My Babies and Me

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Michael gunned his engine.

  He’d left Susan more than a month ago, and he still couldn’t get on with his life, couldn’t get her off his mind. Couldn’t get his mind on anything else. He finally had his freedom—what he’d been craving for months—and the crazy thing was, he still wasn’t happy.

  He called his closest friend as soon as he was inside his door.

  “Seth, I’m losing it, man,” he blurted. He couldn’t believe he’d said the words. Wanted to snatch them back.

  “I wondered how long it’d take you to call.”

  “Just tell me how she is,” he said. If he knew she was all right, he’d be able to get on with things. Quit worrying about her and worry about the Miller deal that had been hanging on the edge far too long.

  “She’s fine,” Seth said. And then, as if taking pity on Michael, added, “She’s huge. Can’t reach her feet at all.”

  “How’s she put on her shoes?”

  “She and Laura went out and bought a bunch of slip-on things, a pair in every color known to man.”

  Pacing his living room, Michael nodded. She’d handled that problem in typical Susan fashion. That should make him feel a little better.

  “She’s only working part-time at the office right now. Tricia brings most of the stuff to the house.”

  “It’s that hard for her to get around?” Michael asked. See, he was needed there.

  “Not once she’s standing.” Seth chuckled. “It’s just a bit of a chore for her to get up.”

  He knew it. She needed help.

  “So how’s she managing to take care of herself?”

  “She’s found a way to get up, of course,” Seth said with admiration. “But it involves some rolling and sliding, and she refuses to do that at the office any more than she has to.”

  Oh.

  “So, how you doing, brother?” Seth asked quietly, seriously.

  “Fine. Great.” He lied.

  “Doesn’t sound that way.”

  Running his fingers through his hair, Michael glanced down at his impeccable suit, his shiny designer shoes, and didn’t find a single thing he liked. “I should be feeling fine,” he said. “She threw my offer to marry her right back at me, which certainly relieves any feelings of guilt I’d been harboring.”

  “She told me.”

  “You think she meant it?” Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he didn’t believe Susan’s claim that she didn’t want him around. Maybe that was why he still didn’t feel free.

  “Yep. I know she did.”

  Michael swallowed. Seth’s words should be liberating. They shouldn’t hurt.

  “I guess I just need a little more time to realize I did the best I could and my best wasn’t good enough. That I’m truly free.”

  “You wanna know what I think?” Seth asked. But he didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you do or you wouldn’t have called.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  “Yeah, well, you got the smart part right. Here’s the thing.” Seth’s voice lowered, filled with respect. “I think maybe you had to be free from any sense of obligation to be able to determine how you really felt. And maybe, just maybe, what you’re feeling now is the true problem.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “You’ve been feeling trapped, right?”

  Michael stood by the window, looking out into the gathering dusk. “Right.” That was an understatement.

  “And you blame the feeling on your impending fatherhood.”

  “Of course.” He’d only started feeling claustrophobic after Susan had brought up the whole pregnancy thing.

  “What if it was something else, instead?”

  “Like?” He rubbed his forehead, as though he could actually make the throbbing go away.

  “Maybe what’s been trapping you is your job. Maybe it’s your career keeping you from what you really want, not the other way around.”

  No way. “I love what I do.”

  “Yeah, man.” Seth’s voice sounded almost sad. “I know.”

  “Don’t tell Susan I called.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  “You’ll call if she needs anything?” That understanding had been in place forever.

  “No,” Seth said. “I don’t think I will.”

  Michael was struck dumb—and left with a dead phone at his ear. Seth had hung up.

  SHE HAD TO CALL HIM. After five weeks of running their last conversation over and over in her mind, Susan knew she couldn’t leave things as she had.

  Through a series of phone calls, she caught up with him in a hotel room in Nebraska.

  “Susan?” At least he didn’t sound mad. “What’s wrong?” No, not mad, only worried sick.

  Smiling in spite of her admonitions not to do anything stupid, like get her hopes up, she said, “Nothing, at least nothing immediate.”

  “You’re okay?”

  “Fine.” She looked down at the beach ball that had taken over her stomach and propped another pillow under her head. She had pillows everywhere these days. Here on the couch, on a chair in the kitchen, in her car. She’d bought an even dozen just to make sure she had enough.

  “And the children?”

  “Huge.” Don’t listen, she mouthed to the beach ball. “How’s work?”

  “Good. Busy.”

  And then the pleasantries were out of the way and a heavy silence fell on the line.

  “Nothing’s changed. I know that—it’s just...I wanted to clear something up.”

  “What’s that?” He still didn’t sound annoyed. As a matter of fact, he sounded as though he didn’t mind her calling him at all.

  But then, she’d been the one who’d insisted on no contact.

  “You said something that night, a few things actually, that weren’t accurate, and I need to set the record straight.”

  “Yes?”

  “You weren’t just a stud service, Michael.” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t had a little more finesse than that. “When I asked you to be the father of my child, it was because I didn’t want a child at all if it couldn’t be yours.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “I know. I didn’t want to put that much pressure on you.”

