Morgan's Child

by Pamela Browning

  "Yes," Kate said. At the sight of the bed, so inviting, she suddenly felt exhausted.

  "Well, the kids and I have had an early supper, and it's almost bath time. I'll bathe them downstairs and put them to bed. I noticed that you didn't bring a suitcase, but I have maternity clothes you can have. I'll bring them up later."

  "Oh, I couldn't—" Kate began, but Joanna waved away her objections.

  "You can keep them. They've seen me through three pregnancies, and Charlie and I won't have any more kids."

  "Thank you," Kate said. The words sounded so inadequate, and she felt so tired. Her eyelids drooped with weariness.

  "I guess that's about it, so I'm off to fill the tub. 'Bye, Kate," and with that Joanna breezed out the door, shutting it gently behind her.

  Kate sank down on the bed. The room was blissfully quiet, and the wide-louvered plantation shutters were closed. She reached out a tentative hand and smoothed the bedspread, which felt soft and cool to the touch.

  She got up, went into the bathroom, plaited her hair into one long braid and tied it with a length of thread ripped from her hem. Then, after removing her dress, she climbed between the silky eyelet-edged sheets.

  She felt the baby flutter gently against the skin of her abdomen and laid a protective hand there until it settled down.

  Oh, baby, Joanna is your aunt. Wouldn't it be nice if—

  Yes, it would be nice. It would also be nice if Kate had never found herself in this predicament in the first place.

  * * *

  Joanna and the children were already in the kitchen the next morning when Kate limped downstairs, her heels smarting from yesterday's new blisters. She was wearing a blue chambray jumper chosen from the pile of clothes that Joanna had left in her room last night while Kate was sleeping.

  "Good morning," Joanna said to Kate as she whisked around the kitchen, opening and closing the refrigerator door, pouring more milk for Christopher, mopping up Melissa's orange juice. The faint sugary smell of Fruit Loops hung in the air, and the children, sitting at a table in the window bay, were dressed in clean cotton play-suits.

  "Bacon? Eggs?" Joanna asked.

  "I can fix my own breakfast." Kate didn't want Joanna to go to any fuss on her account.

  "I've already broken eggs into a bowl for scrambled," Joanna said. "It's no trouble to add a couple more. Maybe you could see to Stoney. He's fretful this morning."

  The baby was bundled into a swing near the dining-room door. The swing was kicking back and forth on its own. Kate used the opportunity to peek into the dining room, where she saw a long sideboard, big gold-framed paintings of horses and highly polished silver things like soup tureens and goblets.

  "What should I do for the baby?" Kate asked.

  "Oh, hold him for a while. I'll feed him in a few minutes," Joanna said confidently as she emptied the eggs into a frying pan.

  Kate approached Stoney. He stared up at her with suspicion. She wondered how old he was. Three months? Six? She had no idea. She knew nothing about babies.

  Gingerly she slid her hands underneath him. He drooped like a beanbag when she lifted him up. His foot caught on the bar of the swing as he came out, and she had to wiggle him to free it. To her surprise, he smiled.

  She smiled back. She couldn't remember ever holding a baby before. There had never been any around when she was growing up, and later, when her friends and classmates had started having children, she'd always managed not to have to touch them. And here she was, jiggling this mindless lump of cute. She thought she had never felt as helpless as she did at this moment.

  "What's your name?" asked Christopher.

  Kate looked around. "Kate," she said.

  "Kate. Okay. Are you going to stay here today? Would you like to see my bug collection?"

  Ah, a man after her own heart. Kate would rather spend time with a bug collection than she would with this baby, who was drooling down the front of her jumper. "I'd love to see your bug collection," she told Christopher. She felt Stoney's diaper. Did it feel slightly damp?

  Stoney began to whimper. Kate jostled him against her shoulder some more, but it didn't help.

  "Here, I know what he wants. Can you handle the eggs?" asked Joanna.

  "Sure," Kate said, gratefully dumping the baby into Joanna's arms. She appropriated the frying pan and stirred. At least she knew how to scramble eggs.

