As Far As Far Enough

by Claire Rooney

  “He never has touched me. You went to the clinic with us every time, remember? Taylor was in one room and I was in another. You were at my side, holding my hand the whole time we were there, even during the really gross parts.”

  “I know.”

  “What you’re afraid of just isn’t going to happen.”

  “I know,” she said again. “I know it in my head, but when he gets close to you, my heart goes all funny. You have a connection with him that I can’t be a part of, and it scares me.”

  I took hold of her hand. “Meri, this is our child, yours and mine. Taylor’s just the donor. My connection with him isn’t any stronger than your connection with him through your shared past. I’m not going to fall in love with him, Meri, no more than you ever did,” I said, reaching out to touch her cheek. “I can’t. I’m already in love with you, and you fill my heart so completely that there isn’t room for anyone else.”

  “Well, that’s a fine how do you do,” Taylor muttered under his breath.

  Meri ignored him. “What about when the baby comes? Will I still be the only one in your heart then?”

  “That’s a different kind of love, Meri. It’s one that you and I will share and grow into together.” That sounded good, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. It was the way it should be if ours was a perfect world, but I knew that life didn’t always care about being fair. Still, I thought it was something Meri needed to hear, so I didn’t feel bad about saying it.

  Meri put her hand over mine and pressed her cheek hard against my palm. “I’m scared, Bea,” she said almost in a whisper. “I’m scared that something will take you away from me. I don’t ever want to lose you again.”

  I leaned into her and touched my head to hers. “I don’t know what’s coming around the corner, Meri. I can’t make you any grand promises, but I need you to trust me to do the right thing.”

  “I’m trying,” she said, pressing harder against my hand.

  Taylor cleared his throat. “You two aren’t going to kiss, are you? Because, while I admit that the thought has its attractions, I’m not sure I’m prepared to see it happen.”

  Meri gave a sad little snort. “Taylor, you’re such an asshole.”

  “That I will freely admit to, Meri, my love. But this asshole is still the father of that baby, and I am concerned about the ailing mother’s dainty little ass being in prolonged contact with the cold tile.”

  I turned my head and looked at Taylor. “Could you say that again in English, please?”

  “I think you should get the hell off the floor,” he said. “How long do we have anyway to invent a plan B, or maybe we should call it plan C just so we don’t get all confused. There’s already too many Beas around here as it is.”

  Meri raised her head from mine and sat back, thinking. “I don’t really know how long we have. Auntie said that Harvey heard from Bobby just about an hour ago, or more like two, I guess it would be now. If Bea’s father is coming in from Washington, that’s only an hour or so from here by air, and it takes an hour and a half to get here from the landing strip.”

  “Alrighty then, let’s drop ten and punt.” Taylor reached up and settled his cap firmly on his head. “Let’s assume Bea’s father will get here any minute.” He jabbed a finger at me. “That means you need to get dressed. It’ll be hard to argue your case while you’re in a bathrobe.”

  “What case?” I asked him bitterly.

  “We’ll figure that out in a minute.” He pointed at Meri. “And you, dear heart, you need to go take a swig of something strong. Bea’s going to need you at your calmest, nonviolent, level-headed best because shooting people is not an option here.” Meri tensed and shot him an icy glare. Her arm twitched, and for a second, I thought she was going to hit him. He gave her a look that I couldn’t fathom, but Meri suddenly flushed a bright red. Taylor looked a little surprised and then smiled just a bit. He looked down at himself and rubbed at his chest. “As for me, I need a change and a shave. Of course, the question remains, exactly what are we going to tell this father of yours?”

  I stood slowly. My knees were a little shaky, but my stomach seemed to have finally worn itself out. I looked at Meri and Taylor, still sitting on the cold tile floor. “I think we should try something really daring.”

  “What’s that?” Meri asked.

  “I think we should just tell him the truth. Meet him head-on, so to speak. It won’t work, but I can’t think of anything else that’s worth doing.”

  Taylor nodded his head slowly. “A novel approach. Bold and daring, yet subtle and clever. I like it.”

