M. Donice Byrd - The Warner Saga (40 page)

He closed his eyes and shrugged. “But I finally found happiness with you, my wonderful little treasure. Please, tell me I can come home and we can be a family again.”

“Oh, Blake, of course. Of course.” She launched herself into his arms and kissed him. “I love you, Blake. I never wanted you to leave,” she said, her mouth pressed against his.

“You are my world, now,” he murmured against her lips. “I love you, too.”

He felt her lips thin into a smile. “You’re right. They taste like wine; sweet and intoxicating.”

As the kiss deepened, his hands move down to the swell of her belly, caressing the growing mound. “You’re sure you’re both getting well?”

Meredith covered his hands with hers and gazed lovingly into his eyes.

“The baby’s getting so big,” Blake said smiling widely and cupping her growing abdomen, pulling the fabric of her nightgown taut against her so he could see the evidence of the baby inside her. His smile changed and she could feel his heat.

Meredith felt suddenly shy under his smoldering gaze.

Before they could say more, there was a knock at the door. Blake grinned widely and jumped up to let the cook in.

Mrs. Obermeyer carried in the tray and set it on Meredith’s lap. Lolly followed her into the room and took a seat near Meredith’s feet. Pete came no further than the doorjamb and had to step to the side as the woman left.

“French toast?
I know I’m eating for two but I don’t think I can eat this all myself.”

“I had them cook up two orders worth in case you wanted to share with Pete and Lolly. I should have thought to have Mrs. Obermeyer bring extra plates and forks. Give me a minute.”

Blake eased out of the door past Pete and hurried downstairs. Although he planned to retrieve the plates and forks himself, he noticed a maid and asked her to bring the items up to the bedroom. As Blake made the landing, he spotted Pete still at the doorway. He hated the way Pete always seemed to be on the outside looking in.

Blake came up behind Pete and knew the boy was
unaware of his presence, his footsteps silenced by the plush ornate rug. He decided to have a bit of harmless fun. As Blake approached, he reached out and poked Pete in the ribs and yelled boo to startle him.

Pete jumped as expected but Blake had not taken into consideration the trauma he had been through. Pete’s instincts took over and he swung around and punched Blake in a fight or flight reaction. Then suddenly an alarmed look screwed up Pete’s face. As he looked down, Blake looked down also and it was then Blake saw the front of Pete’s pants grow wet.

Mortified, Pete punched Blake again before he shoved him away as hard as he could and ran across the hall to the bedroom he shared with Lolly and resoundingly slammed the door.

“Pete, I’m sorry, I…”

Blake cursed himself. If there was a wrong thing to do when it came to Pete, he always seemed to find it.

Hearing the maid climbing the stairs
, Blake intercepted her, sending her back to the task she was performing earlier. It was all he needed for the staff to find out what happened to add to Pete’s humiliation. He took the forks and dessert plates to Meredith and asked Lolly to stay with her. From their vantage point, Meredith and Lolly had not seen Pete’s bladder release so they only thought he was upset because Blake had startled him.

Blake pulled the door closed as he left the room then found a towel in the linen closet to clean up the little evidence that made its way to the floor.

He knocked on the door to Pete and Lolly’s room. “Pete, may I come in?” He could hear Pete moving around inside. “I can’t see you cursing me with the door closed.”

Blake knew the door wasn’t locked because the door had no lock. Nor had he heard Pete pushing
furniture in front of the door but Blake refused to turn the knob. He knew it should be Pete’s decision to open it. “Come to the door and let me in.”

Blake waited and a note shot out from under the door.

“Just leave me alone,” was all it said in Pete’s perfect penmanship.

Blake didn’t want to go in without permission from Pete. It was one of those moments where it seemed important that Pete felt he was in control of the situation.

“Pete, please, I want to talk to you and I prefer to do it in private.” There was no response from inside the room. “Just let me come in and apologize face-to-face. I want to make this right.”

A minute later
, a note shot out from under the door coming to rest two feet into the hallway. “You can’t make it right. Everyone is going to know!”

Blake didn’t want to answer him from the corridor – then everyone
would
know what happened. Against his better judgment, Blake turned the knob and stepped inside.

“Pete, I can’t talk to you with the door between us.”

The twelve-year-old wiped his tear-stained face with his shirt sleeve. He looks so small and helpless and Blake wished he hadn’t stepped inside until he’d given him more time to compose himself.

“I’m sorry. That was not at all
well done of me. No one knows but me what happened and I’m not going to tell anyone.”

All Blake wanted to do at that moment was pulled that little boy into his arms and hug him – to let him know he understood his pain and his embarrassment but he knew he would never allow the contact.

Pete scribbled on his notepad, tore the page off and thrust it at Blake.

“The maids will know when they collect the laundry. They’ll know. They’ll tell everyone.”

“That’s easy enough to solve.”

Blake crossed the room, picked up the wet pants and unmentionables and set them on top of the logs burning in the fireplace.

“I’ll go to the tailor, tell them you ripped them on a nail and have them make you another pair. They keep your measurements on file so you won’t even have to go – unless you’ve grown.” Blake produced a halfhearted smile. “How are those ribs?”

Pete threw up his hands in frustration. His mouth set in a stubborn line.

“Before you get even madder at me, let me tell you why I’m always teasing you about your ribs. Do you remember when we were in Rolla and you ran away? I told you what it was like to live on your own at that age, I know because I ran away after my mother died. I lived on the streets for about four and a half months. I lost so much weight my ribs were even worse than yours. My hip bones and a good belt were the only things holding up my pants. My face was so emaciated that my eyes were sunken and you could literally see where my jaw and skull met through my skin. When my father and I were reunited, I had lost about twenty pounds. I weighed about ninety-five pounds in October and was about seventy-five pounds in February. I was probably a week or two from dying.

