Aurora 06 - A Fool And His Honey (13 page)

I gathered Hayden closer to my chest. I understood that I would be taking him out of this house with me. I looked at his little pile of paraphernalia and gave a silent sigh. All to be hauled back up the motel stairs again.

“How much did you see of Regina and Craig?” I asked, my voice as soft and simple as I could make it. Didn’t want to put them on the defensive.

“Well, I ain’t been well,” Hugh said apologetically. “I have good spells. I was having one about the time they got married. But I ain’t been so good since about late July, and I’m afraid I take up most of Lenore’s time.”

We had been fools to bring Hayden up here. I saw clearly that these people had not the resources, the legal obligation, or the slightest inclination to take care of Hayden even temporarily. How could we have been so blind? I had followed an anxious Martin’s lead without a thought, consumed by my own conflicts. I should have listened to Angel; might have, if her baby hadn’t decided that afternoon was the time to arrive. Angel had figured we should stay in Lawrenceton, and she’d been right.

I barely listened while the Harbors explained to Martin over and over again why they really hadn’t had a chance to go visit the newlyweds since the wedding. The farm was far out in the country, they emphasized, and it was so hard for Hugh to get around. And, Lenore Harbor pointed out righteously, they hadn’t been invited.

“Did Craig come to see you here?” Martin asked.

He’d dropped by once or twice, the Harbors admitted, usually with that friend of his, that Rory.

It took a few more questions from Martin to establish that the couple hadn’t seen Regina—

except across a store—since a week after the wedding. But they’d seen Craig quite often.

“You know,” Hugh said with an effort, his breathing increasingly difficult, “we thought, when Craig got married—and we stood in as his folks at the wedding—we thought Craig’s old ways were over. Gina being a little older than him, we thought she’d hold him down, make him toe the line. We were—well, I guess Lenore and I are maybe a little ashamed to say it—kind of relieved. Craig turned out to be a bigger responsibility than we ever dreamed, him getting into trouble so often. We was glad to take him in, Lenore being his aunt and so on, and we took care of him through high school, but I won’t say it was all peaches and cream. We’d raised girls before, but that boy was a whole different kit and caboodle.” He shook his shiny head sadly.

“Nope, he and that Rory was always into trouble. We thought for a while that it was Rory who would marry Gina, when they began hanging around together.”

Martin began our closing remarks, so to speak, and after a little more strained conversation, we rose to leave. We began tucking Hayden’s bits and pieces wherever we could, with Martin once again holding the umbrella.

I nuzzled Hayden’s fuzzy head, and wondered what we should do next.

As we pulled away from the broken curb, the silence in the Mercedes might well be described as thick. And tense.

I looked out at the passing streets of this depressing little farming town. I had no idea what Martin was thinking, but I knew if he asked me if I liked having a baby now that I had one, I would pinch him where it hurt, because I was so bitterly amazed at myself. I’d wanted a baby.

Now I had one. And I was trying with all my might to get rid of him.

Partly, I thought, this was because the care of him had been dumped on me. Partly, it was because I hadn’t had the hormonal buildup that natural mothers get.

But mostly, it was because I knew—I just knew—that his mother would turn up sooner or later, and Hayden would be gone. If the claimant wasn’t Regina, it would be someone else with a better title to this child than mine, which was almost nonexistent. What point was there in lining up more pain for myself?

I felt better once I’d admitted all this in my secret heart. While we waited on a red light, I looked over at Martin, who was staring out the window at the bare trees. The sky had that leaden gray look that often presages snow, at least in my very limited experience.

“I guess we should talk to Cindy, and then Craig’s brother,” I said. I didn’t sound excited about it.

“Yes, we need to,” my husband agreed, turning to look across the seat at me. “And we need to track down Rory and see if we can get any more out of him. And we probably need to move our stuff out to the farmhouse. It’ll be a lot easier with a stove and refrigerator. And more than one room.” “It” being the care of Hayden, I gathered. I noticed we weren’t saying one word about walking out of the Harbors’ house with him, when we’d gone in with the resolve of leaving the baby with Craig’s family.

