Bachelor Mother (21 page)

They both stood very still, staring awkwardly at each other until Jonathan spoke. “I canceled my other appointments today. I thought we could take a drive out to my house and talk.”

“Did my mother call you?”

“She let me know she told you.” Bubba could feel keen eyes taking him in. For once in his life he didn’t feel like he was lacking.

He sat down slowly in one of the chairs by the desk.

“Would you like a drink?” his father asked.

“Just water, thank you.” It was so difficult, trying to find the words. He didn’t really know what to say.

As his father walked over to the built-in bar, Bubba quickly scanned the office. Done in cool, muted shades of green and blue, with large lithographs of ocean mammals on the walls, it was an office in which he felt comfortable.

As his father handed him a glass, he suddenly realized he had no idea what the man did.

“What do you do?”

Jonathan couldn’t seem to stop staring at him. “I work for a nonprofit. I help them set up programs to prevent environmental destruction of the ocean.”

Bubba felt as if all the pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle were slowly falling into place. He felt his body start to relax, let go of the tension he’d been holding since his mother had made her quiet confession. He understood this man. On a deep level they were committed to the same things.

“I build houses,” he said quietly. “Someday I want to construct buildings that are environmentally sound.”

There was a gleam of something – pride? – in his father’s eyes as he continued to study him.

“I surf, too,” Bubba said.

At that, Jonathan smiled. “I used to, when I was your age.” He glanced out the huge glass window and said quietly, “I met your mother at the beach.”

Bubba put his glass down. His hands were starting to shake. This was what he’d really come for. What had happened?

“She wasn’t the woman you grew up with. She was much more alive.”

It was hard to picture his mother younger, freer. He’d always seen her with that slightly worried expression, the frightened eyes and tense mouth.

“I knew she was married but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I always regretted the pain I caused her.”

“How did Harold find out?” It had been so easy to stop thinking about that grim man as his father.

“He was sterile. They’d tried to start a family for years. When she became pregnant, he knew it wasn’t – couldn’t have been – his.”

Bubba didn’t know what to say.

“She loved you very much. I understood her decision to stay. Your stepfather had money and that money could buy influence. He planned to retain custody of you by questioning whether your mother was morally fit to raise you. It was a different time, different moral values. Harold was an extremely bitter man – about his own inadequacies more than anything else.”

“My mother told me you knew about me. Did you ever see me when I was growing up?”

“She sent me pictures.” He sat down at his desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a scrapbook, then handed it to Bubba.

He settled it in his lap and began to turn the pages. Every school picture. Copies of report cards. Letters. There were manila envelopes full of letters. The newspaper clipping when he’d won a local surfing contest. The acceptance letter from his college.

“I knew of you but I didn’t know you. I didn’t want to hurt either you or your mother. I'd hoped someday you might see it in your heart to contact me. But I left the decision as to whether you should be told to your mother. I’d already caused her enough pain.”

Bubba closed the scrapbook. It was too much, all at once. “Can I keep this for a week or so, mail it back to you?”

He nodded, then handed Bubba one of his business cards.

“Did you ever get married?”

“Once. It lasted eight years. I did a disservice to Ann, marrying her when there was only one woman I ever loved.”

He stopped talking. Bubba sensed his father was lost in his memories for a few moments. Then his face changed, cleared, and he stood up.

“I’d like to show you my home. My housekeeper has lunch waiting.”

Bubba nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

* * *

Robert’s home was exactly like one of the houses Bubba dreamed of building, all wood and glass, overlooking the Pacific. They sat out on the deck and once lunch was served the housekeeper discreetly vanished.

And they began to talk. There were awkward attempts at first, embarrassed questions. But there was such a deep, common well of similarity to draw from.

Bubba was achingly glad he
liked
  his father. Strangely enough, at his worst moments with Harold, he’d fantasized he was adopted, never dreaming how close to the truth he was.

When he glanced at his watch, he was startled to see it was almost one o’clock. Mel would be wondering where he was.

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet if you wouldn’t mind.”

Jonathan seemed more relaxed. “You have me for the rest of the day.”

Bubba called their room and Melanie picked up on the second ring.

“Mel? I’m sorry I’m late.”

“That’s okay. I was taking a nap.”

“There’s something I’d like you to do for me. Something really important.” Quickly he outlined his plan, giving her Jonathan’s address, asking her to take a taxi to the house and meet him there.

She agreed. He disconnected the call and joined his father on the deck.

Half an hour later, he heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Excusing himself, he ran around front and met Mel. He watched her as she stepped out of the cab. She was dressed in one of his favorite dresses, a turquoise crinkled-cotton creation. She hadn’t belted it and the gentle wind molded it to the ripening curves of her figure.

“This way, Mel.”

He could sense she knew this was important to him. Though he was almost bursting with impatience, he led her around the house, past the brilliantly blossoming flowers to the deck in back.

He kept his arm around her shoulders to steady her and heard her sharply indrawn breath as Jonathan stood up and smiled. So he hadn’t been imagining it – the resemblance was there.

“Father, this is Melanie Randell, the woman I’m going to marry. Mel, this is my father, Jonathan Mills.”

* * *

They spent the rest of Friday with Bubba’s father, then Saturday and early Sunday they strolled through Santa Barbara, sitting out in cafés and walking along the beach. Mel pretended she was married to Bubba. It wasn’t too hard, as everyone treated them that way.

She bought a stuffed otter for the nursery at one of the bookstores they browsed through, and Bubba bought several tiny silk-screen T-shirts. He also bought a CD of ocean sounds.

“They say a baby can hear in the womb,” he said at breakfast Sunday morning.

“Who is they?” she teased.

“I think we should play it tonight and see if we get a response.”

“She can start surfing right now. She’s surrounded by water.”

