My Babies and Me

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Susan opened the microwave door and reached for her cup of hot tea before she realized that the buzzing she’d heard wasn’t the oven, but the front doorbell. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

  Maybe Seth had come by. Maybe he’d help her take apart that bed in the spare bedroom.

  It wasn’t Seth.

  “Michael.” He looked so good to her, it was all she could do to keep from throwing her arms around him. She hadn’t greeted him that way since they were married.

  “I’ve got business in town.” He was making her uncomfortable, studying her closely. “I tried to call, but you weren’t home.” Could he tell she’d gained a few pounds? See the slight bulge beneath her overalls?

  “Well, come in.” She stepped back, opening the door wider. “I’m just heating up some herbal tea. You want some?”

  Shutting the front door, he hung his jacket on the rack. “You never used to drink that stuff.”

  “The doctor says it might help settle my stomach.”

  “Seth told me you’ve been ill.” He followed her into the kitchen.

  “Just morning sickness.” She looked away as she said the words. She’d rather not mention the pregnancy in front of him.

  “You’re sure that’s all it is?”

  “Positive. I just saw my doctor today.”

  Susan dumped a couple of spoonfuls of sugar in her steaming cup in an attempt to camouflage the taste, took a sip and grimaced.

  Leaning back against the counter, arms crossed, Michael watched her.

  “How long are you in town?” she asked, trying desperately to think of what she’d be saying had she not been pregnant with his child. With his children, she amended.

  “I’m not sure.” He turned to help himself to a can of soda from the refrigerator. “I’m investigating a company here in Cincinnati. They’ve come up with a new form of spray-in foam insulation that’s not just fire-resistant but eighty-nine percent fire-proof.”

  Putting ice in a glass, pouring his soda, Michael had his back to her.

  “Fire-proof insulation—can you imagine how that’ll take off?” she asked him. “A fire that started in one room of a home might burn the drywall, but the wall itself would still stand,” she went on. “And the room right next door might not even be touched.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How much is it likely to cost?” She’d have to look into getting some. After all, she had to protect the babies who’d soon be sleeping innocently in their cribs, relying on their mother to keep them safe.

  Michael shrugged, coming to sit with her at the table. “That all depends on production and distribution costs.” He wiped condensation from his glass with one lean finger. “If everything checks out as the preliminaries seem to indicate, this will be a whole new niche in the market. One I’d like to see Coppel pursue.”

  Blood stirring in spite of her admonitions to be careful, Susan sat back and listened. This was vintage Michael, the way he’d been in their college days, his mind churning with plans, his entire body buzzing with energy. She’d fallen in love with him during just such a conversation.

  “Miller Insulation is the only company that’s got the technology at the moment, but it won’t be long before others are figuring out what they’ve done,” he continued. “Miller doesn’t have the capital to hit the market big, but we do. So we buy Miller Insulation, put up plants in a few strategic places across the United States to keep distribution costs in line, and then, when everyone in the country’s demanding the product, we own the niche.”

  “I’m impressed.” She smiled at him. Wanting him.

  His eyes, so alight with intent, broke contact with hers. “By the time I do a complete analysis, figure profit margins, meet with Miller Insulation officials—well, I’ll probably be tied up here for a couple of weeks. Or more.”

  She tried not to be excited about the prospect of having him in town for so long. Considering their current circumstances, it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to expect anything.

  “Will you have time to go out for dinner or anything?” Should she ask him to stay with her? Four months ago she wouldn’t have had to ask.

  No answer. Susan told herself not to be hurt. Her pregnancy was bothering Michael far more than she’d ever thought it would. How could she possibly have imagined she could carry the man’s child and not have it affect their relationship? Such as it was.

  He broke the silence. “I’m worried about Seth.”

  Susan looked back at Michael, taking way too much comfort from the concern in his eyes. “Me, too.”

  “You have any idea why he’s drinking so much?”

  “None.” She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders. “I asked him about it and got my head bit off for my trouble.”

  “So you have noticed it,” he said. “It’s not just my imagination.”

  Shaking her head, Susan related the last few times she’d met Seth for lunch. Her brother seemed to drink more than he ate.

  “Do you think it’s affecting his work?”

  “Not at all.” Susan shook her head again. “From what I can tell, he’s better when he’s on the road. Hasn’t missed any work at all. He only seems to drink when he’s in town.”

  “Seth told me you missed a couple days of work.”

  What was Seth, anyway—his sister’s keeper as well as a lush? “Just that morning sickness I told you about. It’s no big deal.”

  “You’ve never missed a day of work before.”

  And, that quickly, he was a polite stranger again, awkward, finding it difficult to meet her eyes. Love, fear, despair. They all rolled into one mass of emotion that threatened to consume her.

  “I’ve never been pregnant before.”

  His eyes, when they finally met hers, were troubled. “I’m sorry, Susan.”

  “I’m not,” she said, then added, “At least, I’m not sorry I’m pregnant.”

