by Misha Crews
* * *
Linden Street had changed a lot since the last time Adam had seen it, but Jenna’s house was just as he remembered. It was a neat house on a street of neat houses, built of brick, with two windows upstairs and two windows down. The porches on those Arlington Forest homes were fixed to the side, which gave the smallish front lawns a more expansive feeling. Jenna’s place was perched on the outer corner as he made the right turn off Linden Street.
Like it was waiting for him, he thought.
Balloons were tied to the railings of the porch, and there were more on the gate that led to the backyard. They danced brightly on the spring air. Adam turned right again on Farley Street, then made a graceful U-turn and pulled up at the curb.
He was just walking up the steps from the sidewalk to the front path of the house when Kitty came around from the back. She was a small woman, compact and elegantly built, who wore her dark hair curled softly around the nape of her neck. She was casually dressed in pink pedal pushers and a cotton blouse. She looked young, and fresh, and so different from the last time Adam had seen her that he almost didn’t recognize her.
Of course, the last time he had seen her had been just days after she had buried her son, when her soul was freshly shattered by tragedy and her eyes were still blackened by the endless non-comprehension of loss. The day after the funeral, Bill and Kitty had brushed aside Adam’s contrite apologies for missing the service and had taken him to pay his respects.
He had stood between them at Bud’s gravesite, smelling the fresh wet dirt and sodden grass. He had held Kitty’s hand as she wept. Bill had stood with his back straight and shoulders square, stoically ignoring the tears that ran down his own cheeks and dropped darkly onto his black suit.
Death was always a betrayal of reason, and the Appletons had lost two sons in the space of a few years. Lost them, not to war or even to illness, but to mindless accidents. It was enough to confound the mind, to splinter the heart into a thousand pieces.
“Adam!” Kitty exclaimed. She doubled her pace and hurried towards him, hands outstretched. He was carrying Christopher’s gift, but he caught Kitty up in a one-armed bear hug and lifted her straight off the ground. When he put her back on her feet, she was laughing, eyes crinkling at the corners. He searched her face, trying to see past her smile to the heart that beat beneath. He probed her eyes, and found sorrow in their depths. But he also found happiness there — and the genuine article, at that. He smiled.
“Being a grandmother agrees with you!” he said, and he meant it.
“Oh, Adam, you have no idea!” she said blissfully. “I thought being a mother was wonderful.” Her voice faltered. She caught herself and hurried on. “But being a grandmother is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life!”
Adam didn’t know what to say to that, so he just squeezed her shoulder. He looked up as two party guests of the somewhat grown-up variety came around the corner.
“Oh, let me introduce you to some friends of ours,” Kitty said, catching sight of them. “This is Stella Stanislaw and her daughter Rose. They live across the street.”
He shook hands with both of them as Kitty made the introductions. Stella was a thin woman of medium height. She had an expression of intelligent irony and a shock of red hair that was styled within an inch of its life. Her eyes were dark and snapping with very pale lashes, which made her face quite arresting, if not beautiful.
Rose was young, probably about twelve by Adam’s estimation, with Stella’s flashing eyes and pale skin, but her hair was dark and thick as a mink coat. She had some kind of drawing pad under her arm, and a pencil stuck out of her shirt pocket. Adam noted her grave and grown-up demeanor with some amusement. She probably felt very adult today, with all the youngsters running around.
“My husband Max is in the backyard. You’ll meet him later.” Stella smiled. “You can’t miss him. He’s the one with the black hat, fighting all the little sheriffs.”
“Dad’s really enjoying this party too much for a man of his age,” Rose said.
Stella laughed. “It’s true. We’ll probably have to have a cowboy theme for his next birthday.” She looked at Adam. “When did you get back to town?”
“Just a few days ago.”
“A few days ago? I didn’t know that.” Kitty swatted at him. “And you haven’t been out to see us yet? You should be ashamed of yourself! Where are you staying?”
