“A month in the outback of Australia,” he said when he’d finished the steak, eyes glowing as they did every time he mentioned his travels. “I want to do a series of nature miniatures from around the world.”
If my new garden piece was anything to go by, they’d be an unqualified success. I told him so.
“You didn’t have to buy that, piece, Mel. I’d have taken it back from her and given it to you.”
“I wanted to buy it,” I told him. “I can’t even tell you why, because I don’t know, but it seemed important at the time.”
“You wanted to shut Barbara up.”
Maybe. But there was more to it than that.
“I wanted it to be legitimately mine.”
He blinked. Sat back. Stared at me. And I realized what I’d just said—and what it meant. Nothing about my relationship with Denny had been legitimate. Not our time together in high school, which had been spent hiding from my parents. Not the time we were spending now—this weekend, a time out of time. And certainly not either one of the children we’d conceived.
But I owned his garden.
It would have to be enough.
“WE’VE BEEN GIVEN a second chance.”
I was dozing again, naked and replete after another bout of amazing lovemaking. The moon was shining through the patio doors of our room. Only a few more hours and our time would be over. It would be back to the real world—real life.
Life without Denny.
I didn’t want to think about that now.
“Did you hear me?” he said, brushing the hair away from my forehead as he leaned over and gave me a kiss. The kind we’d often shared—as if our lips couldn’t bear to part.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t agree?”
I didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t find the usual flippant response I protected myself with when anyone got too close to my heart. Problem was, Denny was my heart. Always had been.
“If you mean a second chance to say goodbye, I guess so.”
“Hey.” He sat up and pulled me against him, so that my head was lying against his shoulder. “What’s this about? We’re grown-up now, Mel. The choices are ours to make. We’re in control.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
But that wasn’t the end of it. I used to think it was, back when I was still a kid and believed that love conquered all—when I was still waiting for my knight in shining armor to come along. Before that knight appeared and my parents hated him and we were too young and had no way to support ourselves. Before he put his love for me before his own happiness and rode off into the sunset. Alone.
And because I loved him so much I had to put his happiness before my own, I was not going to start dreaming impossible dreams now.
“You’re a traveling man, Denny. You live wherever life takes you, for however long. You could choose to settle down, completely alter your way of life—but odds are you wouldn’t be happy. I can’t take that chance.”
“Maybe I’ll change.”
“If you ever do, I’ll be available.”
His hand brushed up and down my arm. I lay against him, my body moving in rhythm with his breathing. I was making “big girl” choices.
Funny how none of the self help books tell you that “being a big girl” sucks.
“I love you, Mel. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You won’t,” I told him and I knew the words were completely true. “I knew when I was sixteen that I’d fallen in love with you forever. A lifetime without you hasn’t changed that. Whenever you’re passing through, I’ll be here.”
To my surprise, my eyes were dry. Some hurts were just too deep. Some choices, even excruciating ones, were just too right.
Because I loved Denny so unconditionally, I had to accept him as he was—and be satisfied.
A MONTH AFTER MY WEEKEND in Carmel, Lynn called me. I’d had the first needle-in-my-stomach test—to extract a small sample of the placenta. It hadn’t hurt as much as I’d anticipated, but it hadn’t been my brightest day, either. And I’d been worried sick pretty much ever since.
Lynn was concerned about the test results.
Just what I needed. I was barely three months into the pregnancy—had already gained five pounds—and the problems were starting. How on earth was I going to make it through six and a half more months of this?
What if the baby wouldn’t make full-term? What if it had Down syndrome? What if…
I thought about calling Kylie. But she’d had her insemination procedure the day before and was staying flat in bed for forty-eight hours in spite of the doctor’s assurances that bed rest wasn’t necessary.
And, of course, I thought about calling Denny. When didn’t I think about him? I’d seen him several times since Carmel. He’d been to my home—even spent the night a couple of times. And we met in Ontario a time or two, as well. He was due in town the next day—Friday—the day Lynn wanted to see me. He was just in for the afternoon before heading for L.A. to fly off to Australia.
