His Baby (14 page)

She flinched at the knock on the door. Zack stuck his head
around after she responded, then stepped quietly inside her room, closing out
the noise of the vacuum cleaner downstairs. Diana sat down abruptly on the
upholstered chair, folding her hands in her lap.

"How are you doing?" he said.

He looked relatively calm, at least, his khakis and sweater
promoted a relaxed look. She tried to think of something flip to say or,
failing that, something polite but no words came to mind.

"You look nervous," he said. "I'm nervous too
but I don't know why. It's just my parents. They've met you and Lark."

"They haven't been to the house. They haven't met Carl
and Mary. They haven't seen your apartment here." She lifted her hands in
a gesture, then realized what she had done and settled them back on her lap.

"True. But what difference does it make?" He
smiled at her and she tried to smile back.

"I don't know. None, I guess."

"I think its because I feel different here. I wonder if
they'll notice." Zack paced over and sat down on her desk chair, pulling
it out from the desk a little more, turning it to face her a little. He crossed
his arms, an artlessly defensive posture.

"Do you feel different here? In Whitney?" She felt
suddenly as though she didn't know him at all. He seemed the same to her,
whether here or in Chicago, at his parents' house. Well, maybe there were
differences, but for a moment, she couldn't think of what they were. She stared
at him, feeling as though she needed to memorize his features. Would she
remember him when he was gone?

"I do." He sighed heavily. "I feel like life
is full of possibilities, interesting." He stared out the window over her
desk, over the fields next door, now full of corn stalks.

"You'll get tired of Whitney," Diana said, "not
want to come down every weekend."

He spared her only a glance, "Well, let's cross that
bridge when we come to it," he said automatically. "Do you want to
borrow trouble?"
"What does that mean? It's just that I don't like waiting for bad things
to happen. If something bad is going to happen, I wish it just would, and get
it over with."

The look on his face was half hopeful, half surprised. "Would
that be such a bad thing, if I didn't come down every weekend?" He was
watching her, waiting for her answer. She felt trapped.

"Of course not," she said, "We got along fine
before you started coming around."

"Of course. Silly me. I thought I'd made a difference
in your life. A difference for the better."

She felt bad for disappointing him. "Look, I'm sorry,
Zack, you have made a difference. It's just that I don't expect you to keep
this up forever."

"What?" He frowned. "Being Lark's
father?"

"No." She shook her head. "Commuting."

"Are you telling me you'll come up some weekends?"
He looked cheerful just for a moment.

"I don't know. I never even saw your apartment when I
was there. Would I always go to your parents' house? This situation is so
unreal. It can't last, Zack."

"Of course it can last," he said, sounding annoyed.

She started to tell him, but couldn't. She tried to think of
something else to say. "What if you have a car accident, driving all those
miles?"

"I think there's a phrase for this, someone was using
it the other day, in the office.

Geographically undesirable. Is that what you mean? I'm too far
away."
"I guess that's what I mean. You won't want to keep coming down
here." She leaned back into the chair, resisted the urge to shut her eyes.
Why were they talking about this when she needed to tell him about Jay Peters?

"So, do you want to move to Chicago?"

"I don't think so. I can't imagine myself in
Chicago." There was probably a better answer but she couldn't think of one.
She had never even considered that option.

"Maybe I need to insist you come up more often,"
he said blandly.

What was the simple answer to that?

"I don't want to drive every weekend."

He leaned back, unfolded his arms, looked away again for a
few moments of silence, then turned his head to look at her again.

"Are you getting tired of having me around Diana?"

"No."
I could elaborate
, she supposed.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that."

This is going nowhere,
she thought. He was pulling
compliments out of a conversation that was just a stall. He couldn't know that.
She wanted to get control of the situation again, but despaired of being able
to do so. She tried to think of a way to work around to the idea that Lark
might not be his child.

"It's just that we both have such an artificial
life," she said, stalling.

He shrugged. "Lots of people commute on weekends. Or
are separated for a while."

That brought a sharp stab of fresh anxiety. She spoke before
she considered the impact of her statement. "Carl and Mary might be. Separated
I mean."

"What do you mean? Is something wrong?"

"No, it's just that Carl is thinking about joining the
Marines. He's pretty tired of working at the plant and there aren't a lot of
other options. I guess he's having some trouble. He should explain it to you,
not me. Anyway, if he joins the Marines he'll have to go away to go through
basic training and then we don't know where he would be assigned."

"What about Mary?" Zack leaned forward a little,
resting his forearms on his thighs. Diana stared at him for a moment, then
looked past him towards the fields.

