MIDNIGHT CHOICES

by Eileen Wilks

  Sometimes Gwen had rebelled against the resemblance, sometimes she'd taken comfort from it. These days she mostly just hoped she'd be around to find out how accurate that genetic mirror turned out to be.

  Two sticky hands seized her face and turned it toward a small, square face with dark eyes and a determined chin. "I want a dog."

  Her mind snapped back to the moment. "You do, huh?"

  "I been telling you and telling you that."

  "Mmm-hmm. And what have I been telling you?"

  His mouth drooped. "That I can't have one till I'm older."

  "That's right." He looked so sad, with that pouty lip. And so stubborn, with those frowning eyebrows. And not like her at all. Her heart hitched in her chest. For a long time she'd managed to forget that Zach had come from two sets of genes, not one. She couldn't do that anymore.

  "But you never say how much older. I'm getting older all the time."

  "So you are. What did your grandma stuff you with, anyway?" She poked his T-shirt-clad tummy. "I see a purple spot, a red spot…"

  He giggled. "That's grape drink and ketchup."

  "And was that ketchup on something or did you take it straight?" She scooped him up and stood – and God, but it was good to be able to do that again, to rise easily with the warm weight of her son in her arms. The radiation had left her so weak, tired all the time.

  All that was in the past. "I also see a bath in your very near future."

  He frowned, considering that. "With bubbles," he informed her. "An' my army guys."

  "Sure thing." She glanced over her shoulder at her mother as she started for the French doors that led to the rest of the house. "There's a pot of decaf in the kitchen, if you'd like a cup."

  "Wine sounds better right now."

  "You know where it is."

  Several minutes later she left Zach in a tub that was more bubbles than water, surrounded by battalions of "army guys."

  She would tell him about his father tonight. Oh, she'd had reason enough to wait until she'd seen Ben, spoken with him, but she'd returned from Highpoint two days ago. There was no excuse to delay any longer. Ben had made it clear he wanted a relationship with his son.

  How would Zach feel about suddenly acquiring a father?

  Her stomach clenched with nerves. She saw that her mother had poured her a glass of merlot and left it on the counter. She picked it up and took a sip, letting the rich taste of the wine linger on her tongue.

  It was so important to handle this right. She'd tried to prepare herself for the questions Zach would ask, including the big one: why hadn't she told him about his father before?

  Unfortunately she still didn't have a good answer for that one.

  Sighing, she looked at the open doors to the Florida room. Might as well get this over with. Her mother wouldn't leave without making one last push to change Gwen's mind.

  "Battles are being waged," Gwen announced as she stepped into the sun porch. "Campaigns plotted, and bloody war declared. I think the green guys are going to win again, though."

  Dusk had replaced the warm colors of sunset. Her mother stood in silence and dimness, her back to the house, looking out at the shapes and shadows of the garden. Her back was as straight as ever, but the way she hugged her arms to her made her look oddly vulnerable.

  "Mom? Is something wrong?"

  Deirdre turned, her face pale in the dying light. "I saw the letter from him. You're going through with this, aren't you."

  Gwen grimaced and flipped the light on. "It wasn't addressed to you."

  "I didn't read it," her mother snapped. "But I couldn't help seeing the return address." She waved at the glass table, where a glass of wine sat next to the envelope with McClain Construction in the upper left corner.

  Gwen took a deep breath. Arguing with her mother wouldn't help. It was probably inevitable, but it wouldn't help. Her throat ached as she crossed to her mother. "Yes, I'm going through with it. Everything is arranged – we leave on the tenth and will stay with his father for two weeks. I'll tell Zach tonight."

  "Oh, Gwen." Deirdre closed her eyes tightly for a second. "I don't understand this obsession of yours. For heaven's sake, you had to hire a detective to track the man down!" She shuddered delicately. To Deirdre Van Allen, anything connected with a detective was implicitly sordid.

  "That was partly my fault. I've told you that."