“I wonder if the police have been out there, to the farm,” I said, the idea sort of slipping into my head sideways.

Martin looked surprised, then thoughtful. “You’d think they’d want to see if anything Craig and Regina left out there could explain what happened,” he said. “If the Lawrenceton sheriffs department called them. And I’m assuming they did.” Martin mulled it over a little. “I know who to call. An old friend of mine named Karl Bagosian has a key to the house, and if anyone knows, he will.”

We parked in front of the florist’s shop owned by Cindy Bartell. I’d been there once before.

Then, there had been Easter decorations in the big window facing the sidewalk. Now it was filled with fall decorations. Through that window, over the top of a miniature corn sheaf, I could see Cindy’s head of smooth black hair bent over a gift basket on the large worktable behind the counter.

Martin was opening my car door, which he’d somewhat fallen out of the habit of doing. I had never seen door opening as an issue, but I used his choice as a clue to his feelings. As Martin held out his hand to help me out of the Mercedes, he looked down as if he was trying to refresh his memory of my face. I was all too aware that my hair had been excited by the rain into separating into streamers with waves and curls interrupting their wild flow. My London Fog was not exactly a sexy garment, and I was sure my nose was shiny. I couldn’t remember what glasses I’d put on this morning, so I reached up to touch the frames. The gold-tone wire rims.

“I was right,” he said unexpectedly. Without further explanation, he unbuckled Hayden from the car seat in the back. He lifted the baby out, handed him to me, and in we went to interrupt his ex-wife’s workday. The bell attached to the door ting-a-linged when we entered, and Cindy looked up.

“Martin, Aurora, how good to see you,” Cindy said with a minimum of enthusiasm. “I see you survived the drive.” She laid down the dried flowers she’d been working with, dusted her hands on her apron, and came around the counter. She actually shook hands with us, which I thought was a bit much. After all, she’d been married to Martin. She could’ve given him a little hug or something.

Then I noticed the large man just rising from a desk behind the counter. He got up, and up, stopping finally at about six-foot-five. He had a full mustache and dark hair peppered with gray, clipped even shorter than Cindy’s. He also possessed a notable set of shoulders, and hands as big as my face. I found myself hoping he’d turn around so I could have a peek at the rear view.

“This is Dennis Stinson, Aurora,” Cindy said, smiling. I’d never seen her smile. It made her look like a million dollars. I propped the baby over my shoulder so I could spare a hand for the hunk, and my fingers vanished in Dennis Stinson’s. “Martin, I know you remember Dennis from high school.”

“Of course. It’s been a long time,” Martin said, and I had to fight not to grin at the coolness in his voice.

“I guess this is the baby you were telling me about?” Cindy held out her arms, and I gently eased Hayden into them. She looked down at his flushed face, her discreetly made-up eyes scanning him.

“Cute kid,” she said, and I exhaled silently. “You sure he’s Regina’s? I’d have put money on her telling me if she was expecting, Martin. It just seems incredible that someone as— well, dependent, as Regina would do something as monumental as having a baby without telling the people who care about her.”

I noticed Cindy didn’t say it was unthinkable that Regina would stoop to such a deception.

“But we haven’t seen her for the past few months, darling,” Dennis rumbled. He had a voice that matched his size. “To tell you the truth, Martin, I didn’t encourage Regina to come by here.

She was always hitting Cindy up for money, or asking us to give Craig a job . . . you get the picture. And since Cindy wasn’t exactly a family member any more ...”

“Just the mother of Regina’s cousin,” Martin interjected quietly.

“Well, that, but not really Regina’s aunt. . .”

“How long had it been since you saw Craig or Regina?” I asked hastily, and Cindy looked a little surprised, as if she’d assumed I couldn’t speak without permission.

“Oh . . . what? Three months or so?” Cindy looked up at Dennis. “Regina came by the house,” she continued.

“That was about the Fourth of July, so it was at least four months ago,” Dennis said. “We were getting ready for our pool party.”

“We were,” Cindy confirmed with a reminiscent grin, and I could feel my smile get broader.