  When she next looked up, she saw Joanna nonchalantly unbuttoning her blouse. The sight riveted her. Yes, she knew that mothers nursed their babies. Yes, she thought it was the proper thing to do. And no, she hadn't ever actually watched anyone do it before.

  Joanna settled into a rocking chair in the corner. Kate locked her eyes on the eggs in the frying pan, too embarrassed to look up again. The other children continued to eat, chattering about childish things.

  When the eggs were done, when Kate couldn't go on scrambling them anymore, she saw that the baby had latched its mouth onto Joanna's right breast and was sucking away, a blissful expression on his face. Kate heard contented little kitten noises coming from deep in the back of his throat.

  "The bacon's on the table," Joanna said. "Go ahead and eat without me. I can warm my eggs in the microwave later." Absently she caressed Stoney's soft hair, and when she stopped, the baby's little fist reached up and curled around one of her fingers. Kate could hardly pull her eyes away from mother and child.

  What did it feel like to nurse a baby? What exactly was the sensation of a tiny mouth tugging insistently at the nipple? How long did they nurse, and how did you know when they'd had their fill? Suppose she wanted to nurse—of course she wouldn't, but supposing she did—would her nipples be big enough?

  Kate ate her eggs, but she didn't taste them. In a while Joanna matter-of-factly switched the baby to her other breast, closing her eyes and rocking gently as his mouth worked at its task. She looked as contented as her baby.

  "When will you have your baby?" Christopher asked Kate.

  "In July," Kate said.

  Joanna's eyes flew open. "Stop asking Kate questions," she ordered.

  "I expect Kate's baby will like bugs. One child in every family should," Christopher said solemnly.

  Joanna laughed. "I'm not so sure about that. I've had about all I can take of those fuzzy caterpillars you plucked off the Davidsons' hedge," she said. She bestowed a quick kiss on the top of Stoney's head. "This little critter has had enough this morning," she said as she buttoned her blouse.

  The baby opened his eyes, then closed them again. Kate felt a tug of—what? Yearning? Considering the way her breasts ached, that was too mild a word. She didn't say anything as she stood up and pushed her chair under the table.

  At that moment a shadow fell across the floor, and she wheeled to see Morgan Rhett standing in the doorway blocking the sun.

  "Good morning," he said, opening the door and leaning inside. He looked Kate over appreciatively as Christopher whooped and tackled him around the knees. "Are you ready, Kate?"

  "I will be in a minute," she said. "I have to get my things."

  "Take your time," Morgan said. "I like visiting with my sister."

  He pulled a chair away from the table and straddled it. Kate, feeling more ungainly than ever, felt her skirt brush his knees as she passed.

  As Kate gathered her things from the guest room, she thought about Morgan and the way he had fit so naturally into the domestic scene downstairs in the kitchen. He seemed very different from the buttoned-down, tight-lipped man she had confronted in his office yesterday. He seemed—well, kind.

  It struck her suddenly that perhaps this bit of kindness and caring was all that she would ever get from Morgan Rhett. After today, depending on what he decided about the baby, she might never see him again.

  Reality pierced through her like a knife. This baby—Courtney and Morgan's baby—deserved a life in a place such as this peaceful house on Tradd Street. It was clearly an existence of privilege and comfort. Christopher and Melissa and Stoney were h
er baby's cousins. Because of who they were, they would have a happy and secure childhood and lives full of promise.

  I want that for you, she said fiercely to the baby. You deserve it, and I'm going to fight for it the best way I know how.

  She glanced in the mirror and was shocked to see how ferocious she looked. That, she supposed, was only natural. In a dispassionate way she thought about animal mothers in the wild and how they fought to the death to protect their young. This might not be her child; it was Morgan's child. But because of the physiological changes that had taken place in her body, she reacted as if it were her child, and in fact, for practical purposes, she was the only mother it had.

  However, she'd have to remember to catch this particular fly with honey. With Morgan Rhett, vinegar would simply not do the job.