  "The way you make excuses for this man worries me."

  Was she doing that – making excuses? Wearily Gwen rubbed her temples, where a headache was starting. "This is about Zach, not me."

  "Is it? I don't think so. With all that Zach's been through in the past eighteen months, the last thing he needs is another major change to deal with."

  Gwen turned and headed for the kitchen. Deirdre followed. "We've been over this and over this. You know how I feel."

  "And this is about your feelings, isn't it? Not mine. Not your son's. You're cherishing some sort of romantic pipe dreams about this man, a man who walked out on you without a backward glance."

  Gwen wanted to scream. She wanted to just stand there and yell as loud as she could, but that would be as cruel as it was childish. It would frighten her mother and Zach.

  Her mother was already scared. Gwen understood that; fear lay behind the protests and opposition. So she carried both their glasses to the sink, emptied them and rinsed them and opened the dishwasher. "This man has a name, you know. And a son. He deserves to know his son."

  "And what does Zach deserve? To have his life turned upside down for the sake of some man you picked up in a bar?"

  Gwen's breath sucked in. The jolt of pain came as a surprise. It shouldn't have, she thought, yanking a paper towel loose from the roll, then bending to grab the spray cleaner from under the sink. Her mother had never put it quite so bluntly before, but then, she wasn't one to give up without using any and all weapons within her grasp.

  There were always fingerprints to be cleaned from the refrigerator. She moved there quickly, sprayed and wiped.

  "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." Deirdre came up behind Gwen. "For heaven's sake, Gwen, sit down. It's difficult to hold a conversation when you're bouncing all over the place."

  "I can't think when I'm sitting still. You know that."

  "You're not thinking now. What happened five years ago was an aberration on your part. But this man—"

  "Ben," Gwen said, angry. She turned to face her mother. "His name is Benjamin Mc Clain. And it was an aberration for him, too."

  "No doubt that's what he told you." Deirdre's lips thinned. "Be realistic. He's a construction worker. Picking up women in bars is no doubt quite normal for him."

  She drew a deep breath, struggling to find a measure of calm. "No, Mother, he isn't a construction worker. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but he owns a construction company. Though he likes swinging a hammer when be gets a chance."

  "I suppose he told you that, too."

  "Yes, he did. And guess what? The detective confirmed it. And the letterhead you peeked at should be a clue, too."

  Most of the details of that long-ago night were smudged, like a charcoal drawing left out in the rain. But Gwen had been forced to salvage what she could of those neglected memories when she'd gone to the detective two months ago. She'd remembered Ben saying he preferred working on a site to shuffling papers. He'd looked like a man who enjoyed working with his hands, too – a big man with broad, callused hands, the kind of man a woman could depend on.

  Appearances could be deceiving.

  Deirdre's gaze didn't waver. "Is he married?"

  "No. And he wasn't married then, either."

  Her mother looked down, rubbing her forehead with a pianist's long, slim fingers. When she spoke, her voice was unusually quiet. "I'm worried about you."

  Why did her mother always do this – pull back just before things went too far, say the one soft, right thing that crumpled Gwen's defenses? Gwen hugged her arms around her middle and wished she
knew whether the skill was intentional. "You raised me to do the right thing, even when it hurts. I know this is right."

  "Mo-om!" came a singsong cry from inside the house. "Come get me! I'm ready to get out!"

  "Coming, sweetie," she answered, relieved to have a reason to end the conversation.

  "Let me get him ready for bed," Deirdre said.

  Gwen hesitated, wondering … but that was unfair. Her mother had never let their own difficult relationship spill over onto the little boy they both loved. "All right."

  "Gwen—" Deirdre surprised Gwen by laying a tentative hand on her arm "—you're searching for something, I can tell. Ever since … well, you've had reason to question your life, your choices. But please don't act hastily. Promise me you're not going to sign away any of your rights to this man."

