Nowhere, Carolina

by Tamara Leigh

  “I picked up some nice pieces.”

  He starts to rise but leans down again and picks up something from the floor. “The Father Quotient?”

  “No!” I lurch upright, coming chest to chest with him, and throw out a hand to snatch it away.

  He turns his back to me. “What is this?”

  “It’s not yours.” I reach around him. “Give it to me.” Oh, Lord, please don’t let him see his name—

  “My name’s on here.”

  What is he, a speed-reader? Regardless, what if he thinks the spreadsheet is mine and that I put his name on it? That kiss may not have just been a kiss to him, but I doubt he was thinking far enough ahead to fatherhood. I strain to wrest it from him, and my chest contacts with his arm.

  For goodness’ sake, you’re practically on top of him!

  Face warm, I move to the side and thrust out a hand. “That’s my daughter’s private—”

  His chin comes around, the intensity of his eyes arresting my tongue. “This is Devyn’s?”

  “Yes.”

  His lids narrow. “What are you doing with it?”

  All I wanted was to breathe. “My mother found it in Devyn’s closet and thought I should know how desperate my daughter is for a father.” The spoken words do terrible things to my insides, especially those places between my heart and my head. “I knew about it, but I didn’t know she had added your name. And for that, I’m sorry.” I push my hand nearer. “May I please have it so I can put it back before she suffers the humiliation of knowing her privacy has been pried open?”

  There’s no mistaking the chagrin in his eyes. “I apologize.” He hands me the spreadsheet.

  Other than a creased corner, it looks fine.

  “Is that why you didn’t want me talking to her?” Reece asks. “Afraid she might add me to her list?”

  I couldn’t be more grateful that Devyn is older than she appears. I compose my face. “She’s determined. You wouldn’t believe the amount of research she digs up about the importance of a father in a girl’s life.”

  He considers me, but just when I think he’s going to press further about my reason for not wanting him to talk to Devyn, he pulls the toothpick from his mouth. “Are you going to give her one?”

  I dig into my bag of smiles. “Absolutely. We’re heading over to the daddy dealership this weekend to test drive the latest models and choose our options. There’s bound to be haggling over price and financing, but I’m confident we’ll walk out with my perfect counterpart.”

  His mouth twitches. “I asked for that.”

  I almost sigh at having successfully turned the mood. “Um-hmm.”

  He glances at the spreadsheet. “Again, I apologize for sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong. Devyn is a bright, sweet girl, and I’m flattered she considered me worthy of a place on her list.”

  Though nothing can come of it. Five or so months from now, Reece will be gone again. “So, has my uncle decided on a design?”

  His face relaxes. “He has.”

  “Great. What—?” I roll my eyes. “It’s hush-hush, I suppose?”

  “Under wraps for the time being.” He checks his watch. “And the longer I stand here talking, the longer that will be.”

  Fine with me. “I’ll see you later then.”

  He raises his left hand to reveal a white rag wrapped around his palm. How did I not notice that?

  “I cut myself working on the sculpture’s armature.”

  Armature?

  “Do you have a first-aid kit?”

  That’s why he ventured out of his studio. “In my office.” I motion toward the projection room overhead.

  “Lead the way.” He steps into the aisle, and I scoot out of the row and head for the stairs. Shortly, we enter my office, and I flip the light switch.

  “This is a good use for the room,” Reece says from the doorway.

  “I like it, though it’s somewhat cramped.” I lay Devyn’s list on my desk, crouch, and pull the first-aid box from a bottom drawer. “Here you are.” I set it on the desk.

  As he crosses to where I stand, I sidestep. I should offer to help, but it’s better that I keep my distance. And I mean to until he begins unwinding the makeshift bandage and I see red. My heart beats faster. A splotch of red staining stark white material. My breath turns shallow. More than enough red. My mouth goes dry. DNA red. My pores prick with perspiration. Blood—

  Ah! Stumbling back into my wheeled chair, I slam my hands to the arms to keep from falling into it. What is wrong with me? Next, I’ll be drooling like a B-movie vampire!

