The Mother Of His Child. Sandra Field
mother?
Irritably, she wriggled the tightness from her shoulders and turned around in the third driveway beyond the Huntingdon place. As she drove past the bungalow again, there still was no sign of any occupants. Time for phase two, she decided grimly, and headed back into town. Ten minutes later, she was tucked into a window booth in the coffee-and-doughnut shop on the corner of the street by the junior high school. If she was right, Kit would walk along this street.
The sun, fortunately, was shining from a cloudless sky and again it was overly warm for late April. Marnie was wearing her largest pair of sunglasses and a big floppy hat under which she’d tucked most of her hair; it also hid her face. She’d taken the precaution of buying the daily paper in case she had to hide behind it.
She felt excruciatingly nervous. It was one thing to drive past the house where Kit lived; quite another to actually see her daughter.
Although she hated horror movies, Marnie loved James Bond. This morning, she was discovering she’d make a lousy espionage agent. She felt as though everyone in the place was staring at her and as though Kit, were she to go past the window, would pick her out unerringly.
She couldn’t allow that to happen. Wouldn’t allow it. All she wanted was to see her daughter. For the very first time. See if she was happy.
Was that too much to ask?
Last night, she’d phoned the principal of her school to tell him some urgent family business had come up and she needed the next day off. So here she was on a Monday morning in a coffee shop in Burnham when she should have been in the school library sorting books and checking out the computers.
Kids were now straggling past the coffee shop in loose groups, some with headsets, all in the regulation designer-label jeans and jackets with bright logos. Marnie sipped on coffee that could have been lye and unfolded the newspaper. Maybe Kit had a friend at the other end of town and walked to school a whole different way. Or else she might go by so fast Marnie wouldn’t have time to recognize her.
She certainly couldn’t chase after her.
A group of girls came around the corner of the building, their heads together, their laughter loud enough to be heard through the glass. One of them was tall with red hair, curly red hair that bounced in the sunlight.
Turn around, Marnie prayed. So I can see your face. Oh, please, turn around.
As though the girl had heard her, she pointed at the array of doughnuts in the showcase and said something Marnie couldn’t catch but that made all the other girls laugh. The girl’s face was almost a replica of Marnie’s, right down to the tilted nose and high cheekbones, except that her eyes were a warm brown. The color of Terry’s eyes.
It was Kit. Unquestionably it was Kit.
Then, to her horror, Marnie saw the whole group veer toward the door of the coffee shop. She grabbed her newspaper and lifted it, hiding her face, her fingers trembling. Although she braced her elbows on the table and willed her hands to steadiness, they wouldn’t obey her.
The bottom of the door scraped on the black plastic floor mat. “What kind of doughnut, Kit?” one of the girls called out.
“Double chocolate. Maybe that way I’ll stay awake in math class.”
The others giggled. Another voice said, “Boston cream for me. Kit, did you study for the test?”
“Yeah…my dad made me.”
One of the others groaned in sympathy. “My mum did, too. I wanted to watch a MuchMusic video instead.” In a wicked parody of an adult’s voice, she went on, “‘Not until the weekend, Lizzie.’ Mothers are such a drag.”
“Shut up, Lizzie,” Kit flared.
“Oops, sorry,” Lizzie said. “I’ll have a maple cream and share it with you, Kit.”
“Okay. You know what? I’m going to ace that test,” Kit said confidently. “I’ve got to keep my marks up or I’m off the basketball team. Dad said so.”
Kit’s voice was light, higher-pitched than Marnie’s. Willing herself to stop shaking, Marnie listened as the girls paid for their doughnuts and trooped out of the coffee shop. Over the top of the paper she caught one last glimpse of Kit. She was taking a big bite out of the double chocolate doughnut; she was wearing Levi’s and a baggy purple sweatshirt. Marnie’s favorite color was purple.
Marnie sat still, gazing blindly at the newsprint, trying to assimilate the fact that after thirteen years she had actually seen her daughter. Heard her voice. Had evidence, she thought wryly, of Kit’s quick temper, so like Marnie’s. Kit hadn’t liked Lizzie’s remark about mothers. Did that mean Kit still missed her mother? It must.
What had Jennifer Huntingdon been like? Warm and loving? Strong-willed? Happy?
A gang of teenage boys rocketed through the door, their energy making Marnie wince. She listened as they argued about doughnuts, then watched them leave with relief. What did Kit think about boys? Was she interested in them yet? Or did basketball interest her more?
You’ll never know the answer to those questions, Marnie. Because Kit is Cal’s daughter, not yours.
Slowly, Marnie lowered the newspaper, trying desperately to ignore the storm of emotion engulfing her whole body. Now what? she wondered. What do I do next?
When she’d decided last night that she was going back to Burnham despite Cal’s warnings, she hadn’t gotten any further than seeing Kit. Well, she’d seen her. Seen her friends, noticed her clothes, heard her voice. That’s it, Marnie. Kit’s happy enough, even if she does still miss her mother. Certainly she’s well looked after financially. You’ve done everything you can do. Now you’ve got to return to Faulkner and stay away from Burnham. The last thing you can risk is bumping into your daughter on the street. You can’t do that to her. It would be utterly unfair.
Moving like a woman much older than thirty, Marnie left her unfinished coffee and her newspaper on the table and walked out of the shop. She was going to drive home and cry her eyes out for the second time in as many days. She hardly ever cried. But that was what she was going to do.
It didn’t make much sense to cry—after all, she now had a face and a voice for her daughter where yesterday she’d had nothing—but she knew she had to do it. She ached all over, as though someone had pounded her body mercilessly in her sleep: an ache both physical and emotional, the same ache she’d suffered in that hospital bed in the private clinic so many years ago.
As she turned up a side street, she passed from sunlight into shade. She didn’t see the man standing statue-still between the two nearest buildings; rather, she was reaching into the pocket of her jeans for the keys to Christine’s car, her mind anywhere but on her surroundings. Not until a tanned, strong-fingered and unmistakably masculine hand fastened itself around her elbow was she jerked out of her reverie. “You’re coming with me,” Cal Huntingdon said in a clipped voice infused with rage, “and don’t bother arguing.”
With a strange sense of inevitability, Marnie looked up. Had she really thought she’d get away with her caper in the coffee shop? Saying the first thing that came into her head, she muttered, “I didn’t see the Cherokee.”
“I parked it on the next street. I didn’t see that wreck you’re driving, either. Come on.”
He was pulling on her arm as though she were eight years old. She said coldly, “I’m perfectly capable of walking to your car. Let go.”
“No.”
Although he hadn’t loosened his grip, Cal did stop tugging so hard. His fingers were warm; as she marched along beside him, Marnie discovered to her dismay that she liked the contact. Liked his height, the way his gray shirt was rolled up to his elbows, the tanned column of his throat. Scared to death by this realization, she said defiantly, “You didn’t see my car because I borrowed a friend’s.”
“I figured you’d pull a stunt like that. Which is why I