From Here To Maternity: A Second ChancePromoted to MomOn Angel's Wings

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  I grabbed Kylie’s hand, stopping her from leaving the table. “What?”

  She sat back down, and after a moment, met my eyes. “I’m sure this is incredibly selfish of me, but I’ve only just found you,” she said. “I’ve had you for what, a year? And now I’m going to have to share you. And with a kid who’s going to get everything from you that I never had.”

  “I never said I was keeping it.” I was. But I hadn’t said so yet.

  Her jaw dropped. “You aren’t?” And then, “Of course you are. It killed you to give me away. You never would’ve done so if you’d had a choice. You have one now. Not many people get a second chance, and you’re too smart to let this one pass.”

  Tears filled my eyes. It had to be the hormones, I told myself. I’d never been the weepy sort.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For making it okay.”

  “It is okay.” She paused, frowned. “Isn’t it? Have you seen your doctor?”

  I told her about the appointment with Lynn, the greater risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid problems, miscarriage, premature birth, Down syndrome. “She doesn’t foresee any trouble, but she’ll be watching closely. I’m going to have to have some extra tests.”

  Another thing I could barely stand to think about. What was I going to do if there was something wrong with my baby? Could I give her every chance she needed? Would I have the energy?

  “HOW AM I GOING TO TELL Mom and Dad? What are they going to think?” Kylie asked half an hour later, the dog lying in her lap. We’d washed the dishes together and I’d asked her to come to my office. She was sitting in my desk chair, holding the folder I’d collected from my financial planner that day.

  “My guess is I’m going to lose some of their respect.”

  Kylie frowned. “You have to understand, Melanie, they’re older than you by almost ten years. They grew up with different values.…”

  The comment hurt. But I didn’t want Kylie to know that. “As I said, they may not understand.”

  “You have to admit, it is a little unusual.”

  I nodded. She was right. I’d admitted that about a thousand times. And the admission didn’t change a thing. I was still ancient. And still pregnant.

  I had another tough subject to approach that evening. But first it took me another half hour to convince myself I had a chance of seeming logical.

  In the meantime, I’d asked my daughter to look over a contract drawn up by my financial planner. After thoroughly studying it, asking some questions I hadn’t even thought of, she’d given it a tentative okay—depending on the answers I received.

  “Boy, it’s been a long day,” she said, pulling her wire-rimmed reading glasses from her face, folding them up and reaching for their case. “I haven’t talked to Sam since noon.” Perpetua roused herself.

  “Don’t put those glasses away just yet,” I told her nervously brandishing the manila envelope I’d been holding since we’d first come in. “I have one more thing I’d like you to look at.”

  “Sure.” Kylie unfolded her glasses again. I took a deep breath.

  “I met with Paul Ascott today.” He’d been my personal attorney for years but Kylie had given her approval of him, as well. “I had him redo my will.”

  Without a word, Kylie took the document from me. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  “I’m splitting everything between you and the new baby.”

  Before, Kylie’d had it all.

  Kylie nodded, seemingly unconcerned. Glanced at the first page and then at me.

  “I’m perfectly comfortable on my own, Melanie,” she said. “I already told you that. And I’m also the beneficiary of Mom’s and Dad’s wills.”

  “I know.” We’d been through this before. “You can give the money to the society of mice if you like, but this is something I have to do. You are my biological daughter and as such, my heir.”

  “One of them,” she murmured.

  “Yes, one of them.” The reminder threw me for a second there. Maybe I still wasn’t accepting the pregnancy quite as well as I wanted to think I was.

  “Anyway, the other change is somewhat more significant.”

  “What?” she peered over at me.

  “I want you to be the baby’s guardian if anything should happen to me. Paul drew up papers for both of us to sign to circumvent or ease the red tape process in the event that I should die while the child is still a minor.”

  She pulled off her glasses and absentmindedly put one earpiece in her mouth, saying nothing.

