Page 46 of Trick of Light

Back at home, he was on his way to the shower when the phone rang. “Can someone get that?” his mother called from the living room.

Rod grabbed it just in the nick of time. “Hello?”

“Rod?” Sandra’s voice swam from the darkness.

Rod froze. “Oh. Hey.” He prepared himself to explain why it hadn’t worked between them, why he’d gotten cold feet.

But before he could, she said, “I’m sorry to call you like this. It’s not because I’m hung up on you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It’s actually way worse,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”

Rod couldn’t breathe. He stared at the mark on the wall he’d made with his fist when Bethany had dumped him. He felt his world crashing down.

His first instinct, horribly, was to insist the baby wasn’t his. But that wasn’t the kind of guy he was. He was the kind of guy who stepped up. Who did the right thing. Who loved.

By the time Bethany returned to Nantucket, rumors about Sandra’s pregnancy had gotten in every nook and cranny of the island. Bethany didn’t call, and Rod didn’t call her, either. He respected the distance she needed even though it broke his heart. Once, he saw her from a distance as she walked across the square with her mother. She looked terribly skinny, her cheeks hollowed out, and her hair flew back behind her, scraggly and witch-like. Did she miss him? Was that why she wasn’t taking good care of herself?

In Boston, Sandra’s belly grew bigger and bigger. And when she gave birth to a baby girl, she looked him square in the eye and said, “I don’t want anything to do with her. Or you.”

People told Rod to get a lawyer. They told him he had rights. But the mess of all that had very little to do with the gorgeous baby in his arms. He decided to take her home and raise her, to pour all the love in his heart into her. He never saw Sandra again.

In Savannah, so many years after Renee’s birth, Rod found himself back in front of the hospital, gasping for breath. He took refuge in the shade of the moss-covered tree and stretched his arms over his head.

“Dad!”

A familiar voice called out to him. Rod turned to find Renee tucked up against the tree with a closed book in her lap. Very rarely did Rod think she looked like her mother. Even now, Rod thought she looked more like Rod’s mother than Sandra. She was the collection of so many mistakes, yet she was perfect. She and Felix were his everything.

“How are you?” Rod asked as he approached.

Renee raised her shoulders. “I tried to get an ice cream cone, but it melted all over my hand.”

Rod laughed and sat down beside her. His watch told him they still had at least two hours left before surgery was through.

“I keep wondering something,” Renee said softly. “Do you think Felix is sick because of my mom’s genetics? Maybe something ran in her family. Something we don’t know about.”

It was rare that Renee brought up her mother. Maybe something was in the air.

Rod sniffed. “Funny. I was just thinking about her, too.”

Renee arched her eyebrow. “Really? What were you thinking about?”

“Just about everything that happened that summer. I’ve told you about it,” Rod said.

Renee nodded and dropped her head on his shoulder. “It’s all come full circle, hasn’t it?”

Rod was quiet for a moment. “I could reach out to Sandra if you want. We could ask about her family genes.”

“I just looked her up on Facebook. Not for the first time,” Renee admitted. “But it’s bizarre, looking at photos of her children and her husband and her dog. Like I know I’m related to them. And I know I probably should reach out to them one day. But I don’t want to. And I feel guilty about that.”

“You shouldn’t.”

Renee sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I just want him to be okay, Dad.”

Rod draped his hand over her head, watching as the sunlight sparkled and streamed through the thick moss, straining to be seen in the shadows. He wasn’t sure how to translate how sure he was that Felix would be all right. But he felt it deep in his bones. He hoped he was right.

Chapter Twenty

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