  Meri stood and slipped an arm around my waist. “Taylor, you really are an ass.”

  “Duly noted, Meri, my girl.” Taylor touched the brim of his cap as he grinned up at us.

  I brushed my teeth twice and got into the shower. The hot spray pummeled against my skin. All the clammy nauseousness that I had been feeling seemed to slough off me and circle around the drain. In spite of everything, I almost felt normal again. All our decisions were made. The hand had been dealt, and the only thing left was to wait and see how the cards would fall. I closed my eyes and tilted my head into the water, letting it wash over me.

  The door opened and closed again, bringing with it a puff of cold air. I peeked out from behind the curtain. Meri stared at me for a long moment, her expression unfathomable, then she pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor. She stepped out of her shoes and unbuttoned her jeans, slid them down her legs and kicked them off. She pulled back the curtain and stepped into the shower, still wearing her socks and her underthings. I shifted a little to the side and let her step into the spray. She was shivering harder than if she were standing naked in a winter rain. The water dampened her hair and flattened it against her head. Rivulets ran down her face, bright drops hung on her eyelashes and on the tip of her nose. She slid her arms around my shoulders and pressed herself hard against me. I put my arms around her waist and held her until the water ran cold.

  I stood in the parlor looking out the front window with a corner of the long gauzy curtains drawn back. Meri was sitting in the wingback chair, pale and pinched but no longer trembling. Taylor stood beside the fireplace, changed and shaven. I could hear their soft rustlings behind me, the shushing of Meri’s jeans against the chair, the scuffing of Taylor’s boots on the carpet, but I didn’t turn around. I kept my eyes on the window. It had stopped raining, but the clouds still hung low in the sky, moving with a ponderous slowness, just barely brushing over the mountaintops.

  The wind blew a strong gust and the trees bent and swayed as wet leaves tumbled across the yard. A long black limo turned into the drive. It moved with slow solemnity over the gravel. Three dark town cars trailed behind it like little goslings paddling after a mama goose. The curtains twitched in my hands. Seven months ago, I wouldn’t have made that analogy. I glanced down at myself, at the clothes I had chosen, the shoes I had on, the tan of my hands, the pooch of my belly. The taste of Pepto-Bismol still coated my tongue. I was a real cousin now, and for that, I could forgive Aunt Beatrice for running off.

  “He’s here,” I said without turning around.

  The limo rolled to a stop, its long, sleek elegance sitting like a note of discord against the harmony of gravel and grass, blue mountains and wet blowing leaves. I watched Weasel jump out of the front and run around the limo to open the passenger door. My father unfolded his large frame from the car and stood for a moment studying the surroundings. I could see his hard eyes calculating the worth of the white clapboard house with its red tin roof, white board fences and the old rusty trucks. I blushed to think of how paltry it would seem tallied against his balance sheets. I wondered if some small part of him could see the beauty of it, or if he was too jaded by gilded edgings and swirled marble to understand what it was that surrounded him now. His expression gave nothing away, but it rarely did. His entourage of butt kissers and bodyguards closed in around him, and they moved as one toward the front porch.


  I let the curtain fall. Meri stood as I walked over to her. I gave her hand a squeeze and her lips a quick brush with my own. There was a knock at the door and we all jumped. I squeezed Meri’s hand again and went alone into the foyer to answer it.

  When I opened the door, I stared up at two bodyguards I didn’t recognize, large muscled men with crew cuts and dark suits, deep eyes and cleft chins. They were Secret Service types, not the usual goons for hire. I showed them my empty hands and they shifted to one side. My father stared down at me. He looked the same as he always did in his immaculate Armani suit, like the consummate politician with his neat steel gray hair, wise old face, cold piercing eyes. The eyes raked over my short hair, red flannel shirt and faded blue jeans. They returned to the scar on my forehead and lingered there. A slight tightening of his jaw was the only sign of his displeasure.

  “Collier,” he stated simply in his deep, rumbling voice. It was the sound of distant thunder. The warning before the storm.

