Romance in the Rain

by Anthology

  “I don’t have a choice about being a parent now, do I?”

  “Not really. All you can do is choose how to react to the situation.”

  JD’s head started to ache. “I don’t really have a choice about that, either. If Maya doesn’t want me around I’m not going to start stalking her.”

  “Of course not. The question is, what do you want? Do you want to be a part of her life? A part of the child’s life?”

  “Yes.” JD spoke the word before he even had a chance to think about it. He stared at Stacy. “Yes, I do,” he repeated, realizing that it was true.

  Stacy spoke gently. “So what’s really bothering you is that you don’t know what she wants. Besides the baby, of course.”

  “I guess that’s part of it. It would be easier to know, one way or the other.”

  “So?”

  Stacy cocked her head to one side, for a second reminding him of Maya. “So?”

  “Perhaps you need to find out.”

  Chapter 7

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this, bro,” Michael said as the two of them struggled down the path to the beach house, carrying a large, bulky object between them. “Isn’t this like breaking and entering?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” JD said, although he too was a little anxious about the scheme he’d come up with. “She won’t be back for at least another hour.”

  The key was still in the flowerpot where Maya always left it. JD shook his head. She was lucky there wasn’t anything of great value in the house; at least not to a thief’s eyes. After this special delivery, however, she might start being more careful. The rocking chair that he and Michael carried between them was an antique; one of only a few remaining that could be traced back to the hands of Seattle pioneer James Alexander Caldwell himself. In Seattle, owning an original Caldwell carried as much caché as having your own Chihuly glass sculpture hanging in the living room. JD knew that if he ever had to, he could sell the chair for a six-figure sum. He had no intention of doing so, but still, it was comforting to know he had some kind of insurance against complete penury.

  They placed the chair in the spare room next to Maya’s bedroom. Michael stood back, wiping his hands on his pants. “I’m sorry to see it go.”

  “You had good use of it.”

  “Yeah, we did. Michael slapped JD on the back. “My little brother is going to be a dad. It’s hard to believe.”

  “Why?” JD bristled, expecting Michael to make some comment about his lack of stability, his sketchy work experience.

  “I’ve always thought of you as a kid,” Michael said. “I’m going to have to start looking at you differently now.”

  JD punched him lightly on the arm. “No you won’t. I plan to remain a kid indefinitely.”

  What Michael had left, JD placed a brown paper shopping bag on the kitchen counter and unloaded the smoked salmon and bagels he’d bought. He put them on a tray, along with sliced red onions, capers and a container of cream cheese. Maya would probably be hungry after working all day at the Pike Place Market.

  To make way for the tray, he moved a stack of poetry books that were on the counter. The top book, The Road Not Taken and Other Poems by Robert Frost, was splayed face-down on top of the others. He flipped it over. It was open to the same poem as the title; one he remembered vaguely from a high school English class years ago, about a traveler in a wood, stopping at a fork in the road, unsure which path to continue on. Both paths disappeared into the undergrowth, their endpoint indeterminate. The traveler knew that whichever path he took, it was unlikely he would ever return to this place again to explore the second option. He read the poem and a shiver passed through him at the lines:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  There was something ominous about the poem. It was all about making choices; that split-second decision that could make ‘all the difference’ in the world.

  Maya had made a choice when she decided to try to get pregnant without his knowledge or consent. And now he had a choice to make. He could walk away from the situation, essentially scot-free, or he could try the second, more complicated option. With no end-point in sight, how could a person ever know what the right choice was? Life was a game of luck and chance, no matter how strategic one tried to be about it.

  As JD worked in the kitchen, Smoky came up and twined herself around his ankles. He bent to pet her. “At least you’re happy to see me, Smoke. I hope your owner will feel the same way.”

  The longer he stayed in the house, the more his uncertainty grew. What if Maya wasn’t happy to see him? What if she was scared, or thought he was harassing her? Once he had finished laying out the food, he couldn’t stand the tension any longer and he went out onto the beach.

