The Secret Father

“Is eight o’clock too early to leave tomorrow?” he asked.

“Fine.” She probably wouldn’t sleep. “I’ll arrange our flight.”

“Let me.”

“Face it. I have more pull.” Zach could be in charge next time.

SHARING A GLASS of iced tea with her mother-in-law, Greta, Beth Calvert recognized her son’s car down-shifting to start the climb up her hill. Over a pot of chili, the two women had begun planning a party to celebrate Greta and her husband Seth’s fifty-fifth anniversary.

They’d planned very little party and talked more about Seth’s single anniversary request—more time with his wife. He wanted her to retire from her job as director of The Mom’s Place as she neared seventy-six years of age.

Beth smiled. Greta seemed to feel her husband asked too much. Already pregnant with Ned, Zach’s father, when she was in premed, Greta had worked nearly all her life, and pretty much all the time she or Seth could remember. Seventy-six wasn’t too young to retire by any means, but around here country doctors worked a lot longer than that.

“I’ve asked Sophie to join me,” Greta said. “At least to discuss it while she’s here for our anniversary, but she swears she’s happy delivering babies for those rich women in D.C. They have more OB/GYNs than they can choose from. I need her. My clients need her if Seth’s going to make me step down. We have plenty of time—you know my parents both lived until well into their nineties—but Seth refuses to discuss my work anymore.”

Watching for Zach’s car, Beth nodded in sympathy. “You started the clinic. You’ve helped a lot of young girls in these mountains.” Greta’s paying customers, women who craved some pampered time before their babies came, provided funding for young women who found themselves “in trouble” in Bardill’s Ridge and the surrounding towns. “You own the baby farm and you want to put it in hands you trust.”

Greta expressed disapproval with a tart look. “I hate when y’all call it the baby farm.”

“Sorry.” Beth knew that, but this late, unannounced visit from Zach had sidetracked her.

“I don’t believe Sophie’s happy. She and Molly and Zach were like siblings when they were kids, and she’s a Calvert just like the rest of us. She’ll be happier among family.”

“Maybe you should advertise for another physician just in case.” Beth craned her neck, waiting for Zach’s headlights to sweep the dusk-shadowed turn in her drive. Something had troubled him since that bank robbery. Who wouldn’t be upset to discover such violence in himself? “Sophie will come home when she’s ready. You can’t push children.” At last bright light feathered through the shrubbery that lined the gravel driveway. “Even when they’re grown up.”

“I’d expect Sophie to remember her loyalty to this side of her family as well as to that rogue mother of hers.”

“I don’t think she sees Nita too often.” Beth pointed to the car nosing around the bend. “Look—there’s Zach. Wonder what he’s after so late?”

Greta looked concerned. “Something wrong? Seth will be calling any second if I don’t start home, but I can stay and help you—”

“I’m sure Zach’s fine.” She wasn’t sure at all, but Greta had enough on her mind. The family had all assumed she’d work at the baby farm till she couldn’t work anymore. Seth must have been insistent if Greta was considering retirement. “Would you like more tea?”

“No.” Her mother-in-law stood, flexing her back. “I left my glasses at the office. Better get moving. Seth’s also nagging me to stop driving after dark.” She leaned down and aimed a swift kiss Beth’s way. “Now, if he asks, we talked about the party, not work, right?”

“He must be really upset this time.” Seth had retired from his seat on the county circuit court over ten years ago, and he’d expected his wife to join him in taking leisure.

“He’s serious.” Greta patted her hair. “So I’m paying attention. Good night, honey. I’m just going to wait by my car to speak to Zach.”

“’Night, Greta.”

The older woman floated down the stairs, reaching her car as Zach parked his. They spoke between their doors for a moment, and then Greta waved goodbye and drove off.

Zach headed toward the house, but trouble climbed the wooden porch steps with him. Beth stood, sniffing wood smoke on the crisp air.

“Smell that, son? Fall’s got us in its grip.”

“It’s your favorite time of year, isn’t it, Mom?” He turned at the top step and joined her in appreciation of the darkening ridge that rolled from beneath her house. Out here the rising moon provided scarce light. Beth’s nearest neighbor lived a stiff hike down the road.

Zach lived on his father’s farm now, in the house she’d loved during her marriage. But she’d hated the place after Ned died. A tree had fallen on him as he’d cleared a field during a storm’s early gusts. She and Zach, only eight at the time, had taken refuge from their loss on this lonely, untamable patch of ground that had once belonged to her family. She’d wanted no more farms.

“Tell me what’s wrong, son.”

He grinned. “How’d you know?” A little tired, a lot cagey, still wearing the uniform he usually took off the second he left the sheriff’s office behind, he pushed his hands into his pockets. “Never mind. You just know.”

“Better come inside. Want some coffee?”

She always had a pot on the warmer. Mr. Coffee had become her best friend the first day he’d shown up at the hardware store in town.

Her son towered over her as he ducked to cross the threshold into the small living room. Her grandfather had built this house, and every room formed a perfect square. Zach used to say the squares made him feel claustrophobic. He worked at the knot in his tie as she patted his shoulder.

“Come into the kitchen. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten.”

“Try not to mother me, Mom.”

“It’s still my job.”

He never gave her credit for the times she tried to let him alone. But she was a Southern woman—when she sensed a heavy load of dread on her son’s shoulders, she got the urge to throw something in a casserole. Feeding him was her only refuge when Zach turned as standoffish as the bushy gray cat that sprawled in front of her fireplace.

Spike and Zach shared the same views on comfort. They wanted to be in the room, but they preferred a minimum of human affection.

Zach followed her. “I have to tell you something.”

“How bad is it?” Since that day Seth had come up from the field to tell her about Ned, she tended to expect the worst. She tried not to, but she had to pray nothing worse than losing Ned ever happened to her while she had a son and a family who depended on her to be sane.

“It’s good in a way. In a lot of ways.” Zach opened the refrigerator and popped the top on a pale blue plastic bowl. “Chili? Smells great.”

Elbowing him aside, she took the bowl and dished a couple of Zach-sized servings into a saucepan. No microwaves in her house. She cooked the old-fashioned way. “I’m waiting.”

“I’m trying to think of a way to say it.” He opened the door to the back porch. “Let me bring in some wood for you. The weather forecast says we might have a freeze tonight.”

“Okay.” She plucked a sweet onion from the wire basket that hung above her counter. If he had to belly up to telling her, it couldn’t be that good.

While the screen door banged open and then shut each time Zach carried a load of wood from the pile out back, Beth peeled the onion.

Spike slinked in to investigate the racket. He hunkered down at her feet while she diced onion the way Zach liked, in small chunks. With the cat twining around her ankles, she cut a hunk of corn bread and set it on a bread plate at the table. She was stirring the steaming chili as Zach got his fill of loading the bin.

He came back in, sniffing the chili’s aroma. Again, like Spike. “I didn’t even know I was hungry.” He slapped on the faucet to wash his hands at the sink. “Aren’t you eating?”

“I ate with Gran, but I might have a bite of corn bread.”

“I hate to eat alone.”

He never admitted that to anyone else, but she knew. It pricked at her during the long two-week periods when Lily stayed at Helene’s. Zach’s discomfort with being alone had started after the accident, too.

He needed a family. Helene hadn’t been a good wife for him, but someday a woman would arrive sporting sense enough to value a guy who always did the right thing—even when it came to letting his wife go. Beth often wondered how much of Zach’s pain came from a suspicion that, as Helene alleged, he hadn’t been good enough for her.

“Mom, do you remember I was in Chicago before I took that last flight?”