Buck collected Lisa and got ready to head for home.
"I want to apologize to Sherry and Billy but I'm a little scared of her," he told me.
"You probably ought to be," I said, "If she hadn't been so worried for Billy she'd have kicked your ass."
"I can't believe I said that," he said, "I can't believe I did that. What's happening to me, Jimmy? I'm not like that."
"You're hurting and you're scared and you're not acting yourself," I said trying to reassure him, "You should just go on home and spend some nice time with your little girl. She's got some neat ideas about what farm animals should look like."
"Blue pigs," he laughed, "I know. You should see what cows and horses look like."
"I think her world would be more fun," I said.
"What am I supposed to do about Sherry and Cody?" he asked suddenly getting serious, "He's one of my best friends and I punched him."
"Give it some time and space and then I think you could talk to them sometime," I said, "Don't push it. They'll get over it in time."
He didn't look so sure but then he nodded and I think taking my word for it was more agreeable at that moment than facing Sherry. She was still steaming mad and ready to take him out if he went near her. Buck left without incident and I went to see how Cody was doing. He was laying on the couch with Sherry leaning over him.
"Will, sweetie, does it hurt very badly?" she fussed.
"Only when I smile," he said sounding far more wounded than he was, "Or talk, or move."
"Still got that glass jaw, eh Billy?" I said and Sherry looked up. I think she wanted to spit some of her venom at me but then she furrowed her brow and just looked at me.
"With the way he mouths off you think this is the first time he's been cold cocked?"
Billy frowned at me, "It does still hurt though, Sherry."
She turned to him and kissed the swollen spot on his jaw.
I just rolled my eyes and found Joanie. I wanted to make sure Emma was going to be alright and then we would head out too. It seemed no one was at their best that day and heading for home seemed the best thing for all. I could see Sherry was about to get Billy up off the couch too. From the way she was holding him I figured he was going to have an evening that made the welt on his jaw worthwhile.
The next day I went to work and Joanie went to class. She only had morning classes that day and was headed over to Emma's after class to take Emma to the doctor. She promised to call once they knew anything so I think I was a little distracted that day. I got some paperwork done and saw a couple of kids but as I recall my day was mercifully light. I guess it was about two in the afternoon when the phone in my office rang. It was Joanie.
"James," she said and there was a note of panic in her voice. "Can you get away at all? The doctor is running some tests right now and she's terrified. I'm trying to calm her as best I can but she's just so scared."
I had no actual appointments that day and the kids weren't wandering in. I told the secretary I had a family emergency and took off. I got to the doctor's office and found Joanie in the waiting room.
"They have another test they want to do and Emma's just too much in shock," she said, "Please come. I don't think she's even hearing anything the doctor says."
"In shock?" I asked, "What's going on?"
I searched those dark brown eyes of hers and found nothing but tears threatening to form and that scared me. I didn't completely understand what kind of tears they were.
I followed Joanie into an exam room where Emma was on a table.
"Emma," I said taking her hand, "How are you feeling?"
"Alright I guess," she answered, "I don't understand what's going on though."
I turned to the doctor.
"What's this test for?" I asked him.
"I'm playing a hunch," he said, "I've already started another test but it takes a day to see results. This could confirm my guess without having to wait."
He laid Emma back onto the table and felt her belly and then wrote something down and then he took out this machine. He put some slimy looking something on her and started moving the machine around on her and it made these strange noises. I tried to keep expression off my face because those noises didn't sound normal but I'm no doctor so I didn't want to scare her if they were. Then the doctor hit this spot where there was a steady whoosh-whoosh sort of sound and he held the machine there and looked at his watch a moment as if timing the whooshes. Finally he smiled at Emma.
"I was right," he said almost triumphantly, "That is your baby's heartbeat."
He kept the little machine there for a few moments longer so that we could hear it a bit more and then pulled it away and gave her a towel to wipe off her belly. I pulled Emma to sitting and put an arm around her.
"I'm so happy for you Emma," I said, "Wait until you tell Sam. He's going to be beside himself he'll be so happy. And Jesse can quit worrying so much for you."
I looked up and faced the doctor.
"Her symptoms are all just normal pregnancy things, right?"
"They are," he said, "From what she told me, the worst should be over soon and you'll see her starting to put weight back on. She'll be due long about the end of May. I'll need to see her back here in a month."