  He chuckled. “Lady, if you think you didn’t put pressure—”

  “I know,” she interrupted. Damn, he sounded good. It was wonderful just hearing his voice. Her two-ton body felt better than it had in weeks. “I’m sorry, Michael. And one other thing.” She rushed on before she could chicken out. “Being in control of my life doesn’t mean more to me than you do.” She’d given the matter a lot of thought, continuous thought, over the past weeks. “Maybe at one time it did, maybe even when we got divorced, but I’ve changed, Michael.”

  She didn’t know why it was so important to her that he understand this. But it was. Michael knew her better than anyone, and she needed his view of her to be accurate. Almost as though she couldn’t be who she was unless he saw her that way.

  “Michael, I don’t have to fight anyone else’s preconceived notions anymore. Not my father’s ideas. Not my brothers’. Not anyone’s. I have confidence in my strength to be true to myself, in my ability to handle whatever comes my way.” Confidence gained, in some part, during the past five weeks. She’d managed to live without Michael. To survive. “And so—” She broke off, swallowed back tears. “It’s no longer a threat to share who I am.”

  Michael was silent so long she was afraid he’d fallen asleep. “You there?’ she finally whispered.

  “I am.” He fell silent again, but only for a second. “I’m proud of you, Sus. You’ve grown up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your children are very lucky to have a mom like you.”

  The warmth, the sincerity in his voice was her undoing.

  “Well, I gotta go—”

  “Take care.”

  “I will. Bye.” She didn’t wait to hear him echo the word. Her heart just couldn’t take it. Wit
h her finger on the disconnect button, she cradled the phone to her chest and bawled like a baby.

  SITTING IN AN AIRPORT almost a week after his conversation with Susan, Michael was still thinking about the things she’d said. He knew there was a message in there for him. He just hadn’t figured it out yet. But he would. He wasn’t going to rest until he found for himself the peace he’d heard in Susan’s voice.

  A woman with a double-wide stroller was trying to maneuver between the rows of seats at the gate where he was waiting to catch his flight to Atlanta. Michael moved his briefcase and carry-on to make room for her.

  “Thanks,” she panted, falling into the seat next to him.

  Now that she was closer, he could get a peak at the cargo in her stroller. She had a couple of sleeping babies wrapped in pink blankets.

  “How old are they?” he asked quietly.

  As she glanced down at her daughters, the exhaustion completely left the woman’s face, to be replaced by a very proud smile. “Three months.”

  Michael nodded politely and picked up a newspaper he’d been trying to read earlier.

  “You find that stroller preferable to the front-and-back kind?” he asked, peering over the top of his paper. Just in case he talked to Susan again, he’d let her know.

  “Yeah.” She really was pretty, Michael thought, taking in her clear skin and unmade-up face, her straight brown hair. Her generic slacks and top. There was just something about her expression, her air of—what? Happiness? “—I just want to be able to see them both at all times,” she was saying and it took him a minute to realize she was still talking about the stroller. “Besides, I want them to be company for each other.”

  Sound reasoning. Michael nodded. And returned to his paper.

  Until one of the babies whimpered. Everyone knew a baby crying was hard to ignore, so he didn’t even try. He watched, instead, as the woman bent to her child, gently patting her back and cooing her to sleep again.

  “You do that well,” he felt compelled to say.

  “Thank you.” She grinned at him. “I’ve had practice.”

  “They wear you out then, two at once?”

  “Only when they get up every other hour during the night, and don’t synchronize their schedules.”

  “They get up every other hour at opposite hours?” he asked, appalled.

  “Not often,” she laughed, “but sometimes.”

  “Doesn’t that get old fast?”

  “No.” She glanced down at her babies, that glow lighting her face. “They’re only this little for such a short time, what’s a few hours less sleep in return for more hours with them?”

  Sound reasoning, he thought again. Michael told himself to return to his paper. Held it up in front of his eyes. But focused, instead, on the bundles in the stroller beside him.

  “You have kids?” the woman asked, noticing his interest.

  “I’m expecting twins.”

  Michael had no idea where the words came from. He’d had no thought of uttering any such thing. But suddenly, with a stranger babbling excitedly beside him, his way became clear.

  Seth had been absolutely right. He’d been searching in all the wrong places.

  His ex-brother-in-law had been right about something else, as well. Michael’s entire identity had been wrapped up in his career. He was what he worked. Until this moment.

  Suddenly, with one sentence, he’d become something else. A father.

  He couldn’t get up fast enough, get out to the Pathfinder, then home to his condo to make some calls.

  “Wait!” the woman beside him called as he hurried away. “Aren’t you on this flight?”

  He turned halfway just long enough to call back, “Not anymore.” And hurried out into the rainy September day.

  BY TEN O’CLOCK the next morning, Michael was stepping into his mentor’s penthouse office in Atlanta, a firmly sealed envelope in his hand.

  “You needed to see me immediately?” Coppel asked, taking off his glasses as Michael approached his desk. “Ready to demand a partnership already?”

  The man was smiling, a picture of confidence.

