Whose Baby?

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “What do you want?” he asked brusquely.

  No preambles. No introductions. No “we’re in a tough spot, aren’t we?”

  Through her exhaustion and dread, Lynn said, “I want this never to have happened.”

  His eyes narrowed a flicker.

  Lynn had completely forgotten they weren’t alone in the room until one of the lawyers cleared his throat. “Ms. Chanak, let me introduce Adam Landry. Mr. Landry, Lynn Chanak.”

  His mouth thinned, but he gave a brief, reluctant nod in acknowledgment of the formal introduction.

  She swallowed. “Mr. Landry.”

  He looked past her. “I’d prefer to talk to Ms. Chanak alone. If—” the coldly commanding gaze touched her “—she doesn’t mind.”

  In the flurry of objection, she caught only one phrase, which annoyed her unreasonably.

  “The hospital’s interest is in seeing us come up with an amicable future plan.” She’d memorized that phrase: amicable future plan. Was there such a thing? “Only we can decide on the future of our daughters. We need to get to know each other. Please.”

  She had hoped, heaven help her, for approval. He only waited.

  The lawyers offered their intervention if it was needed. Adam Landry said nothing. Lynn stared at her hands. After a moment, the two men backed out, shutting the door behind them. The silence in their wake was as absolute as any she’d ever heard. The courage that had gotten her this far deserted her. She couldn’t look up.

  Her nerves had reached the screaming point when Adam Landry said at last, “Perhaps I phrased my question incorrectly. Why did you start this? Did you suspect your daughter…” he stumbled, “Shelly, wasn’t yours?”

  “No.” At last she lifted her head, letting him see her tumult. “No. Never. It was my ex-husband. He…he didn’t want to pay the child support anymore. He claimed I must have had an affair. That she wasn’t his child. But it wasn’t true! I never…” She bit her lip and said more quietly, “I wouldn’t do something like that. So I took Shelly to have a blood test to prove to Brian that she was his. Only…”

  “She wasn’t.”

  “No. Which meant—” she took a deep breath “—that she wasn’t mine, either. Unless you believe…”

  “In immaculate conception?” His voice was dry.

  “Yes. And…and I don’t.” She tried for a smile and failed. “I wasn’t going to tell anybody. Only, then I started worrying about the other little girl. The one who was really my daughter.”

  The dreams wouldn’t impress him, not this man. He reminded her too much of the lawyers. His gray suit cost more than she spent on food and mortgage in a month or more. His dark hair was clipped short, but by a stylist, not a barber. She could easily picture his big, capable hands gripping the leather-covered wheel of an expensive sedan, or resting on the keyboard of a laptop computer. Not changing diapers, or sifting through the sand for a seashell, or brushing away tears.

  Who was raising Jenny Rose Landry? A grandmother? A nanny? Anxiety crimped her chest.

  Softly she finished, “I wanted to be sure she was all right. Loved.”

  “And that’s it. That’s all you want.” His tone said he didn’t believe her for a second.

  Lynn didn’t blame him for his skepticism. Already, if she was being honest, she’d have to admit that she wouldn’t be satisfied with that modest goal.

  “I don’t know.” She held his gaze, although she quaked inside. “I’m not sure anymore. I suppose I’d like to meet her. And…perhaps get acquainted. Now that I know she doesn’t have a mother.”

  “What makes you so sure she needs one?” Landry stood abruptly and shoved his chair back. Looming over her, hands planted on the table, he said tautly, “Is it so impossible to believe I’m an adequate parent?”

  Her breath caught. She’d obviously struck a raw nerve. “No. Of course not. I’m a single parent myself, and I think I’m doing a fine job.” Naturally she would say that; did she really expect him to believe her? More uncertainly, she continued, “It’s just that…” For all her rehearsing, she didn’t know how to express these inchoate emotions, these wants, these needs, these fears. “She’s my daughter,” Lynn finished simply.

  A muscle jerked in his cheek. “You suddenly want to be a mother to my daughter.”

