My Heart Can't Tell You No (50 page)

“
Lisa
?” He asked.

“Robby can’t say Felicia, so Gram and I decided it would be easier just as Lisa.”

Joe opened the cellar door, feeling the coolness drifting up toward him as he went down the steps and found Maddie carefully placing empty Mason jars in a box. She heard him coming and watched as he walked toward her, an expression in her eyes he was beginning to recognize and revel in. He stopped and leaned back against some shelves to look at her, positive his own eyes held the same expression.

“I was just thinking about you,” she said softly, stopping her chore and leaning back against the wall directly behind her. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot today.”

His smile was gentle as he watched her. He knew it wouldn’t take much coaxing to make him forget about the people upstairs. He moved toward her, allowing her to reach out and tuck her fingers through his belt loops as she pulled him along with her toward the back of the cellar, behind some other shelving and a worktable. His eyes moved around them quickly, double-checking to see they were indeed alone, then without a word, his hands moved to her clothing, almost yanking her shorts down as she unzipped his pants. Her hands were on his shoulders as she raised her leg for him to hold onto before he reached to lift the other leg around him also, leaning her back against the wall.

“Miss me?” he asked in a whisper as he positioned himself and slowly pressed inside her.

“Oh, God, yes,” she moaned, bringing a smile to his face as his mouth found hers.

Their mating started slow and very sensual until their urgency overtook them and it became hurried, yet very satisfying and complete, but as they leaned against the wall afterward to catch their breath, they finally heard the bedlam behind them.

“
Jesus
Christ
!” Tom’s voice was somewhere between a boom and a squeal. This was followed immediately by the sound of empty jars toppling over and smashing onto the floor as the man made his escape back up the stairs he had evidently just come down.

Maddie and Joe rearranged their disheveled clothing and were back up the stairs in an instant to find Tom sitting at the table with his head in his hand looking very frazzled, rambling more to himself, than to his mother and Felicia.

“Why
don’t
you
go
down
and
help
Joe
and
Maddie,”
Tom mimicked sarcastically. “I don’t have to help Joe. Hell, he just goes down and helps himself, doesn’t he? I mean a person doesn’t
have
to see things like that. That is definitely a sight I could have done without.”

“What is the matter with you?” Sarah said with frustration at her son’s rants.

“Oh, nothing. Not a thing.” He stood up and looked at his sister and Joe, and started to walk past them, giving a huge shudder. “Well, that’s an unwanted picture branded in my brain. Thank you very much. I need to go sit down and watch television or something. Maybe go scour my eyeballs.”

“What is he talking about?” Sarah asked. “What did he see?”

“I think he saw a mouse,” Joe said calmly as he moved toward the coffee pot. “Coffee. Jack and John wanted coffee.”

When the men quit for the day it was almost nine o’clock and the sun had hidden behind the hills. Tom had joined them a half hour after Joe had come down with the coffee, his occasional glances in Joe’s direction always brought a disgusted shudder before he went back to work, usually with a mumbled, “Didn’t need to see that. Nope.”

Joe brought up the end of the line of men as they entered the house, each grimy, sweaty and very tired and hungry. He expected to find the women in the same condition, since they had spent the afternoon and early evening smelling the strange vinegar concoction and working in the heat of the stove. But when he entered the house, he found three freshly showered, cool women sitting at the kitchen table playing Parcheesi. Sarah rose immediately and took a bowel of soup and a sandwich in the room where Jack had gone, scolding him the whole time for not coming up earlier to eat.

“You know you’re supposed to eat regular meals! Look at you. You look ready to fall over!”

“I do feel kind of dizzy and a little queasy,” he said quietly.

Joe couldn’t hide his smile—it was amazing how—once Sarah Baker opened her mouth and barked back at that man—he would change from the normal bulldog he always presented himself as, to the gentle puppy his wife knew he could be.

“I wouldn’t doubt it. If
I
could only get
my
sugar to go too low. But no, I have a time just keeping mine close to normal before it jumps anywhere from one hundred to two hundred points too high. Come out here before you eat. I want to check your blood.”

Jack sighed heavily, looking at his food with longing, but rising and following his wife to the kitchen where she found a large canister containing her insulin needles and blood-testing equipment. Joe watched as Jack obediently held his hand out for Sarah to go to work on, letting her clean his finger then puncture it and drop his blood onto a white strip.

