by Megan Ziese
But then he saw his mother as she turned in his direction to inspect some merchandise. Even from a distance he could tell that his absence had taken a toll on her. She was thinner, and she looked tired, as if she had stayed up nights. He shook off the feelings the woman had elicited. He had more serious matters to attend to.
He made his way quietly through the racks, making sure to go unnoticed. He managed to get over to the clothes rack the two women were looking at without his mother or the woman spotting him.
As he came up behind his mother, the woman she was with looked straight at him. He put his finger over his lips to warn her to be quiet and then grabbed his mother and nuzzled her neck.
Irene screamed with alarm when someone grabbed her from behind and started on her neck. She started swatting at her attacker with her hands.
“What . . . in . . . the . . . world . . . ?” she said through her struggle.
Sera stood with her mouth agape, not sure of what to do. Just when she thought she should help fight the man off of Irene, he spoke.
“Sweetheart! Is that any way to treat your main man?” he asked teasingly.
Irene turned in his arms and screamed.
The store clerk jumped up from her chair at the payment counter and looked in their direction, looking as if she was ready to come running. “Is everything okay!” she shouted.
“Everything is fine,” Nigel told the woman. He turned back to his mother but still spoke loud enough for the clerk to hear him, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “I just surprised her.”
The clerk didn’t look so convinced and continued to keep an eye on them.
“Oh, sweetheart . . . ,” Irene began, her voice cracking with emotion. She was unable to continue to speak as tears began to stream down her cheeks.
Nigel pulled her close. Laying his head on the top of her head, he stroked her hair tenderly.
“There’s no need to cry. I’m here now.”
Sera didn’t know what in the world was going on. Irene looked like she’d seen a ghost and then she had begun to cry uncontrollably. The two were now hugging, and Irene pulled out of his embrace and began to kiss him all over his face. She looked at the young man up and down, over and over, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
She was surprised at how handsome the man was. He was wearing a tank top tucked in at his narrow waist into camouflage pants that fit his well-sculpted physique. The way he kept brushing his ear length dark hair out of his eyes made her think that it was longer than he normally kept it. She felt warm all over when he looked away from his mother and at her for a brief moment. His dark blue eyes combined with a few days worth of dark stubble on his square jaw sent delicious currents of awareness through her being. She suddenly wondered if she looked an awful mess, which was strange since she didn’t normally care what she looked like.
After a few moments, she realized that he must be one of Irene’s sons. As they stood together talking, she noticed the resemblance between him and the pictures of the young men in Irene’s living room she had studied so many times when she had come to visit her since her pregnancy began.
Having noticed that his mother had become overwhelmed by emotion, Nigel decided to walk her out of the store and down the sidewalk to her car. He grabbed her arm and entwined it with his own, continuing to talk to her soothingly as he lead her from the store.
It appeared to Sera as if Irene’s son was going to take her home. She didn’t know what to do, but she didn’t feel comfortable about intruding, especially when the two obviously needed some time alone.
Nigel helped his mother into the passenger seat of her car. Before he shut the door, she stopped him.
Suddenly coming to her senses, Irene realized that as soon as she’d seen Nigel, she’d been so overwhelmed that she had completely forgotten about Sera.
“Sera, where’s Sera? We can’t leave Sera. We have to give her a ride back to the house. She can’t drive.”
Nigel noticed that the woman who was with his mother, Sera, stood on the sidewalk, looking uncomfortable with the situation. He walked around the car and opened the back door on the driver’s side for her.
“Thank you, but I don’t know if I should. You two have some catching up to do.” Sera said, feeling extremely reluctant to intrude in their reunion. “I can just walk.”
Irene turned to look back at her. “Nonsense. You are not going to walk home, you could get mugged. And it’s the middle of the day, he could get heat stroke. And we’re already headed in that direction, you might as well come with us. Besides, there’s a lot for all of us to discuss.”
Her last comment struck Sera as odd. She couldn’t imagine what Irene had meant by that.
* * * *
On the drive back home, Nigel felt uncomfortable talking in front of, Sera, the woman he still hadn’t had a chance to be formally introduced to. But his mother obviously didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable about pumping him for details on what had happened in front of her.
Tears still glistening in her eyes, Irene looked over at her son driving her car. He was here! He was alive! And boy wasn’t he going to be surprised at what all had transpired while he was MIA. But first, she wanted to know what had happened.
Irene sniffed back tears, trying desperately to hold them at bay. She didn’t want her son to see her upset. “What happened?”
Nigel glanced at his mother and then glanced at the rear view mirror to see if the attractive woman who was accompanying them was paying any attention to the conversation. For some reason, although he had never thought much about what other people thought, revealing details about what had happened, making himself vulnerable in front of the woman, made him decidedly uncomfortable.
Raking a hand through his dark hair, which was getting on his nerves now that it was longer than what he was used to, he took a deep steadying breath. What could he tell her? What wouldn’t upset her? All of it would upset her, she was his mother. Images of fallen soldiers and the enemy hot on his tail came back with a vengeance. He’d had many nights haunted by them. It had only been since he’d come back to the states that his tormented nights had abated somewhat, and then only marginally.