“In DC, with a Navy buddy of mine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll stay with us until you find a place of your own.”
He laughed uncomfortably, glancing briefly at Stella and Rose. Bill and Kitty were like kin to him, but he was a man who liked his independence. A lot. “I wouldn’t want to put you out.”
“Put us out? Adam, we’re family. We’re not going to argue about it, and I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
Adam ran his fingers over the brightly-colored wrapping paper on the package he was holding. He didn’t want to press the point about staying with them. Not until he had to.
Stella spoke up, saving him from having to respond. “So what are you going to be doing with yourself, Adam? Now that you’re out of the service, I mean.”
Adam nodded, grateful for the change of subject. “I’ve got a job lined up, helping supervise some houses that are being built down south, near Mount Vernon.”
“Sounds like interesting work.”
“Hope so. I liked the sound of the fella I talked to when I took the job. I’m starting on Monday, so we’ll see how it goes.”
“Well, we wish you the best of luck,” Kitty said fondly. “But I’m sure you won’t need it.” She looked at Stella. “He’s quite brilliant, you know.”
“I have no doubt,” Stella said, her face indulgent.
Kitty turned back to Adam. “Oh dear, have you even seen Jenna yet?”
“No,” he answered. “I just got here.”
“I think she’s in the living room.” Kitty lifted her voice. “Jenna!” she called.
The screen door opened almost immediately, and Adam turned his head in anticipation. But it was Fritz who came out of the door, trotting casually down the walk.
“That’s Fritz,” Rose told Adam. “He’s very friendly. Usually.”
“We’ve met before. I just hope he remembers as me fondly as I remember him — and not as something that might make a good dinner.” Adam reached out and let the big German Shepherd sniff his hand. When the colossal black nose had thoroughly investigated, the muzzle nudged his palm in a friendly gesture. Adam took that as a sign that he’d been officially approved and welcomed.
As he was scratching Fritz’s ears, the hinges on the screen door squealed again. And that time when Adam looked up, he glimpsed the face he’d been waiting to see for five long years. She still took his breath away.
Jenna was all angles, all arms and legs and elbows and knees. Her body was as long and lean as he remembered it. Adam was tall himself, and she came up almost to his nose. She towered over Kitty, who was smaller and plumper. Like Kitty, she wore pedal pushers and a cotton blouse, but hers were blue. The color brought out the blue in her gray eyes and heightened the pink in her cheeks. Her hair, that beautiful black hair that reminded him of a raven’s wing, had been cropped short around her head. If he hadn’t known her better, he would’ve said that she looked like a boy.
But he did know better, and she might have been the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
When she saw him she pulled up short. As always, her face showed little to no emotion, but he read surprise in the way she blinked, and the hesitant manner in which she continued her graceful progress down the walkway.
“Jenna, look what the cat dragged in!” Kitty said happily. Then to Adam: “She didn’t know you were coming.”
“She didn’t?” Well, that accounted for the pale, pinched look that was visible around her mouth and nose.
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Kitty explained.
Surprise
was sure one word for it. Adam suppressed a grin. His Jenna had never liked surprises. They tended to interfere with her need to control everything.
“Hello, Jen,” he said.
“Adam,” she said, making his name sound less like a greeting and more like a grim statement. “How nice to see you.”
Her expression belied her words. Adam would’ve given in and finally released the huge smile that wanted to make its way onto his face, except that her low, husky voice cut right through his humor. It cut right to the core of him, to the place where desire lived.
“You came for the party?” she asked.
“Indeed I did,” he said. He patted the package under his arm and smiled his most winning smile. “I even brought the little guy a present. Something that no American boy should be without.”
From somewhere inside the house, a thin, excited voice called out, “Mom? Mommy!” Jenna stiffened at the sound of her son’s voice, glancing at Adam with lowered eyelids.
“Well, you have a chance to give it to him.” Kitty turned her head. “Here’s our little Christopher now!”
