The Night I Gave My Best Friend's Brother a Child novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Home From the Army
Bridget says her brother can never have kids; at his welcome-home dinner Bailey sees her daughter's father and walks out, but he follows and asks how old Effie is.
My best friend told the whole booth at the diner that her brother was home from the army and would never have kids.
My daughter sat on my lap, dragging a corner of pancake through the syrup.
"A blast on some mission," she said, with her fork in the air. "They rebuilt his leg, and the doctors told him the rest is gone for good."
She sighed and tipped her head back.
"I'm a DINK. No kids, no plans for kids. Now my brother is out of the game too. Our family line ends with us."
Then she flagged down the waitress and ordered the cherry pie.
Her name was Bridget, and I had known her for nine years.
She was loud and generous, and she was the best friend I had.
When I was five months pregnant and alone, she moved me into her spare room.
She packed my whole apartment herself, coat pockets and all, while I was down with the flu.
My daughter Effie's father was a stranger from one snowed-in night.
I never learned his last name.
In nine years I had never met Bridget's brother.
He was deployed for most of them, and she kept no photo of him in her condo because she said he hated cameras.
"I'm sorry, Bridge," I said.
"Don't be sorry, be brave." She pointed her fork at me. "Sarge is a bear. He hasn't smiled since the hospital. Grandma's throwing him a welcome-home dinner Saturday at six, and you're bringing the peach pie."
"Can I bring Effie?"
"Effie will be bored stiff with the grown-ups," Bridget said. "But sure. Grandma loves a small person."
On Saturday I carried a peach pie up the porch steps of the Ketterman farmhouse, with Effie on my hip.
Edith Ketterman opened the door herself.
She was seventy-nine, five foot two, and she wore her pearls to answer her own door.
She took the pie and looked at Effie for a long moment.
"Come in," she said. "Rhett's in the front room."
I had never heard Bridget say her brother's first name.
I heard it now, and my feet stopped on the welcome mat.
Rhett was a common name.
I told myself that all the way down the hall.
He stood at the front window with a cane in his left hand, his back to the light.
He was tall, with dark hair cut short and a scar that ran through his left eyebrow.
He turned around.
His eyes were gray, with a ring of gold around the pupil.
I knew those eyes.
I had looked into them for a whole night in the Pine Lodge Motel, with a blizzard shutting down Route 9 outside the window.
The cane slid out of his hand and hit the floor.
Nobody moved to pick it up.
"Don't mind him," Bridget called from the kitchen, laughing. "He scares everybody. Sarge, this is Bailey, my best friend. Bailey, don't take it personally."
Rhett did not answer her.
He was looking at me, and then he was looking past me, at the girl on my hip.
Effie has his eyes, exactly.
She has the same cowlick at the crown of her head, too, and it stood up in the lamplight.
Effie leaned out and studied him.
"You have my eyes," she announced.
Edith went very still.
I understood in that moment that if I stayed one minute longer, Bridget would walk in and set the two of them side by side.
I did not want that to happen in front of a table full of people.
I did not want it to happen before I understood it myself.
So I left.
"Effie has a fever," I told Edith, and I took the pie back out of her hands. "I'm so sorry. I have to go."
"She doesn't feel warm," Edith said.
"She will," I said, and that was the worst lie I had ever told.
I carried Effie down the hall and out the front door, and I buckled her into her car seat with hands that would not stay steady.
"Bailey!" Bridget shouted from the porch. "Call me tomorrow! I'll handle Grandma!"
I started the engine.
The screen door opened again.
Rhett came down the steps with the cane, slowly, and put his hand flat on the roof of my car.
I rolled the window down two inches.
"Route 9," he said. His voice was low and rough. "The Pine Lodge Motel. The snow."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do."
He looked past me into the back seat.
Effie was kicking her boots against the seat and humming.
"How old is she?" he asked.
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