“Now can I go eat?”

“Go,” she told him, setting the strip on a smaller canister for the time necessary to complete the test.

“Do they go through this often?” Joe whispered as he leaned next to Maddie.

“About once a month,” she said, moving her Parcheesi piece, then nodding at the strip with Jack’s blood smeared on it. “Wait, you’ll see. It’s probably down.”

“Well,” John commented after finishing off a cool glass of water and starting for the door. “I’d love to stick around to see how this is going to turn out, but I’ve got supper and a bath waiting at home for me.”

“Are you hungry, Joey?” Sarah asked as she continued with her husband’s blood work.

“Very,” Joe agreed.

“Well—if you guys had come up when we called you, instead of just sending the boys up to eat, you wouldn’t have to worry about supper,” Maddie told him, turning until her face was only an inch from his.

“Are you saying you won’t make me something to eat after I spent almost six hours working my fingers raw?” he asked pathetically.

“So did we,” she told him. “Well, we didn’t exactly work our fingers raw, but we burnt them enough to qualify as being injured. If you want to eat—there’s some pickles in the room.”

“Maddie,” he said softly. “I love you.”

“
Hmph
,” she snorted then reached over and wiped a smudge of grease from the bridge of his nose. “Look in the oven. Were you rooting around in the grease down there?”

“You see the boys? They’re black.” He went to the oven, noticing that there were still two large pots boiling on the stove, but this time there were no signs of the strong acid smell. He figured they were now in the process of sealing the jars. When he opened the oven door, he saw a plate of food kept back for him.

“I knew it. It’s down below seventy.” Sarah remarked as she read the strip.

“You hungry, big guy?” Joe asked as Robby climbed up on his mother’s lap and leaned his head back against her. The boy yawned and shook his head no, but continued to watch Joe as he began to eat.

The loud click in the room lit up Felicia’s eyes as she looked toward a table covered with at least ten dozen quart-size Mason jars filled with sliced cucumbers. She turned and smiled at Sarah.

“Was that it?”

“Yes,” Sarah answered.

“What was it?” Joe asked.

“The jars sealing,” Maddie told him, then turned her attention to Felicia and the game they were playing. “If you don’t get her, Lisa, she’s going to go in home and win.”

“Mom always wins,” Joe commented as he continued to eat. “She’s got a special talent with that game. She can’t lose.”

“Lisa has been telling me the most interesting things while you were working on the car,” Maddie told him. “It seems you were discussing our living arrangement with her this morning.”

“No, she was discussing it with me.” He took another bite of food and smiled at her.

“Well, I guess we weren’t as discreet as we thought.” Maddie moved her piece on the game board.

“You can say that again,” Tom called from the room, turning Maddie’s face crimson and making Joe smile down at his plate.

“You know, I’m going to find out what he’s talking about,” Sarah said quietly as she shook the dice and went about moving her piece.

“When will you be done with this?” Joe changed the subject.

“Not for another hour or two. Why?” Sarah asked.

“You aren’t planning on staying up until they’re done, are you?” he asked Felicia.

“I was hoping I could.” She looked up at him through pleading eyes. “Can’t we stay up until it’s all done?”

“Ollie’s getting tired and he needs a shower before he goes to bed. I think we better go home after I’m done here.”

“But I wanted to help finish.”

“You want to sleep here?” Sarah asked. “You can sleep in Maddie’s old bed upstairs, if you want to.”

“Can I, Dad?”

Joe looked at her, knowing he couldn’t refuse the excitement he saw in her eyes. He knew Sarah had won the child’s heart, just as Jack had captured Ollie’s.

“Just watch yourself. I don’t want a phone call in the middle of the night telling me you scalded yourself and need to be taken to the hospital.”

“I will! ‘Watch myself’ I mean!”

“Will you be up here until she goes to bed?” He looked over at Maddie, seeing the hint of amusement in her eyes as she watched him.

“I’ll be here.”

CHAPTER XXVII
 

September 1984

P
urple and yellow pansies, golden marigolds and multicolored zinnias graced the basement wall of the Baker house. The sturdiness of the marigolds and zinnias, a contrast to the delicacy of the pansies, was comforting to Maddie; familiar signs that all was as it should be at summer’s end with autumn closely at hand. As Maddie entered her mother’s kitchen it took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the afternoon sun to the interior dimness.

“Hi, Mom. Are the boys up here? I was just down home and the place was empty.”

