by Bella Grant
“Dad, there’s something I need to tell you.” I sighed when he drew back his chair to get up from the table.
“Hmm. I’ve been waiting for you to come out with it.”
“Out with what?”
“You’re pregnant.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to him about. I wanted to mention visiting my mother. How had he guessed, anyway? And if it was so obvious to him, why hadn’t Lucas been able to tell?
“I hoped you’d deny it,” he mentioned. “The minute you walked through that door, I could tell. You reminded me of your mother when she was pregnant with you.”
I groaned. “I was hoping I didn’t have to tell you yet. I didn’t know what to say to you. I figured you’d be disappointed, would probably tell me I’m ruining my life.”
“I can’t deny I am alarmed,” he admitted. “This is the last thing I expected when you left for Denver. But you’re grown now, Debra, and I can’t tell you what to do with your life, or whether or not you should have a kid. It’s up to you. And the father.”
“I haven’t told him.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell him? Lucas is the father, isn’t he?”
I nodded. “But he doesn’t want a baby. On several occasions, he’s commented that a baby would ruin his life.”
“It doesn’t matter what he said. The fact is, there is a baby and he has to deal with it as a consequence, just as you do.”
“I’ll deal with it in my own time.”
“I don’t agree with you, Debra.”
“You don’t have to,” I returned stubbornly. If there was one thing I wouldn’t back down on, this was it. “You just said I’m grown and the decision is mine to do what I want and right now, it’s best Lucas doesn’t know about the baby.”
“Fine.” He got up from the chair and brought his dish and teacup to the sink.
“But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said slowly. “I met mom.”
His back went rigid and his hands stilled while washing up the plates. Then he resumed the motion like nothing was amiss.
“Okay,” he commented.
I plunged ahead. “Don’t you want to know how it went?”
He spun around to face me, his effort to try and control his temper making his face strained with emotions.
“If you want a relationship with that woman, it’s up to you. I don’t want to hear about it.”
I ignored his warning. “She’s no longer married. She’s single.”
“Dammit, Debra. I don’t care to talk about your mother.”
“But she seems to regret leaving me. You too.”
Angrily, he stalked out of the kitchen, water dripping to the floor from his hands that he hadn’t bothered to wipe with the kitchen towel. I winced at the sound of the front door slamming. What had I intended to do by bringing up my mother’s marital status? I was twenty-one and too old for the Parent Trap mentality, but as long as they were both still single, why not? I continued talking with Claire almost every day and she was cool.
Having finished my breakfast, I stood and had to grab the table as a blinding headache pierced my skull and my vision darkened. It slowly cleared but the headache remained. Remembering my last frightening experience which had landed me in the hospital, I placed the dishes in the sink without washing up and went straight back to bed to lie down.
The phone rang and it was Lucas, but I ignored it. He didn’t fully get what I meant when I’d told him we needed a break. He still texted me or called me, or sent me voice notes and GIFs. I thought about him telling me he loved me often. I never expected that and would have responded if my mother hadn’t warned me about the Caine men and then him seeming to prove her right when he had another girl in his dorm though he claimed she had been uninvited.
Lucas did go from one woman to another quickly. Before we got together as a couple, wasn’t that the impression I’d have of him, anyway? Why had I changed thinking it wouldn’t apply to me? Because I was the one dating him now?
I fell asleep wondering why I still felt so exhausted after the hours of sleep I had gotten before.
My dad and I walked on eggshells around each other since I brought up my mother. I barely saw him though we were in the same house. I slept in and he was gone most mornings when I woke up and got in very late. Sometimes, we shared dinner and other times, I couldn’t wait and ate before he got home, showered, and went to bed. Claire called me a few times and sometimes, I answered, but other times, I let it go to voicemail. Once, after walking into the living room and hearing my end of the conversation with her, Dad walked out. He’d come home that night drunk and I knew he wasn’t over her.
Having scheduled a visit at one of the local prenatal clinics the day before I was scheduled to leave for Denver, I drove the short distance to THRIVE, a free prenatal clinic for pregnant women in Pagosa Springs. I could have visited a private clinic but didn’t want to spend too much considering I didn’t have a job anymore. I was hoping the obstetrician I would see would give me good news that I was out the woods and would be able to start working again.
My other option would be to accept money from Lucas which he offered from time to time but which I turned down. Allowing him to pay for everything when we went out was different. Him buying a car for me was different, but accepting the cash itself felt weird. It also reminded me of the way he had thrown money at me to buy the contraceptive pills. I’d hated the way he made me feel then and didn’t want to feel that way ever again. Although he’d apologized for it, it wasn’t something that could easily be forgotten, being treated that way.
Because it was a free clinic, I had to wait as they queued us in by the time of arrival. Over twenty names were ahead of mine and I occupied my time reading some of the pamphlets a nurse handed out to us. Reading the information and seeing the various stages of pregnant women, everything started feeling real.
