The Pregnancy Proposition

by Andrea Laurence

  Mano stiffened in his seat, but then he nodded. “Please.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you. He left me for my prettier sister,” Paige said, spitting out the most painful part up front so the rest would be easier to tell.

  “Ever since junior high when boys started looking at girls with thoughts of things other than cooties, Piper was the one they wanted. Through high school, college and beyond, the men have always preferred Piper, and for good reason. We’re only a year apart in age and people always had a hard time believing we were sisters because we looked so different. She’s the opposite of me in every way, with all the best parts of our parents. I’ve always felt like I got the leftovers.”

  “Describe her to me,” Mano demanded. “I want to know what it is about her that you think is so special compared to you.”

  “Well, for a start, her hair has natural golden highlights and a slight wave that makes it flow beautifully down her back. Mine is dull and stick straight, refusing to hold a curl for more than a few minutes. She’s curvy in all the right places while I’m rail thin and built like a twelve-year-old boy. Her face is like an angel with big hazel eyes and full lips. My lips are thin and my nose and chin are too pointy. We just couldn’t be more different.”

  “It sounds like it. But why would you compare yourself to your sister like that? If I compared myself to Kal, I’d make myself crazy.”

  “Because,” Paige argued, “that’s what everyone does. My whole life I’ve been looked over for Piper.”

  “I don’t understand it. You haven’t described any of the important things,” Mano noted. “You’ll have to forgive me, being blind and all, but my priorities are a little different. Is she smart or caring like you? Is she funny and kind? Would she spend her days caring for injured veterans or would she rather get her nails done?”

  Paige was startled silent. She wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that question, even though the answer was quite evident to her. Piper wasn’t vapid and thoughtless, she just had different priorities. She was a hairstylist, so her focus in life was entirely visual. But she wasn’t selfish. She’d tried to give Paige multiple makeovers, but they rarely took.

  “You’re in the minority, Mano. Most men can’t help themselves around her, and as I mentioned earlier, Wyatt was no different. When Wyatt left me for Piper, it was just the latest incident in the story of my life. It was like I didn’t exist to him any longer. He didn’t even have the nerve to tell me we weren’t dating anymore. He just ghosted me—stopped calling and texting—and then he showed up at a family event with my sister on his arm.”

  “Wyatt is obviously an ass, but what kind of sister would do that? Is she that cruel?”

  Paige shrugged. “No, it’s more a matter of ignorance. Piper is oblivious to everyone but herself. She always has been. I think to her it was natural for a man to prefer her over me, so I shouldn’t be so hurt about it.”

  “Hurt about it?” Mano nearly shouted. “She steals the father of your child, but you’re not allowed to be hurt about it?”

  “Neither of them know I’m pregnant. I haven’t told anyone but you.”

  “So that’s why the baby’s father won’t be in its life? He’ll be too busy being its uncle instead?”

  That sounded terrible. A part of her hoped they would break up before that became a reality. “Something like that. Even if they stopped seeing one another, it’s not like I’d take him back. I know better. I’ve had better, thanks to you. But I know what we have isn’t something that can last. Tomorrow I’m getting on a plane to go home. I’ll go back to reality and will finally have to deal with everything I’ve pushed aside while I was here.

  “While I’m decorating a nursery and reorganizing my whole life, you’ll be here, running your hotel. It may take a few weeks, or even a few months, but you’ll forget about me. You’ll spend another week with another woman, and life will go on. Maybe someday I’ll cross your mind and you’ll wonder how I am and if the baby turned out to be a boy or a girl. But that’s all the future the two of us have together, Mano. It was just a fling. A wonderful one, but a fling.”

  Ten

  “I’m going to get in the shower,” Mano said.

  After breakfast at sunrise and their depressing conversation, Mano had been at a loss of what to say to Paige. There was no convincing her to stay, no convincing her that she was good enough for him. She didn’t want to drag him into the complicated life she was living, and the finality of her words convinced him that was the end of the conversation.

  They’d returned to bed for a nap and a leisurely round of goodbye sex. Mano had taken his time making love to her, knowing it was the last time. Now that it was over, he knew he had to get up and walk away from it all before he did something stupid.

  Crawling from the bed, he disappeared into the bathroom to get ready for the service. His thoughts were scattered as he shampooed his hair and considered his options.

  Paige was distracted and distant today, which wasn’t unusual considering they were about to sink her grandfather’s ashes into the ocean. It felt like more than that, though. It was like she was anticipating the end and pulling away from him before it was over. That was probably the smart thing to do. How much longer did he have? Not much. Hours.

  She’d insisted that she couldn’t stay and that he wasn’t serious about the two of them, but he knew that he was. This didn’t feel like any other time before. Paige was different. He felt different. He just had to find a way to convince her of it. She wasn’t like the other women in his life, and he wished she could understand that. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to help her raise that baby. Their baby. One day, he hoped that he could love her so well and so completely that she could even forget about Wyatt and what he’d done to her.

