It Happened One Night (32 page)

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you. What do you want?”

“Can I come in?”

She weighed her options. The air coming in through the door was chilly and biting. It had snowed last night—not a lot—but
enough to suggest that a white winter was in store. A flurry of snowflakes sparkled and sliced the air, whipping in the cold
wind.

“Please?” His eyebrows were creased, pleading.

She wobbled a little on her feet. She was weak and wouldn’t be able to have a conversation with him standing in the doorway.
She had to sit down. “I really shouldn’t have visitors.”

“I won’t stay long.”

She sighed and stepped aside, feeling more than a little vulnerable when she compared her flimsy white nightdress to his big
bomber jacket and boots. The baby elbowed her, wiggling as if anxious, and she found herself putting a hand to the spot and
soothing the child in her mind. As Ron passed by he held out the roses. “No, thank you,” she said.

She sat down gingerly on the couch, one hand cradling the underside of her belly, the other motioning for Ron to take the
armchair a few feet away. He didn’t. He plopped right down beside her, close but not touching. The roses lay awkwardly across
his lap.

“You don’t look very good. How are you feeling?”

“I almost lost the baby.”

“But… I thought that’s what you would have wanted.”

“You thought wrong,” she said.

He looked at her closely. She didn’t know him well enough to be certain of the expression on his face, but she thought it
was regret. “Listen. I want to apologize. I said some really terrible things to you in the Wildflower Barn that day.”

She remembered the anger, the vehemence in his eyes. He’d stopped just shy of calling her a liar and denying that the child
was his. He’d rejected her and the baby. “You made me feel terrible,” she admitted. “Like it was my fault. Mine alone.”

He nodded, somber. “I thought it was your fault. I mean, that’s what it felt like. But that was then. I’d take it all back
if you’d let me, now.”

“Just tell me what you want.”

He flinched at her tone. “I don’t want it to be like this. So awkward between us. We can start over, you know.”

“We can’t start over.”

“But I’m that baby’s father. Aren’t I?”

“Of course you are.” Her throat went tight as if he’d wrapped his fingers around it and squeezed. The words
custody battle
raced through her mind. “What are you saying?”

“I want to be in the child’s life. Maybe you don’t want me back right now. I can understand why. But I hope we might be able
to make peace. I wigged out before. But I’m ready now—to do what I have to do.”

She shifted in her seat, already weary from the conversation’s physical and emotional demands. “This seems like it’s coming
out of nowhere. You were really mad that day in the Barn. It wasn’t just fear. You were furious.”

“I
was
furious,” he admitted. “You trapped me. You might as well have backed me into a corner and put a gun to my head.”

Lana nodded, her throat dry.

“I have no way of convincing you, but I’ve been wrestling with this every day.” He leaned toward her, his expression pleading.
“Lana, hear me out. I haven’t been sleeping at night, thinking about this. It wouldn’t be right if I never know my son and
he never knows me. I just wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye ever again.”

She began to tremble. He was right, of course. In her heart she wanted her child to know its father. For her baby’s sake,
she hoped Ron would care. “So what are you asking me? What do you want?”

“There’s only one solution I can think of,” Ron said, opening the flap of his coat and reaching into an inner pocket. “Lana…”
He slid off the couch, the roses falling to his side, all his weight balanced on one knee. “I’ve been thinking about this
a long time. Whether you say yes or not is your choice. But if you want that child to have a real father—a guy who will love
it and do the best he can—I want to be there. For the baby and for you.”

Lana sat still, speechless. She thought of her own mother, of the moment that Calvert had proposed and Ellen said yes. Had
that turning point in their lives been a beautiful moment, one that made them both giddy and thrilled for the future? Or was
it more like this, a complicated mix of relief, pleasure, and—she had to admit—resignation too?

She put a hand over her heart. “Oh, Ron. I knew you were a good person.”

His gaze darted away. “Does this mean you’ll say yes?”

“Is that really what you want?”

