Good Guys Love Dogs

by Inglath Cooper

  Luke couldn’t fall asleep, his mind wide-awake with what had happened between Lena and him. Everything about it surprised him.

  Lena Williams was nothing like the girls he’d hung around with in the city. Most of them would have eaten her alive. But something about her appealed to him. She had guts, that was for sure, but kissing her had been the biggest surprise of all. It had just happened as if it were supposed to all along. And he’d enjoyed it. More than he wanted to admit, even now. He’d liked the way she felt against him. He’d sensed that she hadn’t done a lot of kissing. He’d gotten used to girls who showed him things. He’d liked being the one to show her. It was a rite of passage for all guys to brag when they’d been with a girl. So why hadn’t he wanted to tell Tim?

  Lying there on his sleeping bag, Luke avoided answering that question. He stared up at the ceiling of the tent and let himself admit that maybe Keeling Creek wouldn’t be so bad, after all. Something about the place had kind of started to grow on him. It was even getting to his dad. He’d actually gone out and bought a calf a few days ago. A calf, of all things! When Luke had come home and found it tied under one of the oak trees in the front yard, he’d thought for sure his father must be losing it. Luke questioned him about it, but he’d just said a farm needed animals.

  Luke still couldn’t get over it. Even though he hadn’t let on as much to his dad, he thought it was pretty cool. This place was definitely having a weird effect on his father. And maybe on him, too.

  31

  After leaving the clinic on Saturday morning, Colby stopped by her parents’ house for lunch since Lena wouldn’t be home from the campout until later that afternoon.

  She knocked at the back door, sending a glance around the familiar yard. Samuel and Emma Williams had the neatest house around. They weren’t wealthy by some standards, but they took great pride in their things. They loved working in the yard together, planting bulbs in the spring and fall, pruning bushes and keeping the lawn as closely mowed as the golf course at the Low Valley Country Club. People drove from as far as seventy-five miles away just to see her mother’s flower garden. An enormous old magnolia tree stood in the front yard. In the spring and summer, red impatiens encircled it, thick as clover in a hay field. Fall brought out different flowers, the driveway now lined with burgundy mums, four plants wide on each side.

  Standing there on the brick walkway, Colby realized not for the first time that if things had worked out differently for her, theirs was the kind of marriage she would want. A partnership. Someone to share things with, do things with. After Doug, she’d been so busy trying to prove that she could accomplish on her own all the things in life that really mattered that maybe she’d never really given anyone a chance. The hurt he’d caused her shaped her adult life, and she wondered now if she’d been wrong to let him have that much power over her.

  Her mother appeared at the door, a pleased expression on her face. “Colby. You’re just in time for lunch, dear.”

  “I’d hoped I would be.” She stepped inside and gave her mom a hug. “Sorry I didn’t call first.”

  “As if you need to. Your father’s golfing this morning, so he won’t be back for a while yet. Let me grab another bowl, and we’ll sit down.”

  Colby washed her hands and tested the soup on the stove. “Um, that’s good.”

  “Vegetable soup. Every one from my summer garden.” She poured them each a glass of iced tea, and they began eating. The soup tasted perfect for an early fall afternoon.

  “How’s Lena?”

  “The same.”

  “Maybe I should talk to her, honey.”

  “Thanks, Mom, but this is something I need to handle on my own.”

  “I understand, and you’re probably right. But you know it’s a mother’s nature to want to fix whatever’s wrong in her daughter’s life.”

  “I know, Mom. And I appreciate it,” Colby said, stirring some sugar into her tea.

  “While we’re on that subject, I ran into Phoebe at the grocery store this week. She told me she’d fixed you up with Mr. McKinley.”

  “It wasn’t a date. You know Phoebe. She thinks I’m desperate for a husband.”

  “Well, he is awfully handsome.”

  “Handsome and engaged,” Colby said pointedly.

  Emma’s expression fell. “She forgot to mention that part.”

  “Phoebe’s an optimist. She considers that a minor hitch in her plan.”

  Emma chuckled and shook her head. “Your father said he saw your truck at Oak Hill last night, though. We thought you might have had a date.”

  Colby reached for some crackers and crumbled them into her soup. “Actually, I helped him de-skunk his dog.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not the answer you’d hoped for, I gather.”

  “Now, honey—”

  “Mom, even if I were interested, which I’m not,” she emphasized, trying not to think about last night, “the man is not up for consideration. You and Phoebe both might as well accept that.”

  “All right, honey. Whatever you say,” she said, a curious look in her eye that Colby determinedly ignored.

  It was almost dinnertime when Mrs. Mitchell’s car pulled up in front of the house, and Lena got out, wearing faded jeans and a multicolored sweatshirt. From her position at the living room window, Colby noticed that she was smiling and looked happier than she had seen her in months. The sight of it both lifted her heart and sent it plummeting.

  How long since Lena smiled at her that way?

  A minute later, Lena bounded through the door, her hair tousled, her cheeks bright with color.

  Colby tried to keep her voice light when she said, “Hi. How was the campout?”

  Lena looked up, her expression closing immediately. “It was okay.”