“Jackie is. Joe and Robby went for some ice cream. They didn’t know when you’d be home.”

“Why didn’t Jackie go along? God, I thought everything was going to be fine while Ollie was here. Jackie would even go down and spend evenings at Joe’s. But it’s been over a week since Lisa and Ollie went home and Jackie seems to have gone right back to the way things were.”

“Jackie likes Ollie. There’s just something on that boy’s mind that won’t let him get near Joe. So, where were you so late?”

“At George Brewster’s office. I had a few things to take care of concerning the expansion of the store.”

“Mom.” Jackie came from the living room. “Did you buy a new store?”

“No. The expansion will be next year if all goes well,” she told him, then started back toward the doorway. “Come on, Sailor. Time for you to go home and get ready for school tomorrow.”

“
Yuk
.” He walked toward Sarah. “Bye, Gram. I gotta go get ready for
school
.”

“You like school. So, what’s all this about?” Maddie stopped in the doorway.

“That was when Pat Rogers still lived down the road.” Jackie said of his schoolfriend.

“That’s right. His family moved to Delaware, didn’t they?”

“
Uh-huh
.”

“Well, someone else is living down there now. Maybe they’ll have some boys your age,” Sarah told him.

“Do ya think so?” Jackie brightened.

“Maybe. So go get a bath and get your clothes ready, and you’ll probably find you’ll have a new friend first thing in the morning.”

“I will.” Jackie hugged Sarah and kissed her cheek, receiving the same in return. “Thanks, Gram.”

“You’re welcome. Sleep tight, Sailor.”

“Night, Mom,” Maddie smiled her gratitude for her mother’s nurturing as she escorted her son out the door.

Maddie was tallying receipts for the stores expenditures while Jackie took his bath and changed into pajamas. Although it was only eight o’clock, she knew he would go to bed very shortly. She remembered the long sleepless nights she had as a child before the first days of school. She had tried to prevent him from having to suffer through a muggy night by rousing him out of bed by six o’clock that morning.

“Mom, can I look at last year’s report card?” Jackie asked from behind her.

“Oh, Jackie. Mommy’s busy right now. Can you get it?”

“Where is it?”

“Over in the safe, in the filing side. Look under the R’s. It should be in the first file.” She opened her purse and took out a set of keys, handing one to Jackie. “Here, you’ll need this to open it.”

“I’ll find it,” he said as he walked to the cabinet in the corner of the room.

Maddie was lost in her reports when she heard Jackie laughing behind her. She didn’t
think
his report card was that funny, but then no one ever said Jackie had a usual sense of humor. His A-B average was great. She was very proud of him, but she didn’t think it was
funny
.

“What are these little feet for?” Jackie’s voice sounded his amusement.

“What little feet, Sailor?” She kept working, not thinking much about his question.

“Never mind. I’ll read it myself,” he said lightly and moved to sit on the couch. “Oh—I see what it is. I was born February first.”

“That’s right.”

There was a short silence behind Maddie, then the sound of paper being ripped. She glanced over her shoulder to see what he was doing and a numbness flowed through her veins upon sight of horror in her child’s eyes as he was about to rip that familiar piece of paper for a second time. God, how could she have been so stupid as to leave his birth certificate in the filing cabinet? Although it was locked she should have moved those certificates to the safe on the opposite side of the cabinet. The boys had no reason to get into the safe. A simple request for last year’s report card proved to be her ruin as Jackie went through the
Bs
instead of the
Rs.

“Jackie, put that down!” She was on her feet in an instant, but he also jumped to his feet, anger and pain on his young face as he looked at her with the paper clenched in his fist.

“What does this mean? What does it mean?”

“What does
what
mean, Sailor?” she asked very quietly, her throat feeling raw as she kept her eyes on the paper he held tightly.

“Mother—Madelyn Kelly Baker Green! Father—f-father . . . .” He opened the paper and looked down at it, reading very carefully. “ . . . Joseph Daniel McNier! Is
that
why my name is John Joseph? Is he . . . Is he . . . .” The boy couldn’t say it. He seemed repulsed. Maddie reached for the paper, but he twisted away from her. “No! Answer me!”

“I—don’t know exactly what you’re saying Jackie.” Her tears were brimming as she watched his eyes reluctantly drop.