  “Don’t like the sight of blood, hmm?”

  I look wide eyed at Reece, who is peering over his shoulder. Calling on every graceful cell in my body, I straighten from the chair. “Er, I’m just a little on edge.” Ooh! Don’t want him to think he’s the one who put me there. “You know, what with the drive from Charlotte and the black ice.” The little there was of it.

  He drops the rag to my desk, and as he opens the first-aid box, I stare at the baggie-bound DNA sample. I’ve sent off Gary’s DNA, and chances are the results will come back positive, but if not—

  “Sorry.” Reece sweeps up the rag, and I realize he saw me staring at it with what he probably thinks is horror. He stuffs it in his pant pocket. So close…

  Feeling a bit faint, I lower to my chair as he goes to work with an antiseptic wipe.

  “Nice picture,” Reece says.

  “What?” I follow his gaze to the mouse pad I haven’t used since I purchased a computer with a built-in mouse a year ago. I would have tossed the pad if it didn’t feature a picture of Devyn at her first double-digit birthday. And so it still sits on my desk, a gift from Skippy that shows the two of us smiling over my daughter’s shoulder as she blows out the candles on her cake.

  “Her tenth birthday,” he says.

  He counted the candles.

  “She looks younger than ten there.” The used antiseptic pad joins the rag in his pocket. “In fact, quite a bit younger than she looks now.”

  Of course she does. The picture was taken almost three years—Oh! He thinks she’s eleven now. That raises the question of how she could have changed so much in a year.

  I jump up. “That’s hard to do with one hand.” I wedge myself between the desk and him, ignore his frown, and take the bandage from him. As I rip open the wrapper, I glance at the cut at the center of his palm. “Are you sure you don’t need stitches?”

  “I’m sure. How old is Devyn?”

  Oh, Lord. “Do you have any kids?” I bend my head to the attention-intensive task of removing the bandage’s adhesive tabs.

  After a long moment, which reminds me of his reluctance to discuss his brother on the night he kissed me, he says, “No.”

  “I don’t see tan lines on your ring finger, so I assume if you’re divorced, it isn’t recent.”

  “I’ve never been married.” His gaze shifts to my mouth.

  Is he remembering that kiss like I’m not remembering it? I pull his hand closer. The skin beneath my fingers is thicker and rougher than when his hands were those of a teenager—

  Get on with it!

  I press the bandage into place and release him. “You’ll live.”

  “Thank you.”

  I close the first-aid box. “I should get going.”

  “Put Devyn’s list back where it belongs, hmm?”

  “Definitely.” I grab The Father Quotient. “Have a nice evening.” I follow him into the corridor.

  He looks at me as I draw alongside. “I leave tomorrow for Knoxville, back on Sunday.”

  I forgot about his business trip. And Yule’s offer to get together with him. Ah! Is that jealousy? Oh no, you don’t. Oh yes, I do, though I wish I didn’t. However, beyond jealousy lies something more potent—worry. Yule is a talker, and should the subject of her former tormentor arise, it could lead to Devyn and fill in the missing pieces I’ve been withholding from Reece. Unlike the other two candidat
es for fatherhood, I don’t believe he would be entirely blind to the possibility he’s a father. Thus, if his suspicions are to be raised, and it’s foolish to believe they won’t be considering how long he’ll be in Pickwick, I need to have a conclusive answer for him. I need to know the truth. I need to make a phone call.

  As we descend the stairs, I look sidelong at Reece. “I hope you have a nice trip.”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  At the bottom of the steps, he goes his way toward his studio and I go mine.

  Silence.

  More silence. I probably shouldn’t have spilled on everything, but once the ball got rolling, it came out as if the woman on the other end of the line were a giver of absolution. “Yule?”

  She draws a noisy breath. “I’m here.”

  “All I’m asking is that you steer Reece away from any discussion about Devyn—her age and that I was carrying her through my senior year.”

  “You really don’t know which one is her father?”

  “I don’t, but I should have Gary’s DNA results in the next two weeks, and I’m pretty sure he’s the one. But until then…”

  “Gracious, Maggie, you’ve got yourself in a real pickle.”

