The Fireman's Baby(25)

He pulled up at his parent's house, walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. His mother answered, with her grey hair in rollers and her feet in worn-out slippers, but her face broke into a huge, loving smile when she saw him at the door.

“Daniel!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here, son?”

“Can I come in, Mom?” he asked her. “I have some news.”

“Of course!” his mother said, stepping back to let her son in and shuffling away in her slippers towards the kitchen to make some tea. “Your father's in the living room watching some awful history program. He's become obsessed with that digging science, with the bones and the coins and the... What's it called? Archaeology. That's the one.

Now I can't think of anything more dull myself. Heaven knows why he's so interested in it all of a sudden. Maybe because he's a fossil himself!” The old woman hooted with laughter at her own joke and continued her monologue as she heated water for her tea. Daniel had learned that it was always best to let his mother run out of steam first if he wanted to get a word in edgeways.

“We watched this program the other day which lasted an hour. An hour, can you believe it? And at the end all they found was this little old broken pot and they were all amazed at it and I said to your father, I said, ‘Why are they so excited about this pot?’ Well apparently the pot meant that so-and-so had lived there at some time or another. I don't know. I stopped listening after the first thirty minutes of them ooh-ing and ah-ing over every scrap of dirt. You know, at our age, we don't have time enough to waste an hour watching people dig, but that's not why you came here. You have news you said? Another promotion? What comes after captain? Chief?”

Daniel listened to her say all of this without her pausing for breath and then jumped in’ as she took a moment to inhale.

“No, it has nothing to do with work Mom,” he told her. “It's something else. You might want to sit down.”

His mother finished making the tea, handed him his cup and shuffled in her slippers to the living room where Daniel's father was sitting in his old robe, watching the History Channel. She sat down pointedly and looked up at him expectantly, waiting for her news.

“Well?” she prompted. “Quick, while the commercials are on!”

Daniel sat down and tried to find a way to begin, but there was no easy way to say it.

“I have a baby,” he announced.

His mother laughed. “Wonderful joke, darling,” she said. “I saw Stacy last week. There's no way that girl is pregnant. A stick she is. An absolute stick. The last time I saw her, I offered her a piece of cake and she looked like I'd kicked a puppy. I don't trust girls who don't eat.”

“Well, it's not Stacy's baby,” Daniel told them. That piqued his father's interest. He had always been a surprising gossip for a man and the old man turned off the television and turned in his armchair to listen to his son.

“Well if it's not Stacy's baby, whose baby is it?” his mother asked him impatiently.

“Her name is Laura,” Daniel said. “Stacy and I were broken up at that time.”

“You're always taking breaks with that girl,” his mother interrupted. “Because she's difficult. That's why. I always said that—”

“Shut up, Annie!” Daniel's father cut her off. “The boy's trying to tell us he's got some girl pregnant and you're blathering on about cake and about how you don't like Stacy. Quiet for a second! Daniel, are you telling us we have a grandchild?”

“I'm trying to,” Daniel replied exasperatedly. “The mother's name is Laura. Stacy and I were broken up and I met this woman who lived near a fire I was putting out. We hit it off and she invited me for dinner and one thing led to another... Anyway, we only spent one night together and then I headed to Colorado. You know, I just got back last week. Anyway, I was sitting a café with some buddies the other day and who should walk in, but Laura with a stroller! We go for a walk and she tells me that I have a three-month-old daughter.”

For once, his mother fell silent and Daniel felt a sudden nervousness that he had disappointed her and that her remarkable talent for speaking without needing to breathe would allow her to give him a stern lecture for getting a strange girl pregnant. Annie was quiet for some ten seconds or so and then let out one long, high-pitched squeal of delight like a teapot that had reached boiling point.

“Did you hear that, Roger?” she exclaimed. “We have a grandchild! A grandchild! I need to call Susan! I need to call Lucy! I'm going to call the paper and get one of those little announcements put in with a photo like Gloria did when her great niece was born. Son, I'm going to need her name and date of birth. Heaven above, her name! I don't even know her name!”