  It was a cool summer evening but there was little wind. The sun was setting over the deceptively placid ocean in a blaze of crimson and gold. JD walked along the waterline, remembering how he and Maya had dug for razor clams there only a few weeks earlier. How happy and carefree he had been then; how full of hope for the future. An image came to him of walking with Maya along the shore. Between them, one little hand clasped securely in each of theirs, was a red-haired, chubby-cheeked child of indeterminate gender. He had no idea whether this vision was a form of magical thinking or a portent of things to come.

  Almost an hour had passed by the time he returned to the house. As he rounded the corner where it came into view, everything looked the same as when he had left it. The little light shone from the kitchen window. The house still crouched against the burgeoning darkness like a sleek nocturnal animal. Outwardly, nothing had changed, yet he knew immediately that Maya had returned. There was an energy in the air he hadn’t felt before, as though a subtle electrical current were passing through it. He hesitated at the door, heard a voice inside, and knocked.

  The door swung open and an Asian guy with cropped black hair looked out at him with an expression of polite surprise. “Hi,” he said. “You looking for Maya?”

  The blood froze in JD’s veins. The guy’s tone was pleasant and non-threatening, but JD wanted to punch him in the face. He didn’t answer, but looked over the guy’s shoulder into the living room.

  “She’s in the shower,” the guy said. “You want to wait for her?”

  JD checked out his competition. He was dressed in a striped button-down shirt and jeans. He looked clean and unrumpled, but that didn’t mean anything. He and Maya had probably just finished having sex, and she was going to clean up before they dug into the spread JD had left on the counter.

  “That’s ok,” he said. “I’ll catch her later.”

  “You sure? She’ll only be a minute.”

  “That’s alright,” JD repeated. With a half-wave he turned and headed for his truck. A cool wind had picked up and blew his hair and shirttails sideways as he walked up the path. He couldn’t do this. It was too hard.

  He was backing out of the parking space when a figure materialized in front of the truck, wildly waving its arms. He squinted, put on the brake, and wound down his window.

  The figure came around to the driver’s side. It was Maya. She was barefoot, her hair wet and stringy, wearing nothing but a skimpy towel wrapped around her torso.

  “You’ll catch a cold, running around like that.”

  “When Ken said some guy showed up at the door I knew it was you. He thought he’d scared you away.”

  “Yeah, right.” JD could take on a pipsqueak like Ken any day of the week. “It looked like the two of you were busy. I didn’t want to disturb your get-together.”

  Her eyes widened. “Are you jealous?”

  JD set his jaw and looked away from her.

  “Ken’s a friend, an artist from the market. I was going to show him some of the new pieces I’m working on in the studio.”

  “Your etchings,” JD said through clenched teeth.

  Maya lowered her vo
ice. “He’s gay, for Christ’s sake. Not that it matters. Stop being such a Neanderthal.” As she spoke, Ken walked up the path. He waved at the two of them and got into his car, which was parked on the other side of Maya’s minivan.

  “Bye, Ken,” Maya called out.

  JD felt a little sheepish. “Aren’t you going to show him your work?”

  “Another time.” Maya put her hand on the window frame of the car. Goosebumps rose on it and the pale hairs stood on end.

  “Woman, you freezing,” JD said in his best caveman imitation. “Go in house.”

  She didn’t move. “I will.”

  He couldn’t help worrying that the baby would catch a cold, even though he knew it was insulated and protected inside her, and probably didn’t even have a fully developed respiratory system. “Go on,” he urged, dropping his accent. “What’re you waiting for?”

  “You,” she said.

  Fifteen minutes later they sat opposite one another at the kitchen table, eating bagels and drinking mugs of hot black tea. Maya had changed into the white dress he had first seen her in and a black cardigan whose wide cuffs were pushed back off her forearms. She looked radiant, her cheeks flushed and glowing, her eyes bright.

