Owen's Best Intentions

And yet, she’d do it again.

* * *

OWEN WAITED IN his car until the last of his family strolled into the Pizza Keller just off the square in Bliss. He didn’t want to repeat the story to each new arrival, and he hadn’t trusted himself to wait in the restaurant alone, with the bar at hand and his worst fears taunting him about how bad he could be for Ben.

He got out as the clock on the courthouse in the center of the square tolled seven times. Snow crunched beneath his boots, reflecting the colored Christmas lights the town had yet to take down.

He crossed the sidewalk, nodding to a neighbor who greeted him by name as she walked past. Laughter and a whiff of delicious pizza aromas drifted out as he opened the door. No one had ever risked that kind of laughter around his family’s dinner table when he was growing up. Dinner then had been a quiet, tense, often terrifying affair. Knowing Ben, loving him already, had somehow revived old memories Owen thought he’d long since repressed.

He shook himself mentally and waved off the hostess who came to meet him. “I hear them in the back already,” he said and took the menu she held out to him.

As if to make up for all those quiet years, the Gages were now at least two decibels louder than everyone else in the joint. His mother stepped out of the back alcove, carrying an empty water pitcher.

“Hi, son,” she said. “Let me just get this refilled.”

“Mom, you don’t work here.” He took the pitcher, passed it to the server headed their way and turned Suzannah Gage back toward their small room. Noah and his girlfriend, Emma, were seated at the far end of a long bench, eyes only for each other. Owen’s brother Chad was going through breadsticks as if no one had fed him in a decade, and his sister, Celia, had her tablet out and her fingers flashing over the keyboard.

“Sorry I’m late,” Owen said.

“We saw you in the truck,” Noah told him.

“Lurking,” said Emma. Apparently, they were aware of the rest of the world after all.

“What’s up?” Noah asked.

“What’s your big secret?” Emma peered at him. “A girlfriend? A new job? Because you can’t leave Bliss until you finish the barn.”

“Clinic,” Suzannah said. She glanced at the younger woman. “Sounds classier. You don’t want to tell your father he’ll be bringing his brand-new baby girl to have a checkup in a barn.”

“Right.” Emma’s father had helped Noah push the clinic through the town council, just as his own infant daughter was born. “We need to keep him on our side,” she said with a sweet smile, and snatched a breadstick out of the red plastic cup in front of her before Chad could grab it. They laughed at each other as if they were already family.

Celia’s head snapped up. “Are you drinking again?” Her blue eyes were a little dazed from too much work. “Did you come to confess? I don’t mean to be blunt, but I could really use the diary of a struggling, yet recovering addict in my psych research project.”

“Is that what you’re working on?” he asked.

“Making notes.” An overachiever, like Noah. Her class didn’t start until the end of the month.

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” Owen said, “but, no.” Not that being in the middle of this family inquisition didn’t tempt him. He loved those tall red cups. He loved the foam of beer climbing to the lip. “But I have a few things to tell you.”

“Should we worry?” Suzannah eased back onto the bench on Emma and Noah’s side.

Owen slipped in beside Celia.

“Sorry,” his sister said. “But you know what you have to lose if you give up on your sobriety again.”

“Lay off, Celia.” He squeezed her wrist in an affectionate warning. He couldn’t take it just now.

Chad offered him a breadstick, and Owen couldn’t help laughing. Chad had the metabolism and the extracurricular-sports schedule to treat his troubles with food. The rest of the family laughed, as well, and for once, he didn’t feel like an outsider.

“I’ll wait for the pizza,” he said. The server came back. Looking harried, he eyed Owen with his pen at the ready. “I’d like a tea, please.”

“Okay. Anyone ready to order?”

Chad jumped right in. “Man Meets Meat special.”

“Owen, will you share a mushroom and cheese and arugula with me?” Celia asked.

He nodded, and she smiled at the server, who blinked and fell a little in love with her. Owen grinned at the poor guy.

Noah and Emma said “Pepperoni” in tandem as they always did.

Suzannah shut her menu and looked into the shadows of the beamed cathedral ceiling, reeling off her memorized list of ingredients. “Artichoke hearts, feta, mushroom, and hot Italian sausage.” She beamed at Owen as the server hurried away. “You can share mine, too.”

Cleanup. That’s what he was around here. Never stepped out on his own that his family knew of. Never made his own mark, except in ways that shamed them all.

So he didn’t know how to tell them about Ben. Would they believe his unbelievable explanation about Lilah, or would they assume he’d abandoned his child?

“I have a son,” he said, and the miniconversations, already building up sound and steam, ceased immediately.

“Huh?” Emma seemed confused.

“That’s not right.” Celia gripped her tablet for comfort.

“Oh, no,” his mother said, but at least she didn’t pretend everything was all right, and they’d all be fine, her MO since she’d finally excised his abusive, destructive father from their midst.

“Are you okay?” Noah asked, still the oldest brother, still the first to step up and take care of them.

Chad kept chowing down on the bread sticks.

Owen cleared his throat. He glanced back at the front of the restaurant. Where was his tea? “He’s almost four years old. I met his mother when she was handling some furniture I built to sell in her family’s gallery in Manhattan.”

“At last,” Emma said, cutting him off. “I have been dying to tell someone about that furniture and the other pieces you’ve done.” She turned to Noah. “He built my stepmother’s cradle for her baby.”

“You knew about my son?” Owen asked. Emma was his friend, more like a second sister. He trusted her not to keep secrets from him. She was the only person in this town who never seemed surprised to find him sober.

“No, I was being thoughtless.” Crestfallen, she sat back, flexing her fingers on the table ledge. “I just meant I wish you’d be more open about your work. That cradle was beautiful. But I had no idea you had a son. How did you find out?”

“It sounds ridiculous. The family who owns the gallery sent all the artists who show there a gift of wine.” He’d expected their worried reactions. “I poured it out,” he said, and the memory of the rich, red liquid swirling down the drain made his mouth water. “But they left a gift tag that had a photo of their family on the bottle. Ben’s mom—Ben is his name. Ben’s mom is the daughter of the guy who started the gallery. She broke up with me when she found out she was pregnant because I told her I didn’t want to stop drinking.”

“Owen.” Celia sounded disappointed.

“I know. It’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve done in a long line of stupid mistakes. I didn’t know what I was throwing away. I just thought I had to be honest with Lilah, and I couldn’t stop. Back then.”

“But now?” his mother asked.

“You know I’m not drinking, Mom. Not since Thanksgiving, when I started working on the clinic.” His eyes drifted toward the polished mahogany bar and the upright beer tap handles. He didn’t tell his family that Lilah had been his drinking buddy. Funny he felt a need to protect her from that much, at least. “Lilah said she didn’t want to see me anymore if I couldn’t dry out. I assumed she meant it.”

“You must not have been too attached to each other if that was all it took to keep you away,” Celia said.