The Marine's Baby, Maybe

by Rogenna Brewer

  March was the snowiest month in Colorado, or so she’d heard. There wasn’t any snow on the ground, although they’d seen some coming over the Rockies.

  “Cold?” Calhoun tucked their hands into his jacket pocket. She hadn’t thought to buy a new maternity coat and was wearing another of his old field jackets, so they were a matching pair. Except his old jacket was much bigger on her.

  “I don’t know which one I like best.” Evelyn was trying to decide between two team spirit shirts when she joined them.

  Caitlin tugged her hand back and into her own pocket.

  Calhoun didn’t seem to notice. Something that had felt so right just a few moments ago no longer felt right.

  “Cait, do you have a preference?” his mother asked. She pointed to the one she liked and his mother ended up giving it to her. “Just in case Lucky brings you to another game. Besides, if you don’t want to wear it in public it makes a good nightshirt.”

  John pulled up and they all piled into the Explorer.

  Keith and his friends were driving themselves. They all met up at a sports bar that catered to families. Calhoun’s parents didn’t ply him with questions; they just accepted him and included her. She really liked that about them.

  Keith dragged Calhoun off to a hoop-shooting contest to see who could win the most tickets. And Evelyn excused herself when her cell phone rang—it was soon clear Aunt Dottie was on the other end. “Yeah, she’s here,” Evelyn said, moving away from the table.

  That left Caitlin and John alone at the table.

  Caitlin happened to glance up at one of several TV monitors tuned to different channels just as a commercial came on. And there, right on screen in front of her, was Big Luke.

  Big Luke wore a cowboy hat and a rawhide jacket with a fringe. “Come on down! For the best wheelin’, dealin’ around! It’s Calhoun Cycles! South of Hampden on Broadway…”

  And then he rode off on his hog, at least that’s what she thought a motorcycle like that was called, into the sunset. It could be a Fat Bob for all she knew. But in those thirty seconds of sound bites—between the zoo animals and the sunset—he’d flashed an image of Luke.

  Her dead husband, Luke.

  In place of a ten-gallon hat he wore a combat helmet. A proud American, flag-waving father with a hand over his heart in tribute to the Navy SEAL son he’d lost in Iraq. He even shed a tear and claimed the uniform on display in his showroom was Luke’s.

  Not unless Nora Jean had given it to him.

  The tear wasn’t all that real, either.

  Big Luke never even mentioned he had two other sons.

  Both had served in Iraq. One had lost a leg and still served in the Marine Corps. Excluding his brothers was no way to honor Luke. She felt sad for all three Calhoun boys and their broken homes.

  “Never mind him,” John said, noticing her distress. “Evelyn gets real irate, too. We usually just change the channel.”

  Calhoun came back with bragging rights and the most tickets. He slid into the booth next to her, looking as happy as she’d ever seen him. She was glad he hadn’t seen the commercial. Why did his father treat him as if he didn’t exist?

  CAITLIN WOKE UP AROUND MIDNIGHT and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Maybe it was being in a different time zone. Maybe it was just the excitement of having a place she could call home.

  They were going to Home Depot tomorrow to pick out paint. Calhoun had recruited his brother and uncle for the actual painting and moving. But in just one or two more days…Calhoun would be on the back of his bike and gone.

  One minute she was picking out paint colors and moving into the place, the next she was thinking about his leaving.

  Her stomach rumbled. Peanut was hungry.

  She went downstairs to forage for cereal.

  Calhoun was lying on the couch watching some old WWII movie on TV. He looked up as she passed through to the kitchen but didn’t say anything. She brought her bowl into the living room, and even though there were plenty of seats, she sat on the end of the couch, making him move his feet.

  “What is it we’re watching?” she asked, between mouthfuls.

  “Sands of Iwo Jima.”

  John Wayne played Sergeant Stryker, a battle-hardened Marine. Not unlike another Marine she knew.