I thought about calling Shane. He and Derek would hold my hands.
I didn’t want hand-holding. I wanted promises for a healthy baby. I wanted Denny.
THE BOUNCE IN DENNY’S STEP almost made me weep that Friday at noon. I’d just come from my appointment with Lynn, but I couldn’t think about that now. There was nothing immediately urgent and Denny was about to be off on an adventure. I wanted him to remember me smiling and sexy during his long nights under the stars.
“Hey, Mel!” He pulled me into his arms for a kiss right there on the sidewalk outside the Mexican place we’d been to the night I told him about the baby. May was approaching and the corners and boulevards in Palm Desert were awash with glorious, colorful blooms.
I put my greeting into the kiss.
“Whew.” He grinned down at me as we stepped into the restaurant. “If you’re trying to tempt me into staying, that’s the way to go about it.”
I’d give my right arm to have him stay. But he’d be giving up his whole way of life if he did so. I couldn’t ask him to pay that price.
Besides, I reminded myself, he’d be back. And I was a grown-up, now. I might love him to distraction, but I didn’t need him. I didn’t need anyone.
That miserable inner voice that hadn’t been fond of me in years wondered why, if I was so grown-up, I felt so damn small and helpless.
I don’t know how I made it through lunch, except that I knew I had to be strong. Of course, that hour with Denny was made easier by the fact that he was talking almost nonstop about his plans. He was happy and that just plain felt good. He’d be on the plane for twenty-four hours—he was going to spend a week in Sydney, and then travel to the outback. He and his guide would spend at least two weeks under the stars.
“You okay?” he asked halfway through the meal, glancing down at my barely touched plate.
“Fine,” I lied. “Just a little morning sickness.”
His eyes grew shadowed and I knew he was remembering. Horrible bouts of nausea were what tipped us off to the fact I was pregnant all those years ago. We’d been together the first couple of times it had happened. He’d held back my hair while I retched my guts out. And then he’d gone down to the stream near where we’d been parked to wet a napkin and tenderly wipe my face.
He’d had chewing gum, too, though I didn’t know why I’d remember such an asinine thing after all these years.
“Maybe I shouldn’t go.”
“Yes!” I took a deep breath. “Yes, you should go. Worst case scenario, I’m going to get sick to my stomach. Most likely, I’m going to be ravenous an hour from now and will look like an elephant by the time I see you again.”
God, I hoped so. Please, please, let it be so. True to the contrariness of human nature, now that my baby might be in trouble, I wanted him or her more than I wanted anything.
I’d only had a couple of hours to digest the facts, the results of the C.V. sampling, but there they
were. My placenta was thin. I might be fine; I might have periodic bleeding and need bed rest; I might not be able to carry my baby full-term.
Wait, I’d said I wasn’t going to think about that. There wasn’t a damn thing Denny could do to protect our baby if he stayed.
I had to get him on his way to Australia so I could fall apart in peace—without worrying about him feeling guilty for having any part in putting me through this potentially heartbreaking pregnancy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TWO DAYS AFTER DENNY LEFT, I woke up to a bed spotted with blood. I was so terrified, I don’t remember much about what happened immediately after that. Apparently I called Shane, though I don’t remember dialing his number. He and Derek called an ambulance and they met me at the hospital.
The next however many hours were a blur of panic, worry and pain. I swear the cramping was worse than labor pains. I slept as much as I could—more for escape than anything else. And it seemed as if every time I woke up there was at least one face peering in my hospital-room window from the hallway. They didn’t come in, they just smiled. Kylie. Shane. Derek. Even Denny.
That’s when I knew I was hallucinating. Denny was in Australia. I wondered if they’d put some kind of nerve-deadening drug in my IV, thinking that was causing me to imagine things.
