Tin Soldier: a short story

by Nelson, Resa

  Rick voice grew stronger. “There were 12 Rippetoes--all of them brothers--at Valley Forge with George Washington. Ms. Rippetoe had another relative, Lawrence Connor, who came here from Dublin as an indentured servant. After he worked off his debt, he turned soldier. He fought side by side with the Rippetoes. Nine of the Rippetoes died at Valley Forge. About a hundred years later, one of Connor’s kin married into Abby’s clan.”

  Jenkins gazed at Abby in complete awe. “Good God, woman. You had two ancestors at Valley Forge?”

  Abby smiled gently. “I grew up in poverty. Isn’t that ironic? But my parents always told me if I worked hard and learned as much as I could, anything was possible.”

  Rick froze with the last tin soldier in hand. Abby had never told him about her past. He wondered if she was making it up to get a dig in at the old man.

  Abby’s smile was open and warm. She looked the old man directly in the eyes.

  Jenkins grinned. “That’s the kind of American spirit I’m talking about!”

  Rick placed the last tin soldier on the tabletop.

  Jenkins shifted back to the soldiers. “How much do you want for the set?”

  ###

  They walked toward the hovercraft, parked in the small lot across the street from the old man’s shop.

  When Rick opened the door for Abby, she doubled over and threw up on the pavement.

  Rick frowned. She hadn’t said anything about feeling sick.

  When Abby was done, she straightened up, then climbed into the hovercraft. “Let’s go.”

  Rick stored the case containing the few things they hadn’t sold in back. As he hopped into the driver’s seat, he saw Abby look away. Something was wrong. “What’s going on?” Rick said.

  When she finally spoke, it was so quiet he could barely hear her. “I’m pregnant.”

  ###

  Rick felt frozen in time. All his planning. All these years. It was finally paying off. For the first time in his life, Rick was getting a taste of what it felt like for a dream to come true.

  But Abby was crying.

  “I don’t get it,” Rick said. “It’s what you want. What everybody wants. Why the waterworks?”

  Abby kept looking away. “I found out three weeks ago.”

  Now Rick was confused. “Three weeks? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Abby wiped her face dry with her hands. “Because I like you. I like what we’ve been doing. I don’t want to stop.”

  Rick wasn’t surprised she liked the sex. What did surprise him was how easily the words popped out of his mouth. “We don’t have to stop.”

  “It’s my fault,” Abby said. “It’s just been so long since anyone touched me... but that’s an excuse. I should have been honest with you, and I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

  Rick laughed it off. “I already told you, we don’t have to stop. What’s the problem?”

  Rick never felt guilty when he was in bed with Abby. He never felt like he was cheating on Shelly--not really.

  But now, he suddenly felt like a cheat. Like he was committing adultery, even though he wasn’t married to Shelly, not yet.

  Finally, Abby looked at him. Rick hoped none of the guilt showed on his face.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  Rick drove the hovercraft up into the air, focusing his attention on traffic.

  “I want you to tell me as much as you can about your family.”

  Rick merged up and into the flow of traffic. “What? Why? We went through it already. There’s nothing else to tell.”

  “Please, trust me, Rick,” Abby said. “Tracing ancestors is my specialty. Let me do it for you.”

  In that moment, Rick felt something he’d never felt with Shelly. In fact, it was something he’d never felt at all. It was feeling like where he was and what he was doing was exactly what he wanted. But that didn’t make any sense.

  He was servant to a woman. That made him less than a man. Abby was rich. Abby had prestige. Abby had power.

  Rick had nothing.

  Rick laughed it off. “Why? You think I can make something of myself, like you did?”

  When Abby didn’t answer, Rick took a quick glance at her. She was staring at him intently. “If I can do it,” she said. “You can do it.”

  “What if we got married?” Rick said impulsively.

  It was crazy. It wasn’t what he’d planned, and it would mean giving Shelly up. Somehow, it didn’t feel like a sacrifice.