"Maybe she would move in here, at least for a couple of
months."

"Would that be so bad? Of course, we'd have two babies
around."

She looked back at him, sharply. "We?"

"Diana, face it, I'm here every weekend," he said,
tossing off her challenge. "Anyway, we work things out. We do well
together." She felt both encouraged and worried about his confidence. She
had to tell him.

"We have to talk about that," she said slowly.

"About marriage?" His face was alive with an
emotion she was afraid to name.
No,
she thought,
no, I can't marry
you
.

She leaned forward a little, looked down at the tips of her boots,
poking out from under her long skirt. After a moment, she could look up, answer
him. "No, that's not what I meant. I mean, right now I was thinking about
something else."

"What's on your mind?" He said quietly.

"Zack, what if Lark is
not
your baby?"

He stared at her for so long she began to wonder if he had
heard her.

"What do you mean, exactly?" She saw a muscle work
in his jaw.

"What if Lark was fathered by someone else?" she
asked softly.

"But I was sleeping with Robin," he said abruptly.
"I was engaged to her. Are you saying there was someone else?"

Diana nodded miserably.

"But she didn't put that person on the birth
certificate," he continued, "she put my name on the birth certificate.
I would say that means she thought I’m Lark's father."

She had rehearsed this part, figured out what to say but it
was still hard. "Because she's blonde and blue eyed and you and Robin and
everybody in our families is dark haired and dark eyed. I don't remember a lot about
genetics but I think it’s less likely that Lark is your daughter than Jay
Peters' daughter. He's blond and blue-eyed. Well, he was."

"Not impossible. I wouldn't swear there are no blondes
in my family. Or yours, for that matter. Are you just trying to make me go away?
Why would you do this, Diana? Does this guy want to take Lark away? Is he
threatening you?"

"Why? Because its not fair, if you aren't Lark's father.
Nobody's threatening me."
Except you,
she thought. "He's dead.
He's the one Robin died with."

"I am Lark's father," Zack said firmly.

"But what if you're not?" she said again.

He looked at her as though he were making sure she was
watching, then spoke slowly and clearly. "I'll repeat what I said since
you don't seem to have heard me. I don't believe Robin would have named me on
the birth certificate if I weren't Lark's father. I don't believe we're having
this conversation."

They both jumped at the knock on the door. "Come
in," Diana called. Mrs. Johnson poked her head around the door cautiously
and seemed relieved to see them sitting on chairs facing each other. They were
clearly having a serious discussion, Diana thought, at least that's what anyone
would have to assume from Zack's posture. She didn't know what she looked like.

"Mr. and Mrs. White are here," Mrs. Johnson said
quietly. "I showed them into the living room and put their coats in the
closet under the stairs.”

Zack stood up. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Johnson. I'll head
down right now." He walked across the room to Mrs. Johnson and murmured
his thanks as he ushered her out the door. As Zack was about to close the door,
he turned and spoke.

"Come down when you're ready, all right?" he said.
He paused and started to take a breath, then let it out with a puff. "Take
a minute. Be sure you're clear. I'm Lark's father. The matter is closed,"
he said firmly. "Do you understand?"

She nodded automatically but she didn't understand, not
really. After he closed the door she sat for a few long moments, trying to get
control of herself, trying to relax the tension in her neck and back. She
didn't understand his reaction. He didn't seem to believe what she was saying
at all. In fact, he seemed angry that she would even consider it.

When she had thought about what to say, how to say it, she
had come up with responses for him, practiced her response to arguments where
she could show him the pictures, tell him the story, and she had braced herself
for an angry set of accusations -- that they had tried to entrap him, that she
and Carl were cruel people, that he was lucky he found out in time.

She had forgotten, somehow, how much he cared about Lark. She
had convinced herself he was going through the motions, doing what he said he’d
always done: what people expected of him, what people wanted him to do, what
was the easiest to do. She’d somehow ignored one simple fact. He loved Lark.

And now he probably hated her for springing this on him.

She sat trembling in the chair for a while, until she calmed
down a little. She stood up and studied herself in the mirror for a few long
moments, reading the language of her dress and repudiating it. Now she had to
gird herself, to dress for battle, to put on the armor that would let her get
through the next few hours.

She didn't look directly at Zack, or him at her, for at
least five hours but now everyone else was distracted. Carl and Sam White were
in the kitchen, apparently having a beer. They had gone in there to get one, at
least. Diana kept hearing the rumbling undertone of voices, but didn't know what
they were talking about.

Mary and Beth White were across the living room sitting on
the couch next to each other, Lark between them. The two women seemed to be
getting along famously.

