A Striking Resemblance

"Shelley, are you all right?"

Would he just shut up with the 'Shelley this' and the 'Shelley that'? "Yeah. It's just, yeah. It's a lot to take in."

"Would you like to stay and talk for a little?"

I just shook my head.

"Okay, are you good to drive home? I'm sure we can get somebody to drop you off."

Again, I shook my head. "I'll be fine."

"Okay. What if you come back and see me tomorrow or the next day and I'll have a couple of recommendations for you on people to speak to?"

Nodding absently, I got to my feet, opened the door, and stepped out. Walking around in a cloud, I couldn't adjust to this new reality. I found myself on the elevator going back up to the nurses' station when I realized I had finished my shift and instead should be heading to my car. I hit the button for the lobby and stared at the wall of the elevator as we went up, then back down again.

I was halfway to my car when I saw Steve working with his crew. I doubled my speed, avoided looking at him again, got in the car and drove away. Like an echo of a less complicated time, I again found myself laying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. Three hours later, I called in and told them that I was taking a personal day. After splashing some water on my face, I checked the time and drove over to Dad's place. I was hoping he would be working late, and I could avoid him.

When I knocked, Haliaka opened the door, saw it was me, turned around and started walking back towards the kitchen. She was talking about something I didn't fully hear or understand. She finally stopped speaking, turned around and noticed that I was still standing on their porch.

"Are you staying out there or are you coming in?"

When I didn't answer, she walked back over. "Shelley?"

It took me a second to respond. "I'm pregnant."

She was clearly unsure of what to say or do. I could see the concern on her face as she wondered if this was good news or bad. Some instinct drove her to do exactly the right thing. Without saying a word, she stepped forward and hugged me.

"What am I going to tell Steve?"

STEVE

Pop was easy to live with. He spent about half of his time at Kate's place and half at home. Our priorities were the same, and we had a similar temperament, so we got along fairly well. In spite of that, I was glad when the strike was over, and he was no longer picketing with the nurses. As much as I loved him, there were only so many hours of the day that I could spend with him. Our lives fell back into their previous routines. He still made money on the side by working on fishing boats. He knew what he was doing on the water, with the fishing and with the customers and he was working off the books, so the captains liked him. The money he took in supplemented his retirement from the military, and the house was paid off.

I tried to align the days that he was with Kate with when Shelley would stay over. We were both discrete, so it wasn't a big deal. Over the years since Gus left high school, Kate had been spending evenings at our place more often. Still, the majority of the time they were together was at her place.

I had enjoyed being able to just look across the parking lot and see Shelley. When she went back to work, those small respites during my day were lost, but it wasn't that bad. We still found time to go across the street to the café or grab something to eat in the cafeteria.

The guys teased me about it, but I didn't really care. Yeah, I'd get a goofy smile on my face when I would look across the parking lot to see Shelley with her colleagues, but I wasn't embarrassed. There was something about her that felt almost peaceful. Just seeing her from afar would settle my nerves, and tension would slowly fade away. If the guys wanted to bust my chops, so be it.

I was looking through some old family albums when the thought struck me that they were soon going to be a relic of the past. No one was going to have analog photos in the future. It was a sad realization. The tactile experience of sitting there and holding the book on your lap as you flip the pages added to the pure visual appreciation. My thumb would slowly caress the plastic holding the photo of Gus and my wife at the top of the page.

Pop's bark of a voice broke my reverie. "For fuck's sake, get a grip."

I rolled my eyes. "What are you going on about now, old man?"

"How often do you go out to the cemetery? Three times a year? Four?"

I shrugged. "Sounds about right."

He shook his head. "You've been there three times in the past couple of months. Now you're sitting here poring over old photos. Whatever you've got going with Shelley isn't a betrayal of Lucinda. She's been gone a long time and since she's passed, this is the longest relationship you've had. I don't want to talk about this shit. No matter what I say, it's going to sound like a cliché, but pull your head out of your ass. You think she wouldn't want you to be happy? To find someone to be with again? You're out of your mind. You overthink shit, Steve. You always have. You were a good husband. You are a good father. You deserve to be with someone like Shelley and nobody, I mean nobody thinks it's a bad thing or that Lucinda wouldn't approve."