  When Kate returned to the kitchen, a deliberately sweet smile unfurled across her face, Morgan paused in his conversation with the group gathered around him. He answered Kate's smile with a slow, lazy grin of his own so that her smile immediately became genuine in response. And in that moment something about the way he looked at her made Kate catch her breath.

  It was ridiculous to take note of it, since she was always short of breath these days. Still, the dust motes suspended in the air between them might have been unspoken thoughts, and the balm of sunshine across Morgan's hair might have been a blessing.

  She forced herself to turn away from him and said polite but sincere thank-yous and goodbyes to Joanna.

  I must be out of my mind, Kate thought to herself as she preceded Morgan out the door. I have no business getting romantically interested in Morgan Rhett.

  It wasn't as if he'd return her interest. To him she was just another problem to solve, another person to be reckoned with, perhaps a deal to be made.

  When he held the car door for her, she swept past him, head held high. There was no reason to look in his eyes. In fact, there was every reason to keep her emotional distance.

  And the main reason was right at this minute turning flips somewhere below her displaced navel, reminding her exactly why she happened to be with Morgan Rhett in the first place.

  Chapter 4

  Morgan hadn't intended to ride the ferry to Yaupon Island with Kate that morning, but when he saw her feet crossing the wooden ramp to the deck, his feet followed of their own accord.

  "I thought you were going back to Charleston." Kate stared up at him from the outside seat where she sat, her hair whipping in the breeze, a package of Joanna's discarded maternity clothes balanced across her knees.

  "I changed my mind," he said, sitting down beside her.

  She looked away toward the island, her eyes squinting slightly in the sun. A group of tourists trooped aboard and filed along the railing to the bow of the ferry, where they stood snapping selfies.

  "Why?" she asked.

  He wasn't accustomed to explaining himself or his actions to anyone. "Curiosity," he replied.

  Her expression reflected mild disbelief. "About the island? Or about me?"

  "I've been to the island before. So it must be about you." The truth was that ever since Kate's precipitous run for the rest room yesterday, he had been in the process of realizing how difficult it must be to be pregnant. He couldn't imagine what kind of woman would volunteer to bear a child for someone else, and he wanted to know if the decision had resulted from strength or weakness. He couldn't say why he wanted to know this, only that at the moment it seemed important.

  A man who wore a scruffy captain's hat limped up the ramp and said sternly to Kate, "I missed you when you didn't come back last night. Waited for you. Almost missed my supper." His voice was gruff but kind.

  "I couldn't get back in time," she said.

  "Next time call and let me know. You have my cell phone number," he said before stumping away.

  "Is he a relative or something?" Morgan asked.

  "Gump? Well, you might say that," she said wryly.

  He waited for her to explain, but she was watching as the man loosened the ferry from its moorings. Who was this guy to her, anyway? Morgan knew that her father was dead, but was this old fellow an uncle? Third cousin twice removed?

  "You know, you don't give much away," Morgan said testily, regretting his tone of voice immediately. After all, he reminded himself, a pregnant woman was not to be handled in the same brusque way as a recalcitrant builder or ineffective apartment manager.

  She focused wide eyes on him. "What does that mean?" she asked.

  "When I ask a question, it might be a good idea to give me a complete answer, especially since you want something."

  Inwardly Kate acknowledged the truth of this, but that didn't stop her from rolling her eyes upward for a moment. She sighed deeply. "Okay. All right. Gump is the father of the man my mother ran off with when I was nine years old. They never got married, so I can't call him my step-grandfather. What would you have said in my position?"

  Morgan was taken aback. In his family, things were done properly. People became engaged, announced their engagement at a large party, and they married six months later in historic St. Philip's Church where all Rhetts married. Rhetts did not have extramarital liaisons. He could not recall any married member of his family "running off" with anyone else within the family's history in this country, which preceded the American Revolution.

  He delivered his answer thoughtfully. "I would have told you straight out. Aside from that, what an awful blow it must have been. For your mother to leave you, I mean."

