The Baby Agenda

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Milk,” she decided. “Unless you’d prefer…?”

  “Juice is fine by me.” He unscrewed the lid from the bottle and took a long swallow. “I got something else you’ll like, too.”

  Moira paused with a burger halfway to her mouth. “A present?”

  “Not exactly, but it’s Christmassy.” He shook his head before she could say a word. “Patience, patience. You have to wait to see.”

  He entertained her while they ate by telling her about all the children he’d seen that morning, from what he swore was a brawl being conducted on an elementary-school bus he’d followed for blocks—the driver oblivious in front—to a baby that screamed nonstop the entire time Will was in the grocery store.

  “Man, it was like a fire engine,” he reminisced. “Undulating. When that kid hit the high notes, the glass on the freezer cases shivered.”

  “It did not.”

  “Cross my heart.” He did just that. “The glass wasn’t all that shivered. I did, too. What are we in for, Moira?”

  “Sleepless nights?” She wadded up her lunch wrappings and dropped them in the trash can, then heaved herself out of her desk chair. “I suppose we’d better go.”

  Gray arrived and stood there smirking as Will bundled Moira into her parka and checked to be sure she had gloves and a knit hat.

  “My mommy used to do that for me.” He paused.

  “When I was four.”

  Moira made a rude face. “Will’s being a gentleman.”

  Her partner’s chuckle followed her and Will out.

  A very few flakes of snow still floated lazily down from a sky that was pearly gray. Maybe they’d have a white Christmas. The moment she saw Will’s pickup, she smiled with delight. He’d affixed a big evergreen wreath decorated with holly leaves and berries as well as a fat red bow onto the hood so that it hung above the license plate. It was an unexpectedly frivolous note on his utilitarian, slush-and mud-splattered, black vehicle.

  “It is Christmassy. Thank you.”

  “I deserve a kiss, don’t you think?” her husband suggested.

  Wow. As always when she thought of him that way, Moira felt a punch of surprise. Her husband.

  When he bent down, she brushed her lips over his. His tongue took a lazy swipe inside her lips before he lifted his head. “Milk,” he murmured.

  Tingling from the pleasure of a too brief kiss, she ran her own tongue where his had sampled. “Apple juice.”

  Will opened the passenger door for her and boosted her in. “We live wild.”

  “Right.” Moira groaned.

  On the verge of shutting the door, he yanked it back open. “What? What?”

  “I just remembered we have the childbirth class tonight.”

  “God.” Will pressed a gloved hand to his chest. “Don’t scare me that way.”

  “Wimp.”

  He snorted and slammed her door. Once he’d gotten in behind the wheel, he said, “So, where are we going?”

  The development was on the west side of the freeway, just north of Lake Ki. She told him, saw him nod and make mental calculations, then put on the turn signal. She’d been impressed by how quickly he’d learned how to get around the north county, as if he’d drawn a mental map in his head. Moira got lost easily. She had to go someplace two or three times before she could reliably find it again without her GPS.

  “Expect problems?” he asked.

  She told him about the call from the homeowner and he grunted.

  “Well, that sounds like fun.”

  “Yes, and it will get us all into the holiday spirit.”

  Their holiday spirits did lift when they arrived at the house-in-progress to find that Christmas lights were strung along the eaves and were plugged in. The lights, twinkling against unfinished wood, seemed to represent hope.

  “Oh.” Moira smiled, feeling suddenly more forgiving even if Ralph Jakes, the contractor, wasn’t responsible.

  Will parked behind three pickups, then came around to help her out. The raw, uneven ground was frozen solid and she had to pick her way. Moira had never been more grateful for Will’s strong supporting arm.

  She could hear the whine of a circular saw, the rhythmic punch of a nail gun at work, male laughter. The front door, still lacking knob and dead bolt, stood open.

  “Hello,” she called as soon as they were inside, and the saw paused.

