Sealed With a Kiss

She got into her car and started to her studio, a small but cheerfully decorated loft, the place where her creative juices usually began flowing as soon as she entered. Sitting at her drawing board, attempting to work, she felt the memory of that scene in which mother and son were so painfully at odds persist. The boy could have been hers. Maybe not; maybe she’d had a girl. What kind of parents did her child have? Would it swear at them, as that boy had? How ironic, that she devoted so much of her life to helping children and had no idea what her own child endured. She sighed deeply, releasing the frustration. She would deal with that, but she wasn’t yet ready. It was still a new and bruising thing. It had been bad enough to remember constantly that she had a child somewhere whom she would never see and about whose welfare she didn’t know, but this…she couldn’t help remembering…

She had stood by the open window; tears cascading silently down her satin-smooth cheeks, looking out at the bright moonlit night, deep in thought. The trees swayed gently, and the prize roses in her grandfather’s perfectly kept garden gave a sweet pungency to the early summer night. But she neither saw the night’s beauty nor smelled the fragrant blossoms. She saw a motorcycle roaring wildly into the distance, carrying her young heart with it. And it was the fumes from the machine’s exhaust, not the scented rose blooms surrounding the house, that she would remember forever. He hadn’t so much as glanced toward her bedroom window as he’d sped away.

She heard her bedroom door open but didn’t turn around, merely stood quietly, staring into the distance. She knew he was there and that no matter what she said or how much she pleaded, he would have his way; he always had his way.

“Get your things packed, young lady, you’re leaving here tonight. And you needn’t bother trying to call him, either, because I’ve already warned him that if he goes near you, if he so much as speaks to you again, I’ll have him jailed for possessing carnal knowledge of a minor.”

“But, Grandpa…”

“Don’t give me any sass, young lady. You’re a child, sixteen years old, and I don’t plan to let that boy do any more damage than he’s already done. Get your things together.” She should have been used to his tendency to steamroller her and everybody else, but this time there was no fight in her.

“Did you at least tell him…” He didn’t let her finish, and it was just as well. She knew the answer.

“Of course not.”

She fought back the tears; the least sign of weakness would only make it worse. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell him,” she said resignedly, “so he doesn’t know.”

She looked at the old man then, tall and erect, still agile and crafty for his years. A testimonial to temperance and healthful living. With barely any gray hair, he was an extremely handsome example of his African American heritage and smattering of Native American genes. She thought of how much like him she looked and brought her shoulders forward, begging him with her eyes.

“But, Grandpa. Please! You can’t do this. He didn’t take advantage of me. We love each other, and we want to…”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do. I’m your legal guardian. That boy’s nineteen and I can have him put away. You’re not going to blacken the name of Logan; it’s a name that stands for something in this community. You’ll do as I say. And what you haven’t packed in the next hour, you won’t be taking.”

She got into the backseat of the luxurious Cadillac that the First Golgotha Baptist Church had given her grandfather when he’d retired after forty-five years as its pastor. “Where are we going?” she asked him sullenly, not caring if she displeased him.

“You’ll find out when you get there,” he mumbled.

“I thought you’d stopped driving at night.”

“I’m driving tonight, but it’s not a problem; the moon’s shining. And kindly stop crying, Naomi. I’ve always told you that crying shows a lack of self-control.”

She bristled. Did he even love her? If he did, why couldn’t he ever give her concrete evidence of it? She made one last try. “You have no right to do this, Grandpa. I love him, and he loves me, and no matter what you make me do now, when I’m grown, Chuck and I will get together.”

She heard the gruffness in his aged voice and the sadness that seemed to darken it. Maybe there was hope…

“I’m doing what’s best for you, and someday you’ll see that for yourself. You know nothing of love, Naomi. That boy didn’t fight very hard for you, gal. Seems to me I gave him a good reason to run off when I warned him to stay away from you. It’s a moot point, anyway; his folks are sending him to the University of Hawaii, and you can’t get much farther away from Washington, D.C., and still be in the United States. This is the end of it and I know it, so I’m not letting you offer yourself up as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of love. I’ve lived more than three-quarters of a century, long enough to know how outright stupid that would be.”

Her tears dropped silently until she fell asleep. When they had arrived at their destination, she got out of the car and walked into the building without even glancing back at her grandfather. Two months later, tired of resisting the pressure, she listlessly signed the papers put in front of her without reading them.

Naomi sat at the drawing board in her studio without attempting to work and tried once more to reconcile herself to her grandfather’s incredible news. If they’d found him, they would easily find her. Did she want to be found? Or did she want to find the child and its family? But who would she look for? I’ve had a few hassles in my life, she thought, but this! She answered the phone automatically.

“Logan Logos and Labels. May I help you?”

“Yes,” the deep, sonorous male voice replied. “You certainly may. Have dinner with me tonight.” Of course, Rufus meant the invitation as an apology for his abrupt departure from her home, she decided. She searched for a suitable clever remark and drew a blank as thoughts of her child crowded out Rufus’s face. Her throat closed and words wouldn’t come out. To her disgust, she began to cry.

“Naomi? Naomi? Are you there?”

