His Best Friend's Baby. Molly O'Keefe

      “Yes,” Ron agreed. “He was like that.”

      “He just swept me off my feet.” Swept wasn’t even the right way to describe the sensation. It was as if she had been blinded by the light that always shone around Mitch.

      “When I got pregnant—” she cleared her throat, uncomfortable with the topic “—we hadn’t known each other very long.”

      “A month,” Agnes said, obviously casting judgment on Julia’s loose morals. Julia swallowed the protestations of her innocence. They seemed pretty stupid, in light of what had happened. What did it matter if Mitch had been her first? She’d been so completely paranoid about pregnancy that they’d used two forms of birth control.

      She’d gotten pregnant anyway, after only knowing Mitch for three weeks. She had been so stupid and silly with lust and love.

      “I was twenty-one—”

      “So young,” Agnes said, lifting watery brown eyes to Julia.

      “Mitch didn’t hesitate. He wanted to get married. He wanted to give our child what you guys gave him.”

      He just never managed to be around enough to do it.

      Agnes, who had been weeping silently, buckled a little and put a hand on the counter to brace herself.

      “We wasted so much time with him.” Agnes sighed. “Three years. I would give anything to have them back.” Her face twisted in agony that struck a chord in Julia’s own grief. “Anything.”

      “Nana!” Ben yelled. “Don’t cry!” Ben hated when Julia cried. He got angry and fussy. But when all three of them turned to the little boy he looked away, confused and embarrassed. Julia wondered if he’d ever had the undivided attention of three people.

      “You want more pancakes?” Agnes asked Ben and he broke into a beatific grin, revealing all of his little teeth.

      “That’s a yes,” Julia translated needlessly.

      “Well, sit and drink your coffee,” Agnes said, drying her eyes with a dish towel. “I’ll make some more pancakes.”

      Agnes put a steaming mug of coffee in front of Julia and darted a quick look at Ron. It was a cue of some sort and Julia braced herself. Not for any particular reason; it was the conditioned response of a woman who had never felt as though she really belonged anywhere.

      “Julia,” Ron started uncomfortably. He drummed his fingers on the table briefly and cleared his throat. There was a glacial undercurrent in the room suddenly and she was not so sure of her welcome here. “What are your, ah, your plans?”

      “Plans?” she croaked. This was it. This was “the good to see you, don’t be a stranger, but could you move on?” speech. Her stomach churned bile. Maybe Mitch was right. She was a fool for believing in the good things.

      “I mean, how long will you be—” Ron and Agnes shared a look “—in California.”

      Julia put her mug on the table. “I don’t have any plans,” she said coolly. “We can be on our way today.”

      Agnes gasped and dropped a plate in the sink, a discordant crash that made all of them jump and Ben fuss. Julia turned to her son and tugged on his ear.

      “Nana’s bringing you more pancakes, buddy,” she whispered, staring at her son to stall for time.

      No rest for the weary. She quickly shifted to survival mode. She had the money that the army gave her each month as a widow, but she was still paying off most of Mitch’s debts. The remainder might cover rent some place, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to live in a place that could be rented for next to nothing. She’d need to find a job. She would have to get daycare for Ben.

      She’d come all the way to New Springs and now didn’t have enough money to leave immediately. She’d have to stay until next month’s check—

      “Do you have to go so soon?” Agnes asked, her hands clenching the counter. “I mean it would be wonderful to have you stay.”

      “Stay?” Julia asked, not sure she’d heard correctly.

      “As long as you like,” Agnes insisted. “You can stay here however long. Ron used to teach at the community college over in Lawshaw. I’m sure he could talk to someone there. Get you enrolled in the fall and you could get your degree. I remember Mitch saying something about you wanting a degree.”

      And another lie from Mitch. Thank you, sweetheart.

      “I hadn’t given it much thought,” Julia said and she really hadn’t. Mitch’s death, the phone call from Agnes, getting out of Germany, all of that had taken up every minute of her life.

      “Well, you can be here and think about it. This house is so empty with just the two of us,” Agnes said. Ron stared at Julia levelly, his eyes warm and steadfast.

      “You can get your associate degree for just about anything at Lawshaw, can’t she, Ron?”

      “We would like you to stay,” Ron said, cutting through his wife’s chatter. “We would like to get to know you and Ben.”

      “You know,” she said with a bright smile, solace like a cool stream of water sliding through her, gently eroding the tension that had built in the last few moments. “You had me with the coffee.” She lifted her mug and took a sip while Agnes and Ron laughed.

      “What do you think, buddy?” Julia asked her son. “Should we stay?

      Ben smiled, his face radiant and beloved and threw his arms in the air. “Pancake!”

      “Sounds unanimous,” Ron said.

      Julia watched her son clap his hands and she took a big sip of coffee, using both hands so that she wouldn’t do the same.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      JULIA INSISTED on doing the dinner dishes that night and spent a long time with her hands in the warm soapy water, washing Agnes’s great-grandmother’s china.

      Her fingers traced the faded vine around the edge of a dinner plate and she tried to imagine owning something so old. So precious. There was such a feeling of solidity and permanence in this house that she craved to be a part of.

      She put Ben to sleep after finishing the dishes and Agnes retired a few hours later, declaring herself pooped. But Julia was too awake to go to bed. In Germany she’d put Ben in daycare three days a week for two hours because she’d been worried that seeing only her day in, day out would stunt him in some way—make him a social outcast in kindergarten. So while he’d learned to share toys with other kids, Julia had taken long runs to drive out her worry, to banish her fears. It seemed a good tactic to use now.

      “I am going to go for a walk,” she told Ron, who read in his easy chair. He and Agnes had accepted Julia so quickly, had taken care of her and Ben so readily, that she felt a little blank. What am I supposed to do? she wondered. She wanted so badly to believe that this comfort and family was real. Was hers. She could settle in, put her feet up and stop treading water. But part of her was still braced—ready for the rejection she still wasn’t entirely convinced wasn’t going to come.

      “Ben is out like a light,” she said assuring Ron that she wasn’t going to run out and leave him to entertain her toddler.

      “Of course, Julia, it’s a lovely night,” he said with a smile. “Grab my sweater there at the door.”

      She took the beige cardigan, then stepped outside. The cool twilight embraced her as she admired the low stucco homes that made up the neighborhood. The sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine filled the air and somewhere nearby a dog barked and another answered. Julia gave herself a moment to imagine a life here. A family. Ben and a dog and a man who was honorable. Everything that she’d thought was possible when she married Mitch.

      Mitch