Child of Mine (23 page)

Kelly hadn't even considered that.

Jack arrived home to find Laura on the back porch, sitting on the swing, lost in the pages of a book.

“Sorry,” he said, referring to his tardy return.

“No problem,” she said, placing the book beside her.

Jack asked if Nattie was still around.

“She's at Katelyn's,” Laura said. “I didn't want to leave until she got back. Late flight?”

“Later than usual,” he said, reluctant to admit that he'd spent
the last two hours at a coffee shop with a strange woman. Despite his odd attraction to Kelly, and in spite of what he'd said—
“I'd
like to see you again,”
he was already leaning against pursuing her.

She seemed a little
too
mysterious. And besides, he'd already been down this road before. He couldn't risk losing Laura, and he'd all but promised Nattie. She was doing so well he couldn't bear to threaten her recent settled behavior.

“Well, I should be going,” Laura said, grabbing her shawl. “It's cooler tonight, ain't?”

“What?” Jack said, lost in his strange reverie.

Laura repeated her statement, and he agreed, walking her to the door. She wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and removed her keys from her bag.

They stood there for a moment longer, and she seemed to be studying him, noting his distraction, and for a moment he thought she might say something like
“You seem different,”
but she didn't.

“G'night,” she said instead, giving Jack a quick wave before heading to her car.

Nattie came home minutes later, finding Jack in his office, and she wasn't happy. “What happened to you?”

Jack turned in his chair and was treated to the sight of his fire-eyed girl. “Lost track of time.”

Nattie crossed her arms. “You
never
lose track of time. And besides, you never let me use that excuse. ”

She was right. “Sorry, honey.” Jack leaned back casually, clasping his hands on his stomach, calculating exactly how much he could risk telling her, but before he could answer her, Nattie deciphered his hesitation, her face growing cloudy. “You were with that woman, weren't you?”

That woman?
“Excuse me?”

Nattie frowned. “Did Laura take that box?”

“What box?”

Nattie explained that she'd made Laura a special clay sculpture and put it in a box. Jack remembered seeing it on the counter
when Laura had left, and Nattie rushed around the corner to see, coming back disappointed.

“She just forgot, honey,” Jack said. “She'll be back tomorrow.”

“So . . . tell me about her,” Nattie said with a worried look.

“Tell you about
who
?”

“Auntie San called tonight,” Nattie said. “I told her you were late, and she said you were probably with someone named Kelly.”

Jack struggled to hide his frustration with San. Just his luck, she'd remembered the name from their phone call.

“Why are you trying to keep it secret?”

“It's not a secret.”

“So you
were
with her.”

“Nattie—”

“What does she look like?”

Jack stood up and gestured toward her room. “You need to get ready for bed, young lady.”

“You went on another date without telling me? After you said you wouldn't?”

“Nattie—”

“I thought you and Laura were dating now. You're always together on the swing. She bought you that . . . that . . . signature thing.”

“Laura is
Amish,
Nattie. And she'll always be Amish.”

Nattie frowned. “She'll leave if you marry someone else.”

“I'm
not
marrying anyone else.” Jack felt his own voice rising, his frustration pushed to the breaking point.

Nattie burst into tears. She clumsily wiped at her face and stared at him.

“Honey . . .” Jack knelt in front of her, hands on her shoulders, and she sniffed loudly.

“I'm thirsty,” she muttered. “I played too hard.”

“I'll get you a glass of water.” Jack kissed the top of her head and headed out to the kitchen. Just before turning on the light, he glanced toward the entryway, and there Laura was, holding
Nattie's box. Laura had come back for it after all, and the look in her tortured eyes broke his heart.

Laura gestured with the box. “I figured I'd just slip in quietly.”

He could have swept the obvious under the rug, pretended she hadn't heard, but they all knew how well sound carried in this open monstrosity.

“Can we talk—”

“I shouldn't have walked in.” Laura tucked the box under her right arm. “Please forgive me.”

“Laura, don't go—”

She practically fled. Jack turned to see Nattie still standing in the doorway to his office, her own face a mixture of horror and misery.

“Nattie . . .” he started. He went to her and grabbed her, holding her close. She sobbed into his shoulder.

What have I done?

A
fter Laura had rushed out the door, Nattie wept in Jack's arms. They sat huddled together on the couch as Jack tried to reassure her. “She's not going anywhere, honey.”

“You don't know her like I do.”