“Of course.” He shifted as if it hurt him to stay down on one knee. “But, I mean, I sorta thought you wouldn’t want to…”

She took the ring from his hand, looking at it for a long moment. It was a showy ring, with a large diamond in the center
and braided ropes of white gold. It was nothing like the ring Eli had shown her, the one he promised to slip on her finger
the moment she said the word. That ring was a little tarnished, spartan, and entirely lovely—an authentic way of saying
love
.

She closed the box in her hand, more certain now than ever before. She wasn’t sure what kind of life she could make with Eli—she
hadn’t told him yes before because it had felt too soon, and because she could handle only one major life change at a time.
But now, she knew that when the right time came, she would tell him yes with everything good and joyful within her. She didn’t
know where her dreams of traveling fit in, nor did she know what kind of life she would make for herself with him, but she
knew with perfect clarity that she never wanted to make a life without him. She loved him more than she could stand.

She looked up at Ron, who appeared a bit stricken. She hadn’t realized she’d been smiling. He must have thought she was going
to say yes. “Ron, I do want you to be in our baby’s life. But I don’t think that having a false marriage would be good for
any of us. I like you and I know you like me, but it’s not love.”

He nodded solemnly, distance in his eyes. She knew what it had cost him to come here and ask for her hand. She understood
what he was prepared to sacrifice. His proposal wasn’t one of love; it was a commitment to do right by their child, to put
himself second. In some ways, the proposal took more guts than if he’d thought her the woman of his dreams.

“Oh, Ron.” She smiled gently and leaned to wrap her arms around him. He hugged her back. “Thank you,” she said, resting her
cheek on his shoulder. “I’m so happy you want to be a part of the baby’s life. And mine too.” She let him go after a moment
and then placed the ring back in his hand.

His sigh held a hint of relief. “And what about the baby?”

She tried to keep the concern off her face. Until now, she’d thought of herself as her baby’s sole parent. She made all the
decisions—just her. Now Ron was asking to be a part of the baby’s life. And by extension, her own. How much control was she
obligated to give him? How much would he want? She cleared her throat and spoke as calmly as she could. “Do you… are you going
to want full custody?”

“Not if you don’t want me to have it. I mean, I figured we’d kinda share or something like that. Like maybe I could see him
every other weekend?”

“It might be a her.”

“Maybe.”

She smiled, relieved. The hard part of the conversation was over now; she could see it in the subtle relaxation of his face.
She stood, gesturing for him to do the same. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Don’t you want to see the pictures from the ultrasound?”

“Yeah,” he said. His voice sounded oddly young and shy. “I’ll look at pictures. But just so you know, I don’t want to be,
like, in the delivery room when the baby’s born. If that’s okay. The whole thing sorta freaks me out.”

“You and me both,” she said. She laughed and squeezed his hand as they walked into the next room.

Eli juggled his grocery bags and attempted to pull his wool mitten off with his mouth so that he could unlock Lana’s front
door. But instead of finding it locked, he felt the key slip in and turn too easily. And in the same instant that adrenaline
hit his brain, he heard her voice in the living room, and he saw the shape of her through the white curtain of the window.

She wasn’t alone.

The image was like a punch to the gut: Ron down on one knee. And Lana, smiling at him—beaming, really—and gazing down at the
ring in her hand.

Eli’s body remembered before his brain did, as if his reaction had been stored up in his muscles all this time. He felt as
if it was happening again, the moment of pushing open the door of her dorm room all those years ago. The last decade of mustering
up friendly smiles each time she introduced him to another date. The hope of offering her his grandmother’s ring, and the
knowledge that he might as well have held it out to empty air. Each day of his relationship with her, he’d faced down the
specter of how easily he could lose her. How suddenly she might pull away from him. And that moment had come.

He watched as Lana looked at the man beside her, then embraced him. Eli backed away and almost tumbled down the concrete stairs.
He hugged the grocery bags to his chest, his heart beating hard.

She didn’t want to marry him—the man who was not the father of her child. The message was loud and clear.

