She hobbled over to the sofa and sat beside him. “All right, Matthew, what is the problem? Has something happened between you and your son?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Look, I came to Key West for a reason. I don’t know how to say it other than to say it straight out.” Matt raked his black hair back with his right hand.
“All right.” Peg sucked in a deep breath. He was going to tell her he knew the truth. Her hands trembled. She held them on her lap.
“I came to Key West because of a dying man’s confession. This man had done something so unthinkable I had prayed it wasn’t true. But now, in the end, I know it is true. I even, at one small moment, hoped and prayed his confession was the result of the disease that was taking his life. But it wasn’t. Peg, that man was Doctor Baker. I think you knew him too.”
Peg gasped. “I’m sorry, Matt. I would have told you the truth of my past and why I came to Key West if our relationship developed any further. In fact, I was about to tell you that same day of our argument. I didn’t know you knew.”
“Peg.” Matt grasped her hand. “I know. But it’s not what you think I know.”
“What?” Peg searched his dark green eyes.
“Hear me out, please,” he pleaded.
Peg nodded.
“Doc Baker confessed to me that he switched a young woman’s baby with another baby. They were both born minutes apart from each other. He delivered them both.”
Peg knit her eyebrows in confusion.
“Peg, he switched your son with my dead son.”
“What?”
“Micah is your son.”
A sob groaned out of her throat, a fury of emotions and no discernible thought. What could she think? Her baby was dead. No, Matt said his son was her son? “But how? Why?” Tears burned a track down her cheek.
“I don’t know. He knew my wife could never have another child after she gave birth. He also knew you weren’t married. I guess he assumed—”
Peg jumped up and screamed.
Matt leapt to his feet and held her. “Is it your leg?”
“Yes. No. Let go of me!” She pushed him away. “You’ve known this since you arrived on Key West and you didn’t tell me? Were you planning on not telling me the truth? Why did you come looking for me? So you could shame me?”
Daniel came running into the apartment. “What’s going on in here?”
“Matt says John isn’t dead. That his son, Micah, is my son.”
“What?” Daniel stood toe to toe with Matt. “Are you daft?”
“Doc Baker confessed he switched our babies.”
“What?” Daniel plopped down onto the sofa. “This is ridiculous. Doctors don’t do that.”
“Apparently, Doc Baker thought he had the perfect solution,” Matt groaned. “I can’t deny that I am glad he switched the babies. I love Micah. He’s such a part of me and my wife. I never would have thought in a million years that he wasn’t my son. But he is my son. I’ve raised him.”
“So, where does that leave me?” Peg cried. “I’ve mourned the death of my baby for twenty years. I’ve stayed away from relationships bound and determined that God kept me single because of my past. And that still may be the case. But I have a son, a son who’s alive and breathing, who doesn’t know me.”
Peg collapsed on the rocking chair. “When I saw Micah get off the ship I nearly fainted. He’s the spitting image of Billy.”
“Not really. I never met Billy, but I know my son, and he has your eyes, and your hair coloring, although his hair is wavy.”
Peg held her sides and rocked. My son is alive? My son is Matt’s son, Micah.
“Peg?” Matt knelt in front of her. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner but—”
“But you couldn’t decide if I was worthy,” Peg fired back. “Get out of my house, Matt. I need to be alone.”
“Peg, please. I need your help. We need to find Micah. He’s been gone for hours. He wasn’t pleased with me, either.”
Daniel got up. “He looks like Billy?”
Peg nodded.
“I’ll go find him. Just let me tell Carmen first.”
“Thank you,” Matt offered. “With all of us looking, we should be able to find him.”
“To think I almost gave my heart to you,” Peg hissed. “I can’t believe you would keep something so important from me.”
“Peg, try and understand. I had to think of Micah too. What’s it going to be like for him to learn the truth? Would it be fair to him to have him labeled as illegitimate? I thought Key West might provide the place for him to live with no shame, but this place is so gossip infected no one could have a chance here.”