Eventually, Nattie seemed to calm a bit. He suggested a movie, something to get her mind off it, but she gave him a beseeching look. “Call her,” she begged.

“Honey . . .”

“She's crying. I know she is.”

So he dialed, but Laura didn't pick up.

They prayed together,
Jesus,
please soothe Laura's feelings. Help her know how much
we love her.

But Nattie didn't hand him a furry friend for the night. Later that evening, around eleven, he went to Nattie's room, hoping to see her asleep. She was lying awake, staring at the ceiling, brooding and fuming. “I thought you liked her.”

Jack planted a kiss on her forehead and settled into a chair in the corner of her bedroom, letting her fret out loud—and fret
she did, for another half hour, until she finally fell asleep. Jack did his own brooding in the form of distracted prayer, watching the minutes whisk past midnight. “I could use a little advice,” he whispered. “Actually, I wouldn't mind an outright miracle, but in lieu of that, how about a nudge in the right direction?”

He felt guilty, of course, as if he'd been caught cheating. As if he'd broken his promise to Nattie, and really . . . hadn't he?

And just exactly where did he and Laura stand? On his birthday, he would have said they were almost a couple. Laura had gone fancy, even giving him that extraordinary gift. But over the following days, everything had begun to crumble. She'd received the letter and had told him the story of her shunning, and of Jonathan. And then, when San had come for a visit, Laura had told San she wouldn't stand in his way.

He cringed at the memory.
And now this
. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

I have to fix it
, he realized.

Finally creeping out of Nattie's bedroom and into his own, he considered his only option. When Laura came in tomorrow, he had to tell her Kelly Maines meant nothing to him, that it was simply a coffee break.

Wasn't
it?
He slid beneath the bedspread, laced hands behind his head, and stared into the giant white inkblot of his ceiling.

Frankly, he wasn't so sure it
was
just a simple coffee break. He and this woman had made some kind of connection, hadn't they? Had she felt it, too?

Something about Kelly seemed familiar, as if he'd known her for years, and not just a few hours. And wasn't
that
a cliché!

A shudder of guilt knocked on the door to his fantasy world. It was now one-thirty in the morning, and Laura had to be at home, crying her eyes out, afraid she was about to lose her place in their lives, and here he lay, imagining Kelly's face over and over, like a love-struck teenager.

Even so, he had to keep his priorities straight. He had to make
sure their nanny didn't quit, because Nattie would never recover from it. He wasn't sure he would, either.

The next morning, Jack woke up groggy from his toss-and-turn night. He heard sounds from the kitchen: organized, methodical, gentle, un-Nattie-like. Laura was there already, and it came to him in a flash, everything that had happened yesterday. He lay there, ruminating, until he heard Nattie join her, followed by Nattie's chattering, as if she hadn't sulked herself to sleep.

Jack had a midmorning flight. Considering his tight schedule, he wouldn't be able to address last night's misunderstanding until later. He showered quickly, pulled on khakis and a short-sleeved button-down shirt, and headed downstairs. He could hear the thumping of the dryer—Laura had already put in a load.

She greeted him with a smile, and for a moment he allowed himself to hope. He sat at the bar, and Nattie barely acknowledged him until Laura turned her back, at which point Nattie turned to him, her eyes imploring:
“Do something
, Dad.”

He shrugged and mouthed,
“Later.”

Nattie shook her head and spooned up another sugary miniwheat. There was no fruit on her plate, one of the house rules when eating nutritionally challenged boxed cereal.

But he wisely let it go.

When he got home after work, Laura had already taken Nattie to the park. He decided to leave them be, waiting for a more private opportunity to talk when Laura returned.

Late in the afternoon, Jack was fiddling around in his office when he heard the front door open and shut, and then
nothing
—no whispers, no giggles
.
Highly irregular. Nattie did little without fostering a small cacophony of noise. Jack felt a sinking feeling. Moments later, he heard a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” he called, turning to face the door, expecting the worst.

Nattie stood there, her face sullen, her eyes red. “I was right.”

Before he could respond, Nattie ran upstairs. He got up to follow, only to come face-to-face with Laura, who was standing with her hand on the counter, her eyes as red as Nattie's. “I wanted to tell Natalie first,” she said, staring at him uneasily yet moving closer.

“Can we talk about this?”

Laura was already gesturing toward the backyard.
She's planned this
was his next thought. He glanced upstairs as he followed Laura out, saw Nattie gripping the banister, looking down at him with hopeful eyes.