  Long seconds passed before Abby answered. “I wish I could. I only have enough money to support the baby and me. There’s not enough to support you and your family.”

  Of course. By law, marriage required all immediate family members to live within the same means.

  “What if we just lived together?”

  “It’s the same problem,” Abby said. “If I hire a live-in servant, by law I have to let his family move in. I’m sorry, Rick. My home isn’t big enough to hold eight more people, much less feed and clothe them.”

  “Right,” Rick said, burying his frustration. “It was stupid ... I don’t know why I brought it up.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Rick said nothing in response, even though Abby sounded as if she really meant it.

  He knew what he wanted, and nothing would stop him from getting it.

  ###

  August 29

  The toy seller’s market was set up in an old office complex in Hartford, Connecticut. Dealers from London to New Delhi set up shop in cubicles, and buyers crowded through the narrow aisles.

  Rick was just returning from the vending machines when he heard Abby call his name through the crowd. She’d insisted on staying longer than they’d planned -- and Rick had memorized doctor’s orders. At six months, Abby was already looking at the possibility of bed rest before her due date.

  “Rick!”

  As he rounded a corner, he saw her face glowing with a joy he’d never seen in her before. He opened a bottle of purified water and handed it to her.

  She showed him the tin soldier.

  “Look!” Abby said. “He’s a Minuteman! Look at the detail -- the three-cornered hat, the musket, his waistcoat...”

  As Abby took the bottle of water, she shoved the tin soldier into Rick’s hand. Obediently, Rick examined the toy, not sure what he was supposed to be looking for. “So?”

  “He’s your ancestor,” Abby said.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m serious,” Abby said. “I traced a branch on your mother’s side. Finneas Brown fell in love with a woman, but then he left to join his cousins and fight in the war. While he was gone, she had his baby. Once the war was over, he married her. They had five more children.”

  “That’s impossible,” Rick said. He reached for a nearby wall to steady himself. He clung to the tin soldier with the other hand. “The government--”

  “I know,” Abby said. “The government does a preliminary trace of every citizen’s roots. What most people don’t know is it’s a very shallow trace.”

  Rick held on even more tightly to the soldier.

  Abby took a swig of water. “Your ancestor was the first-born child of Finneas Brown, his only child born out of wedlock. Sometimes bastard children can be a bit more difficult to find in the kinds of records the government searches.”

  Rick felt as if his whole world was beginning to change, but he didn’t understand what it meant. Not yet. “Why?”

  Abby shouted above the noisy din of the dealers and buyers surrounding them. Everyone was looking for a bargain. “If we can prove your roots go back to the Revolution, I can register you legally as the father.”

  Rick sank against the wall. It was beyond anything he could have imagined. More than anything he could have hoped for.

  “If I die,” Abby said, “I want you to raise our child. If you inherit both a child and money from me, the government waives the obligation toward your family members. You can help them if you want, but most of the money will be in a
trust fund, so no one can take it away from you.”

  ###

  They made it back to Houston by late afternoon the next day. Rick sat on the edge of Abby’s bed, turning the tin soldier in his hands. “Do you think he knew about the baby?” Rick said.

  Abby sat in bed, propped up by several pillows. She shifted her body, trying to find a comfortable position. “Who? Finneas?”

  Rick stared into the tiny painted eyes of the Minuteman. “Did he come back because he knew? Or did he find out when he got back?”

  Abby smiled wistfully. “I compared the birth date of Finneas’s first born with the time Finneas went to war. It’s only a guess, but I think Hannah couldn’t have been more than two weeks pregnant, maybe three.”

  “Hannah.” Rick repeated the name, letting it sink in. “So she didn’t know?”

  “And if she didn’t know,” Abby said, “Finneas didn’t know.”

  “But he came back to her.”

  “Yes,” Abby said softly. “He must have loved her very much.”