Zack was sitting in a recliner set up perpendicular to the
couch, one foot on the leg of the coffee table, the other crossed, facing away
from her, his ankle resting on his knee, his hand resting on his ankle. He had
been watching Lark, studying her with an intensity that frightened Diana. No
one else would notice, she told herself firmly. No one else could guess what
they had talked about upstairs.

Diana sat in a smaller, straighter chair, almost directly
across from Zack, although the chair had originally been canted to give an easy
view of the fields outside, now disappearing into fast fading twilight. The
empty playpen was next to her.

She felt as though she had chosen the chair to isolate
herself. In a moment she was going to have to jump up, go in the kitchen and
check on the roast. She had been sitting quietly, not allowing herself to think
of much, watching Zack while making sure no one could guess that was what she
was doing, but now she looked up and he looked away from Lark, directly at her.

His gaze was as palpable as though he had reached out with
his hand to touch her face. She felt that intensity she had noticed all
afternoon and felt a wave of heat, but then the heat was her response, wasn't
it? Her embarrassment at his direct gaze, his frank study of her, his holding
her attention for longer and longer seconds. She couldn't look away from him. He
seemed angry first, almost frowning, but as she watched him, the emotion on his
face changed.

She didn't know what he was thinking. He was looking at her
as if he had never seen her before, as if he were studying a painting or a
sculpture. It was a gaze that seemed almost objective, assessing her, measuring
what he saw against some standard she couldn't even guess at.

Maybe when everyone left he would stay and they would
continue to argue.

She wanted him to stay. She wanted to understand how she had
so thoroughly messed up, how she had so completely misread him. His face
changed again, his eyes darkening. She realized that she had caught her lower
lip in her teeth, showing her worry on her face. The change in him altered
something in her, created an awareness she couldn't quite be comfortable with.

"Hey, sis." Carl spoke before he came into the
room. Diana looked up at Carl just as he came in. "I could make my own
decision about this roast, but I don't want to step on your toes," he
said, smiling a little. He seemed happy, relaxed, his old teasing self.

She smiled back and got up slowly, crossing the room with a
sure sense that Zack was still watching her but as she passed him, he had
shifted his gaze to Mary and had taken a breath to speak.

Zack didn't stay late that Saturday night. It was logical,
Diana supposed after the front door closed on them, that he leave with his
parents. She wondered, walking around the house putting things away, if he was
heading out to have a drink with them in their hotel, or if they were stopping
to see his apartment. She hadn't asked.

She’d avoided any direct questions for Zack.

She wasn't sure what they were going to do in the morning. The
original plan had been to take his parents to breakfast at Nellie's, but no one
had said anything as they left, although Beth had turned to envelop Diana in a
close, warm hug goodnight. Carl and Mary had left shortly before the Whites
left. Carl had been in high spirits all evening. Mary was quieter and slower,
but she had looked happy after dinner, after the two of them had tucked
themselves into a corner of the couch while the Whites toured the house with
Zack, Diana and Lark. Zack had put Lark to bed, challenging Diana with a hard
quick gaze when she had reached out to take the baby from his arms.

Diana moved slowly through the first floor of the house,
checking windows and doors, turning off lights. She climbed the stairs feeling
old. The upstairs route was shorter: check on Lark, clean up in the bathroom,
undress and climb into bed.

She picked up her book but was sure she would not be able to
sleep. It wasn't as though she weren't tired, or that she couldn't shut off an
argument or a worry in her head. Those reactions had happened in the past. Tonight
she felt so drained of energy, so devoid of emotion, that she didn't know how
to change states, to go from wakefulness to sleep. She opened her book and
stared at the page but couldn't make the words make any sense. Closing her eyes
didn't help. She sat up further and picked up a gossip magazine someone had
left in the office.

When the phone rang, she came awake with a jerk and a
thudding heart, fumbling around on the night stand until her hand found the
receiver.

"Diana?" It was Zack. "You sound like I woke
you up. I'm sorry."

She took a quick, deep breath and rubbed a hand over her
face. "It's okay," she said automatically. "What's the
matter?" She glanced at the clock. She couldn't have been asleep more than
a half hour. She sat up, pushed a pillow behind her back.

"Nothing's the matter. I just left my parents. We
decided to meet there tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. Is that all right?" He sounded
apologetic, the last approach she expected from him.

Nine o'clock was okay, she thought. I’ll be up much earlier
with Lark. But what was supposed to happen? "For breakfast?"

"Let's go out to breakfast, maybe to Nellie's or
something?" She wasn't used to such tentativeness with him, she thought. He
usually presented plans and she had to actively argue to change them.

