Worth the Drive

by Mara Jacobs

  “No, not pathetic. Sad, but not pathetic.”

  “I suppose that is what I really want. To have it settled before I have children. But I don’t know what settled would mean in this situation. And that is not to be, so I must settle it in here, eh?” His placed his hand on his chest, above his heart.

  “We could still do it. Find your father, I mean. With the internet and my connections at news agencies, it probably wouldn’t be that hard. We’d just have to get his name from your mother.”

  She felt his body tense and then relax. “No. I could not hurt my mother that way. She has given up too much for me, I will not cause her any pain.”

  Katie placed her hand on his. “I wish I could say I was sorry that things won’t be settled for you, Darío, but of course I’m not. I wouldn’t have waited another second to have this child.”

  A small smile played across his mouth. “No, I’m not sorry either.”

  Katie smiled back, her hand left his chest, moved down his belly and curled around his penis. “Let’s change the subject.”

  A while later, she lay in his arms, sated, exhausted. Sleep soon to come.

  “Marry me, Gata,” he whispered as he drifted off to sleep. His voice was so soft, so tender, Katie wasn’t sure if he’d really said it, or if it was part of a dream she was quickly losing herself to.

  She wasn’t surprised to find him gone when she woke up. They had agreed that he’d go to the course early to warm up and she’d take a cab later to arrive in time for his ten-thirty tee off. Looking at the clock and seeing it was already nine thirty, she jumped from bed and made her way to the bathroom. He must have gotten dressed in the dark, she thought, so as not to wake her.

  Just as she was thinking how thoughtful that was, she looked down at the sink and stopped. Setting on the edge of the sink was her toothbrush, wetted and with a dollop of toothpaste on it. He had remembered that she’d mentioned to Franny that the smell of fresh toothpaste made her queasy, so he had put it on her brush for her. She was touched by his gesture. As she brushed her teeth for the first time in weeks without gagging, silent tears slid down her cheeks.

  Must be the hormones. Something so small, so inconsequential wouldn’t normally have her crying. It was just a nice thing to do, that’s all. Nothing to get all worked up about. It was toothpaste on a toothbrush, for Pete’s sake, not some grand gesture.

  Grand gestures were for the young. The young had the innocence to carry off such drama without seeming flamboyant.

  Ron had once made a grand gesture.

  He had swept into the newsroom of The Lansing State Journal where Katie was interning her senior year, wearing his only suit, and brandishing a dozen roses.

  As he passed the sports desks, he winked at Chris, the reporter who covered MSU hockey, then made his way to Katie, relegated to the back of the room with the features staff.

  A hush fell over the newsroom - no small feat in the chaotic atmosphere - and all eyes followed Ron’s towering physique as he made his way to Katie’s desk. Instinctively, she knew why he’d come. Katie was both touched and horrified. Touched that Ron had gone to the effort of coming here for her. Horrified that he would take something so personal, so singular, like their future together, and put it on display.

  She’d only been an intern at The Journal a few months and hadn’t made any close friends. These were not the people she wanted to share the most special moment of her young life with. If he was going to propose in front of people – and that alone was a second choice to Katie behind being alone with Ron – she would want it to be Alison and Lizzie, or even Ron’s close friends, or even their parents. Certainly not this group of people that she barely knew, and who were none too friendly to her to begin with.

  No fault of theirs, the world of daily newspapers was just too hectic to make friends with an intern who’d be gone in a few short months. You came in, got your assignments, wrote your stuff, and hoped to heck it’d make it into print. She knew the drill.

  When Ron reached her and dropped to one knee, she heard the gasps and oohs from the surrounding females. She wasn’t surprised that Ron was proposing, they had talked about getting married after graduation, but she was surprised he was doing it now, in the middle of their senior year, and doing it here, in the middle of The Journal’s newsroom.

  “Katie Maki, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I worship the ground you walk on. Make me the happiest man on earth and say you’ll be my wife,” he said. His eyes never left hers, but his voice was loud enough to carry, and the oohs and aahs continued.

  Dry eyed, but very pleased, she accepted his proposal and the newsroom burst into applause as he slipped the miniscule diamond ring on her finger. Seeing the looks of sentiment on the faces of hardened reporters who covered murder and corruption on a daily basis moved Katie almost as much as Ron’s proposal did. Several flashbulbs went off - the photographers were always slinking around the newsroom, and always had a camera strapped around their necks.

  They celebrated with their friends that night, and later, alone.

  In the next day’s Journal, a story of Ron’s proposal ran with the heading, “Hobey Baker Hopeful Scores Big”. A picture of Ron on his knees in front of Katie took up three columns.

  Katie tried not to think about the timing of Ron’s proposal with the ongoing hockey season and the fact that he was a candidate to win the Hobey Baker Award, college hockey’s equivalent to the Heisman.

  She’d thought it odd that Chris, who covered MSU hockey, was in the office that day. If he came in at all, it was in the evening, wrapping up the sports page. Most of the time, he didn’t come in at all, posting his story from his laptop at a game or at home. Katie wouldn’t have known him from interning, but she had seen him covering hockey for the past four years, had watched him interview Ron countless times while she waited.

