The Baby Agenda

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Her email, she thought wretchedly, was his worst nightmare.

  TWO DAYS LATER, MOIRA REPLIED.

  Will,

  Now I think I’m sorry I told you. I remember that you said your worst nightmare was to get stuck, to spend your life fulfilling obligations. I don’t want to be your nightmare. And please, please don’t feel you have to be involved if you’ll resent it. That would have to be awful for a kid, don’t you think? I barely remember my father—did I tell you that?—but even though I often wished that he was around when I was growing up, I know it might have hurt worse if he’d been there because he felt he had to be. I really will be fine, you know. We won’t starve without you.

  If you want to look me up when you get home, that’s fine, though. I live in West Fork, and work here, too. I’m an architect, in partnership with a friend. Van Dusen & Cullen. I’m Cullen. I guess you can tell that from my email address, huh? It’s not a real physical job, which is good right now. And I’m hoping I can bring the baby to work some of the time. I know Gray, my partner, won’t mind.

  She went on to say that she’d looked at the foundation website and was impressed with what they were trying to accomplish. She’d taken the time to read some about Zimbabwe, too, and knew how high the rate of AIDS and HIV was and how desperately more accessible medical care was needed.

  Will brooded some before he hit Reply, trying to get over being mad before he said something that would stiffen her resolve to keep him at a distance. And yeah, that made no sense when he didn’t want to be a family guy, but, man, had she turned him into a mass of warring emotions. She could enrage him quicker than the most venal local bureaucrat, and he’d done his share of teeth grinding these past months dealing with them. She also had a way of zinging him with powerful protective impulses.

  Did she really think so little of him, she believed he’d let any kid of his feel resented?

  Damn it, damn it, damn it, he wished he couldn’t so easily picture her as a freckle-faced kid herself who couldn’t understand why she didn’t have a daddy like everyone else did. He wished he hadn’t seen that fleeting, wistful look in her eyes as she remembered.

  Finally he sighed and started typing.

  Moira, I can promise you I won’t feel resentment. Someday I’ll tell you why I said that, about my worst nightmare. It doesn’t really matter now. You reminded me, as I recall, that life’s made up of obligations. Not all kids are planned. They should all be loved. I never doubted that my parents loved me, and I was lucky enough to have a stepmother who did, too. Another promise: I’ll love any child of mine.

  Will hoped that was true. He wanted to believe it was. The idea of holding that baby was pretty abstract right now.

  But he thought of himself as a decent man, and even though there’d been times he had felt resentment for getting stuck raising his siblings, he thought what they’d most been aware of was security and love. Yeah, they’d probably known on some level how he felt. No twenty-year-old kid was capable of completely hiding his shock and desperation. But he’d tried, they’d understood, and he was damn proud of how they had all turned out.

  He went back to his email.

  You don’t say whether you’re feeling okay. Aren’t pregnant women supposed to be sick to their stomachs and tired? Or is that the exception?

  You’re right about the toll AIDS is costing here. It’s painful to see. Unlike in South Africa, the majority of AIDS orphans are being raised by relatives, which is a testament to the power of family here. This is a country of astonishing contrasts. The literacy rate is quite high and schools good. Meantime, out in the countryside, medical care is close to nonexistent, and what itinerant medical clinics are held are often outside, with patients lined up waiting to see a nurse who sits at a folding table beneath a shade tree. Not much that nurse can do for the desperately ill. I’m often struck by the patience people here seem to have. I imagine Americans throwing a temper tantrum because the line for the drive-through window at McDonald’s is four cars long.

  My part in this project is less important than the care that will be provided—the nurses and doctors, the AIDS cocktails, the surgical supplies. I provide only the walls and roofs, and simple ones at that. We’ve finally broken ground on the first clinic, and it will have brick walls and a metal roof, like the store in the village. The homes are crude, with thatched roofs.

  He told her about the architectural drawings he’d scrapped and why, about his need to build structures that belonged, that people would be comfortable going to. In fact, when he reread his email a few minutes later, it was to find he’d waxed eloquent, revealing more of the passion quietly building in him than he’d intended. He frowned, finally, and left what he’d written. She was an architect herself; she might be interested. And anyway…he wanted to know her. To be fair, he had to reveal something of himself in return.

  By the next day, he had an email back from her. She waxed eloquent on her belief that structures should meld with their surroundings. Her partner, apparently, teased her about emphasizing function over form, although Gray, too, she said, preferred to design buildings that didn’t immediately command attention. She told him about her partner’s house, which appeared to be part of the riverbank so that a fisherman casting his line below might not even notice it was there atop the bluff. She thought many of the more admired homes featured in magazines were hideous. Original, yes, interesting, but jarring.

  I’m content to design staid but dignified office buildings that have grace and pleasing proportions but do not startle. If I were to plan a medical clinic for a small town in the African savannah, I’d go with mud brick and a metal roof, too. Good for you.

  Will found himself smiling.