  Rick didn’t want to take the tin soldier home. He didn’t want Shelly to see it, to ask about it, to know it existed. He placed it carefully on the nightstand next to Abby’s bed.

  Abby’s forehead crinkled in worry. “Don’t you like it?”

  Rick smiled at her. “Finneas wants to stay here with you. He wants to stand guard over you.” Rick didn’t notice Abby was frowning until her face relaxed. “OK?”

  Abby gazed for a long moment into Rick’s eyes. “It’s fine,” she said. “Just fine.”

  ###

  November 30

  Shelly straightened the comforter on Abby’s bed. Rick walked into the bedroom.

  “Rick, I’m glad you’re here,” Abby said from her bed. “There’s something I want to discuss with both of you.”

  Rick sat in a chair next to her.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Abby said. “I don’t want to travel as much as I used to. Once the baby comes, I’m going to do more work from home. When I do travel, the baby will go with us. So, Shelly, I’ll be letting you go as soon as the baby--”

  “No!” Shelly cried. “I mean, I’m the nanny. My job is to take care of the kid, right?”

  Out of habit, Rick readjusted the stance of the tin soldier on Abby’s nightstand.

  “I’m sorry, Shelly,” Abby said evenly. “I’ve decided against having a nanny. But I’ve got a couple of good contacts for you, and I’ll be glad to recommend you--”

  “But I don’t want another job!” Shelly said. “I want to stay here! I want to work for you. I have to work for you.”

  In the long awkward silence, Rick counted to stay calm.

  One... two...

  Just as planned, he had brought up the subject of hiring a nanny to Abby. He had recommended Shelly.

  Three... four...

  They’d told Abby that Shelly was Rick’s cousin. It was easy enough, because Shelly lived at Rick’s house with the rest of his family.

  Five... six...

  He’d taken a chance. He hoped Abby would trust him enough not to check the facts too closely. Shelly was motivated to play it cool in the few weeks she’d worked for Abby... but had Abby noticed the certain familiarity between Shelly and Rick? Had she found out Shelly wasn’t who she pretended to be?

  Seven --

  “Rick,” Abby said. “Call the midwife. Call the doctor. Something doesn’t feel right.”

  ###

  Shelly flailed as the ambulance attendants pulled Abby from her bed and onto the gurney.

  When Abby reached back, Rick knew immediately what she wanted. He grabbed the tin soldier from the nightstand and put it in her hand.

  “What do we do now?” Shelly said to Rick.

  Rick was on the verge of panic. Everything was going down the tubes. It wasn’t what they had planned. Abby was supposed to have the baby at home, not at the hospital. Shelly was supposed to stay on as the baby’s nanny. When Rick took Abby on her first business trip away from the baby, that’s when everything was supposed to go down. But now--

  “What do we do?” Shelly shouted.

  The doctor looked up from his video call to the hospital. “You can come to the hospital.” He turned his attention to Abby. “Do you have any family--”

  But the attendants were whisking her away on the gurney. The doctor hustled to keep up with them.

  Shelly turned in agony to Rick. Her face twisted as she cried. “Do something! You promised me a baby! How am I supposed to get anywhere in life? How am I supposed to get respect? That baby was my ticket--”

  “Let’s go to the hospital,” Rick said. “And call your cousin on the way.”

  ###

  November 31

  In the early hours of the morning, Rick pressed his face against the glass window of the nursery. He knew what to do. It was going to be ridiculously easy, all because of Abby. She’s the one who found Finneas. When Rick registered after the baby was delivered, a chip was embedded in his hand. The chip gave him a father’s access within the hospital.

  Rick glanced at the clock in the hallway. Two twenty-two a.m. The only nurse in sight disappeared into the Ladies room.

  Rick held up his hand to the door of the nursery. The security light blinked from red to green. Rick opened the door quietly. The security light changed back to red. He unhooked the ID chip from the hospital tag around the baby’s wrist and dropped it on the floor.

