by Shari Copell
My mother absolutely could not contain her glee at being a grandmother. At first, my father scowled at Tage, but he was soon vigorously pumping his hand in congratulations.
Neither of them was thrilled with our JP wedding plans.
“Chelsea, you’re my only daughter. Please...let me buy you a dress,” my mother pleaded. “I’ve dreamt of this all my life.”
“Planning a full-blown wedding would take too long and cost too much. We want it to be simple. Please, Mom...”
Tage turned to me. “How about if I rent one of the Gateway Clipper fleet and we get married on a river cruise? Food, wine, a band, and a few close friends. Simple and memorable.”
My mother sat back and grinned. My father nodded his approval. Tage pulled me into his arms. “Settled. You don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ll take care of the details.”
And so, on May tenth, fifty of our dearest family and friends embarked with us on a voyage down the Monongahela River. Dressed in a white satin sheath gown and holding a bouquet of pink roses and white cattleya orchids, I became Mrs. Chelsea Sorenson.
We moved into Tage’s townhouse in Oakland after the wedding. I was excited to start our new life together, yet sad to leave my apartment behind. It had been my first real taste of freedom and adulthood.
Tage wasn’t done with surprises yet though. Two months after our marriage, he came home with a packet full of papers and a shit-eating grin on his face.
“What’s that?” I asked.
He laughed aloud. “You and I are now the proud owners of Tapestries.”
I looked up at him, wide-eyed. “What?”
“Bob Dreyfus just didn’t have the heart to continue with it. He wanted to retire. He was going to put it up for sale, and I told him I wanted it. I just need your signature on these papers, my love, and Tapestries is ours.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tage and I worked to cultivate a very different atmosphere at Tapestries after we bought it. He said you could manage people through fear or through kindness, but you had to watch your back if you opted for fear. I loved working at Tapestries. I wanted everyone who worked there to love it too. They were my second family.
I was roughly five months along in my pregnancy at the end of June when we bought the bar. My belly was getting as round as a beach ball. I thought for sure Tage would insist I stop working, but he never said a word. I decided I’d work until it became uncomfortable for me to be on my feet.
The baby moved around a lot inside me. It was a wonderful feeling. Tage never tired of laying his head on my stomach before we went to sleep at night. As far as he was concerned, this baby was his. I felt that way too. Most of the time.
There were days that Asher crossed my mind, in a sad, shadowy sort of way. I didn’t really love him anymore, but he was all alone in Pittsburgh. I carried a small piece of him inside me. Wouldn’t he want to know that we’d created life together? Did he deserve to know?
Unbearable pain would crush me whenever I thought like that. I’d clench my fists and silently rage. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to see me again. He hadn’t even had the guts to say it to my face. The fucker had phoned it in to our place of employment, effectively making my humiliation public. I owed him nothing.
In point of fact, I wasn’t sure I could find Asher even if I did want to tell him about the baby. He seemed to have disappeared into thin air. The Dirty Turtles never played another gig at Tapestries. I would find out later from his band mates that they’d broken up. None of them could locate their lead guitarist. No one ever answered the door at Asher’s house.
It was a process, but I worked through it. I can’t say it didn’t involve hormones and a lot of time and tears, but I wrestled all my demons to the ground where Asher was concerned.
Finally.
When I was seven months along, I had my first sonogram. Flat on my back in a little flimsy paper gown with Tage holding my hand, we learned we were having a girl.
He’s a big man, but Tage is just about as soft-hearted as they come. He held my right hand in both of his, and the tears poured down his face as he stared at our baby on the monitor. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying myself.
“A girl. We’re having a little girl. She’ll be beautiful, like her mama.” He bent over and smothered my face with so many kisses that the sonogram tech in the room with us started to cry too.
We stopped on the way home from the hospital and bought a pair of pink booties to wrap and give to my parents at supper that night.
My mother plucked them out of the small box and shouted exultantly at my father, “Ha! A girl! I knew it!”
“Crap. I wanted a boy.” Crossing his arms, my father struck out his lower lip and sank into his recliner.
“Next time!” I laughed, dropped into his lap, and gave him a big hug.
My father held me against him and whispered in my ear, “I really wanted a girl. I just let your mother win the bet. I love you, Chelsea Ellen.”
“I know you did. I love you too, Daddy.”
“I’m going to send you for another sonogram,” Dr. Sherwin said. “I think the baby has shifted to a head-down position, but I want to make sure. She’s a good size, so if she’s head down now, let’s hope she stays that way.”
She gripped my hand and pulled me up to a sitting position on the examination table. I was eight months pregnant and as big as a freaking whale. I had never been so uncomfortable in my life.
“I can’t wait till this is over. I can’t sleep, I can’t lie on my back; everything I eat gives me heartburn…” I sighed and rubbed my stomach.
“It’ll be over soon. Big finish!” Dr. Sherwin laughed as she scribbled notes in my chart. “While you’re at the hospital for the sonogram, be sure to sign up for Lamaze classes. They do help.”