  I was sick to my stomach for a couple of months, although not as miserable as some women are—Gray’s wife, Charlotte, could hardly keep any food down—but it’s passed, thank heavens. Now I’m starved all the time, making up for the weight I lost. I dread my next monthly weigh-in and the lecture I’m bound to get from the doctor. I’m trying very hard not to gain too much. I am a little more tired than usual, but all it means is that I go to bed earlier than I used to. No big deal. So you see, I really am fine.

  Without you, was what she meant. Will suppressed his irritation.

  He wrote an email in response longer than the ones he’d sent Clay and the others. He felt a strange tension, sitting here digging into himself for what was most important to tell her about his life and values. It was as if they were connected by a thread so delicate, he could snap it with the wrong word, but perhaps with the right ones he could lend it strength. He was hungry to hear back from her. Half an hour ago, when his messages had been loading, it was hers he’d hoped for with eagerness that embarrassed him.

  He felt, Will realized after he’d sent his response, like a boy with his first crush. Ridiculous, maybe, when they’d already made love and now he longed for so little: the equivalent of a shy glance.

  This time she didn’t write back right away. Stuck in Harare meeting with government officials, Will was therefore able to obsessively check his email in any stray minutes, which made the three days before he did get a reply from her seem endless. But her response was long and satisfying. She’d read more about Zimbabwe and wondered whether he was in any danger, a white man in a country where white-owned land was still being violently snatched by black mobs.

  She was worried about him. He felt a warm glow to realize it.

  She told him about a movie that had recently been released about South Africa and talking to a woman whose daughter was currently in Ghana with the Peace Corps.

  Several people I know who’ve been to Africa tell me they’d give anything to go back. They always have this look in their eyes, as though there’s some kind of magnetic pull. Although that’s silly, isn’t it? Africa is an enormous continent. I’m sure Zimbabwe is nothing like… I don’t know, the Ivory Coast or Kenya. See, I’ve revealed typical American ignorance about a huge swath of the world.
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br />   He assured her that, as a foreigner, he felt safe and that people were warm and friendly. He told her more about what he’d seen, about the astonishing sight of elephants ambling across the road in front of his Datsun, about seeing so many hippos in a river he could have walked across, stepping on their backs. About Victoria Falls where water plummeted into a canyon and raised a cloud of spray so vast, it created a rain forest for miles about. He told her that he hoped soon to go see the Great Zimbabwe, the granite ruins of the greatest city in ancient Africa. About the rock art, more faint traces of people long gone, that could be found everywhere.

  For all my wonder, I feel an astonishing pang of homesickness every so often. I didn’t expect that. To miss my brothers and sister, yes, but not the mundane realities of everyday life at home. For all the beauty here, I sometimes feel a strange sense of not-belonging. As if I never could, even if I lived here for the rest of my life. It works both ways, though. I met a white couple a few weeks ago who fled the country some years back, when it was obvious what was happening, but after staying for two years in England—where their daughter and her family live—they came home even though there was no way they could recover their farm. That was how they put it: they came home. It was too late for them to really belong anywhere else.

  Four days later, without having heard from her again, he left Harare, this time for the eastern lowveld near the Sanyati River. He sent Moira a quick email before he left, telling her he’d be out of touch for two to three weeks.

  Then he worried. Had he said something wrong in his last, long email? Or did she not want to continue exchanging long, chatty communications with the man who’d fathered her baby but whose involvement in their child’s life she didn’t welcome? Was she not feeling good?

  God. Had she lost the baby? Will thought most miscarriages were earlier in the pregnancy, but he didn’t know. He was astonished at how sick he felt at the idea. Did women die when they miscarried? Surely not anymore, not at home, anyway, with modern medical care readily available.

  If anything was wrong, would she let him know? Would anyone else?

  Had she told anyone he was the father of her baby? He bounced irrationally from the cold sweat of fear at the idea of her sick or hurt or grieving to sharp anger because she might not want her mother or her friends to know who he was.

  Checking email wasn’t an option; he hadn’t even driven on this trip, but had been flown along with Chionesu, his translator, into a dusty bush airstrip in a thinly populated region where the roads, he’d been told, were abysmal.

  He evaluated, he met with local leaders, he chose a site. He slept in thatch-roofed huts and dined with host families, sitting cross-legged to eat sadza out of a communal pot. Will had become adept at molding the thick millet or corn cereal into a shape he could use to dip stew.

  And the whole damn time, all he could think about was Moira. By the time he was on a small bush plane taking off from the same dirt airstrip, he’d made up his mind he would take a trip home to the States. He had to see her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I’M GOING TO GRAB some lunch on my way to city hall,” Gray said. “You want me to get you something and drop it off here?”

  Moira straightened on the tall stool in front of her drafting table and rolled her shoulders with a groan she hoped Gray didn’t hear.

  “Thanks, but I brought a sandwich.” She smiled at him.

  “Come on, when have you ever known me to let myself go hungry?”

  He grinned. “Well…you were looking a little peaked there for a while.”

  “I’m making up for it,” she said ruefully. “I swear, I’m ravenous all the time. It’s awful.”

  He laughed, a warm rumble. She expected him to head for the door, but instead he leaned a hip against his desk and kept looking at her. Finally he said, “I haven’t wanted to push, but curiosity is getting to me. Have you contacted your baby’s father yet?”

