by Noelle Adams
Alice tried—very hard and not very successfully—not to feel jealous and resentful.
“You too,” Micah said, pulling out of the hug. “What are you going to do in India?”
“I want to do legal work with a non-profit, working to get girls out of sex-trafficking. I just need to raise some support before I can get over there.”
“Wow. That’s great.” Micah looked suitably impressed, which wasn’t really surprising. Lydia had always been impressive.
She would never be dumped by two different fiancés and laid off from her job.
They chatted a little more, until Cara started to cry. She’d been really good for most of the shopping expedition, so Alice could hardly blame the poor little thing.
Micah started to pick her up, but Alice took her instead, jostling her while Micah and Lydia finished talking. When the crying got louder, she walked down the aisle, standing at a distance from them.
She glanced back over her shoulder, murmuring soothing words to the baby. And she knew, when she saw Micah smiling at Lydia, that she’d never had any real hope with him.
Not even back in high school, that summer she’d let herself dream.
Because he’d gone to college a few weeks later and had completely forgotten about her.
She would help him out now—because she wanted to and it gave her a start at resurrecting her life—and he would appreciate it. But that was all that could ever be between them.
Micah could have—and had had—the most beautiful women in the county. There was nothing he would ever want with Alice.
Plus, she had her rules, and not one of them allowed her to be upset about this now.
***
Later that morning, Alice was feeding Cara in the church office and trying not to listen to Daniel on the phone.
It was hard not to, since his door was half-opened and her desk was very close to it. He didn’t seem to be having any private conversations—a brief one with Jessica, one with someone who must have been Lydia, since he was giving her advice on raising support, and one with Chip, one of the elders in the church, about the Good Friday service coming up soon.
But, still, it just felt wrong to intentionally eavesdrop on conversations she wasn’t supposed to be part of.
She’d put together the weekly announcements email that went to church members, and, after she fed Cara, she needed to make copies of the adult Sunday School handout for Sunday morning. Those were her only assigned tasks for the day.
Daniel hung up with Chip, and Alice was relieved that she no longer needed to try not to eavesdrop.
She finished feeding Cara and then carried the baby with her to the copy machine to make the copies.
She’d just come back and was turning off her computer when she heard Daniel’s voice again.
Micah had just called.
She knew it was Micah because the phone rang and then Daniel said, “Hey, Micah.”
They talked briefly about the family with the transmission problems, who the church was helping out. Alice tried to sing silently to herself to keep from hearing the conversation.
Then Daniel asked, his voice softer than before, “Did you ever ask her?”
It seemed like a random question to Alice, but Micah must have understood it. There was silence for a moment before Daniel responded, “I’m not nagging. You’re dragging your feet for reasons I don’t understand, so I’m trying to help.”
Alice simply didn’t have enough context to understand the conversation, but she wondered if it might have to do with Cara.
Then she realized she was wrong when Daniel said after another pause, “I don’t think that’s true. Not every woman comes on strong like the women you used to hang out with. It doesn’t mean she’s not interested. How will you know if you don’t ask? If you can’t even be man enough to—”
Micah must have interrupted because Daniel broke off mid-sentence. “Okay. Fine. I guess I can understand that. But she’s not going to be here forever. If you wait too long, she’ll be gone, and you’ll have missed your chance again.”
Alice suddenly realized who they must be talking about.
Micah had gone out with Lydia in high school, and pretty soon she’d be heading out to India.
If Micah didn’t ask her out soon, she’d be gone.
Alice felt a little like crying, but she reminded herself of her rules. She was resurrecting her life, and that meant being happy without a man.
She had her family and her faith and her friends and all kinds of possibilities for life.
She was perfectly happy without Micah.
***
“You’re kidding,” Jana said, surprised delight audible in her voice, even through the telephone. “You’re living with Micah.”
Jana was a friend of Alice’s from Asheville, and she’d called to chat and catch up on news as Alice was driving home from having dinner with her parents that evening.
“No!” Alice exclaimed, her breath catching in her throat. “It’s a separate apartment in the house he’s flipping!”
“I know, I know. But he’s right there, isn’t he? You’re around him all the time, and you’re taking care of his baby.”
“Not all the time. But, yeah, some. And he thinks Cara is his baby, but he’s not positive yet.”
“So what do you think about all of it?”
Alice felt her cheeks flushing, even though she was alone in her car. “What do you mean?” she asked, mostly to stall for time.
“You know what I mean. This is Micah Duncan, right? The guy. Your first perfect love who no one else has ever been able to come close to.”
“It wasn’t like that! Nothing ever happened between us.”
“Now, I know that’s not true. Ever since I first met you, you’ve always gone back to that summer as your basis of comparison for really connecting with a guy.”
It was true. It was perfectly true. As much as Alice wished it weren’t. “Yeah,” she said, clearing her throat. “I just mean there was never anything serious between us.”