She scheduled my sonogram for the following Tuesday. I was now home most days, trying to stay off my swollen feet. Tage was working half-days too. I can’t say I minded. Misery loves company, and I did my share of whining. It usually got me a bouquet of roses, a foot massage, and a pint of Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream. (Very big smile!)
It was another one of those weird accidents of fate, really. Though I’d be having the baby at Magee-Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, Dr. Sherwin was unable to get a timely ultrasound appointment for me there, so she scheduled me at the main UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Oakland. I was okay with that—it was just a tad closer to our townhouse.
A cold front had moved through the night before my appointment, turning the sky to lead and ushering in our first cold weather of the year. I was huge by now, and had borrowed a loose wool cape from my mom to wear if the weather suddenly changed. I draped it around me and snapped it at the shoulders, smiling at myself in the mirror. My head looked like it was poking out of a large, black tent.
UPMC Presby is a huge hospital. Freezer incident notwithstanding, I hadn’t been in it all that often. I told Dr. Sherwin I was worried about getting lost trying to find the ultrasound department. She laughed and told me to follow the signs inside the hospital.
Yeah, right.
Before I knew it, I’d somehow waddled out of the elevator and onto an upper floor. Yep, hopelessly lost. I walked around for a few minutes before locating a nurses’ station.
The woman sitting behind the desk pulled her headphones off and smiled at me. “May I help you?”
I smiled back and leaned against the counter. “I think I’m lost. I’m here for an ultrasound.”
“Wow, you are lost!” She laughed. “Go out to the elevators here and go down to...”
The halls in a hospital are cavernous and carry sound very well for some distance. I can’t tell you why, but my ears stopped focusing on the woman I was talking to and noticed someone—presumably a doctor—speaking rather loudly in a room two doors down to my right.
“I’m sorry, Asher. I wish I had better news for you. We’ll do what we can.”
“Well, you can’t do any more than that,
can you? I appreciate your honesty.”
At the sound of that voice, I jerked my head up and stared at the nurse, my mouth open, my eyes as big as saucers.
“Is there someone named Asher in a room down there?” I pointed a shaking finger down the hall, though I knew the answer. The voice was unmistakable.
“Yes. Asher Pratt, in room number...”
I didn’t wait to hear. My Asher-senses were tingling. I pushed off the counter and ran to the room.
I stood in the doorway of that room and blinked several times as I looked him over. I was certain I was not seeing what my eyes thought they were seeing.
Asher Pratt lay flat on his back, hooked up to so much machinery I could barely see him. He had several IVs hanging from a stainless-steel pole. Lines of sharp green peaks blipped across a computer monitor on the other side of the bed. Wires of various colors seemed to tether him to everything in the room except the TV.
It wasn’t so much the wires and tubes that flattened me. It was the way he looked. He was the gray-green-yellow color of lunchmeat gone bad. He’d always been very slim, but he was skeletal now. The tendons in his neck stuck out like corded rope as he turned to look at me. Those gorgeous brown eyes stared back, but they were dull and lifeless.
“Asher? What the hell are you doing here?”
It’s funny the things that run through your mind at a time like that. I was acutely aware that this was a fight-or-flight moment for me. For about four seconds, I had a choice. Should I turn and run without knowing why Asher was lying in a hospital bed looking like death warmed over? Or should I stay and find out, risking the pain that information was sure to cause?
“Chelsea! Jesus...”
The doctor—his badge said Dr. Michaels—patted Asher on the arm. “I can’t remember you ever having a visitor, Asher. I’ll come back later.”
Asher looked up at the doctor, and I swear his expression said, “Please don’t leave me!”
That look, more than anything else, made the decision for me. This little bastard was going to answer some questions, like it or not. At least he couldn’t run from me now.
After the doctor left, we just stared at each other. I couldn’t think of anything coherent to say.
I finally swallowed and asked, “Would you mind explaining what you’re doing in the hospital?”
He looked away for a moment and fidgeted with the edge of his sheet blanket. I saw him wince before he looked up at me again.
“I’m dying, Chelsea.”
I don’t remember how I got to the chair by the side of the bed. I think he might have been talking to me as I moved, but I couldn’t hear him over the roar in my ears.
I took his hand in mine, searching his face, praying to see the lies I’d seen there so many times before. I could barely breathe. He wasn’t lying.
“No. Fucking. Way. Asher Pratt cannot die.”
He squeezed my hand tightly and gave me a weak smile. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”
I was light-headed now. I fought to get a grip on my racing heart. I’d soon be the one hooked up to the monitors if I didn’t.
“How? Why?”
“I’m a type-one diabetic. I have been since I was a kid. I never really took very good care of myself, but Mom made sure I got my insulin. When she died, I just quit worrying about it. I ate and drank whatever I wanted and only injected myself if I remembered.” He smiled again. Lips that had once driven me to madness were now pale and thin. “It finally caught up with me. My kidneys are failing, and my heart isn’t in such good shape either.”
“You never told me you were a diabetic!” I wanted to scream it at him, but I knew I couldn’t raise my voice in the hospital.
He just shrugged. “Didn’t seem important, really.”
“You asshole!” Words, angry, sad, and horrified, tumbled around inside my head like dice. “Did you think no one cared about you? Did you think I wouldn’t care that you were killing yourself?”
