A Child Of His Own Read online

  The sweet fragrance of Martin’s pipe tobacco filled the kitchen, mingling with the aroma of fresh coffee brewing.

  Feeling comfortable and strangely at home, Ben said, “When I think of the Catskills, I think of gefilte fish and comedians. I never realized how beautiful it is up here, and so close to Manhattan.”

  “But that’s the problem,” Martin complained behind a veil of smoke. “Up here we have some of the best trout streams and prettiest mountains in the whole country, not to mention the art colonies and the ski resorts. Problem is, too many people want a part of it.”

  Dory set three cups of coffee on the table. “Now you’ve done it. You’ve gotten him started.”

  “Practically everywhere you look,” Martin went on, “pastures once filled with holsteins are now dotted with houses built by the flatlanders.”

  “Sugar?” she asked.

  “Three,” said Ben.

  “Milk?”

  “Light.”

  His coffee was light and sweet, just the way he liked it. From over the rim of his cup he questioned, “What are flatlanders?”

  “That’s what the native Catskillers call the city folk,” Dory explained.

  “Second homes, mind you,” said Martin, growing more agitated. “When the local folk are losing their first and only homes, those people are building second homes.”

  Dory gave Ben an apologetic look. “The folks in these parts work hard to keep their farms going, often holding two or three jobs to make ends meet. Dairy farms are disappearing at auctions throughout the counties. I was at an auction where a wagon wheel fetched more without the wagon because the bidder, a new arrival to the area, wanted it to decorate his front lawn.”

  Martin shook his head solemnly. “They took the best farmland in Delaware County.”

  Dory said with a sigh, “It was bound to happen. A few hundred of us can’t sit on all this beautiful land and deprive others.”

  Ben was struck by her sense of fairness. As much as she might have resented the invasion of the flatlanders, at least she was fair enough to grant them their right to be there. Might she also show the same fairness and understanding for the circumstances surrounding his past? In spite of the spark of hope that ignited inside of him, a voice from the ashes of his past warned him to be careful and not reveal too much about himself.

  Dory grew uncomfortable beneath the weight of Ben’s dark gaze. He was looking at her in the most curious manner, not in the intimate way that a man looked at a woman, making her cheeks flame with color, but in a searching, questioning way that she sensed had nothing to do with hormones.

  She pushed her chair back and rose from the table. “I’d better go help Jason with his bath.” With that, she made her escape.

  Chapter 4

  Once Dory had left the room, Martin tapped the pipebowl on his palm and emptied the spent ashes into an ashtray. “That’s my cue.” Laying down his pipe, he went to the sink where the dishes waited.

  “I’ll give you a hand with those,” Ben offered.

  From over his shoulder, Martin replied. “Nonsense. This is my job. If I know Dory, she’s had you working your butt off all day. She can be a real taskmaster, that one.”

  Ben reached for a dish towel and began to dry anyway. “You could’ve fooled me.”

  On the contrary, she had a way of requesting in that gentle voice of hers, with a quick unconscious lowering and lifting of her lashes, that made Ben feel instantly like putty in her hands.

  “She works pretty hard herself. She spent all day working on the carousel.”

  Martin shook his head and muttered, “Day after day she works on that thing, often late into the night, with only the light of the lantern to see by.”

  “I offered to help her with it, but she said she could handle it.”

  “Dory likes to do things her own way,” Martin offered. “She’s quite an artist. It’s amazing what she’s done with those horses.”

  “I may not be an artist,” said Ben, “but there must be something I can do to help her.”

  Martin rinsed the last dish and turned off the water. “I expect she’ll ask for your help when she wants it. Give her some time, my boy. She’ll come around.” He picked up his pipe from the table and left the kitchen.

  Ben remained to dry the last of the dishes. Would she? he wondered skeptically. Come around, that is? Judging from her standoffish manner, it didn’t seem likely. Meanwhile, the seeds of suspicion about Jason, planted only that afternoon upon learning that the boy was adopted, sprouted like weeds in the hothouse of his mind.

  Maybe her desire to maintain a wary distance between them was the best thing. If, by some crazy stroke of luck, Jason did turn out to be his son, it would make taking him away from her that much easier.

  Yet as much as Ben wanted to believe that Jason was his son, thinking the physical resemblance between them to be no mere coincidence, he grappled with his conscience over it. He had watched Dory and Jason together during dinner when neither was aware that they were being observed. It was easy to see from the unbounding affection she lavished on the boy that, regardless of who had given birth to Jason, Dory was his mother. How could he even think of taking him away from her? Then again, if Jason was his son, how could he not?

  Perhaps it was best to tell her of his suspicion now and get it over with. No matter if he stayed two weeks or two months, he knew that the more he became involved in these people’s lives, the harder it would become to keep his suspicions to himself.

  He found Martin outside on the porch, sitting in a rocking chair, rocking and smoking his pipe in silence. He sat down on the top step and gazed out into the surrounding darkness for many long minutes without speaking. The trees stood like sentries in the darkness. Through them he could make out the carousel, a pale and ghostly image against the night.

