Solomon's Decision (21 page)

"Ordinarily I'd be the last person to come off sounding moralistic, Linnie, but this
time I feel like quoting the old saw about lying in the bed you made." He waved to Sandy,
who was making the rounds with a pot of coffee.

"You've got a lot a nerve," Madeline snapped, just before Sandy filled their cups.
She smiled her thanks and waited until her friend was back behind the lunch counter.
"With your past, I figured you'd be sympathetic."

"Sympathetic, yes. God knows there's nobody better'n me to know how easy it is
to give in to self-destructive appetites."

Jon's eyes grew shadowed, and Madeline knew he was remembering the years
after his return from the Army. He'd nearly destroyed himself seeking forgetfulness of the
atrocities he'd witnessed in one of the incessant Central American revolutions.

"Our situations aren't exactly the same," he said, looking at her from under his
dark brows. "I was trying to forget. You were trying to replace."

"That's not true! I was...I was...." She could not finish the sentence for the tears
that threatened to choke her. Wordlessly she looked at Jon, wanting him to read her
explanation in her face. Her eyes burned, just before her vision blurred.

"Let's get outta here," Jon said, pulling her to her feet. He tossed a couple of bills
on the table and dragged her after him, ignoring greetings from several people sitting at
tables between their booth and the door.

Once on the sidewalk, Jon put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her hard
against his side. "Linnie, what else were you doing if you weren't trying to find Jesse? Or
someone who could take Jesse's place?"

Biting her lips, she tried to give his accusation careful consideration. "Put that
way, you make me sound really sick," she said, not liking what she saw of herself.

"I didn't mean to," he said. "I don't think that's particularly bad, or even all that
uncommon. When your whole world falls apart, it's natural for you to want to find
something that will help you put it back together."

"Erik accused me of using him."

"We all use each other, sometimes."

"But if I did, it was, well, selfish. Dishonest. It was...."

"It was human, Linnie. You were hurting and he helped you feel better.
Sometimes that's excuse enough."

"Not this time." She wondered if there was any reason good enough to excuse her
to herself. She had used Erik, even though she had not consciously chosen to do so.

"Hey, that's enough beating yourself for what's already done. When I said that
about accepting the consequences, all I meant was that you should make the best of a bad
situation."

They turned onto Adams and the sounds of town faded behind them. The light of
the gibbous moon filtered through the tall pines and maples lining the residential street.
Jon's muted tenor voice seemed almost disembodied, as long as she kept her face tilted
down and her eyes on the sidewalk.

"You said I should marry him. How does that qualify for sleeping in the bed I've
made for myself?"

"Looks to me as if you've got two problems," he said. "One is that, come hell or
high water, Erik Solomon is gonna lay his claim to your kids."

"To Kyle," she corrected, again feeling pain for Ginger, who wasn't wanted by her
own father.

"Your kids," Jon reiterated, and Madeline knew that Erik would claim both of the
children, or neither. Jon would see to that.

"Since your lawyer said you'd have to let 'em be tested to make sure Erik's their
pa, let's just assume he is. That means you can either voluntarily give Erik custody for part
of the time, or fight him to keep 'em all to yourself. Do you want to drag those tykes
through the courts like that?"

"Oh, God, no!" She hadn't really given much thought to what a legal battle for
their custody would do to the twins. She hadn't gotten that far. It had taken her this long to
really assimilate the fact that Erik could very well be their father, and not some anonymous
donor whose name was locked in the clinic's records.

"Then it looks to me like your best bet is to let him be a father to 'em. The likeliest
way to do that is to marry him."

It wasn't the first time she'd considered the possibility, just the first time she'd
done so seriously. Marry Erik Solomon? Share her life with him and not be alone any
longer? Go to bed at night knowing he'd be there when she woke every morning to his
sleepy kisses?

"I'll think about it," she said, knowing she was already sold, though still doubtful it
would ever be more than a dream. He didn't even want both his children, let alone her in
the bargain.

"You do that little thing."

