Love Potion #2

by Margot Early

  But she wasn’t.

  “You’re going to make her sit through dinner with morning sickness?” Bridget demanded.

  Irritated, he skirted the table so as not to have to shove his sister out of the way.

  Bridget watched him go. Calmly, she removed a small vial from her purse, opened the lid and emptied the contents into Paul’s water glass. She capped the bottle, dropped it back into her purse and looked defiantly at her father.

  David Cureux shook his head, and Bridget watched him decide to spend his breath. “Errant nonsense,” he told her, taking her elbow to steer her back to their table.

  Bridget knew her father completely denied that love potions possessed any efficacy whatsoever. He believed they did not work. But just now, she thought with affectionate pity, he sounded rather as though he wished they did.

  PAUL WAS WAITING in the hallway when Cameron stepped out of the ladies’ room.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Will you be able to eat?”

  Was he hoping that she wouldn’t be able, so that they would have to leave? “Certainly,” she answered. “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s all part of pregnancy.” All part of this pregnancy, she thought.

  He nodded silently and gestured for her to proceed him down the short hallway and back upstairs. When they reached the room where they’d been seated, Cameron made a point of smiling broadly as she waved to Bridget and David.

  She sat down at the table with Paul, and the waiter appeared in the doorway and gave them a questioning look.

  Cameron opened the menu. “I’m ready.”

  Paul nodded to the waiter, who came to the table and recited the specials. Cameron picked the salmon, Paul duckling in apricot sauce. The waiter offered them wine, and Paul shook his head, reaching determinedly for his water again.

  Cameron, who had drained her own glass, asked for more, and Paul offered her his glass but she said, “I’m fine for the moment.”

  Paul gazed across the table at her, sorry that he’d made her cry. Whatever he’d done, he’d obviously been a jerk. Drinking his water, he thought how beautiful she looked. He loved her small face, her smile, her long hair that reminded him of a girl in a fairy tale. He was proud that she was having his child, and yet he thought that pride bestial, chauvinistic, all wrong.

  Yet shouldn’t he ask her to marry him? She would say yes, and, well, they’d work it out. They did get along, didn’t fight like cats and dogs, and were attracted to each other. Well, he was to her. And she’d seemed so to him that night…the night they’d conceived the baby.

  It occurred to him that if he proposed she might say no, aware that he didn’t really want to marry her. Which he didn’t, did he? It was ridiculous to think of being married, of having this baby together. I’m not ready for this.

  He took another drink of water, then drew in his breath and said, “I think we should move in together.”

  Her face flooded, and she recalled how recently he had made her cry, and now he also guessed why, what the reason must be. It was because he’d said plainly that he wanted to be a part-time dad. “Why?” she asked coldly. “You don’t want to be a full-time dad.”

  Paul tried to speak and felt as though his tongue had been immobilized. Could he say that he did want to be a full-time dad—or even a full-time partner?

  “Don’t worry,” she said, a bit sharply. “You’re safe. No, Paul, I don’t think we should move in together. I can’t see anything good coming of it.” As he stared at her, expressionless, as though she’d slapped him, she recalled that he was taking her out to this very nice dinner and had cooked for her recently. Well, so what?

  Paul closed his eyes, then picked up his water glass and drained it. Why did he feel so miserable? He should be jumping up and down for joy. He didn’t have to live with her. They would raise their child from different houses.

  A depressing picture. The picture of he and Cameron living together in one house, raising their child, was so much happier. He said, “I want to live with you—and the baby.”

  “I doubt it,” she answered. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.” Cameron felt her appetite ebbing and was glad to see the waiter approach with the soup.

  BY THE TIME Paul turned his truck into her driveway that night, he’d decided that kissing her good-night might earn him a slap in the face. But he really needed more information. Parking in front of her house, he touched her arm before she could reach for the door. “Wait.”

  Cameron looked at him. The look was dispassionate, but he knew the vulnerability beneath.

  “What if I had asked you to marry me?”

  She said, “You didn’t,” and reached for the door handle.

  “Cameron.” He touched her hair, couldn’t help it.

  She spun round. “You’re suddenly attracted to me because I’m carrying your child. It’s entirely biological and means nothing.”

  He shook his head.

  “What?” she asked.

  “It’s not—just—attraction.” How could he explain? “It’s something else. I want to take care of you.”

  He thought he saw her soften, and he put his hand on the side of her small face and leaned toward her.

  She let him kiss her, and he slid his hand down, pulled her closer.

  She drew back, shaking her head.

  At least she hadn’t hit him. “What?”

  “I don’t want to play with this,” she said.

  He tried making sense of her words. “Who’s playing?”

  “I think you are.”

  “That’s not fair. I just asked you for a commitment about an hour ago.”

  She squinted at him. “Was that what you were doing?”

  “Yes!”

  She nodded slowly and reached for the door handle again. “Thanks for dinner.”

  Paul wracked his brain for means to convince her of his seriousness. Nothing occurred to him. He said again, “Would it have been different?”

