Weakening Resolve

Dan Evans

It was cool today on the back deck of the Wade house. Dan Evans was working on tax reports for all of Ben Wade's financial dealings. The cool weather kept him awake. Almost eight years he'd been working for Ben now, but it wasn't until almost everything went legitimate that things actually got boring, Dan thought to himself.

Finishing another long column of figures, Dan stretched and looked out toward the direction of the stables. His gaze found Ben and Liana walking around the edge of one of the many flower beds that Liana had planted around the edges of the yard and even down toward the stables. Ben was holding his wife's arm and making sure she took careful steps. She was more than six months pregnant now and Ben treated her as though she might break at any moment.

Dan shook his head. He'd never get over the changes that had come over Ben since his marriage. He acted as though a woman had never been pregnant before. As though Liana were more delicate than a flower petal. In fact, Dan reflected, Liana Wade was a strong woman. It might not appear that way to anyone who observed them from the outside, but they didn't know the truth. She lived every day with the knowledge that her husband might be taken away from her at any time. That there was always a possibility that he might not be around to help her raise this child.

As Dan continued to watch, he saw the two of them laugh together, observed as Liana reached up to hug her husband, and the way Ben gently touched her face and then put his hand on her belly. It made Dan think back to the way he and Alice had been.

That was years ago, but he could remember it as though it were yesterday. They'd been very young when they married, and when Alice had become pregnant with their oldest son, William. Dan had worried about Alice all day while he was at work, had spent his time in the evening helping her with housework. He could recall touching her belly, just the way Ben was touching Liana's. Feeling the way the baby kicked. It had been the same when their younger son, Mark, had come along a few years later.

Abruptly, Dan's mind turned to Libby. To the child she'd lost that could have been his. He could see himself walking along with her, smiling down at her, touching her belly swollen with his child, as she laughed up at him.

He'd thought of her more and more lately--unable to keep his mind off some idea that they might be able to have a good relationship, maybe even a family together. That they could be happy together, just the way Ben and Liana were. Those thoughts had begun to wear down the resolve he'd had since his divorce that there would never be another woman. He'd actually considered that he might even get married again.

Feeling the urge to see Libby and talk with her, Dan gathered up the papers he'd been working on and got up. He didn't know if she'd listen to him, but he had to try.