Adam looked up in time to see a small boy come barging out through the front door. He held onto the porch railing with both hands and made his awkward way down, one step at a time.
Adam could empathize with the child’s gawkiness. He remembered the clumsy, inept days of his own childhood, when everything — including his feet — seemed much too big for him to control. He’d used to have to go up and down the stairs in the exact same way that Christopher was doing right now.
The boy was small and slender, with frail-looking bones. A cowboy hat dangled on his back, and a kerchief was tied badman-style around his neck. There was western stitching on his pale red shirt, and his dark red pants were too big for him. They bunched at his waist where his belt had been cinched, and drooped slightly where the leather holster was clipped. At first glance, Christopher’s hair appeared to be black, like his mother’s. But as the boy stepped forward into the sunlight, Adam could see that it was actually dark brown, like his own.
Just like his own.
Adam’s heart skipped a beat.
The child ran down the walk, plastic boots slapping the pavement, spurs jingling. “Mother! Joey wants to know if it’s time to open the presents and have cake and — ”
Christopher looked up, and pulled up short at the sight of Adam, a tall stranger standing on the front lawn. The little boy tried to stop in his tracks, but he skidded and bumped into his mother. He ducked behind her, then leaned forward and peered shyly out from behind her waist. His eyes were wide and blue, his expression cautious but friendly.
Oh, but the child had the look of his mother. Had her sharp nose and round eyes, her feathery brows and pointed chin. But the mouth, when it curled upward into a tentative smile, was a mirror image of Adam’s, and the fingers that clutched Jenna’s legs so tenuously were the same long, slender digits that Adam possessed.
Looking at those fingers, Adam could feel his stomach drop to his feet. The boy was not the child of Bud Appleton, Adam’s oldest friend. The boy was not the grandchild of Bill and Kitty Appleton.
The boy was Adam’s own son.
CHAPTER FIVE
HIS OWN CHILD. HIS BOY.
Adam tore his gaze away and looked at up Jenna. All traces of his good mood were gone, swept away in the tidal wave of her treachery.
She took an involuntary step backward when she saw the fury in his eyes. Then she raised her chin slowly in defiance.
Kitty spoke up, beautifully oblivious to what was going on around her. “Christopher,” she said, and her tone was chiding but indulgent. “You know you’re not supposed to run in those boots. The soles have no tread; you could slip and fall.”
She took his hand and pulled him out from behind his mother. “Now come say hello.” She led him forward until he and Adam were facing each other.
Father and son, Adam thought. He had never felt so lost. Or so angry.
“This,” Kitty said to the boy she thought was her grandson, “is Mr. Balentine.”
“Adam,” Adam said quickly. How could he be Mr. Balentine to his own child?
Jenna spoke up. “Uncle Adam,” she said, her voice rough. She cleared her throat and added, “Christopher, you can call him Uncle Adam. He’s an old friend of your father’s, so I don’t think he’d mind.”
Christopher looked up at his grandmother, who smiled and nodded encouragement. Then he stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. — I mean, Uncle Adam. My name is Christopher.” The voice was thin and chirping, like a baby bird, but the words were pronounced with a sweet perfection that told of many hours conversing with grown-ups.
Adam looked down at the pale little hand being offered to him. He enveloped it in his own, being careful not to clamp down too hard on the delicate bones. Then he released the hand and hunkered down so he could look his boy in the eye.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, too, Christopher. That’s a mighty fine rig you’ve got on there.”
“You mean my six-shooter?” Christopher fumbled the shiny tin revolver out of its holster and held it out with both hands for Adam to inspect. “It’s my birthday present from Grandma!” He glanced at the brightly-wrapped package that Adam still carried under his arm. “Did you know it’s my birthday, Uncle Adam?”
Adam couldn’t help but smile. “Well, you know, I had a feeling that today might be a special day. And that’s why I brought this along with me.”