  A common affliction of the Pickwicks. “Especially with the pressure Devyn is putting on me to give her a father and the kids at school taunting her, telling her I don’t know who her father is. And it being true.”

  “Um-hmm. I know all about those mean girls.”

  I close my eyes and silently give her permission to say something about the sins of the parent being visited on the child. “I know you know, and no doubt see the irony.”

  “It is a good sight bigger than a toe stubber.”

  Here is the opening I should have made years ago. “Yule, I’m sorry about the way I treated you in school.” Not long ago, I apologized to Piper for the same thing, and that was the water on the seed of our relationship. “And I’m especially sorry that I never asked for your forgiveness. That I just…took it.”

  Once more, there is silence, and its weight nearly presses me to my knees there inside Devyn’s closet where I returned The Father Quotient to its secret place.

  Lord, please let Yule feel how truly sorry I am, and not because I want something from her. Yes, I’ve asked her to keep quiet about Devyn, but if she doesn’t go along with me, that doesn’t change my regret over the pain I caused.

  “Well, now,” Yule finally says, “forgiveness isn’t something you can take unless it’s given. And much as I hate to admit it, the other night when I was hoggin’ Reece and happy to let you stand on the sidelines, I realized I hadn’t forgiven you like I told myself I’d done when I realized you cared for my mama and weren’t just usin’ her. So thank you for that, Maggie. I shouldn’t have been waitin’ for an apology all these years, but I guess I was.”

  Thank You, Lord. “Thank you, Yule.”

  “Um-hmm.” She gasps. “Well, shoot! If it turns out Reece is Devyn’s daddy, I reckon I’ll have to find myself a different fishin’ hole.”

  I can’t help the pang of jealousy, but I can correct it. “I’m not asking you to do that. I’d just like you to steer clear of talk about Devyn and my pregnancy. If Reece is her father, that doesn’t mean there’s a future for us beyond one built on obligation, and that’s not what I want for my daughter. So…” Deep breath. “…bait your hook and fish away.”

  “Hmm.”

  In spite of my little speech, I wish that didn’t sound so noncommittal.

  “You know,” Yule says, “I’ll bet Mama advised you to be straight with Reece instead of sneakin’ around stealin’ DNA from all your candidates.”

  All. Amazing that a three-letter word should sound so numerous. Of course, considering the context, it is. There never should have been any question as to who fathered my baby. And had I not valued my body so little, there shouldn’t have been a baby at all. There goes God again, turning the bad into the beautiful by giving me Devyn. “Yes, your mother did advise that.”

  “And you won’t listen to me any more than you listened to her?”

  I swallow. “It’s too late.”

  “I don’t believe that, and since you and I might be friends some day, now that we got that apology out of the way, I’m gonna call you on this one. You’re ashamed to admit to Reece that you don’t know who fathered Devyn.”

  Called and answered. “Yes, especially since when he confronted me on the rumor that Gary and I had…you know…I lied.”

  “That was over thirteen years ago.”

  “Bold-faced lied. No hemming or hawing, just outraged denial. I saw the relief on his face—that he believed me—and if his family hadn’t moved, I think he might have taken me back.” I laugh brokenly. “Of course, he would have found out how good I was at lying once I started to show, and then…”

  Something calls to me, and I step from the closet and follow the feeling to Devyn’s white lacquered dresser. I pick up the smallest of the framed photos there, the one that shows a pale-faced red-headed teenage girl, hospital gown slipping off one shoulder, a newborn in her arms. Skippy leans over them wearing a huge smile.

  “No”—I touch a finger to Devyn’s tiny head—“showing probably wouldn’t have been an issue if Reece…” My eyes tear for what would have been the greatest loss of my life. And for the first time, I thank God that Reece left Pickwick.

  “You okay, Maggie?”

  “I’m just glad I listened to your mother when it counted most.”

  “Me too.” Yule sounds genuine, although the birth of Devyn meant she was forced to share Skippy with my daughter and me.