He decided he should give her the short version of the events, glossing over the more gory details.
“You know we were sent in to locate a package and bring it out?”
“Yes, I recall.”
“We found the package, but the enemy had found it first. They obviously were expecting soldiers to come looking for it. They set up around it. When we arrived to carry it out, we were ambushed. We lit out of there without the payday, since we couldn’t extract it, and rushed back to our rendezvous point. I fell behind the rest of the troop because,” he paused for a moment, remembering how he had been shot, but he didn’t want his mother to hear that, not now. “I found Sgt. Wilmont slumped against a tree on my way to the extraction point. He’d been shot. I couldn’t leave him behind, so I picked him up and dragged him out of there. ”
“He’s that good friend of yours you mentioned before in your letters?” Irene asked.
“Yes. You might remember he saved my life on the first mission we ever had together, so, like I said, I couldn’t leave him behind. Not after he had put his life in jeopardy for me when we hardly even knew each other. And I would never have been able to forgive myself if I didn’t do something for him when I knew he had two little girls at home waiting for his safe return.
Well, because I wasn’t moving as fast as the rest of the troop and the enemy was closing in, the chopper left before I managed to get us to it. I guess they figured they had everyone that had made it. I had taken Sgt. Wilmont to a small hiding place to take cover, so the men on the chopper wouldn’t have seen us if they’d been looking down to search for more soldiers as they took off. The cover that I had taken Wilmont and myself to was a small depression in the ground beside an outcropping of rock. Later, a farmer found us and took us back to his home and nursed us back to health.”
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Feeling like he’d told her all of the important details, he looked over at his mother to gauge her reaction. He could see the tears she was struggling with brimming beneath her lashes. He reached over and grabbed her now shaky hands and squeezed them reassuringly.
“I’m home now,” he said with a quiet confidence.
He wanted to reassure her that she would never have to worry about him being injured or killed in the line of duty again. He’d had enough of the military. But, he would wait until later, until they were alone. There was so much to tell her, so much that he wanted to do.
Irene smiled at him. “Yes, son, you’re home now.” She could hardly believe it herself. She’d never thought she’d utter those words. But, somehow, someone had looked out for her son. She wanted to meet the man that had saved his life, to thank him from the bottom of her heart for saving her son. She would never be able to thank him enough. She’d have to get details about the man later. For now, she had another dilemma. How was she going to tell Nigel about Sera?
A few minutes later, before Irene could figure out a solution to her problem, Nigel drove up to her home and parked in her one car garage.
He stepped out and opened the back door for Sera, who had been seated behind him and who he’d noticed in the rearview mirror had been looking a little green, before walking around the car and opening the door for his mother. He took her hand and entwined her arm with his, escorting her through the garage and into the house.
Sera made her way to the opening of the garage, thinking that now would be a good time to go home.
Just as Irene and her son were entering her house, though, Irene noticed Sera wasn’t with them. She turned to find her leaving.
“Sera, honey, don’t leave.”
Still feeling uncomfortable about the situation, Sera was reluctant to stay. She’d never met any of Irene’s sons. She knew they were all in the military, which must have created an intense amount of stress for their mother. It was obvious she had been worried about him and that they needed time to talk. She didn’t know why Irene wanted her to stay. Yes, they were technically becoming a family, but it had been so long since she had had a family, a close relationship like that, she just didn’t feel right staying. It was like she was intruding, like she was that extra wheel getting in the way. She felt like she was almost snooping on their personal lives. She suddenly felt odd and out of place, even though Irene had always made her feel warm and welcome. It just didn’t feel right staying when they had to catch up. It was like she was pushing her way into their personal affairs and it didn’t sit right with her. But when she looked at the way Irene was pleading her with her eyes, she decided she should stay. For some odd reason, Irene wanted her there. They had become close since she’d become pregnant. Maybe she wanted her to feel like a part of her family. It was just so tough, since she’d tried so hard not to become that close to anyone in so long. But it was why she’d decided to become pregnant in the first place. Yes, she had friends, but they couldn’t fill that void in her life. The only thing that could was a family.
Sera grudgingly followed Irene and her son inside as they walked to the living room.
Irene settled down on her couch and patted the seat next to her, smiling up at Nigel.
Now that she was in the comfort of her own home, having heard the conditions of Nigel’s disappearance, she realized she was in a mess.
Sera sat down in a wing back chair next to the sofa, only a foot away from the Irene and her son. She was distracted from her discomfort about the situation by how hot he was. He was so intense with his darkly handsome good looks, his rugged manliness just oozing sexuality. He was a force to be reckoned with. She had a feeling he probably saw plenty of action that wasn’t the dangerous kind in the military. There were most likely flocks of female soldiers pining for him. And he probably left a broken heart in every port. He looked like that type. He was just too handsome to be the kind of guy to want to stick with one woman. All of the intensely good looking ones were that way, why have one cookie when I can have a new cookie every night? And he was that handsome.