I didn't answer him. What I had been doing wasn't clear to me until he brought it up. How on earth was my father more perceptive than I was?

He was right. In a way, I'd spent my life in mourning since I lost her. She was the one great love of my life. Lucinda had meant so much to me, how could it be otherwise? Since that was a given, any other relationship was fleeting and shallow, almost by definition. They had mostly been fun, but only lasted a few weeks. Things with Shelley were different, and somewhere deep inside, I found that disturbing.

Sighing, I closed the album and put it back under the coffee table.

"I'm going down to Sabotelli's to get a hero. You want one?"

"No, I'm good."

I stood up and as I walked past him, Pop grabbed my arm and then stepped in for a quick hug. It felt like being embraced by a grizzly.

"I'm going to head down to the Riverwalk and have my sandwich there. I need to do some thinking."

I took the pickup and when I got down to the river; I ate my sandwich and drank my lemonade while sitting on the back of the truck. Night was getting the upper hand over day, and I watched the dappled shadows on the water as I thought about my wife. Eventually, I went back home, watched something mindless on TV, and went to bed. We got a lot accomplished over the next few days on the job site. I had never slowed things down to the point where I felt guilty. I always put in a good day's work for my pay, and I made sure that my guys did the same. Still, I didn't go above and beyond. Now that the strike was over, that changed. We were going full bore and were again ahead of schedule.

That was how I preferred things. I was very goal driven. If we were preparing to make proposals or if we were in the planning stages, I was fine. Things would take as long as they would take. Once we were actually on the ground and getting things done, that was different. I would jump in with both feet and work single-mindedly until we got it done.

I had been worried about what would happen once we were done with this project. Seeing Shelley whenever I wanted would be off the table. I had been worried about how that might affect us when I realized I was being ridiculous. Worrying about not being able to see someone once or twice during the workday was sort of pathetic. That wasn't who I was. I'd never been insecure, and I wasn't planning on starting now. Making my concerns more ridiculous was the size of Pueblo. No matter where I was in the city, I could get to the hospital quickly. Nothing really would change.

There was nothing proprietary about it, but people seemed to like the breading mix I used on fish. I had some of what Pop brought home from his side gig going in the frying pan when there was a knock at the door. Taking a quick look, I saw that it was Shelley.

"Come on in."

She walked to the entrance to the kitchen and stood there watching me. When a couple of minutes went by without her saying anything, it started feeling awkward.

"Everything okay?"

She took a slow, deep breath. "I'm pregnant."

"You're...pregnant?"

Shelley slowly nodded. "I know it's a lot to take in. Do you want to sit down?"

"You mean like pregnant, pregnant?"

She smiled gently at me. "I only know of one type of pregnant, Steve. Sit down. Let me get you a water."

I plopped myself down on a kitchen chair while she turned off the heat, moved the pan to another burner, and got me a glass of water. I didn't know what to do or what to think. Mindlessly, I drank the water down as I tried to slow things and wrap my brain around Shelley being pregnant.

Two things were swirling around, bouncing against each other. The first was what did she want to do about the pregnancy and how could I support her decision? The second was what if I failed another child like I had failed Gus? I had tried. Lord knows I had tried, but I had never been enough. After we lost Lucinda, he needed me desperately, and I couldn't figure out how to be there.

"How did this happen?"

She could've been a smartass, and jokingly told me about the birds and the bees, but she didn't. Shelley grabbed the other chair, pulled it close, and sat down. Reaching out, she took my hand.

"I know. We are always so careful. But that first night, back in Santa Fe? We weren't, and the timing works."

"So, your" I quickly did the math "nine weeks along?"

She nodded, and we just sat there together, quietly coming to grips with the biggest news I had since the death of my wife. I still needed to figure out what Shelley was thinking and whether she wanted this. I was too numb to make any assessments for myself. One thing that struck me was the lack of sleep I got when Gus was a baby and how much younger I was then.

I gently squeezed her hand. "Have you spoken to anybody about this? Your mom? Your dad?"

She shook her head. "Mom and I don't speak that much. Dad? He's... I don't know. I can't deal with that right now. He's not like normal people. He'd slip into overdrive and take everything to ten. If he knew, the kid would have a fully funded college scholarship in less than a week. My father is a bit much."