  Would she refuse? Was all our talk about being a family just that—talk? Was my daughter going to reject my baby?

  Perpetua lay down again, plopping her head on her paws with an audible sigh.

  “I’ll need to speak with Sam about this,” she said.

  “Can you call him?”

  She hesitated for a moment, then picked up the phone. Fifteen minutes later, our signatures were there on the stark white paper.

  The sight brought me a comfort I’d never known before, a comfort I didn’t recognize. My daughter and I were finally official—our names side by side on this legal document, biology and blood and love all mixed together.

  “MELANIE?” KYLIE STOPPED on her way out the door, keys in hand, purse over the shoulder of her short black jacket.

  “Yeah?” I’d already turned to go back to my office, intending to review a proposal one of my staff was going to present in the morning.

  “Can we please not tell Mom and Dad about this? My signing for the baby? At least not yet?”

  A little of the comfort I’d gained slid away, as I nodded. “Of course.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE NEXT WEEK PASSED in a confusing mixture of panic and peace, fear and stoicism. I worked. I came home. I ate properly. I got plenty of rest. Or rather, I lay in the bed for the required amount of time. If I was not completely myself, no one at work seemed to notice. Not even Rick.

  Or at least they weren’t saying anything.

  Of course, Shane might’ve had something to do with that. I hoped not. I didn’t want special treatment. Or pity. I’d lived my whole life standing up for who I was and what I did, living with the choices I’d made clearly in the open. I wasn’t about to change now.

  Though sometimes when I pictured myself, obviously pregnant, in a sales meeting, seeing the raised brows and imagining the bitten-back remarks, the idea of change was tempting. If I’d been able to figure out a way to disguise the fact I was having a baby, I’d probably have given in to temptation and hidden this mistake.

  Or poor choice.

  Okay, no, my night with Denny wasn’t either of those things. Nor was the child we’d conceived. It was a challenge. That was it. A challenge. I’d handled many challenges in my forty-eight years. I’d handle this one, too.

  I went on the Internet and found a support group for pregnant women over forty-five. There was a session in a chat room that Saturday. I logged on. Early. And was the oldest one there.

  It figured.

  The following Thursday my cell phone rang while I was sitting at my desk, nibbling grapes for lunch. It was Denny.

  He wanted me to go away with him for the weekend. On his motorcycle. Our destination would be a surprise.

  Could I ride a motorcycle? Would the tiny child inside me be safe?

  “I don’t want to mislead you,” he continued, when I didn’t immediately respond. “I haven’t found any resolution. I just want to see you.”

  I wanted to see him, too. But did I dare to agree, as vulnerable as I was?

  “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said.

  “You’ve been on my mind a lot, too.” Would he show me his home? “Okay, I’d like to spend the weekend with you.” I was shaking, unsure, anticipating…what? What could possibly come of this?

  “You’re sure?”

  “You talked me into it, and now you’re trying to talk me out?”

&nb
sp; “No.” He chuckled. “I don’t know.”

  “Look,” I said, suddenly afraid I was going to lose this chance before I even knew what it was. “We’re grown-up now, Denny. Each of us has proven we can make difficult decisions, that we’ll do what we think best. Right now, we’re facing something that involves both of us. Maybe spending some time together will give us a chance to talk, to get some clarity.”

  “That’s what I thought. I feel horrible that once again you’re bearing the brunt of the consequence of our actions.”

  “Hey,” I said, frowning. “You aren’t feeling sorry for me or anything, are you?”

  “No, Mel.” His voice was filled with the affectionate humor that had always melted my heart. “It’s never crossed my mind to think of you as a woman in need of pity.”

  Okay, then. Just as long as we both understood that. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Um, when were you thinking about going?”

  “I have an order to deliver in the desert Friday afternoon. I can swing by for you after that. Say around four.”

  That was tomorrow. My knees felt a little weak. “I’ll need to check with my doctor first, to make sure there’s no danger in me riding a motorcycle.”

