Surprise, Doc! You're A Daddy!

As she sank onto the couch, watching Dana play with her favorite dolls, Meg realized what was troubling her.

For two years, she’d refused to give up hope. Even when she saw the doubt in some people’s eyes, she’d persisted in believing that Joe loved her and that, when she found him, they would resume their life together.

Now, perhaps, she had found him, but if Hugh Menton was Joe, he wasn’t her Joe. He might as well live on Jupiter.

Maybe, as Andrew had said, she was in love with someone who didn’t exist. For the first time, Meg had to face the possibility that she might never get her husband back.

NO LETTER came for Hugh on Thursday or Friday. He put in a call to Dr. Vanessa Archikova, director of the Whole Child Project at Pacific West Coast University, and had to leave a message.

It was not a good sign.

Less than a month remained before the research program started. If they wanted him, surely they’d have notified him by now. There was nothing wrong with the job he had, Hugh reflected as he paused between patients to update his notes. Counseling anxious parents, healing injured or ailing children and referring the rare serious cases to the best specialists were valuable services.

Yet a chasm lurked inside him. If his application were rejected, he needed to find some other way to give meaning to his life.

The Whole Child Project, funded by a private research grant, had been designed by a panel of experts headed by Dr. Archikova. It proposed to use medical personnel, in conjunction with parents and schools, to coordinate the care of a group of poor children in hopes of making a large impact on their futures.

Many of the kids came from homeless families. Others lived in foster homes. Most had borderline nutritional and behavioral disorders.

Government-run attempts to help them had bogged down in paperwork and politics. The Whole Child Project was their last chance.

It would be thrilling to make a difference for those kids, Hugh thought. He’d always loved children. Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about one particular little girl with flaming red hair and elfin features.

Was she really his daughter? It seemed a slim possibility, but one he couldn’t ignore, any more than he could disregard the possibility that he, or some alter ego of his, had a wife. Into his mind swept the image that had haunted his dreams for the past two nights. An image of Meg Avery.

She had the same determined chin as her daughter, along with a tilted nose and full mouth. The eyes were filled with turbulent emotion.

Her blouse had shown the outlines of rounded breasts, while her jeans highlighted a slim waist and a very feminine derriere. If she’d been his wife, they must have spent many nights together. Luscious nights tangling between the sheets, steaming up the bedroom.

Had they really lain together, both of them naked and aroused? Could he have made love to such a woman and not remember it?

“You’re a million miles away.” Helen Nguyen smiled as she passed Hugh in the inner corridor between examining rooms. It was midafternoon, and the after-school crowd of patients would soon stream in. “Daydreaming about the weekend?”

“Trying to plan my future,” he said. “It’s hard to move forward when you don’t understand the past.”

“Do you mean that woman who was here Wednesday?” Helen asked. “Andrew told me she claims to be your wife.”

Petite and dark-haired, the nurse twinkled up at him. She’d been a big help in making Hugh feel at home when he came back to work, and she’d become a good friend.

Last February, he’d joined her and her husband in celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, at a festival in Orange County. It was an adventure that the old, stuffy Hugh might have passed up. “I’m not sure what to believe,” he admitted. “What did you think of her?”

Helen paused to reflect. “She was a little nervous. Now I understand why. You know, I liked her. And the child, well, those eyes do look like yours and Andrew’s.”

“I need to know where I was all that time,” Hugh said. “With such a gap in my self-knowledge, any decision I make about the future might be flawed.”

“What? A great and mighty doctor, admit to weakness?” teased Helen. “While I recover from my shock, please excuse me to see to a patient.”

“By all means.” Amused, Hugh picked up a chart and went to examine a little boy who’d twisted his ankle.

Musings about the past dogged him for the rest of the day. He needed to find out for sure where he’d been while he was missing.

And he wanted to see Meg Avery again.

His common sense told him to wait until the DNA results came back. That she might be a trickster, or a nutcase.

Still, he had no plans for the weekend. The palatial Hollywood Hills home he shared with his mother and with Andrew’s family would be empty tomorrow.

Andrew and his wife, Cindi, were taking their children to their vacation cottage in Redondo Beach. Grace Menton, who headed a charitable committee that was sponsoring a dinner and evening at the opera, planned to work hard behind the scenes at that event.

Hugh would be alone. What harm could it do to drive by Mercy Canyon and see where Meg and Dana Avery lived?

Hugh could almost hear his brother warning of possible legal entanglements. There was no need to announce his presence or get involved in any way, however.

As he finished his notes for the evening, he knew he was going to make the trip. If nothing else, it might help him get this woman out of his system.

“NO, I’M NOT SURE it’s him. I mean, I was sure at first, but every day I wonder if I wasn’t imagining the resemblance,” Meg admitted as she awaited her turn at the bowling alley on Saturday.

“It sure looked like Joe in the picture,” said Rosa Mendez, blowing the steam off her cup of coffee. In her early forties, she maintained a trim figure in shorts and a sleeveless blouse.

“Well, I’ve got an old picture of me that looks like Dolly Parton,” said Judy Hartman. Away from work, she wore her long blond hair full and curly, with the help of regular visits to Rosa’s beauty salon. “That doesn’t mean I can sing.”

“That doctor isn’t Joe,” Ramon said from his seat at the scoring table. “Come on. Some big-shot pediatrician worked at the cafe for a year and a half? I don’t believe it.”

“Anybody notice I just got a spare?” asked Sam Hartman, rejoining them.

“Way to go!” cheered Ramon.

As on most Saturdays, the group of friends had met at 11:00 a.m. at Mercy Lanes, next to the Back Door Cafe. The Hartmans were the best players, but everyone enjoyed the fun and the companionship.

The youngsters with them—the Hartmans’ sixteen-year-old son and the Mendezes’ three kids, who ranged from seventeen to twenty-one—formed their own group a few lanes away. Otherwise, the alley was empty except for a cluster of people around the videogames in back.

“If you’re not sure it’s him, what are you going to do?” Judy asked Meg.

“She’s going to play. It’s her turn.” Sam reached for his soft drink.

Glad to escape Judy’s question, Meg hurried to retrieve her ball. She didn’t know what she was going to do about Hugh Menton. She almost hoped the DNA test came back negative so she wouldn’t have to decide.

Life without Joe had settled into a comfortable if sometimes lonely pattern. She enjoyed times like today, when she could chitchat and bowl while Dana played at their next-door neighbor’s trailer.

If Hugh did turn out to be Joe, he might disrupt her entire existence. While he wasn’t likely to claim Meg as his wife, he might insist on spending time with Dana. Maybe even want her to live with him.

Grimly, she stared at the lane in front of her. No way would she give up her daughter! Angrily, Meg rolled the ball.

With a whump, it hit the gutter. Whistles and catcalls erupted behind her.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, girl!” called Rosa.

Darn. The man was messing with her bowling game. When the ball came back, Meg focused, started forward and rolled again.