He left us then and Joanie ran to the other side of Emma.
"Emma honey," she said, "This is what you wanted. It just came later than you expected."
"I gave up," Emma said still looking shocked, "I thought I couldn't. I thought it was too late."
"I know," I said, "But apparently it's not too late at all."
We finally got her out of there and back home. She wanted us to stay but I told her she should tell her family without us there. For once she was going to have the nice little family she dreamed of and it might as well start coming together right then.
Joanie and I headed home, still in separate cars and met back at the apartment. We put together dinner in silence and something was eating at Joanie.
"What's the matter, honey?" I asked.
"Emma," she said.
"What about Emma?" I asked, "I thought that was good news."
"It's very good news," she agreed, "It's just that I'm jealous and I feel bad about that."
"I know it's hard to keep delaying having babies while everyone else already has them," I said, "But we talked about this and you even said this is how you wanted to do it."
"I know I'm doing the right thing," she said, "It just doesn't make it any easier."
I nodded and stayed quiet for a while.
"I think I'm a little scared too," Joanie said out of nowhere.
"Of what?" I asked.
"Of being too old and not being able to have them when I finally get around to trying."
"Joanie," I said, "You're going to be all of twenty-five when you get that law degree. That's hardly too old. And you won't have to wait to establish yourself at a firm because you'll be working with your dad and uncles and they won't bat an eye if you have to take time off when a baby comes."
I stroked the side of her face and kissed her forehead.
"It's going to be fine," I said, "And all the practice we've had, we should be experts at how to make the little buggers. We should have you knocked up in no time once we get to trying."
She giggled at me.
"Well, you just know how to make a girl's heart go all a flutter, don't you."
"I do my best, ma'am," I said.
She looped her hands around my neck and pulled my head down to hers and kissed me and then whispered really soft and sultry in my ear, "I think maybe we need a little more practice. I wouldn't want to take any chances."
Well, I didn't need to be asked twice. I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.
Later on while Joanie and I were snuggled up together the phone rang. I groaned and Joanie made to get up but I put a hand on her arm and hauled myself out of bed. I pulled some jeans on and shuffled my way to the kitchen to answer the phone. It was Sam.
"Hey Sam," I said, "Congratulations."
"Thanks Jimmy," he said, "It sure was some good news but that's not what I'm calling about."
"What's going on?" I asked, "Is Emma okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," he said, "I think she was still in a little shock when she told us but she's getting over that and now she just can't wipe the smile off her face. She went to bed early because she's still a little tired."
"That's good," I told him, "She was so taken by surprise I was a little worried for her."
"I can imagine," he agreed, "Anyway, I was about to head to bed myself and I went to check on Jesse and tell him goodnight and he wasn't in his room. I didn't want to worry Emma so I just went to find him myself. I know where he goes when he wants to be alone so I went over to the roof of the garage to tell him he needed to come home and get to bed. It's a school night, you know."
"So what happened?"
"I found him up there alright but he won't come home," he said and there was such pain in his voice that I felt the hurt too. "He won't talk to me. Yesterday he turned to me when he was scared and now he won't talk to me. He looked angry and so sad."
"I'll get him home," I said, "I promise I will."
I hung up and grabbed a shirt and my jacket.
"What's wrong?" Joanie asked tying her robe around her still nude body.
"It's Jesse," I said, "I need to go talk to him."
"Is he alright?"
"Probably not but I think he will be," I said, "Hope so anyway."
She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me deep enough to make me wish I could stay but I knew I couldn't. For so many reasons I had to go and talk to Jesse. Those reasons started with the commitment I had made to Jesse when I was still in school and had first met him. You earn the trust of a kid like him and you can't very well ever let them down or they might never give that trust to anyone else ever again. Of course there was the promise I had just made to Sam. That man had helped me so many times since I'd met him and he was a good man. I knew he was worried sick and just wanted his boy home. Nothing in this world breaks us the way our kids can. And finally I had to go for Emma. If she woke the next morning and Jesse wasn't there to make breakfast for, it would destroy her and I owed her far too much to ever allow that to happen.
I made it to the garage and headed up to the roof. Jesse was sitting there still as can be with his knees pulled up to his chest. At least part of that was because it was fall in Michigan and starting to get pretty chilly. The kid hadn't grabbed a jacket or anything when he left the house. Luckily I still had one afghan up there and I grabbed it on my way to where he was sitting staring at the lights on the Ambassador Bridge. I put the blanket around his shoulders and he jumped a little but then settled once he saw it was me.