None of the medical personnel talked to me about much of anything. Cheerful chatter. Innocuous, meaningless.
I was sure that meant I’d lost the baby. And, at some point, I made the decision to just keep hallucinating. If it was drugs, I hoped they’d just keep giving them to me. I was too old to recover from a miscarriage. I couldn’t assuage my grief with the thought of another pregnancy. Another baby. This one had been a fluke.
But it had been my fluke and I’d wanted it. I hated myself for not realizing that soon enough. Maybe if I’d loved the idea of my unexpected gift from the beginning, been a little more grateful, I’d have been allowed to keep it.
It seemed as if days went by, though on some level I realized that not that much time had passed. Maybe one more night. Nurses came and went. Lynn seemed to be present a lot. And eventually, when I cared enough to notice, it occurred to me that I had wires coming out from under the bedcovers. They were attached to my stomach among other places.
I couldn’t tell you what was in the room. I didn’t bother looking. The fluorescent green lights on the monitors beside my bed drew what focus I had. When I was all slept out, I lay there staring at the monitors—following the waves and dots. A heart was beating. I recognized that much. Who wouldn’t? The words as seen on TV kept floating in and out of my mind.
I didn’t care beyond that. Couldn’t think or make any kind of decisions. Just stared at those waves and dots. Watching the heart beat to know that I was still alive—letting it do the work for me. Eventually my gaze wandered to the second screen. More waves and dots. They were watching my heart twice. It was beating at two different speeds—one much more rapid than the other. Two different ventricles? Was one slowly stopping? Could they watch two different parts of the same heart? Did one heart beat at two different speeds?
Without warning I got hot from the inside out. A flash. I’d thought I was done with them. Had the pregnancy and miscarriage triggered another menopause?
The first monitor, the slower one, sped up as I tried not to think. To hope. Two monitors. Two heartbeats. Wires on my stomach. Could it be? Was it possible that I’d been given a second chance to appreciate the great gift I’d been given late in life?
Was I still pregnant?
And if I moved, would I lose it?
Turning my head slowly, looking for another human being, someone to answer my questions—to either give me hope or dash it once and for all—I saw the window in the door to my room. The one that had figured so much in my dreams these past hours. The window with the faces.
DENNY WAS THERE. So my mind was still playing cruel tricks on me. And you’d actually thought you were rational, my mind taunted me. Apparently even tragedy didn’t kill that small voice in my head.
I tried to focus, but my vision was blurred—by tears, probably. I blinked. And blinked again. Denny was still there, watching me, his gaze intent, as if he was saving the world.
Saving me?
I smiled. What the hell. I needed to be saved and if a mirage in a window could do it, then who was I to deny myself that salvation?
The image in the window blinked, looked around, said something behind him and turned back—all in the space of a second. And then, as I watched, Kylie’s image appeared. And then Lynn’s. And suddenly—now this was bizarre—my parents were there. And then Denny was back. Taller than the other two, he was slightly behind them, but between my mother and father.
My grin grew. What a great dream. What a great life.
And then the door pushed open. Lynn was there first, with two nurses I recognized. Everyone was smiling, but completely efficient and businesslike as they pulled the curtains on the window. The nurses stayed in the background, checking equipment and wires and lines, waiting for direction from Lynn.
“You sure don’t do anything in half measures, girl,” Lynn said, her fingers feeling the pulse on my wrist, gaze jumping from monitor to monitor, to my face and back. “And I thought you were my friend.”
“I am.” My throat was dry, my voice unrecognizable—crusty. “What’s going on?”
“You ready to listen?”
I nodded, vaguely remembering telling Lynn to do what she must but to leave me out of it.
“You lost some blood,” she said. “And you were in shock.”
I met her gaze. “I almost died.” Give it to me straight, damn it. “Didn’t I?”
“No, but you might have if the bleeding hadn’t stopped.”