Cindy was apparently partnered with this hunk not only in a business sense, but also in a personal sense, and it certainly sounded like they were living together.

“She came by?” Martin prompted. “To the house on Archibald Street?”

“No, I moved. We moved. Dennis and I live on Grant.”

I rolled my eyes. Gettysburg Street. Grant Street. “You
people,”
I muttered into the fuzz on Hayden’s head.

“Did you say something, Aurora?” Dennis asked, bending down to me.

“No,” I said, smiling with all the sugar in my system. “We’re just having us a time, taking care of this little baby.”

“Oh my gosh, Aurora, this must be awful for you!” I felt every muscle in my body tighten as her pitying tone alerted me to what she was about to say. “Is it true that you can’t have your own? Martin, I think Barby told me you’d said that?” Cindy asked, and right then and there I decided I would kill my husband slowly, painfully, maybe publicly.

“Of course, with us never seeing Barrett, Martin was thinking of having more children,” I said, as slowly and deliberately as I could manage. “But I said, ‘No, Martin, that wouldn’t hardly be fair to poor of Barrett. I know it doesn’t look good, him never visiting you even though you’ve been sending him money for years, him never showing me the courtesy of shaking my hand—much less hugging my neck. But us having another child would just make Barrett feel so
bad.
So
displaced.”
I stopped then, afraid I was over the line into parody.

Cindy turned an uneven kind of red.

Martin was looking at me with a kind of horrified fascination. I hoped he had enough sense to keep his mouth shut.

“So, where are you staying while you’re in Corinth?” Dennis asked hastily.

“Ah—out at the old farm,” Martin said, not taking his eyes off me. Evidently, he had enough sense. “We’ve been at the Holiday Inn, but with the baby ... I think we would be better off out at the farm.”

“It was nice of you to let Craig and Regina live there,” Dennis said, since I was elaborately fussing with the baby and I had the strong feeling that Cindy was still staring at me.

“Yes,” Martin said senselessly. “Well, we better be on our way. You wouldn’t happen to know where Craig’s brother Dylan lives, would you?”

Dennis said, “Let’s step outside, Martin; I can give you better directions that way.” They were out the door with suspicious alacrity. As Dennis pointed down the street, apparently counting stoplights, Cindy and I gave each other quick glances.

“Barrett really hasn’t come to see you at all?” she asked in a subdued way.

“No. He doesn’t acknowledge that I’m alive.” To my pride, my voice was calm and dispassionate. “Now, I can see that is loyalty to you, which of course you’d expect from a son.

But it does make Martin feel bad that Barrett never visits him and seldom calls.”

His mother sighed heavily. “Barrett has never been able to see the divorce as anything but Martin walking out on us, though Barrett was in high school when we separated. He never saw that if Martin needed to be away from me, I needed just as much to be away from him.”

I tried to look interested and understanding. I was, to some extent, but I was also thinking my arms would fall off at the shoulders from the burden of holding this baby. I sort of half laid Hayden on the glass-topped counter.

“Just before and after her marriage, Regina used to come talk to me,” Cindy went on in a low voice, while through the front window I observed Dennis and Martin continue their pantomime of checking the weather and kicking the tires, or whatever guys do when women have embarrassed them. “Aurora, there’s something wrong with that girl. She’s got some moral blind spots. Craig’s brushes with law seemed to make no difference to her whatsoever, and the fact that Rory went everywhere with Craig—and I mean
everywhere
—didn’t seem to give her any pause.”

Hayden’s Binky rolled from his mouth. Even as he made some fussy protest, Cindy caught it in her hand before it hit the floor and popped it back into the little mouth. Hayden lapsed back into semiconsciousness.

“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously. “Good catch, by the way.”

“Thanks. I guess I mean Regina never seemed to make a moral judgment about the trouble Craig got into, he and Rory. She never said, ‘Oh, no, my husband has done a bad thing, writing those worthless checks.’ Or ‘My God, my husband uses illegal drugs!’ And she never tried to defend him either . . . pretend he was set up, or he was simply innocent. It was like it was just a lark, you know? Just fun. And ah-oh, Craig got caught!”