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “Sorry I put you in this position, sorry I didn’t see what my asking you to play a part in this was going to do to you. To us.” She reached for his hand across the table. “I wish it didn’t have to change things.”

  Michael turned his hand over, threading his fingers between hers. “There doesn’t seem to be any way around it,” he finally admitted. “How can I see you and not see that child you’re carrying?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “And seeing that child, how can I not find myself grossly lacking?”

  . “I went into this with my eyes wide open; Michael,” she reminded them both. “We had a very clear understanding that I would take, that I wanted to take, complete responsibility for this baby.”

  He pulled his hand away, sitting back, his expression stormy.

  “You very generously did me a favor, Michael. Why can’t we just leave it at that?” It had all sounded so simple to her when she’d first come up with the idea.

  “Because you’re sick, for one thing.”

  “It’s normal. It’ll pass.” She hoped. With twins, chances weren’t as good, but either way, she’d manage.

  No matter what she said, though, she couldn’t seem to wipe the lines from his forehead.

  “I guess I’d better go.” He stood up. “I’ve still got to check into a hotel.”

  Taking a deep breath, Susan told herself not to push, not to be a fool. “You could stay here,” she said.

  “Not this time.” He retrieved his jacket from the rack by the front door. “I’ll be in touch.”

  And, once again, he was gone.

  THE NEXT NIGHT, with some half-formed thought that he’d be doing Susan a service, Michael made plans to meet Seth at the bar around the corner from Seth’s apartment.

  Two drinks into the evening, he wasn’t sure who was helping whom.

  “Is there something that says a man has to be a father to be a decent human being?” Michael asked, studying the amber liquid in his glass. He’d never found any answers there, but he kept looking just the same.

&nbs
p; “Not that I’ve ever read.”

  “Then how about something that says a man can’t be decent if he doesn’t want children?”

  Seth gazed at him across the scarred wooden table, his eyes tired. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, man.” Michael downed the last of his drink. “I can’t figure what in hell’s the matter with me that I’ve never wanted kids.”

  “You don’t like them?” Seth asked. “There might be something wrong with a guy who can’t like kids.”

  “It’s not that,” Michael was surprised to discover. “I like them well enough—at least I think I do. I love my niece a lot.”

  He waited while another drink was placed in front of him, thinking he was going to have to take Seth up on his earlier offer to bunk down at his place for the night.

  Seth was having another drink, too, staring down into his glass just as Michael had done.

  “You find anything in there?” Michael asked.

  Raising his head, Seth appeared to ponder that for a moment. “Nope. Not a damn thing.”

  “You looking for something?”

  Seth just shrugged. And then glanced across at Michael. “So how do you know you don’t want to be a father if you think you like kids?”

  Meeting the other man’s eyes, Michael wished like hell he could explain. “Every time I even think about the possibility, I get claustrophobic, like I gotta run as far and as fast as I can,” he said, wondering if he sounded as stupid as he felt. “You ever feel that way?”

  “Maybe,” Seth said. “I guess that’s how a guy feels when he knows he should do something, and knows he shouldn’t at the same time.”

  “Exactly.” Michael couldn’t have said it better himself.

  “Like, a man’s gotta work, and sometimes what he does just doesn’t allow him to be other things.”

  “Exactly.” They drank to that.

  “Sometimes his work is all he can do, all he’s trained to do.”

  Well...not exactly. Michael didn’t have to take that job in Chicago seven years ago. He could’ve stayed with the firm in Cincinnati, could have grown old and died there.

  “But what if it isn’t?” he asked, trying to focus on his ex-brother-in-law. This was too important to slur his way through. “Is it wrong for a man to want to love what he does?”

  “Hell, no.”

  Thank God for that. But... “Does it make him a self-centered bastard to pursue his goals?”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  “But it might.”

  “I guess it could, depending on how he goes about it.” Seth nodded, as though pleased with his answer.

  “I’ve always been completely honest with Susan.”

  “I know you have.”

  “I could’ve stayed here, you know,” he confessed, although he knew Seth had figured that one out long ago. “I didn’t have to take the position with Smythe and Westbourne.”

  “Sure,” Seth said. “You could’ve stayed and rotted away.”

  Michael froze. “What do you mean?”

  “How happy would you have been, knowing what you’d passed up, knowing for the rest of your life that you had a chance to be everything you wanted and turned it down?”

  “Does it matter, as long as Susan was happy?” he asked. “Isn’t that what we’re talking about, being selfish bastards?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Seth said, frowning. “But I do know that Susan would never have been happy holding you back. Just like she wouldn’t have been happy giving up everything she’d worked for at Halliday’s to follow you to Chicago.”

  “Kids hold a man back.”

  “Not some men,” Seth said bitterly. “Some men can be who they wanna be and still have kids.”

  “Not me,” Michael admitted. “I travel too much.”