“Well, we may have a problem with gossip, but we’re island folk, and island folk stick together. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been rough for awhile. Goodness, no one here even knows about my past. Well, except Daniel and Bea Southard. No one would believe it. But then they would remember who I am. They know me, they trust me. They’d understand, in time. At least my friends would.”
“I’m sorry. You’re probably right. But it’s just as much of a shock for me as it was for you. I never would have thought my son wasn’t my son. Just saying it doesn’t make it seem plausible.”
As much as she wanted to be angry with Matt, he did make sense in a strange sort of way. He did love his son. He couldn’t stop talking about his son. To all of a sudden find out Micah wasn’t his biological son must have sent the man spinning like an eddy during the change of tides.
“We’d best get started,” Peg decided and grabbed her crutches. She couldn’t go far, but she’d go as far as her legs would allow.
“I’ll go to town and check out the taverns,” Matt replied. “Micah isn’t a drinker, but this kind of news could cause the strongest of men to drink.”
“I’ll check the waterfront,” Daniel volunteered.
“I’ll work my way through the streets closer to this side of the island.”
With great effort, Peg limped her way through the various streets between her home and Matt’s cottage. Minute by minute, hour by hour, her leg throbbed. She needed to take a break. Her heart ached. Her mind was confused; she was a mixture of emotions—anger toward Doctor Baker, resentment at Matt for keeping this information to himself. In some small way, she understood his confusion. But it didn’t dull her anger. Or, as she thought about it, perhaps it did. A little.
The same judgmental attitude that Doc Baker showed was the very reason she had moved to Key West to start fresh. Now she discovered the pain and agony of losing her child had been false. Her son wasn’t dead. He was alive, alive and well. But he belonged to another. She would never know what it was to watch him grow up. To see him take his first steps, speak his first words. Nothing. All of it snatched away because of some self-righteous old man. Peg’s nostrils flared.
She rarely got this angry. She needed to calm down. She worked her way down a street that ended at a small inlet. Her mourning place. The small stretch of beach where she sought God out year after year to try to understand why things had happened as they had.
She needed to rest. Peg sat down on a fallen palm tree and rubbed her leg. The moonlight glistened on the water. “Father, comfort Micah.”
The long leaves of a nearby bush rattled in the wind. Peg glanced over to see a man stand up and march over toward her.
“You’re my mother, aren’t you?”
Eighteen
Matt was frantic. Hours of searching and nothing. Not only could he not find Micah, he’d lost track of Peg as well. Daniel had returned home unable to find Micah at the waterfront. The two men decided that time was what Micah needed. So Matt wandered down another street looking for Peg. She couldn’t have gone too far on those crutches. But then again, he couldn’t imagine what was going on in her mind at the moment.
Matt rubbed the back of his neck. Time was what everyone needed. Time to heal and time to understand just what had happened to all of them because of one man’s
tragic lack of judgment.
Coming to a dead end, Matt turned around and retraced his steps. He plunged farther back from the harbor trying to find Peg. He needed to talk with her. No, he wanted to talk with her. To try to explain his heart.
Peg had to be somewhere. He pushed his way up another narrow street. The darkness of night, the covering of the trees, brought out the fear he’d buried deep inside. Lord, let her be all right.
Several times he’d backtracked to her apartment. He’d even gone back to his own. She was still out there, somewhere. Where could she be, Lord?
❧
“Yes, Micah. I guess I am.”
Micah sat down beside her. She silently thanked the Lord for a full moon, so she could see his face. She reached out to touch him. He didn’t pull away. Her fingers shook as they caressed her son’s features. “You look a lot like your father.”
“Who is he?”
Peg turned away from her son. She had to confess the truth. He of all people deserved to know the truth. She swallowed hard. “At the time, I loved him very much. We were going to get married. At least that’s what I thought. Turns out it was just another case of Billy’s smooth tongue. My brother Daniel tried to warn me. But he was several years younger, and I thought I knew it all.”