  She froze. “If you’d asked me to marry you? How the hell should I know?” She looked into his eyes. “Because in order to ask that question, you’d have had to be a different person.”

  That was a slap all right.

  “Good night,” she said.

  He just nodded and watched in the headlights as she walked toward the house, watched the two dog shapes rise from the porch, watched her unlock the door and go inside, waited until the lights went on inside.

  Did she mean she wanted him to be a different person?

  Maybe, Paul. Maybe she wants you to be the kind of person who believes two people can get married and stay married and remain faithful and kind to one another all their lives.

  If he wasn’t that kind of person… Well, he wasn’t.

  But something niggled at him, the question no one had answered. He looked at the clock on the dash and saw it was only nine. He headed for his mother’s.

  Myrtle Hollow

  CLARE SANK DOWN at the kitchen table, recalling a recent conversation with her ex-husband. Now, here was Paul, asking the very questions she didn’t want to answer. Well, no, that wasn’t true. He didn’t know the questions to ask.

  “They were travelers. They lived in a VW bus all painted with flowers, and it had broken down halfway up this hollow. The man came to the door in the middle of the night and told me so, said his wife was in labor and they’d been looking for me, knew I was a midwife. At first, I said they should call an ambulance. He said his wife was terrified of hospitals and having a really bad time, and couldn’t I just look at her?

  “I said I would and that I would take her to the hospital if she needed to go.”

  Across the table, Paul watched his mother’s face harden.

  “I got there, her water had broken and was meconium-stained and there were no fetal heart tones. I examined her to see if I could get the baby out—thinking perhaps I could get him breathing. And
it was a case of true cephalopelvic disproportion or CPD—in fact, only one of two cases I’ve seen my whole career. The other was initially my client, and I referred her to a physician because the child had to be born by cesarean.

  “In this case, she was not my client, and they had waited too long to seek help. I think they must have had no prenatal guidance. I drove them to the hospital, and she had a cesarean.”

  She stopped speaking abruptly.

  Paul said, “I’m afraid of Cameron having that. Not a cesarean. That CPD.”

  “If it happens, which is extremely rare, we’ll know about it with plenty of warning, and she will have a physician.” Clare rose from the table. “And now it’s time for me to head off to bed.”

  Paul didn’t move. “Didn’t that stillbirth happen right before Dad moved out?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Around that time.”

  “Were there problems with the hospital? Did they blame you?”

  “I was exonerated,” she said. “Fairly soon.”

  Paul was surprised to hear it. Although his father had been an obstetrician, there wasn’t much love lost between other local obstetricians and his mother. The medical people thought all homebirths were dangerous. His mother thought most hospital births were. She also knew, as did Paul, that a huge number of unnecessary complications and cesarean sections occurred because of unnecessary technical intervention in hospitals.

  He rose from the table at last and said, “Well, ’night, Mom,” and kissed her cheek.

  She hugged him briefly and said, “Watch out for deer on your way home.”

  Clare closed the door after him and waited till she saw his headlights turn out of her yard before she began switching off the lights in the cabin. There was no reason for him to know the rest, to know how she’d come to be exonerated. She’d been blameless in the fetal death, and that had been the conclusion reached in the end. She’d done what she’d had to in order to make sure that happened.

  A quiet rage still bubbled inside her at the memory of being falsely accused, of her feelings of helplessness and impotence when faced with those accusations. At first, she’d been angry at the couple, for what they’d done, for two things they’d done. But those poor sorrowing people. Even then, her anger toward them hadn’t lasted long.

  She thought about Paul. His question had arisen from fear for Cameron—and the baby. Whether he acknowledged it or not, he did love Cameron.

  I need to tell him everything, she thought. Abruptly, she felt shame that she hadn’t told him tonight, had protected herself instead. She’d always tried to be the best mother she could be to him, but she felt that tonight she had really lied to him, lied by omission. What she had to relate made her feel dirty and degraded, but now, concealing it from the son who was so dissatisfied with the spoken reasons for his parents’ divorce, she felt even worse.

  She could call him on the phone now. And he would drive back.

  She looked at the clock.

  No. She would find time tomorrow—find a place in his day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “IT’S GOING TO BE

  very simple. You will be maid of honor, and probably Graham’s dissertation advisor will be best man. They’ve remained good friends, and Graham wants him but he’s not absolutely sure the man will be free that weekend.” “You want a pregnant maid of honor?” Cameron said. They were in a Charleston bridal shop looking at dresses, something Mary Anne was determined to do before her mother could get involved in the process. “I’ll have to wear a maternity dress.”

  Mary Anne frowned. “You won’t be that big. We’re having the wedding on Valentine’s Day.”

  “I will be obviously pregnant.”

  “Well, I don’t mind, so you shouldn’t. I’m honored to have my little first cousin once removed in the ceremony.”

  “Considering the baby has Paul’s genes,” Cameron remarked philosophically, “it might be good for the little one to be introduced to the idea of weddings and marriage early in life.”

  They’d asked the saleswoman to let them look at dresses on racks and the dresses in the store’s books before receiving further help. This allowed them a degree of privacy.