He held the package out and Christopher took it gingerly with both hands. The box was large and ungainly, but the boy managed to grip it, eyes shining. Adam held on to it, just in case.
Christopher swiveled his head around and looked up at his mother. “Can I open it now, Mommy?”
She smiled at him lovingly, reaching out to stroke his hair. “No, sweetheart, go put it with the others. We’ll open presents in a little while, and then we’ll have cake.”
Crestfallen at being denied, Christopher nevertheless put on a brave face and smiled. “Thank you, Uncle Adam. I’m sure I’ll like it.”
“I hope you do, Christopher.”
Kitty put a hand lightly on Christopher’s shoulder. “Come on, dear. Let’s get back to your guests. I think it’s time for the piñata. What do you think?”
Christopher trotted happily around the back of the house, with Fritz close on his heels. Rose and Stella went with him, Rose carrying his present in her arms.
Kitty reached out and squeezed Adam’s arm. “It’s good to have you home,” she said. Then she smiled and followed after her grandson.
Her grandson, who was not her grandson.
Adam turned to Jenna, his face tight with anger. She held up a hand in warning. “Come inside,” she said. Then she turned and walked up the path without waiting to see if he followed.
The inside of the house had changed a great deal since Adam had last stepped foot inside these walls. Five years earlier, the place had been coldly sleek and modern. The walls had been stark white; the rug on the floor had been flat black, adding little softness to the room. The only warmth in the room had come from the brown sofa. And from Jenna.
Now the walls were painted a soft yellow. The same sofa still sat against the side wall, but its hard form had been beaten into a comfortable-looking pulpy mass. The old black mat was gone, replaced with a blue oval rag rug. Toys lurked in every corner, coloring books covered the coffee table. This, Adam thought, was a good place. It was a child’s place. It was a home.
He followed Jenna into the kitchen, which had also been repainted the same yellow. Blue-checked curtains covered the small window in the corner by the table. The back door was open, letting in the raucous sounds of laughing children as the piñata was raised and lowered by Christopher’s grandfather.
Who, of course, was not Christopher’s grandfather.
Adam felt physically ill. He watched as Jenna pulled a packet of Kool-Aid and a canister of sugar out of the cupboard and ran water to fill
a plastic pitcher. How could she stand there so calmly, going through the motions of a good mother? He wanted to shout at her, to shake her, to force her to explain herself.
“What have — “ He heard his voice rising, and he stopped. This was not a conversation for the folks in the backyard to hear. He clenched his jaw and spoke again, keeping his voice low. “What have you done?”
She didn’t bother to turn around. “Me? I wasn’t exactly alone when it happened!” She threw a cool glance over her shoulder. “Or don’t you remember?”
An unwelcome flash of memory brought the taste of her skin to his tongue, and the cool scent of her hair to his nostrils. He eyed the slender curve of her neck, where it rose gracefully from her blouse and met the edge of her hairline in a neat V-shape. Then he blinked, not wanting to get distracted.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I meant afterward.”
“Oh,” she said, calmly measuring purple powder into the pitcher. “You mean two days later, when you flew back to Korea?”
“I mean the moment that you realized that your baby was my son, and not Bud’s.”
She closed the powder canister tightly before putting it back on the shelf above her head. “What about that moment?”
“What were you thinking?” He heard the bewilderment in his own voice.
Jenna leaned both hands on the edge of the sink. She fired her words downward, as if she were trying to spit them down the drain. “I wasn’t thinking. I was scrambling. I was struggling. My husband had only been dead for a little over a month, and I was pregnant with another man’s child.”
“But how could you not tell me?”
Jenna picked up a wooden spoon and started stirring the purple liquid in the pitcher. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
He wagged his head in disbelief. “Excuse me?”
“Well, it’s not like you stuck around long enough to find out if there were any fruits to your labors.”
The vague coarseness of the expression struck him hard. He felt his mouth twist with distaste. “I wrote to you half a dozen times in the month after I left, and you never answered!”