I am going to have a baby. I discovered so many things I didn’t know which made me question how prepared I was to have and keep this baby. I was four months pregnant and I hadn’t started thinking about buying the items the baby needed. How was I going to do all this without Lucas’ help? I wouldn’t be able to stay in the dorm with a baby. I couldn’t rent an apartment in the city, either. Where would I get the money? And even if I did work fulltime, I wouldn’t make enough to pay for child care, rent, utilities…the list went on.
I couldn’t do this without Lucas. But if I asked him for money for all the above that I needed, he would only believe the worst. His words came back to me. I’ll fight you every step of the way if a kid comes out of this and you try to get child’s support. Would his proclaimed love for me negate that threat?
“Debra Hoskins.”
From the way the nurse looked at me when I stood, I figured she had called my name several times before I had acknowledged her. She led me to a room where she had me complete a urine sample and checked my weight, height, and temperature, which she claimed were standard procedure.
I was then led to a small examination room where I was told to strip from the waist down and use the white sheet provided as a cover. A doctor would be with me shortly.
I had already been through this routine at the hospital when I almost miscarried, but this time felt different. Then, I had been too consumed with worry over losing my baby to give thought to undressing and the prodding and checking.
After a five-minute wait, a male doctor in his thirties entered the room.
“Miss Hoskins?” he asked, checking the chart he brought along with him.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“All right, why don’t you tell me how you’re doing? Everything okay with your pregnancy? Any cause for concern?”
He kept asking me questions as he did his check-up, a good source of distraction from what he was doing. The most moving part for me was the ultrasound and seeing my baby on the screen. I couldn’t stop staring. Lucas and I had created that. If he were with me, he had to feel the same love for t
his baby that I did. He had to.
“And will you look at that?” Dr. Tufton announced. “This little one is ready for mommy to know his sex.”
The fact he said ‘his’ sex, gave it away. I stared at him in disbelief.
“It’s a boy? How can you tell? Isn’t it too early?”
“It’s rare to find out the sex of a baby at sixteen weeks,” he stated. “But two factors are in your favor. It’s easier to tell when it’s a boy and the fetus is also in a very good position where we can see the formation of the genitalia clearly. Look.”
I nodded in awe although I couldn’t see what he did, but he sounded confident so I decided he must be right. He was the doctor. He should know. A boy! I could scarcely believe it when he walked to a desk in the room and advised me to get dressed. I moved in a lethargic state and winced at the feel of a headache building again. Maybe I should ask if it was normal to have these symptoms while pregnant. The headaches were acting up with more frequency.
“I’d like to take your blood pressure again,” he told me when I sat across him.
“Okay.”
He took down the readings before he looked up at me with a frown. “You’ve high blood pressure which we will have to monitor as you get closer to your twentieth week.”
“But I’ve never had a problem with my pressure.”
“Pregnant women sometimes develop what we call gestational high blood pressure,” he explained. “It occurs frequently for a woman’s blood pressure to show some abnormalities, whether its low or high, but this is monitored more vigorously if high blood pressure continues into your twentieth week. Then it becomes complicated as preeclampsia.”
As I listened to the doctor filling me on my high blood pressure, fear got a hold of me. He was trying to be light, but I noted his concerned expression. When he suggested I purchase a home blood pressure monitor, I felt the gravity of the situation.
Leaving the clinic was a bitter-sweet experience. I’d seen my baby for the first time, but now I was troubled that my pregnancy might be more complicated than I’d thought.
Lucas
Debra. I sucked a painful breath into my lungs and watched her walk by, her head buried in a book. She would occasionally glance up to ensure she wasn’t about to hit into anyone. From where I sat with Kevin on a stone bench under a large oak tree on campus, my eyes followed her hungrily, soaking up as much of her as I could get.
She looked as though she had put on weight but I couldn’t tell, dressed as she was in black leggings and an oversized shirt. Her chestnut hair streamed down her back and her slippers made flopping sounds with each step she took. She passed so close to me, I wanted to call out to her but refrained.
After Spring Break, she had continued with the ridiculous idea of us taking a time off. At first, I thought she was joking. We had agreed until the end of Spring Break, but when she started ignoring my calls and her roommate constantly told me she wasn’t in, I realized how serious she was.
But why? I wracked my brain over and over, trying to figure out what it was I had done for her to treat me this way but couldn’t come up with anything. She had asked me for time and I was giving it to her, but how much time did she expect to get? I wasn’t tempted to be with anybody else, but I counted all this ‘time-off’ as nothing but a waste of time we could be enjoying together.
As if she sensed my eyes trained on her, she glanced up and our eyes met. I was struck at how pale she looked. Her face was fuller. Had it been that long since our break? She closed the book she had been reading and her steps were quicker as she hurried to her class, I assumed.
“Hey, isn’t that the girl you were talking to?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, you dodged that one by the bullet. That girl’s put on some weight.”
But I didn’t care. Fat or slim, I wanted to be with her.
