WHO'S CHILD IS THIS?
He detested cigarettes, the young
man thought as he closed the book he was reading. The man smoking beside
him was getting on his nerves. Picking up his jacket, he went to pace in
the hallway. He didn't have many friends and Bill was one of them, what
would he do if Bill found out he might have fathered the child Teena was
now giving birth to. Would he know when he looked into the child's eyes,
would Bill know? There was a chance the young one was Bill's, it wasn't
improbable.
Teena heard the cries of her
little boy before he was even separated from her body. Bill was crying,
sobbing heavily as he looked at his little boy and Bill didn't cry. What
if it wasn't his boy though? They laid the screaming baby on her chest.
He was outside of her now; a part of the cold cruel world, and already
his identity was a mystery.
"He has my chin," Bill said looking
at the little boy, tears streaming down his face. Maybe he was right, but
Teena saw a very old soul reflected in her son. It reminded her of that
quiet man who had loved her so tenderly in that summer home. Teena shook
the thoughts from her head, for she knew Bill loved her too. He ran his
home like a well-oiled machine, he took care of her, and he had their whole
life orderly and planned. It wasn't that she didn't love him, how could
one not love someone who knew her so well, who took such good care of her,
but he had no mystery in him. This dark secret of her passionate love for
his friend was all she had left that wasn't a part of his well oiled machine,
his quiet friend had brought out a side of her she thought she had lost.
He came into the room when our
boy was neatly wrapped in a blanket and lying in my arms. The tender way
he looked at the little boy made my heart melt, but by then I began to
see Bill in my little boy to, he still had no name. Bill had called him
Bill Jr. for months, but I didn't know if that should be his name since
he may be no Jr. at all.
"What are we going to name him?"
I asked in front of them both.
"Bill Jr. of course," my husband
said without hesitation.
"I don't know," his friend said
looking at the boy. "Wouldn't you like your boy to be more individual than
that."
I looked down at the animals
on his blanket. The figure that stood out was the Fox. The deceitful Fox,
famous in many a children's story for trying to con other animals. Isn't
that what I was doing, conning my trusting husband into thinking I knew
without a doubt that this boy was his.
"Fox," Teena whispered to herself.
"Fox is no name," Bill replied,
though Teena hadn't meant it as a name-she was just thinking out loud.
"Actually I like it," his friend
replied, never cracking a smile. Somehow he always maintained his cool
demeanor. "He can have your name as a middle name Bill. Instead just being
a Jr., he'll have a name of his own as well as yours. Fox William Mulder."
He moved close to me and the child. "May I?" He said presenting his hands.
I gave him the child.
"This boy is going to make his
father proud."
Bill didn't miss the glances
between his wife and his friend, but he ignored them. He'd never like that
look of escape in Teena's eyes that slowly began to settle in as their
marriage progressed. She was a good wife, kept house well, cooked. cleaned,
but she lost her joy in married life. And while she was pregnant, she had
glowed. And he had glowed knowing finally he would have a child. His friend
gave the baby to him and left the room, leaving Bill to his family, HIS
FAMILY, the words flushed on Bill like a storm as he looked down at Fox.
He couldn't believe he had condoned calling his child Fox.
It was a cold night and little
Fox wasn't holding up well. It didn't help that he was sick and her husband
wasn't home. Where the hell was he with that cold medicine.
"Mommy, Mommy," the two year
old whined.
"I'm coming Fox, I'm coming."
Bringing the baby home had distracted
her from everything. For two years her life had been Fox and only Fox.
Bill said Fox needed a sibling, but she wasn't ready to plan another baby.
She hadn't planned this one, but she was a mother and his first smile,
his first word, his bright smile, his brown hair, the way he called her
mommy all had broken through the doubts she had about his identity. Carrying
the washcloth she had headed up to Fox's room, amazed to find him curled
up in the arms of a man she hadn't seen in almost a year. A cigarette was
burning in the ashtray beside him, allowing only a flicker of light to
fall over his face. But she would have known him in the dark..
"Mommy," Fox whined again.
"What's happened to you," Teena
asked taking her son and placing him in his bed. "You never smoked, you
detested it."
"Life has a way of changing a
man. We think we can plan the course of our lives and then fate steps in
to steer us to a higher purpose." He looked at the little boy in Teena's
arms. "He's a beautiful boy, looks just like his daddy, doesn't he?"
"Your right, he does look like
Bill," Teena spat back at him while Fox curled up beside her. And finally
drifted to sleep.
"I can take you away Teena, Bill
will be none the wiser."
"Bill's my husband and Fox's
father, I won't dishonor him again. He works too hard."
"What do you know of his work
of his infidelities outside of your marriage. "
"Your lying," Teena said through
clenched teeth. "Bill loves me."
"Like you loved him?"
Offended, Teena reached up and
smacked her former lover across the face, but immediately regretted leaving
the reddened mark. The only thing he did was tell the truth. She could
always depend on the blunt truth from him, even when her husband tried
to shadow it. He saw the regret in her eyes and he reached for her hand.
"Let the boy sleep," he said
leading her out the room.
"I need you," he whispered, "You're
the only thing I've ever truly loved. This world is full of deceit, but
you. . ."
He didn't finish, just softly
touched her lips with his own. Like chocolate melting over a flame, she
molded to him. He was still an intoxicating man with a dark air and gentle
voice that made her forget the rest of the world. He stepped back, knowing
he had her, still owned a place so deep inside her she dare not venture
there consciously. She felt lost when she touched him, no not lost, free,
free from everything logical and orderly in the world. Outside of both
right and wrong, but there was right and wrong and this was wrong.
"Bill," she whispered, "I'm married
to Bill."
"Is the boy really his?"
"I don't know. But Bill is his
father, he plays with him, he pays for his lively hood, he sends pictures
to his parents."
Teena's lover pulled a picture
from his pocket, a picture of herself and baby Fox.
"You got it?"
"Bill has the same picture, he
showed it to me. Did you want me to have a picture of you or a picture
of him?"
Teena didn't answer, because
she didn't know why she wanted him to have it. When the pictures had arrived,
ready to be sent to family members, she had looked at her copy and then
at the letter she had received at his last known address. At the time,
she hadn't seen him in months and cursed him for disappearing so abruptly.
He sent her a long letter, full of beautiful, enchanting, language that
confused her and enthralled her all at once, all the time he eloquently
stated why they could not be, how Bill was one of his few friends.
If Bill had not tumbled through
the door at that exact moment, she might have given into him, to those
passions he fueled deep down inside her. But had fate stepped into to help
her or hurt her. For he would again appear in the mysterious shadows. When
Bill had his friends over, he would always be there, boring into her soul.
And unable to contain herself, she let him into her body repeatedly. She
could have died when she found out they were throwing him a bachelor party,
that he was getting married. Ironically, this information was leaked to
her the day she found out she was pregnant.
He heard the giggling of the
two children as he stood outside the house. He wasn't prepared to go in
and look at them. His wedding ring was like fire on his hand whenever he
looked at her. He had looked into the eyes of the children, wondering if
they were his, if he could see himself. There had been no question with
Jeffery, but Fox had been conceived when he was a different man and thereby
he wanted to believe a symbol of a purer time in his life lived and breathed.
Sammantha had come along when he was looking to find that man again a shred
of him always existed with Teena. But had his life been the one that brought
forth there's or was it just something he wanted to believe so badly, he
was making the connection up in his mind. Everytime he looked into the
children's eyes, he asked himself, Who's children were they?
DZ -1999
