It's Never too Late

* * *

MARK WORKED ALL WEEKEND, making up hours from the previous weekend. Or so he told himself. The hours were offered so he accepted them. Ella used to accuse him of using work as an escape.

Maybe she’d been right.

At least he never turned to a bottle. Or split like his old man had done.

Nonnie was determined that he was going to buy custody of his child and she was doing better, physically, as though through sheer strength of will she could hang around to help him raise the baby. Several ladies from Shelter Valley were over on Saturday to teach her some kind of domino game. It sounded as if they played it on a board with little wooden trains. They’d had two tables worth of players and while he had no idea what dominoes and trains had to do with each other, he’d buy a houseful of both to keep the enthusiasm he heard in Nonnie’s voice when he called home during his dinner break.

Addy was there when he called. She’d brought chili over for dinner. He wished he was there, too.

Instead, because Nonnie was tired and going to bed early, he agreed to stay and work until midnight, and when he got home in the wee hours of the next morning, his neighbor’s lights were out.

He didn’t hear from Ella. And he didn’t text her.

He worked second shift Sunday, too.

It was for the best.

* * *

“THAT GIRL’S LYING.”

“Pardon?” Addy stopped rolling the little ball of dough in her hands, staring at the older woman sitting next to her at the kitchen table, filling her cooking sheet twice as fast as she was.

“Ella.” Nonnie practically snorted the word. “Trying to trap him, that’s what she’s doing.”

Mark was Nonnie’s boy. It followed that she’d blame the woman, any woman, for the situation he was in.

“What makes you think that?”

“She ain’t no more pregnant than I am.”

“How can you know?”

“I got my ways.”

“Mark said Ella’s been to the doctor.”

“I don’t believe it. Not in town. News would’ve spread quicker than fire.”

“If she thinks she’s pregnant and didn’t want anyone to know, she could’ve have gone out of town.” It was what Addy would have done.

Nonnie shook her head. “Ella ain’t got her driver’s license. It’s why she lives in town.”

“She doesn’t know how to drive?”

“She knows how. She drove drunk and lost it.”

Addy wasn’t up on DUI law, but she knew enough to know that the woman must have done something pretty severe to lose her driving privileges.

“While she was dating Mark?”

“Before. She’s got another year before she gets it back.”

“Someone could have driven her.”

“And then it wouldn’t be a secret no more.” Nonnie was clearly in denial. “Mark also says she told her ma about the baby,” the older woman continued, “and if she did the entire town would know by now. It’s not on Facebook, and Bertie hasn’t heard about it, which she would’ve if Ella was pregnant.”