You're My Baby

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Her father snorted. “That’s putting it mildly.” He was quiet for a time. Then he said, “I would have come, you know. If you’d invited me.”

Pam bit her lip. She’d disappointed her father, and the sadness in his voice spoke volumes. “I know you would have. But we…eloped. It was a brief ceremony, just the two of us, and now we’re getting packed so I can move in with him, so it just seemed—”

“Better to take the biggest step in your life without your old dad?”

She pinched her forehead and searched for the right words. “There wasn’t time. School starts Tuesday, Grant’s son is coming to live with him and—”

“Son? What son? Slow down and start over.”

So she did, telling him about Andy, about Grant, about everything except the baby.

When she finished, in a low voice he said, “Do you love him?”

She had never lied to her father. Could she start now? “He’s a wonderful, caring man, Daddy. You’ll love him as much as I do.” That was close to the truth, wasn’t it?

“Well, then.” He sighed heavily. “That’s all that matters. When do I get to meet my son-in-law?”

“Soon. Let us get school underway and my move completed. Then we’ll all come visit you.”

“Honey—”

She sensed he was about to ask a question, perhaps the dreaded “Are you pregnant?” But he must’ve reconsidered, because all he added was “Be happy.”

After she hung up, she sat for several minutes, absentmindedly stroking Viola and Sebastian. Eventually she’d have to tell Barbara. But not right now.

Her father’s acceptance had reinforced her obligation to commit to this marriage, in appearance if not in fact.

SUNDAY EVENING Grant called Jim Campbell to ask if he and Pam could drop by on a matter of school business. The Campbells needed to be told first, not only because Jim, as headmaster, needed to know, but because Connie and Jim were their friends. But now, approaching their attractive ranch-style home near the campus, Grant had a walloping case of stage fright. This would be his and Pam’s first attempt to pull off their fabricated story. Could they possibly convince anyone they were in love?

He glanced at Pam, who was giving undue attention to the passing scenery. His eye caught the gleam of her wedding band and, with his left thumb, he fingered his. “Nervous?” he asked.

“Try terrified. Connie has a radar capability metropolitan police would envy.”

“Things’ll go smoother after we get the telling over with.”

“I hope so. Dad wasn’t easy, and when I called my sister, she wasn’t very understanding, much less congratulatory. She’ll freak out when she learns I’m pregnant.”

“My folks didn’t have much reaction when I told them, but after thirty years in the military, little fazes them. They couldn’t have come to a wedding on short notice anyway.” Time enough later to reveal “strained” accurately described his relationship with his hard-nosed father.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Her question stopped him short. How little they really knew about each other despite working together for several years. “I had an older brother.” He swallowed, the memory still painful. “He died of brain cancer when he was twenty-nine.”

She laid a comforting hand on his thigh. “I’m so sorry. How devastating for you and your family.”

“Yeah, it was. Brian and I were eighteen months apart. We shared a room, played together on the high school team, fought over the same girls. I guess you could say he was my best friend.” He didn’t add that Brian had also served as a buffer between him and his father. From the time his dad had returned from Vietnam, he’d been difficult, distant. Brian had been the golden boy who could do no wrong. But Grant? In his father’s eyes, he’d never been anything but a disappointment. And the hell of it was, he’d never understood why.

“Your family’s had a lot to deal with in recent years.”

He smiled ruefully. “So maybe a baby’ll help, huh?”

She looked thoughtful. “Maybe,” she said quietly, removing her hand from his leg.

Why had he gone and said a fool thing like that? As if he had any claim to the baby beyond next September. He couldn’t start thinking of the child as his in any way except name.

“Here we are,” he said, pulling to a stop in front of the rambling brick home. On the porch was a white deacon’s bench illuminated by an antique lamppost. He turned off the ignition and sought her eyes, which reflected the same uncertainty he was feeling.

Neither of them moved. Finally she drew a deep breath and jabbed him on the shoulder. “Show time!”

“Is this where I say, ‘Break a leg’?”

“This is where,” she answered just before he left the car to come around and escort her up the walkway.

After greeting them, Jim ushered them into the inviting family room, displaying many of the primitive American pieces he and Connie collected. When Jim had first filled the interim headmaster position, before accepting the job permanently, the faculty had been stunned to find out he and Connie had known each other in their distant past. It hadn’t taken long for them to renew their friendship, culminating in a marriage much approved by Connie’s mother, daughter and the entire Keystone community.

Jim settled in a wing chair, and Grant and Pam sat together on the sofa. “I gather there’s some urgency to the matter you want to discuss,” Jim began.

Grant found his voice—and Pam’s hand. “There is.”

Pam looked around. “Connie needs to hear this, too.”

“I’ll get her.” Jim stepped down the hall and summoned Connie, who took a seat in the antique rocker by the hearth.

“Pam, Grant? You’re sure this isn’t confidential?” she asked uncertainly.

“We’re sure. In fact, we imagine everyone at school will know in a matter of days,” Pam said.

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense.” Connie eyed Pam curiously, as if unsure whether concern or elation was the expected response.

Grant seized the initiative. “Although this may come as a shock, yesterday, happily, Pam and I were married.”

Connie’s eyes widened in bafflement. “Wait. I’m having trouble taking this in.”

“It’s true.” Pam cast Grant an adoring look—a convincing, adoring look.

Jim glanced from one to the other. “Married?”

Connie studied Pam as if searching for a key to the mystery, before facing her husband. “That’s what they said.”

“It’s understandable,” Grant managed, “that our news is a surprise.”

“You can say that again, but surprise or not,” Connie said over her shoulder as she moved toward the kitchen, “this definitely calls for champagne. And then—” she paused for emphasis “—we want to hear the whole story.”

She returned bearing a tray of filled champagne flutes, which she distributed, then indicated they should all stand up. With a bemused smile, she raised her glass. “To our friends Pam and Grant. May their love grow with each day they spend together and may their home be filled with joy and peace.”

“Hear, hear,” Jim said, as the four touched their glasses and drank.

Grant noticed that Pam took only a token sip.