“We’re still together,” I corrected him. “Just on a break.”
“On a break. What does that even mean?”
“She’s got stuff she’s dealing with.”
“Hmm.”
Even though I was quick to pass on her excuse, I didn’t buy it, but what else could I do but give her the space she wanted?
Kevin wasn’t the only one who had questions about our relationship. Later that night, as I tried to study for final exams, Giselle called me from Japan where she had a shoot.
“Heavens, Giselle, do you know what time it is here?” I asked her.
“Not really. It’s two p.m. here,” she answered. “Just calling to check up on you. Getting all prepared for finals?”
“Trying to.”
“Must be good to finish with college after this, right?” she asked. “At least Dad will be proud of you. We all dropped out.”
“I still have a course to do over the summer that I failed last semester,” I groaned.
“It’s still a huge achievement. How did things turn out for you and your girlfriend?”
“What girlfriend?” I half-joked. The way my relationship was right now, I wasn’t even sure if I had one.
“You guys broke up?”
“No, not really. We’re just on a break.”
“Uh-oh,” she uttered. “It’s never a good thing when a girl says she wants a break. What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something wrong?” I exploded. “I did nothing but love her and treat her right.”
“And there’s no other woman involved?” she pressed. “Maybe she thinks so.”
“She doesn’t…” I started then trailed off remembering Rozanne. She had believed me about Rozanne, hadn’t she?
“Sounds like you’re not so sure anymore,” Giselle remarked.
“I’ve not cheated on her, Giselle.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you did or did not but what she believes. Why not make a big gesture?”
“What big gesture? I already bought her a car.”
“A car is nothing when you got money like you do!” she exclaimed. “But it’s good to see you know how to treat a woman right. I’m talking about something with more meaning, something that will convince her you love her.”
“I did tell her I love her.”
“Okay, then, something that will convince her you’re serious about it and that you want to be with her. Look, you’re shooting down everything I say, so come up with your own solution then. Gotta run! Keep me posted.”
She hung up before I could respond. I tried to return to studying but our conversation played over in my mind. Finally, I gave up and bookmarked the page where I was in the text and went to bed. I was already one course short of graduating and couldn’t afford to fail another, but at the rate at which Debra affected my concentration, it would be a miracle if I passed even one.
The answer came to me in my Derivative Securities class from a girl sitting to my right. She wasn’t so much the inspiration as the distraction of the diamond sparkling in her ears. And it hit me.
I wanted to marry her. Not the girl with the diamond studs. I wanted to marry Debra. Holy shit, the enormity of that realization hit me hard and I was lost for the rest of the class.
At the end of the session, I walked out like a zombie, grateful I was free for the rest of the day. Most of the lecturers had already wrapped up or were in the process of wrapping up the lessons for the start of exams.
The more I thought about it over the next few days, the more the idea grew on me. Debra Caine. Mrs. Lucas Caine had a nice ring to it. She would officially become mine. No time off. No insecurities about other women. I hoped she would know once I decided to marry, all women would be history. All other women had been history since the day she gave me a part of her she had never given to another man.
I could get an apartment or buy a house here in the city, then she wouldn’t have to live in the dorm while she finished her final year. I could play a more active role other than merely investing in my father’s company. Wasn’t that the reason I’d struggled through this degree
? As bored as I was with studying, I was confident in my hands-on abilities.
And better still, I could repay the money the bank had paid for her to complete her studies and she would be free to work wherever she wanted to work. That was always a sore point with her, to not have a choice due to her bond with the bank. And that was where I would start.
As much as I didn’t like dropping big names, there were times when it was useful. One call to my dad and he had me on the phone with his lawyer who would make the arrangements for payment to be made to the bank along with official paperwork with their signature that she was free from the bond. It shouldn’t have surprised me that in three days, I had the paperwork in hand to deliver to her.
But there was one other thing I had to do first and I needed help. I rang Giselle.
“I need your help picking out an engagement ring,” I said in a rush, not giving her the chance to say hello.
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, Giselle. I know you’ve been proposed to half a dozen times, at least. Sure enough, you’ll know what kind of engagement ring girls like.”
“What? Lucas when I told you to make a big gesture, I didn’t mean for you to marry the girl. You’re only twenty-two. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you to get married!”
“I want to marry her, Giselle,” I gushed. “If you got to know her, you would know why. She’s amazing.”
“Did you at least make up with her first?”
“No.”
She groaned. “Lucas, this is a bad idea. You don’t propose to a woman in the hope it’ll make things better between you. First, you find the problem and work on it. Then comes the proposal.”
I remained stubborn. “Just help me pick a ring.”
“Okay, but at least think twice before popping the question.”
Together we scrolled through Tiffany’s website while she asked me questions about Debra which I answered. I was amazed at how much I already knew about her. If she didn’t want to get married right away, that was fine. We could have a lengthy engagement if that was what she desired. I simply needed something concrete as a symbol of where we were going.