  Ralph appeared at the top of the roughed-in staircase. “Moira.” He nodded resignedly. “I hear we screwed up.”

  “So Chuck says.”

  “Hell, we’re already tearing it out.”

  She relaxed. She’d worked with Ralph before, and had believed him to be solid. “You checked other dimensions?”

  “Yeah, but I’ll bet you’re going to do it again.”

  She grinned at him. “Yep. Will and I will. Have you met my husband, Will Becker?” She had gotten almost used to introducing him that way. In fact, instead of uneasiness she’d begun to feel a small surge of proprietary pleasure in claiming him.

  Unease tiptoed down her spine. What if by spring he was gone, and she had to tell all these same people that she was getting divorced?

  She wouldn’t think about that. Not now.

  A flicker of interest showed in Ralph’s eyes at the introduction. “Becker Construction?”

  “My brother Clay is currently heading it.”

  “You’re the one went off to…was it China? Something like that?”

  “Africa.” Will’s voice was neutral. “That was me. I’m back.” His hand moved in a seemingly unconscious yet reassuring way on the small of Moira’s back, under the parka.

  The contractor’s attention switched to her. “Hell, Moira, you look like you’re going to pop any minute. You sure you should be out here?”

  She sighed. “My design, my job, Ralph. Though Gray will be stepping in for a few weeks.”

  He left them alone. She heard him yelling at someone upstairs.

  Moira unrolled plans on a sheet of plywood atop two sawhorses that was being used as an impromptu table. Then she held one length of the metal measuring tape and let Will do most of the work. He referred frequently to the plans. It took them an hour to be confident the powder room was the only foul-up. She was pleased with how the house was going up otherwise. On a cold, clear day like this she could appreciate the way the sweep of windows took advantage of a view of the lake, the privacy gained by her having angled the house slightly to tuck it behind a mature stand of fir and cedar. She still thought the kitchen would have worked better without quite so much floor space, but the client had insisted.

  Ralph walked them out so that he could discuss a couple of minor problems, one of which was going to necessitate her tweaking plans. With electrical in, he reminded her, an inspector would be out after the new year.

  “We’re winding up tomorrow,” Ralph told her, “then taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s off.”

  “Makes sense,” she agreed. “You can’t get wallboard up until we clear the inspection.”

  As she and Will started the drive back, he said, “Something I’ve been wondering.”

  Still thinking about the tweak she’d be making, she made an absentminded, questioning noise.

  “Your house. Looks like it’s, what, 1940s?”

  She started paying attention. “Uh-huh. Postwar.”

  “You’re an architect. Why buy an older place? Why haven’t you designed your own?”

  She asked herself that once in a while. The stock answer was easy enough, though. “When I first came to West Fork, I was focused on the building that houses our office.”

  Will glanced at her with interest. “You designed that?”

  “Yes. We own it. Gray and I.”

  “So you’re landlords.”

  Moira smiled. “We have trouble-free tenants. No one has trashed an office yet.” She shrugged. “As for my house…I thought about renting for a while, then building like Gray was doing, but I didn’t like the idea
of having to move twice in a short time. So I went ahead and bought. I guess…” The snow had quit falling and barely dusted the pasture beside the road. A promise, like the Christmas lights on an unfinished house. She concluded, “I wasn’t ready.”

  “Because you didn’t have a family to share it with?”

  “Maybe,” she admitted.

  “But Gray did build his own place right away, and he wasn’t married, either.”

  Will and she had been to Gray and Charlotte’s for dinner a couple of times already, and she’d been able to tell how much he admired the house.

  “He’s different. I’ve told you what Gray’s like. He had a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “Choose town. Check. Establish firm. Check. Build house. Check. Get married. Took him a lo-ong time to put a check there. I think he was a little disconcerted that his perfect woman didn’t appear on schedule. Everything was supposed to fall into place.” She found herself smiling as she remembered. “And when she did appear, Charlotte wasn’t so sure she wanted to cooperate. Gray isn’t used to being thwarted.”

