A Child Of His Own, page 8
She had been reticent for much of the morning. Now, as they stood before the elevator door, she broke her silence to ask, “You were about to say something?”
The elevator doors pulled back and half a dozen people emerged into the hallway. Another half-dozen crunched forward into the elevator, bringing Ben and Dory along with them.
The silence inside the elevator was deafening. All eyes were averted as they ascended. Ben felt doomed. There was nothing left for him to do now except pray that the attorney did not bring up his past and destroy his chance for the future.
For Dory, who had grown up in a small upstate town, New York City had always held a chilling allure. Its bigness never failed to awe her. Yet as vibrant and thrilling a place as it was to visit, it had always felt good to be home again. As she sat on the couch in the reception area, her hands resting in her lap, her eyes averted to the carpet, whatever awe she once felt was replaced by the fear this particular visit inspired. With Ben’s taut presence beside her, she knew that the only thing here for one of them was heartbreak.
The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. The air was thick with tension. Dory was remembering the last time she had been there, sitting on that very couch. She had been so utterly happy then with the adoption of a baby boy. Would the results of her visit today reverse all that and bring her world crashing down around her? Was it to be Ben’s happiness at the expense of her own?
It seemed to take forever until they were shown into the attorney’s wood-panelled office. An imposing figure in a tailored dress and tortoiseshell glasses rose to greet them.
Dory introduced herself and Ben, then said, “It was good of you to see me on such short notice. I don’t know if you remember, but you arranged an adoption for me and my husband some years ago.”
Celina Bonham extended her hand to both of them and motioned for them to be seated. “Of course, I remember you, Mrs. McBride. I never forget a client. When you phoned the other day, you said the matter was urgent. What can I do for you?”
Dory cleared her throat and began nervously, “You can help me find out the name of my son’s biological father.”
The woman gazed at her forthrightly. “That’s an odd request. May I ask why you want that information?”
Despite shaking like a leaf inside, Dory’s voice remained level. “I have reason to think...that is, it’s possible that my son’s biological father may be someone I know. If that’s the case, I would naturally want him to be a part of my son’s life.”
“I see. And have you discussed this with the man you think might be your son’s biological father?”
“Yes, I have. In fact, it was he who approached me about it.”
In a worried tone, the attorney questioned, “How is that possible? I went through your case file this morning to refresh my memory of it. It clearly stated that all parties were to remain strictly anonymous.”
Dory shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “It’s a long story. The thing is, we think...that is, Mr. Stone thinks he might be my son’s biological father. We would like to know for sure.”
The attorney leveled a look at Ben from over the rim of her glasses. “Is there a reason why you think that, Mr. Stone?”
To the cross-examining tone Ben replied, “You handled an adoption for my wife at around the same time that you handled the adoption for the McBrides.”
“You say your name is Stone?”
Ben knew that she was reaching back into her memory for the facts surrounding the case.
“Yes, of course. A rather unusual case, as I recall. The father didn’t come forward for, what was it, three years?” She took a long, hard look at him, as if to satisfy herself that this was the same man who had appeared before her back then. “I remember telling you at the time that I could give you no information on the child’s whereabouts. Those records were sealed and remain so.”
“I’m not asking for those records to be unsealed.”
Her look turned mildly suspicious. “Tell me, Mr. Stone, how was it you found your way to Mrs. McBride?”
He wanted to tell her to stop calling Dory Mrs. McBride, because, on top of everything else that was going on, there was that unexpected pang of jealousy that came every time he thought that she had been someone else’s wife.
He answered tautly, “Coincidence.”
“How interesting. Now, let me see if I understand the situation. You wish to know if you are the biological father of Mrs. McBride’s child?”
He wanted to shout at her, “Yes, yes,” and ask why was she making it so difficult. Telling himself that she was only doing her job and that she had every right to question him, he forced a calmness into his tone that he did not feel, and said, “That’s exactly right. And Mrs. McBride has consented to that knowledge being made available to me. To us.” They were in it together, after all, weren’t they?
The attorney sat back in her leather chair and folded her hands before her. Lifting one finger into the air, she said, “Ah, yes, but will the court consent to that knowledge being made available?”
“The court?” Dory questioned. She glanced at Ben, to see if he was as surprised as she was, and saw the keen disappointment that flashed through his eyes. Even now, at a time like this, she felt for him.
“Those records are sealed,” said the attorney. “We would have to petition the court to—”
“Do it.”
Both women turned in unison to the sound of Ben’s voice that issued harshly from his throat.
“Mr. Stone,” the attorney objected, “we cannot simply petition the court to unseal the records based on coincidence. You must understand.”
“What I understand is that five years ago my son was taken from me without my consent or my knowledge.”
“How do you know your child was a boy? Perhaps it was—”
“Because I know.” He would not betray the law clerk’s unwitting error, but neither would he let this woman throw roadblocks in his way.
