Mail-Order Matty

“Are those hibiscus blooming against the wall?” Matty pointed to her left.

He nodded. “And the purple flowers behind them are bougainvillea.”

“Paradise.”

“The last man to own Inspiration Cay spent a fortune on landscaping. It’s gone wild, but Arthur prefers to leave it that way.”

“Jungle appeals to me. Things that grow and thrive without restraint, abundant good health…”

“You’ve seen little enough of that, haven’t you?”

She seemed startled, whether at his insight or her own guileless revelations he didn’t know. “Not enough, I guess,” she admitted.

“Was that one of the reasons you said yes to this arrangement? Because you needed to be away from illness and suffering?”

“For a while, maybe.” She folded her hands. “I’m good at what I do, but it’s possible I need to do something else, something I might do even better.”

“So you need some time to think? To reconsider your life?”

“Does that bother you?”

“Absolutely not. It reassures me. I’m not sure I could go through with this if I thought I was the only one of us who was going to benefit.”

“Don’t forget Heidi.”

“I couldn’t possibly. She absorbs every waking minute. You’ll see, once we get to the island.”

“Damon, tell me the whole story. You’ve told me bits and pieces on the telephone, enough to get me here. But I need to know it all. How you feel about Heidi’s mother, why you didn’t marry her. How she feels about you and Heidi, too. Where and how I’ll fit in.”

And that was the other way that Matty didn’t fit with Damon’s picture of her. He had expected a woman so eager to please, so accommodating, that she wouldn’t ask pointed questions or show the wealth of insight that was a part of the real Matty Stewart. He found her perceptions unnerving at the same time that he found them refreshing. She did not suffer from self-absorption, but on the other hand, she was too intelligent not to recognize the problems that might affect her own happiness.

He tried to cull out the things in his past that didn’t matter and cut right to the things that did. “I met Gretchen in Washington, D.C. She had just ended a relationship with another man, and she was looking for someone to take up the slack. She’d be the first to tell you that. She was very clear about it to me.”

He paused as their server brought them steaming bowls of spicy black bean soup and garnished them with a splash of sherry and dollops of sour cream. He watched Matty lift her spoon and begin to eat. Her hands were unadorned, no rings, no polish on her short nails. Just broad strong hands that looked as if they could solve a multitude of problems, hands that probably rarely fluttered or trembled.

“And what was she to you, Damon?” she asked.

“She was a one-night stand that lengthened into weeks,” he said bluntly. “She was in no hurry to move on, and I was in no hurry to get rid of her. We were both new to the city, and lonely. When she finally found an apartment in Arlington, I helped her move. We saw each other less and less as the weeks went by, and finally, when it was time for me to leave D.C., I couldn’t even catch her at home to say goodbye.”

“So you didn’t know she was pregnant?”

“It’s the nineties, Matty. When we had sex I was careful to protect us both.” He read her expression. “Technology is imperfect. It failed us one night. I didn’t think too much about it, since Gretchen seemed to think it was the wrong time in her cycle to matter.”

“Damon…” She returned to playing with the wedge of lime. “Could she be lying about who Heidi’s father really is?”

“No. The timing’s right, and Gretchen swears that Heidi’s mine. I was there when the condom broke. I have to accept responsibility.”

She nodded, and he knew that accepting responsibility was something she would understand completely.

“Gretchen never contacted me until after Heidi’s birth. She says she intended to keep her, that she thought it might be a lark. Gretchen likes to be entertained, and she thought Heidi would be endlessly entertaining. Two weeks of staying up all night with a screaming infant cured her of that. Gretchen can act decisively when she needs to. She realized her maternal instincts were nonexistent, but she felt a responsibility to her daughter. So she sat down and listed the alternatives, and I was at the top.”

“How did you feel when you discovered you were a father?”

“Furious.”

Matty cocked her head, and her eyes searched his. “But you took Heidi anyway? Out of responsibility?”

“I had begun my research on Inspiration Cay.” He drummed his fingers on the table and tried to decide how much of that story to tell her. He settled on only the most salient details. “This work is my whole life, or at least it was then. I was sure that having a baby on the island with me was impossible, unthinkable. So I flew to Arlington to help Gretchen make arrangements to place Heidi in a good adoptive home. You know the kind I mean. Two devoted, educated parents with love and time to give her, both things I was sure I couldn’t manage. And then I saw her and held her.” He looked away and shrugged. He was still embarrassed at the depth of his attachment to the squirming, screaming scrap of humanity who was his umbilical cord into the future.

“And so you brought her back to the island?”

“It seemed the right thing to do. Gretchen wanted it that way. Officially we’ll share custody, but I doubt she’ll ever be much of a presence in Heidi’s life. She’ll breeze in with gifts and kisses, whisk her off to Disney World and back again. But she can’t meet Heidi’s emotional needs, and she knows it.”

“How do you feel about Gretchen, Damon? It sounds like she’s going to be part of your life for a long time.”

“Are you asking if we might take up where we left off?”

She didn’t look away. “This whole situation is strange enough. If another woman is involved, it’s impossible.”

“Gretchen and I were briefly attracted to each other. The attraction was briefer than the relationship, and that was brief enough. I don’t hate her. I have a grudging respect for her willingness to give birth to Heidi instead of the obvious alternative, and then for her willingness to find the best solution for Heidi’s future. But Gretchen will be a part of Heidi’s future, not mine. After I realized I was going to raise Heidi, I asked Gretchen to marry me, and she said no. We were both profoundly relieved that that was out of the way, because our marriage would have been an unqualified disaster.”

He let that dangle a moment before he added the clincher. “But Heidi won’t be a part of my future at all if Gretchen’s parents have their way. And that’s where you come in.”

“I can’t believe they have a prayer of getting custody. You’re her father.”

“I’m a father without a real job, at least the way the court sees it. A father living on a remote island in the Bahamas without a doctor, a grocery store, a church, a school. A father with no experience caring for a baby and no time to do it properly. I can’t hire help. Most older women with good credentials would find life on the island too lonely and harsh. And a younger woman would look suspicious to the courts.”

“Like a live-in lover?”

“Exactly. Not the kind of role model a child would need.”

“Why did Gretchen choose you over her parents? She could have handed Heidi over to them and never even told you that you were a father.”

“In Gretchen’s words, the Otts are rigid and incapable of either love or understanding. They exist to do their duty, and they see Heidi as a duty and nothing more. Gretchen’s childhood was miserable. She’s not much of a mother, but she doesn’t wish that kind of life on Heidi.”

“Would the Otts be content if you just allowed them to visit when they wanted?”

“I’ve spoken to them once. They made it clear that they intend to control Heidi’s upbringing. They see Gretchen as a failure and Heidi as their chance at redemption in the eyes of their church and community.”

“So there’s no compromise in sight?”

“They want all or nothing. If I retain custody, I don’t think they’ll even want to see her. And if they get custody, they’ll throw up every possible roadblock to keep me from visiting.”

Matty was silent as the server took away their soup and plunked down the sandwiches they had ordered. Damon had eaten half of his before she spoke. “You told me during our first phone call that your attorney thinks you’ll have no problem keeping Heidi if you’re married to me.”

He understood that she needed to hear the reasons again. He obliged her. “You’re not a stranger, Matty, or at least the court won’t see it that way. We were friends in college—”

“We weren’t.”