TRICKY TRIANGLE

CHAPTER 12

APRIL 1986

“Did you tell him?” Dawn asked her husband Hal as he slowly walked into their bedroom. His hands were in his pockets as he stroked his chin thoughtfully, wearing both a puzzled frown and a smirk.

“No,” Hal replied quietly. Since Dawn had been putting off for weeks telling their close friend that he was going to be a father, Hal agreed to do it. But once on the phone with Ed, he didn’t do it.

“Oh, and why’s that?” she inquired, calmly, yet curiously.

“A couple reasons,” Hal said. He then slowly pulled a hand out of his pocket, scratched his head, and put his hand back in his pocket. Then he stared at an empty chair as if it was fascinating.

“Okay,” Dawn drawled slowly. “Are you gonna tell me?”

“It sounds like he’s in love,” Hal chuckled.

“What!” Dawn replied, feeling a jolt of excitement and then a strange twist of jealousy. But why? She and Ed had made a terrible mistake, and it would never happen again. Her  marriage with Hal was moving forward nicely, despite her now carrying Ed’s daughter. Her envy must be for her deceased friend Wendy, or simply a sense protectiveness for  Ed. “You said a couple reasons?”

“Yeah, he’s coming back in a couple weeks for a visit,” Hal explained. “I figured the news that he was going to have a daughter would be better told in person.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Dawn replied as she put away laundry into their dresser. Hal came up behind her and pulled her into a spoon embrace. He kissed her neck, gently rubbing her stomach.

Dawn noticed that the more advanced she became with her pregnancy, the more loving her husband had become. He seemed to be truly excited with the prospect of a daughter, even though she wasn’t biologically his. She just hoped that Ed’s reaction didn’t throw a wrench in it somehow.

“You said Ed is coming back for a visit. Is he not staying for the summer?” Dawn inquired.

“That’s right.”

“So, this woman he’s in love with. Is she keeping him in Arizona?”

“Apparently.”

“Is she coming with on the visit?”

“Yeah.”

“Well that’s gonna make telling him he’s gonna be a father by his best friend’s wife a little difficult,” Dawn spewed,but instantly regretted it. She turned and looked at Hal. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“You know, mentioning that Ed’s the, um, sperm donor.”

Hal smiled. “Honey, I’m well aware of how you got in this condition.”

“You mean fat,” she joked as she looped her arms around Hal’s neck.

“No, I mean sexy with child,” he laughed before kissing her passionately.

Dawn marveled that her husband seemed more amorous than ever. She was feeling like a cow, but Hal couldn’t seem to take his hands off of her. Better than the other way around. Yet she wondered if his extra attention had more to do with insecurity, and claiming his territory rather than genuine attraction. Regardless, she let the rest of the laundry wait, and let her husband have his way with her.

Two weeks later, Dawn and Hal picked up Ed and his new girlfriend at the airport. Dawn and Hal were both surprised at the resemblance Nicole, Ed’s girlfriend, bore to his deceased wife. She was a tall voluptuous redhead who could have easily passed for Wendy’s sister.

After grins, introductions, and hugs were exchanged, Ed’s smile faded as he couldn’t help stealing glances at Dawn’s midsection. But he wasn’t going to ask. She clearly looked pregnant, but he had once witnessed Wendy asking a woman when she was due. They were both mortified when the woman declared that she wasn’t expecting.

“Just so you know,” Dawn said with a coy smile. “I haven’t been drinking lots of Budweiser, I’m pregnant.”

“Wow, really?” Ed said in amazement. But he hadn’t been a detective by mistake. However, he didn’t know what to say. When Hal watched his friend staring dumbfounded at his wife’s midsection, he realized that it was a huge mistake to have not told him beforehand.

“We’re gonna have a little girl,” Dawn declared as she looped an arm through Hal’s. Yet she looked Ed right in the eyes when she said it.

“You don’t say,” Ed said as he forced a smile. “I’m guessing it was unplanned?”

“Completely,” Dawn replied. “But Hal and I are excited. And that’s not all.”

“Oh?”

“We’re gonna be grandparents, too,” Dawn added.

