I can’t bother Julie. There’s no way to get in touch with Austin—not in the middle of leave processing. Dammit, Maggie. Who am I supposed to talk to? Someone has to know what to do. Someone has to know how this happened.
I wipe the tears on my cheeks with the backs of my hands, throwing Julie’s car into drive and speeding to the one person who will know exactly how this happened: Bess. Sorry Grandma. Sorry Maggie. I need to know what I’m dealing with.
“Callalily Johnson! Get that baby out of the front seat! You can’t put a child that little in the front seat! You crazy? Them airbags could go off and kill him. Why is that baby in the front seat? You lost your mind?”
Bess scurries toward Julie’s car waving her right finger at me. In her other hand, she holds a watering can. Bess takes pride in having the best flower garden in the whole neighborhood.
I glance at Tristan, swallowing my guilt over my own ignorance. How was I supposed to know? Sally didn’t exactly leave a manual on three year olds for dummies.
I take the keys out of the ignition just as Bess reaches through the driver’s side window. With her finger only a few inches from my face, her expression goes from furious to intrigue.
“What’s the matter? Did Maggie send you here? Woman’s got more nerve than Carter’s got liver pills. Lost her mind years ago, I tell ya. …What’s going on?”
Less interested in my pint-sized stranger-companion’s safety and more focused on what bits of gossip my visit might bring, Bess smiles at me. “Come, get that baby out of the car. Come and sit with me.”
I gulp. I consider fixin’ to put the car in reverse and driving right back out of there. Grandma and Maggie would kill me for this. Bess is the last person they’d ever want me to get advice from. But advice really isn’t the reason I’m here. I’m here for information. I cannot turn around. This is too important.
As I pull Tristan from his car seat, fighting with straps that make no sense, I contemplate the consequences of telling the park’s most prolific gossip whose baby Tristan is. What other choice do I really have? I need answers. And maybe, with all those grandchildren she brags about, she will know what a kid his age eats.
It takes exactly nine minutes, three sips of lemonade, and two trips inside for Goldfish crackers and Cheerios to keep Tristan entertained for Bess to fill me in. As she begins, I ask myself if I’m sure I really want to know. Then, I remember how Pappy didn’t believe in cowards. I can hear him saying it now, “Callie, face your fears.”
“…and?”
“Well, gee, it was a few years ago now. But you don’t forget a girl like Hannah. I knew that girl was trouble. I just knew. Nobody ever listens to me. Told Herbert that. Ignored me. Thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow. I even told Maggie and Francine. They blamed it on account of her being from the city. But I knew! She was the one who broke the sign down by the Lodge. Bastards still haven’t bothered to fix it. Herbert says Rory’s lazy. Personally? I think it’s ‘cause she’s knocked up—again. Time will tell. Either way? I ain’t never liked that girl. Livin’ in high cotton but never fixin’ anything round here.”
“But how long was she even here? It had to be the summer I spent visiting John and Sonya. That would be the summer they got married. I was only gone a month, give or take. How could he have met her and gotten her pregnant in that little time? It’s just not possible. And somebody would have told me.”
Bess raises her eyebrows. She punches me in the gut with Grandma’s words, “Callalily Meadow Johnson! Don’t be so naïve.”
I pretend I’m thirsty, sucking large gulps of lemonade through a twisted straw, hoping I’ll get a brain freeze or something to make this easier to understand, accept, something.
“Tristan Rivers! You march your butt right back here, young man. Too close to the road,” Bess yells.
Rivers. Why would a girl who had a quick fling give her kid the guy’s last name? And how could he possibly not tell me about this? No matter how messed up it was, no matter how much it would hurt me. He thought he could hide a kid forever? Who is he?
Tristan bounces toward Bess, a rock in each hand, grinning from one ear to the other with his canyon dimples. He laughs, plopping the rocks into Bess’s koi pond, like he’s lived here for years and doesn’t even know his momma’s gone.
“Look. I’m not trying to be naïve. I just don’t get how they could have done this so fast. I wasn’t gone that long, and I don’t remember anyone named Hannah around. And drugs, Bess. She’s in jail for drugs. Austin hates that stuff. Austin is as straight as they come. She hardly seems like his type.”
Bess nods. “It takes all kinds. And, look at this baby, he does look like the spitting image…”
“What did she look like?”
“Who?”
“Hannah.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know. Your average teenage girl, I guess. Too much make-up. Long, dark hair, darker than yours. Tan, but it was summertime so that makes sense. I wasn’t really paying attention. I try to mind my own business you know.”
I laugh, out loud. I’m too tired to care. Still, I’m relieved when Bess laughs, too. “Short or tall?”
Bess shrugs. “Next thing you’ll want is her date of birth. I’m sorry, I just don’t know, dear. I think the more important thing is, what are you going to do with this guy? Seems to me, ya’ll got a bigger situation on your hands.” She points at Tristan, smiling like a woman with the biggest, best secret in the world. I can almost hear her planning who she will tell first.
“I really don’t know. Austin’s not even home for at least another week. I don’t even know what to feed him.”
“I’d like to be a fly on the wall at Maggie’s when you get your hands on him! Meantime? Spaghettios. Grits. That’s what I do. Works like a charm. Heat um up right up, a minute so they are lukewarm, in the microwave. Nothing to it. Works like a charm. I have twelve grandchildren, you know. Darn kids use me like a babysitter. Make me miss my soaps. No appreciation, I tell ya. Don’t even bother with the greens. He won’t touch um.”
“There’s no way a kid can live on canned pasta and grits alone.”
“They have it with meatballs. Get that. It’ll cost ya a little more…”
“Bess!”
She shrugs. “Peanut butter and jelly. Whatever works. Suit yourself. But that car seat? You gotta move that to the back. Hasn’t Maggie told you any of this? What’s wrong with that woman?’
“Maggie had another stroke. She’s up at Endings General.”
“Oh. Oh, my. How bad?” Bess leans into the tiny table between us, setting her lemonade down and reaching for her lighter. “Tell me everything…”
I stare at him. Propped on Maggie’s couch with the clicker in both hands; the kid looks like any other ordinary three-year-old. I’m tempted to touch his hair, as if that will somehow give me answers. I reckon anyone watching me would think I was a psychopath. It’s not normal, the way I can’t stop looking at him. Then again, nothing about having a kid dropped in your lap less than two weeks out from the day you’ve dreamed of your entire life is normal. I tell myself to give myself a break.