The Light and The Fire Ch. 03

Thanks for coming over from First Time, those of you who came over. Those of you from here in Romance, read up on the first two chapters -- get yourself some context.

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When Melanie Clayton, my high school crush and first-time sexual partner, had invited me to our twentieth class reunion, she told me to expect an evening full of surprises. There was no way I could have known -- as indeed no man can -- that these surprises would include a young woman of nineteen, standing in a hotel room and claiming to have been conceived from the single sexual encounter Melanie and I had shared. Such news was too big to wrap my head around in a single sitting, especially at midnight with a seven o'clock wake up call pending. Melanie knew the weight of it, saying, "This isn't something to discuss so lightly... we'll talk about it tomorrow. But we will talk about it, you can be sure about that." She slipped into the bathroom and changed into a tee and blue jean shorts; when she had finished, Sara (the aforementioned nineteen-year-old) did the same.

They took different beds; Melanie turned to me and said, "You may not want to, but... there's room here if you do want it." I kicked off my shoes, took off my tie, sighed, and got in beside her. "Hope you don't mind sleeping in your clothes," she half-mumbled.

"I'm thirty-eight and divorced... falling asleep in my clothes is what I do best these days," I half-grinned. Sleeping would be difficult for me, in light of so much catching up, but I settled in. In spite of myself, I kissed Melanie behind her left ear, then put my arm around her waist.

She snuggled up a little more closely, then moved my hand so that I was holding her breast. "Mmm, you do feel like old times," she whispered as we nodded off -- or tried to.

From the other bed, "I heard that -- go to sleep, you two!" I tried to, but couldn't fall asleep for an hour. In the course of that hour, however, I held Melanie while she slept -- and sniffled away a tear at how peaceful she looked.

Next morning, we three, still dressed as we were, went downstairs for the final festivity -- an alumni breakfast. Melanie and I decided to camp it up, smiling with our arms around each other as though we had actually been our class's homecoming king and queen. At least one of our better-natured ribbing classmates asked how lucky we'd gotten; Melanie smiled, but with an edge to her voice as she said, "That's for us to know and you to guess." Sara took a break from her own pie-eyed grin to shoot this guy a "So there!" look.

Over this breakfast, Melanie would only say that we would still talk, but insisted we do so at her home, an invitation I accepted. On the way over, she stopped at the grocery to buy a large can of coffee, advising I do the same -- so I did. "We're going to need it," she said, and I wasn't going to disagree.

After we got to her house and set our coffee brewing, we gathered around her table. Melanie stepped forward before I could: "You wanna know why, don't you."

"That... would be helpful, yes." I looked back across at her, and then at Sara's hopeful expression. Any man would want to know why his child would be kept from him, let alone for twenty years, and I was no different.

"I'll tell you why, and what."

"I'm listening."

"We did this in August, right?" I nodded. "Well, you can figure out about September... I told Mom and Dad as soon as I was sure. We all agreed that it would be best for me to come back home, with a good refund on my fees."

"Were they... mad at you? They didn't kick you out?"

"Kick me out? Kick me out?!" Melanie's voice raised to a pitch of disbelief, slight anger to think that I would have such an opinion of her parents, and many women's traditional "How clueless can you men be?" attitude. "This was 1979, not 1959... they were like me." She then turned to Sara, tousling her hair. "They loved you as soon as they knew about you." Then, turning back to me, "But that part of my life, my college, was on hold. And no -- they love Sara even now, but they weren't the happiest about the circumstances that led to her. After a while, they gave up trying to make me tell them you were Sara's father." She and Sara brushed hands briefly. "While I was pregnant, people did talk behind my back, thinking I didn't know they were talking... once I had her, though, you'd be surprised how fast they came around. These same people came to us, told us we looked pretty together."

"I dare say!" I smiled, but it was a fading smile. "But I didn't mean to take that away from you -- your college, I mean," I said regretfully.

"Wasn't a hard trade at all. I moved back home, worked here and there, and did that until I went up to Omaha and had her. Besides, she doesn't charge student loan debt."

"Yeah, those are a bitch, aren't they," as I thought of only recently having paid off mine.

She turned to Sara. "For you, I'd've been happy to work grocery checklanes the rest of my life..."

Sara gave an "I've heard this story before" half-smile, answering with "But yeah, Grandpa said you gotta do for us, not just me."