He winced again, as though I’d stuck a knife in his back. “I knew you’d care too much. Type-one diabetes is usually fatal. I have always been on borrowed time. I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone.”
I sat back and stared at him. “Is that why you would never commit to me? Because you thought you’d die young?”
The nod was barely perceptible.
“And every time you started to feel something for me—really love me—that’s when you knew it was time to pull the plug on us.” I shoved my fisted left hand between my knees to keep from taking a swing at him.
Another nod. “Well, except this last time. I knew I was seriously sick this last time.”
Clarity filled me with pain. “And Tanya was just a way to piss me off so I wouldn’t come looking for you. You didn’t want me to see you like this.”
“Yep.”
“Asher...” Things got stuck in my throat. Things like: I would’ve taken care of you so you didn’t die young! I loved you enough that I would’ve taken a chance on losing you at a young age! You took that choice away from me, and I hate you for it!
“Don’t say anything, Chels. And don’t torture yourself with what might have been. I’ve always known I was going to do things my way. What’s done is done.” He lifted a troubled gaze to me. “My only regret is that we didn’t have a future.”
“Oh, fuck you! That’s such bullshit! You had other choices. You didn’t have to hasten your...end...like this!”
He shrugged.
I let my gaze fall to the horribly depressing gray tile on the floor as my heart threatened to explode out of my chest. This just couldn’t be happening. His eyes said it all though. I’d looked into them enough when he was lying to know when he wasn’t.
“So how long do you have?”
“Three weeks or so. They said the choice to unhook from everything was mine. I’m still getting my affairs in order then I’ll have them shut me off.”
I dropped my face into my hands and just concentrated on breathing. The baby...his baby...chose that moment to leap inside me, as though protesting the untimely demise of her father, a man she would never know. I pushed the cape aside and put a hand to my stomach in an effort to calm her.
“Ho ho, what’s this?” He laughed, his gaze roaming over my bulging belly. “What have you been up to, Miss Whitaker?”
Should I tell him? No. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Dying like this at such a young age was surely hard enough without knowing you’d fathered a child you’d never see.
“I’m Chelsea Sorenson now. I got married in May.”
The look on his face made me want to punch his lights out. Regret, sadness, devastation. Love. He fucking loved me. I clenched my teeth. Too little, too late, Asher. Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me?
“Lucky man. Tell me about him.”
I told him about Mr. Dreyfus hiring Tage as Tapestries’ manager, how we’d connected almost right away. I told him about our wedding and that we now owned the bar. He smiled and nodded his head politely as he listened. I wondered if he ached inside hearing it as much as I did telling him. We were planning ahead, living our lives. Asher’s dreaming and scheming was about to come to an end. It seemed unreal, inconceivable that someone so full of life could be so temporary.
“When is the baby due?”
“In about three weeks.” I glanced at him. “It’s a girl.” He could take that much with him, at least.
“You’ll have beautiful girls. I wish you and Tage all the best.” He winked at me and flopped back on the pillow. He inhaled deeply and went pale before my eyes. “Think of me once in a while though, won’t you, Chels? For old times’ sake? Will you toast me at Christmas?”
I was so close to bawling my eyes out I didn’t know if I could talk. “I hate that you did this to yourself. I hate that you weren’t honest with me. Damn you!” Then I said something I maybe shouldn’t have said, “Do you mind if I visit with you again? I know you don’t have anyone in Pittsburgh
...”
He looked relieved. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t have anyone at all anywhere. I’d really appreciate it if you’d come and see me. If your husband doesn’t mind, that is. The days are long in here sometimes. It makes me feel better to see your beautiful face.”
I cried so hard on the way home I had to pull over to the side of the road.
Nothing but questions seemed to hang in the air. What to do? I was starting to rethink my position on telling Asher about the baby. I couldn’t be pissed off at him for not being honest with me when I wasn’t being completely honest with him. What would Tage say about that?
I loved Tage with all my heart, and I didn’t want to anger him. Everything except DNA made him this little girl’s daddy. Tage would hold her in his arms after she was born, see her first steps, help her ride a bike, and teach her to drive. Asher would see none of that. Could my big Viking find it in his heart to be compassionate to a dying man?
Tage was the kindest, sweetest man I’d ever met, but I knew what I was thinking of doing would push his buttons. It would’ve pushed any man’s buttons. He was fiercely protective of the baby and me. Now I was going to ask him to include a third party in our little family triangle. A third party who had really hurt the woman he loved. It was going to be hard for him to look past all that.
I peeled my forehead off the steering wheel and stared out through the windshield of my Honda Accord, my vision still blurred by tears. Asher was dying. I knew I was not going to be able to live with myself if he died alone. I had to try to talk to Tage about it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I hadn’t been married to Tage long enough to know what that blank, wide-eyed look on his face meant yet. He didn’t look angry, but I could tell he was far from pleased.
He inhaled, shifted on one foot, shook his head like a dog, and focused his gaze back on me. “So let me get this straight. You see the guy who got you pregnant and abandoned you, you tell me he has a few weeks to live, and now you want to go and visit him in the hospital?”