Earthly Possessions - Anne Tyler [35]
I nodded. I could see it all happening but had not, up till now, imagined that it could happen to Jake.
“Then last fall, she calls me on the phone. Tells me she’s expecting. A fluke: we were having one of our partings. I hadn’t been near her since August. Ordinarily I would try not to tamper with her anyway, but you know how it is sometimes. And I will say she had some part in it. A big part. I mean she would just … so there I was. What could I do? It had come up so sudden. Well, if she had wrote a letter maybe, give me time to think. But no, she has to telephone. ‘Going to have a baby, Jake.’ Happy as a queen. Says to me, ‘I think we better get married.’
“I was surprised, that’s all. If I’d have thought I would have said, ‘Now cool down, Mindy, we’ll figure some other way of doing this.’ But I was surprised. I said, ‘Are you out of your flipping mind? Have you lost your marbles? Do you really believe I would get married, go that whole soft-living route?’ I said. ‘Let alone marry you.’ Then I hung up. I was fit to be tied, I was as mad as I could get. But I know I should have handled it better than what I did.”
“You were just startled,” I told him.
I didn’t mean to take his side like that. But I was touched by the tense, despairing way his hands were gripping the steering wheel. His bitten fingernails pained me. “I would have said the same thing,” I told him.
“Well,” said Jake. “Week or two passes, month or two passes, I get to thinking. I hadn’t seen her in all that time and was starting to notice she was missing. Pictures would pop into my mind. Them perky little bandannas she wore. Way she was always after me to do my magic tricks, and clapped when I was through. Like she was really just a child, you know? Always humming, skipping, swinging my hand when we walked … then I got to wondering how she would stay with her mother, devil of a mother; they hadn’t never hit it off too good. So I thought, Well, least I could do is be of some help to her in this. It’s true I never asked for it but I would hate to feel to blame in any way.’ I mean, I’m not a bad man. Am I?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“I called her house. Her mother says, ‘Too late, Jake Simms.’ Took me three full weeks to track her down. I had to ask her Cousin Cobb. Then I wrote her a letter. I wanted to know if she was okay and needed anything sent. And she wrote back, ‘What I need is out. Please come and get me.’
“Well, I could do that. Question was, where to put her after I got her. If she was just older she might have some married girlfriend or such that she could stay with, but I don’t guess she does and so I thought I would take her on to Florida and look up O.J. Him and me have always kept in touch, you see. He sends me these Christmas cards. And I like to think about him a lot and him reading his books no matter who locks him up.
“I figured Mindy could stay in Florida till the baby comes and then we’d give it out for adoption. I don’t think Mindy would make such a hot mother anyhow. Then she could go on back but I might stay in Florida. They have very fine derbies in Florida. Maybe Oliver and me could room together, like the old days.
“But to get to Florida first you got to have the money, right? And I didn’t have none. I was unemployed; this body shop where I sometimes work had fired me unfairly. Derby season was over and I hadn’t done so good there anyhow. I was having to hang around the house, just