It Happened One Night (18 page)

“Actually, yes,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind someone to talk to.”

“Let’s go inside.”

Karin hesitated, turning to look at the dilapidated restaurant, attempting once again to see if anyone was inside. She
did
want to talk with Andy, but she wished there was some way she could do it without being alone with him.

He opened the car door an inch. “The place may not look like much. But the hot dogs are killer. And anyway, no one will see.”

“Why would I care if anyone saw?” Karin said quickly.

Andy laughed nervously. “Well, you shouldn’t. I mean,
I
don’t care.”

She swallowed. All she wanted to do was talk. She was doing nothing wrong. “We’ll have to split the check.”

“No, really, let me—”

“That or no deal.”

“You are stubborn.” He laughed, then pushed the door open wide. The smile he gave her before he climbed out could have melted
glass. “Your wish is my command,” he said.

August 20

Lana sat in the store alone, eating a sandwich of tomato and fresh mozzarella, and drinking occasionally from a single-serving
carton of whole milk. It had been a moderately busy afternoon, but now the flow of tourists and locals had waned. The light
slanted through the window in golden, razor-sharp beams, and outside the poppies in the wildflower meadow flared orange and
red. The only car in the parking lot was hers. She had a feeling that people were more interested in grilling and swimming
than planting flowers this late in the season.

She was still hungry when she finished her sandwich—she was always hungry, it seemed—but instead of eating more, she busied
herself wiping up the faint layer of dust that constantly emanated from the parking lot and coated every item in the store.
When she was done, she flipped through a catalog showing pages upon pages of wreaths and holly, pondering orders for the upcoming
season. She thought:
By spring, I’ll be somebody’s mom
.

The little silver bell over the front door rang. And when she looked up, already launching into customer-service mode, what
she saw made the words slip off her tongue.

Ron.

He wasn’t smiling. He wore slightly frayed jeans and a leather jacket. His hair curled toward his shoulders, longer than before.

She dusted off her hands and smiled as she walked toward him. “Ron. You’re here.”

“Here I am.”

She mustered up some enthusiasm. “How are you? What have you been up to?”

“Not as much as you, apparently.” He crossed his arms. He was as handsome now as when they’d met—the only two people in Burlington
buying crepes in a snowstorm. He wore a striped dress shirt tucked into his jeans, and Lana couldn’t help but wonder if he’d
dressed up.

She wanted him to say something, to ask how the store was doing, how she was doing. But he remained silent, his face like
stone.

She forced herself to take a deep breath. “Do you want to sit down?”

He lifted his chin. “I don’t think this should take that long.”

“Eli told you I was looking for you?” she asked, though of course she knew he had.

“You
sent
him to me, yes.”

She shook her head but didn’t correct him.

“I wasn’t going to come,” he said. “I tried not to.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because I don’t want your boyfriend to pick another fight.”

She blinked, stunned. Eli hadn’t mentioned a fight. In all the years she’d known him, he’d never got in a fight.

Ron went on. “If you’re going to say what I think you’re going to say, let’s just get it over and done.”

“All right.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting a headache. “I’m pregnant.”

She saw from the look on his face that he wasn’t surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“But how are you sure? How do you know it’s mine?”

“Well… I mean… I haven’t been with anyone but you.”

He laughed. “That’s a little hard to swallow, if you get my drift.”

Lana wanted to sit down, to step away from the situation and think. He was right to doubt her. Their relationship had been
nothing more than a quick fling, and he had no reason to think she was seeing only him. In fact, she wondered now if he had
someone in his life as well. She’d never asked.

She stepped toward him. She knew exactly what he was going through right now—the fear, the disbelief. She was prepared to
let his insults roll off her back. “I know this is scary. And I’m sorry it happened. I really am. I didn’t want this either.”

“Let’s be clear on one thing,” he said quickly. “I don’t have any money. Nada. None.”

Her head throbbed. “Why would I care if you had any money?”