“Congratulations,” Ed said, and then stammered. “I mean, for both.”

“The weird thing is, our granddaughter is due before our daughter.”

“You don’t say,” Ed chuckled.

The foursome drove to the Strom residence, and the guests were set up in a spare bedroom. Before Hal ordered pizza for dinner, Ed took his old friend aside. He scratched his head and had an awkward expression. “Say Hal… Did you have your vasectomy reversed?”

“Come on, Ed,” Hal chuckled. “You know better than that.”

“So I’m…?”

“Yes, you’re the baby’s father.”

“Hal, I don’t know what to say,” Ed replied, looking a bit bewildered. “Are we good?”

Hal remembered Ed asking this same thing in the aftermath of his fling with his wife. “We are.”

Ed ran a hand through his dark blonde hair. “I wish you’d have told me sooner.”

“I was leaving it up to Dawn to tell you,” Hal said with a shrug. “She kept procrastinating.”

After dinner, the two couples chatted for over an hour. Then Nicole declared weariness from travel and went to bed. Hal, his whole adult life nurturing a habit of early to bed and early to rise, turned in. This left Dawn, Ed, and their unborn daughter alone.

“May I?” Ed asked with a grin as a hand hovered over Dawn’s stomach.

“Sure,” she replied with a smile and a shrug.

Ed gently ran his hand over her belly. Then without asking, he pulled up her blouse far enough to expose her midsection and gave his daughter soft kisses. Dawn felt inappropriate sensations that reminded her of the night their baby was conceived. Why was something so pleasurable so wrong?

She placed a hand on the back of his head in an effort to get him to stop, but he miss interpreted the gesture. He raised his head and kissed her. Taken by surprise, she let the lip lock linger. But when he attempted to deepen it, Dawn pushed him away. “Eddie, what are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “It’s just, well, you’ve never looked more beautiful.”

Dawn smiled, placing her hand on his cheek.

“I love you, Dawn,” Ed told her.

“I love you too, Eddie,” Dawn replied. “But I also love Hal, and he’s who I’m married to. And what made this baby could have easily cost me that marriage. But Hal has a big, forgiving heart, and he forgave not just me, but both of us.”

“I know,” Ed said, sighed, then chuckled. “I love him as much as I love you.”

“Then tomorrow, I want to see you give his belly soft kisses,” Dawn said and laughed. “Then kiss him on the mouth.”

Ed winced and scratched his head. “Look, I love Hal as much, but not the same exact way, I suppose.”

Dawn laughed. “Speaking of Hal, he suggested that you’re in love with Nicole.

“I guess.”

“You guess? Isn’t being in love something you should know?”

“Ah, me lass,” Ed said with an Irish accent. “Who knoweth or understandeth the human heart?”

“Not I, lad,” Dawn replied with her own Irish accent.

“What do you think of Nicole?”

“I think she looks an awful lot like Wendy.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, but she certainly doesn’t have Wendy’s personality.”

“I suppose that’s why I said ‘I guess’ over the question of love.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, over the last couple of weeks it started going the other way. It was actually this trip that turned our relationship around.”

“How long have you two been seeing each other?”

“Since November.”

“How did you meet?”

“She runs an art gallery. As you know, Wendy loved art, was an artist, as well as an art teacher. So I was perusing Nicole’s gallery, and we got to talking. She was impressed with my knowledge of art, and I was impressed with her legs, chest, long red hair, and pretty face.”

Dawn smirked. “I notice you mentioned face last.”

“Last but not least.”

“So tell me why your relationship is doing an about face.”

Ed shrugged. “I was pretty smitten with her the first couple months. I mean, I did think she was a little snooty, but… Anyway, when I suggested this trip back to Minnesota, she didn’t really want to go, but I talked her into it. Ever since, she hasn’t seemed to hold back.”

“Hold back what?”

“Nagging, and just being a cold, all-around witch.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I’ve actually been kind of hoping she’d break up with me,” Ed said with a chuckle. Then he gave Dawn’s belly a little pat. “But now I have a good reason to move back here permanently.”

