Tawny
I closed my eyes as the pediatrician gave my fifteen-month-old son, Calum, a vaccination shot. “Is it over yet, doc?”
“It is. You were more nervous than the baby, Tawny,” he told me.
I opened my eyes to see my son running his fingers over the Superman bandage on his chubby little thigh. “He didn’t even cry this time.” I ran my hand through his chestnut hair. My son looked at me with his big hazel eyes and smiled as he held out his arms for me to pick him up. I hugged him and kissed his cheek. “My little man was so brave.”
Dr. Leonard pulled off his blue gloves, tossing them into the trash. “So, how is nursing school going?”
I had started the nursing program during the spring at the Santa Rosa Junior College to get my associate’s degree in nursing. With a toddler to tend to, it hadn’t been a bowl of cherries. “Well, it’s hard, to be honest.”
He smiled at me as he opened the door to the examination room. “Nothing worth having is ever easy, Tawny. When you’re ready to do some intern work, come by and I’ll set you up to get some hours in here at my office. And don’t forget to make an appointment for three months from now for Calum’s next vaccination.”
“Another shot?” I whined as I pulled my son’s shorts back up to cover his diaper.
“I don’t know why you sound so depressed about that, Tawny. He took that one like a champ.” With a clap on my shoulder, he left me as I went to the front desk to make my son another appointment.
Sheila Waterson worked the front desk. She was three years older than me, and she always asked too many questions about my son. I had my reasons for keeping certain things about him a secret. That didn’t stop a few nosy people from asking questions about things that weren’t any of their business though.
Tossing her blonde mane to one side, she tapped away on the computer. “I assume you’re going to want another appointment for three months from now, Tawny.”
“You assume right.” I moved Calum from one hip to the other. “On a Tuesday or Thursday would be best. And in the afternoon. After twelve.”
“Oh yeah, you’ve got school. I heard about you checking into nursing school.” She tapped away on the keys as if she was writing a novel or something. “I’m glad to see you going for something. After what happened, I was worried you might give up on life. And you’re much too young to do that.”
She spoke about my pregnancy and the eventual birth of my child as if it were a tragic event. It wasn’t anything like that. Calum was my treasure.
“Thanks?” I said it in the form of a question because I just wasn’t sure if that was an actual compliment or not. I didn’t speak bitch, and that seemed to be the only language Sheila knew.
“How’s September fifth for you?” She looked up at me with wide brown eyes. Then she looked at Calum. “His chestnut hair and hazel eyes are so darling. Does his father have those features too?”
Everyone knew that I didn’t talk about Calum’s father. Especially Sheila, who asked about him far too often. I shrugged. “Not sure.” And then I went on with the lie that I’d told everyone about the man who had fathered my child. “All I can say is don’t get drunk and sleep with a man. If you do, you may end up pregnant and have no idea who the father is.”
Sure, it made me look like a tramp, but I didn’t care one bit. I wasn’t a whore, and everyone in town knew that about me. As far as anyone knew, I had made one bad decision one night two years ago, and that was that.
The story went that the man I had met at a bar I had snuck into in San Francisco hadn’t given me his name. I had gone alone because I didn’t want even my closest friend to know what I was doing.
There was a grain of truth to the story. The one grain being that I had gone to San Francisco alone one month after getting pregnant. When that first period hadn’t shown up after my one night with the boy next door, then I had just known I was pregnant. I had gone to see the doctor and to get a pregnancy test done. And sure enough, I was preggo.
I cried in my car after I left the doctor’s office. A mix of emotions was the reason behind the tears. But not one of the feelings I had were negative. I wanted that baby from the get-go. I wanted that piece of August Harlow. And I would never burden the man who had given me that special gift with the news that he was a father.
August had more important things to do with his life after all. He was a true hero. I had to let him be what he was meant to be. So that meant making up a lie, one that made me look bad.
Sheila shook her head as she said, “If I were in your shoes, I would’ve made up a lie rather than tell that story, girl.”
My story was a better one than the lie I had made up. But it was mine and August’s alone; no one else needed to ever know about that one night we had had.