  “Of course. And Mel, when you call your doctor, could you ask her if it’s safe for you to have sex?”

  LYNN GAVE ME the go-ahead on both counts. For the next hour, I vacillated between cursing her and feeling eternally grateful. Sitting at my desk, trying to focus on reports I had to sign off on by Monday, I wondered if I should take my swimsuit. I probably wasn’t going to be looking good in it for much longer and then…

  Oh, no. What would my forty-nine-year-old body look like when all of this was over? Seventeen-year-old skin was elastic. Mine was not.

  Losing weight at seventeen wasn’t much of an issue. At fifty, it was an impossibility.

  She’d also had me schedule an amniocentesis and chorionic villus, each of which involved a needle in my abdomen. The tests themselves carried a slight risk of miscarriage. And the results…

  The first test wasn’t for another four weeks. The amniocentesis was booked for three weeks after that. And I had e-mails to answer. A proposal to approve. A client to placate.

  Should I buy a negligee? I’d tried once with Shane. He’d gotten tangled in the silk and I’d just gotten sweaty. The damn thing hadn’t breathed. But then, neither had I, in those days. I’d just existed.

  At four-thirty, I gave up. I couldn’t concentrate. It had to be hormones. Chemical. Something I ate. I called Kylie and begged off our dinner. Suddenly overprotective, she refused to let me off the phone until I told her why I was canceling and then she insisted on coming over to help me pack. She was bringing food, too.

  What, now that I was eight weeks pregnant I was helpless?

  Sometimes I felt that way—emotionally at least. I didn’t remember buying a ticket for this roller coaster and it seemed highly unfair that I’d been put on the wrong ride.

  I started to cry on the way home—tears of happiness now. My daughter loved me. Supported me. I wasn’t alone.

  “THE BLACK SWIMSUIT, no question.” Kylie sat on the bed looking back and forth between the bright floral set I held in one hand and the low-cut black one-piece in the other.

  I held up the black, raised my brows, and in response to her firm nod, slid it into the duffel. She’d already gone through my underwear—passable, but not great. My nightgown she threw back in the drawer, saying I wouldn’t need it anyway. A pair of black studded jeans she accepted, but my slacks went the way of the nightgown.

  My daughter knew how to take charge.

  “I feel a little strange with you sitting here planning for me to have sex with your father.”

  She snorted. “That’s a little after the fact, wouldn’t you say?”

  Maybe. What did I know? I’d lived most of my life not having the chance to behave like a mother.

  “We aren’t planning a future together. Sex should involve the future.”

  “Usually. But this situation isn’t usual, is it?” Kylie said, folding and packing. “Sex is good, Melanie. It’s healthy.”

  “It seems to get me into trouble.”

  Laughing, she hooked a finger through the strap of my serviceable white bra, then rummaged in my lingerie drawer for a barely there lacy pink one. Secretly I was glad. I wouldn’t have dared take that, but if it was Kylie’s idea…

  “Did you know that statistics show that women who have three orgasms a week reduce their risk of certain medical malfunctions?”

  “Sounds like some bunk a man came up with.”

  “No, really, it was in a report by a female doctor from some Eastern university. I came across it when I was in college.”

  “So what happens if she has four?” Nerves were making me ridiculous.

  “Apparently there’s a reverse effect and it’s not so good—depletes the chemicals that it stimulated or something.” Kylie started to laugh.

  This was craziness. The fact that I was planning to go off for a weekend with a man who was promising nothing was crazy in itself.

  “Let’s face it, Melanie,” Kylie said, following me into the bathroom as I packed my makeup and toiletries. “Your history with Dennis Walker makes this weekend a pretty open-and-shut case. It doesn’t take an attorney to figure it out.”

  “I’m weak. I’m a fool.”

  She leaned against the marble counter. “You’re a beautiful woman who’s loved once in your life—passionately. Which makes you one of the envied few.”