  “But he got his way in the end.” Will sounded reflective. It occurred to Moira, not for the first time, that the two men had quite a bit in common. In their own, equally agreeable ways, they were both bulldozers. Steamrollers.

  “Gray usually does,” she said simply.

  Will drove with effortless competence. She suspected he was being particularly careful for her sake not to take corners sharply or stop too abruptly. She noticed that he never got in that first thing he didn’t glance at how she’d positioned the two straps of the seat belt around the increasingly gigantic swell of her belly. It was probably a surprise that he didn’t minutely adjust the belt before he was willing to start out.

  From her peripheral vision she caught Will’s quick glance. His tone, though, betrayed nothing but mild curiosity. “So he had a plan, and you didn’t.”

  “Didn’t I say Gray always has a plan?”

  Will’s hands flexed lightly on the wheel. “Because he’s an optimist.”

  She frowned a little. “I suppose that’s it.”

  “And you? You’re a pessimist?”

  Disconcerted, she took a moment before she answered. “Not in some ways.”

  “But your personal life. Hard not to tell that you have trouble expecting the best for yourself.”

  Maybe that’s because she’d never gotten it.

  The whisper came from deep inside. It wasn’t so much bitter as sad. And it shocked her.

  She hadn’t had a terrible life. She’d had a happy childhood. She loved her mother. They’d stayed close, even when other kids her age were all rebelling against their mothers. And Gray. She’d been so lucky to find him. His friendship had changed her life.

  Still stunned, staring blindly ahead, Moira thought, Yes, but…

  There had always, in her mind, been a but. Maybe rooted in the fact that her father hadn’t wanted her, maybe not. Deepened by those painful years when she’d been overweight and therefore self-conscious, when she hadn’t been so much teased as friendless. Then later, even after she’d lost the weight, she hadn’t really known how to flirt, and the boys she’d grown up with had gotten used to seeing her in a certain way so she didn’t date. She didn’t get invited to her senior prom.

  She had felt such hope when she went off to college. It would be her new start. And it had been, in some ways. There was Gray, and she did date, and eventually she’d had a serious boyfriend for most of a school year. But—yet another but—even that romance had fizzled, and though she’d dated off and on in the years since, the relationships never passed casual. Men didn’t fall in love with her. They didn’t want her passionately. And knowing that hurt.

  For the very first time, Moira wondered if it was possible that she hadn’t seen herself as lovable, as desirable. Whether other people might have if she had. Was she inadequate, or did she just think she was?

  The very idea shook her. She didn’t know which was worse: to be undesirable, or to have wasted years of her life because she was so screwed up.

  God. I’m pathetic.

  Self-pity was not an attractive quality.

  She suddenly became aware that Will had parked in front of Van Dusen & Cullen, Architects, and had even turned off the engine. He’d half turned in his seat, his forearm laid across the top of the steering wheel, and was watching her sit frozen with her unwelcome self-revelation.

  “Wow,” she said, trying for a laugh that was such a failure it was—oh, God—pathetic. “You set me off. And not in a good way. You’re right. I’m doom and gloom, and I didn’t even realize it.”

  “Not doom and gloom.” He had a way, even with that deep, sometimes rumbly voice, of sounding so gentle her defenses crumbled. “That’s not you at all, Moira. But I feel a sadness in you sometimes that I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand it, either,” she whispered. “I didn’t know.”

  He reached out and squeezed the back of her neck with a big, warm hand. His fingers had become practiced at easing muscle tension even in a brief caress. This one wasn’t brief; he worked her neck until she bowed her head, closed her eyes and let go of her bout of bewilderment and unhappiness.

  Eventually she managed to clear her throat and lift her head. She met his steady, dark gaze with the flicker of a genuine smile. “Man, you should change professions. A Will Becker massage fixes all problems.”

  He laughed for her sake. She knew it was for her, because his eyes remained dark and worried.