He was amazing. He’d read more of her pregnancy and childbirth books than she had and was all ready to begin Lamaze classes when they returned home. Though she was still frightened by what lay ahead of them, Bubba’s enthusiasm was too genuine to be faked. She knew he was looking forward to the birth.

“They say that sometimes if a man sees a woman give birth, he never wants to have sex with her again,” she remarked as they drove home that afternoon.

“Not a chance. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. When do our classes start?”

“The nurse said we should come in around the beginning of my seventh month. We’ve got a way to go yet.”

“But don’t you have to start practicing sooner than that?”

She’d never have believed it if the evidence wasn’t staring her in the face every day. Bubba was so happy about this baby. She was, too, when she wasn’t scared about what was going to happen when she finally went into labor. It scared her, that unknown journey.

But it can’t be that bad – not with Bubba.
Refusing to think about what she had absolutely no control over, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the headrest.

As Mel slept and Bubba drove, he let the hypnotic rhythm of watching the road take over, let his thoughts drift. They drifted to his father, to the entire weekend, to his finally putting the last piece of the puzzle in place.

They had talked about so much, as if feelings that had been bottled up all those years had finally been let loose. And Jonathan had told him, before Mel arrived, of what it had been like to live an enormous part of his life on the sidelines – only to watch and never really participate. He’d felt he couldn’t do anything to jeopardize his son’s relationship with his mother.

“Harold was a bitter man. He would've gone after her, it would've never stopped. She knew him better than I did and when she asked me to honor her decision, I felt it was the least I could do for her. But I was conflicted.”

His parent’s story was so sad. So many lives had been affected by one man’s need for revenge, one man’s inability to have a child. Robert had given his mother the one thing Harold could not, and that had started his stepfather spiraling into the depths of bitterness and despair.

“There will never be anything in my life that will make up for the time I couldn’t spend with your or your mother. That is the deepest regret of my life.” His eyes were sad, the weariness of years and years etched into his face. Robert had told him of regretting all the tiny things he’d missed rather than the standard accomplishments. It hadn’t been the high school graduation as much as a quiet dinner with his family or a day at the beach, a drive on Sunday.

Jonathan had missed it all, simply receiving pictures and clippings. Toward the end of their lunch, he'd said those words that would be etched in Bubba’s memory forever: “The deepest regret of my life…”

Mel shifted in her sleep. He took her hand as he drove carefully in the slower lane of traffic, needing to touch her. He wanted to be close to Mel but she still had that basic fear. He knew she was afraid she’d trapped him.

Her stand at independence covered what Bubba sensed was a deep fear – of being hurt, vulnerable. Of taking advantage of a friendship that was so very special.

Mel, you’ve go to understand. It turned into something better than friendship for me. And I know it’s true for you, if you’d just admit it. This has nothing to do with being trapped, being obligated.

He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment. His feelings had grown and grown, and he’d
always
  loved Mel, so when that love had stretched to encompass a completely different dimension, it had taken him a little time to understand. Now he knew, and the knowledge that she could walk out of his life because of a mistaken sense of duty made him understand his father’s pain all the more poignantly.

And it’s not only because of the baby, Mel. I want to wake up every morning and start my day by seeing your face on the pillow next to mine. It’s all the jokes we share and the way I can look across the room and smile and know what you’re thinking. It’s walks on the beach in the winter being the best thing in the world. It’s going to bed at night and touching you, having you next to me underneath the covers and talking, making love. It’s wanting to share things with you first, and sometimes with no one else.

Though he was looking forward to their child’s birth, a part of him was scared – for Mel and what she would go through, for the changes it would bring to their relationship. Would she move out? Would she attempt to make a break, not wanting to take advantage of him? Would he be able to convince her that nothing was more important than staying together?

Mel shifted slightly in her sleep. He glanced at the smoothness of her cheek, the soft smudge of her eyelashes. Then he returned his attention to the road once again.

Take it a day at a time. Remember Henry. He sits underneath those bushes and waits for those birds for a long time.

“You’ll stay with me, Mel,” he said softly. “I’m not going to give you up now that I’ve finally found you. And someone has to help you watch over Skip.”

It’s going to be me,
he thought contentedly. Nothing could change something that felt so right. Mel would come around. Time and love were both on his side.

Fat.

She’d thought she knew what the word meant but her third trimester convinced Mel that all the rest had been merely a dress rehearsal.

She didn’t feel fat. She felt obese, gargantuan, hideous, corpulent, bulky, massive, huge, immense, enormous, stupendous, monstrous, colossal, lumbering, unwieldy, whopping, bloated.

But not fat.

The first thing that depressed her was not being able to sleep on her stomach. The second thing was how much weight she was gaining. Though she’d followed the doctor’s diet as carefully as possible, she seemed to puff up overnight, like bread dough left out to rise. The morning she discovered a slight double chin she cried for an hour.

But the realization that she had to waddle to get around was Mel’s total undoing. Everything was different. The way she walked with her legs far apart, the way she had to get out of chairs or up off the floor after her breathing exercises. Her body felt different. Her hips did not move anymore when she walked but her belly seemed to roll from side to side.

She couldn’t cross her legs, couldn’t jog around the block, couldn’t even manage a brisk walk. Having always been a physically active woman, she felt the loss of movement as a personal loss of freedom.

Stupid little things set her off. Alicia took her for a manicure and pedicure but afterwards Mel realized she couldn’t see her feet.

The slight movements that had brought her such joy now seemed to batter and bruise her. The baby was terribly active, moving constantly. She was positive she could feel tiny feet pummeling her rib cage and up underneath her swollen breasts.

Most of all she resented the invasion of her privacy, the way people thought that because she was pregnant they were welcome to touch her and offer various opinions and personal comments. Privacy was a thing of the past.