She hung up and let the tears have their day, tears that had been waiting for release since her grandfather had signed her into the clinic and walked away over thirteen years ago. She got up after a time threw water on her face, and went back to her drawing board, hoping for the relief that she always found in her work. Then she laughed at herself. Solitary tears were stupid; crying made sense only if someone was there to pat you on the back. She looked at her worrisome design and shrugged elaborately. It would be about as easy to get that ridiculous cow into the ice-cream logo without changing the concept as it would be to get her life straightened out, tantamount to getting pie from the sky. She sat up straighter. Mmmm. Pie in the sky. Not a bad idea. In twenty minutes, she’d sketched a new ice-cream logo, an oval disc containing a cow snoozing beneath a shade tree and dreaming of a three-flavors dish of ice cream. Why didn’t I think of that before, she asked herself, humming happily, while she cleaned her brushes and tidied her drawing board. She held the logo up to a lamp, admiring it. Nothing gave her as much satisfaction as finishing a job that she knew was a sure winner.

Her euphoria was short-lived as she heard the simultaneous staccato ring of the doorbell and rattle of the knob. She opened the door and stared in dismay.

“Is anything the matter? Are you all right?” Rufus asked her, pushing a twin stroller into the room, apparently oblivious to the astonishment that he must have seen mirrored on her face.

She said the first thing that came to mind and regretted it. “You didn’t tell me that you are married,” she accused waspishly.

She put her hands on her hips and frowned at him. She usually took her time getting annoyed, but she wasn’t her normal self when it came to Rufus Meade. She took a calming deep breath and asked, him, “Whose are these?” pointing a long brown finger toward the stroller.

One of the twins answered, “Daddy look.” He reached toward the ten-by-fourteen color sketch for the ice-cream logo. “Ice cream, Daddy. Can we have some ice cream?”

Rufus shook his head. “Maybe later, Preston.” He turned to her and shrugged nonchalantly, but Naomi didn’t care if her exasperation at that ridiculous scene was apparent.

“What was happening with you when I called, Naomi? You sounded as if…look, I came over here because I thought something was wrong and that maybe I could help, but whatever it was evidently didn’t last long.”

Still not quite back to normal, and fighting her wild emotions, she figured it wasn’t a time for niceties and asked him, “Where is their mother?”

This time, it was the other twin who answered. “Our mommy lives in Paris.”

“She likes it there,” Preston added. “It’s pretty.”

Rufus glanced from the boy to Naomi. “Since you’re alright, we’ll be leaving.” He wasn’t himself around her. Her impact on him was even greater than when he’d first seen her. Tonight, when he’d faced her standing in her door with that half-shocked, half-scared look on her face, her shirt and jeans splattered with paint, hair a mess and no makeup, he had been moved by her open vulnerability. It tugged at something deep-seated, elicited his protective instinct. He admitted to himself that fear for her safety hadn’t been his sole reason for rushing over there; he was eager to see her again and had seized the opportunity.

Her softly restraining hand on his arm sent a charge of energy through him, momentarily startling him. “I’m sorry, Rufus. About your wife, I mean. I had no idea that…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her, mentally pushing back the sexual tension in which her nearness threatened to entrap him. Expressions of sympathy for his status as a single father made him uncomfortable. He regretted the divorce for his sons’ sake, but Etta Mae had never been much of a wife and hadn’t planned to be a mother. She wanted to work in the top fashion houses of Paris and Milan and, when offered the chance, she said a hurried goodbye and took it. Neither her marriage nor her three-week-old twin sons had the drawing power of a couturier’s runway. She hadn’t contested the divorce or his award of full custody; she had wanted only her freedom.

He watched the strange, silent interplay between Naomi and Preston, who appeared fascinated with the logo. His preoccupation with it seemed to intrigue her, and she smiled at the boy and glanced shyly at Rufus.

“Do you mind if I give them some i-c-e c-r-e-a-m?” She spelled it out. “I have those three flavors in the freezer.” He eased back the lapels of his Scottish tweed jacket, exposing a broad chest in a beige silk Armani shirt, shoved a hand in each pants pocket, and tried to understand the softness he saw in her. He couldn’t believe that she liked children; if she did, she’d have some. She probably preferred her work.

“Sure, why not?” he replied, carefully sheltering his thoughts. “It’ll save me the trouble of taking them to an ice-cream parlor where they’ll want everything they see.”

“Do they have to stay in that thing?” She nodded toward the stroller.

“You may be brave,” he told her, displaying considerable amusement, “but I don’t believe you’re that brave.” His eyes were pools of mirth.

“What are you talking about?” She tried to settle herself, to get her mind off the virile heat that emanated from him. She had never before reacted so strongly to a man, and she disliked being susceptible to him.

His suddenly huskier voice indicated that he read her thoughts and knew her feelings. “Preston can destroy this place in half an hour if he really puts himself to it,” he explained, “but with Sheldon to help him, you’d think a hurricane had been through here. We’re all better off with them strapped in that stroller.”

“If you say so.” She knelt unsteadily in front of the stroller and addressed the twin who’d pointed toward the logo. “What’s your name?” A miniature Rufus right down to his studied gaze, she decided.

“Preston,” he told her with more aplomb that she’d have expected of a child of his age, and pointed to his twin. “He’s Sheldon.”

“How old are you?” she asked his identical twin brother.

“Three, almost four,” they told her in perfect unison, each holding up three fingers.

Naomi looked first at one boy and then the other, then at Rufus. “How do you know the difference?”