"If you want to," she said, not knowing what to
say.

"Well, it depends on what you want," he said.

Suddenly she was wide awake and a little annoyed. Who was
this person? Why was he behaving this way?

"Does it really?" she said, sarcasm leaking
through. "Usually you make plans without much consulting me and usually I
just go along."

"That's not fair," he said, now annoyed himself.

She deliberately misunderstood. "Of course it isn't
fair, but that's what you do."

"Diana," he said slowly, "You. Are. Not. Being.
Fair."

"No, you aren't," she retorted. Emphasis on
you
.
"Carl wasn't. Life isn't. I bring up a possibility that you hadn't thought
of and you tell me you don't like it and the matter is closed. No
discussion." She closed her eyes, putting her free hand over them
. Well
said, Diana. That was completely clear.

But apparently he knew exactly what she was talking about. "You
caught me off guard. I love Lark. You don't understand that, do you? I love her
and that's that."

"I believe you," she said, wondering as she said
it if she really did, "but understand this. It wasn't easy to tell you
what I learned. But I thought it was important."

"Why?" he asked softly.

"Because you've changed your whole life and it might be
for nothing."
And my life
, she thought.
You've changed my life
.

"That's not true. That's not true at all."

"That's how I see it." She stared across the room.
Was that how she saw it? Or how she wanted it to be?

"It's not 'for nothing', Diana," he said softly. "When
I told you about myself, I was telling you how life was for me up until then. My
life changed when I met Lark. And you. I can't go back to the way my life was
before. It's changed. I've changed."

"People don't change," she said with some
assurance. Nobody she knew had ever changed. She just had thought, like Robin,
that they were different than the way they were.

"Of course they do," he said, then murmured,
"well," into her ear, as if holding a place for himself. She waited,
listening to him breathing, listening to the late night silence of the house
around her. "People grow, I believe that. I never had anyone present me
with a problem before and tell me nothing about what to do about it. Carl
showed up with a story to tell and the clear conviction that this was my
problem and I needed to solve it. You didn't make any suggestions," he
said, slowly.

"I made demands," she said, reminding him.

"Yes, but that was different. You didn't tell me what
to do, you told me what
not
to do. You know, if I've been messing with
your life too much you just had to tell me to stop. I do stop when people tell
me to." He stopped talking. Diana was considering what to say when he went
on, with an intensity that startled her. "However, I won't stop being
Lark's father, no matter what you say."

"I don't quite understand, Zack." How could the
matter be so clear to him? Wouldn't everything be different if Lark were Jay
Peters' daughter?

"What is it that you don't understand? I thought I
explained myself perfectly."

"Why does she mean so much to you? You didn't know she
existed six months ago."

He was silent for a long time, long enough that she was
beginning to think she should say something, or failing that, hang up. She sat
up straighter in the bed and ran a hand through her hair.

"Is there any explanation for love? I didn't know you
six months ago. Now I can't imagine not knowing you.”

Diana stopped her fidgeting. Her mind had stopped
functioning. Silently she repeated what he had said, trying to decide what he
meant. After a deep breath, she decided to take him literally.

"Can you imagine not ever seeing me again?" he
asked softly.

"Zack? Look." She was fumbling for what to say. There
was no straight answer she could offer him out of the confusion of her feelings
right now.

"Never mind," he said angrily. "I have my
answer."

"Zack?"

"I'll see you in the morning," he said crisply.

"Good night," she said finally. That much she
could say. After she'd replaced the receiver she got up from the bed and stood
by the side of it, stiff and very tired but wide awake, and reached for her
robe. Downstairs in the kitchen she considered having some coffee, but settled
on some herbal tea.

She was still awake when Lark woke up four hours later.

Diana got through Saturday night and Sunday morning the way
she got through everything in her life: she didn't think about what she wanted,
she didn't cry about what wasn't fair, and she certainly didn't waste any
energy yearning for what she couldn't have. She simply did what she had to do
to get through.

After a few hours sleep and a couple of hours drinking
coffee and eating two pieces of toast and jelly, she was ready for the Whites,
all three of them. Zack showed up first, nearly an hour early, knocking at the
back door then coming into the warm kitchen on a gust of cold air.

Lark crowed at him, murmuring 'da da da' and trying to chin
herself with his tie once she'd scrambled into his arms. Diana watched him
feeling a confusing mixture of sadness and delight, then crossed into the dining
room and started unpacking dishes she had carried down from the attic. It was
dim and rather comforting in the dining room.