  “Aren’t you curious, too?” How timid she sounded! No, perhaps hopeful was the word. Could it be that he didn’t want Shelly, wouldn’t try to reclaim his birth daughter? That she’d never had to worry at all?

  He swung away in a jerky motion and took two steps to the window. Gazing out at—what? the parking lot?—he killed her hopes in a flat, unrevealing voice. “Yes. I’m curious. Why do you think I’m here?”

  Lynn whispered, “Is that all? You’re just…curious?”

  He faced her, anger blazing in his eyes. “My wife died and never held her baby. Now I find out that neither have I. Does ‘curious’ cover my reaction? Probably not. But we have to start somewhere.”

  He sounded reasonable and yet scared her to death. She’d hoped for a completely different kind of man. Perhaps a car mechanic, struggling to make ends meet, grease under his fingernails and kindness in his eyes. Or a small-business owner. Someone like her. Ordinary. Not a formidable, wealthy man used to having his way and able to pay to get it. Someone she could never beat, if it came to a fight.

  Make sure it doesn’t, she told herself, trying to quiet the renewed panic. You can work something out. Go slowly. He may not be that interested in parenting even one girl, much less two.

  “I brought pictures,” she said tentatively. “Of Shelly.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck. Lynn could tell he was trying, too, when he said gruffly, “I brought some of Rose, too.”

  They stared at each other, neither moving. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, she thought, semihysterically. How absurd. Make the first move.

  Lynn bent down and took the envelope from her purse, which sat on the floor by her feet. Slowly she opened it, her fingers stiff and reluctant. She felt as if she were sharing something incredibly private, pulling back a curtain on the small, sunny space that was her life.

  He came back to the table and sat down. As she removed the pile of photos from the envelope, he pulled a matching one from the pocket of his suit jacket. When she pushed the photographs across the span of oak, he did the same with his.

  Lynn reached for them, hesitated.

  “She looks like you,” he said, startling her.

  “What?”

  “Her hair.” His gaze felt like a touch. “Her nose, and her freckles, and her chin. But her eyes are blue.”

  “Brian’s…Brian’s are blue.”

  Her hands were even more awkward now. Did she want to see the child’s face? There might be no going back.

  She turned the small pile of four-by-five photographs, peripherally aware that he was doing the same. And then the fist drove into her belly, bringing a small gasp from her, and Adam Landry vanished from her awareness.

  She saw only the little girl, grinning at the camera. At her. My daughter, Lynn thought in astonishment.

  He was right: Jenny Rose could have been Lynn at that age, except for the pure crystal blue of her eyes. The little girl’s face was round, solemn in the other pictures Lynn thumbed through. She was still plump, not skinny and ever in motion like Shelly. The freckles—Lynn touched them, almost startled by the slick feel of photographic paper instead of the crinkling, warm nose she saw. How like hers! Rose’s mouth was sweet, pursed as if she wanted to consider deeply before she rendered a judgment.

  There she was in another photo, on Santa’s lap, not crying, but not entirely happy, either. And younger yet, a swimsuit over her diaper, the photograph taken as she stood knee-deep in a small backyard pool filled by a hose. Why wasn’t she smiling more often? Was she truly happy?

  Lynn looked through the pictures over and over again, beginning to resent the meager number, hungering for
more. What was she really like, this little girl who had once been part of her? What made her sad? What did she think was funny? Did she suck her thumb? Have nightmares? Wish she had a mommy?

  At last, at last, she looked up, aware that tears were raining down her cheeks, that Adam Landry had made a sound. Like a blind man, he was touching one of the photographs she’d given him. His fingers shook as he traced, so delicately, her daughter’s face.

  She saw him swallow, saw the emotions akin to hers ravage his features.

  “Jenny,” he whispered.

  “Does she look like your wife?”

  His hand curled into a fist. “It’s…uncanny.”

  For the first time, Lynn understood. “This must be almost worse for you, with your wife dead.”

  He looked up, but his eyes didn’t focus; he might have been blind, or seeing something else. “Our daughter was all I had left.”