  “I’m just trying to understand you,” he told her.

  I’m trying to understand me, too.

  And why, she had to ask herself, is this suddenly all about me?

  Wasn’t Will the one who’d given up everything for his sister and brothers, then had to do so again for her? Did she understand him?

  Had she tried?

  “I know,” she said, a little shakily. “I do know. I’m… really lucky to have you.” She managed a smile. “And now I’d better get back to work.”

  “Okay.” His knuckles brushed her cheek, then he released her seat belt and his. He issued his standard order,

  “Wait for me,” and got out to help her down.

  She was so lucky.

  And hated the whisper, the pathetic whisper, that said, Yeah, you’re lucky right now, but how long will all this last, given that he only married you because he thought he had to?

  CHRISTMAS WAS…NICE. Will and Moira didn’t do anything that special on Christmas Eve, their gifts to each other weren’t extravagant, but they were right. He could tell she really did love the soapstone bowl and the wooden carving he’d brought her from Africa, and she’d bought him an unbelievably soft alpaca scarf the exact color of his eyes—she said—as well as a couple of books that he had trouble tearing himself away from once he flipped open the covers. Her choices told him she listened to him and paid attention to what he said and maybe even to some of his silences.

  One of those books was about a project not so different from the one he’d taken on in Zimbabwe, this one in South Africa. He could hardly wait to read it, but even a glance inside at the photos gave him a pang. He tried to hide that, though, when he looked up to find Moira watching him.

  “Looks interesting,” he said, more casually than he felt, and set it aside.

  He’d built a fire in the fireplace, and he and Moira snuggled on the sofa sipping hot chocolate and gazing dreamily at the lights on the Christmas tree they had put up two weeks before. The sharp scent of fir needles reminded him of Christmases past, of times before he’d lost his parents, of trembling in bed waiting for the first light of dawn before he could wake Mom and Dad to open presents. Of his first bike, of the year he’d itched like crazy from chicken pox and was mad as blazes because he’d gotten it over the holiday and wouldn’t even have the benefit of missing school. His first car, a used clunker, had been a Christmas gift, too, the year he was sixteen. He thought about the eff
ort he’d put into making sure Sophie, Jack and Clay had memories as good as his of the holidays.

  He found himself talking about them, about how glad he’d been the first year that Sophie, then seven, had become disillusioned about Santa Claus.

  “It was sort of sad,” he said, “as if that one year all her illusions got shattered, but, man, it would have been hard to keep that one propped up if she’d been young enough to beg Santa to bring her mommy back.” He fell silent, remembering that particular Christmas when they had all ached with loss and any celebration was more pretence than reality. Even then, though, it had never occurred to him to say, “Let’s skip it this year.”

  Moira, tucked under his arm, was for once utterly relaxed. “I forget sometimes that you’re an experienced dad.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Not with babies or diapers. When Clay was born, I was still pissed that my father remarried and had another kid to threaten my place. By the time Jack came along, I was too tough a guy to be talked into helping with any baby. And I was a teenager when Soph was born. I sure as hell didn’t want anything to do with her bare bottom.”

  “And then you ended up daddy to all of them.”

  He grunted an agreement. “Fate does throw you a curve ball sometimes, doesn’t it?”

  “You must still get nightmares about that first year or so,” she said quietly.

  “You’re back to me admitting I felt trapped,” he realized. “I can’t lie. I did at first, and I guess I never threw that belief away. I tucked it in my wallet like…damn, a Dear John letter. I could pull it out now and again even as the folds on it frayed and the ink became unreadable. And yeah, I still know what it said, but…” He shrugged, knowing she’d feel the motion. “Truth is, when I think back most of my memories are good ones. I didn’t know how good until I went away and found out how much I missed them. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise, because when each of them left for college I had this big hole inside.” He touched his chest with his free hand. “But I’m stubborn. I guess you’ve noticed that.”

  She gave him a quick, amused grin.