  “No, sir.” Michael paused. “I—”

  “You want a raise, then,” Coppel nodded toward the seat in front of his desk. “Fine, sit, we’ll discuss it,” he said.

  Michael remained standing and that was when Coppel noticed the envelope clasped between his fingers. Coppel froze, his gaze moving slowly from the envelope in Michael’s hand to his face and back again.

  For the first time in Michael’s acquaintance with Coppel, the older man looked unsure, giving Michael pause.

  “That better not be what it looks like,” he finally said.

  “It’s a letter of resignation, sir.” He’d thought the words would be harder to say, had expected them to stick in his throat.

  They didn’t.

  “No, it isn’t,” Coppel said, snatching his hands off the desk as Michael reached over to pass him the envelope.

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  “I’m not accepting it.”

  For a moment, as his life sped before his eyes, Michael turned cold. Was he making a horrible mistake? Acting rashly? Irrationally?

  “Whatever the problem is, we’ll fix it,” Coppel said, as though he could sense Michael’s split-second waver.

  In that instant, Michael felt a peace he’d never known before. He was already fixing the problem.

  “I’m going to be a father,” he told the billionaire—the man he’d always aspired to be. “Of twins.”

  Coppel paled. Sinking back in his chair, he stared at Michael, his shoulders falling with disappointment. He suddenly had nothing to say. To Michael, he looked, for the first time, like what he was—an old man. A lonely old man.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael said. And he was. But not for himself. He was sorry for a man he still admired the hell out of, but one he now knew he never wanted to be. Because life held far more riches than the billions James Coppel possessed.

  Laying the envelope on the older man’s desk, he walked silently out.

  THE NEXT two and a half weeks flew by. Michael spent about eighteen of the twenty-four hours in each day on the telephone in his condo, leaving only long enough to get more coffee and toilet paper.

  He spent hours on conference calls with the Miller family. After he’d resigned, they’d finally turned down the offer of a buy-out. He didn’t feel morally correct in assisting them with the financing to accomplish on their own, on a smaller scale, what Coppel would have done with the company. But he felt great about turning them over to Melanie at Smythe and Westbourne. Coppel Industries still got a piece of the pie. And the Miller family had their lives back.

  The rest of the time he spent calling every contact he had in the finance industry, setting himself up, laying the groundwork for the rest of his life.

  But as his plans fell into place, he found he wasn’t nearly as anxious as he would have expected, no matter how things fell out. He loved finance. But he no longer had to be in finance. He had enough money already; if he invested it properly, he could actually retire now. Or he could go into the cartoon business...

  One person he didn’t call was Susan. Not until his plans were solid. Until he had a complete package to sell her. He wasn’t going to take a chance on another rejection.

  Finally, when all he had left to do was wait for return calls, he phoned his father. At the gas station. He’d done that purposely, so he’d have his father to himself. Sam Kennedy deserved to be able to express the disappointment that would be coming—something he never did in front of Mary.

  “I’ve left Coppel, Dad,” he said, getting the job done right off.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah.” He’d expected more, but maybe his dad thought he had to protect Michael, too, from his own dissatisfactions. Didn’t Sam realize that Michael had known for years about his dad’s regrets, how he’d lived vicariously through Michael’s career moves?

  “You had a
better offer?” So Sam’s hopes hadn’t been dashed yet.

  “Nope.”

  “You’ve finally decided to slow down then? Live some?”

  What?

  “I’m going into business for myself,” he said, too confused to do anything but report the facts. “Financial consulting.”

  “Isn’t that a bit risky?”

  Here it came. “Yes, frankly, it is, but with my contacts, I’ve already got enough business lined up to keep me busy.”

  “Not too busy, I hope.”

  “I don’t get it, Dad. I thought you’d be disappointed in me.”

  “Hell, no!”

  Michael sat straight down, only half aware that the couch was there to catch him. He’d never heard his dad swear in his life. “I don’t worry much about Bob,” Sam said, shocking Michael further. “His job’s steady, he’s got a good wife. And the twins, they both married fine, hardworking men, and they’ve got your mother. But you—” Stunned, Michael just sat there listening.

  “All you’ve got is money and that can’t warm a fella’s heart much.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t get me wrong, son, I’m mighty proud of everything you do, brag around town about you every chance I get, but I’d trade it all for you to have even half the time, the love, I’ve had with your mother all these years.”

  “But—”

  “I thought when you married, Susan, well, maybe... But I guess the time wasn’t right.”

  “You could have been an engineer or a scientist or something,” Michael blurted, beyond caring that he sounded more like his brother than the educated man he was.

  “And then I wouldn’t have had you.”

  “Didn’t you ever wish you hadn’t?” Michael wished he could take the words back the instant he heard them. Those thoughts belonged to no one but himself.

  “Is that what you thought?”

  “Who could blame you, Dad?” he said. Now that he’d brought it up, they might as well get it all out.

  “Never, not for one instant, have I regretted having you,” Sam said. Michael had never heard his dad so angry at him. At Bob, maybe. But not at him.

  “How could you not?” He’d known since he was just a kid that he’d been responsible for ruining his father’s life.