It could have been the dangerous tone of his voice, or the unsmiling features, or the way those obsidian eyes blazed into hers, all daring her to refute him, that made the attorney cease her line of questioning and take a gentler tone.
“You understand, of course, Mr. Stone, that I could not file a petition with the court without Mrs. McBride’s consent.”
Ben looked at Dory. This was her chance to back out. All she had to do was say no. Her face betrayed none of her thoughts. There was only the familiar expression of sadness clouding her beautiful eyes. Only this time, it pained him to know that he was the cause of it.
Feeling the weight of Ben’s stare upon her, Dory lifted her gaze to his. In his dark eyes she saw his hope and his fear, with one of those emotions so close to being realized.
With her gaze unwavering from his, she addressed the attorney. “I would like you to do whatever is necessary to find out if Ben...if Mr. Stone...is Jason’s biological father.”
The words were out. There was no going back for either of them.
“Very well, then, I’ll have my secretary draw up the petition. When it’s ready, I’ll send it overnight to you for your signature.”
Dory turned away from the silent look of gratitude she saw in Ben’s eyes to ask, “How long will it take?”
“It usually takes several months, but I’ll see what I can do to hurry this one along. The judge over in family court is a friend of mine. I can probably get it down to a few weeks.”
A few weeks, Dory repeated numbly to herself. Would they find out before Memorial Day or after? Would Ben have to stay on after Memorial Day until they learned the decision of the court? And then what? Her mind screamed with questions as she rose from her seat.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bonham. You’ve been a great help to us.”
“You understand,” said the attorney, “that if the petition is approved and the records are unsealed, the only information you will receive is whether or not Mr. Stone is the biological father.”
“You mean a yes or a no, as simple as that,” said Ben.
“That’s correct. And if the answer is no, I would not think of petitioning the court to unseal the records of your child’s adoption, Mr. Stone. I doubt the court would look favorably on such a request, given the, er, circumstances of the case.”
Outside in the bright sunshine people rushed by, and the air was thick with the fumes spewed out by weekday traffic.
Feeling relieved that, for whatever reason, the attorney had chosen not to bring up his past, he said to Dory, “C’mon, I’ll buy you some lunch.”
“I don’t have much of an appetite,” she said, “but I could use a place to sit down for a while.”
“There’s a little French restaurant on the next block,” he offered.
She looked at him, eyes questioning out of a pallid face.
“I used to live not too far from here.” he explained.
“Oh,” she said weakly. “I didn’t know that.”
There were a lot of things she didn’t know about him, Ben thought. How and when to tell her everything was foremost on Ben’s mind. Yet both of them had been through an emotional wringer today, and he sensed that this was neither the time nor the place for another confession.
Yet somehow he couldn’t leave things the way they were. In an attempt to put things in perspective, he said, “It looks like we’re in this thing together. Whether we like it or not, we need each other.”
Having been thinking the same thing, and seeing no other way around it, Dory replied, “You’re right. We’ll have to put our differences aside temporarily to work together.”
As they walked together down the block, each felt hopelessly drawn to the other, for they were reluctant partners in the painful experience, sharing the same apprehension and fear. And in the shared experience each found a little bit of strength.
Chapter 8
The countryside they drove through was restful and rolling, dotted with small farms whose silver-capped silos glinted warmly in the sun. The streams and lakes were plump with bass and walleye. The towns and hamlets were picturesque with their original seventeenth- and eighteenth-century stone buildings lovingly preserved.
Color was everywhere, from the white and pink shimmering dogwoods, the yellow field grass, the red of newly plowed fields, the green of the apple orchards.
The tension that had accompanied them since leaving the house slowly dissipated. A warm spring breeze wafted through the open windows of the car, carrying with it the fragrance of wildflowers growing unchecked beyond old post and rail fences, and a faint deceptive promise that everything might be all right after all.
With the wind rustling his dark hair, it was easy, almost, for Ben to forget the tense hour they had spent yesterday in the attorney’s office. It was impossible to look out at the crystal blue sky dusted with mare’s tails, unobstructed by tall buildings, seeming to go on forever, or to gaze upon the fields of primroses and hollyhocks, swells of color in the gently rolling earth, and not feel the tranquility it evoked in spite of everything.
A glance at Dory behind the wheel showed no sign of the worried brow and frightened eyes of yesterday. Her face was smooth and untroubled. There even appeared to be the barest upturn at the corners of her lips. Taking it as a sign that she, too, was affected by the beauty and serenity of the countryside, Ben broke the silence between them to remark, “It sure is beautiful here.”
There was no mistaking the ring of affection in her voice when she said, “This used to be all wilderness. James Fenimore Cooper once wrote that from here one could see all creation.”
“Is Devil’s Corner as beautiful as this?”
“In its own way, it is.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see,” was all she said.
They drove down narrow country roads that were shaded by giant oak trees, now and then making small talk about the beauty and local history of the place, each reluctant to break the spell of the beautiful day by venturing into deeper waters. By silent, mutual consent they didn’t speak about their trip to the attorney’s office, or the kiss by the carousel, one filled with so much dread, the other with so much passion.
