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“That’s what I’m going to tell Wade,” Jake announced suddenly. “You’re my best friend and he’ll just have to let go of his curiosity.”
Cat nodded and blinked. She had no right to tears. She didn’t even want him to say she was his girlfriend. She had nothing to offer Jake except Lara, anyway. It had to all be about their daughter.
“My mother is going to love Lara,” Jake continued, as though he could read her mind. “She won’t need to think she’s related to make a fuss over her …” Jake stopped. “It could have all been different. I should have never let you run away from that home. I should have made you marry me.”
“And what would we have done then?” Cat asked. She had been through all that in her mind over the years. “Neither one of us had a job. Or any reason to think we could get one. We hadn’t even graduated from high school. All you had was that old pickup and it didn’t run half of the time. We didn’t have a way to make a life together. Besides, you didn’t want to get married.”
She thought she had buried the anguish of those days, but it still vibrated inside her. She had never been as scared in all of her life as she had been when she realized she was pregnant.
“At least I could have taken care of you better,” Jake replied, his tone tense. “I could have found some kind of a job. I have a strong back. I could have dug post-holes or something. Even if we didn’t stay together, we should have made it legal. What did you do alone?”
“Mrs. Jenna—you remember the nurse at the home—she sent me to another home for unwed mothers. I had a doctor’s care. And learned how to take care of a baby. It was the best thing.”
“And did the home suggest you not tell me about the baby?”
Cat nodded her head in the dark. “I’m sorry if that hurt you, but one of the conditions of staying was that I couldn’t talk to you. It was a silly rule they had at the home.”
“You could have told me later.”
Cat closed her eyes and whispered, “By then, I thought you knew. When I got the first envelope of money, I figured you had to have been told by someone. And you never sent a letter. I thought you didn’t want to hear from me.”
“I always had a return address on those envelopes.”
Cat heard a rustling in the backseat.
“Mommy.”
“We’ll talk later,” Cat whispered to Jake before turning to their daughter. “How are you, pumpkin?”
“I’m hungry.”
“We’ll stop someplace,” Jake said, passing an exit.
“We could just get something at a gas station. I don’t feel like going into a restaurant and sitting down.”
“Usually a gas station only has hot dogs at this time of night.”
Cat shrugged. She didn’t have the energy to persuade him otherwise. She just hoped her money held out until she could get back to Minneapolis. She was determined to not open the envelope of money he’d laid on the seat before they began. She had moved it to the cup holder between their two seats. If it was charity, she didn’t want it.
He pulled off at an exit that had a fast-food sign.
“I’m going to meet your mother,” Cat finally said, suddenly realizing what that meant. “And I didn’t bring a dress.”
One thing she knew about Jake was that he loved his mother. He’d written to the woman often from the home and Cat had envied him having someone. She couldn’t even remember her mother. She had a grandmother who had taken care of her until she died. Then Cat had been out on her own.
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