  JD entertained her with stories of his neighbors at the apartment complex, and she told him about the woman who had come to the Pike Place Market, seen Maya’s work, and now wanted a full table service for twelve custom-made for her. “Sixty pieces. And she didn’t even blink when I quoted her the retail price for it.”

  “That’s great,” JD said. “You’ll be busy.”

  “How’s work going for you?”

  “Really good. I thought I already knew a lot about woodworking, but now I’m getting into the detailed, craftsman stuff and realizing how much more there is to learn. I’ve been using some new machine and hand tools and picking up new joinery techniques. Pete is teaching me how to do computer-assisted design work, too.”

  “Between us, we could create a whole world,” Maya said.

  “We’ve already started, wouldn’t you say?”

  She pushed her cup away. “Why did you come tonight?”

  JD knew he’d have to tread carefully. He didn’t want to scare her. “I’ve been thinking things over. I’d like to be part of the baby’s life.”

  Maya froze. “How do you mean?”

  “I want to be involved. At whatever level you’re comfortable with. I don’t want to be just the sperm donor.”

  Maya turned troubled eyes toward him. She looked so lovely, despite her wet hair, her cheeks and nose still reddened from the cold. It was all he could do not to put his arms around her, to hold her and tell her that he wanted to protect her and the baby, keep them safe in the cocoon of the family, give the child a solid, stable foundation on which to build its own wild and mysterious life.

  “Ok,” she said finally, in a small voice.

  This was as much of a concession as JD could have hoped for. He stood up, not wanting to push it. “Great.”

  “You’re leaving already?”

  “I don’t want to bug you, Maya. You’ll see. I won’t get in your way. You can see Ken or whoever you want. I’m not a caveman. I’m just a guy who’s trying to do the right thing.”

  At the door, he turned. Maya sat at the table, facing him, still as stone.

  “By the way, I left something in the spare room for you,” he said.

  As he closed the door and stepped onto the porch, the first few drops of rain fell, leaving dark splotches on the faded wood stairs. JD remained on the porch for a moment. The wind chimes tinkled gently in the breeze. He turned up the collar of his shirt and took the stairs down into the night.

  He was too agitated to go home to his dreary apartment. The moon, playing hide and seek behind the scudding clouds, beckoned him onto the windswept beach. He walked along the shore under its pale, wavering light, welcoming the bite of the cold and the rain on his skin. He wanted to walk, to keep walking, until he became perfectly numb.

  At first, he thought it was a seabird, but when the sound came again he realized someone was calling out his name. He turned to see Maya running toward him across the sand. When she reached him he saw that she had been crying.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, before he could stop himself. “What is it?”

  “The rocking chair. It’s so beautiful.”

  “It’s yours. For you and the baby. Maya, don’t cry.” He put a hand to her cheek. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You’re so good to me,” she said. “And all I’ve done is take from you. When I let you stay here it was purely selfish. I wanted your company, your kindness, even your handyman skills. And most of all, a child.” Her face crumpled. “I took it all, and then I pushed you away.”

  JD took her cold hands in his. “Maya. Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve given me so much. When I moved back here, I felt lower than a dog turd on the bottom of a homeless drunk’s shoe.”

  The ghost of a smile flitted across her face at the overblown analogy.

  “You lifted me up, made me feel human again. Made me feel like someone cared whether I lived or died. You may have been acting, but you sure fooled me.”

  “I did care,” she said, vehemently. “I do. But I’ve screwed it all up. I’ve gone about everything backwards.”

  “You mean, you got the poem wrong?”

  “Which poem?”

  “JD and Maya, sitting in a tree,

  K-I-S-S-I-N-G

  First comes the love,

  Then comes the marriage

  Then comes the baby in the baby carriage.”

  She laughed.

  “Or maybe the Robert Frost one,” he said. “About the two roads in the wood.”

  Her face sobered. “Yes,” she whispered. “That one.”