  “Did they have a good turnout?”

  “Yeah.” Lena headed for the stairs without looking back.

  “Lena?”

  She stopped midway up and said, “What?”

  Sighing, Colby decided then and there to take the bull by the horns. This couldn’t go on any longer. She’d done everything but stand on her head to try to mend a rift she didn’t even understand. “Come down here. I think we need to talk.”

  “I’ve got stuff to do,” she called back with attitude.

  “This can’t wait,” Colby said, her voice unusually firm.

  Lena turned and clomped down the stairs, the heaviness of her footsteps echoing her reluctance.

  Colby went into the den and stood by the window. Confrontations had never been a part of her relationship with her daughter, and she wished fervently that they weren’t now. “I want to know what’s wrong, Lena. And don’t say ‘Nothing.’ I’ve tried to be patient, hoping that whatever it was would blow over. But obviously, it isn’t going to. So tell me what’s going on.”

  Lena folded her arms across her chest and glared at her. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  Anger and hurt were neck and neck among the emotions galloping through Colby’s insides. She subdued them both and said, “We used to be able to talk about everything, Lena. What’s changed?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes, it has. Why is it different now?”

  For a long time, Lena didn’t say anything. She kept her gaze locked somewhere over Colby’s left shoulder. When she spoke, her voice rang out harsh with anger. “Why did you lie to me?”

  “About what?” she asked, caught off guard by the question.

  Lena turned and stomped up the stairs without answering. Stunned, Colby stayed where she was. What on earth was she talking about? Just when Colby started to go after her, Lena tramped back downstairs with a piece of paper in her hand. She held it out to her with a look of condemnation in her eyes.

  Colby took it, glanced at it and then felt the color drain from her face when she realized what it was. “Where did you find this?” she asked in lit
tle more than a whisper.

  “In your old room at Grandma’s.”

  Dread marched down Colby’s spine, followed by a crystal clear understanding of what brought about the changes in her child. “Lena—”

  “Why couldn’t you just tell me the truth, Mom? That he didn’t want anything to do with either one of us.”

  “Oh, Lena, it’s not what—”

  Tears running down her face, Lena ran back up the stairs. Her door slammed. Colby flinched. She groped for the chair behind her and sat down, feeling shell-shocked. How had this happened? All these years, she’d kept the truth from Lena, not wanting to hurt her. And now, because of one stupid letter she should have thrown away long ago. . . .

  Why hadn’t she? But she knew why.

  She’d kept it as a reminder to herself that she’d done the right thing. That Doug made his choice, and he was the one who would come out the loser.

  She now understood Lena’s rebellion, her anger. She’d been keeping this inside, letting it build until the wall between them had become so high that they might never get past it.

  How did she explain this to Lena? Tell her that Doug wanted her to terminate the pregnancy? That he’d had no understanding of Colby’s refusal to do so? She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Right now, she feared what that might do to her daughter more than any resentment Lena felt for her.

  She sat there until all the sunlight disappeared from the room, torn between the need to go to Lena and the fear that she wouldn’t be able to find the right words to say. Finally, unable to avoid it any longer, she got up and climbed the stairs to Lena’s room, feeling as if her feet were weighted with lead.

  She knocked at the door. “Lena?” No answer. She turned the knob, surprised to find it unlocked.

  Lena sat on the side of the bed, staring out the window that looked onto their backyard. Colby went over and sat down beside her, close but not touching. “Baby, we need to talk,” she said, unconsciously reverting to the endearment Lena recently demanded she stop using.

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “For starters, the fact that I love you more than life itself and the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.”

  “Why did you tell me my father was dead, then? He’s not, is he?”

  Colby looked down at her hands and shook her head. “No, he isn’t. At least not that I know of.”

  Fresh tears gathered in Lena’s eyes. She swiped at them. “All these years I’ve wondered what he would have been like, if he would have been the kind of father I’d have wanted to take to parents’ day. . .if I looked like him.”

  The lump in Colby’s throat thickened. How she wished that he had been. How she would have liked for him to deserve this child’s grief over not knowing him. But he didn’t deserve it. Not once had he ever called to see whether they had a boy or a girl. Not once in all these years had he ever tried to contact them. Lena deserved better than that. So much better.

  “Honey, your father and I were so young. He. . .he wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility. I wish things had been different, but. . . .”

  Lena jumped up from the bed, cutting her off and turning to stare at her with angry eyes. “Why didn’t you just tell me that? That the two of you broke up? At least I would have had the option of seeing him.”

  “Lena, it’s not that simple.”

  “Will you find him for me?” she asked, her eyes defiant.

  “Oh, Lena.” Colby didn’t know what to say. When she’d heard years ago that Doug had married, the news hadn’t bothered her in the least. Whatever love she’d thought she held in her heart for him died the day he’d renounced any obligation to their unborn child. But for Lena’s sake, she feared opening that can of worms. It was already done, though, and she couldn’t close it again. “Is that what you really want?”

  “Yes,” Lena said, her expression set.

  In that moment, Colby realized that Lena wanted to hurt her. To pay her back for keeping the truth from her. And she had found the most effective way of doing it. With a sigh of resignation, she said, “Then I’ll do whatever I can to find him.”

