Bachelor Mother Read Free

Forget this evening? That’s as impossible as riding a thirty-foot wave with a boogie board.
     
    * * *
     
    Moonlight filtered through the curtains in Melanie’s bedroom making patterns across the patchwork quilt. She glanced at the luminous dial of the clock. Almost four in the morning and I still can’t sleep.
    Melanie turned over on her side and bunched the pillow under her head. Alicia had left a text on her cell, asking her what Bubba had decided. She hadn’t texted back. It seemed too personal, somehow, to tell Alicia what had happened tonight.
    I wonder how most couples decide to have a child , she thought sleepily. How wonderful if she’d simply had a loving husband who’d say, “Of course we’ll have a child right away. I want to have children just as much as you do.”
    She was surprised at the tear that slipped slowly down her cheek. As confident as she’d sounded with Bubba, inside she was terrified. Who was she to bring a child into the world, a child with only a mother? Didn’t every child deserve a father?
    Sometimes you don’t have a choice. Sometimes you don’t get the whole dream.
    She thought of the smallest bedroom in her house, just down the hall from her master bedroom. Over the past few weeks she’d slowly transformed it. Whenever she’d been depressed over the problem facing her, she’d worked on the little room. It had become her symbol of hope.
    The nursery was painted a sunny yellow. She’d put up white ruffled curtains in both windows. Large white shelves, big enough for plenty of toys, ran along two of the walls. There was a dresser she’d refinished and painted white, a mobile she’d bought on impulse that had tiny teddy bears sitting on stuffed stars and clouds. She’d even bought a grow chart with an ostrich on it.
    She’d crocheted two baby afghans and bought a small crib-size patchwork quilt. She’d placed her own beloved teddy bear, all moth-eaten but carefully stitched up, in a place of honor in the middle of the top shelf.
    There’s so very much I want to give you, she thought quietly, thinking of the child she wanted. So much I want to share.
    But as badly as she wanted a child, was she doing the right thing, asking Bubba to help her? Was she asking too much in the name of friendship?
    You were wrong to even ask.
    She knew he lived a casual, easygoing life. Bubba’s house was always open to his friends. His weekend parties were infamous. During the summer he had a group of friends who made up two opposing volleyball teams. They played twice a week in his large backyard.
    Everyone knew Bubba. Even the senior citizens on the block speculated on “when that nice young man was going to settle down.”
    Melanie knew it wasn’t going to happen for a long time. Bubba liked his lifestyle. He’d made that very clear to the legions of women who dated him. He liked to pick up and go, make trips up the coast at a moment’s notice. Bubba loved to surf. His last vacation had been to Hawaii to catch some super big waves.
    He’d kept almost all his friends from his childhood, including her brother Donnie. He was a congenial host, an easygoing date, a sensitive friend.
    It was clear to anyone with eyes he was a totally free spirit.
    She turned over one last time, thoroughly exhausted. Melanie fell asleep and dreamed of Bubba on the beach with a flock of children, teaching them to surf.
     
    * * *
     
    You are getting drunk.
    Bubba swirled the last of the wine in his glass, then tipped it into his mouth. After Mel had left he’d gone back to the couch and tried to watch a late-night talk show.
    It had been impossible. He hadn’t been able to get Mel out of his mind.
    Are you crazy? What do you think you are, some kind of machine? A super stud baby maker?
    He set his glass down on the coffee table, rolled over on to his stomach and groaned.
    How would you ever go to bed with her? You’ve known her since she was in diapers.
    Saturday night. Tomorrow. Tomorrow night Mel wanted