She moved the sheet aside, pushed gently on my stomach, looked lower, as well.
“Did I lose the baby?”
Glancing up, Lynn smiled at me. “Who, you?” she said. “Come on, Melanie. When have you ever given up on anything? You’re the woman who loves a guy at sixteen and hangs on to that forever. You get divorced and keep your ex as a best friend. You give up a baby for adoption and become her mother thirty years later.”
I couldn’t look away from her. “Am I still pregnant?” I asked, angry, afraid, ready to cry.
“Ah, sweetie,” Lynn said, tender in a way I’d never seen as she replaced the sheet and ran a hand lightly down my face. “You didn’t lose your baby. And as of now it doesn’t look as though you’re going to, as long as you do as you’re told. The bleeding was due to complications from the exam. Your placenta held up just fine. Everything looks good with the baby.”
I kept the pregnancy?
“I’ll do every single thing I’m told,” I said, wide-eyed, crying and laughing. I grabbed the hand against my face. Kissed it. “Thank you,” I told my friend. “Thank you.”
“Hold on before you anoint me,” Lynn said. Her voice was more abrupt now, but she was grinning. “You’re going to be confined to bed rest for the next few weeks,” she said. “Possibly for the duration of the pregnancy.”
Bed rest? That was it?
“Thank you,” I said again. I’d lie in hot wax for nine months if that’s what it took to keep my baby inside me long enough to grow.
“I didn’t do anything, Melanie,” Lynn said, nodding to the nurses that they were ready to leave. “You’re a fighter. Always have been. You did this.”
It was her job to make me feel better, but how I wanted to believe her. I wanted to know that after almost fifty years of living, I’d finally gotten something completely right.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I’M GLAD YOU’RE HERE.” It was a couple of hours later, my bed was cranked up and I clutched Denny’s hand for all I was worth. I knew I had to let go soon. Just not yet. Too many emotions fought inside me. I needed his calm, the strength he brought to my heart, while I sorted out all the confusion that was assaulting me.
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else
,” he said. When he arrived he’d pulled up a chair beside the bed, but half an hour ago he’d carefully crawled onto the bed beside me. Kylie, who was pregnant and up for only small periods of time, had taken the biological grandparents she’d just met to her place—to meet their son-in-law and, tomorrow, to meet her adoptive parents.
Shane and Derek had been in, too. They were the ones who’d called my parents. Poor Shane, he’d first had to tell them about the pregnancy and then tell them I might be losing the baby—and my life, as well. They’d taken Perpetua home with them.
I wasn’t there when Shane and Denny met. I’d have to wait for Kylie to tell me how that went. Shane’s parents had come by to see me. They’d even been cordial to Derek. Apparently, my folks were going out to dinner with them the next night.
“Yes, you would, too, be somewhere else,” I said now to Denny. I was too tired to be forceful, but tomorrow was another day. “You should be in the outback of Australia, seeing sights that inspire you to greatness.”
He stared at me. “There is no sight that will ever surpass this.”
I wanted to believe him. But I was not a pretender, never had been.
“Denny, nothing’s changed.…”
Reaching up he kissed me lightly. Gently. Stopping my words in the sweetest of ways.
“Everything’s changed, Mel,” he said, resting his head beside mine on the pillow.
“I was angry when I left all those years ago. Angry at life, at the bum rap I’d been handed. Angry at my father for beating me up instead of loving me, for being a weak drunk instead of a good father. Angry at myself for having gotten you pregnant, screwing up the one good thing that had happened to me. Angry with your parents for not making it better for us when they had the means to do so.”
“I know.” I swallowed back more tears.
“To some degree, I’ve been angry ever since.”
That didn’t surprise me, though I’d hoped he’d found some measure of peace.
“I was angry all the way to Australia.”
“You were?” I turned my head so I could see him better. “Why?”
From Here To Maternity: A Second ChancePromoted to MomOn Angel's Wings Page 7