“But didn’t he hold your hand as you walked under the stars?” Jana’s voice conveyed exaggerated sentimentality, but it was affectionate rather than mocking. “And kiss you once in the moonlight.”
Alice cleared her throat again. “Yeah.”
“So there was something. How do you feel about him now? Is the spark still there?”
She could lie, but there wasn’t any point in that. She and Jana had always been honest, even about embarrassing things. “Maybe on my side. Not on his.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s pretty obvious. It’s getting a little better now, but he’s just not himself around me. He doesn’t smile or laugh like he does around other people. I don’t think he likes me. He’s just not…himself.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. You’ve never done anything to him. And you said he’s come back to the church and his faith and everything, right?”
“Yeah. But I don’t know. It’s like he’s…” She trailed off as she tried to articulate what she’d sensed in Micah ever since she returned to Willow Park.
“What?”
“I don’t know. Like he’s always holding something back. With me.” She sighed. “I don’t know why. We used to be friends. I’d like to be friends again now.”
“Okay, tell me the truth. Wouldn’t you like to be more than friends with him?”
“Maybe. But I’m not going to be stupid anymore. I’m going to follow my rules. I’m not going to dream about him and trick my feelings into hoping for something that will never happen.”
“But do you want it to happen?”
“I can’t want it.”
“But do you want it?”
Alice sighed, a bleak heaviness settling into her chest. “Yeah. It’s not like I’ve been pining for him all this time, but as soon as I came back and started seeing him regularly again, all those feelings came back. But I’m a grown-up now and I know better. I’m not go
ing to indulge them. I’m not.”
“Good for you. You stay strong.” It sounded like Jana might have been laughing, but her voice changed as she asked, “Do you think you want the boy he used to be, rather than the man he is now?”
Alice had no idea how to answer that question, so she didn’t even try.
“Because, you know,” Jana continued softly, “the boy is never coming back.”
Alice knew it was true, and it made her sad for some reason. At least the boy had been Micah as he really was, and she wasn’t sure she’d seen that Micah for years.
***
A couple of days later, Alice was reading a book on Micah’s couch, waiting for him to get home.
He was out checking over several projects that his crew had been working on that week. He was usually around a lot more than he’d been in the last few days—since he’d had to spend so much time caring for Cara—so Alice figured he was getting anxious about the work that had been going on in his absence.
He’d been a contractor for several years now, and he’d built a really good business by being trustworthy and hardworking. Even in the years he’d been playing around in his private life, he’d done a good job professionally.
It was almost eight now, though. It seemed kind of late. She was going to have to put Cara to bed soon. While she didn’t mind babysitting late, Micah hadn’t implied he was going to do anything but work.
Of course, he didn’t have to tell her everything he did. He could go out on a date, if he wanted.
It would just have been nice to know when he was coming back.
The week had gone fairly smoothly, considering. Alice had moved into the little apartment and had furnished it with the bare necessities. Cara was a healthy and fairly good-natured baby, so she hadn’t been unusually difficult to care for. Alice felt like she’d figured out the basics pretty well, and even Micah was learning to feed and change her without a lot of hassle. Having her at the church while she worked was sometimes rather distracting, but Daniel didn’t seem to mind. Other than that, the week had passed quickly and everyone was kind of in a holding pattern, waiting to see what would happen with Cara’s future.
Whether Micah would decide to try to raise her on his own was still in question. Alice was sure not even he knew that yet. He was talking to a lawyer and getting a paternity test, so nothing would be decided until that was figured out.
Finally, Alice put her book down and went over to pick up Cara, who was bouncing happily in the little seat Micah had bought her. “Are you ready for a bath?” she asked Cara. “Then you can go to bed.”
Cara babbled out some excited sounds.
Glad she was in a good mood, Alice carried her into the bathroom and filled her little bathtub with warm water.
She was kneeling next to the tub, since there wasn’t a sink in the old house big enough to fit the baby tub, and giving her a bath when she heard Micah call out from the side door, “Alice? I’m home.”
“We’re in the bathroom.”
A few seconds later, a voice said from the doorway, “Is everything okay?”
She glanced back to see him leaning against the doorframe. He wore khakis and a black t-shirt and needed to shave. “Yeah. It’s fine. It’s bedtime, so I’m just giving her a bath.”
He came over to kneel beside her, blinking when Cara splashed water enthusiastically.
“She’s happy to see you,” Alice said, feeling rather soft and sappy at the baby’s excitement about seeing her daddy. Or, the man who was probably her daddy.
It was all a little awkward not to know for sure.
Cara babbled incomprehensibly and splashed a little more.
Micah chuckled and reached over to his daughter, and Cara grabbed his finger and didn’t let go.
Alice finished bathing her, with Micah pretending to help but mostly getting in the way. Then they wrapped her in a towel, and Alice said, “I’ll just go put her down. I made some stew earlier and there’s plenty left over, if you’re hungry. I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten or not.”
“I haven’t had anything. But you didn’t have to make anything for me.”