“All that stuff I told you about having a condo in Denver and a house on Lake Tahoe? I lied. Yep. I don’t even race anymore.
I got hurt a few years back and now I’m just a has-been. A nobody. Completely washed up. I run a store out of a bedroom in
my brother’s house. You can take me to court for child support if you want to, but I’m flat busted broke.”

The room tipped; she half expected her terra-cotta pots to slide off their shelves.

“Now who’s surprised?” Ron said.

Lana stared at him. Everything he’d told her had been a lie. And she’d fallen for it. Or rather, she’d
let
herself fall for it. All the questions she should have asked, the details she should have demanded… she hadn’t wanted to
know. She’d kept him, like every man she’d ever dated, at arm’s length.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” she said.

“Come on, Lana. It would have killed the fantasy for both of us.”

“I still would have liked you if I knew you weren’t racing. It’s not your fault that you got hurt.”

“Maybe,” he said, looking away from her. The pain in his expression was real. “But let’s be honest. Neither one of us wanted
something serious. It worked better when you thought I lived out west.”

She crossed her arms. “I didn’t need you to
lie
to me; I knew what I was getting into.”

“Are you sure?”

She pressed a hand to her belly. “Look. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not telling you this because I want your money.
I just thought you deserved to know.” He was quiet, and her heart went out to him. Getting hurt had obviously done a number
on his self-esteem. She felt the urge to reassure him that everything would be okay. “I’m thinking of putting the baby up
for adoption. But I wanted to clear it with you. I mean, technically it’s yours too.”

He snorted. “Oh, how kind.”

“Would you rather I didn’t tell you?”

“Honestly?”

She felt her fists clench tight, and she thought of her father, a man who’d had the task of parenting foisted on him long
after he’d rejected the job. The anger that exploded came from a place so deep she hadn’t known it was there. “How
dare
you!” she said, her voice rising. “You bring another human being into this world and you can’t even bring yourself to acknowledge
it?”

“You’re the one who decided to keep it, not me.”

“I didn’t get this way by myself. But I’m the one who’s been dealing with it—all of it. It’s
my
body that this is happening to. Mine. While you’ve been walking around without a clue. Do you have any idea how hard it’s
been?”

Lana touched a hand to her throat, the muscles there tightening painfully. She heard the soft sound of a footfall on the concrete
floor of the Barn, and she thought,
Please, don’t be Eli
. She couldn’t stand the idea that he would see her in the middle of this mess. But when she looked up, it wasn’t Eli she
saw, but her sister, with her stout shoulders squared and her chin stuck out as if she’d seen the battle and was ready to
plunge in tooth and nail.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Karin said, her voice almost a growl and her eyes boring into Ron. “But I suggest you get
out right now.”

Lana forced herself to relax. “Ron was just leaving.”

He pointed a finger at Lana’s face. “I’m done with this, Lana. And I’m done with you. Do whatever you want with it. As far
as I’m concerned, that baby is
not
mine.”

He barreled out of the Barn; she could feel the moment he was gone, as if the plants around her, with all their delicate green
leaves and thin stems, trembled with reverberations of his anger. The silence in the Barn was thick.

Karin stood stone-still, her eyes wild with the instinct to fight, but her whole body seeming suddenly very small. “What
baby
?” she said.

“Kari. Oh, Kare. I’m so sorr—”

“Don’t,” Karin whispered. “Just don’t.” She stood for a moment as if trying to get her balance or her bearings. Then she turned
around and left.

Karin drove ten miles over the speed limit on the cramped city streets. There were no cars in the parking lot when she got
to her church. One small blessing: She was alone.

Inside was dim but airy, the cathedral ceilings letting in clear white light. She walked to the front of the church, crossed
herself, then slid into the second pew from the front. She waited for a prayer to rise up in her heart, impulsive and genuine
and unscripted, as her prayers usually were. But she felt nothing.

She put her head in her hands.