  A plan formed in his mind as he stepped out of the shower. He would tell her how he felt. He would say the words he’d never said aloud before. That would convince her he was serious and then she would stay. Wouldn’t she? He wrapped a towel around his waist and filled the sink with warm water to shave. Mano was rinsing the blade one last time when a strange sound in the bedroom caught his attention. It took Mano a moment to realize it might be Paige’s cell phone. No one had called her the whole week, so he hadn’t heard it ring yet.

  “Hello?” he heard her answer.

  He wasn’t trying to listen in on her conversation, but he found it difficult not to with only a door between them.

  “Wyatt? Why are you calling me?”

  Wyatt? Just the mention of the man’s name made Mano’s blood start to boil in his veins. He turned off the water to hear them better.

  “Piper will be furious if she knows you’re calling me...No, I’m not at home,” she responded to him. Her voice sounded stressed. “I’m in Hawaii...Yes, Hawaii.”

  Mano was nearly holding his breath as he listened to half of their discussion. Paige had sworn up and down that she wouldn’t take Wyatt back. She said she didn’t really want him involved in her life, or the baby’s life, but she’d do what was right and tell him about the child. Her extended silence meant he had quite a bit to say for a man who had vanished from her life without an explanation not long ago.

  “You’re right, Wyatt, we do need to talk but not right now...No, I’ll be home tomorrow morning. You know I’ve got to bury Papa today.”

  Mano could only think of one reason why Wyatt was calling Paige. He wanted her back. Unless he’d left his laptop at her apartment or something, it was the only thing he could come up with.

  “I know,” Paige said. “It was extremely difficult for me. I just can’t talk about it right now. Call me tomorrow afternoon, okay? All right. Goodbye.”

  Mano waited a moment, drained the sink and then stepped out of his bathroom with his towel still slung around his hips. “Did I just hear you talking to someone?” he asked casually.

  “Uh, work called,” she said, the lie evident in her voice even if he hadn’t overheard the conversation. “They thought I would be b
ack in time to work the day shift tomorrow, but I told them I wouldn’t be in until Sunday. I don’t think I can go straight from a red-eye flight to work a twelve-hour shift the next morning.”

  He nodded and turned back to his bathroom to finish getting ready. His mind was racing with thoughts as he dried his hair with a towel. Why had she just lied to him about who called? There was only one real answer that made sense—that she hadn’t been entirely truthful with him about her feelings for Wyatt. He’d called her out of the blue wanting to see her. Why? Had Piper dumped him? Was he going to make a play to get Paige back?

  And more distressing...would Paige actually take him back after everything he’d done?

  The thought made Mano sick to his stomach. Paige deserved so much better than a man like Wyatt. And yet, if he really did have a change of heart, who was Mano to interfere with that? He was the father of her child. Wouldn’t it be best for everyone if they reconciled and raised their new family together?

  The only odd man out of this scenario would be Mano, but he would survive. As Paige insisted, maybe he would forget about her in a few weeks or months and continue on as though she hadn’t touched his heart. Or maybe he would throw himself into his work, heartbroken, and she’d never know it.

  Either way, he knew it wouldn’t really matter as long as she was happy. A future with her baby seemed to excite her; would having an active father in the baby’s life be even better? It would certainly make things less complicated for her. She wouldn’t have to uproot her whole life to be with him. Her child would have a father. His real father. It would tie everything up into a neat bow.

  It would crush Mano. Make him that much more emotionally unavailable. But that was what he needed to do. If there was a chance in hell that Paige could reconcile with the baby’s father, it would be selfish of him to go out there and declare his feelings for her and beg her to stay.

  He wasn’t thinking clearly, Mano realized. He was letting emotion cloud his decision-making skills. Paige was right. It was better if she went home. He would forget. He would move on. If he did manage to convince her to stay and then one day regret raising another man’s child and uprooting her from her whole life, then what? It was better to let her life take the path she’d chosen, and that was to go home. If that meant going home to Wyatt, that was none of his damn business in the end.

  With a sigh, Mano combed his hair and splashed his face with aftershave. He just needed to keep his mouth shut.

  * * *

  Paige clutched her grandfather’s urn as the boat took them out to the USS Arizona Memorial on the far side of the harbor. It was temporarily closed to tourists, allowing Paige private access for the ceremony. She took in the markers that identified the locations of the various boats in the harbor and the real ships still in service to the far left.

  The memorial was a gleaming white building that seemed to float above the water. Beneath it, she knew, were the sunken remains of the Arizona and the sailors who lost their lives that day so long ago. Only a few small parts of the ship were visible above the waterline.

  A man in full dress blues took the urn from her as they stepped off the boat and onto the dock. Mano took her arm, escorting her up the ramp to the memorial with Hōkū just ahead of them. They followed a large procession that included the firing squad, the officer carrying the urn and a bugler.

  Inside, the memorial was filled with navy officers and personnel dressed for the most formal of occasions. As Paige was the only family there for the ceremony, there was only one row of chairs set up. They were led there and seated in front of the massive memorial wall. From floor to ceiling, the names of all the men who died the day the USS Arizona was bombed by the Japanese were etched into marble.

