It Happened One Night (21 page)

She wondered: What if she didn’t rule out motherhood completely? She wasn’t at all certain that she wanted to keep the baby,
but she was starting to feel that perhaps she’d been too quick to rule it out. Worse women than her became mothers. Since
the moment Karin had leaned down and said hello to the baby inside her, she’d become more and more attached to the infant
each day. When she let her mind wander, she found herself wondering whether it was a boy or a girl, whether it would like
flowers or meteorites or bike rides. She wondered if her baby would have the same wanderlust she had, and she prayed silently
that it would.

She’d yet to settle on adoption one way or another, but she now knew that she wasn’t leaning as far toward giving the baby
up as she once was. She still felt pressured by the future, that maybe she couldn’t truly be a parent. That she didn’t know
how to reconcile motherhood with her dreams. But even if she wasn’t the world’s best mother, maybe she wouldn’t be the worst
either. She needed more time to think it through—to decide what was right for her and the child within her.

Finally, her lecture concluded. Most of her students were repeats from last year and the year before; she knew them by name.
She packed up her cardboard posters, organized her handouts, and headed out the door.

Her father was standing in front of the library, waiting.

Her stomach went sour. “How did you know I was here?”

“Seen it in the paper. You look good. Better than last time.”

She didn’t say thank you. Apparently, Karin’s plan to get Calvert out of town wasn’t working.

“How’s your sister?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“And what about that boyfriend?”

Lana guessed he meant Ron. “I can’t stay and talk…”

“Oh, I know. And I don’t mean to bother you. It’s just, see, I’m in kind of a tough spot right now.”

Lana said nothing.

“You see that car over there?” He tilted his head in the direction of a sleek black sedan, but he didn’t point or look directly.
“For some reason or other, I got the cops following me. I didn’t do nothing wrong—I don’t know why they’re hounding me. But
the landlord wouldn’t let me renew my rent, and now I got nowhere to go.”

“Why are you asking me? Why not Karin?”

“Always seemed like you were a little easier on me than her.”

She took a deep breath, shaking. Maybe she’d been better at hiding her feelings than Karin, but that didn’t mean she liked
Calvert any more than her sister did. “Do you remember that time Karin came to pick me up at the police station, and they
wouldn’t let me out because she wasn’t my legal guardian?”

He nodded. “You and your friends put those photocopies of the mayor’s face all over those trees they were gonna ax. Hell of
a thing to get arrested for.”

Lana fumed at his good-natured nostalgia. He remembered the incident as a charming anecdote of a wayward daughter. But
he
hadn’t spent the night in jail. “The cops called you to come get me, but you were nowhere to be found,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t that terrible. There was food, a nice cop, and a space heater. But do you know what Karin did that night? Do you
even know?”

Cal shoved his hands into his front pockets.

“Karin never came home that night either. She sat in the car, in the parking lot of the police station all night in the freezing
cold with a broken heater. She would have stayed in the cell with me if they’d let her.”

“I didn’t come here to talk about Karin.”

“Tough!” Lana said, seething now. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this angry. “You have to hear this. You were
terrible to her. Do you even know? It took her years before she ever even thought about giving her heart to someone because
of what you made her think love was. If she wasn’t such a strong person, you could have ruined her life.”

“Her life, Lana?
Just
hers?”

“You should never have had kids if you couldn’t commit to them,” she said. Tears came to her eyes now, real tears that she
wouldn’t be able to control. She had to turn away.

“We’re going to have to talk,” he said. “Let’s head over to your place. Have some nonalcoholic beer.”

She let her canvas bag fall away from her chest, so it hung by her side. “I’ll never sleep under the same roof as you again,”
she said. Then she walked away.

She drove only half a block before she pulled over under the thick red plume of a Japanese maple. Her breath came in starts
and stops.

She dialed Karin’s phone number, but when the answering machine picked up, she had no idea what to say. She put together some
words that she hoped were sentences. She wanted something more from the answering machine, something to make her feel better.
But it offered nothing. She and Karin would talk later on.