  Martin’s voice broke the evening stillness in a low, reminiscing tone. “I was born right here in Delaware County, raised in the company of foxes and owls. Used to have a farm in the old days. Nothing much. A few head of dairy cows and some corn. Enough to keep us going. It’s difficult land. With each frost and thaw that old earth heaves up a new crop of stones that have to be cleared before spring plowing can begin. We call it picking rock.” He drew on his pipe and let the smoke out slowly through pursed lips to disperse into the evening breeze.

  “Sounds like hard work,” said Ben from the moonlit shadows.

  “Harder than most, not as hard as some. Planting in spring, haying in summer, harvesting the corn in fall. Winter was the time for fixing the machinery. Sometimes I can still feel the flanks of the cows warming my cheek on those cold, dark winter mornings when I did the milking. There’s a rhythm to farming that gets in your blood and stays there no matter what else you might do in life.”

  “How’d you go from farming to running an amusement park?”

  “The bank took the farm in the late fifties. By then, my wife was gone. My son and daughter-in-law had everything invested in this place, so I came here to live with them.” A shadow crossed his face in the moonlight. “We lost them both in a car accident about twelve years ago. After that it was just Dory and me running the place.”

  There was something about the way the old man spoke fondly of his past despite its hardships and tragedies that made Ben envious. Here was a man who had found serenity in his life, something Ben longed for after years of turmoil and disillusionment in his own life.

  “What about Dory’s husband?”

  Martin gave a slow, sad shake of the head. “Eddie wasn’t suited for it. Then came the trouble, and...” His words trailed off into awkward silence.

  Ben didn’t press the issue. He knew firsthand how painful some memories could be.

  “I hear the fishing is pretty good in these parts.”

  “That would be the Beaver Kill and Willowemoc,” Martin eagerly replied. “Two of the best trout streams in the East. Say, do you fish?”

  He’d spent a lot of time in prison thinking
about the small, everyday things he swore he would savor if he ever got the chance. “It’s something I always wanted to do but just never found the time for. I’d love to give it a try, though. What do you use? Worms?” The prospect delighted him.

  “Usually. But take it from an old trout fisherman, my boy There’s one thing you must always put on your hook, and that’s your heart.”

  There was something warm and comfortable and immensely appealing to Ben about the joy Martin derived from the simple pleasures of life—a joy Ben found himself yearning to know. He laughed softly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’ve been teaching Jason how to fly-fish,” said Martin. “By the way, that was a nice thing you did, offering to let the boy help you build the plane. He doesn’t get much opportunity to be with a man young enough to be his father. All he has is me, and I’m old.”

  It was the first time Ben had ever heard anyone refer to him as being a father, or anything even remotely like it, and it shook him to his core. Was it possible? Could he really be? A father, that is, to some little boy, maybe even to Jason?

  “It appears Jason’s taken a natural liking to you,” said Martin, unwittingly complicating the issue. “I don’t know when I’ve ever seen him so friendly. Usually he’s kind of shy around strangers.”

  But maybe they weren’t strangers, Ben caught himself thinking. Maybe the same blood coursed through their veins. How likely was it that Jason would take to him so easily if what Martin said about him being shy around strangers was true? Could it be that, like him, the boy sensed something that went beyond understanding or explanation? Either way, it was a compelling indication of something Ben had only just imagined. Suddenly his uneasiness and uncertainty over what being a father was all about was lessened. The little boy, in his friendly eagerness to reach out to Ben, had inadvertently provided him with some answers.

  Ben’s voice issued from the moonlit shadows. “What happened to Dory’s husband?”

  Martin answered with a sigh, “He died.”

  Ben was about to inquire into the cause of Eddie McBride’s death, when the screen door creaked behind him. Turning his head, he saw Dory standing in the doorway.

  Silhouetted against the glow of light that came from inside the house, she was like a vision out of a dream, soft curves all warm and inviting. Her beauty appealed to him in the most primal of ways, and he longed to bury himself in her soft womanly warmth. But there was more to her appeal than just a pretty face. She was like a doe in the woods, skittish, wary, vulnerable, pushing his basic instincts to something far more dangerous. It had to do with this crazy feeling he had to protect her, to wrap his arms around her and tell her that everything would be all right, even though he knew from personal experience that it wasn’t always true.

  She touched him in a way no woman had before. In only a day, without even trying, she had pierced his resolve never to need or want another human being again. Somehow, she had managed to give him a reason to get up in the morning, if for no other reason, than to see her lovely face and to feel the awakening of something deep inside that he thought had died in him a long time ago.

  It was just his cursed luck that he would feel such instant attraction to this woman, for it only complicated an already painful dilemma. How could he tell her that he thought Jason might be his son without proof to substantiate such an outrageous claim? A birth certificate wouldn’t necessarily prove anything. Allison had perjured herself on the witness stand to keep him from getting his son. Who’s to say she didn’t just as easily lie about the name of the father on the birth certificate? Without proof, what could he do? He couldn’t very well walk up to Dory and say, “I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and I long for you. And oh, by the way, I think Jason is my son and I want to take him away from you.”

  She came to sit beside him on the top step of the porch. Her voice was soft against the night.