“Tell me, tell me everything,” Micah pleaded.
“Oh, Micah, I’ve mourned you terribly.” Peg wiped a tear from her face. “I was just about eighteen when I met Billy. He seemed so exciting. So unlike the other boys in town. He didn’t work on the fishing boats, and he didn’t smell like fish.” Peg paused. “At the time, that was quite an advantage.”
Micah chuckled.
“Anyway, he was a bit wild, and I was a bit rebellious. I fell madly in love with him, or rather, with the idea of being wild and free. I overlooked Billy’s bad habits, his ability to have money without working hard. That should have put up a warning flag, but it didn’t. Anyway, he promised we’d get married when I was eighteen. I turned eighteen and found out I was expecting you. I was scared at first, but then I thought how wonderful to have a product of our love growing inside of me.
“Billy didn’t see it that way. He thought it was all my fault and said he wasn’t raising no brat. He left, and I had to go home and tell my parents the truth. They sent me away to have the baby. But as the time to deliver came close, my mother wanted me near her. So I lived the last days of my pregnancy at a rooming house near Doctor Baker’s office.” She sighed. “The rest I figure you’ve heard from your father.”
“He’s not my father.”
Peg reached out and held his hand. Micah wrapped his fingers around hers. “Oh, Micah. He is your father. Billy Ingles would have ruined your life.”
“Billy Ingles is my father?” Micah’s voice was high with disbelief.
How does he know Billy? “Yes, do you know him?”
“No, not really. I met his daughter. Oh, no!” Micah grabbed his stomach.
“Are you all right?” Peg draped her arm over his shoulder.
“I met his daughter, Anna Ingles.”
Billy had another child? Peg calmed herself by taking in a deep breath.
“I almost courted her. Can you imagine? My own sister?”
If Peg ever wanted to curse someone right now, it was Doctor Baker. “No, I can’t imagine. I’m sorry, Micah. It’s all my fault.”
“All your fault? Dad said Doc Baker did this.”
“True, but if I hadn’t sinned with Billy, none of this would have happened.”
“But then I never would have existed.” Micah reached down and picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. “How long have you been here?”
“I moved to Key West with my brother Daniel shortly after we buried the baby.”
“It’s a good thing Doc Baker isn’t alive. I’d have a mind to—”
“Micah, your parents didn’t raise you to behave that way,” Peg scolded.
“I know. I’m just so angry. It’s horribly unfair. I don’t know what to feel. I think of the word mother, and I think of my mother. Now, I look at you and see I am a part of you. I just don’t know what to think.”
“Why don’t we just take it one step at a time? Matt and Esther were your parents. They raised you. They went through every sleepless night a parent goes through for a child. I, on the other hand, mourned a child I never knew. I want to get to know you, Micah. But you’re not a child; you’re a man. The most we could ever hope to have is a close friendship, one adult to another.”
“I suppose you’re right. I can’t separate who I am from who I was supposed to be.”
Peg grinned. “God says if we wait on Him, He’ll make our paths straight. This is one of those times when the paths are not very straight, where people have gotten in and messed with God’s plan. I messed with it by getting involved with Billy in an inappropriate way. Doc Baker messed with it by trying to correct a wrong. Somehow, I know if we give God enough time, He will work this all out.”
“Tell me about yourself,” Micah pleaded. “I want to know you.”
“Only if you tell me all about yourself.” Could it be this easy? Could they become friends? She looked at Micah and saw herself and Billy. Always Billy. He would permanently be a part of her past, a part she’d blocked out for many years. She waited for Micah’s response.
“Fair enough. You start.”
“All right, my name is Margaret Elizabeth Martin, but everyone calls me Peg. My father was a fisherman… .”
❧
Matt listened in the distance. He’d come upon Peg sitting on the log when he heard Micah approach her. They were talking. His first instinct, to come to Key West and correct a wrong, had been correct. He had lost his son, but it was the right thing in the end.