  In front of the monument were two large rectangles made from the same marble. On it were the names of the sailors who had returned to the Arizona to be interred, like her grandfather would be. The stone memorials were draped with purple and white orchid leis. The names were fewer, but just as impactful to Paige. Twenty, forty, sixty years later...these men never forgot that day or the brothers they lost. They all chose to return to be with them in the end. Including her grandfather. His name was the latest to be etched into the stone. She was certain he was one of the last survivors remaining.

  Seeing all those names at once brought a tear to Paige’s eye. She tried to hold it in. Not because she was embarrassed to cry—it was her grandfather’s funeral, after all—but because once she started, she was pretty certain she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  She’d already cried her tears for Papa. She cried most of those while he was still alive and clinging to existence no matter how miserably his heart was failing him. No, today she was mourning something different.

  The loss of love.

  Paige could already feel it slipping away. She was the only one to blame for her situation, but it didn’t make it any less painful. Could Mano not understand how hard it was for her to say no to him? It was agonizing. It broke her heart to do it. Of course she wanted to stay. She could easily come up with some extended fantasy about what their life could be like together if she just threw caution to the wind and never returned home.

  But that wasn’t reality. If nothing else, Paige prided herself on being practical. Nothing about that scenario was practical. Especially the part where she expected Mano to raise her child as his own.

  She couldn’t ask that of him. Even as much as she loved him. Maybe because of how much she loved him. Paige wanted him to have a family of his own. It would happen for him, she just knew it, if he would open up to the possibilities. It was that, more than his disability, that was holding him back. He didn’t believe his happiness was possible, so it wasn’t.

  Paige supposed she was just as guilty of sabotaging herself. Because she thought she was unattractive, she assumed that was what people saw. It was a cycle that fed on itself. Mano had helped to disrupt that, convincing her to feel better about herself and what she had to offer. Perhaps if she felt that way on the inside, she would attract more positivity in her life.

  Not love. Just positivity. She didn’t have room in her future or her heart to love anyone but the baby. Paige knew that as hard as it had been to cope with what had happened with Wyatt, it would be nothing compared to losing Mano. She didn’t love Wyatt the way she loved Mano. It would take a long time for her to heal and let someone else in.

  She didn’t know what that call today from Wyatt was about. He hadn’t spoken two words to her since he’d run off with Piper. She got the feeling he was sniffing around for something. Had her sister broken up with him and he was looking to come back? Fat chance. She might be naive, but she wasn’t stupid. Whatever he wanted from her was irrelevant, really. She would meet with him, tell him about the baby and ask what kind of arrangements he wanted to make. That was it. Even if he declared his love for her, she wouldn’t bite. She knew what real love felt like now, and it wasn’t what he was offering.

  The ceremony started with the chaplain reading scripture. Her grandfather’s urn was placed on a table draped with the American flag. Mano took her hand for support, but she could feel the strained energy radiating off him like a wave. He hadn’t been the same since their discussion this morning. She had rejected him before he could reject her, so she supposed he had a right to feel unhappy about it. One day he would understand why she had to do it.

  The admiral in charge of the base stepped up to speak. It was an amazing honor to have such a high-ranking officer at her grandfather’s service, but it was such a rare and important occasion that many officers in the navy wanted to attend. He spoke about the bombing and the soldiers like her grandfather who survived. He thanked Paige for his service to the country and for his dedication to his fallen brothers.

  Two uniformed navy men picked up her grandfather’s urn from the table and carried it to the window of the memorial where it was handed over to a dive team. Paige watched as the diver secured the urn, then slipped beneath the oil-slicked waters
to the belly of the ship. All the navy officers silently saluted as he was interred.

  “Unto Almighty God,” the chaplain continued, “we commend the soul of our brother departed, and we commit his body to the deep; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen.”

  He continued with the benediction. When that was finished, the firing squad fired three volleys and the bugler played “Taps.” The loud noise was a startling contrast to the rest of the ceremony. The vibration of the shots threatened to shatter what was left of her nerves.

  By the time the flag was folded and presented to her, Paige feared a breakdown was coming. They were escorted out of the memorial and took the boat back to the shore. There, they got back into the hotel town car that had brought them to the service.

  The farther she got from Papa and his final resting place, the more alone she began to feel. He was the one who understood her. He encouraged her, supported her, when the rest of her family didn’t understand their awkward youngest daughter. Without Papa and without Mano, who would she have now? It would be just her and the baby, together against the world. Would that be enough? She supposed it would have to be.

  As the car returned to the highway toward Waikiki, Paige was unnerved by how quiet it was. Mano hadn’t spoken since they’d left for the service. He was a good enough man to stand by her through the memorial, but she could feel him pulling further away by the minute. Part of her had known this moment would come, but now that it was happening, it hurt more than she expected. It was almost as though she could feel him physically ripping away from her, leaving a gaping hole in his absence. She thought that trying to take a step back sooner would ease the pain, but it didn’t. It only made her wish she’d clung more tightly while she had the chance.

  “Thank you for going with me today,” she said quietly. Paige clutched the flag in her arms and held it fiercely in lieu of the man she loved.

  “You’re welcome. It was my honor to join in on the ceremony to honor a sailor from such a historically important event.” The words were stiff, almost practiced like a campaign speech.