  She couldn’t draw a breath, only sat paralyzed. He saw the wife he’d loved and lost in Shelly’s face. He would want her. She could even sympathize with how he must feel. She had to meet Jenny Rose, answer the questions the photographs didn’t, hold her, hug her, hear her voice, her laugh, feel her warm breath. She had to be part of her life.

  As he would, somehow, have to be part of Shelly’s life.

  “I want to see her,” he said, a demand not a request. “Where do you live?”

  Her sympathy evaporated at his assumption that he could bulldoze her. She wanted suddenly to lie, or refuse to answer, or…but what was the point? People were easy to find, particularly one who hadn’t been trying to hide. A few phone calls and he could be knocking on her door.

  “Otter Beach. Over on the coast. I own a bookstore.”

  “Did you bring her with you?”

  “No. She’s…she’s home. With a baby-sitter.” Lynn lifted her chin. “What about Jenny Rose? Where’s she?”

  As impassive as his face was, still Lynn saw his initial reluctance give way to the same begrudging acceptance. “She goes to a preschool Monday through Friday. While I’m working.”

  “You don’t have a nanny, or someone like that?”

  “No.” He caught on, and a flush traveled across his cheekbones. “Is that what I look like? A man who takes care of his personal life by writing a check?”

  Yes. Oh, yes, that’s exactly what he looked like.

  But she couldn’t say so, of course. “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a stockbroker.”

  “It’s just that it’s hard to be a single parent. Most of us do everything because we have to. You don’t.”

  “You assume I’m wealthy.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you?”

  “I make a decent living.”

  Ten or twenty times the one she made, if Lynn was any judge.

  “Couldn’t you afford a nanny?”

  “I don’t want someone else raising my child.” He said it in a hard voice.

  The words sliced like a switchblade between the ribs. She was someone else.

  He swore. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

  “No?”

  “When you contacted the hospital, what did you have in mind? That we trade kids?”

  Trade kids? Lynn stared at him in shock. Was that what he had in mind?

  “You don’t love your—” she corrected herself “—my daughter at all, do you?”

  Neither his voice nor his expression softened an iota. “I wasn’t talking about me. You’re the one who started this. I’m asking what you thought you’d get out of it.”

  She squeezed her fingers on her lap. “What I’d get out of it? You think I’m using this mix-up to gain something?”

  “Why not?” He sounded grim. “You know the hospital is prepared to pay a fortune to shut us up.”

  “I don’t want money.” Shaking, she gathered the pictures of the daughter she’d never met and pushed them heedlessly into her purse, then snatched it up and stood. “I told you what I wanted. That’s all I have to say. My attorney will be contacting you about visitation rights.”

  “Stop,” he snapped. “Sit down.”

  “Why?”

  “We have to talk.” He shut his eyes again for a moment, then opened them and let out a ragged breath. “Please.”

  Lynn bit her lip, then slowly sat again. “What is there to say?”

  “I don’t know, but these are our kids. Do we want the courts mandating their futures?”

  “No.” Lynn sagged. “I didn’t bring a lawyer today. I hoped…”

  “I hoped, too.” After a long silence he sighed. “Where do you suggest we go from here?”

  “I’d like to meet her. Jenny Rose. And I expect you’d like to meet Shelly.” When he nodded, Lynn said fiercely, “You can’t have her, you know. She’s my daughter. I love her. I’m her world.”

  Adam Landry’s hard mouth twisted. “It would seem we have something in common. I’d fight to the death for Rose. Nobody is taking her. So you can put that right out of your mind.”

  Had she imagined raising both girls? “Then what?” she asked in a low voice.

  He shook his head. “Visitation. We can take it slow.”

  “Have you told Rose about me?” Lynn asked curiously. “About what happened?”

  “No. You?”

  “No.” She made a face. “It’s a hard thing to explain to a three-year-old.”

  “On Rose’s nightstand is a picture of her mommy, who she knows is in heaven. How the hell do I introduce you?” Bafflement and anger filled his dark eyes, so like Shelly’s.

