoon. John and two men whose wives had taken their children to the zoo in Phoenix to do research on a school project involving apes.

Sometimes, as much as he loved the peace and sense of home he found in Shelter Valley, John hated the place.

Trying to concentrate on positive thoughts, he pulled his Cadillac into the driveway of his two-year-old ranch-style custom home to find someone there ahead of him. It was a testimony to the state of his mind—of his life—that the surprise visitor brought a tinge of anticipation. For the next few moments, anyway, he wasn’t going to be home alone trying to find ways to entertain himself during the remaining hours until the world once again became a workplace full of challenging issues and busy people. People demanding the kind of interaction he was capable of delivering…

A particularly telling testimony, considering the fact that the vehicle in his driveway probably belonged to the new yard guy. He’d never seen the old and rusty pickup before.

Parking to the side of the truck in the double driveway, he got out and approached just as the driver’s window was lowering.

“Can I help y—”

The last word stuck in his throat. The driver wasn’t his landscaper. It wasn’t even a guy.

The woman stepped down from her truck. She was wearing jeans, a blue turtleneck, a worn-looking thickly knitted beige cardigan and the same brown leather boots she’d had on the first time he met her. She held out a hand with freshly polished nails. “John? I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Caroline Prater.”

He remembered.

“Caroline, hi.” Fresh from the golf course, he wanted to shower and change out of the golf slacks and slightly sticky sweater he was wearing. The sun was shining as brightly as usual from clear blue skies. And although the temperature was only about sixty degrees, it had been hot out on the golf course.

“You don’t seem pleased to see me, and I don’t blame—”

“No!” He cut her off. Took her hand. It was as rough as he remembered. Working hands, she’d said. Something about that had touched him. “I’m just surprised. Kentucky’s a long way off.”

“And Shelter Valley is a very small town,” she added with a nervous smile. He remembered that about her, too. Her air of uncertainty. As though she wasn’t quite sure she was worth the space she took up but was going to occupy it anyway.

Neither of them spoke after that.

“Uh…do you want to come in?” he asked a moment later. Why was she there? Surely not to see him. He’d never given her any indication that he’d expected to see her again.

Of course, with the way she’d vanished while he’d still been sleeping off the bottle of wine he’d bought them at dinner and then drunk most of himself, she hadn’t given him a chance to actually say as much.

Though he rarely used the front entrance himself, he walked her up to the door and unlocked it.

“So what brings you to Shelter Valley?” He hoped the question wasn’t as bald as it felt scraping past his throat. She’d passed him in the hall, leaving a brief lily-of-the-valley scent in her wake. Her shampoo, if he remembered correctly.

“I’ve been accepted at Montford,” she told him with a hesitant grin. “I start school in another week.”

Oh. Well, good then. She had a reason for being here. Other than him. She’d mentioned, that night in Kentucky, that she’d already applied to college; she’d been unable to attend after high school because she’d married young. Caroline seemed to consider that a pretty big deal. He’d felt a little sorry for her over it.

“Can I get you something to drink? A beer? Or a glass of wine?” More relaxed now, John walked over to the wet bar dividing his formal living room from the dining room he’d never used.

“Do you have a diet soda?”

While she perched on the very edge of one end of the sectional couch, he grabbed a glass, filling it with ice. “You look different,” he said, smiling, deciding this might not be such a bad turn of events. Maybe she’d join him for dinner.

They could catch up like old friends, though they hardly knew each other. He could wish her luck with her new scholastic endeavor, and then, if they ever ran into each other in town, they could smile and say hi without some residual awkwardness hanging between them.

Her smile was tenuous. John poured the drink, then carried it over to her, wondering if she’d be able to unclasp the hands in her lap long enough to take hold of it.

“It’s your hair,” he said.

“I…had it shaped. And conditioned.” She took the glass. But not before he noticed how badly her hand was shaking.

He’d never met anyone like her. One minute confident enough to walk up to a total stranger at a political gathering and introduce herself, and then the next, so insecure she barely allowed herself to breathe.

“You left it long, though,” he said, returning to the bar for a can of beer. He didn’t usually drink more than one on any given day, but what the hell. He was still recovering from his vigil with Meri the other night.

“Yeah.” She took a sip. Sort of. He wasn’t sure any liquid actually passed her lips.

“I like it.”

“Thanks.”

“These days so many women keep their hair short.” Meredith had been one of them.

“It’s easier to deal with.”

That was what Meri had said.

“I like it long.”

“Thanks.”

She sipped again. John took a seat and did the same. She watched him openly—yet said nothing.

“Did you want something from me?” he finally asked.