  “Tell me about it. I spent all those years going to school, and then making a name for myself. Engineering’s all I know how to do.”

  Surprised at Seth’s tone, Michael tried to concentrate a little harder. “You unhappy in your job?”

  “Hell, no,” Seth said so boisterously a couple of guys shooting pool looked over at them. “I love what I do.”

  “So where’s the problem?”

  “I do what I do, that’s the problem.”

  The answer made no sense to him where Seth was concerned, but it summed up almost perfectly what was troubling Michael.

  AFTER A BOUT of throwing up so hard her ribs hurt, Susan crawled back into the spare bedroom, determined to give some serious thought to making it into a nursery. Michael had been in town for three days and she hadn’t heard another word from him. She had to quit thinking about him, quit hoping he’d call, and get on with having his babies.

  As soon as she answered the door, she told herself when the bell rang.

  Of course, it would be Michael, just when she was looking her absolute worst. He didn’t even know she’d kept his old T-shirt from the intramural basketball team he’d played on in college. It was old and stained, and ripped on one shoulder. And to make matters worse, she was wearing the baggiest pair of sweats she owned and looked like a big grey elephant.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked once she’d managed to pull open the door.

  “Nothing...” she started to assure him, but ruined the effect by bolting for the bathroom again.

  “THIS is WHAT it’s like for you?” Michael was sitting on the floor by the bathroom, waiting, when Susan finally came out. He was shocked by how much she was suffering.

  “Not always.”

  “You look terrible.”

  “Thanks.” Susan slid down the wall to the floor across from him.

  He swore when he saw the tears that sprang to her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that, Sus, you just look like you feel horrible.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “Still insisting things are easier than they really are, huh?”

  “I don’t,” she said, pouting so much he wanted to haul her into his arms. “I like to be positive. It accomplishes more.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “And what are you accomplishing tonight?”

  “Decorating the nursery.”

  He couldn’t believe even she was attempting a project that huge, feeling as awful as she obviously did. Getting to his feet, Michael went down the hall to take a peek.

  “Funny, a nursery looks a lot like a spare bedroom.”

  Following him, Susan gave a weak grin. “I’m still in the thinking stages.”

  “Want some help?” He didn’t know why he was offering, why he was even there. He just knew he couldn’t be in town and not see her.

  “I don’t want your pity, Michael.” Her voice was stronger. “Or your misplaced sense of responsibility. This is my life, a challenge of my own choosing. I can handle it.”

  “No one said you couldn’t.”

  “I never intended you to be involved—”

  “Susan,” he interrupted, not sure what he intended to say. He couldn’t let her finish that remark. “This isn’t about the child. It’s about you, a person I care about, a person who needs a little help. Can’t you let me help while I’m in town?”

  He was relieved to discover that she was smiling. “You could take the bed apart for me.”

  HE CALLED HER at work the next morning.

  “Just wanted to make sure you’re completely recovered,” he explained when she answered the phone.

  “I feel fine,” she told him, not bothering to mention the bout she’d had that morning. It had been a comparatively mild one. And she’d eaten two stacks of pancakes for breakfast afterward.

  “Good enough to have dinner tonight?” he asked. “I figured since this is Friday night, you might want to get out.”

  “I’d like that.” Susan’s eyes filled with tears, and she cursed the stupid emotionalism that was taking over her body.

  Making plans to meet him at her place at six-thirty, she rang off, determined to concent
rate on business. The McArthur case was coming up in a couple of weeks and as far as Susan knew, she was still a sure win. Joe Burniker seemed to have lost his touch.

  MICHAEL TOOK HER to a little place just across the river where they had a window table for two in a quiet alcove by the water. She’d worn a short black dress, more because it was the loosest one she owned than because she was trying to be fashionable, but she was gratified by the appreciation she saw in Michael’s eyes. He looked great, too, his short dark hair a little wind-tossed, his sweater matching the green of his eyes. She was just so darn happy to be out with him.

  “I’m not sure, but I think Seth has woman problems,” he told her while they waited for the pasta they’d ordered.

  “No kidding?” Susan’s spirits lifted even more. “I’d given up hope.”

  “I’m not sure there’s any reason to hope,” Michael said, frowning. “I think his job’s been getting in the way.”

  “Oh.” Susan could understand, but she hoped Seth knew what he was doing. What he might be giving up. She hoped the job was worth it to him.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” Michael wasn’t meeting her eyes and Susan’s stomach tightened. It was the first bout of nausea she’d felt all evening.

  She nodded.

  “What are you going to tell your baby about his father?”

  Her heart dropped. Oh. God. That he—they—didn’t have one?

  “I’m not really sure,” she answered honestly. “I mean, what do the women say who have artificial insemination?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Would you hate it terribly if I said you were the father?”

  “And how would you explain that I don’t act like a father without making the kid feel neglected?”

  This was so much more complicated than it was supposed to be. “We’re divorced,” she said. “Lot’s of kids have divorced parents.”