“September fifth is fine, Sheila. See you then.” I took the little card she gave me with the date scribbled on it then left the office.
As I drove back to my parents’ home, the place my son and I still lived, I thought about August Harlow. I wondered if he was okay.
The last thing I had heard about the man was just before his parents moved from the house next door to ours. His mom had told mine that he was doing well in the Marines, moving up in ranks.
There had been nothing else said about him after they moved. And I had lost the only way to get any information to him or about him after that.
His parents had still lived next door to us when I had found out I was pregnant. I could’ve told them about it. But I chose not to. He and I knew what we did was only for one night. And I had lied about being on birth control. I had done this to myself. It wasn’t August’s fault in the least.
But I wasn’t sorry I had lied to him. I was actually happy to have a reminder of the best night of my life. Only the full moon knew what we had done at midnight the night before he’d had to leave to go to boot camp.
With my parents out of town, I’d done something I had only ever dreamt of doing. I had given my virginity to the hot guy next door. He was four years older than me, and that had caused a rift in our friendship when he got into junior high and I was left in grade school.
August had grown up before I did. For quite a few years, I’d only watched him from afar as he moved on. That one night, when he came out his back door, hands in the pockets of his faded blue jeans, rocking on his heels in his bare feet, he and I had found each other again.
But we weren’t little kids anymore. He didn’t pull my pigtails and tease me the way he had when we were kids. That night he looked at me like a hungry lion looked at its prey. And I was ready and willing to be devoured by the young man who was about to leave for what I thought would probably be forever.
August Harlow had a touch that I was sure no one else could duplicate or even come close to. There hadn’t been any other guy since August. Not one of the guys who had shown interest in me sparked anything like August had. And even the memory of him still did.
Who needed to get under another man when she had such vivid memories of the one man who had made her feel beyond special and amazing? The one man who had taken her gift of virginity and left her one of his own, a son to call her very own. A constant reminder of the love they’d shared, even if it was only for a few hours of time.
I felt like one out-of-this world experience was better than a thousand so-so experiences.
Not that I was waiting for August to return and claim our son and me. I wasn’t waiting for the impossible to occur. I just hadn’t met anyone who interested me was all.
I stopped at a red light and looked at Calum through the rearview mirror. He’d fallen asleep in his car seat. His head lay back, his lips slightly parted. He had his father’s nose, his eyes, his hair, and I would’ve bet anything that once he lost his baby fat that he would have his father’s chiseled features and good looks too.
As I thought about how good looking August was, I felt a stab of jealousy hit me in the gut. I knew he had to be with other women wherever he was. Or maybe just one woman. Maybe he was even married already.
Not knowing a thing about him anymore wasn’t easy. Especially when my thoughts went to a dark place. The place where he was no longer walking the Earth.
The only thing that reassured me that I would know if he was killed in action was that the local newspaper always listed any deaths of soldiers who came from our town.
August Harlow had never graced that page in the newspapers.
Some nights I would lie in bed, praying for August all night long. I had no idea why the urge would arise in me, but I never fought it. I always gave right into that urge and got on my knees beside my bed, the bed we had made love in for hours that one night, and I would pray until the sun’s light came up in my window.
He was my hero, so I would be as close to his angel as I could be.
No matter if the man was single, dating, in a serious relationship, or even married, I would never stop praying for him each and every day. And on those occasions that he suddenly came into my mind and my heart would speed up with fear, I would hit my knees as soon as I could, and I would send up prayer upon prayer for the man I had a part of.
August had a part of me too. I wasn’t sure if he knew that or not. But when he’d left me that next morning, I had sent a part of myself with him. My heart was his then. It no longer belonged to me. It beat for him and until Calum came along, it had only beat for him.
Now I had August and Calum sharing my heart. I wasn’t sure which one had the biggest part.
It would’ve been nice to know how things would’ve turned out, had August not left for good. But sometimes we didn’t get all the good, only part of it. I had to be appreciative of the good that I did have.
Our son.
I wonder if August is happy…