Nigel looked at Sera and then at his mother, waiting for an introduction to the woman she’d insisted on bringing home.
Irene saw Nigel looking at her. Obviously he was curious about Sera. She couldn’t think of what to say. For a moment, she looked at one then the other. She began to worry her bottom lip with her teeth, wondering how to broach the situation. She couldn’t be more thrilled that her son was alive. She had thought that his baby would be the only thing she had to remember him by. It was such a relief that he was home. But now, what would she say to him? What could she possibly say to Sera who’d been so happy with their situation?
Before Irene could find a way to put things tactfully, Nigel took it upon himself to make the introductions and leaned forward from his seat on the couch. Smiling at Sera, he extended his hand to her.
“Hi! I’m Nigel. I’m Irene’s oldest.”
Sera almost fainted at Nigel’s words. She didn’t think she’d misunderstood him. He was the oldest son? That wasn’t right, he couldn’t be Nigel. Nigel was gone. Irene had told her so, told her about how awful the funeral had been. She’d seen Irene cry every time she’d looked at the flag they had given her at the funeral. What was going on? Had this all been some kind of twisted plot? Were they playing some sick joke? That couldn’t be. That wasn’t like Irene at all. Sure she’d been a stranger to her at first, but in the last few months, she’d gotten to know her. They’d become quite close. It just wasn’t in her nature to deceive. Then she recalled how upset Irene had been when she’d seen her son in the store, her face had been ashen as if she’d seen a ghost.
That was why, she had. She had seen a ghost. The son she had believed to be dead, the one whose body had never been located, was here . . . alive. Then the gravity of the situation hit her like a ton of boulders.
What was she going to do now? This wasn’t part of the plan. She had decided to have a baby because there was no man involved, no man to cause trouble, no man to tell her what to do or how to raise her child, no man to get attached to so that he could leave one day and rip a hole in her family. Men messed everything up. And the women who put their faith in them were always left holding an empty bag. It had all made perfect sense. Irene wanted grandchildren. She wanted babies. It was the perfect arrangement. There was no man in the picture . . . until now. The careful plan that she and Irene had constructed was beginning to slowly crumble. Strangely enough, the world around her seemed to also be slowly careening.
Both Irene and Nigel leapt up from the couch to catch Sera. Nigel caught Sera in his arms before she could melt onto the floor. He lifted her off of her feet effortlessly, as if she was a child instead of a pregnant woman, and carried her the short distance to the couch where he laid her down.
Irene stood over her, fanning her face, fussing over her, and then went to get her a glass of cold water from the kitchen. When she got back, she found both Nigel and Sera looking at her and decided then and there that there wasn’t much point in putting off the inevitable. She was going to have to tell them and now.
“Nigel, this is Sera, the mother of your children! You know I always wanted grandbabies . . . .”
Nigel didn’t hear anything else his mother said. It was like her voice became some strange sort of droning in his ears. He knew she was rambling on about the situation, probably trying to maintain the calm, but the words weren’t registering. All he could think about was Sera and . . . his child. She was carrying his child. He looked down at the beautiful woman he’d been holding, shock evident in his features. He looked further down her body that he’d been admiring so much before to her belly where his child was. His child. She was carrying his child. But wait, his mother had said children. Was it possible that she was carrying more than one?
Gingerly, as if worried that just the sheer force of his touch might eject the baby, he put a hand on her stomach. It was small, but it was a bump, j
ust big enough to fit in his hand.
Nigel looked at Sera again, a warm smile spreading over his face.
Sera couldn’t reciprocate the sentiment. It was all she could do not to throw up at the moment, and she felt the blood drain from her face. She just hoped she wasn’t going to pass out. Or worse, puke and then pass out.
“No. This can’t be right,” she said in denial then looked over at Irene accusingly. “It was just supposed to be you, me, and my babies!”
“Your babies?” Nigel said a little irritably, his dark brow furrowing.
Sera looked back at Nigel.
“Yes, my babies. You weren’t there for conception, even if it was your sperm. These are my babies.”
“Look, those babies are just as much mine as they are yours. So, since that’s settled, the only thing left is when we’re going to set the date.”
Sera looked at him quizzically. “What date? The doctor already told me when the babies were due . . . .”
“No, not that date, the babies will come when they’re ready. What I mean is, where I come from, when a man and a woman are going to have a baby, they get married. It’s the right thing to do. I’m not going to insist on it right away, but we need to make arrangements.”
“Well, that’s mighty gracious of you. I suppose next you’ll tell me I have no choice in the matter. Did it occur to you to ask? Or are you just used to imposing your iron will? ”
“I just did,” he said with a smile, a dimple in his cheek coming out to play.
“Well, I’ve never had a man propose, but I’m pretty sure a question starts with who, what, where, why, or when.”
