First Comes Baby

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Yup. We got careless…” His wife swatted him and he ducked away, laughing. “Next thing we knew, she was pregnant. But, you know, I’m thirty, she’s twenty-eight. So we hadn’t intended to have a kid for a couple more years. We adjusted our thinking.”

  “I thought I might at least have a few twinges of regret,” Nadia admitted. “But I can’t say I feel a one.”

  Laurel stared at her. “So you’re not planning to go back to work?”

  “When I first got pregnant, I only intended to stay home until Alex was three months old.” She gave her sleeping son a melting look. “Then when he was first born, I thought maybe I could take a year off. Now, I just can’t imagine leaving him. Darren and I talked about it last night and we decided I’m going to be a stay-at-home mom for a few years.”

  Laurel was quiet now.

  Caleb opened his big mouth and said, “I’d like Laurel to do the same.”

  Startled, she looked only at him. “You know I can’t.”

  Forgetting the others were even there, he asked, “Why not?”

  “I can’t afford…”

  “I can.”

  Her eyes flashed. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  Frustration choked him, but he nodded.

  After a moment, Darren made some comment about the Seahawks game on Sunday, Caleb replied, and the awkwardness receded.

  Awkwardness for which he was responsible. Stupid, stupid. She wouldn’t appreciate being put on the spot in front of other people, and he couldn’t blame her.

  On the surface, conversation was easy, and if Caleb and Laurel didn’t say much directly to each other, he hoped it wasn’t obvious. Eventually, Alex woke up cranky, and Laurel and Caleb said their goodbyes.

  The same thick silence descended the minute they got in the car again. He took it for about five minutes. Then he said, “I was an idiot back there.”

  Laurel didn’t look at him. “I know you mean to be nice, but I can’t take your charity.”

  “Charity?” His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “You’re having my baby.”

  “Caleb, I wanted you involved, but not…” She hesitated.

  He knew what she was trying to find a tactful way to say. In his mind they’d become a family. He was dad, she was mom, they were a unit. In her mind, he was a friend, a convenient male role model for a child. Somebody who spoiled the kid when he stopped by now and again. Involved, but casually.

  Before she could finish the sentence, Caleb said, “I’m not asking for anything in return.”

  Her voice softened. “I know you’re not. But I can’t let you support me.”

  “Watching you struggle is going to kill me.”

  “Caleb, you’ve already insisted on paying child support. More than any court would assign to you. The majority of mothers in this country work out of the home, too.”

  But you don’t have to. Caleb bit back the words. There was more he couldn’t say, either, like It might be different if you had a career you loved, not a job you’re holding to pay the bills. That sounded too much like a reproach.

  Anyway, what difference did it make what kind of job she had? What counted here was her pride, her independence, her sense of dignity. They were what he threatened.

  “This is what comes of running a business. I’ve gotten bossy.”

  She choked. Or laughed, he wasn’t sure which. “You were always bossy.”

  “But hear me out,” Caleb continued.

  After a moment, Laurel gave a stiff nod.

  “I make a lot of money. Even given that I put most of it back into expanding.”

  Another nod.

  “I’d feel better—and more like a real dad—if I can make life easier for you and better for our child.” He paused, glancing at her.

  No rebellion.

  “I can easily afford to pay your bills for a few months. Say, five or six.” She opened her mouth. He hurried to finish. “You could start your maternity leave in the next few weeks. When getting to work and making it through the day becomes a struggle. Then enjoy the baby for four or five months before you start back. Give him a solid start with you.”

  Caleb felt a little bad about that last bit—guilting her wasn’t a fair tactic. But he didn’t take it back, either.

  “Will you just think about it?” he concluded.

  “I guess I can do that.” She paused. “You always say ‘him.’ Will you be disappointed if we have a girl?”

  They’d reached the ferry terminal. He shifted in his seat to pull his wallet out of his back pocket.

  “Nope. I’m just being contrary.”

  “I say she, you say he?”

  “Just reminding you not to get too attached to pink.”

  Like her old self, Laurel snorted. “I’ve never worn pink a day in my life.”

  “Not true.” Caleb had looked through her family photo albums. “Remember your princess costume?”

  “Oh, God.” She laughed. “It was over the top, wasn’t it?”

  When the photo was snapped, she’d been maybe six or seven, plump, pink satin stretched across her stomach, layers and layers of sequined tulle ending just above pink satin high heels—with which her mom had made her wear socks, because it was cold out there trick-or-treating. A tiara had flattened her stick straight hair to her head. In one hand, she’d held a giant grocery sack, in the other a wand trailing pink and white ribbons.

  Laurel had turned the page real quick on that picture. Caleb had thought it was cute.

  “Actually,” she said now, sounding thoughtful, “it wasn’t until Mom died that I gave up wearing girly stuff. I became more of a tomboy, got more into school.”

  “Identifying with your father.”

  “I guess so.”

  Back in college, she’d talked about her mother and her regret at the fading memories. She actually looked a lot like her mom, while her sister took after their dad. Caleb had always figured that when she did stuff like paper her bathroom with sprigs of violets, it was the part of her that came from her mother popping out. He wondered if Laurel realized that.