  She ignored her doubts of Ron’s sincerity. Maybe he had used the proposal to get a little press. Who cared? What mattered was he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

  In the end, the Spartans got knocked out in the first round of playoffs, a player from Maine won the Hobey, and Ron and Katie planned a big September wedding.

  Yes, grand gestures were for the young, the naive. It was the small things that mattered, the building blocks of a future. It was carrying in groceries from the car. It was letting you off at the door when it was raining. It was rubbing your feet when they were sore.

  It was putting toothpaste on a toothbrush.

  Brushing her teeth in a hotel bathroom, not even sure what city she was in, tears streaming down her cheeks, Katie decided to marry Darío Luna.

  Darío couldn’t believe it when the next night Katie agreed to marry him.

  He made the decision right then and there not to question the paternity of this child again. It would do no good. And his gut told him the child was his. Had told him that from the start. And Darío was a man who listened to his gut.

  Like Binky always said after a difficult selection of which club to use, “Don’t look back, Guv, don’t look back.”

  He played the Boston tournament in a fog, barely making the cut. In a way, he almost wished he’d missed it, then he and Katie could begin with their plans that much sooner.

  They’d decided that she’d go home for the weekend without Darío while he stayed in Boston. She’d tell her parents about the baby and start tying up her loose ends in Hancock. After she was done with that, they’d fly to Spain so Katie could meet his mother and they could start making wedding arrangements.

  Darío would join her in Hancock on Monday. He’d wanted her to put off telling her parents until he was there, he wanted to properly ask her father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, but Katie wanted it this way.

  He didn’t push it. He also didn’t say anything when she mentioned she wanted to get married in Spain, not in the Copper Country. He had a feeling it had something to do with her first marriage, with Ron still living i
n Hancock, but he kept silent. He tried to push the niggling doubts away, but they stayed with him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It’s a marriage. If I had to choose between my wife and my putter – well, I’d miss her.

  - Gary Player, professional golfer

  “You’re sure about this, KitKat? It’s not the fifties, you know, you don’t have to marry the father of your child,” Alison said.

  They were in the Commodore, having pizza and drinks. Alison was having drinks. Katie and the now immense Lizzie were having water.

  “I know I don’t have to marry Darío. That’s the point I made all along. I was fully prepared to raise this child alone.”

  “So a few months away, some good sex and now you’re ready to shackle yourself to this guy?”

  “Al, for Pete’s sake, marriage is not a shackling,” Lizzie said.

  “Says you.”

  Lizzie leaned back in the booth, her huge stomach touching the table. She rubbed her belly, a small smile playing on her very happy mouth. “Yes. Says me.”

  Katie thought she looked the most beautiful she’d ever seen her and told her so.

  “I can’t believe I’m so happy at being so heavy,” Lizzie said.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lizzie’s deliriously happy and about ready to pop, let’s get back to Katie. How’d your parents take the news?”

  Katie thought back to yesterday in her mother’s kitchen. Lots of tears had been shed, lots of hands had been wrung, lots of words had been said. But in the end, Katie had walked out of the house that she’d grown up in with her parents’ blessing.

  “After the initial shock, they came around. Of course they were ecstatic that I was finally able to conceive…”

  “Just not so ecstatic about the out of wedlock part,” Alison said.

  Katie nodded. “They like Darío and everything, that’s not it…”

  “They’re just concerned that you’re marrying a man – having a child with a man – who you’ve only known for what? Three? Four? Months?”

  Katie placed her hand on her stomach, feeling the tiny roundness that was discernible only to her. And Darío when she was naked. “Four and a half,” she said.

  “You can’t blame them, Kat, they are your parents. We’re concerned for you too,” Lizzie said.

  “I know, and I love you guys for it. Just like I love my parents. But, I’m going to do it. I’m going to marry Darío.”

  She saw Lizzie and Alison exchange glances and then come to some kind of silent agreement. “Well, too bad you guys are on the wagon, because we really should toast this,” Alison said, sipping from her huge, Fishbowl drink.

  Katie let out the breath she’d been holding. “Wow. I thought I’d get a lot more argument out of you guys.” She looked at Alison seated next to her in the booth. “Especially you.”

  Alison shrugged. “You went into this knowing you’d be fine on your own. I’m assuming Darío didn’t put the screws to you – no pun intended – to get you to marry him?”

  Katie shook her head. “No, he kept his promise and didn’t bring it up.” She didn’t mention him whispering “Marry me, Gata” to her as they fell asleep. She wasn’t even sure that he was aware he’d said it, or that she’d heard it.

  “Then you obviously, for whatever reason, decided you want Darío to be a part of your life,” Alison said. She and Lizzie, the subject apparently decided upon, returned to the half-eaten pizza.

  “So, are you nervous about meeting his parents?” Lizzie asked as they were getting ready to go.

  “It’s just his mother, and yes, kind of nervous. They’re very close. I’m not sure how she’s going to like having an American for a daughter-in-law. An American who doesn’t speak any Spanish. She could be really old school and want a little senorita for her son.”