  “A Navy corpsman, and two Marines survived the battle and have a cameo in the movie,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Part of the flag-raising team immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photo by Joe Rosenthal.”

  The Rosenthal picture had become the iconic image for the battle of Iwo Jima, if not the entire war, and was possibly the most reproduced photograph of all time. The Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C., depicted that famous incident in bronze.

  “The flag used to recreate the scene is the actual flag raised on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945. It was on loan to the movie from the U.S. Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia. John Wayne instructs the men to hoist the flag. Just watch, it’s near the end of the movie.”

  She finished her cereal, got up to put the bowl in the dishwasher, and when she came back Calhoun had stretched out his long legs. He moved again when she sat down.

  Grabbing an accent pillow, she lay down on the opposite end. He had no choice but to adjust his position once again so that she had room. They waged their own tug-of-war over the knitted afghan until he gave up. But she wished he hadn’t because now her feet were sticking out.

  “Grenade. Hit the deck.”

  Cait watched as the platoon ran, following Sgt. Stryker’s command, all except for one Marine, who was reading a love letter and had to be tackled to safety by Stryker when the grenade went off.

  “You idiot. When are you gonna wake up? You wanna see that dame again, keep you mind on your work.”

  “You may not know this, boy,” said another character in the movie, “but you just got your life saved.”

  She pushed her cold feet against Calhoun’s T-shirt-covered chest. He took the hint and rubbed the warmth back into them. He continued to massage her feet absently, all the way to the end of the movie. He had no idea how good that felt to a pregnant woman.

  “You didn’t tell me John Wayne gets killed.” She sniffed.

  “That’s what makes him the hero.” His hands slowed on her feet. “Are you crying?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, snuggling deeper into him.

  LUCKY WOKE UP ON THE COUCH with Cait’s feet burrowed under his T-shirt and an erection from all her other parts snuggled against his.

  He extracted himself just as his mother was coming down the stairs. She gave him a disapproving glare, and he felt like he was in high school all over again.

  He followed her into the kitchen in his gray gym shorts and T-shirt. She poured two mugs of coffee from a machine she must’ve had set to a timer.

  “The widow-bride, Lucky.” She tsked as she handed him a mug. “What are you thinking?”

  “It’s not like that,” he said, keeping his voice low to avoid waking Cait.

  She tilted her head to the side. “I always knew you’d find your way home with a pregnant girlfriend,” she said in hushed tones. “But I at least thought the baby would be yours.”

  He couldn’t even defend himself against that one.

  “I’m just the driver,” he whispered. “Then I’m gone again.”

  “Just who do you think you’re kidding?” she whispered back. “I’m your mother! I see the way you two—” She stopped abruptly. “Oh my God,” she said, sinking to a chair at the table. “The baby is yours.”

  Jeez, he couldn’t fool Bruce and he couldn’t fool his mother, even though he hadn’t seen her in years. He had to get while the getting was good or soon the whole town would know his brother’s widow carried his baby.

  “It’s not like that,” he said harshly.

  “You keep saying that,” she accused him. “Then tell me what it is like.”

  “I’m the donor,” he admitted for a
third time.

  “Oh my God! It’s worse than I thought.” She buried her head in her hands. “You mean to tell me Nora Jean has bragging rights to my only grandbaby?”

  “Please keep your voice down,” he begged. “I’m not the father. You’re not the grandmother. And you can’t tell anyone.

  Especially not Dottie.”

  “If you think I’m not going to tell your stepfather—”

  “Don’t call him that,” Lucky growled. “Just because he’s your husband doesn’t make him my father. Step or not, he’s my uncle.”

  “He’s the only father you’ve ever known, and you will treat him with respect while you are in this house.”

  Some things never changed. John was the only father Bruce had ever known. But Lucky had known what it was like to have a real father once.

  “I’m not trying to be disrespectful to John,” he said. “You can’t let Cait know that you know. As far as you’re concerned, Cait’s baby is Luke’s baby. That’s just the way it is.”

