Page 136 of The Frozen River

“Self-pity is not a thing you get to feel right now, son. You can’t take a girl like Sally Pierce to bed and not think there will be consequences.”

“I didn’t take her to bed, Mother. I took her to the barn. In July, as we’ve established, after the summer Frolic.”

He isn’t fully sober. I know that. Which is the only reason I don’t hold this admission against him.

“Have you not seen her since January?”

“Only once. At the hearing.”

He drains his glass, swishing the last mouthful of brandy around his mouth before swallowing. He sets it down on the table, and I add another finger to the glass.

The look he gives me is quizzical. This is new, it says.

I smile. It’s a sad one. I can feel it there in the tremble at the corner of my mouth.

“What are you going to do? Sally has declared you the father.”

“I won’t abandon them if that’s what you think.”

“But will you marry her?”

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“There’s always a choice, Jonathan. You had one in the beginning. And you have one now.”

“You’d have me pay maintenance but leave him a bastard?”

I am strangely encouraged by how appalled he is at the idea. “I would have had you marry a girl before getting her pregnant. But we’re long past that. I just want to know what you will do now.”

“I’m not so bad a man as you might think, Mother. I posted our intent to marry outside the tavern tonight.”

This news is both a relief and a sadness. It is past time for him to settle down, but I would have hoped that love would factor in.

“He looks like me,” Jonathan says, and I detect a note of wonder in his voice.

“Yes. He does.”

“I didn’t expect to feel anything when she handed him to me.” His eyes are glassy, whether from drink or tears I can’t really say. “But I did.”

That feeling he doesn’t yet recognize is love. And if he loves his son, I have hope that he might yet grow to love Sally as well.

Jonathan watches the fire pop and fizzle. He does not apologize for anything, but neither is he antagonistic with me any longer. This is the decision I made while sitting here all evening: sacrifice one thing to gain another. Sally Pierce, puzzling though she might be, is not a piece of the puzzle I need to solve right now. Rather, my mind is bent on untangling the question that has been nagging at me the last few hours.

I reach out. Pat Jonathan’s hand. “Can I ask you something?”

Again, that wary look. He draws away as though I might bite him.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m certain Sally got pregnant on purpose.”

“I suspected as much myself. But this has nothing to do with Sally.”

Jonathan nods, still cautious. “What then?”

“That night, last November, when Sam fell through the ice?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve never really told me what happened.”