Melanie nodded. "That's when I went to a Become A Travel Agent course, got set up with that, and got a business going in town. Who woulda guessed," she said with an ironic twist to her voice. "It took all that, but they sought me out -- and that's how I became, at last, the most popular girl in Ashwood."

As yet, no Why had been forthcoming, but I was patient for now. I continued to listen as Melanie told on about her life, how they had moved up to Villa Vista after Sara had finished fourth grade. This provided a transition into Sara's story, how her own life had known a change in direction.

Anyone who deals in educating very small children, and also with children in primary grades, will tell this truth: when parents model the kinds of activities they enjoy, their children will likewise want to partake of those activities. Caroline knows this truth well, which is what led not only her students, but our sons, to the interests in music and literature they enjoy to this day.

Sara had been no different; at the age of about three or four, she and Melanie had been looking through some Ashwood yearbooks. When she saw a photo of the 1979 cheer squad, she said, "Can I be like you, Mommy?" From that moment, Melanie didn't need to pressure Sara into cheer or into sports, any more than the sun needs pressure to rise. There was, however, one sport Sara loved, but Ashwood schools didn't offer at the time -- soccer. Villa Vista, on the other hand, did; this led to Melanie's decision to move there with Sara. It also led to two other things: Sara's tearing her right ACL in a summer pick-up game when she was fourteen, and her resulting desire to become a physical therapist. In fact, this was her major in Lincoln; she was going into her junior year the following month. Even in light of her knee injury, however, Sara still had the heart of a dancer; this is why she, with Melanie's help, wrote her own low-impact part for the previous evening's Le Freak dance number.

I smiled. "You've done very well for yourselves," for which they both thanked me. "But it still doesn't explain why."

Melanie took a long sip of coffee, then reached for my hand; I held hers gently. "You and I. We were 'why.'"

There are two classes of people whom we Midwesterners hold in particularly low regard: men who father children and skate off without taking responsibility for those children, and women who keep men away from their children without just cause. I was that man, and Melanie was that woman; to that end, I awaited an explanation.

"What would you have done if you had known?"

"You say you loved Sara when you found out about her, right?"

"Of course I did," and she put her arm across Sara's shoulder.

"I would have too --"

"And you'd've asked to marry me, wouldn't you." Before I could say my truthful Yes, she countered. "It's also why, even today, Mom and Dad don't know you're Sara's father -- getting married under those circumstances would have been the biggest mistake of our lives."

"I had -- have -- a child, to whom I've never gotten to be a proper father. Not having me there for her, that's the mistake!"

Again, Melanie was too mentally agile. "Danny... I can see from your words and your face. You love her, it's plain as anything. But 'wham, bam, we're expecting a little ma'am' was nothing to build a future on -- for her or us." She then sprang the trap on me: "What if you had married me -- doesn't Caroline figure into things?"

"Wait, who's Caroline?" Sara's interest was suddenly piqued, and not in a good way. "My God, you're married?'

I sank down, my chin in my hands. "Was."

Melanie was atop the situation. "And if you'd been with me, would you have met her or married her?"

I now saw her viewpoint, and I clearly saw the cruelty of how correct she was: my marriage to Caroline, and the existence of our sons, had been purchased at the cost of the husband I should have at least tried to be for Melanie, and the father I should have been for Sara. But Melanie wasn't finished: "How long were you and Caroline together?"

"From meeting her until our divorce?" She nodded. "I'd say... about fifteen years or so."

"So you see, you were a couple for many years, you have a history. You and I were a couple -- if you can call us that -- for not even a whole day." Being unable to compile a counterargument, I sat listening. "Your history with Caroline couldn't keep the two of you together -- Sara aside, what did we have?"

I shook my head as a defeated, "Help me, Lord," crossed my lips.

"What's wrong?" they chorused.

"You both belong in my life," I said with a partly hopeful air. "But I need to expand it, to make room for you."

"You don't need to worry about it anymore," said Sara as she turned away.

"And why not?"

"If you have to make room for me, don't bother." She was sullen now, her voice ragged. "Just go your way... you and Mom can have happy memories of each other when you're getting older, and --" she was now sniffling hard -- "I'll be your dirty little secret for the rest of my life."

That's what tripped my trigger. "Sara Dianne, how dare you!"