Matt walked back toward the cottage, leaving mother and son to their discovery. They needed time. He grabbed his duffel bag and loaded up some provisions for his sail. His trip was in order as well. It would give Peg and Micah a chance to get to know one another. Maybe someday they would forgive him for his deceit.
With the boat loaded, he trekked back to the cottage and penned a letter to Micah.
Dear Son,
I’ve decided to take that trip and give all of us a chance to calm down. Peg Martin is a wonderful woman. You were correct when you sensed we had feelings for one another. But the past will probably prevent us from having a future. I’ll return in a few days and we can talk.
Know this one thing, Son. I love you. I always have, and I always will.
Your father forever
Matt swallowed hard. He’d done enough crying for a grown man in two lifetimes. He’d always seen himself as a strong man, but Esther’s death, Doc Baker’s deception, and the loss of his son were more than one man should be asked to bear in his lifetime.
He closed the door to the cottage as a predawn glow gave a surreal feel to the day. The yellow and white light dancing on the waves cast an orange tone to his skin. Palm trees were dark silhouettes against the eastern sky.
“‘Mornin’, Mr. Bower. Heard your son came in yesterday.” A local fisherman stepped from his boat to the dock with such an easy stride anyone observing would know he’d grown up along the water.
“Yes, Sir.” What else could he say? It was Micah and Peg’s choice to reveal the truth of their relationship, not his.
“Where ya headin’?”
“Key Visca. Thought a short sail would be nice.”
“Just the two of you, or are you bringin’ Miss Martin along?”
Matt groaned.
“Sorry, didn’t mean nothin’. Just heard you two were getting married.”
Matt pulled the line to bring the boat closer to the dock. “We’re just friends.” He almost threw in they had never even kissed, but then he remembered his actions in Peg’s home the other day.
“Sorry, guess a man ought to ask before he assumes. Have a good sail. Wind’s coming up from the southwest, should have a nice tropical breeze pushing up
the coast.”
“Thanks.” Matt waved as the man boarded his boat. He cast off the bowline and gave the vessel a slight push away from the dock as the fisherman stepped on board. Odd, Matt thought, that he was going out on Christmas morning.
Matt boarded his sailboat, made the mainsail ready, and went below to retrieve the jib. In the ship’s hold, he rummaged through the bow looking for the right sack that contained the jib. Finally he spotted it and neatly placed everything that wasn’t needed back into the bow.
As he poked his head out of the hold, Peg stood before him with her hands on her hips. Her crutches lay on the dock. “And just where do you think you’re going?”
❧
Peg braced herself. The leap to the boat had put a lot of strain on her leg.
“Key Visca.” Matt pushed past her.
“And for what purpose?”
“Peg, you and Micah deserve time to get to know one another. I need to give you and him time to absorb the full ramifications of what has happened.”
Peg struggled to grasp something as her leg lost its strength. Matt caught her in his arms and lifted her up off her feet. “Sit down before you damage that leg some more. It’s swollen, Peg. You’ve been on it too long.”
“I know.” Peg smiled as Matt worked his hands down her leg.
“Lie down and lift your leg,” Matt ordered. “Have you been up all night?”
“Yes. Same as you; same as Micah. Matt, don’t go. We need to talk.” Peg reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“What is there to talk about? Doc Baker took Micah away from you.”
She could feel his body tense below her fingers. “Yes, but…”
“No buts, Peg. It was wrong. You know it. I know it. Micah knows it. And before too long, everyone will know it.”
Peg looked along the shore. No one was in sight. Due to the Christmas holiday, most folks were still snug in their beds. “Probably. I can’t hide the truth any longer. But, Matt, I want you to hear from me what happened, who Micah’s father is, why a foolish girl of seventeen—nearly eighteen found herself in such a predicament.”
“I think I understand the process, Peg. Where’s Micah?”
“At the house. I told him I would stop you from setting sail if you hadn’t already left. He’s lying down. It was quite a shock for him.”
Southern Treasures Page 14