  I return the photo to the dresser and brush the tears from my eyes. Time to change the subject, or I’ll be sporting a puffy face when I pick up Devyn from school. “So, how’s the baby kicking?”

  “Too much. I wouldn’t mind poppin’ him out a little early, though I do think he’s gonna be the hardest of all to give up seein’ as hardly a minute goes by that I’m not aware of him.” She sighs. “If I don’t find myself a good man soon, I may have to content myself with bein’ an old maid.”

  I hope she does find a good man, even if it is Reece. Even if it hurts. I have Devyn, and my little girl is blessing enough.

  After picking up Devyn from school, I had no choice but to return to the auction house. Worse, due to the urgent message left on my cell phone by the woman who owns the nearby Ice Creamery, there wasn’t time to drop my daughter at home. Thus, as I pulled into the town square, I pressed a five-dollar bill into her hand and told her to wait for me at Mr. Copper’s.

  I sensed her suspicion, an air that has become commonplace these past weeks, but there was nothing for it. At least, that’s what I thought as I ran for the theater to discover the reason for the raised voices that have caused employees and patrons of businesses around the square to tuck into their jackets and venture onto the sidewalks on this not-quite-spring day. Among those gathered are a group of girls outside of Mr. Copper’s, most notably Amanda Pigg.

  Lord, please don’t let her bother Devyn. As I bound onto the sidewalk, I wince at the sight of my daughter, whose fully loaded backpack puts a lean in her posture. She eyes the other girls as she nears but doesn’t appear worried. Still, Lord, a wide berth would be nice.

  As I reach for the theater’s glass door, I catch my first eyeful of what awaits me inside.

  “You want my blessin’?” Mrs. Templeton shouts where she stands in front of my cousin Bart, hands on her hips, chin in the air, orange baseball cap smooshing her hair. “I’ll give you a blessin’. A blessin’ out, you devil’s dust–usin’—!”

  “Gran!” Trinity hugs Bart’s arm against her side as I enter the lobby. “I told you I’m gonna do it, and I’m gonna. With your blessin’ or not.” She sticks her left hand beneath her grandmother’s nose, and light catches the small diamond on her ring finger. “I’m gonna be Mrs. Bart Pickwick.”

  No surprise, though I don’t think Bart’s father, my uncle
Bartholomew, will be happy about that. Neither am I, but for an entirely different reason. For this, I rushed back here? Not for an upset client or a disgruntled heir opposed to the sale of family heirlooms?

  Mrs. Templeton grips Trinity’s hand and pulls it up to her eye. “Why, that ain’t much bigger ’n a grain of salt,” she scorns—no, flouts, most definitely flouts. “Once he does you wrong like all them Pickwicks do, that there little chip will be as useless as a milk bucket under a bull.”

  Trinity jerks her hand back and cradles it, as if to comfort the poor offended thing. “There’s no call to be ugly.”

  “Or to carry on like this,” I say as I near them. “Half the town square has turned out for your yellin’ match.”

  “Maggie!” Trinity and Bart exclaim in unison, Trinity patting her mouth as if to put the words back and Bart’s face reflecting the discomfort of one experiencing intestinal difficulties.

  “It’s me.” I place myself to the left of Trinity and to the right of her grandmother. “And instead of being home where I ought to be, I’m answering a distress call from a neighboring business.”

  Mrs. Templeton crosses her arms over her chest. “Somebody is stickin’ her nose where it don’t belong.”

  I grit my teeth. “Mrs. Templeton, this is a place of business—”

  “I am so sorry,” Trinity says. “We shoulda known better ’n to spring our good news on Gran, but we were so excited.”

  I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. I don’t have to look closely to know Reece has stepped into the doorway between the lobby and the theater, no doubt pried from his studio by the din.

  In the week and a half since he had supper with Yule, I haven’t been much closer to him than this, though not because anything happened between the two of them. According to Yule, who called the following day, he’s to remain her high school champion and a fond acquaintance. He just wasn’t “in” to her, she said. As a result, she could hardly be “in” to him. I was relieved but still have kept my distance. Of course it helps that, since he began the actual work on the statue, he’s mostly holed himself up in his studio.