  “Jason’s putting on his pajamas. If you’re too tired to start that plane tonight, I could just tell him that—”

  “No way,” he said, rising to his feet. “A promise is a promise.”

  She looked up at the tall figure that towered over her and smiled, a rare and beautiful smile that stole his breath away.

  “Thanks. It’s all he talked about during his bath. There’s something else you can do, if you don’t mind. I’d appreciate it if you would drive with me to Devil’s Corner on Saturday. If that horse is any good and I do buy it, I’ll need help getting it home. If you’re still around by then, that is.”

  Oh, he’d be around. He had decided that the instant he learned that Jason was adopted. He shot a quick glance at Martin, who’d been right after all when he said that Dory would ask for his help if she needed it.

  “Sure, Dory, I’ll go with you.”

  The steady creaking of the rocking chair ceased.

  Dory aimed a look at Martin, and warned, “Not a word out of you.”

  He gave her an innocent look as he leaned forward to empty his pipebowl.

  “I’m going inside to pay some bills and see if I can’t get that checkbook balanced,” she said.

  The aroma of dinner still hung in the kitchen as Dory sat hunched over the table trying to get in order a checkbook that defied balancing. Martin’s haphazard record keeping made it a difficult task. Two hours later, satisfied that a difference of a few cents didn’t matter, she pushed herself away from the table and went upstairs. On her way to her room, she paused to peek into Ben’s room through the door that was left partly ajar.

  Ben and Jason were sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, studying the plans that were spread out over the hardwood planks.

  “There, see that?” said Ben. He pointed to a figure drawn on the paper. “See if you can find that piece for me in the box.”

  Jason bit his lip and scrutinized the balsa pieces. “Here it is,” he said excitedly. “I found it.”

  He dropped it into Ben’s big palm. “Is that it, Ben? Is that the right one?”

  “It sure is, champ. Now I want you to watch how it’s done. Then I want you to try the next one.”

  “Me? Oh, wow!”

  Ben could still recall the excitement he had felt the first time his father had let him help build something around the house. It had been a counter in the garage, just a simple, flat counter made of plain old plywood, but how excited he’d been to hand his father the nails one by one as if it were the most important part of the job. He could see the same emotion on Jason’s face, along with that eerie resemblance that defied coincidence.

  An evening breeze came into the room, billowing the curtains, as Ben pondered again the crazy possibility that Jason was his son. Why not? he reasoned. His son would be just about Jason’s age. And he felt something special for this little boy, something that went beyond the simple tenderness one might feel for someone else’s child. With his impish ways, Jason was delving deeper into his aching heart. Jason, who might be the son he was searching for, the one piece of himself that was left in the wreckage of his life.

  With Jason chattering away, they were blissfully unaware of the figure that watched from the doorway, until she pushed the door open and entered the room.

  “How’s it going, you two?”

  Ben looked up and smiled. “Great. It looks like we’ve got a future aeronautical designer here.”

  Realizing what he’d said, his smile quickly vanished. We? he questioned, aghast. Dear God, was he already beginning to think of Jason as his?

  “Mommy, Ben says it’s gonna take weeks to finish the plane.”

  “Considering the progress you’ve made in the last two hours, I can see that.”

  “Ah, but that’s the joy of it,” said Ben. “You never want it to end. It’s like reading a good book.” Or like what he imagined making love to her must be like, he added privately.

  “Well, right now, Jason, it’s time for bed.”

  “Aw, I don’t want to go to bed,” the boy whined.

&n
bsp; “Hey, pal, you heard what your mother said. Go on, off to bed with you. The plane will be here tomorrow.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Dory was waiting for him by the door. “Come on, I’ll tuck you in.”

  Jason tugged on Dory’s sleeve and crooked his finger for her to come closer. Bending, she listened to his whisper at her ear.

  “Are you sure?” she asked him.

  He nodded solemnly.

  “Well, I don’t know, but you can go ahead and ask.”

  Jason buried his face in the side of her leg, turning suddenly shy. “You ask him, Mommy.”

  She shrugged, and half-apologetically said to Ben, “He’d like you to tuck him in. But if you’re too tired—”

  Ben rose fluidly from the floor and came forward, a look of mild astonishment on his handsome face. “No problem. If it’s okay with you, I’d be happy to.”

  She could have no idea what Jason’s innocent request meant to him. In fact, as he walked down the hallway toward Jason’s room, even he wasn’t sure he knew what it meant to him. Until he felt a small hand wiggle into his, and suddenly, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to be walking down the hallway hand in hand with the boy.

  He was touched by the way Jason peered up at him and asked, “Will you read me a story?”

  And jolted by the sound of his own deep voice in reply. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll tell you a story.”

  When Jason was all tucked in, Dory ran her hand gently across his cheek and swept a rebellious dark curl from his brow. Bending to give him a kiss, she whispered, “Sweet dreams, my precious boy. I love you.”

  A little voice replied, “I love you, too, Mommy.”

  “I’ll send Pop-Pop up to say good-night.”

  Turning to Ben she whispered, “He’ll be out like a light before you even finish.”

  She paused at the door to look back at the two of them, trying to reconcile the unwelcome feelings she had for Ben Stone with the warm emotions that came from watching him with her son.