  The space between the ferry and the dock was widening now, and the boat's motor settled down to a steady thrum. Two other passengers sat down on the narrow bench seat beside Morgan, and he inched toward Kate.

  Kate ignored the length of his thigh pressed against hers. "The day that my mother left was one of the worst days of my life," she said. "Afterward Gump helped us—my father and me. Gump felt awful, you see, because if he'd been a better father, maybe Johnny wouldn't have persuaded my mother to leave Dad and me. Personally I don't think Johnny had that much to do with it. My mother wanted to be free of the island, my father and me. She hated living at the lighthouse."

  "And how about you?"

  "I love the island. And living there. I wish I never had to leave," Kate said quickly. The wind was now blowing her hair off her face, and he admired her strong profile—the squared-off chin, the straight nose, the fine line of her forehead. It was a face of great character—presuming that you could read character in faces, and he'd always thought he could.

  "So it was just you and your father after your mother left?" he asked.

  She nodded. "I lived with a family on the mainland when I was in high school, and after that I went to college in Maine. When Dad got sick, I took care of him so he wouldn't have to go to a nursing home. He loved Yaupon Island and wanted to die there. He got his wish. Why are you so interested, anyway?" she asked. She noticed that one of the women sitting on the other side of Morgan was ogling him, and her breast was flattened against his biceps.

  Morgan decided to take his time about answering Kate's question. The woman next to him leaned closer, so he moved nearer to Kate and slid one arm around the top of her seat.

  "I want to know a lot of things about you," he said. "How you live, why you let Courtney manipulate you into this surrogate mother scheme—"

  "Courtney did not manipulate me."

  "Nevertheless, my ex-wife has a way of getting what she wants," he said with more than a tinge of irony.

  "She said the same thing about you," Kate said, but he only laughed ruefully.

  To their left a fishing boat with bright blue nets suspended from its outriggers bobbed gently on the waters of Tookidoo Sound. The sea air smelled of salt, a scent that Morgan hadn't noticed in all too long. In Charleston he was never far from the harbor, but air-conditioning in his home and office dehumidified and filtered the air so that it lacked—well, substance. Like the women I know, he thought irrelevantly.

  "What are you going t
o do on the island today?" Kate asked in a subdued tone.

  "Follow the other tourists around, I suppose," he said. "I didn't bring a swimsuit, so I can't go swimming. Maybe I'll pick up a few shells on the beach to take to my nephew Christopher."

  Kate had an idea that Morgan wouldn't be lonely for long. The buxom brunette who had pressed up against him looked predatory and not the least bit shy. Kate didn't know how Morgan would feel about the woman's intense scrutiny, but there was no doubt in her mind that he would know how to further the acquaintance.

  The dark blur of vegetation on the horizon rapidly took on discernible features. Yaupon Island was a low-lying mass of tidal marsh bordered by maritime forest on one side and sand dunes on the other. The ferry landing came into sight, a weathered wooden dock below the promontory where Yaupon Light stood sentinel.

  Suddenly Kate knew she wasn't willing to abandon Morgan Rhett to the pleasures of the woman who was even now leaning halfway across his lap to snap pictures.

  "You could come to the house for lunch," Kate said, not looking at him.

  "Is that an invitation?" he asked. He wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly.

  "If you don't mind eating a sandwich," she said.

  He flashed a grin and blocked the brunette with his elbow. "A sandwich sounds great," he said.

  "I mean, it'll only be something out of a can," Kate said.

  "You don't have to apologize. Not after the oyster fiasco," he told her. The ferry approached the landing, and Gump let down the ramp.

  Kate called an offhand goodbye to Gump, under whose challenging gaze Morgan felt less than comfortable, and once off the ferry, Kate led him toward the steepest of the three paths. Over her protest, he relieved her of the package of clothing.

  The path she had chosen climbed past a stand of palmettos toward the lighthouse and was so narrow that they could barely walk two abreast. They heard their fellow passengers clamoring close behind them. Kate walked slowly. It was a hot day, and perspiration slicked her forehead. At a twist in the path, she stopped.