  “Daddy,” I returned in my “being polite to strangers” tone of voice. “Won’t you come in?”

  His eyes narrowed a fraction. He looked at Weasel and jerked his chin. Weasel muttered instructions to the bodyguards. They shifted their positions, and my father stepped into the house with Weasel and only one guard behind him. It was a way of telling me that he didn’t see this situation as much of a challenge or a threat and that he was in firm control of all things. I thought it a wasted gesture. I let him see that by turning my back to him as I led him into the parlor where Meri and Taylor stood waiting.

  “Daddy, this is Meri Donovan and the gentleman is Taylor McNally.”

  He nodded minutely but didn’t hold out his hand. I hadn’t expected him to.

  “Meri, Taylor,” I continued. “This is my father, Senator Alfred Torrington.”

  Neither one of them even nodded. They stood silent and watchful. I went to stand in between them. We were all wearing flannel shirts, blue jeans and boots. The shirts had belonged to Meri’s father. It was my own gesture, something that would have a deep significance for us and, at the same time, carry a message that I knew my father would understand immediately.

  He did and he didn’t like it. He sat down in the wingback chair and crossed his legs, set his elbows on the armrest and steepled his hands together. Weasel and the guard, a big man with baby blue eyes and a professional grade of blank face, positioned themselves on either side. Weasel stood behind the chair with one hand resting on the back. The guard stood a little to one side where nothing would interfere with his line of fire, but I didn’t think it would come to that since Meri promised to keep her temper.

  My father settled into the chair, owning it, possessing it, declaring his authority over everything in the room. “Get yourself packed, Collier,” he said quietly. It was his “no options, no argument, dreadful consequences if you don’t jump” tone of voice. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”

  The voice stabbed straight into me. Conditioned as I was to obey it, I turned slightly and almost took a step forward, but Meri put a hand on my shoulder. She squeezed lightly. Taylor put his hand on my other one.

  I took a breath to steady myself and looked at my father in as direct a manner as I ever had. “No, Daddy.”

  His eyes narrowed a fraction more. Weasel frowned and shifted uncomfortably.

  “I’m not asking,” he said sharply.

  “I’m not going,” I shot back.

  He looked almost confused. He could understand conniving and manipulating, begging and pleading. He expected such things from me, but a flat refusal was something new. His eyes hardened. They shifted to Taylor and then to Meri. “You don’t belong here, Collier. Your place is with a different kind of people.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said leaning hard against Meri’s and Taylor’s hands. “My place is where I choose to make it. I choose here.”

  My father unsteepled his hands and sat up straight. He set his feet flat on the floor and grasped the armrests in his hands. It was his Pharaoh pose. He was about to issue an ultimatum.

  “I’m not going to argue with you, girl. You’ve already wasted enough of my time. The senate is in session. There’s a vote coming up, and I’ve lost a whole day over this. Go get packed right now, or I’m going to drag you out of here with just those rags that you’re wearing.”

  Meri’s hand tightened on my shoulder. The guard’s eyes cut toward her, and he turned his body a fraction of a degree. I could tell by the set of his shoulders that, in spite of Taylor’s muscles, he had pegged Meri as the biggest threat in the room if it came to using force. He was right. I raised my shoulder under Meri’s hand just a bit, telling her to ease down. If she started anything, she would be the one most likely to get hurt. Her grip tightened. I wasn’t sure if she was misunderstanding, not listening or telling me no. My guess was that she was telling me no. Force and violence weren’t my father’s preferred style. It didn’t look good in the papers, and if he had left his goons behind that meant he was concerned about looking good in the papers. But Meri didn’t know he was bluffing, and I had no way of telling how short a fuse she was sitting on. There were more of them than there were of us. If she started it, we would lose.

  I turned my attention back to my father. I decided to call the bluff, if only for Meri’s sake. “Dragging me out of here wouldn’t be a good idea, Daddy.”

  His eyebrows raised an almost imperceptible amount. “Why is that?”