  Lucky rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  His coffee mug, all but forgotten during this conversation, was the focus of his attention now. The deep hurt in his mother’s eyes was worse than any accusation.

  A sleep-tousled Cait stepped into the kitchen in her usual, Luke’s T-shirt and pajama bottoms. “Good morning,” she said in a bright voice.

  “Morning,” Calhoun said. Cait couldn’t help but notice he’d left off the good.

  “I’m late for work,” his mother said, getting up from the table and dumping the remains of her coffee in the sink before loading her mug into the dishwasher.

  Cait couldn’t help but notice the woman wouldn’t look at her. She’d embarrassed herself by falling asleep on the couch with Calhoun.

  That wasn’t very good houseguest behavior.

  She’d heard them arguing in hushed tones earlier. It must have been about her.

  The woman probably thought she was trying to seduce her son. Cait put a hand to her stomach. As if she could seduce any man in her condition.

  “Your mother hates me,” she said, after Evelyn had left.

  She worked the dog tags around her neck.

  “My mother doesn’t hate you. She hates me.”

  AFTER BREAKFAST LUCKY BORROWED the keys to his uncle’s old pickup. An hour later, with their cart full of cleaning supplies, they were arguing over paint chips.

  Cait wanted a splash of color in every room.

  “Do you realize how dark that’s going to be on the walls?

  It’s a small house, Cait. It’ll seem even smaller once we move the furniture in.”

  “What about white ceilings and trim, and something neutral like this—” she held up her color choice “—in the living room and kitchen, and a shade darker in the bathroom and two shades darker in the bedroom…”

  Neutral looked suspiciously like pink to him. Or at least in that girly color range. She insisted it was beige even though the paint chips read Flush, Blush and Blushing.

  “What about something like this?” His hand strayed to the range of masculine hues. He picked out a smoky-blue with enough gray to keep it in the neutral zone.

  “Oh,” she said excitedly, “that would be perfect for the baby’s room. Do you remember that blue-and-beige striped wallpaper I stopped to look at? And the teddy bear border? That would complement this color perfectly and the rest of the house.”

  The baby’s room.

  She was glowing in her pastel outfit, picking out her pastel paint. Absolutely radiant.

  She kissed him on the mouth. Right in the middle of Home Depot. Not the kind of kiss that gave him time to stop and think. But a quick thank-you kiss. He supposed to the casual observer they looked like any other pregnant couple, instead of a couple with a secret.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’D JUST BE underfoot?” Cait had asked later that afternoon.

  “Just what I said,” Lucky had argued. “You can’t lift anything. You can’t paint. I have plenty of help, and the whole house is going to be full of fumes….”

  And that had put an end to that argument.

  “You’ve been quiet,” his uncle said. After a few hours of painting they were almost done. They just had the four walls in the living room left. Keith was doing the touch-up work on the trim in the bedroom. “Something on your mind?”

  “Did she tell you to get me to talk about it?”

  She meaning his mother. Lucky poured pink paint into a pan. Thank God he wasn’t the one living here.

  “She may have said something.”

  Of course she had.

  “I’m just sticking around long enough to get Cait settled, then I’m out of here. Can we agree not to talk about it?” Lucky said from the opposite end of the room.

  “We can do that.”

  John dipped his roller and concentrated on the white wall in front of him. His uncle was as much of a non-talker as he was. “Your mom sure likes having you home. She worries about you.”

  It had been too easy to spend those thirty days of military leave he earned each year doing something else, and with each passing year it had become more difficult to come home. The past four years, in and out of Iraq, he hadn’t even had a choice.

  When he’d opted out, he’d had over 120 days of leave on the books. He’d been paid for those four months in cash—almost sixteen thousand dollars.

  That was a nice chunk of change, but it was worth the price—120 days he could have spent with his family.