  They went up top for the ferry ride back, too. Everybody smiled at the sight of Laurel—pregnancy seemed to do that to people. A couple of times women asked when she was due, and he saw that they were itching to lay hands on her belly.

  “Everyone wants to touch you,” he observed, when they were alone at the railing.

  “I know! Isn’t it weird?”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “You mean, the intrusion on my personal space? Mmm.” She pursed her lips. “Not as much as it should. There’s something communal about having a baby. Have you ever noticed? It’s a good thing, I think. I mean, on some level adults feel responsible for all children.”

  It was even more communal in some of the places Caleb visited, where everyone was an aunt or uncle or neighbor.

  “I agree,” he said. “But I was thinking more of you. You used to look uncomfortable when the sidewalk was crowded and people brushed you. Now I see these hands reaching out, and you don’t flinch.”

  She looked at him, her eyes startled. “That’s true. I hadn’t thought. Maybe it’s because it’s not really me they want to touch.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but it is you that’s the draw. Right now, you’re like a fertility goddess. Or maybe motherhood personified. They want to catch some of that glow.”

  “Did you see that woman’s face back there?”

  Caleb nodded. He knew which one she meant.

  “She looked…wistful.”

  Sad, he’d been thinking.

  Laurel shook herself. In a voice so soft, he thought she was talking only to herself, she said, “If she only knew.”

  Knew what? That this baby had been conceived by sperm donation? Or that Laurel saw herself as unfit for any other kind of close, loving relationship?

  Today, with her ripe belly and palpable happiness, Laurel looked like someone who had everything.

  If only,
he guessed she was thinking, that other woman knew she didn’t have everything. Didn’t, and probably never would, thanks to the sick bastard who had hurt her irreparably.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LAUREL WOKE UP SCREAMING.

  She hadn’t done that in a long time. Years.

  She sat upright in bed, gasping as if she’d run ten K, eyes staring, senses straining.

  Over her gasps, she heard only city noises, all familiar. Freeway traffic, never stopping even in the small hours of the night. A siren a long ways away, fading. A dog barking a few blocks over.

  The dream came clear in her mind, and a whimper escaped her.

  She was having his baby.

  Not Caleb’s. His. The rapist’s. The morning-after pill hadn’t worked. Nobody could kill the hideous thing growing inside her. A child that would be born with his face, his angry eyes.

  She shuddered and looked down at her belly with revulsion lingering from the nightmare.

  What if…?

  No! It’s been years!

  Oh, God. What was wrong with her? Why was she thinking something like this now?

  Not once, in all the time she’d been pregnant, had she thought of the baby as an intruder, as alien to her body. Why now?

  After a moment, she turned on the bedside lamp, then lay back down on her side with her knees curled up. Gently rubbing her belly, she whispered, “I’m sorry, baby. Did I scare you? It was just a bad dream.”

  Her stomach bounced, as if her unborn child had rolled in response to her voice.

  “It’s just…I’ve been thinking about things more. Maybe because of you.”

  The baby kicked.

  “Or maybe it’s because of Caleb. His making me go to the U District that day. Since then, I’ve been remembering more.”

  Another bounce, and suddenly she had to pee.

  “Great, use my bladder for a trampoline, why don’t you?” Sighing, she slid out of bed, managing to get her feet under her. The bathroom felt a lot smaller to her these days than it used to. She was beginning to have more sympathy for Caleb who often complained about it. She couldn’t shut the door anymore until she was sitting on the toilet. Her stomach stuck out too much.

  Falling asleep again wasn’t going to happen. She thought longingly of a latte but heated water in the microwave for a cup of herbal tea, then settled on the sofa with a fantasy novel she’d started a few days before.

  Somehow, she had trouble concentrating on it. She kept thinking about how tired she was going to be by midafternoon and wondering whether—just this once—she could call in sick.

  What if she were to take Caleb up on his offer, and take maternity leave soon? She knew the firm would be okay with it if she gave a week’s notice. And, as Caleb had pointed out, even if her position wasn’t available again when she was ready to go back to work, an experienced legal assistant wouldn’t have to hunt far to find another job.

  Charity, a part of her argued, but weakly.

  He did have money to spare. And this was his baby. Plus…they were friends.

  Her dad would help, too, so she didn’t have to take so much from Caleb. He’d offered plenty of times, but she’d been stubbornly determined to make it on her own. As if taking care of herself now could absolve her of the shame of not being able to take care of herself that one time.

  Dumb, she knew, but the way she felt.

  The sky outside turned from midnight to charcoal to pearl-gray, and she didn’t turn a single page in the book that lay open on her lap.

  Why the dream?

  It seemed to her that lately everything she’d pushed way far down, everything she refused to think about or remember, was seeping back to the surface, as if it were a poison at a toxic dump site.

  Because of the baby? Caleb? She didn’t know.

  Watching the sky continue to lighten, Laurel thought, Maybe it was inevitable. Head in the sand didn’t work forever. Was nature giving her a nudge, suggesting that she deal with her fears before she became responsible for another life?