She shrugged. The truth was she’d made enough for Micah on purpose, but she didn’t want to admit it, for fear he might misinterpret. “It’s hard to just cook for one person. Just help yourself.”
“Thanks.”
“And there’s some bread there too,” Alice added, carrying Cara into the second bedroom which Micah had set up for the baby.
The room had been empty before, since Micah owned very little furniture, only things that could be easily moved from place to place. Now it had the portable crib/playard, a lightweight changing table, and a chair.
Alice put her in a clean diaper and some pink pajamas. Then turned on music and sat on the chair to rock her for a few minutes, in the hopes that she’d go to sleep without fussing.
She cuddled the soft little body against her and talked to her soothingly about how it was time to go to sleep. Cara blinked up at her and babbled a little, and Alice found herself smiling like a dope.
Cara really was a sweet little thing. She couldn’t imagine how anyone wouldn’t want her.
After a few minutes, Cara started getting sleepy and nestled against her. Alice kept rocking her, but she definitely understood why most nurseries had a rocker in them. As small as the baby was, it was rather tiring to keep manually rocking her for several minutes.
When Cara seemed to be asleep, Alice stood up. And almost jerked when she realized that Micah was in the doorway, holding a bowl of what must be stew.
He was just standing there, gazing at her, his face utterly sober.
“She’s asleep,” Alice whispered, telling herself not to feel uncomfortable, as if she’d been caught doing something secret.
All she’d been doing was getting Cara to bed, exactly as she was supposed to do.
She laid her down in the crib and then left the room, with the door partly open, the music still playing.
She shook out her arms as she walked with Micah into the kitchen.
“That recliner in the living room rocks. You can use that if you want.” He must have noticed that her arms were tired.
“Oh. I didn’t think about that. Thanks.”
“This is really good,” he said, eating a spoonful as they walked.
“Thanks. It’s my mom’s recipe. You just dump a bunch of things in the pot.” She didn’t know why she felt compelled to explain how easy it was. She could have let Micah believe it was a complex, difficult recipe and she was a master cook.
He put his bowl on the kitchen counter and reached into the refrigerator. He pulled out a bottle of beer and offered it to her.
She hesitated only briefly before she accepted it. She normally left to go to her apartment when Cara was in bed and Micah was home, but maybe he wanted to talk over some things.
He got a beer for himself and cut some bread from the loaf on the counter, and then carried his meal into the living room.
She followed and sat beside him on the couch, since he clearly expected her to.
“How was everything?” she asked, when he didn’t say anything immediately.
She knew he was an easy talker, so it seemed strange he was so often quiet around her.
When he looked at her questioningly, she added, “With your jobs or projects or whatever. Your crew was doing fine this week?”
“Oh. Yeah. Everything was fine.” He seemed to be focusing on his stew, which was quickly disappearing.
“Good.”
They drifted into silence again, and Alice was starting to feel a little annoyed. He was the one who’d acted like he had something to say to her, and now she was stuck sitting awkwardly beside him, feeling like he didn’t want her there.
She sipped her beer and tried again, “Cara did well today. She was in a good mood all day. She loves her little bouncy seat.”
He glanced over at the seat in question, which seemed strangely out of place amid th
e rather Spartan interior of the old house. “Good.”
When he didn’t say anything else, Alice decided she would just sit there until Micah decided to say something himself.
If he didn’t say something soon, then she would just leave and walk the path to her little apartment and leave him to his stew and silence.
He finished his bowl and set it down on the side table. Then he leaned back against the couch with the piece of bread in his hand. He looked over at her.
“What is it?” she asked, rather softly because the look in his eyes worried her. “Have you heard something about Cara?”
“I got the results from the paternity test. She is my daughter.”
“Oh.” Alice cleared her throat. Then swallowed. Then cleared her throat again. “Well, I guess that’s…that’s good to know. Are you…” She had no idea what to ask. “How do you feel about that?”
“I think it’s…good.” He spoke as stiltingly as she had. “It would be hard, at this point, to find out she wasn’t mine. She just…feels like mine.”
“Yeah.” Alice could definitely understand that, and she thought it spoke well of Micah, since he clearly didn’t want to just get her out of his hair because it was easier for him.
“But I don’t know what to do now.” He slouched down so his head rested against the cushion and closed his eyes. “She needs a good life, and I don’t know if I can give that to her.”
“I’m sure there are hundreds of couples who would love to adopt her, so that’s always an option.”
“I know.”
She studied his face and thought she saw reluctance there. “But maybe she needs her daddy.”
He opened his eyes and met hers, and they gazed at each other for a minute.
“I just don’t know,” he said at last, glancing away. “It’s not fair to her, if I can’t do it…right.”
“You wouldn’t be alone.” When Micah’s eyes flew to her face again, with some sort of wordless question, Alice felt flustered and added quickly, “I mean, you have your family and everyone from the church, and there would be plenty of people to help you. What does Daniel say?”