"How dare I what?"

"You are nobody's dirty little secret, and never will be." I went over to hug her, but my voice remained authoritarian. "Let me tell you what you are and aren't."

"We're both listening," Melanie offered as she rubbed Sara's shoulders.

"What you are, that's obvious -- both of you are human beings, with hearts."

"So why're you breaking them?" This was from Melanie.

"What you're not, are bombs to be dropped in the laps of other human beings with hearts." I took a deep breath. "If you're who you say you are, Sara --"

It was Sara's turn. "You don't believe us?"

"My own heart wants to believe you -- hell, it does already -- but it's not my heart who needs to believe you." I gathered my thoughts. "I'm gonna need rock solid evidence."

"You mean a DNA test?"

"It'll only be a formality, but this way I can tell people who we really are." I hugged her again, stroking her hair gently as she tapered off crying. "You have a big family waiting for you, but we need to be sure before we tell them."

"Then let's get sure -- wait a minute." She turned to Melanie, brightening somewhat. "Did you hear that, just a minute ago?" She broke out into a grin, despite herself. "He... he got mad at me... and called me by my first and middle name!"

Melanie and I smiled at each other, after which I turned to Sara. "You wanna be my kid? Then you better be all right with being talked to like you're my kid," and kissed the top of her head.

"Oh, I'm plenty all right with it!" she said with a fully restored smile. "So when can we get that test done."

"No need to go yet," Melanie offered to me. "Stay and have lunch with us?" I accepted -- though we weren't official yet, I was enjoying doing, for the second time that day, what we three had never before done. We were eating together -- if not as a family, closely enough to suit us.

We were able to schedule (and thus to take) the test for a week from the coming Tuesday, with results due back shortly before Sara was to return to Lincoln; we all agreed, however, that we would not open our results until we were all together again, around Melanie's table.

When the returns came in, we were right -- the test was a formality, a motion to go through -- but our hearts still soar at the gist of the letter: "You, Mr Everton, are the biological father of Sara Clayton, and that to the exclusion of all other men on Planet Earth."

The easy parts -- making love with Melanie those years ago, meeting Sara, and taking the test -- were now behind us. The results in hand, Sara broke things down for me:

"For nineteen years, I've been the little girl looking into the audience at my dance recitals, or into the crowd at my soccer games, crying because my daddy wasn't there to see me -- and I've mourned that for a long time, but no more. I came to accept, even while knowing you, that you and I can never be a true father and daughter. You don't deserve it --"

"I know." I gave a resigned sigh. "But why'd you bother looking for me, if I don't deserve it."

"Because I wanted to meet the man who helped give me my life, and thanks be to God" -- she grinned and gave me a light, playful slug-bug hit to my right upper arm -- "you seem a nice guy. Mom still wants to be friends with you, so that counts big with me; I won't say you don't deserve my own friendship." (While Sara was talking, Melanie and I slipped arms around each other.) "Nothing wrong with a girl being friends with half the reason she's on this earth, now is there."

"Can't say there is," I said as I fought back tears of happiness.

"But that's what it's gotta be -- friendship and no more." She turned deadly serious. "I spent all these years mourning for a relationship I didn't have, a father who wasn't there. You're here now, but all we can be is just friends."

"I'll take that over nothing."

"Here's the deal: you can spend the rest of your life mourning the little girl whose daddy you weren't, or you can move forward with Mom and me and be our friend -- but it's one or the other, and the time to decide is right now. If you pick the first, I reserve the right to never let you have the second. So -- what's it gonna be."

Before I could answer, she gave me a caveat. "You can do the first after all, but on your time only. I've had enough sadness of my own, so no need to share." She then looked at me, hope in her eyes. "Again, what's it gonna be."

"Do you really have to ask?" I brushed tears away, then held out my hands. "Forward unto the breach -- my friends." Melanie, Sara, and I hugged and cried, but none of us had ever been happier.

When I recovered myself, I said, "When do you have to go back to Lincoln?"

"End of next week, why?"

I found my smile again. "We've got a stop to make in Ashwood."

"We do?"