  “Just the two of them while he was growing up?” Alison, ever the shrink, asked.

  Katie nodded.

  “Hmm, that’s interesting. Darío doesn’t seem like a mama’s boy, so you should be okay. What did she do, when he was a kid, before he turned pro?”

  “He said she was a cook at the country club. Has been since he was born.” She didn’t feel the need to tell her friends about Darío’s upbringing. It seemed…unfaithful…somehow. It was probably the first thing she’d ever kept from Lizzie and Alison. She didn’t let herself think about the significance of that.

  “Great. Of course you’d end up having a mother-in-law who’s a fantastic cook,” from Lizzie.

  “I picture this old woman with black stockings rolled down to her ankles rolling a grocery cart home from the market every morning.” They all laughed. Katie admitted she’d had the same vision of Darío’s mother. “And a kerchief, definitely a kerchief.”

  “She’ll probably grab you and start shouting about the bambino and that you’re too skinny and you need to Mangia, Mangia!” Lizzie said.

  “I think that’s Italian, Lizard,” Katie said, although she wasn’t sure.

  He arrived two days later after a rather poor showing in Boston. He told Katie it had been because his good luck charm wasn’t there.

  She met him at the airport. The minute she saw him her face lit up and Darío realized that two days away from this woman was two too many. He, who’d traveled alone for nearly fifteen years, did not want to be alone again.

  He wanted to be with Katie. Forever.

  When she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hello, her body soft and yielding, she made him believe that was what she wanted as well.

  But, deep inside he knew there was a difference. Katie wanted to be with the father of her child, and that happened to be Darío. Darío saw Katie as more than the mother of his child. She was the woman he wanted to be his wife. Share every moment with. Read her thoughtful news pieces. Stare at her beautiful face. Wince from the pain she inevitably invoked when making love.

  Grow old together. That there was already a child growing out of this union was just another blessing.

  He was in love with her.

  It snuck up on him, but being in Boston alone, without her in the bed next to him, walking the course without being able to find her in the gallery, he had finally put it into words. He was in love with Katie Maki.

  The summer tourists had left the area, schools had started, the University was back in session and the leaves were just beginning to turn color. As Darío watched the sleepy little town through the car window, he thought that it would be a nice place to raise children. His children. Their children.

  There was no question this time that they’d be sleeping in the same bed. But which bed? When she led him upstairs, she paused at the door to the guest bedroom. She seemed unsure of what to do. His heart went out to her.

  “Katie,” he said softly, reaching for her.

  “It’s just…it’s just…” her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes, looked tentatively down the hall toward the master bedroom.

  He stepped backward into the guestroom, gently pulling her hand. He led her to the bed. “No ghosts in here, eh?” he asked as he slid her shirt over her head.

  She sat down on the bed, reached for his belt. “No. No ghosts in here. No memories in here at all.”

  He pushed her backward, her feet dragged up his calves, her legs opened wide for him. He stepped into the space she created. “Then let’s make some.”

  They spent the next few days making arrangements. Darío was on the phone with his manager telling him which events he would and would not play in the new year. This season, he’d only play the two tournaments in Europe he’d already committed to – one being the Spanish Open, hardly a tournament he could skip – and the Tour Championship back here in the states in November. If all went well, when they came back from Spain for it, they’d be man and wife.

  Katie gave her resignation to her boss at the newspaper. Darío was not surprised when Katie reported that they’d asked her to stay on staff as a freelancer, continuing with the articles that she’d written on Tour. And
possibly down the road, some features on new motherhood. She was thrilled that she would be able to continue to write.

  He’d gone with her to her parents’ for dinner and had survived. In fact, her parents had been very welcoming to Darío and he wondered if he would be the same if faced with a man who had impregnated his daughter. A fierce protectiveness of his unborn child rose within him, daunting him, humbling him.

  They met her friends at the Commodore their final night in town. Lizzie and her husband, Finn, and Alison. The five of them were at a large, center table in the place and there were many toasts and blessings for all the coming events. Babies – both Lizzie and Finn’s and Darío and Katie’s – and marriage.

  “We know you’re going to do it in Spain, but we’ll do something here when you get back right? A reception or something?” Lizzie said, reaching for her datebook. “I’ll plan it all, you won’t have to do a thing. We’re looking at the second week of November, after the Tour Championship, right?”

  Darío felt Katie stiffen next to him. Before she could say anything, Finn said, “Babe, that’s right around your due date, you can’t be putting together something like a wedding reception then.”

  Lizzie looked at her husband like he’d never met her before. Finn threw up his hands in surrender. “I forgot who I was talking to. Of course you can. Go for it.” Finn chuckled to himself, gave a shrug to the rest of the table and took a swig of beer. Darío liked the man.

  “Finn’s right, Lizard. Besides, we really don’t want anything here,” Katie said. Darío kept silent. If that’s what she wanted, he would abide by it. He would have liked to announce it on the front page of Katie’s paper, but he only nodded when she looked to him for agreement.

  “Well you have to have something. For your family. For the people you’re close with at the Ingot. For us,” Lizzie said.