LITMIR.BIZ

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an emotionally healthy place before she could face him. God, that sounded like a lame, made-up excuse. She really hadn’t thought this whole thing through. There were thousands of times she could have told James he was a father. Phone call, text message, Skype, social media. She had all his contact information.

      And if those weren’t immature solutions to an all-too-adult problem, Mara wasn’t sure what was. Her therapist would have a field day with her trying to tell James he was a father by cell phone, social media or Skype. She might as well fully revert to her teenage self and break up with a guy by text message.

      She considered contacting him to set up one of their clandestine meetings, and then telling him once she had him alone. That had seemed just as awful as telling him over the phone. So she didn’t call at all. The longer she’d put off contacting him, the harder that call became until she’d convinced herself she would simply go home to break the news. There had been plenty of reasons not to come to Slippery Rock—her work, her therapy, Zeke cutting teeth, having a bad cold. Damn it, it was Cheryl quitting that had finally started Mara seriously considering coming back. Not because she needed babysitters, but because of Cheryl’s commitment to her family. Mara wanted that connection, that commitment for herself. Then the tornado hit, and she’d known she couldn’t keep making excuses. She had to tell James. Had to face her family. She couldn’t continue to be the kind of runaway her own parents were.

      James had already walked away, and, God, why suddenly did James not wanting to be part of Zeke’s life hurt so bad? Until she’d seen him do it last night, the possibility of him stepping out of Zeke’s life had seemed so much simpler than sharing parenting duties.

      There was every chance her family would walk away, too.

      “Okay, Mara, you have the plan. Now get out of this B and B and set things in motion,” she said, standing. She turned off Zeke’s activity stand, and he shook his fists at her in annoyance. “We have an appointment,” she said, and he grinned as if he knew what that meant. Probably it was just gas. He still smiled when he had gas.

      Mara blew out a breath, picked up Zeke and slung the colorful tote she used as a diaper bag over her shoulder. She could keep looking for a reason to stay holed up in the B and B or she could be a grown-up and face the music with her family.

      She was saving the rest of her conversation with James for another time, though. After last night, she was unprepared to tell him he had no responsibilities where Zeke was concerned. Where she was concerned. She gently tweaked Zeke’s nose.

      “Okay, little guy, here we go. Don’t worry. They’re going to love you,” she said, hating the slight emphasis on that last word. Gran hadn’t turned her, Collin and Amanda away when they were little, but Mara was an adult now. An adult who shouldn’t have kept this part of her life secret for so long.

      Zeke put his pudgy hands on her cheeks and mumbled something that sounded peculiarly like, “Don’t worry, mama.” It was impossible. Zeke had two words in his vocabulary at this point, and neither was don’t, worry or ma. He said dog periodically and had said ball a handful of times.

      Still, his mumbling steadied her, and she rested her forehead on his for a moment, breathing in the scent of powder and lotion and little boy. After a moment, her stomach muscles relaxed, and breathing no longer felt as if she were dragging air through passages lined with sharpened sticks.

      Downstairs, she locked Zeke into his car seat, then buckled herself into the driver’s seat. He waved his hands as he watched the world go by out the rear window. The narrow streets of downtown Slippery Rock rolled by, opening up to the wider state highway that led to the orchard. Despite being a weekday, there wasn’t much traffic on the road. She passed a couple of farm trucks and a few minivans, but the cattle and alpacas—she would have to ask Collin when alpacas had come to Slippery Rock—outnumbered the humans she passed. Everyone lifted their fingers in the familiar steering wheel wave she remembered from her teenage years.

      No one staffed the small roadside stand her grandfather built the year Collin turned twelve and she turned eleven, and she pulled into the drive leading to the orchard.

      A few stumps were still visible in the apple orchard, but saplings outnumbered the stumps. She spotted the red roof of the big barn in the distance, and as her SUV cleared the drive, the old house came into view. Red-roofed like the barn, the two-story farmhouse hadn’t changed. A porch swing rocked in the light breeze. The steps leading up to the door were lined with Gran’s snapdragons. The tall oak still stood in the middle of the drive with a rope swing hanging from a branch.

      She’d learned to swing on the old tractor seat. Had pushed Amanda when she was little. Had hidden in the branches with Collin when their parents had shown up unexpectedly one spring. She and Collin had been petrified their parents would make them go to whatever cramped and dirty apartment they lived in, but a few hours later their parents drove away. Granddad came to sit in the swing, pretending to talk to himself as he reassured the two of them that they didn’t have to go anywhere.

      She wanted to go inside. Wanted to push open the door and announce herself like she belonged there. Well, Gran had always said this was her home.

      Mara gathered Zeke and the baby bag and walked up the steps and into the house. The same hardwood floors greeted her, the same overstuffed furniture. The TV was still in the corner near the fireplace, the sofa under the big picture window. To her left, the dining room led to the kitchen and the family room.

      “Anybody home?” she called out, because usually there was some kind of noise inside the house, but today there was nothing.

      “Back here, sweetheart.” She heard her grandmother’s voice from the kitchen and started in that direction. “Just putting a pie for the weekend farmers’ market in the oven. They’re finishing up the new roof this afternoon and—” Gran stopped talking when Mara crossed the threshold. “You have a baby.”

      Gran’s blue eyes, so similar to Mara’s own, widened. Zeke waved his fist in the air, then buried his face in Mara’s shoulder. He was a happy, well-adjusted baby, but new people always made him a bit shy.

      “I do.” Mara was unsure what to say, how to read the shock on Gran’s face. Good shock? She seemed a little pale, and the knuckles had turned white from their tight grip on the countertop. Gran broke her hip earlier this year, and Collin had been very worried. Mara didn’t want Gran to collapse. Maybe she should have waited until Collin was at the house before walking in. “Gran, why don’t you sit down?” Mara took her grandmother’s arm, leading her to the Formica-topped table while balancing Zeke on her hip.

      Gran brushed Mara’s hands away. “You have a baby.” She squeezed Mara’s hand. “He has your grandfather’s chin.” Then she smacked her hand against Mara’s shoulder. She winced, more from surprise than pain. “Why didn’t you tell us, Butter Bean?” Her eyes narrowed and she glared at Mara for a moment, but behind the glare was something that looked a lot like love. Support.

      This, this almost immediate acceptance was beyond any of Mara’s expectations. She closed her eyes for a moment. It was going to be okay. It would take time, especially with James, but things would work out. She could do this. She would do this.

      “Mara?” Gran’s voice brought her back to the cozy kitchen, and she sat in the chair across from her grandmother.

      All the reasons she’d kept Zeke from her family tumbled through her mind. She wanted to get herself together. She hadn’t told James. But all of those reasons skirted around the truth she’d been afraid to admit even to herself. And in this kitchen, the one where she’d eaten butter beans and declared they were the only bean she would ever like, where she’d cried when the school put her in the advanced program, where she’d run after every minor and major scrape in her life, she couldn’t tell a half-truth.

      “I was afraid,” she said. She hadn’t even told the therapist about her fear. That Gran would think badly of her, that this would be the thing that caused her family finally to turn away from her. She knew it was silly. Babies brought families together, at least in books and on television. In her specific case, though, babies made adults

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