  “I did all right for myself, didn’t I?” He’d meant the question to be rhetorical. But it sounded as if he was seeking his uncle’s approval.

  “You did all right.”

  He’d hate to think that after fifteen years as a Marine he’d amounted to nothing. But what did he have to show for it now? He was starting over from scratch with nothing.

  Sure, he had a little money in the bank. And an idea of what he wanted to do with it. But he could have stayed in the Corps another five years until retirement and come out with a lot more security.

  Before he’d started getting restless.

  After his third tour. After Bruce and Luke.

  After the chaplain put that bigger question to him, “Did you want to go home, son?”

  Even though he’d said no—gotta be tough like a Marine, right?—deep down the answer had been yes.

  “CAN I COME TO WORK WITH YOU?” Caitlin asked Luke’s mother the next day. Hospitals could always use volunteers, and she needed something to occupy her time while the paint dried and the furniture was moved into her home.

  Evelyn didn’t say much on the way to the VA hospital, or once they arrived. She stuck Caitlin with bedpan duty. Not the most glamorous of jobs. And she saw enough old-man behinds to last a lifetime.

  But it wasn’t the old men in hospital gowns that bothered her. The facility was full of young men and women. Both in-patient and outpatient. Some in uniform. Some in civilian clothes. And, yes, some in hospital gowns or pajamas, reminding her that the number of dead in this war was eclipsed many times over by the number of wounded.

  Here, too, her favorite ward was the amputee ward. In general the patients were young men and liked to flirt, making her feel good about herself. And if you looked them in the eye and didn’t shy away from their injuries, they grew to love you.

  They knew her as a young war widow. She’d been telling someone the story of her late husband’s service and he’d told somebody else. And that person told somebody else. And pretty soon she was their hero. She’d tried to explain that she was nobody’s hero, but they didn’t want to hear it.

  Her favorite patient on the ward was not a young man, but an old and crotchety one. A long-retired Marine. But as he liked to tell her, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” He’d come out of another war in one piece, but now he was fighting a losing battle with diabetes. First his foot. Then his leg.

  “I see the doctor adjusted your insulin, Mr. Hobbs.”

  “You’re not supposed
to read my chart. You’re just a candy striper.”

  “Is there even such a thing as a candy striper anymore?”

  She wasn’t wearing the green hospital scrubs, but she was wearing her own cartoon-character ones. “I thought I mentioned yesterday I was a pharmacist.”

  “You want me to believe a pretty young thing like you is a doctor of pharmacology?”

  “Yes,” she said, fluffing his pillow. Though she should probably be careful about going around and saying that because she wasn’t licensed in this state yet. As soon as she got her license she was going to apply.

  “You got the one too high,” he grumbled and she adjusted the pillows again. “I want to hear some more about that Marine. The brother-in-law.”

  “So you were listening.”

  “Ah.” He blew her off. “They like you better a pregnant widow. I like you better a pregnant widow-bride.”

  “I told you, we’re not getting married.” She should never have confided in him about the baby. But the truth was, she needed to talk to someone.

  She’d loved Luke with her whole heart.

  But sometimes she felt like the biggest pretender in the world when it came to this baby.

  “So you got that boy whipped and he left the Corps.”

  “He didn’t leave the Marine Corps for me. And I certainly could never whip him. And neither could you.”

  “So he’s a big strapping fellow.”

  “He’s big,” she admitted.

  A commotion broke out around them as men began booing and throwing their rolled socks at the TV.

  “We hate that commercial,” Mr. Hobbs said.

  Caitlin looked up in time to see Big Luke riding off into the sunset. “I hate that commercial, too.”

  “So you were saying he’s a big strapping fellow. I retired a master sergeant myself,” Master Sergeant Hobbs said, commanding her attention. “He treat you right?”

  “He treats me right.” Her stomach itched and she scratched it. Even though she shouldn’t because it could cause stretch marks.

  “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

  “A boy.”