"Did Sam call you?"
"You had to know he would," I said, "He's not going to wake Emma and worry her sick over you."
"I would've come home sometime before morning," he said, "I was just waiting until Sam went to bed."
"You don't know the first thing about parents, do you?" I asked, "He isn't going to go to bed until you're safe at home."
"They're not my parents," he said, "Not really. I know it and they know it and once they have the baby…"
He tried not to cry. He tried to show me a brave face, a face that showed courage he thought would make him more a man in my eyes than the frightened and hurt little boy he was He failed. The tears cut off whatever he might have been trying to say. I put my arms around him and held him tight. I let him cry a while. He wasn't only crying out his fears about the baby but the fact that he was in what he saw as such a tenuous situation in the first place. I know I've said before that kids should be able to take the love of parents for granted. The heartbreak of an adult is seeing a child who's never had that chance, who's always felt the love shown him was conditional and temporary.
I patted and rubbed his back until the tears slowed and I admit I cried a few of my own along with him. Memories of my own insecurities about Emma and Al and even Joanie flooded to me. I remember all the times I thought they would give up on me because Kid got the good grades and played a sport and didn't get arrested. I was certain Al would fire me or Emma would bar me from her home. The other boys at least tried to be worthy of what she gave them. I didn't understand then that the ones who seem least worthy of love are the ones who need it the most. I get it now and I did then when I was holding Jesse while he cried out fourteen years of hurt and rejection. I knew he had nothing to fear but I also knew where his fear came from.
"Jesse," I said, "There's lots of kids that get adopted and their folks love them just as much as if they'd had 'em themselves."
"But they usually can't have them on their own," he said, "It's alright to settle if you don't have another option."
"They don't settle and plenty of them have their own kids besides, either before or after they adopt."
"Yeah, right," he said skeptically, "Maybe when you've raised them up. No one wants a fourteen year old punk when they can have their very own baby."
"Maybe some people wouldn't," I said, "Crappy people, I suppose. But I know two who want that fourteen year old punk. Hell, they love that fourteen year old punk. Once you love someone like that, anyone, whether it's a kid you want to care for or someone you want to marry, you can't see yourself without them."
"I'm not his son," Jesse said, "I can't ever be. He's going to get his own child and he deserves that. He's got to know that he doesn't need me anymore. He came because of Emma."
"He came because he was worried sick about you, not because of how Emma will react when she sees you're gone," I said recalling the wounded sound of his voice over the phone, "He really cares about you."
"That'll change."
"No it won't," I told him, "It really won't."
"You can't know that," he yelled at me.
"I can and I do," I said softly, "You've got to start trusting people, Jesse. You trusted me and that hasn't turned out so bad, has it?"
"I guess not," he admitted, "But you're different. You know what it's like. You lived just like me."
"Sam and Emma have lost things, people, before. They understand things too," I said, "Emma lost her little boy and her first husband. She gives all that love that should have been Edward's to everyone she meets. It will never matter that they didn't come from her body and none of us are any less her kids for it. Jesse, she walked me to the canopy at my wedding. She was at every single court hearing when I was younger. That baby she's carrying is her miracle but it will never make me less her son."
"That's Emma," he said, "That's not Sam."
"Sam was a bit of a wild one in his youth too," I said, "Took a woman to settle him down. She was his world and they were going to have a baby until she was killed. He couldn't ever bear to lose another child. Don't make him go through that pain and loss again. I promised him I'd get you home. It's a school night and you need your sleep."
Jesse gave me a half smile at that last part and then got serious.
"His wife was killed?" he asked, "I didn't even know he was married before."
"You should ask him about it," I said, "I'm sure there's a lot you don't know about him."
I got him to get up and walk around the corner to Emma's with me. Sam met us at the door and pulled Jesse into a hug.
"Welcome home, son."
Well, there now...Emma's just fine for those who were worrying. As for Buck...well, things weren't the same in 1964 as they are now where divorce and custody is concerned...it's a giant mess...he's just going to have to tell me what happens.
Oh yeah, before I forget...pregancy tests at that time took 24 hrs but they had the little doppler things to hear the heartbeat from about 1960 on and Emma is about 3 mos which is way far enough along to hear the baby's heartbeat.-J