"I'm the first person to find out?"

She looked hesitant to answer me. "No. Obviously the doctor knew, I knew, my friend Aaron at work, he knows. And I spoke to Haliaka, Dad's wife."

I found a smile from somewhere. "So, I'm in the top five?"

She gently laughed. "Top five, Steve. That's pretty good. Listen, I know neither one of us was expecting this. I'm going to have the baby. I want you to think about everything. Take your time. Let it settle in. After a couple of days, we'll talk again. If you decide that this is too much and you don't want to be involved, I'll understand. I have resources. I don't need anything."

Shelley was trying to be brave. I'd seen it in the eyes of dozens of young men. Maybe hundreds. They thought they were doing what was right and what was noble, but they were terrified.

"Regardless of what we decide, I'm going to be there with you every step of the way. I --"

She interrupted me. "I wasn't kidding. I don't want to hear that from you now. You're a few minutes into learning some of the biggest news of your life. Take some time to let things settle and do some thinking. I'm going to go, and we'll get back together in a couple of days."

"No, hold on, let's go get dinner."

She stood up. "Steve, respect what I'm asking here, okay? You need some time."

I took a deep breath before nodding. "Okay. Forty-eight hours. If you need me, I'm just a phone call away."

"Take two days. Take three if you need it. Talk to the people that you love."

"Shelley, you are the person that I love, and you just told me to take a couple of days."

That had been the first time I had told her I loved her, and it just flowed from me naturally. No hesitancy, no stumbling, just a smooth declaration of something we both knew was true. She quickly nodded and began walking towards the door. When she hit the porch, she stopped and spoke without turning around.

"I love you too."

I spent the rest of the day lost in thought.

"... cook that?"

I barely caught the tail end of what was being said.

"Hey, clean out your ears. You gonna cook that?"

Pop had walked in and started speaking. I didn't realize that he was there, and I couldn't remember sitting back down. I followed his gaze to the stovetop and saw the cast iron pan with the fish.

"What?"

His look of irritation switched to concern. "You okay?"

"I don't know, Dad. I don't know."

He sighed and sat down in the same chair that Shelley had been in. "You gonna make me drag it out of you?"

I didn't want to talk to anyone. It was as if I was running too fast and was losing control of my legs. Stumbling, I just needed to keep myself upright. Speaking to anyone before I thought things through would just set me on tilt. Still, that's not what I was made of. That's not who we were. Pop didn't run from confrontations, I didn't run from confrontations and Gus had put up with more bullshit in his life than either one of us and he never ran.

I met his gaze. "Shelley's pregnant."

He was quiet for a moment, mouth slightly open. "I see. You know I've got your back, right? I don't need to ask if you're going to do the right thing. I know there must be a million things to think about, but for right now, what can I do? You need some cash?"

He knew that Shelley likely had excellent insurance. Was he talking about nutrients and maternity clothes?

"Money?"

He looked at me as if I was an idiot. "Yeah. For the ring."

For the ring. For the freaking ring. How was he always one step ahead of me?

I shook my head. "No. I've got some cash saved up."

It sounds stupid, but two of the things that I miss most in the world were swinging a baseball bat and swinging an axe. There's something inherently gratifying in doing both. You get out there, let your body take over, and your mind can soar. Using a log splitter was a poor substitute, but that was what was available to me.

Some people who had fireplaces, wood-burning stoves or smokers would have cords of wood delivered and neatly stacked by a local company. That would have been nice, but we never had money like that. Instead, we paid a small fee to buy the remains of old trees from landscapers or grabbed trees grounded by storms before the town got to them.

We'd do the work ourselves, drying the wood in the backyard. That day, I spent hours out there cutting logs down to size, using the splitter and then carrying it over to Gus and Shannon's. It gave me something to do and helped settle my mind. I neatly stacked everything on their porch until I heard Lucinda crying. I sat down, my back to the wood and listened to my daughter-in-law sooth the baby. My mind had been a morass, a quagmire of uncertainty. Everything settled and became firm as I thought of Lucinda. I loved that little girl so much that I thought my heart would burst.