They walked on, alone in the night, accompanied by soft voices from front
porches and open living rooms, by swooping bats hunting among the trees and slinking
cats bent on their own adventures. Madeline knew every crack in the sidewalk, every
shadowy lilac bush or drooping willow that made the sidewalk seem a mysterious,
dangerous place. She'd walked this way so many times, day and night, summer and winter,
that its sights and sounds and impressions were a part of her.

They took the shortcut across the grade school lawn to Idaho Street. It was darker
here, with the grade school on one side and the park on the other. Wally Blanchett had
asked for street lights, but so far the city council had turned down his request. There'd
never been any kind of incident here, in this darkest corner of Garnet Falls, and the single
light at the park restrooms shone among the trees, keeping the night from being
pitch-black.

Marry Erik Solomon? She'd buried the impossible notion for weeks, but now she
could bring it out and examine it. Except for his irrational--and, she had to believe,
temporary--rejection of Ginger, she found him everything she could want in a husband.
She liked his sense of humor, his sensitivity. Erik was the only man she'd ever worked with
who could help her cross a fallen log without making her feel like a helpless child. He'd
given her a hand with the same matter-of-fact attitude he had demonstrated when helping
Harry Lindholm up the courthouse steps or hoisting lumber out of the back of a
pickup.

She liked his looks. Blond was too mundane a word for the molten gold of his hair
in sunlight, and if his eyes were merely brown, she was the Queen of England. There might
be a couple of models on Em's beefcake calendar who were better built than Erik, but they
lacked his masculine sensuality, his aura of competence.

"Jon," she said, as they stopped at her front gate, "I just thought of something
awful."

"What's that," he said, pushing the gate open and shuddering when it gave its usual
rusty squeal. "Remind me to oil this damn thing, will you?"

"I can do it."

"You've been sayin' that for months. I'll take care of it."

Madeline had her key in the front door when Jon said, "What awful thing did you
think of?"

"What if Erik doesn't want to marry me?"

"He will, Linnie." He patted her shoulder and, with a gentle push, moved her
inside. Just as he pulled the front door shut, she thought she heard him say, "I'll see to
it."

"Jon, wait!"

But his high-heeled boots were thudding across her porch. She leaned against the
front door. Surely Jon wouldn't... No, he wouldn't.

He didn't even own a shotgun.

Again that night she fought with her pillow, but this time only memories kept her
from sleep. One evening, after they'd exhausted themselves trying to anticipate every
possible complication of the Trace Pickett concert, she and Erik had sat at her kitchen
table, sipping herbal tea and trying to unwind. She'd asked him about his family.

"My sister, Gail, drowned when I was eight," Erik had said, sounding as if the
words hurt his throat. "Afterward, my mother burned all photographs of her, cleared the
house of every trace of her."

"Oh, Erik, I'm sorry," Madeline said, laying one hand on his arm. If she hadn't had
so many photos of Jesse, those first months after losing him, she didn't think she would
have survived. And how Erik must still hurt, if this was his most vivid memory of his
youth.

"My mother was...emotional." He stopped for a moment, as if wondering how to
explain his childhood. "My dad divorced her when I was just a baby and moved to the
West Coast. I don't know if she changed after that, or if she'd always been, well, incapable
of relating to people." He wiped a hand across his mouth and Madeline wept inside for a
lonely little boy in a house devoid of love.

"She didn't like boys." The words seemed to burst from his mouth by accident, yet
she could see the pain they caused. "I can remember." He paused until his voice sounded
more normal. "I can remember how, whenever I'd misbehave, she'd say...." He stopped as
his voice broke again. Then he swallowed, twice, and she saw him pull himself
together.

"She'd ask why I couldn't have been a girl." With a swift chop of his hand, he cut
off Madeline's expression of pity. "Then she'd say that if our father was here he'd know
how to handle me. How could anyone expect, she'd say, a gentle, civilized woman to be
able to understand a savage little boy like me."

"Oh, Erik, no!" She had reached out to touch his hand, but he had pulled it out of
her reach.

