The Hideaway

Robert was true to his word over the next nine months. For the first time, he did exactly what I asked him to do. He brought me saltines and ginger ale when I needed them, answered the telephone when I couldn’t get to it fast enough, and mopped the floors to a shine. He learned to peel shrimp when the sight and smell of the slippery little things sent me running to the toilet. He grew handy with a vacuum and even got the motorboat up and running again.

Dot and Bert checked into The Hideaway when I was a few weeks away from giving birth. They had no reason to think the baby’s father was anyone but Robert. That is, until the night Dot found me in the garden. I’d been going out there most evenings. Sitting on William’s bench made me feel closer to him—thinking of his hands on the wood and on me, smoothing us and turning us both into something sturdy and beautiful. The fact that I was about to have his baby without him in my life made me feel like I was carrying much more than an extra thirty pounds.

In the garden, with the dark covering me like a cloak, I let myself cry. Since William’s departure, I’d been able to hold back the threatening tears, resolutely going about the business of keeping the house in order and finding new ways for guests to pay for their stay. This time, with no one around to watch, I stopped holding back.

I didn’t know how long Dot had been standing there, but by the time I looked up, I knew my face was a wreck. She sat beside me, took my hand, and rubbed circles onto my palm with her thumb. The gesture—and the lack of questions—not only calmed me, it solidified our friendship. I knew I could trust her.

She sat with me as my tears came and went. When I was done, spent from the energy of letting out all my closed-up emotions, she handed me a tissue.

“I could have used this about an hour ago,” I said, wiping my damp face and hands.

She laughed.

“You’re not going to ask what that was all about?”

She shook her head. “Don’t need to. That baby isn’t your husband’s, is it?”

My mouth dropped open, but I quickly closed it, then shook my head. “How’d you know?”

“Just a hunch. You and Robert don’t seem exactly friendly toward each other. Is the father here?”

“He left. But I think it was partly my fault.”

“You’re pregnant, he left, and you think it’s your fault?”

I sighed. “I—my father came and . . .” I didn’t even know how to explain. “Anyway, he didn’t know I was pregnant. I didn’t know it then either.”

“I see.”

But I knew she didn’t. She couldn’t have. It sounded like any other misdirected love story—two people in love, someone gets hurt, and one leaves, never to be seen again. Love stories end like that every day, but ours was different.

“It’s just temporary. He’s coming back.” I willed my voice to sound sure, but to me, it just sounded tired.

“What about Robert?”

I shrugged. Was it wrong to wish for him just to disappear? He’d done it before—with AnnaBelle and others before her—maybe he’d do it again.

“What are you going to do?” Dot asked.

“I guess I’m going to keep waiting.”

I still loved William, and he had to love me too. What we’d started here hadn’t been a dream, that much I knew. We would be together again. Those truths were the only things that kept me going and allowed me to go through the motions of my life.

One day, I told myself again and again, he’ll come back.

24

MAGS

OCTOBER 1960–OCTOBER 1962

As my body grew larger to accommodate William’s baby, my heart grew as well. I cried over everything. Everyone attributed my weepiness and mood swings to the pregnancy. Only Dot and I knew the real reason for my tears. I assumed she told Bert what was going on, although he never let on that he knew. Bert was a loyal friend and a wonderful partner to Dot, but “women problems” weren’t high on his list of topics to discuss.

My water broke early one foggy morning as I stomped around in the vegetable garden, trying to remember where I had planted the carrots. All the little rows of upturned earth looked the same. For some reason, it became important that I knew exactly where they would grow that fall. Okay, perhaps I was also letting off a little steam—mild contractions had rolled through my body all night, and anger was hot on their heels. I was furious with Robert for being in the house, with William for not, with my parents for conspiring to keep me from the man and the life I so desperately wanted. To be honest, I was mad at myself too. After all this time, I still couldn’t stand up to Mother and Daddy.

At the hospital, Dot waited in the room with me while Robert stood with a handful of other husbands in the waiting room. He was likely the only man in the room about to greet a child who wasn’t his.

Everyone assumed Robert was the father of the baby struggling to free itself from my body. A nurse by the name of Yolanda was the only one who found out the truth. Dot had left the room between contractions to find me some ice chips, leaving me alone with Yolanda.

In a burst of pain, I cursed Robert with all the strength I had in me.

Yolanda murmured and patted my hand. “Baby, I know it hurts, but you can’t lay all that blame at your husband’s feet. Sure, he put that baby in there, but this little one will make it all worth it. You’ll be kissing Robert’s face in no time.”

“Robert may be my husband, but he did not put this baby in me,” I spat out between clenched teeth. Finally, the contraction released its grip on me and I exhaled. “I should be raising this baby with William in our little house in the cove.” I turned my head toward her. “But we’re not, are we?”

Lord have mercy, Yolanda had no idea what hit her.

“That man out there didn’t father this baby?” Yolanda’s eyes grew wide.

I shook my head and wiped sweat off my face, waiting for the next contraction.

“Where’s the baby’s daddy?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t have the energy to explain.

Jenny was a sweet, beautiful baby, and I took easily to mothering. Perhaps it was because so many people had warned me of colic, diaper rash, and every other potential pitfall of a new mother’s life. Jenny had none of that—she offered only gummy smiles, infectious laughter, and plump cheeks and fingers.

It was hard at first—having Robert around without William—but there were good times too. We had a picnic in the backyard for Jenny’s second birthday. It was a sparkling fall day, brisk and sunny. Starla and I set up the long picnic table next to the house, and we scattered various toddler toys on the grass for Jenny to play with. The adults sipped apple cider and laughed at Jenny’s antics with a two-foot-tall plastic Mickey Mouse. Bert found it on the side of the road “in perfect condition,” he said. Dot disagreed, but Jenny loved her new Mickey.

After gifts and cake, everyone went back inside except the three of us. I sat at the wrought-iron table—one of Mrs. DeBerry’s leftovers—to rest my feet in the shade while Robert picked up wrapping paper and empty cups. Jenny sat in the grass and dumped blocks from one box into another. When Robert finished cleaning, he picked Jenny up in the air and swung her around and around.

She squealed and laughed, her voice carrying through the quiet air. As soon as he put her down, she ran to me and threw her arms around my neck with the force of a tiny hurricane. I hugged her little body, and she ran happily back to her blocks.