  He scooped up Abby’s son -- his son -- in his arms. Rick hesitated as he opened the nursery door. Was there anything other than the baby’s ID chip that could trigger the alarm? If so, would there be enough time to reattach the ID chip, return the baby to his rightful place in the nursery, and plead ignorance?

  Rick crossed the threshold.

  The security light blinked from red to green, then back to red again.

  Every security checkpoint in the hospital was just as easy. The one time Rick was stopped by a nurse, he gave Abby’s name and room number, saying Abby had just awakened from the C-section and wanted to see her son. The nurse had questioned Rick no further.

  Rick took the baby up the stairs to the rooftop parking. Shelly was asleep in the back seat of the hovercraft. Rick had had enough of her hysterics for one day. There was no need to wake her until they reached the Mexican border.

  Rick slipped the baby into the passenger seat next to him, then drove the hovercraft up silently into the night.

  ###

  They landed at the border by dawn.

  “Wake up,” Rick said. “We’re here.”

  Shelly was groggy for a moment. “What?”

  And then the baby cried.

  Rick picked him up from the passenger seat, but the baby only cried harder and louder.

  Shelly came fully awake in an instant. She screamed and cried as if she had a winning lottery ticket. “Oh, God!”

  The baby’s screams matched Shelly’s. Rick climbed out of the hovercraft with the baby cradled in one arm.

  Shelly followed after him and buzzed around him like a hummingbird with a million questions. “How did you do it? What time is it? Are we really here?”

  “I got registered as his father when they did the C section.”

  He’d parked the hovercraft on a strip on United States soil. It looked like a long trek across the paved lot to the border patrol station. Rick started walking.

  Shelly hustled to keep up. “Registered? She registered you? Why didn’t the bitch tell you before it happened?”

  Rick focused on the station ahead. Although he’d kept the sound muted, he’d kept the TV screen in the hovercraft on during the flight. Within the past half-hour, he’d seen his photo displayed on a news bulletin. “She did. I found out a few months ago.”

  Shelly stopped in front of him, making him stop, too. “A few months ago? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Rick walked around her. “I don’t know.”

  Shelly stood her ground behind him. “It would have been easier just to
kill her.”

  A cold chill ran down the back of Rick’s throat. Instinctively, he held the baby closer. He stopped and turned to look at Shelly. “What?”

  “I said it would have been easier to kill her.”

  Rick was so stunned he could barely speak. “But that was never the plan.”

  Shelly was pissed. “So? Screw the plan! It would have been so easy -- all we had to do was wait instead of getting her to the hospital so fast. She almost died anyway, right? The kid’s yours, and her money would’ve been yours, too. You idiot! What were you thinking?”

  All Rick could think of was what was printed on Abby’s license to have children. What his mother had said. What Abby believed. There is only one good reason to have a child -- to put another good person on the planet. But if Shelly was his son’s mother, what would he learn from her? What kind of child would she make him? What kind of man?

  “I don’t know,” Rick said. For the first time, he was afraid of Shelly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Bright blue searchlights rose from the horizon behind them. Helicopters from State side.

  Rick gazed into the piercing blue lights. “They’re looking for us.”

  Shelly snapped to. She grabbed the baby from Rick’s arms and sprinted for the station.

  Rick couldn’t stop looking at the searchlights. Part of him wanted to be found.

  Without realizing what he was doing, Rick suddenly caught up with Shelly at the border.

  A United States patrol officer stepped out of his booth. “Hold it!” the officer shouted.

  “It’s all right,” a Mexican officer shouted behind him. “They’re pre-approved. I’ve got them covered.”

  Rick reached out and caught Shelly’s arm in his hand for just a moment, but she slipped through his grip and ran into the safety zone between the borders.

  The United States officer was confused. “Where’s the approval?”

  Shelly’s cousin -- the Mexican officer -- put a protective arm around her shoulder. “Check your monitor. I just sent it over.”

  The United States officer stepped back inside his booth.