Father Found

Excited by the memories, Gusty pursued them, trying to remember more.

And as her mind chased those few details, it was as though a mist fell between her and them, closing them off.

She wanted to throw something but forced herself to calm down. She’d been warned this would be a slow and unpredictable process. She had to be patient.

Briskly she brushed her hair and wound it into a loose knot. She pulled out a few tendrils at her ears and her temple, then studied her reflection in surprise.

Why had she done that? Was that memory or habit? At least it was a new variation on the old question.

Momentarily tired of that worry, she brushed the sides up tidily, retied the knot and looked in her closet for something more stylish to wear.

But there was nothing. Bram said she’d lost everything she’d had with her when the rental car sank with her luggage. They’d left home quickly after the mysterious calls and she’d brought only the clothes on her back—this dress. He had bought her a few things—the overalls she wore all the time because they were comfortable, and a pair of black maternity slacks and a big white sweater that hung in the closet beside the overalls.

That was it.

And for reasons she couldn’t explain, that made her dissolve into tears.

She ripped off the offending flannel shirt and the dress.

GUSTY WAS STANDING in front of her closet in a long slip and a very no-nonsense white cotton bra when Bram found her. He’d stacked the wood and had gone looking for a cup of coffee when he’d seen the pot was empty and she wasn’t in the kitchen cooking or in the living room, working on the baby sweater she was knitting.

“What?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. Her large belly rested under her breasts like some globular support. She looked tearful and cross. “What do you want?”

He advanced into the room with some trepidation. She was the dearest woman he’d ever known, but she had a temper to rival his own when it was aroused. What had done it this afternoon?

“A cup of coffee,” he said carefully. “But the pot’s empty. What’s the matter?”

“Just because I can cook,” she said angrily, snatching up his old flannel shirt off the bed, “It doesn’t mean I have to, does it? I mean, you’re perfectly capable of making coffee!” She jammed an arm into a sleeve.

“I didn’t mean you had to make it. I just…”

“You just wondered why I hadn’t!” One sleeve on, she reached behind herself for the other, growing testier as it eluded her. “Well, maybe I didn’t feel like cooking! Maybe, if we’re going to be stuck out here for all eternity, I’m giving some thought to spinning yarn and weaving cloth and making myself something to…damn it! Where the hell is the…”

Knowing he was risking life and limb, he came behind her, put her arm into the sleeve and danced back quickly as she rounded on him, yanking the fronts of the shirt together. Or trying to. They gaped over the baby.

That made her cry.

He shifted his weight and analyzed the situation, knowing touching her wouldn’t be safe. This was new territory for him. He’d faced her temper before, but not without a valid reason behind it. He had to find out what the problem was.

“Gus?” he asked reasonably.

“I don’t want to be Gus!” she snarled at him, then stomped out of the bedroom and into the living room, where she didn’t seem to be able to decide where to go from there. She turned in circles.

He stood aside and waited.

“I don’t want to be huge and ugly and completely unfamiliar to myself.”

“You’re not unfamiliar to me,” he put in quietly.

That didn’t help. “Well, you’re unfamiliar to me!” she shouted back tearfully. “I don’t know my own husband! Can you have any idea what that feels like?” She put a hand to her stomach, her voice quieting a decibel. “I don’t remember making this baby. If I could, it might make up in some way for the fact that I look like a polar bear with a red wig! A polar bear with nothing to wear!”

Well, now he knew what the problems were—and there were several of them—but he couldn’t do anything about most of them.

He concentrated on the one for which he had a solution.

“He was conceived after we went dancing,” he said. She’d stopped at the window looking out onto the rainy meadow, an amusing picture in tennis shoes, a long slip, and a flannel shirt that didn’t close. “We’d had a little champagne and the orchestra played a tango.”

She turned to him in surprise. “We can tango?”

He grinned. “No, we can’t. And we proved it that night. We were at the American Legion dance in the Baptist church’s community hall and ended up in a very undignified pile at the foot of the stage.”

She winced. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “As I recall, it was a physics problem. I had swung you out and was reeling you back in when you tripped, crashed against me and we both went down.”

“Did they throw us out?”

“No, they applauded. I think they appreciated our guts. Or our stupidity. I’m not sure which.”

Her smile crumpled suddenly and a tear fell. “I wonder what happened to my guts,” she asked plaintively. “I’m scared and tired and…” She lost her last shred of composure. “Really, really fat!”

He wrapped her in his arms, half-expecting her to resist, but she stood docilely against him, weeping as he rubbed her back.

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