"You look tired, Diana," Zack said finally, when
he had finished saying 'good morning' to Lark. "Did you have trouble
getting back to sleep?" He spoke from the doorway between the dining room
and the kitchen. She didn't turn around right away, although she felt his
attention like a touch between her shoulder blades.

"Yes," she said, after a minute without turning
around. He didn't speak so she continued taking dishes out of the box.

"What are we going to do Diana?" he said softly. She
almost dropped the plate she held. He had come up behind her. She fought a
sudden, inexplicable yearning to turn to him, to move into his arms and be
comforted.
I can't
, she told herself firmly.

"About what?" she said coolly. She glanced back at
him. He must have put Lark in her playpen. He stood there quietly, arms
crossed, watching her.

"Look, Diana, we're family. We have to figure out how
to make this work."

"Family? Lark and Carl and Mary are my family. They are
all I have left. Everybody else," she shrugged, "they died." She
held herself still, feeling painful tension in her shoulders. 

"I mentioned to my father last night that Carl was
unhappy about his job. He and Carl talked about it. Dad told me he may be able
to help Carl get a job in Chicago." He turned away, taking a step towards
the door, then turned back to look at her again.

"At White Stationers?" Diana didn't know how she
felt about that.

"I don't know. Dad knows a lot of people in related
businesses. I'm sure he can spread the word around and find out what's
available." Zack put his hands down on the back of a chair. Diana felt
like he was creating a barrier between them.

"What did Carl think about this?" Diana asked
cautiously. He had seemed happy last night, talking to Sam White and later to
Mary.

"He got pretty excited about the prospects, I guess. He
talked about what he could do, what he wants to do, and they tried to figure out
what kind of job would be best." Zack was matter-of-fact. Diana felt a
surge of anger.

"Why would you interfere like that?"

"It's not interfering," he explained. "In the
business world helping other people out can be called networking.”

"Help him leave Whitney, you mean," she said
bitterly.

"He's bound to leave, that's what you told me. Wouldn't
you rather have him stay somewhere relatively close?"

"Chicago isn't that close," she snapped. She put
the dish she was holding down gently.

"It is. I drive down every weekend. Although you're
proposing I drive too far, aren't you? That I won't want to anymore. Maybe we
should talk about that, instead of Carl."

"I don't have any choices, do I? You'll do what you
want."

"But I'll do what you want too. Isn't there a
compromise?" He lifted one hand, turned it palm up.

What did that gesture mean? she thought.

"Compromise?"

"You've heard that word before, haven't you?" He
said crisply, grabbing onto the chair again.

"Yes," she snapped. She closed her eyes in frustration.
"Look, Zack, sarcasm doesn't help."

"You're right. I'm sorry. So what do you think we
should do?" He pulled out the chair and sat down, facing her.

"I don't know. Obviously, you think we should move to
Chicago. You work there, if you have anything to say, Carl will soon work
there, and Carl and Mary will live there. Then just Lark and I will be
here." She wished the prospect didn't seem so bleak.

"Carl hasn't made the decision to move. He hasn't even
applied for any jobs. But he does feel like he has choices. Isn't that
important for him?"

"Maybe that's the point. I don't feel like I have any
choices," she said sadly. She moved the box of dishes from the chair seat
to the table top.

"Have you ever had any choices?"

"Pardon me?" She turned towards him, hesitating.

"As far as I can tell, Diana, you've been put into one
situation after another, by fate, if you will, and you cope. You do the best
with what you have. I'm saying now you can help shape your future." He
leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs in a familiar gesture.

"Sounds noble. But
do
I have any choice now? You'll
decide what you want to do. You'll tell me. I'll cope with it, right? After
all, that's what I'm good at." She sunk down into the chair.

"You really believe you don't have any choice?"

"Not over this. I do at work. I do around here, in this
house." She gestured. "To some extent I do with Lark, until now,
anyway. But when it comes to you and me, I don't have any control. If you don't
have control, you don't have choice." She stared at him for a moment.

He looked genuinely puzzled. He thought for a couple of
moments, studying his hands, then looked up at her, straight at her. His gaze
was so direct she was tempted to look away.

"Let's try an experiment," he said, folding his
hands in front of him.

"What's that?" she asked.

"You seem to think that I will give up because I'll get
tired of commuting. And you may be right. Commuting isn't a long term solution.
So you tell me, Diana, what you want me to do. Should I move to Whitney? Or
stay in Chicago and move you closer?" He pulled his hands apart and sat
back in the chair, settling his hands on his thighs. He had big, long-fingered
hands.

"Me?" she said, tearing her attention away from
his hands. "I don't want to move anywhere but I can't tell you what to
do."

"Think about it. You tell me when you've decided."