  Gwen met the green eyes so like her own and saw all the feelings Deirdre Van Allen would never put into words – fear, anger, frustration … and love. She didn't doubt that her mother loved her.

  "Mom." She laid her hand over her mother's. "I don't know how things will work out. I'm trying not to make plans, not to expect things to go a certain way. But whatever happens, you can't lose Zach, not really. You'll always be his grandmother – his only grandmother, as it turns out. Ben's parents are both dead."

  Though he had brothers. She'd met one of them – a dark, watchful man whose pale gray eyes seemed to be stuck in her memory like a burr.

  Deirdre's breath sighed out. She stepped away. "You mean well, I know. I'd better go get Zach out of the tub." She left the room, moving with the angular grace Gwen had always envied – like an egret, Gwen thought, striding long-legged and slow through murky currents.

  The currents had been murky enough tonight. Gwen rubbed her temple. They often were, between her mother and herself. It was amazing how two people who loved each other could misunderstand each other so thoroughly and so often. Though her mother had surprised her tonight, showing am insight Gwen hadn't expected. She'd said she knew Gwen was searching … and it was true.

  What woman raising a child alone wasn't searching? Of course she wanted more. The comfort of a man's body next to hers at night – yes, she wanted that. The passion, too, she admitted. But she wasn't indulging in romantic pipe dreams. Maybe the thought had crossed her mind once or twice that something might develop between her and her son's father. There had been a connection between them once – surely she hadn't imagined that. And Ben had asked her if she was seeing anyone.

  But she wasn't pinning her hopes on a fairy-tale ending. Childhood dreams of happy-ever-after might be hard to give up, but she was too much of a pragmatist to mistake wishing for reality. And the reality was that Zach needed to know his father … just in case.

  The surgeon had removed the lump along with part of her breast. It had been very small, very close to the surface of her skin. Radiation should have killed any lingering cancer cells. Statistically, her chances were good. But no one could say for sure. Cancer cells might be lurking somewhere in her body right now, malignant fugitives hiding in some organ, waiting for some unknown trigger to start them growing again.

  Her mother was sixty-one. She loved Zach and would do her best for him if Gwen died, but when Zach was fifteen his grandmother would be over seventy. Gwen had no other close relatives. Oh, she had friends – one in particular whom she'd trust with her son. But the courts gave preference to close relatives. If Deirdre fought for custody of Zach, she might well win.

  She wouldn't win against Zach's father.

  Gwen glanced around the spotless kitchen. It was much too soon to make any decisions, but she'd put things in motion. Her mother knew that and hated it, and Gwen couldn't blame her. But she had to think of Zach first.

  There wasn't a blasted thing left to clean, so she headed for her study, where work of another sort waited.

  The law was a tidy goddess, and it suited Gwen. Not criminal law. There, the stakes were too high, and she knew herself too well. She could be seduced by the clarity of order and lose sight of the greater good the law was intended to serve – justice. Nor, in spite of her father's pressure, had she been drawn to corporate law. He'd been bitterly disappointed when she told him she wouldn't be working for Van Allen Produce, Inc.

  Surprisingly her mother had supported her choice. Perhaps Deirdre understood how well real-estate law suited Gwen. It called for patience, thoroughness and attention to detail. Gwen loved the historical sweep of performing a title search, the feel of the law stretching backward in time, the digging through old records. She liked bringing her findings to the present by checking statutes on environmental protection, wildlife habitats, zoning requirements, native lands – all the written code, the regulations both federal and state, that a developer had to observe.

  Since becoming a mother, she'd especially appreciated being able to do a large part of her work from home, plugged into various databases.

  Gwen's chair was already occupied by what looked like a shabby fur pillow. The pillow opened its eyes and blinked balefully at her. "You know what I'm going to do now, don't you, Natasha?" Gwen said. Careful of old bones, she scooped the cat up and deposited her on the floor.