Lana.
It made no sense. Her own sister, who didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. Who was still a child herself. How could
Lana
be pregnant?

A smarmy, coiled-up voice from inside her gave the answer:
Because God loves Lana more.
Everything was always so much easier for her. When Lana graduated from high school, Karin had spent countless hours searching
for scholarships and scrounging pennies from her job at the grocery store so that at least one of them could get a college
degree. Then, when Lana had graduated and they didn’t know what to do,
Karin
was the one who came up with the idea of the Wildflower Barn,
Karin
had done all the legwork so they could have a means of supporting themselves, and
Karin
had found a way to make Lana’s passion for flowers into a practical way of life.

She looked up at the cross above the altar.

For a moment, rage clouded her vision. Her teeth gnashed together so hard she thought they might crack. Her muscles clenched
from head to toe.

Her screaming was silent:
How could you do this to me?

Maybe she would go to the doctor again. She and Gene had promised themselves that they would have a baby by God’s grace or
not have one at all. But that was before Lana ended up with the baby that should have been Karin’s.

She put her head on the lemony-smelling wood in front of her.

What was she saying? Lana hadn’t gotten pregnant on purpose. She knew that. It wasn’t rational to be this mad. But that single
kernel of knowledge was nothing compared to the wild storm of her emotions.

Karin had forgiven her sister for a lot of things. Year after year. Time and again. And in all those instances, she’d never
once considered what she was considering now: If she refused to forgive her sister for this one last act of injury, she would
never, ever have to forgive her again.

Sunflowers:
Sunflowers are loved as much for their many uses as for their beauty. The stalk of the sunflower is one of the strongest
and yet lightest natural substances in the world. The sunflower is also a willful seedling: In the early twentieth century,
naturalist John Burroughs reported having seen a sunflower pushing up through the pavement “like a man’s fist.”

September 1

T
he water sucked and sloshed against the slatted sides of the rowboat in the center of a wide lagoon. From where she lay on
her back in the bottom of the hull, Lana could see nothing of the mountains and houses along the lake’s shore. There was only
sky, endless and vast as the universe beyond the blue.

Evenings like this, longing and loneliness never failed to rise up from the marrow of her bones. As a teenager she hadn’t
been able to place it. But as an adult she recognized what it was. She missed her mother; she wished for her soothing voice,
her steadying hand. Ellen was the bridge between Lana and her sister, the first word between them and the last. Ellen would
know what Lana should say to Karin, words that not only apologized but healed as well.

And maybe she would know what to say about Eli too, about the war waging between Lana’s mind and heart. Eli had broken up
with Kelly. He hadn’t told her why, but she knew that something was different within him. Something had changed. The desire
growing hotter by the day in his eyes spoke to her at the deepest level of her being.

She closed her eyes. The wind washed into the bottom of the boat and blew over her skin. There was a story her mother used
to tell. Lana couldn’t remember the specifics anymore. But it was about a beaver and a bear, and it ended with the bear feeling
guilty that the beaver was sentenced to cutting down trees for all time because he’d kept silent when he should have spoken
up.

There was a moral to the story, as there was a moral to so many of Ellen’s stories.
When truth is known, it should be spoken.
How many times had Ellen said that to her daughters? And yet decades later, the lesson still hadn’t sunk in.

Lana should have told Karin about the baby. Immediately. She should have insisted, even though she knew the truth would cause
her sister pain.

And as for Eli, she was keeping secrets from him too. Perhaps she should talk to him. To get it out in the open. She could
confess that she was attracted to him, but didn’t want to change the balance of their friendship. There was logic in confessing
her true feelings. She could appeal to the rational side of his brain, the side that would want to protect their friendship
as much as she did.

Or she could just sleep with him.

Wasn’t that what she wanted deep down? She could offer him a bargain. They would go to bed together just to get it out of
their systems, and then their relationship could go back to normal. For all she knew, it might be terrible if they tried to
sleep together. Maybe fifty years from now, they could look back on their awkward efforts and laugh…