He cranked up the knob on the front of the stove and a flame burst up around the pan.
“Hey, Dad, why don’t you let me do that.” West made a move for the knob to turn it down, but his father waved him away.
“Leave me the hell alone and let me cook my own eggs.” He turned down the flame, put a pat of butter in the pan and fumbled with the egg carton on the counter.
West looked over at his mother, and they winced at each other.
“I remember how much you loved my omelets,” Julia said. “Sure you wouldn’t like me to whip one up for you?”
For the first time since West had been back home, his father smiled.
“Now that you mention it, that sounds perfect.”
She went to the refrigerator and brought out the mushrooms and cheddar cheese West had bought yesterday. West sat and watched a disconcerting time warp occur right in front of him.
All of a sudden, he was transported back over a decade and a half. His parents hadn’t divorced. They’d just aged. Two more marriages and years of bitterness didn’t lie between them.
His father, for the first time in ages, looked sort of…content.
It was heartbreaking.
And he wondered if any woman would ever love him enough to show up and take care of him when he’d become too impossible to care for. Or vice versa.
Could he love Soleil this way?
Or was this even love he was witnessing?
It resembled it, but it also resembled something his parents were far more familiar with: duty.
And right now, he wasn’t so sure there was much difference between the two.
He hadn’t gotten in touch with Soleil since she’d told him about the baby, partly because he was terrified, and partly because he was trying to take his mother’s advice and give the matter time and space, take things slowly, try not to force a resolution.
Everything in him wanted to force a resolution, and he knew if he called Soleil, he’d find it nearly impossible not to start steering the situation in the right direction. Marriage, harmony, family.
Leaving it alone hadn’t been so hard, thanks to his father, who’d kept him busy. Margie, the temporary attendant, had bailed yesterday when his father had groped her then an hour later tried to hit her for attempting to help him in the bathroom.
And now here was his mother, the latest candidate for the attendant job, and by far the most experienced.
Did the idea make sense, or was it crazy?
“So, has West told you his big news?” she asked the General, interrupting West’s brooding.
Oh, God.
What was she thinking? Of course he hadn’t told his dad.
“What? What’s she talking about?” His father gave him a confused look.
“Oh, actually, I haven’t mentioned it yet.” He gave his mother a little glare when she glanced at him from the stove, and she raised her eyebrows in silent reproach.
“Well?” she nudged. “I think he deserves to hear the good news.”
“Dad, my, um, girlfriend and I are going to be having a baby in May.”
“What girlfriend?”
“You haven’t met her. I’ll have to introduce you soon.”
“You got some girl pregnant, and you’re not even married? Who is this girl? Why the hell haven’t I met her yet?” His father banged his fist on the kitchen table to punctuate the rant.
“I don’t really want to get into it right now, Dad. I’ll introduce you soon.”
“Since when is it okay for an air force officer to go around having babies out of wedlock? In my day, an officer didn’t do that kind of thing.”
“I know, Dad. But things happen. Soleil and I haven’t worked out how we’re going to handle things.”
“What the hell’s a So-lay?”
“Soleil is my girlfriend’s name. It’s a French word. It means sun.”
His father still looked perplexed, then, predictably, angry. “What is she, some kind of hippie?”
West ignored that. He glanced at his mom, whose expression was worried now. She turned her gaze from West to the omelet she was watching in the pan. She knew better than to jump into the middle of things.
“You mean to tell me, you got some girl pregnant, and you’re not even marrying her?” He slammed his fist on the table again, causing the salt and pepper shakers to jump this time. “What kind of man are you, anyway? You’re not a man I raised, that’s for damn sure.”
Before West could react, his father pushed himself to his feet and walked out of the room, down the hall to his study. It wouldn’t do any good to follow him, so West simply let out a ragged breath.
“Mom,” he said. “Why…”
He didn’t even have the energy to say the question out loud. But she knew what he wanted to know-why’d she have to go and tell the General?
“Better to get it out in the open now, rather than later. It would only get harder to explain.”
“You could have let me do it in my own time.”
She eased the omelet off the hot pan and onto a plate. “West, dear, I’m sorry. I think I saved you some trouble, though. If you’d tried to tell him on your own, he’d have been worse. With me here as a buffer-”
“Yeah, okay, you’re right.”
And she was. Since childhood, her presence had been the buffer between himself and his father. When she was near, the General was slightly less hostile, slightly more tolerable. Some things never changed, apparently.
As he watched his mother carry the plate to the study, he recognized he definitely didn’t belong here. He didn’t want to be in the middle of this family drama anymore.
Maybe his mother was crazy, too, showing up out of the blue, whipping up an omelet as if she’d never left the place-a mad Betty Crocker bent on reconciliation. Had loneliness finally gotten to her? Was this the first sign of her own mental decay?
He craved an escape from this place. He was tired of trying to please his father, and he wasn’t going to do it anymore.
What that would mean, though, he couldn’t say.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOLEIL COULDN’T KEEP excluding West. She’d avoided the inevitable all weekend, taking long naps and wrapping up loose ends around the farm’s operation and finances before the end of the year. Today was going to be the first day she did things right.
She found his number in her cell-phone address book and hit the Call button. A moment later, his voice was on the other end of the line, sounding clear, as if he’d already been up for a while.
“West,” she said tentatively. “I know it’s early, but I’m calling because I have an ultrasound appointment today, and I thought you might like to join me for it.”
Silence.
“I mean, you know, because you’d get to see the baby on the ultrasound screen.”
“Oh, um…of course,” he finally said, sounding strange. “I’d love to go. What time?”
“It’s at noon in Santa Rosa. Sorry for the short notice.”
“So, an hour to get there…” A pause. “I’ll pick you up at ten-thirty, if that works for you.”
She blinked, stunned. “Uh, sure. That would be great.”
“I’ll see you in two hours then.”
She hung up. In two hours, she’d be driving to the city with West, just like a real couple on their way to see their real baby on an ultrasound screen.
Maybe he’d also want to join her for her Bradley childbirth classes at the community center. Of course he would, and he’d have some definite ideas about what to name the baby-something traditional like Elizabeth or Michael, or maybe even after his own parents…
She had always dreamed of having a normal name that people could spell, instead of the bizarre hippie name her mother had actually chosen. As a girl, she’d dreamed of being a Melissa or a Jennifer. Probably the kind of name West would like.
Okay, stop. You need to calm down and get a grip. Quit getting so far ahead of yourself.
The two hours zipped by as she got ready, answered a few phone calls and made a list of things she needed to buy. Most important, she needed to find a crib. Her father had sent her a check-his way of apologizing for being at a conference in Europe instead of anywhere accessible for the holidays-and intended to use that money to start outfitting the nursery.