  Natasha glared and stalked to the window, where she levitated onto the broad sill and began licking her ruffled fur back into place. Gwen smiled a little sadly. Natasha was old, cranky and set in her ways, no pet for a lively four-year-old boy. But the cat had been with Gwen for almost sixteen years, ever since she finished high school. She was one of the reasons Gwen hadn't given in and gotten her son the puppy he craved.

  Natasha wouldn't appreciate being deserted for two weeks, but she'd be all right. Gwen's mother might be deeply unhappy with her decision to go to Highpoint, but she'd never refuse to take care of the cat. She'd done it before. The two of them had an understanding. Natasha let Deirdre know what she wanted, and Deirdre gave it to her.

  Gwen smiled as she settled in front of her monitor. The old cat was the one being other than Zach who pretty much always got what she wanted from Deirdre Van Allen.

  Gwen turned on her computer. Distantly she could hear water splashing and Zach giggling. Natasha had turned herself into a purring lump again. The computer hummed.

  But what she saw as she brought her fingers to the keyboard was the careful sterility of a doctor's examining room. She remembered the chart opposite the examination table – why did doctors always put up those colorful drawings of people's insides for their patients to brood over? The paper covering the exam table had crinkled every time she moved.

  She'd shifted a lot.

  Sitting at her desk with the cursor blinking imperatively at her, Gwen's heart raced as it had that day. Her palms felt clammy.

  Until the diagnosis, she hadn't known fear. Not really. Now the two of them were intimate. Gwen inhaled slowly: I breathe in and my body is calmed; breathe out, and I smile.

  According to the therapist who led her cancer support group, meditation kept you anchored in the moment, and anxiety was reduced or eliminated when you dealt only with the present moment. So far Gwen hadn't had much success with it. Meditation required stillness, and that didn't come naturally to her. She was working at it, though. Even the stodgiest western medical practitioners these days agreed that the mind affected the body.

  After a moment, her heartbeat slowed.

  Maybe I am getting better at it, she thought, pleased, and called up the land plat she was researching.

  Oddly enough, it wasn't the day she'd been diagnosed with cancer that had come back to her so vividly just now, but the day of her last checkup. When Dr. Webster had told her everything looked good. That was the day she'd broken down and bawled like a baby, her nose running and sobs choking her.

  It was also the day she'd known she had to make some changes in her life. The day she'd decided to find her son's father.

  Maybe it wasn't so odd, after all, that she would remember that day.

  Owen took another slow breath and started to work.

>   * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  "Are we there yet?"

  Gwen rumpled the silky hair on her son's head. "Has the plane landed yet?"

  "No, but we're almost there, aren't we?"

  "About thirty minutes still to go, champ." Assuming the flight was on time. She prayed that it was. If Zach got wound up any tighter, he'd be bouncing off the walls.

  "An' my dad will be waiting for us when we get there, right?"

  "He sure will. At the baggage claim." That question had been asked at least as often as the traditional "How much longer?" Gwen bent and pulled a book from the tote that held a few small toys, some dried fruit and her laptop. "How about a round of Green Eggs and Ham to fill in the time?"

  Gwen had read the Seuss story too many times for it to provide any distraction from her own thoughts, but she hoped it would work some of its usual magic on Zach. She began reading, with Zach chiming in loudly on the parts he knew.

  A father, it turned out, was at least as exciting as a puppy.

  Gwen had spoken with Ben briefly two days ago. He'd asked to speak to Zach – and Zach had been hanging by eagerly, waiting for his chance. Of course, as soon as the phone was in his hands, her ball-of-fire, never-met-a-stranger son had turned shy, barely able to breathe a yes or no to whatever Ben had asked him. He was always like that on the phone, she'd assured Ben. The rest of the time, his mouth worked just fine.

  "'Would you like them in a house?'" she read, thinking about last Christmas and wondering if the next one would be different. If she would have to share her son for part of the holidays. "'Would you like them—'"

  Zach tugged on her arm. "What does his house look like?"