“Why isn’t Dad’s name there? Why doesn’t it say Robert Green was my father?” His words were weak as his slim shoulders seemed to slump forward in defeat. “Why does it say
he’s
my father? He isn’t my father.”

“Sailor.” If only she had Bob Green there to talk to him, she thought. It was
his
idea to have Joe’s name on the certificate, to eventually let the boy know. But why now? Why when everything was going so smoothly and coming together for them? She was numb, shocked, frightened. She couldn’t think straight. It took everything in her to remain standing in front of him. “I didn’t want you to see that. It’s my fault. I should have gotten up and found your report card for you. I never wanted you to find out this way. Come, sit down. I have to talk to you.”

“No!” He yanked away from her, staring at her through accusing eyes that were spilling tears. “Is it true?”

“Is
what
true, Jackie?”

“Who’s my father?”

“Bob Green took us into his home and took care of us. He raised you until he died. He loved you in all the ways a father could love his son.”

“But he wasn’t my
real
father—was he?”

She could have stood there and argued the point, that Bob Green was a father to him until those last months, in every sense of the word except one. But she wasn’t about to insult the boy’s intelligence any further. He had to find out some time. She wasn’t prepared for it to be now, but she knew she had only a matter of seconds to prepare herself before the boy doubted anything she had to say. Taking a deep breath, she sat on the couch, reaching for his hand to pull him to her, but he resisted again.

“JOHN,” she said sternly, hoping to break through that shock-like state from which he was staring at her. “If you want answers, you had better sit down, because I have no intention of yelling it for the world to hear because you don’t want to be near me. And
if
you plan on having these answers—
if
you think you’re big enough to ask these questions, and big enough to handle the answers—then you’d better behave like it. I won’t have you yelling at me anymore. You’ll sit down, and act like a responsible person who deserves answers. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” he said quietly, sitting on the couch a few inches away from her.

“Okay. Now first, I want you to give me the certificate. You have no right to destroy it. It’s mine until you turn eighteen. Then the law says it’s yours, but not until then.”

He looked up at her through sullen eyes, then hesitantly gave it to her. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Well.” She spread it open again and inspected it. “You tore it along the fold, it’ll be repaired easily. I’ll tape it together. Then I’ll get Robby’s and put them both in the safe. Other than the doctors and nurses at the hospital, you, Bob and I are the only ones who ever laid eyes on this. I don’t want anyone else finding them.”

“Does—does Robby’s say the same thing?” he sobbed. “That’s why you named him Robert
Daniel
?”

“Yes. His says the same thing,” she answered with difficulty. “Now. You have questions. Ask them.”

“Is he our father?”

“Is
who
your father, Jackie? We’re talking about two different men. You’ll have to specify which one you mean.”

“I mean Joe.”

“Yes,” she breathed. “He’s your father.”

“Were you married to Dad? I mean Bob?”

“Yes I was.”

“Then how can Joe be our father?” he cried.

“Jackie. This is even more difficult for me than it is for you. I want you to understand that before I answer you,” she told him, seeing his nod before going on. “You know how babies are made.”

“It happens when a man and woman love each other. When they have sex.”

“I want you to remember that it has very much to do with the
loving
one
another
part of it where you and Robby are concerned. Joe and I were in love with one another before I married Bob. We were young, and very much in love. Joe’s father had just passed away and he was down here all alone. He needed me to help him, Jackie, and when two people love each other they don’t think twice about helping one another when they are needed. We spent a lot of time together those days after his father died. It was after the funeral, when we were alone, that we went to each other and made love. And, Jackie, that’s what it was, because we did love each other, very much.”

“If he loved you so much, then why didn’t he marry you?”

“He couldn’t. He wanted to. But he was already married to Felicia and Oliver’s mother.”

“He was married? Mom—you weren’t allowed to do that!”

Maddie smiled gently down at him, her smile as painful as the look in his eyes. Oh, how nice it must be when you are seven and a half years old and everything is either right or wrong, black or white.

“We loved each other, baby. And that love for each other made you. And I see nothing wrong with having you for my son. I love you so much. You’re my oldest, my little friend. And I really
don’t
know what I would do without you.” She stroked his brown hair back from his forehead. “Joe wanted to marry me, but there were two other people involved. People we were foolish enough to let come between us. Those two other people turned what we had into something we both regretted at some point. I thought Joe didn’t love me. And he thought I didn’t love him. We were just too young to open our eyes and look at how things really were.”