Outside, Laura wandered past the swing without sitting, facing the trees on the forest-lined side of their house. Jack shut the door, letting the screen door creep slowly closed, wanting to delay the inevitable. He didn't sit, either, taking his position on the other side.

Turning around, Laura pursed her lips, her movements gentle and soft, her eyes apologetic. “Jack . . . Natalie and I had a long talk . . . and she's going to be fine with this.”

Jack stood there, waiting for Laura to confirm what exactly
“fine with this”
meant. But he already knew, didn't he?

“I'm standing in your way, Jack.”

Jack observed the seriousness of her expression. Rarely had she looked so determined.

“And Nattie really doesn't need a nanny anymore,” she continued. “Once school starts in September, Diane can watch Nattie after school. She's already said so, even mentioned that Livy could help—she'd love to earn a little pocket money. It would be good for Livy, having the responsibility . . .”

Laura's voice trailed off, and Jack had this surreal sense, as if he were falling out of a tree but hitting the ground was taking forever. “I don't understand. I had coffee with someone . . . a new client, really. A woman I likely won't see again. And now . . . you're quitting?”

Laura swallowed hard, and tears began to form in her eyes. She wiped them with her sleeve, then her hand, finally pulling a crumpled tissue out of her apron pocket. “This has been a long time coming, Jack. And besides, you should be able to have coffee with whomever you wish.”

He was confused. “But that's why you're leaving, isn't it?”

She stared at the sky, leaving the question unanswered. “It's not like we're dating, you know.”

He winced at her reply.
Yes, it is.
“Are you going home? Is that it?”

Laura shook her head, still unable to meet his eyes. “No. I told you. That's closed to me forever.”

He went for broke. “What aren't you telling me, Laura?”

She flinched, meeting his eyes suddenly, boring a hole, then looking away when he refused to look away first.

There is something,
he realized.
She's hiding something.

“You've always told us the truth, Laura.”

She wiped her eyes again. “
Jah
, I've never told you a lie.”

He paused a moment.
Not the same thing.

“San is right, Jack. As long as I'm here, you'll never find a mommy for Nattie.”

“We aren't shopping for a mommy. We want
you.
”

Laura wiped at her eyes furiously. She moved toward him, but he knew she intended to pass. He was tempted to grab her,
should
have grabbed her, but he didn't.

She placed her hand on the knob, turning back, and the tears were now streaking down her face. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to envelop her in his arms and soothe away the pain they both felt.

But the wall remained, that unyielding Amish wall that separated their cultures, keeping them apart.

In spite of this, he took a step toward her, but she leaned back, her eyes warning,
Please don't
.
“We've underestimated Nattie, Jack. She's more resilient than you think. She'll be fine,” Laura said, as if saying it made it true. “I'll give you two weeks, and then
we'll schedule times together all the way into the fall,
jah
? I love your daughter, and that'll never change. I won't just disappear, Jack.”

She slipped through the door and did just that.

———

Jack collapsed in the swing, taking a moment to compose himself, then went upstairs to find Nattie hugging Bear Bear with all her might. He settled on the side of her bed.

“What happened?”

“Laura's not moving away, honey.”

She stared at him, disbelieving, fresh tears beginning.

He hugged her close, doing his best to console her, and after the initial thunderstorm, Nattie recovered enough to relate the conversation on the park bench, where Laura had hugged the stuffing out of Nattie and given her a kid-version of what she'd told Jack.

“What are we going to do?” Nattie asked.

He kissed her cheek. “We're going to pray about it, and we're going to get through this together.”

She nodded, sniffed again, but said nothing. She curled on her side and sighed heavily. She closed her eyes, and he stroked her back until she fell asleep, exhausted from her rough night and today's emotional firestorm.

Back in his office, he picked up the phone and dialed Laura's cell number. No answer. He dialed again, and this time left a message: “I'd like to talk about this further.”

He hung up, his spirits sinking, feeling suddenly lonely, and thought of Kelly. He'd spent a mere few hours with this woman, was about to lose his daughter's nanny, and already he was toying with the idea of hearing Kelly's voice again.
What is the matter with me?

He turned his fractured attention to something inert, like reconciling his bank account. He turned on the Internet radio, something folk or even country, or . . . whatever.

But try as he might, he couldn't drop the notion.
This is really dumb,
he thought, pulling out a piece of scrap paper with her
number scribbled on it, copied from the paper work filed at the office. Before he could change his mind, he punched the numbers on his phone. It rang five times and went to her automated service.