  “Tell me again what he said last night,” Mary Anne urged.

  “He said he thought we should move in together.” She hadn’t mentioned the kiss in the car to her cousin, thinking it unseemly to do so. “Romantic, no?”

  Mary Anne read the sarcasm. “Maybe he’s working himself up to a more permanent proposal. Maybe he wants to give the whole thing a test ride.”

  “He’s had that,” Cameron replied bitterly.

  Mary Anne rolled her eyes. “I meant nothing so crude.”

  “He’s known me for half his life—at least. And he knows me well, and I know him well.” Her cell phone rang and she took it from her purse.

  Paul.

  She considered not answering.

  Instead, she waved to Mary Anne and headed for the exit as she answered.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi. Where are you?”

  “In Charleston. Where are you?”

  “Outside your house. It’s my lunch hour.” Paul worked weekends—such was the life of a zookeeper. “Where’s your spare key? You moved it.”

  She frowned. “Inside the dog house.” The dog house that no dog used.

  “That’s creative.”

  “Why are you going in my house?”

  “Mmm…a bird is stuck in there.”

  “You’re kidding.” She said, “I saw a mouse the other day. It’s that time of year. I hate them. I should get a cat. What’s a bird doing in there?”

  “No idea. I’ve seen it try to fly out the window. It’s going to kill itself if… Ah. There. Bye, little bird. When are you coming home?”

  “When we feel like it. Mary Anne’s looking for a wedding dress, and we’re going out for dinner.”

  “Two nights in a row. That morning sickness must be better.”

  Cameron remembered the horrible moment the night before when she’d burst into tears at the table. “Yes. I have to go.”

  “Want to go to the movies tomorrow?”

  “Okay.”

  She returned to the bridal store and repeated the conversation to Mary Anne.

  “At least he’s asking you out!” Mary Anne exclaimed. “You want him to, don’t you?”

  “I think so.”

  Cameron sat with Mary Anne. She, the store model and Mary Anne took turns trying on wedding gowns, a ritual that made Cameron depressed. She’d never thought of herself as particularly traditional or determined to be married one day. In fact, she was accepting of the fact she might never be married. And if she did get married, she couldn’t see herself doing the whole white-dress-with-a-train thing.

  But expecting a baby changed everything, and now her unmarried condition rankled. Paul’s behavior struck her as ungentlemanly in the extreme, yet Paul was a man who always opened doors for women, who knew how to behave immaculately.

  So what’s wrong with me?

  She tried to be cheerful, to tell Mary Anne how beautiful she was, and to remind herself how happy she actually was to be pregnant, despite the complications, including her fear. She was in love with the baby. Paul really didn’t matter.

  THE FLOWERS were on the kitchen table, nothing so predictable as a dozen red roses but a huge fall bouquet with a wild, woodsy look.

  A note in Paul’s hand lay on the kitchen table. A little bird brought these.

  Cameron swallowed. There had been no bird in her house. He’d been bringing her flowers.

  She searched the bouquet and found an envelope. She opened it to find a card with a horn of plenty on it. He’d written, Thank you for having dinner with me. Paul.

  At least he sent flowers, she told herself, trying not to be disappointed in the message, which hardly seemed one of love. Less affectionate, in fact, than Sean’s ordinary text messages. Of course, if Paul were someone she’d just met, she’d hav
e been charmed by the message—by the entire gesture.

  For a moment, the terror came, terror of miscarriage, of losing the baby, a terror which far eclipsed any fear of the pain of labor.

  She forced herself to walk in the bedroom, look in the mirror and voice her affirmations. But it was hard to summon the emotion she needed to believe that everything would be all right.

  CLARE FOUND IT HARD to find a time to tell Paul the rest of the story about the stillbirth. Every time she was near him, so was the rest of the family. Cameron’s second prenatal visit—as well as Christmas—was nearly upon them when Paul finally showed up alone one day, his errand being to pick up her trash and recycling and take them to the transfer station.

  Clare insisted on carrying a bag of aluminum cans—accumulated over months—to his truck. She’d vowed to say it. She did not look at him. “You’ve asked many times why your father walked out. Well, it was because of that stillbirth.”

  Paul stared in disbelief.

  “No, not because of the stillbirth, but because of things that happened afterward.” Clare could not remember feeling so much shame in the years since those horrible days. “The hospital accused me of negligence and was determined to see me stop practicing. I had clients with babies due soon, or I might have chosen to fight it the proper way, in court.

  “But you see, the witnesses were gone. They got in their hippie van and drove off before they were properly questioned.” Clare could not look at her son and so had no idea how he was taking this. “The chief of obstetrics offered to make it all ‘go away.’ Those were his words. ‘I can make this all go away, Clare.’” She took a breath. “If I would sleep with him.”

  Paul, listening, was horrified. Less horrified by the behavior of the chief of obstetrics than by his mother’s response, which he could already guess.

  “I did it to allow me to keep following my vocation. Your father learned of it, and it was all over.”