  “Because I won’t go peacefully, and if you get your boys to drag me out of here kicking and screaming, you might hurt the baby.” I played the only real card we had and hoped, after all we’d been through to get it, that it was worth something.

  “The baby,” he said flatly.

  “I’m pregnant, Daddy. Taylor here is the father.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Weasel who flicked his eyes over toward Meri and nodded his head. My father turned back to me. “Rumor has it that you’re . . .” and he waved a hand in Meri’s direction.

  “I am.”

  “But you’re carrying his child.” He pointed his chin toward Taylor.

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Collier,” he said with some degree of exasperation, crossing his legs and steepling his hands again. “What have you gotten yourself into this time? You’re making quite a mess of things here.”

  “I’m not making a mess,” I said. “I’m making a life for myself.”

  My father started tapping his forefingers together. “You’ve angered your fiancé, you’re sleeping with some woman, you’re carrying a strange man’s child, and you think that’s not a mess? Do you have any idea how hard this is going to be for me to clean up?”

  I swallowed hard and focused on the weight of Meri’s and Taylor’s hands. “There’s nothing here for you to clean up. Who I sleep with is nobody’s business but mine, and the baby is still your grandchild, regardless of its paternity.” I put my hands on my stomach. “If you want to be a part of this child’s life, you will leave me alone to live with whom and how I please. We won’t make trouble for you, Daddy. We just want to be left alone.”

  My father smiled a little half smile. It was part of an expression that he thought made him look benevolent and wise, but the smile usually meant that he had something truly nasty up his sleeve and was about to lay it down. It made me start to feel nauseous again.

  “I’m concerned for you, Collier,” he said, jutting his chin out a little farther. “You’re obviously recovering from a serious head injury.” His eyes locked on the scar on my forehead. “And you don’t sound like yourself. I think the strain of being made pregnant by a strange man might be too much for you, especially if the pregnancy was forced on you.” His eyes cut over to Taylor. I felt Taylor jerk and his hand slipped off my shoulder. “Maybe you need a short rest, someplace nice and quiet where you can recover from this terrible thing that’s happened to you.”

  Weasel made agreeing noises from behind the chair. The guard took a half
step forward, standing on the balls of his feet, as Meri stepped closer to me. My father sat there in his wingback chair looking truly concerned for my welfare, but there was a hint of satisfaction in the jut of his chin that he just couldn’t hide. I closed my eyes to shut out the sight of him. He could do it. It just needed a doctor with a well-greased palm, a forged signature or two, some witnesses to say what he told them to say and two of his dead-eyed goons to drag me away. He had done it to my mother on more than one occasion, so that his “quiet place to rest,” places neither quiet nor restful, became one of her greatest fears.

  But I was not my mother. I opened my eyes again. “If you try to have me committed, Daddy, I can guarantee that you’ll never see me or your grandchild again, not even if I have to live in a cardboard box under a bridge to hide from you.”

  Weasel looked almost shocked. He blinked at me and then bent to whisper something into my father’s ear in a low, sibilant tone.

  My father’s chin rose. “You do understand, Collier, that this is a very conservative state you’ve removed yourself to,” he said, squinting his eyes in a way that meant he was thinking hard, making new plans on the fly. “In most conservative states, being a . . . an avowed . . . living openly as a . . .”

  “Lesbian,” Weasel supplied the word for him with a leer and a smug smile.

  “Yes, being one of those is grounds for being declared an unfit mother.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Meri, my eyes questioning. She shook her head and shrugged. I turned back in time to see a flash of triumph cross my father’s face.

  “Here are your choices,” he said to me. “You can come home with me now, and we’ll discuss plans for your future on the way, or you can go somewhere for a long rest, and your mother and I will provide your child with a nice normal home as soon as it’s born.”

  Meri stepped in front of me. The guard took half a step closer, his knees loose, arms at the ready. She ignored him and glared at my father, standing stiffly with her hands balled into tight fists. “You just try it, mister, and you’ll have one hell of fight on your hands.” Her voice was low and menacing.