For a moment, when she’d looked into Calvert’s face, it wasn’t the face of a shabby and useless old man—it was
her
face that she saw. Her eyes, her nose. She could see herself looking out from behind his pupils.

Karin had inherited Ellen’s strength, her fortitude, drive, and gumption. But Lana had been cursed with her father’s propensity
to flee, to run. She didn’t love that about herself, but over the years she’d come to accept it. Part of her understood him—understood
his need to not be tied down. As an adult she’d tried to regard his neglect with forgiveness and kindness because she saw
part of herself in him.

But now the thought of sharing DNA with her father made her want to scratch off her own skin. What on earth made her think
that because she had fond feelings for her child now, she wouldn’t one day resent it for crushing her dreams? What if she
turned out to be the same kind of parent he’d been?

Her heart split open. She put her head on the steering wheel and cried. Her decision to give the baby up for adoption had
been a knee-jerk reaction—a choice made in self-defense. But deep down, she realized she hadn’t let herself think too much
about the decision because she didn’t
want
to put the baby up for adoption. And as time had gone by, she’d let her guard down, toying with the idea that she could keep
the baby for her own.

But now that Calvert had appeared today—and asked to move in with her, no less!—she had no choice but to look truth in the
eye. There was a very real possibility that she would not be a good mother. And so she had to do the right thing. No more
would she flirt with the idea of keeping the baby. She had to put her child’s future first. And that meant giving the child
to someone who would be a better mother… to Karin.

Outside the car, the wind whipped against the low gray clouds, and a shower of leaves and paper cups went sailing across the
road. Lana took a deep breath, then another. She could get through this. She had to. The baby did a slow and leisurely roll
in her belly, but she didn’t let herself think of it as
hers
.

September 17

For over a week Karin had been trying to figure out how to tell Gene the news—not that Lana was pregnant; she’d told him about
that as soon as she could. She was looking for the perfect way to give him the
other
news, the more important news. It would take patience and care to catch him when he was in just the right mood, at just the
right time. She hoped tonight would be the night.

They were sitting on the back deck of their little house, listening to the red-winged blackbirds crying shrilly in the marshes
at the bottom of the hill. Gene was drinking a tall glass of iced tea, a bag of pretzels on the plastic table beside him.
He was in a good mood. He’d just learned that a big client he’d previously worked with had requested him, specifically, again.
His smile was big and his color was high.

To warm him up to the subject she had in mind, she talked about going shopping for maternity clothes with Lana. Over the last
few days, she and Lana had been spending a lot of time together, doing research, shopping, talking about everything Lana would
need to know to give birth. The subject of adoption didn’t come up, though Karin was sure it would soon.

“You know,” she said as calmly as she could, “Lana says she might put the baby up for adoption.”

Gene looked surprised. “Why?”

Karin shrugged. “She doesn’t want kids.”

“I can’t imagine anything harder for a woman than giving up her own child.”

“If a woman doesn’t want kids, she doesn’t want kids,” Karin said, irritated. She reached for a pretzel from the bag and snapped
it between her teeth. “I think it’s great that Lana’s being real about this. I mean, she can barely take care of herself,
let alone a baby. But the idea of giving the child to strangers… it just seems a little, I don’t know,
wrong
.”

Gene crossed his arms. “Karin…”

“I mean, that baby is going to be her flesh and blood. And
our
family. It just doesn’t make sense to send it off to a stranger when… when…” She felt her throat constrict. “When there’s
so much need and love for a baby right here.”

“We already discussed this,” Gene said gently. “If God wanted us to have a baby, we’d have one. We want a baby that’s our
baby. Our own.”

“But that was before we knew
Lana
got pregnant.” She looked at her husband a moment, then made the decision to crawl into his lap. He opened his arms and she
lay against him, settling her cheek on his chest. He smelled like laundry and sweet tea. “What if this is what God wants for
us? What if the reason we haven’t been able to have a baby is because we’re supposed to help Lana? Doesn’t it all make perfect
sense?”