"I'll call them first, but yes we do." I didn't reveal too much, only that I was going down to Lincoln and wanted to see them. They, of course, were glad to look forward to it. And so it was that, three days before the start of her junior year of college, my daughter met her grandparents for the first time. She'd known them before, but only peripherally, only as Mr and Mrs Everton, and they knew Melanie and Sara as "those nice, sweet Clayton girls;" this was the first time they were meeting as grandparents and granddaughter. We explained the events of 1979, after which Sara stepped forward, results in hand.

The meeting went mostly as I thought it would. Here sat Melanie and I, both nearing forty but still getting lectured about responsibility toward our children, taking particular note of Melanie's silence for so long. To be brief, they loved us, but not the way we'd acted -- and all we could do was take our medicine like purported grown-ups.

Toward Sara, however, they took no such dim view. Until that day, their only known grandchildren had been my sons, and my then-two-year-old niece, Yvette, the daughter of my brother Chuck. Of Sara herself, they had one idea only, and that was to love her and welcome her to the family.

After we left there, we drove across town to face Mr and Mrs Clayton. Their big disappointment was not in my getting their daughter pregnant (they were no big fans of teenage sexual intercourse, but they were cooler with it -- after all, no sex would have meant no Sara), but that Melanie had been so tightlipped as to erase me, to keep me from knowing and from taking responsibility, no matter our outcome (or lack thereof) as a couple. Thankfully, Sara was there to set them right, to tell them all that she had told me; that seemed to mollify them. If their granddaughter could have me for a friend, so could they.

We got Sara down to Lincoln, settled her in with wishes of luck, then asked for her next free weekend; in so doing, I asked her if she knew where Wyandotte, Kansas is. She didn't, so I gave her a geographic rundown and had her make plans to go with us; she liked the idea of a road trip, but I had another thought. When I got back to my house, I placed a call -- to make sure Caroline and the boys would be home on that chosen weekend. And they would be.

"Someone you need to meet," is all I would say.

When we went down, Caroline smiled graciously toward Melanie and Sara, not yet knowing who they were. As usual, my boys were happy to see me -- but after dinner, I told them who they needed to meet. I told them, especially DJ (ten at the time) and Joe (eight), that when I was eighteen, I'd been intimate with Melanie and was therefore Sara's father.

Although the empirical and chronological evidence showed her otherwise, Caroline shook her head heavily, not knowing what to think of the single day I had spent with Melanie. I had done my due diligence long since, in our engagement when I told her about Melanie; Sara, on the other hand, was news to her.

"I owed this telling to you and the boys," I said; I reached for her hand, and she didn't pull it away. She even let me sit on the couch beside her and hold her as she cried some. She didn't talk about the choice I had never had to make, the choice between her and Melanie, but I could see it weighing on her as it had on me.

"I tried," she said to Melanie while wiping her eyes. "We were good to each other, he and I... but we didn't work out. Not every couple does, you know." She squeezed my hand. "Hopefully, you won't look at me as his rebound, or his Other Woman."

Sara was again a voice of gentle reason. "You didn't work out with him anymore than Mom did" -- she touched Caroline's other hand -- "but like Mom, you worked out how you were supposed to, when you were supposed to." She hugged Caroline and kissed her on the forehead. "It's OK"; she then smiled as she turned toward the boys. "So you guys are my brothers, huh?"

Joe went first, his face a solid grin. "Hey Mom, we got a big sister!"

DJ turned immediately from well-behaved young man to impish boy. "You dating guys yet?"

I, Sara, and the two mothers came across with "Don't be rude!" and similar statements; Sara, however, blushed and said that she did from time to time. Nothing serious, just a nice guy every so often. That was another twist of Time's knife in my gut, to be the father of a dating daughter.

The boys should have taken the hint to leave off, but didn't. "Can we come along?" Joe jibed.

"We can hide in the back seat and be chaperones!" DJ kidded along, and Sara took it in stride.

Caroline had an idea of her own, turning on puppy-dog eyes. "Yeah, let these boys come along? Please?" When Sara shook her head good-naturedly, Caroline delivered the crusher while maintaining her playful air. "Just let them hide in the back seat, won't you -- I'll let you have my blessing when you stuff them in the trunk!" She then turned back to the boys, smiling but with a "Try me and see if I'm really bluffing" look; it's funny how quickly they settled back down. It was, however, plain to see; while we parents and grandparents sorted through the politics of our relationships, Sara and the boys had hit it off, with an undercurrent of love behind their teasing and cutting-up -- the way siblings are supposed to do.