  An hour before she would have had to get up, she jerked and realized she’d dropped off to sleep. Yawning, she went back to bed, reset the alarm so she could call in at nine, and fell immediately into a dreamless sleep.

  WITHIN TEN DAYS, LAUREL had three baby showers.

  She’d guessed that the women she worked with would hold one. Wedding and baby showers were a regular lunchtime occurrence in the office. And from the moment she announced her pregnancy, everyone at the firm had been really nice, with no penetrating questions about who the baby’s father was. Heck, they were probably relieved to find out why she was racing for the bathroom so often.

  So many people brought gifts, one of the women attorneys drove her home after work that day with the trunk full of her haul.

  Then Megan let her know she was having one. Nadia came, of course, and another old friend from college Laurel hadn’t seen in years. Half a dozen other friends from recent years brought gifts, including Sheila Baker. There were even a couple of women there who had been friends of their mother’s.

  But it was the last shower that amazed her most.

  Her rape support group met monthly, and when she walked into the last meeting before she was to give birth, her first thought was Oh, everyone’s already here.

  As one they grinned at her, yelled “Surprise!” and stood aside for her to see the cake, punch and gifts they’d brought.

  She burst into tears.

  Amid hugs, laughs and more tears, she opened their gifts, looking around the circle at the faces of these other women who understood what she had survived as no one else did.

  At the end, she said, “I can’t thank you enough. And I want to say something else, too. I don’t know if I could have made it through these last five years without you.”

  Marie shook her head. “Yeah, you could have. You’re strong, Laurel. But it would have been harder. And…I feel the same.”

  There were a lot of puffy eyes when they left that night, all helping to carry the baby clothes, receiving blankets and toys to Laurel’s car.

  She promised to let them know when the baby was born, and when she drove away she saw them still standing in a cluster in the parking lot, waving.

  Two and a half weeks before her due date, Laurel began her maternity leave. Her ankles were puffy, just getting out of a chair was a major production, and it felt like she had to pee every ten minutes around the clock.

  When she’d called her father one evening to ask if he would help, the first words out of his mouth were “Thank God! I thought you were going to go into labor on a Metro bus rather than ask for a thin dime.”

  “I didn’t know you were that worried.”

  “I’ve been trying real hard to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Then you did better than Caleb.”

  “Good for him,” her father said in a heartfelt tone. “You know you’re always welcome to come home.”

  “Thank you,” Laurel said meekly. “But actually, Caleb suggested I stay with him. He has a guest bedroom, you know.” Why was she telling her father that? So he wouldn’t think she and Caleb were going to share a bed and have wild sex? She looked down at her swollen body and almost laughed. Yup. That was going to happen.

  “And then he’ll be there when you go into labor. That’s good.”

  “Were you with Mom when she had us?” She’d been thinking about her mother lately, too, wishing she were here to tell her what labor was really like, what to do if the baby was colicky, how to treat diaper rash, when a baby’s cry meant she was sick.

  “Sure I was,” her father said. “It was my parents’ generation when the dads were expected to wait in the hall. We took a Lamaze class when she was pregnant with you, and I counted breaths the whole way.”

  “How long did Mom’s labor last?”

  “Sixteen hours for you, only ten for Meggie. That’s from the first contraction she felt at home.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad.” She and C
aleb had been attending Lamaze classes, too, and some of what the instructor told them had scared Laurel. Labor could go on for two days. And there were all kinds of other things that could go wrong: the baby presenting the wrong way, or the cord wrapping around the neck, for example.

  “It really progressed fast once we got to the hospital. We were so excited.” His voice sounded odd, wistful. “When the doctor handed you to me, I fell in love. And the expression on your mother’s face…”

  “I wish she was here.”

  “I think she’s with you, Laurel. Whether you can see her or not.”

  “I thought of her that night,” Laurel heard herself say. “When…you know.”

  Her father made an inarticulate sound.

  “I told her I’d see her sooner than we both expected.” Her throat felt thick. “And…and it seemed to me she said that I wouldn’t die. That I should hold on.”

  When she woke up at last in the hospital, she couldn’t understand why her mother wasn’t there with her father beside the bed. Her sense that they’d talked, that she had seen her, was so strong, in her confusion she believed her mother was still alive.

  She hated now to remember her grief when her father said, “Honey, Mom’s… She can’t be here.” And she knew. Her mother was dead.

  Maybe she’d been dead, if only for a minute. How else could they have talked? The memory was as clear as ones of Mom kissing Laurel good-night, of her pain-ravaged face at the hospital right before she died, when Daddy took the girls to say goodbye.

  “You never told me,” he said now.

  “It sounded crazy. That I believed she talked to me.”

  “Not crazy. If she could possibly be there to hold your hand, she would be.”

  A funny feeling of peace came over Laurel. “I really think she was. So maybe…”

  “She’ll be there when her granddaughter is born, too. I wish…” He swallowed audibly.

  “Maybe you haven’t needed her enough yet.”

  He was silent for a long time. Then said quietly, “Maybe.”

  After that conversation, Laurel thought more about what she’d believed to be a hallucination: her mother sitting beside her in that parking garage, butterfly touches on her ravaged face, compassion and love and strength in her eyes.