Everything was going to work out. We were going to be okay. No matter what else happened, I was going to be there for my child.

The next day, I was able to get Gus to call me. I had been shopping earlier in the day and I kept staring at the ring as I turned it over and over while he spoke. Gus was telling me about a run he had gone on and how he was finding it difficult to manage time between playing at gigs, practicing, exercising and Face-timing with Shannon and Lucinda. I listened with half an ear before I interrupted.

"Gus, are you happy?"

"Am I happy? I guess so. I miss being home and with the girls, so things aren't perfect, but yeah. I think I'm happy."

He couldn't see me, but I nodded. "Okay. When you were a kid, I don't know, do you have any regrets? Are you all right with how we were?"

"Dad, what's going on?"

"Nothing. Everything's fine. I just needed to hear your voice. I love you, you know that, right?"

"Sure. I love you too. You're okay? Want me to call Shannon and have her come over?"

I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. ""Everything is good. Can't a father just want to talk to his son?"

"I guess. You just... sometimes I can't tell."

I suddenly felt guilty and allowed the conversation to wind down. He had better things to do than to talk to his old man.

"I love you, kid. I'll talk to you soon. I'm sorry if I ever...whatever. I'm proud of you, Gus."

The next day, I was waiting by Shelley's front door when she got off work. I was wearing a suit, and my hands wouldn't stop sweating. When she pulled into the driveway, I stood up. She slowly walked up the walkway to the front of her house.

"Steve?"

"It's been forty-eight hours." I got down on one knee, took the box from my pocket, and flipped it open with my thumb. "Shelley, I want to do the right thing. Will you marry me?"

She looked down at me and smiled, blinking rapidly before replying.

"No. Did you eat yet?"

Did I eat yet? What the hell?

",No. Did you get that? I just asked if you would marry me."

"I did, and I appreciate the gesture, but the answer is no. I've been wanting Chinese all week, is that good with you?"

I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I had absolutely no idea how to proceed. "Yeah. Chinese is fine."

We ordered and Shelley took care of the conversation for the evening, with me throwing in a reply here and there. I desperately needed to regroup and figure this out.

Instead of doing the adult thing and just asking why she didn't want to marry me, I moped for the next couple of weeks. Finally, I was next door to see my granddaughter when Marianne approached.

"Congratulations."

"On?"

She raised an eyebrow as she looked at me. "Are things supposed to be a secret? Shannon and I were seeing the baby's cardiologist when Shelley came out of the office of the nutritionist Shannon used when she was pregnant. If you were keeping this under wraps, then..." Her eyes grew wide in fear. "Steve, please tell me that you knew. Did I just..."

Smiling, I shook my head. "No. I knew. And thanks, I guess."

To say that she looked relieved was an understatement. "So, what are you going to do?"

I shrugged. "I have absolutely no idea."

"You haven't made any decisions yet? Are you going to propose? I mean, it's none of my business, but that's a possibility, right?

"Yeah, that sort of already happened."

I'd grown much closer to Marianne since Lucinda entered our lives. It was a relationship built on mutual respect and maybe that was why I confided in her. I told her what had happened, and she pressed me for details.

She slowly shook her head. "You literally said I want to do the right thing? That's impressive. I don't think that someone could be less romantic if they tried. And you're surprised that she said no? Steve, you have to be kidding. What sort of woman wants to hear 'hey, let's get married so I can meet my obligations and not be wracked by guilt.'"

She forced me to rethink everything, and I realized that she was absolutely right.

"I'm such an idiot."

She shrugged. "Most men are."

The next day, I went out to the cemetery. A month ago, everything about that visit would've been different. I don't know, maybe I would've asked for permission or explained how Lucinda would always be number one in my life. A lot had changed since I had found out that Shelley was carrying our child. Instead of questioning and trying to find answers, I gave them. I told Lucinda what was happening in my life, how I felt and what I was going to do. I was surprised when I didn't feel any different as I drove home.

As I pulled up to the house, I realized that it was because Lucinda hadn't changed. Somewhere down deep, I had always known that she wanted the best for me. She wouldn't want me to be alone. That wasn't who she had been. She'd want me to find someone else to live my life with and I felt that somewhere, somehow, she was smiling.