Gene rubbed her back. “Are you
sure
Lana doesn’t want to keep the baby?”

“That’s what she told me.”

“Are you really sure? Has she gone to an adoption agency?”

“Well… not that I know of.”

“Has she hired a lawyer?”

“She’s going to—”

“Has she done any research? Any at all?”

“I don’t know. But she told me she’s
thinking
of adoption. And Gene—who would be better parents to Lana’s baby than you and me?”

Gene breathed in deeply and cuddled her closer. “I need you to listen to me, okay, sweetheart? You have to promise me you
won’t ask Lana if we can adopt her baby.”

Karin lifted her head to look at him. “Why not?”

“Because it’s
Lana’s
baby. And it has to be Lana’s decision. We can’t go putting ideas into her head or putting more pressure on her than there
is already.”

“But Gene—”

“It’s Lana’s pregnancy, honey. Not ours.”

Karin rested the point of her chin on his chest. Why couldn’t he see how much sense it made? She saw that she wouldn’t get
anywhere with this campaign tonight. She decided to let it go—for now. She laid her head back down. “You should at least think
about it. Search your heart. See if it feels like caring for and loving Lana’s baby would be the right thing.”

“I don’t know…”

“Just promise you’ll think about it.”

“Fine. But you have to promise me you won’t bring it up with her.”

“I won’t,” she said.

“Do you promise?”

She snorted. “I
promise
.” She relaxed more deeply against his wide chest. She was never one to go back on her word. But if Lana didn’t reach the
obvious conclusion, Karin wasn’t above a few well-placed hints.

She felt Gene sigh beneath her, and her body sank with his breath. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said.

September 23

Eli took Lana’s arm as they left the foyer of the country club and followed the rest of the wedding guests into the huge,
elegant hall. The bride and groom—old friends from college—were off somewhere getting pictures taken. During the service,
they’d seemed so happy, so genuinely in love that their smiles bordered on triumphant. At the moment, Eli was feeling more
than a little triumphant too.

He wore his best navy suit, which also happened to be his only navy suit, and a crisp white shirt. He looked good, he knew.
But he was no match for the woman at his side. In a draping, cabernet-colored cocktail dress, Lana was more than beautiful.
She was statuesque. Her hair was pulled up into a smooth, high bun, so her neck—her long, beautiful neck—was entirely exposed.
A simple silver chain lay against her skin, glittering where her collarbones met. It was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

“Don’t be nervous,” he said. He leaned toward her and stole a breath of the perfume behind her ear. “You look gorgeous.”

“I look like a whale.”

“You look breathtaking. The sexiest woman in the room,” he said. And he meant it. The way her dress was gathered, her figure
was beautiful, lithe and long. But there was no hiding her belly anymore. When he looked at her, he felt an odd pang in his
heart—a longing. Sex was part of it, he knew. But what he wanted couldn’t be summed up so neatly. Her belly didn’t appall
him—it fascinated him as every part of her fascinated him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, not simply because she looked
dazzling in her low-cut dress, but because he was held rapt by her changing reactions to him.

He moved his hand from her arm to her back. His palm connected with her naked skin. A flicker of surprise lit her face, but
he pretended not to see.
Patience
, he told himself. They’d been “just friends” for so long that even if he moved with excruciating slowness, it would feel
like moving fast to her.

“What’s got into you?” she asked, laughing nervously.

He kept his mouth shut.

They walked together into the center of the main hall, with its marble floors and high white ceilings. Wedding guests were
chatting and hunting for their seats among fresh flowers and satin-covered chairs. He linked her arm more securely with his
and his forearm pressed against her ribs.

It had surprised him, actually—how receptive she was to casual touching after they’d starved themselves of it for so long.
Certainly she’d seemed a little skittish and timid when he took her coat from her shoulders or brushed an eyelash from her
cheek. But overall, he’d met with less resistance than he would have thought. She didn’t glare, or swear at him, or tell him
to knock it off. And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how he’d held back for so long.