"Oh, yes! But don't feel sorry for me. My mother made me what I am. She showed
me how undisciplined I was, how irresponsible. Her inability to do anything with me
forced me to take charge of my own life." He plainly rejected the warmth and tenderness
she wanted to share with him. "I'd never have gotten to where I am today without her
influence."

Madeline couldn't help but wonder if he believed her incapable of dealing with
Kyle--and himself incapable of being a good father to a girl-child. Surely he was intelligent
enough to realize that his mother had been more than simply "emotional." She had been
seriously deranged.

Could she overcome the poison his mother had poured into his young mind, or
was he beyond redemption? Madeline wanted to believe she could, because she no longer
could imagine life without him.

* * * *

Jace Pierson was bored. His best friend had gone to visit his grandma and grandpa,
and his buddies on the soccer team were gone to Scout camp. His pa was mowing hay. All
the hired men were either haying or busy with other chores.

If he was fourteen, Pa would let him drive tractor. He thought he was old enough
now--some of his classmates drove tractors on their places, and even trucks,
sometimes.

To make matters worse, the littles kept following him around, bugging him to play
with them.

What he really wanted to do was go camping with Pa. But he'd asked, and had
been put off with a promise to go when the hay was in and the new pond up on Elderberry
Creek was finished.

"You know what I heard in town?" Denny said.

Even his just-younger brother was better company than nobody at all. As long as
Abby and the twins didn't find them, they could lay here on the hill back of the barn all
morning in peace. Given time, he'd figure out something fun for them to do. He always
could. Ma said what he couldn't think of hadn't been thought yet. "What?"

"Old Man Zenger is gonna sell Wounded Bear Meadow to some people who are
gonna plow it up and build houses on it."

"Huh?" Jace sat up. "I don't believe you. Aunt Linnie said that fella from
Washington is gonna buy it and make it a place where nobody can hunt."

"You know that old Charlie Bittenbusch?" Denny turned over on his stomach and
faced Jace.

Jace nodded.

"Well, he was talking to those old guys who always sit on the courthouse
steps--you know who I mean?"

Again Jace nodded.

"Charlie said those people who want to build those condoms on the Zenger place
said they wanted it all or they wasn't going to buy any of it. So Old Man Zenger is gonna
sell 'em the meadow 'cause his wife won't spend another winter up here freezin' to
death."

"Yeah. Old people don't like to be cold." Jace remembered their grandmother
Caswell, who'd lived with them until she died when he was nine. She'd worn long johns all
winter and two sweaters, most days.

"Anyhow, Charlie Bittenbusch said the conshum...consorm...those guys who want
to buy the Z-Bar-Z are gonna give Old Man Zenger until the end of the month to decide.
And he laughed at how they'd show that environmental fella that there's better things to do
with land than give it to the bats and bunnies."

"Pa says we gotta start saving places like the meadow or there's not gonna be any
wildlife when we're grown up." Jace believed what his father had told him, because Pa had
sounded so serious, not like his usual teasing way. He couldn't imagine not having deer
around the haystacks in the winter, or pheasants and chukkar waking him with their calls
on summer mornings. But Pa said all that would be gone, if people like Charlie
Bittenbusch had their way.

"Yeah, well, that ain't what Ol' Charlie says." Denny sounded real disgusted. "He
says we gotta get some of that tourist money that goes on up to McCall and keep it here.
He says we need to have amities to offer the people who buy those condoms so they'll
spend lots of money in Sunset County."

"I sure would like to see Wounded Bear Meadow," Jace said, "while it's still there.
Aunt Linnie says it's the prettiest place this side of heaven."

"Yeah, me too." Denny rolled over onto his back and shaded his eyes.

"How long do you figure it'd take us to ride up there?" Jace wondered aloud. An
idea was forming in his mind. "We could go over Skunk Ridge, up behind the line shack.
Wounded Bear Creek's the next one over. If we followed it upstream, we'd get to the
meadow, sooner or later." He had a general idea where the meadow was, and didn't doubt
his ability to get there.

"That'd take us all day." Denny didn't sound like he was arguing. "Then we'd have
to come back."