  Sleep proved a futile effort that night. Colby lay awake thinking about what calling Doug would mean, dreading it more than she had ever imagined she would. She had no idea whether he still lived in Philadelphia, but she would start there.

  Up before the sun rose, she sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee until almost eight o’clock when she picked up the phone and called Phoebe. She needed to talk to someone. She didn’t want to call her parents. This would upset them too much.

  Phoebe’s hello sounded cheerful enough that Colby knew she hadn’t gotten her out of bed. She told her, in as few words as possible, what had happened last night.

  “Oh, Colby,” Phoebe said when she finished. “That’s what’s been wrong with her, then?”

  “Yes,” she said, miserable.

  “So are you going to call the slime bucket?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “She’d resent you forever if you didn’t.”

  “How’d I turn out to be the bad guy in this? That’s what I want to know.”

  “Give her a chance to judge him. You’ll come out smelling like a rose. Trust me.”

  She hoped Phoebe was right. She would never forgive herself if this permanently marred her relationship with Lena.

  She waited until nine o’clock and then dialed information.

  “Directory assistance. What city, please?”

  “Philadelphia. Douglas Jamison.”

  “I have a Douglas A. and two Douglas C. Jamisons.”

  Colby asked for the first Douglas C, since she had no way of knowing which was the right one. She punched in the number. After three rings, a woman answered.

  “May I speak to Doug Jamison, please?” Colby asked.

  A pause of silence, and then the woman said, “My husband is no longer alive.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” Colby said. “I have the wrong number.” She hung up, a knot in her stomach. The woman sounded too old to be Doug’s wife. Maybe that had been his parents’ home, and his father had died.

  Colby tried information again and asked for the second Douglas C.

  Before she lost her courage, she picked up the phone and dialed the number. It rang twice, and then she heard his voice for the first time in more than sixteen years. She couldn’t say anything for a moment, frozen with too many emotions to identify.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?” he asked, irritation marking the words.

  “It’s Colby, Doug,” she said finally.

  Silence, and then the click of a door closing.

  His voice sounded lower when he said, “Colby. Where are you?”

  “I’m at home. In Keeling Creek.”

  “Oh.” He paused. “You’re the last person I expected to hear from.”

  “Believe me,” she said, “this isn’t a social call.”

  “What is it, then?” he asked warily.

  “It’s about our daughter. . .she wants to see you.” Blunt, but what point was there in beating around the bush?

  “What do you mean?” The words held an edge, as if he were being backed into a corner.

  “I had a girl, Doug. I never told her the truth about you. She found out recently, though, and she’s understandably upset.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “What difference does it make? You weren’t a part of our lives.” She couldn’t keep the accusation from her voice.

  He was silent a moment, then said, “You can’t just spring this on me and expect me to—”

  “Calling you is the last thing I ever wanted to do. But Lena is hurting over this. She’s confused and—”

  “I have a family, Colby.”

  On some level, she had known that he would. But hearing him say it somehow brought back a pain that she’d thought long ago put away. He had been nineteen when Lena was born. He hadn’t wanted marriage and a family. It hurt somehow
to think that he eventually chose them with another woman, other children. For the first time since her confrontation with Lena, she thought she truly understood how her daughter must feel. “Are you saying you don’t want to see her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, the words sounding as if they’d been issued through clenched teeth. Just for her own satisfaction, she pictured him fat and sweating.

  “Look, Doug, I’m not asking anything of you,” she said, her voice cool. “But I will not allow you to hurt her. If you don’t want to see her, just say so, and I’ll think of something to tell her.”

  “This is too sudden, Colby.”

  Colby laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was such a ridiculous statement, and typical of the selfish person he was. “You’re right. Sixteen years is a bit sudden.” As soon as the words were out, she wanted to take them back. She didn’t want him to think that she’d ever spent a moment yearning for him.

  “I made my decision about this before she was born,” he said, his voice ice-cold and impersonal to the point that she wondered if she’d ever known him. “You know what my choice was. I didn’t want this child. I wanted you to have an abortion. You chose not to do that. I hardly think it’s fair for you to call me up out of the blue and—”

  “Fair?” she interrupted, anger scalding through her. How dare he sit there, blithely talking about an abortion as if Lena didn’t exist? As if he had any idea what he had missed in not knowing her as his child? How had she ever imagined herself in love with him? “I’m sorry to see that you haven’t changed one bit, Doug. Give me a call when you’ve had enough time to think about this. Personally, I don’t think you deserve to know our daughter. I won’t tell her we talked until I hear from you.” She gave him her number and hung up without saying goodbye.

  She tore off the piece of paper on which she’d scribbled his number and shoved it in her pocket. To her disgust, her hand shook, and she hated herself for letting him get to her that way.

  Fourteen different emotions assaulted her at once, anger and protectiveness at the top of the list. A few minutes spent talking to him brought back all the old insecurities with which their relationship had left her. Doug Jamison would be a disappointment to his daughter. She knew that. How would Lena handle his rejection? Be anything but devastated?