  “All we can do is our best.” How prissy she sounded, Lynn thought in distaste.

  He didn’t react to her sugar pill, continuing as if she’d said nothing, “It’s going to scare the hell out of her if I suddenly announce she isn’t my daughter at all. And, oh yeah, here’s your real mommy.”

  Lynn had imagined the same conversation a million times. To a child this age, parents were the only security. They were the anchor that made exploring the world possible.

  “Maybe we should meet first,” she suggested. “Would it be less scary once they know us?”

  “Maybe.” He made a rough sound in his throat. “Yeah. All right. We’ll all just be buddies at first.”

  She let his irony pass, giving a small nod. When he said nothing more, Lynn clutched her purse in her lap. “Shall I bring Shelly to Portland one day?”

  “Why don’t I come there instead? Rosebud would enjoy a day at the beach. It might seem more natural.”

  Rosebud. She liked that. She liked, too, what the gentle nickname suggested about this man. Perhaps he wasn’t as tough as he seemed.

  “Fine. Saturday?”

  They agreed. He wrote down her address and phone number, then gave her a business card with his. It all felt so…mundane, a mere appointment, not the clock set ticking for an earthshaking event.

  He escorted her out of the conference room and, with his hand on her elbow, hustled her past the cluster of lawyers and administrators lying in wait.

  Over his shoulder, he told them brusquely, “We’ll be in touch once we figure this out.”

  Lynn imagined the consternation brewing at their abrupt departure. Together.

  She and Adam Landry rode down silently in the elevator, Lynn painfully conscious of his physical presence. She caught him glancing at her once or twice, but each time he looked quickly away, frowning at the lighted numbers over the door. Of course, he couldn’t help being so imposing at his height, with broad shoulders and the build of a natural athlete. Nor could he help that face, with Slavic cheekbones and bullish jaw and high forehead that together made him handsome enough to displace Mel Gibson in a woman’s fantasies.

  She was glad that Shelly looked like her mother and not her father. It would have been too bizarre for words to see her daughter in this stranger’s face. As though they must have had sex and she just didn’t remember it, or else how could she have breast-fed his child, raised her, loved
her?

  Heat suddenly blossomed on her cheeks. Had he had the same thought, she wondered, about her? As though he must know her on a level deeper than he understood? No wonder he didn’t want to look at her!

  When the elevator doors opened, he gripped her arm again as if she wouldn’t know where to go without his guidance. Habit, she gathered, when he was with a woman. “Where are you parked?”

  “My car is right out in front.”

  He urged her forward, his stride so long she had to scuttle along like a tiny hermit crab just to avoid falling and being hauled ungracefully to her feet. Outside the hospital doors, Lynn balked.

  Adam Landry looked so surprised when she pointedly removed her elbow from his bruising grip that she might have been amused under other circumstances.

  “My car is right over there.” She gestured. “I don’t see a purse snatcher lurking. I can make it on my own, thank you, Mr. Landry.”

  “Adam.”

  “Adam,” she acknowledged. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

  The lines between his nose and mouth deepened. “We’ll be there.”

  Neither moved for an awkward moment. Then he bent his head in a stiff goodbye and stalked away across the parking lot. With a sense of unreality she watched him go, wondering how she would have viewed him if they’d passed in the halls earlier, before she knew who he was.

  I would have thought he must be a doctor, she decided. He had that air of money and command, as though he could make life and death decisions before breakfast and assume it was his right.

  He would be a tough opponent, way out of her league.

  Then she didn’t dare let him become an opponent, Lynn thought again. Although she disliked the idea acutely, she must accommodate him, coax him, play friends—do whatever it took to stay out of court.

  Her stomach roiled. It was bad enough that a divorced woman with a child had to spend the next twenty years somehow getting along with her ex-husband. Now she, Lynn Chanak, had gone one better: she had to get along with a man she hadn’t chosen, even if foolishly. A man she’d never married, never made love with—a total stranger. All for the sake of the child they shared.