Julie didn’t answer the doorbell right away. She had only a couple of last night’s dishes to do and wanted to get that done first.
She sighed. She hoped it wasn’t her father-in-law. Ever since her mother-in-law had her stroke and was in the rehab hospital, Ray’s father, Carl, didn’t know what to do with himself. He hated hospitals so often came over to her house to find out any news of his wife. Julie was the only one locally who didn’t have a job, though there were days that she sometimes wished the quietness of an office environment. But when faced with decision of giving her child up to a daycare or taking care of her at home, the latter had surely won out.
She finished the last pan as the doorbell rang again. Julie set the pan in the rack and was already moving to the front door. Then she thought – Carl wouldn’t ring the front doorbell. Oh, God, what if it was one of those sales people, or a Jehovah’s Witness? She checked in the living room to see Rosemarie on the couch, watching Sesame Street. Julie smiled, and didn’t bother to check out the window to see who it was, but opened the front door.
Standing on the other side of the screen door was the big blond knight from the War. The surrogate father of her child, a child she had wished for since she was 16, a child that Salvador, her husband six years ago, couldn’t give her. When they divorced after two years of marriage and countless attempts at getting pregnant, she had lost hope. She thought it was her – the doctors told her she had a tilted uterus and could probably never have children. Sal wanted children to carry his name, and when she couldn’t provide, he divorced her and married a younger girl instead. Of course it wasn’t Sal’s problem – he was a virile Italian male. However, she had heard through the grapevine that he didn’t have any children with his second wife, either.
Julie didn’t even know the name of the man standing before her, only knew him as the Black Knight. She didn’t address him as such, because the context was all wrong. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“Y’ posted y’r address in th’ Hawkwood rolls,” he said, sounding a bit like a northern country hick. “I wanted t’ talk to you.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Y’ migh’ not, but I do.”
She stood at the door, debating. Luckily, she didn’t have snoopy neighbors, as they were divided from them by tall hedges. Her neighbors across the street were at work as far as she knew. She looked out the screen window and saw a big black bike parked on the road in front of her house. She looked at him, in leather, jeans, and boots – as big and tough in that costume as he was in his SCA garb and knightly armor.
Finally, he said, “C’n I come in?”
She sighed and opened the door. When she did, the opening door knocked over something – a box wrapped in Hello Kitty wrapping paper. He bent down and picked it up. “I was gonna leave this here if y’ wasn’ gonna be home.” He held it in one hand and the door with the other, as she let him inside.
“Sorry for the mess. My mother-in-law’s in the hospital and I didn’t get a chance to clean yesterday.”
“Ain’ a mess.” He stopped at the doorway leading into the living room. He ignored Julie for the moment, having only eyes for Rosemarie, biting on her knuckles as she did when she was trying to self-soothe. He headed right into the living room. Rosemarie looked up at him, and broke into a broad smile. “Big Kitty!”
He laughed, a gentle laugh that Julie could easily fall in love with all over again. “Y’ remembered. I got you a present.” He thrust the box at her.
She took the box, and looked confused at it. Julie said from the doorway, “You have to start it for her.”
“Oh,” he said, and tore off a corner. Rosemarie got the hint and tore open the box. Inside was a See-And-Say of different farm animals. Knight took it out of the box – it was almost glued to it – and showed her how to use it. He turned it to the sheep and pulled the string. “The sheep says: Baaaa!” it said in its recorded voice. Knight said “Baaaa!” at the same time as the voice. Rosemarie laughed. He turned it to another animal. “The cow says: Mooooo!” “Moooo!” said Knight. Rosemarie giggled, and reached for the toy. She pulled the string, “The pig says: Oink, oink!”
Rosemarie kept pulling the string and Knight got up, gathering the paper and box from the floor. Julie took the papers from him and brought them to the recycle bin. “I didn’t think they made those anymore.”
“I’ was my favorite toy ‘s far back ‘s I c’n remember,” Knight said.
Julie waved him into the kitchen and pulled down two coffee mugs. “Coffee?”
“If y’ got it made.”
“I have one always on, just in case.” She poured him a cup and set in front of him whatever he needed to doctor it up. “So, talk.”
He put cream in the coffee and tons of sugar, then brought his hands to his face in a prayerful motion, breathing deeply in and out through his nose. “I wan’ Rosie t’ know me.”
“Rosemarie,” Julie said. “Not Rosie.”
“I like t’ call her Rosie.”
“That makes her sound like a prostitute.”
He sipped his coffee. “‘kay, then, Rosemarie. I wan’ her t’ know who I am.”
“That’s impossible. She thinks Ray’s her father. She doesn’t need two fathers.”
“I wanna be part of her life. I can’t be her father, an’ I can’t be y’r husban’, I know tha’. But let her know who I am, in time, when she’s old enough t’ take it. I mean, shit – you an’ Ray ain’ exactly blond haired an’ gray eyed.”
Julie knew that Rosemarie didn’t have her hair and eyes, but she did have her face and nose. Her size was probably going to be closer to Knight’s; but then Ray was a big man, too, and Ray had some blond ancestors somewhere down the line. However, Knight was right. Rosemarie would look out of place in the family. If Rosemarie had any lick of sense, she would question her mother about her real father someday.
“Maybe someday,” Julie said.
Then Knight put his hands flat down on the table, and looked up at her. “Don’ make me get a court order, ‘cuz I will.”