  I stopped, toothpaste in hand, and looked at her. “Do you really think that?”

  She nodded her head. Then glanced away with an odd, troubled look on her face.

  “He loved you that way, too.”

  I froze. My hands. My breathing. How would she know that unless she’d spoken with him? Denny had called Kylie and hadn’t told me? But then, why would he? His relationship, or lack of one, with Kylie had nothing to do with me. I sure didn’t call to tell him our daughter was coming over to help me pack for our weekend away.

  “He called you?”

  She shook her head, suddenly quite interested in the toe of the forest-green pump that matched the suit she’d worn in court that day.

  “I went to see him.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I HAD NO REASON to feel betrayed. Hurt. Jealous. So why did I?

  “Sam wanted a weekend in wine country, so on Saturday we headed upstate. It wasn’t hard to find him, since I now know his full name. He’s listed.”

  “He said he was on the road a lot.”

  She nodded. “But when he’s not, he lives in a remodeled barn.”

  A barn. Kylie had seen it—had seen him—in his home. I had never once, in my entire life, seen Denny at home.

  “It’s the most amazing structure.” Kylie’s voice grew in strength, showing an eagerness to talk now that she knew I wasn’t going to do anything stupid like fall apart on her.

  I hoped she hadn’t placed too much faith in me.

  “It’s all redwood and he built it himself.”

  I wasn’t there to see my lover meet our daughter for the first time. Nor had I been there to watch him, sweaty and strong, building his home. Regret was a painful thing.

  “Inside, it’s more like a workshop than a house.” Kylie’s eyes glowed and just that quickly, meeting my daughter’s eyes, I was lost in her tale, absorbed in her delight as I realized how much this meant to her. Kylie’s happiness was far more important than mine. Her happiness made me happy. Truly happy—the bone-deep, sleep-with-a-peaceful-smile-on-your-face kind. “The place is one huge room and it’s filled with these three-dimensional miniatures of rooms, places, skylines, all made of wood, metal, glass and fabric. They were wonderful.”

  Decorations. He’d said he made decorations in his spare time. That they were no big deal. Kylie wouldn’t have been impressed by “no big deal.”

  “Wha
t did you think of him?” I wanted to see it all, know everything she knew and felt. I’d dreamed, countless times, of the moment when Denny would see the baby I’d had more than thirty years ago.

  “He’s gorgeous,” Kylie grinned. “Even for an old guy.”

  I shoved her gently. “Kylie!”

  Her face straightened. “I liked him,” she said softly. “He seems kind. Gentle without being girlie.”

  Denny had been a hit with his daughter. Which didn’t surprise me at all.

  He was Denny. How could he not be?

  “When we were growing up, everyone thought he was a hellion.”

  “Was he?”

  “No.” I thought back to those years, to the young man I’d known, still confused about a community that could so misjudge an innocent kid. “He looked like one,” I said. “He had long hair, ragged jeans, a black leather jacket that he was almost never without, even in the summer. He wore a knife at his hip.”

  “A knife? No wonder people were afraid of him. Was he part of a gang?”

  “No.” I sat on the closed toilet seat, cosmetic bag still on my lap. “The knife was for show.” Mostly. “Denny’s mom took off when he was about two, leaving him with a drunk and abusive father.”

  “What a woman.”

  “Yeah.” In all the growing up I’d done, I’d yet to learn forgiveness for a mother who’d put herself before her own child. “He was abusive to her, too, mind you. She was running for her life.”

  Kylie’s eyes narrowed, her chin stiff. “But her son’s life didn’t matter?”

  I shrugged; the question was rhetorical. Kylie knew far more about that kind of thing than I ever would. She saw it every day.

  “The last time his father hit him, he was twelve. He went out the next day, bought that knife, and swore to his father that if he ever came near him again, he’d use it.”

  “Did he?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  I stood up, got back to packing before I talked myself out of going. Remembering was much harder than forgetting. Easier not to feel than to deal with all the hurt.