  Heat rose in her cheeks. “Yes. I sent him an email…”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “I tried calling first!” Moira snapped. “It’s not my fault I had to email instead. Turns out he’s moved to Africa for two years.”

  “Good God.”

  “He’s, um, actually been really nice. We’ve exchanged half a dozen emails. I told him he was off the hook, but he insists he doesn’t want to be, that no kid of his is growing up without a father.”

  “Told you so.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It was a one-night stand. I might have picked a scumbag to sleep with.”

  “Nah. Not you.” He straightened, came to her and kissed her cheek. “I know you better than that, Moira.”

  They hugged, and for a moment she closed her eyes at the pleasure of his solid embrace. Then he stepped back. “What’s the guy doing in Africa?”

  She told him, and Gray nodded. “Would I know him?”

  Moira hesitated.

  Gray looked sardonic. “Aren’t you planning to put his name on the birth certificate?”

  She grimaced. “Yes, of course I am. Uh…his name’s Will Becker.”

  Her partner’s eyes narrowed. “Of Becker Construction?”

  “Yes, but his brother Clay has taken it over now, with Will gone.”

  “Huh.”

  “Do you know him?” she felt compelled to ask. Oh, Lord—was she wrong about Will?

  But Gray shook his head. “I hear they do good work. Mostly stuff that wouldn’t interest me. Shopping centers, grocery stores, that kind of thing.”

  “I don’t think it interested Will, either. There’s some reason he threw it over to build mud-brick medical clinics in Africa.”

  Gray laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. Okay. Is he planning to help financially? See the baby?”

  “He says he’ll be back in the States every so often, and the next time he is we’ll talk.” Moira bit her lip. “He did say he’d be glad to help financially if I can’t work all the way through the pregnancy, so I guess he probably will offer child support at least.”

  “Good. Not as good as his being here, but better than nothing.” Gray jiggled his keys in his pocket as if to make sure they were still there. “I’ve got to run. See you tomorrow?”

  She nodded. “Except I’ll be out at the Fletcher house first thing in the morning.”

  They exchanged a few words about the project that had turned into a huge trial for her, with the clients changing their minds about what they wanted at least weekly.

  “Don’t worry about the cost,” Jennifer Fletcher would say blithely. “It’s important to get it right. Tearing it out at this point is better than living with a layout that isn’t perfect.”

  Jennifer would undoubtedly want something else torn out this week. The contractor, Dave Hendricks, was getting even more aggravated than Moira was. During most of their meetings, she played peacemaker.

  Waiting until the door had shut behind Gray, she strolled to her desk and took out her sandwich. She might as well have lunch now, too. She’d intended to make herself wait another hour, but…damn it, she was hungry. And anyway… She peeked out the window at the parking lot to be sure Gray wasn’t coming back for something he’d forgotten, then, when she saw his car gone, sat in front of her computer and went on the Internet. There hadn’t been one word from Will in three full weeks. He’d said it might be that long, but she couldn’t help worrying. He’d dismissed her concerns, but from what she’d read, Zimbabwe under Mugabe wasn’t a safe place. Not many nonprofits were working there right now, and she suspected the potential danger was why.

  There was no email from him today, either, she was disappointed to see. She’d send him another one tonight, Moira decided, something chatty and casual. She could tell him about the Fletchers. He’d undoubtedly had difficult clients and would sympathize.

  She ate quickly, drinking cranberry juice with her ham sandwich and longing for her usual iced tea. She missed caffeine. She craved caffeine. Especially these days, when she tended to get drowsy right af
ter lunch. Her body really, really wanted her to take a nap. Even the nine hours she’d slept last night apparently didn’t cut it.

  Ruefully she laid her splayed hands on her belly and gently rubbed. For Pete’s sake, she was only halfway through this pregnancy, and she was so blasted big. Didn’t it figure? Of course, Will was an exceptionally large man, which meant his child probably wouldn’t be petite. She thought he was at least six foot three and maybe taller, with shoulders so broad he’d alarmed her at first sight. His enormous hands had dwarfed hers. She imagined what his hand would look like on her rounded stomach, and felt a disturbingly sexual twinge at the image. No one had ever touched her the way he had, so gently even though she could feel the power he kept curbed. She wondered if, as big as he was, he often felt like the classic bull in a china shop.

  With a sigh, Moira managed to get herself back to work.

  Jennifer Fletcher did want something else torn out when they met the next morning.

  Bright eyed, her dark hair artfully disheveled, she swept in and said, “I keep worrying that there won’t be enough storage here in the kitchen. And last night it came to me. What if we bump out the dining area here with a bay window instead—” she waved one hand toward the large, small-paned window she’d been measuring for blinds last week “—and then we could squeeze in a sort of butler’s pantry on the other side of the doorway?” She gave first Moira, then Dave, a limpid look and waited expectantly.

  Moira heard a rumble rising from the middle-aged contractor and interceded hastily. “Let me do some measuring and we’ll see, Jennifer. Did you consult with Stella?” The kitchen designer, Moira suspected, had long since thrown up her hands, or maybe thrown in the towel was more accurate, but she might be a voice of reason.