There was no point in waiting around. And he wasn’t going to walk into the same losing battle twice. As he headed back to
his car, he let his anger become a hard, icy chill, his heart falling in temperature like the cooling, freezing air. He’d
prepared for this. Expected it. He would not waste a moment replaying the scene in his mind, trying to decipher what he’d
seen or not seen. If he doubted himself, uncertainty would only make the pain worse.

The wind picked up, blowing hard against his whole body, a chill slicing through his jeans. But he didn’t duck his head or
hunch his shoulders. He just stood up straighter, narrowed his tearing eyes, and pushed on.

Common mullein:
A rodlike roadside weed that can grow to five feet, this wild plant has gone by many names but was called
candelaria
by the Romans. The clusters of flowers were dried, soaked in fat, then lit on fire, giving light during the darkest time
of year.

December 3

E
li stood alone in Moe’s cramped living room, the weight of Moe’s cordless phone pressing his hand. He stared hard at the number
pad, its keys that were sticky with what he hoped was soda or beer. His thumb brushed over the number 1, but he did not press
down.

For days, he’d disciplined himself.
Don’t call her, don’t call her
. He’d gone round and round with himself about the logic of staying silent. He’d pummeled his feelings to a pulp, shaking
off self-pity and holding tight to anger and betrayal. He stayed busy, went out with Moe to drink and flirt madly with women,
and at night he never got in bed or closed his eyes until he was utterly spent with exhaustion—to keep his mind from wandering
in those dangerous moments before he fell asleep.

Yesterday, he’d offered to help out at the amateur astronomical society in Vermont. The Geminids meteor shower was only ten
days away, and he’d said he’d be happy to drive out to their mini-convention and give a talk. It was late notice, but since
it was being run by an old colleague, they’d readily agreed to have him. He liked the idea of getting away and being distracted.
The convention was just far enough that he would need to get a hotel room, but not so far that he couldn’t rush back home
if called.

He sighed. There was no dignity in his behavior, in his longing. The spot in his heart that ached for Lana was like the dark,
dense center of a black hole, so heavy it warped the fabric of his whole being, tugging not only at his loneliness, but at
his sense of humor, his interests, his basic human needs. The world, so vibrant and shining two weeks ago, had gone dull.

Part of him wanted to speak to her, to find out the details of what he’d seen—or what he hadn’t seen—that afternoon. But that
was the emotional part of his brain—the untrustworthy and sniveling part of himself that he couldn’t stand. The rational part
of his brain knew that what he saw or what he merely
thought
he saw had the same effect. The instant Lana reached for that unmistakable little box, two things became clear.

First: She hadn’t rejected Ron immediately. Her body language, her posture, the look on her face—nothing he saw suggested
that she was uncomfortable or appalled. That worried him. Even if Ron’s proposal had ultimately been turned down—he had no
way of knowing if it was or wasn’t—Lana’s reaction wasn’t the blatant and outright refusal he’d hoped it would be.

Second: There was the crushing realization that no matter what, Ron would always share something with Lana that Eli did not.
It hurt to think of it—that another man had fathered a child with the woman he loved. When he’d been pursuing Lana, his focus
had been single-minded and driven—nothing could distract him from his goal. And so he hadn’t given a second thought to Ron.
But now it was clear Ron wanted some kind of future with Lana and her baby. And where did Eli fit into that? Was he totally
pathetic to hope that he even fit in at all—he, who had nothing to do with the tightly bound circle of Lana, her baby, and
Ron?

He bounced the weight of the phone in his hand, thinking. He’d let himself start believing that his future with Lana was one
of stability—a quiet family life. He’d even begun to start thinking of her child as
his
, welcoming it with the same warmth and care that he would have if it had been his baby in her womb. But at the end of the
day, facts were facts. The baby was Ron’s, not his. He remembered the way Lana had looked on her birthday, the way Ron had
come out of her bedroom with his open shirt—buttons
she
had opened. It killed him to think of it, then and now. Lana had
liked
Ron. Liked him enough to sleep with him. And if Lana wanted to consider marrying the man who had fathered her child… who
was Eli to confuse things or stand in her way?