Fascinated, Scott’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Unhealthy chickens can lay eggs with thin shell walls,” he read from an online medical encyclopedia. “If the chickens live in an unclean environment, such as, um, sitting around in their own feces, they lay eggs with thinner-than-normal shell walls. That makes it easier for the bacteria to pass through the shell and into the egg.” He grimaced. “Gross.”
“So if someone bought sick laying hens, and deliberately kept them in a polluted environment, the chickens would produce infected eggs,” James mused to himself.
Scott was completely absorbed by a microscopic image of the bacteria. “Man, I’ll have to remember not to eat raw turtle or lizard eggs if I end up stranded on a deserted island.” He turned to whisper to Francis, who was wiping off the computer screens using a specialized cleanser. “Do you think any of those Survivor contestants ever got salmonella? They eat wacko stuff on that show. I’m sure at least one of them has eaten undercooked lizard.”
Intrigued by the subject, Francis paused in his cleaning and told his brother to search for exotic foods eaten by the reality show’s contestants. As the twins groaned in distaste over the idea of consuming crickets, beetles, and maggots, James decided someone should return to man the vacant chair at the information desk.
“But I’d never eat a grasshopper!” Scott whispered in horror. “Way too crunchy.”
“Crunchy’s better than gooey,” Francis argued. “You could pretend a grasshopper was a potato chip with legs or a granola cluster, perhaps. I don’t think you could talk yourself into believing larvae were anything but larvae. Totally revolting.”
“Totally,” Scott said in agreement.
James filled the copier and sundry printers with fresh supplies of paper, took care of a few transfer requests, and tidied up the bookmark displays and a stack of schedules detailing the library events for the month of January. That done, he spent a few minutes assisting a young mother track down several cookbooks featuring meals that could be made in thirty minutes or less.
“Now, if only there were a book that could teach me to put my kids in a harmless trance for half an hour,” she joked, and James pretended to take her request seriously.
“I’m sure we have a book or two on hypnotism,” he said with a grin. He patiently listened to her describe how chaotic her household was between the hours of four and eight. She then declared that by the next time he saw her again she might need a reference book on battling fatigue and insanity.
James recalled hearing this complaint from other patrons raising small children. Rushing to the stacks, he grabbed the book he had heard several moms praise and hurried back to the checkout computer with a copy of Time Out for Mom. “I think you need this one too.”
“Oh, I sure do!” The woman looked delighted. Thanking him, she left the library with a lightness to her step.
Feeling pleased with himself, James surveyed his peaceful kingdom and was once again shocked to recognize the face and figure of his ex-wife standing near the Children’s Corner. As though sensing he was watching her, Jane looked up from the book she held, smiled, and walked over to him.
“Sorry to pop up like this again,” she whispered. “It was so great to talk to you the other night, but I felt like I had really picked a bad time to seek you out.”
“Yes, there were quite a few things going on,” James admitted. “But for you to just disappear…,” he trailed off, no longer feeling angry about her behavior, merely puzzled.
She reached across the desk and covered his hand with hers. “I wasn’t trying be dramatic, I assure you. I have some things to tell you, but it’s a conversation that requires a bit of quiet and privacy. And it so happens, this is the perfect setting.”
More mystified than ever, James could merely nod.
“First of all, I wanted you to know that I’m no longer teaching at William & Mary. I’m at James Madison now.” She smiled. “I love it. What a gorgeous campus!”
“Wow. You’re so close,” he replied dumbly. “Did you change colleges because you and Kenneth broke up?”
“Partially,” she replied enigmatically. “But like I told you before, Kenneth’s been out of the picture for quite a while. I moved to Harrisonburg to start a new life. Getting rid of Kenneth was just the first step toward that goal.”
James stared at Jane as she talked, noting how she spoke with so much more calm than when they were married. There was a serenity and contentedness to her expression, as though she had discovered the secret to happiness and now guarded it with careful devotion. He couldn’t believe she was the same woman he had once known. She seemed so approachable, so comfortable in her own skin, and so incredibly lovely.
Stop it! He chided himself. You’ve got enough going on without falling for your ex-wife all over again!
Still smiling, Jane squeezed his hand and said, “Follow me for a moment, would you?”
James came around the desk and gazed at her searchingly, but she said nothing. She led him toward the Children’s Corner, where a young boy who looked to be about four years old was slowly turning the pages of an oversized picture book about animals in the zoo. Jane took James by the hand and nudged him toward a wooden chair.
“Hold on to the back of that chair,” she commanded in a friendly tone.
Utterly confused, James glanced at the boy again. He had light brown hair and was dressed in jeans and a gray sweater. His scarf was covered with racecars and his bright green rubber boots were shaped like frogs. Suddenly, he looked up from the book and looked right at James.
“My God,” James breathed as he stared at the child. From the warm, brown eyes to the slight smattering of freckles across the nose, to the kind, rather serious face-he was the spitting image of James as a four-year-old boy.
“This is Eliot Henry,” Jane whispered so softly that James could barely hear her. “I named him after my favorite poet. He’s your son.”
At those words, James felt as though his world had instantaneously turned upside down. His heart began to beat in hummingbird time and a buzzing sound rang in his ears, as though hundreds of bees had swarmed around his head. Somehow, he sank into the chair. Reaching down, he gripped the wooden seat in an effort to keep himself from floating away, his knuckles white with shock.
“James?” Jane grasped his shoulder. “Are you breathing?”
Blinking, James could not take his eyes off the boy. Even as his mind started to question the validity of Jane’s statement, his heart stopped the thought from fully developing, for it knew she spoke the truth. His eyes confirmed what his heart felt. The boy was a Henry through and through.
“Eliot,” James murmured, spellbound by the name, by the sweet, young face, by the sheer joy that coursed through his body and threatened to cause him to violently explode like a balloon filled with too much air.
“I found out I was pregnant soon after I left you,” Jane whispered into his ear, careful to make sure that the boy couldn’t overhear. “I didn’t know if the baby was yours or Kenneth’s. You and I had had that one night together a week or so before I left you, so I couldn’t be sure. I’m sorry James. I handled so many things badly. It wasn’t until Kenneth and I were on the rocks that I finally had a DNA test done. A part of me had always known that Eliot was yours, but I was a fool and I wanted things to work out with Kenneth. I thought having his baby would instantly make us a happy little family.” She shook her head regretfully. “Like I said, I was a fool.”