It was a little past noon when they arrived at Roxbury, on the northern slope of the Catskills.
At Bill’s General Store, they settled in at one of the small, Formica-topped tables. Although still unaccustomed to the slower pace adopted by everyone around him, Ben sat back in his chair, stretched his lean legs out before him, and waited patiently for the waitress to bring the menus. Looking around, he watched as one by one the regulars, in overalls and flannel shirts, drifted in for lunch, claiming their counter stools and trading gossip. Conversation came slow and lazy, like the dust motes that drifted before the windows.
“What do you think of this weather we’re having?”
“Goin’ to the town meeting on Tuesday?”
“Saw Jane Mayberry the other day. Waved to her, but she didn’t see me. Hate to think I wasted a perfectly good wave on her.”
When the waitress brought the menus, Ben opened his and pretended to study it as he continued to listen in on the conversation at the counter.
He found the atmosphere of the small general store that sold everything from lunch to luggage as easy and comfortable as a pair of old shoes. “This is incredible,” he remarked. “Everyone’s so friendly.”
Dory looked up from her menu. “You sound surprised.”
He smiled sheepishly, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I guess I am. It’s just that there’s a simple courtesy here that was missing all the years I lived in the city.” Not to mention the time he’d spent in prison, he privately added.
“There’s a courtesy that goes even deeper,” said Dory. “It’s compassion. When my parents were killed, the farmers got together to help out. Their wives cooked food and brought it over. The Holstein Club collected money so we could hire a man to help until we could get on our feet. A few weeks later, when one of the farmer’s barns burned down, everyone got together and put up a new one in just a few days.”
“It must have been rough for you, losing both of your parents at the same time.”
She wasn’t surprised that he knew about the accident that had claimed her parents’ lives. She was aware of the fondness that was growing between Ben and Martin and knew that her grandfather had told him about it. She didn’t mind. It wasn’t as if Martin had betrayed a secret. He had every right to talk about it if he wanted to. After all, losing a son and a daughter-in-law, the loss was as much his as it was hers.
“I was twelve at the time, old enough to understand what had happened. It was as if a light went out and everything became very dark. Having my grandfather there was an enormous help to me. He’s been there through all the hard times.” She was remembering also Eddie and the difficulty she had in coming to terms with the slew of emotions his death unleashed.
It seemed from the expression that troubled her beautiful face, that her sadness was caused by more than the death of her parents at a young and vulnerable age. It couldn’t have been the possibility of sharing Jason with him that affected her like that, he thought as he watched her, because he had witnessed that same sweet sadness in her eyes before he’d ever mentioned his suspicions about Jason.
He recalled both her and Martin’s mention of a husband who had died, and he felt an unexpected pang of jealousy at the possibility that she might still be in love with him. And yet, that didn’t look like lost love he saw in her desire-inflamed eyes just moments after he’d kissed her. And it didn’t taste like love for another man on her lips as she kissed him back.
“What can I get you folks?”
The appearance of the waitress at their table forced Ben’s thoughts to take cover.
They ordered grilled hamburgers, french fries and sodas. When their food arrived, Ben took a bite of his and exclaimed, “Hey, this is delicious.”
She gave him a wry look and said, “We have managed to keep in touch with the twentieth century, right down to the hamburgers.”
He smiled back apologetically. “I guess I had that coming. All I meant was, it’s...it’s...” He searched for a way to put it all in perspective, and summed it up with a shrug. “It’s nice.”
The small-town friendliness that impressed Ben was something Dory had always taken for granted. To her, there was no other way to be. Watching him discover it for himself offered a different perspective of the man. He was like a kid on the verge of an awesome discovery, wide-eyed, scarcely able to keep the smile from his face. She had to remind herself that this was no kid sitting across from her. This was a man, in every sense of the word, from the masculine desire that brightened his dark eyes, to the powerful touch of his lips, a man with the capacity to hurt her and thrill her all at once.
When they were finished eating, Dory said, “We’d better get going if we want to get to Devil’s Corner and be back home before dark.” She motioned for the check from the waitress.
“I’ll get that,” said Ben.
“No way. I asked you to come along, remember?”
“Yeah, but I don’t remember your saying that meals were included.” He pulled some singles from his pocket and dropped them onto the table. “We’ll go dutch. It’s the only reasonable solution.”
Wishing there was a reasonable solution to their bigger, more pressing problem, Dory left her share of the check on the table and followed him outside to the car.
Underway once again, Ben settled back in his seat. “The Catskills aren’t a bad place to be from,” he murmured with appreciation as he watched the scenery pass by the window in streaks of ever-changing color against a carpet of green.
“The natives never refer to themselves as being from the Catskills,” she corrected. “Here, hometowns come first. People are from Roxbury, or Roscoe or West Kill or Hurley. The mountains are dividers. There’s a lot of people who have never even been to the next town thirty miles away. Everything they value in life can be found right in their own backyards.”