  He squeezed her hands. “Maya, it’s not too late. You can turn back. I’m waiting for you at the crossroads. We can take the other path. We can take it together. The three of us.” He moved his hand down to touch her belly. “I want to. Do you?”

  Maya took his hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed it. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  Chapter 8

  Stacy slapped JD’s hand as he reached for a puff pastry hors d’oeuvre. She was in charge of the flowers, but had extended her area of command to include most aspects of the day. “Don’t touch. Those are for after. You’ll end up spilling on your jacket.” She waved a warning finger at him, but her stern demeanor was belied by the huge smile on her face. With proprietary ease, she reached up and adjusted his tie.

  “That’s better.” She pulled back, surveying his suit, his new haircut and polished wingtips. “You look like a million bucks.”

  “Do I look like a million bucks?” Chase’s eager voice piped up as he pulled on the hem of his mother’s silk dress. She laughed and swung him into her arms. “You look like two million bucks.”

  JD put his arm around his sister-in-law and gave her a squeeze. “If it wasn’t for you, Stace, this may not have happened at all.”

  “I’ll take the credit, if I must. But if it doesn’t work out, it’s all your fault.”

  JD had absolutely no doubts on that score. He left the kitchen and walked slowly through the living room, which looked about ready to burst at the seams with the crowd filling it. The Caldwell clan—and a large clan it was—clustered in small groups, talking animatedly. His cousins, Jamie, Drew and Chad—all firemen—were there, as was his cousin Kara Caldwell, a renowned playwright in her mid-forties. She stood chatting with his most famous cousin, Sam Rockney, the hulking NFL quarterback who had taken the Seattle Pioneers to the Superbowl.

  His mother and father, dressed in their Sunday best, were deep in discussion with a tall, thin woman with long white hair, a strong, angular face, and sea green eyes. Maya’s mother, Naomi, had flown in—solo—from New York City yesterday and had spent the night in a nearby hotel. JD had met Maya’s mother once before, during Maya’s troubled pregnancy, when she had been so sick that t
hey’d been forced to delay the wedding. Naomi had come into town for a few days to see her daughter and offer encouragement, and he’d been impressed by the woman’s inner strength and calm demeanor.

  In lieu of his presence, Maya’s father had sent one of his original paintings—a large and skillfully rendered seascape—to complement the one that already hung on the living room wall.

  Michael, looking very dapper in a tux, clapped his hands in an effort to call the crowd to attention. “To the beach!” he called out over the din of voices. “Everyone, to the beach!”

  Inspired by his rallying cry, people began streaming through the French doors and down the porch steps. Within minutes, the house had emptied out like a water jug.

  JD walked into the nursery. It was against protocol to see the bride right before the wedding, but since when had he and Maya done anything by the book?

  She sat in the rocking chair, holding Olivia to her breast. As JD entered she looked up. A radiant smile suffused her face as he bent to kiss her.

  They both looked down at the tiny, perfect little human in Maya’s arms, her head topped with a swirl of auburn hair like the frosting on a cupcake. Sated with milk, Olivia’s eyes rolled back and then closed. Her rosebud lips parted with a faint exhalation. The tiny fist wrapped around a strand of Maya’s hair loosened its grip as the baby surrendered to sleep. Gently, Maya laid her down in the lined basket at her feet.

  There was a knock on the nursery door and JD’s mother entered.

  “There you are,” she said. “Everything’s ready.” She picked up the baby basket. “I’ll take Liv down with me.”

  “Thanks, mom,” JD said.

  When they were alone again, he looked at Maya. She was barefoot, dressed in a deceptively simple, flowing white dress covered in exquisite floral embroidery worked with silver thread. Her hair was crowned with a wreath of white flowers; late-blooming hydrangeas mixed with rosebuds and baby’s breath. Her necklace and earrings were made of sea glass tumbled to an opaque white from years in the ocean.