Nobody's Baby but Mine(119)

“All of us get up early. I like to walk in the woods as soon as the sun’s up, and when I get back, my daughter-in-law—” She faltered, then glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Her name is Jane.”

He frowned, but said nothing. They moved deeper into the woods where rhododendron and mountain laurel stretched on each side of the path, along with clusters of violets, trillium, and a burgundy carpet of galax. A pair of dogwood celebrated with a splash of white blossoms their escape from the fungus that had destroyed so many of the species in the Carolina mountains. Lynn inhaled the rich, moist scent of earth that smelled new.

“Jane has breakfast ready when I’m done walking,” she went on. “My mother wants bacon and eggs, but Jane fixes whole grain pancakes or oatmeal with a little fresh fruit, so Annie is generally trying to pick a fight with her as I’m coming into the kitchen. Jane’s wily, though, and she does a better job of getting her way with Annie than anyone else in my family. When breakfast is over, I listen to music and clean up the kitchen.”

“What kind of music?”

He knew exactly what kind. Over the years he’d switched their various car radios from her classical stations to his country and western hundreds of times. “I love Mozart and Vivaldi, Chopin, Rachmaninoff. My daughter-in-law likes classic rock. Sometimes we dance.”

“You and . . . Jane?”

“She’s developed a passion for Rod Stewart.” Lynn laughed. “If he comes on the radio, she makes me stop whatever I’m doing and dance with her. She’s like that with some of the newer groups, too—ones you’ve never even heard of. Sometimes she has to dance. I don’t think she did much of it when she was growing up.”

“But she— I heard she’s a scientist,” he said cautiously.

“She is. But mostly now she says she just wants to grow her baby.”

Time ticked by as he took that in. “She sounds like an unusual person.”

“She’s wonderful.” And then, impulsively, “Would you like to come back for supper tonight so you can get to know her better?”

“Are you inviting me?” His face registered both surprise and pleasure.

“Yes. Yes, I think I am.”

“All right, then. I’d like that.”

They walked for a while without speaking. The path narrowed, and she moved off it, leading him toward the creek. They’d come here dozens of times when they were kids and sat side by side on an old log that had long since rotted away. Sometimes they’d simply watched the water rush over the mossy rocks, but most of the time, they’d made out. Cal had been conceived not far from here.

He cleared his throat and lowered himself onto the trunk of a yellow buckeye that had fallen along the edge of the creek bed in some forgotten storm. “You were pretty tough on my son back there.”

“I know.” She sat next to him, but not quite touching. “I have a grandchild to protect.”

“I see.”

But she could tell he didn’t see at all. Just weeks ago, his uncertainty might have made him snap at her, but now he seemed more contemplative than irritated. Was he beginning to trust her?

“Do you remember that I told you my marriage was breaking up?”

She felt herself tensing. “I remember.”

“It’s my fault. I just want you to know that if you’re thinking about . . . seeing me.”

“All your fault?”

“Ninety-nine percent. I blamed her for my own shortcomings and didn’t even realize it.” He braced his forearms on his knees and gazed at the rushing water. “For years I let myself believe I’d have become a world-famous epidemiologist if I hadn’t been forced to marry so young, but it wasn’t until after she left me that I figured out I was kidding myself.” He clasped his hands together, those strong, healing hands that had served as the gateway for both birth and death in this county. “I would never have been happy away from these mountains. I like being a country doctor.”

She was touched by the depth of emotion she heard in his voice and thought he might finally have rediscovered a part of himself that he’d lost. “What about her one percent?”

“What?” He turned his head.

“You said you were 99 percent to blame. What about her one percent?”

“Even that wasn’t really her fault.” She didn’t know if it were a trick of the light or a reflection from the water, but his eyes seemed full of compassion. “She didn’t have many advantages when she was growing up, and she never had much formal education. She says I always looked down on her because of it, and she’s probably right—she is about most things—but I think now she might have made it easy for me to look down on her because, even though she’s accomplished more than most people could in two lifetimes, she’s never thought much of herself.”