Brannigan's Baby

But Cressida had heard ... and she had understood.

Shaking with anger, she’d ordered Luke to apologize or get out.

He’d shouted that he was going to leave.

And she’d called after him not to come back, then, till he was ready to say he was sorry.

He’d never, apparently, been ready to do so.

And it wasn’t till Whitney was almost fourteen that she realized Luke’s leaving had broken his grand-mother’s heart.

‘You ought to try to find him,’ Whitney had said one day, stumblingly.

‘I have my pride, child.’ Cressida had replied, her slender back ramrod straight as always. ‘I have my pride.’

And was it pride that had kept Luke away?

But even if she knew the answer to that, Whitney reflected, what good would it do now?

‘I’m going to make coffee.’ She pushed the kitchen door open and went in. ‘And then we’ll talk. We have things to discuss.’

He leaned back against the fridge as she poured cold water into the coffeemaker. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘about my grandmother. She’d been ill for some time?’

‘She fell a year ago and broke her hip. It seemed to be taking a long time to heal so the doctors ran some tests. They discovered a tumor—’ Whitney cleared her throat of a sudden huskiness. ‘Strong coffee okay with you?’

‘Stronger the better.’

She measured eight scoops into the filter, and switched on the coffeemaker. ‘She was very weak by the time they sent her home from hospital, and for the next ten months or so, she passed most of her time in bed.’

‘And in pain?’

‘Yes.’ Understatement of the century.

‘Why the hell didn’t you try to contact me?’

‘She didn’t want me to.’

He swore vehemently.

‘You had thirteen years.’ Her tone was heavily laced with accusation. ‘Why did you never come home?’

‘She told me to leave.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you sound like a spoiled child! All you had to do was say you were sorry.’

‘I wasn’t sorry.’ He pushed himself from the fridge and crossed to the sink. Grasping the countertop edge with white-knuckled hands, he stared out the uncurtained window. ‘What my grandmother did—taking you in—was unforgivable.’

‘Your grandmother was a warm and compassionate woman.’ Whitney fought to keep control of her emotions. ‘I know it must have been hard for you to understand her actions—after all, you were only seventeen and had been very badly hurt—’

‘I wasn’t thinking of myself!’ He whirled around and his eyes reflected more than a decade of built-up pent-up resentment at her. ‘I was thinking of my mother. Of what they—my father and your mother—had done to her—’

‘Don’t!’ Shaking, Whitney put up her hands to stop him. ‘Please don’t let’s start all this over again. I do understand why you’re so resentful, but, Luke, for your own sanity you have to put it all behind you—’

‘Don’t you think I’ve tried? Don’t you think I’ve tried to forgive? To forgive and forget? What do you think it did to me, walking away from my grandmother, the one person in the world who meant anything to me? And now—’ he swung an arm out wildly ‘—to come back to this house, and find I’m too late—my God, it’s ripping me apart!’

Taut silence vibrated through the kitchen following Luke’s outburst, a silence suddenly broken by the wavering cry of a baby.

Whitney looked around confusedly.

Luke exhaled a heavy breath, and said wearily, ‘It’s the baby monitor. Over by the bread bin.’

She saw it then, a blue-and-white gadget, with a red light flickering.

‘I haven’t seen one of those before.’ Her voice came out stiltedly, but she kept going. ‘You leave one part in the baby’s room, and set the other up wherever you are?’

‘That’s right. I’ll just go up and fetch him...’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Troy,’ he said over his shoulder, as he left the room.

Troy. Short for Troilus? The names Troilus and Cressida were indelibly linked in literature; had Luke, despite his estrangement from his grandmother, remembered the elderly woman with love as he’d chosen a name for his son?

When he returned, the coffee was ready, and she’d just filled two mugs and put sugar and cream in her own.

She’d been determined to keep any communication between them on a purely impersonal and businesslike level, but she made the fatal mistake of looking at the baby in his arms.

‘Why...he’s dark!’

‘I guess you didn’t see him without his hat yesterday.’ Luke ruffled his son’s wispy black hair, and the child chuckled and blew out a bubble. His lashes were as dark as his hair, but he had his father’s blue eyes. He was wearing a red sweatshirt, with a pair of red corduroy dungarees.

He was beautiful, adorable...and he melted her heart.

‘Could you unhitch that tray,’ Luke said, ‘so I can get him into his seat? Those catches baffled me.’

It took Whitney a couple of moments to get the hang of them herself, but she finally managed. After Luke had seated the baby, she clicked it in place again.

‘So...’ She stepped back, uncomfortably aware of his closeness. ‘What does he have for breakfast?’

‘Today, he’ll have a banana and toast, some milk...’

‘I don’t have any bananas—’

‘I’ve brought enough food to last him a couple of days. Then I thought,’ he went on as he took a brown bag from the fridge, ‘you might drive me into town and I can stock up on supplies. My credit was always good at Stanley’s corner store, so I’m sure it’ll—’

‘Jim Stanley died years ago. His store was bulldozed, and you’ll find a superstore there now. You’ll have to go to the bank, if you’ve no money...and get a loan.’

He toppled the contents of the bag on the table: a bunch of ripe bananas, a small loaf of bread, a container of wheat germ, a pint carton of skim milk. ‘To get a loan, a person needs collateral. Looks as if I’m going to be depending on you for supplies. But Troy and I don’t eat much—do we, monster?’ He grinned down at the baby, and the baby grinned back—showing two small white teeth—as if they were sharing some huge joke.