He wrote on his pad again and Blake knew what it was going to say before he read it.

“Too bad you didn’t die then.”

Blake sighed.

“Do you know what my father did when he found me? He put me in a hotel room and told them to bring me three meals a day. He had the tailor make me clothes with my old measurements and when they were ready, he shipped me off to boarding school. So, when I bring up your ribcage, it’s because I want you to know I care because no one cared about my ribs.”

Blake shrugged and smiled in a way that did not light up his eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. My father loves me and he was worried about me while I was missing. But once he knew I was safe, the rest was just minutia.”

“
Manusha
?” Pete wrote.

“Minutia.
It means unimportant details.”

Blake crossed the room and sat down on the bed. “I’m going to tell you a secret. My father never married my mother because he was already married to someone else. He’s a very important man and if the truth was
known, it would ruin him. I don’t know if you and Lolly will ever meet him. But if you do, you’ll probably never know he’s my father.”

“You’re not going to tell me who he is?” Pete wrote.

Blake shook his head. “Honestly, Pete, he doesn’t publicly acknowledge I’m his son so I know he’ll never try to act like a grandfather to you or Lolly or even to the baby when it’s born.”

It wasn’t that he was afraid to tell Pete his father’s identity for fear that he would tell someone.  He was finished protecting his father. Instead, the reason he didn’t tell him was to protect Pete and Lolly from the kind of heartache and rejection he felt under his father’s treatment.

Blake made eye contact with Pete but didn’t hold his gaze. “I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned him to you but I just wanted you to understand why I’m not a better father to you. I just don’t know how because I never had that example set for me.”

Pete pulled the pencil from behind his ear and began writing. “Even before your ma died?”

“He came over pretty late in the evening usually about fifteen minutes before I had to go to bed. I’d wait all day and then it was a bit of a letdown. He’d give me a big hug and a kiss on my forehead and then he’d ask about school. Fifteen minutes after he arrived, I’d be sent off to bed. It was really hard to know he came to see my mother and not me.”

Pete’s face softened somewhat as he began writing again. “I kno
w you didn’t mean to make me wet myself. Lolly and I used to try to scare each other all the time before. So I don’t know why that happened.”

“You’ve been through a horrible tragedy. Grown
men would have been traumatized by what you’ve been through. It’s going to take time to feel normal again – to feel safe. I want you to know, if you ever want to talk about it, I would be honored if you came to me. As men, it’s hard to talk about these moments of our lives – I know, I waited nearly twenty years to tell anyone about my mother’s death. Do you know who I told?” he asked rhetorically then answered his own question. “I told Meredith about ten minutes ago. It made me feel better. It really did.”

Blake debated telling Pete also. Perhaps if he knew that he had been through a trauma as a child also, it would help Pete to get through his own ordeal and help him open up and talk about it.

Blake hesitated. What if Pete mocked him, or worse, made one of his snide comments. Could Blake control his temper and his hurt if Pete said something to imply it was Blake’s fault or his mother didn’t love him? That was always what Blake felt but he wasn’t sure if he could stand to hear it from a twelve-year-old even if he knew the boy was just lashing out.

“I-I know it doesn’t compare to what you’ve been through but it was the worse day of my life. When I was ten, I came home from school and found my mother had killed herself. I’ve never gotten over it.” Blake looked up at him expecting the worst, his eyes threatening to tear up again. He knew Pete didn’t need to hear any of the details but he knew the boy was old enough to understand how he felt. “Now I’ve told two people.”

Pete took a hesitant step towards Blake but came no further. But to Blake that was nearly the same as an embrace. There was sympathy in Pete’s expression, not scorn or ridicule.

Blake stood up suddenly as if he was afraid Pete might ask him questions about that day. “Come on, let’s wash up and go get some of that French toast before the
girls eat it all.”

Blake got to the basin first and washed his hands. “Catch,” he said to Pete as he squeezed the soap until it popped out of his hands. Pete wasn’t close enough so Blake grabbed the soap and did it again. This time Pete was standing next to him and caught the slippery cake. Blake bumped his hip against Pete as he poured water from the ewer to rinse the soap away.

As they reentered the master bedroom Blake put his hand on Pete’s shoulder and the boy didn’t pull away.

38

Pete Morgan stood over the bassinet looking at the writhing pink infant. He had awakened at the first whimpers and knew in a few more minutes the baby would be crying wholeheartedly. He quickly changed the wet diaper then picked up the baby and held her to his chest as he swayed and hummed a lullaby. The baby was as beautiful as Lolly had been and he suspected anyone who did not know the girls weren’t true sisters would never suspect they were not related by blood.

Pete remembered being jealous of Lolly when she was first born and how he grew to love her more than any person in the world. He wondered if he would feel the same way about this baby.

The baby girl they named Sarah Donna, had little wisps of dark curly hair like her father but although it was too early to know for certain, appeared to have his blue eyes as well. Lolly would blend right in with her black hair and her blue-green eyes but he never would. No one had straight sandy brown hair or brown eyes.

Pete knew he’d never truly be a Warner – not that he wanted to. He had refused to take Blake’s name despite the fact they had been legally adopted. Lolly hadn’
t either, probably in consideration of his feelings. Blake and Meredith had not forced the issue.