Dawn inwardly cringed. “I know you still need time to get your head around our baby. But do you have an idea of how involved you want to be in your daughter’s life?”

“Very involved,” Ed replied. Then he noticed a pained look on Dawn’s face as she chewed on her lower lip. “Why, how involved do you want me to be?”

“Very involved,” Dawn said, touching his arm and wincing. “But more in the role of an uncle.”

“So, you want the parentage to remain a secret.”

“I’d like everyone to assume that Hal’s the biological father.”

“Isn’t that dishonest?”

“What makes it dishonest? When our boys inquired about me getting pregnant after all these years, I basically told them it was an opps. Which it was. Hal and I never ever talked about our sex life in front of them, so what’s wrong with letting them assume he’s the father? My sex life is my business, and private, period.”

“Fair point.”

“Am I being fair though? To you?”

“Absolutely,” Ed said, taking her hand in his. “I want what you want. I fully understand I’m not your husband, and I had no business impregnating you in the first place. So I’m just grateful to be Uncle Eddie.”

“Thank you,” Dawn smiled, then leaned in and hugged him. She jolted when the phone rang. Then a wave of anxiety flashed through her when she saw it was a quarter past eleven. Who could be calling at this hour? It couldn’t be good. “Hello?”

“Hi, Grandma,” her son said cheerfully into her ear.

She felt relieved that his tone was so upbeat, thinking there must not be anything wrong. She laughed. “Now don’t be calling me a grandma just yet.”

“Why not?” David chuckled. “I’m holding your granddaughter as we speak. She decided to come a couple weeks early.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I’m not. April Lilly Storm was born a half hour ago. She’s slightly underweight, but otherwise healthy with powerful little lungs.”

Dawn felt her eyes well with gratitude. “April Storm. It has been thundering and lightning tonight, too.”

Suddenly the baby in Dawn’s womb gave her the hardest kick to date. This caused Dawn to recall Luke chapter 1:41, when John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb upon hearing the greeting from Mary, who carried baby Jesus in her womb. Dawn whispered a thank you to the Lord for a healthy baby grandchild, grinning from ear to ear as she wiped at a tear.

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

(The LIFE and MINISTRY of JESUS Part 25)

“Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28.

The heaviest burden that we bear is sin. If we were left to bear this burden, it would crush us. But the Sinless One has taken our place. “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6.

He is watching over you! Are you tempted, He will deliver. Are you weak? He will strengthen. Are you ignorant? He will enlighten. Are you wounded? He will heal. “He tells the number of the stars;” and yet, “He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:4, and 3.

Whatever your anxieties and trials, spread out your case before the Lord. Your spirit will be braced for endurance. The way will be opened for you to disentangle yourself from embarrassment or difficulty. The weaker and more helpless you know yourself to be, the stronger you will become in His strength.

Jesus tells us how His rest is to be found. “Take My yoke upon you,” He says. The yoke is an instrument of service. Cattle were yoked for labor, and the yoke is essential that they may labor effectually. We are to take upon us His yoke, that we may be co-workers with Him.

The yoke that binds to service is the law of God.

Those who accept the one principle of making the service and honor of God supreme will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path before their feet.

Worry is blind and cannot discern the future, but Jesus sees the end from the beginning.

Redemption is that process by which the soul is trained for heaven. This training means a knowledge of Christ.

In the heart of Christ, where reigned perfect harmony with God, there was perfect peace. He was never elated by applause, nor dejected by censure or disappointment. Amid the greatest opposition and the most cruel treatment, He was still of good courage.

But many who profess to be His followers have an anxious, troubled heart, because they are afraid to trust themselves with God. They do not make a complete surrender to Him. They shrink from the consequences that such a surrender may involve. Unless they do make this surrender, they cannot find peace.

Those who take Christ at His word and surrender their souls to His keeping, their lives to His ordering, will find peace and quietude. Nothing of the world can make them sad when Jesus makes them glad by His presence.

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in you.” Isaiah 26:3

As through Jesus we enter into rest, heaven begins here. We respond to His invitation, Come, learn of Me, and in thus coming we begin the life eternal.

Heaven is a ceaseless approaching to God through Christ.