by Charles, Eva
Do I want children? Yes, of course. I’ve always wanted them—a houseful. But the prospect of having a child at this point in my life is daunting. Terrifying, actually. I’m still dealing with the aftermath of the fire, and I will be for some time. And I’m still searching for the way forward. Still trying to figure out what comes next for me. What comes next for us. I turn onto my side and pull the covers to my chin. I’m not ready to be a mother.
I hear the water turn off. JD must be out of the shower.
Maybe I’m mistaken. Who gets pregnant on the pill? Maybe my body is still recovering from the trauma of Georgie’s death and the fire. Not to mention those God-awful journals we scoured through three weeks ago. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I can’t remember the rest of that nursery rhyme.
When was the last time I had a normal period? Never. My menstrual cycle has been irregular forever and being on the pill hasn’t helped much. I’ve gone months in the past without a real period.
I’m still counting dates when JD opens the bathroom door quietly so as not to wake me. He pads through the bedroom with nothing but a white towel hanging around his neck. The man’s body is pure sin. I peek through the crook of my arm, covering my face, for a better look at that gorgeous ass. This is how you got yourself into this predicament in the first place, Gabrielle. He disappears into the huge walk-in closet to get dressed, and I go back to hand wringing.
Fortunately, my health insurance is paid through the first half of the year. That’s one thing I won’t have to depend on JD for. I have no money of my own. Nowhere to live. No job prospects. I’m completely beholden to the generosity of a man. It’s not how I imagined bringing a child into the world. I have no material possessions, but I have plenty of love to give this baby. If only that were enough to raise a child.
The closet door opens and JD comes over to the bed. He presses his lips to my head. “I’ll see you later.”
I smile. “Mmmm.”
He caresses my hair and I instinctively nuzzle into his hand, enjoying the soothing warmth. “Go back to sleep, darlin’.”
I wish I could. But I have something that can’t wait.
When I’m satisfied he’s gone, I climb out of bed and go directly to the closet, to the bank of drawers on the far wall that now belong to me. I open the middle drawer and pull a small bag from under a pile of sweaters. It doesn’t weigh much for something that holds the answer to my future.
I take the bag into the bathroom and lock the door. My insides are shaking. I read the instructions three times. They’re idiot proof, but I was too cheap to buy the twin kit with two tests, so I can’t afford any mistakes. I follow the instructions precisely, and wait.
I can’t keep still. I reach into the cabinet for my toothbrush, trying not to glance at the test stick. JD said he didn’t want a family. But he’s JD, and in many ways he’s very traditional. I know exactly what he’ll say when I tell him: When do you want to get married? But he won’t phrase it as a question, because that would give me the opportunity to say never.
The truth is that in my heart I’m ready to marry JD, but my common sense says it’s too soon. We’re still finding our way. I won’t let a baby hurry us down that path. It’s not how I want to begin a marriage. But regardless of where our journey ends, this child will connect us forever. On one hand, it’s reassuring and makes my heart lighter, on the other, it scares me to death.
I glance at the screen on the test. A big blue plus sign already fills the window. I snatch the instructions off the counter and read them twice more. I stare at the screen. I’m pregnant. It’s no surprise.
What now, Gabrielle?
I gather the evidence and toss it all back into the store bag. I’ll tell JD in my own time, in my own way. I don’t want him to know anything until I’m ready to spill the beans.
Georgie’s baby would be almost three months old. Our children would have been friends. Maybe best friends, like us. It’s been a few weeks since we combed through her journals. Since then there have been moments when I wondered if I knew her at all. And others, when I obsess about what a terrible friend I was not to have picked up on any of the signs of abuse that were surely there. I can see them so clearly when I look back now.
My chest is tight. I go to the bedside table and take out the inhaler I’ve been using intermittently since the fire. I hold it up to my mouth and freeze. Will it harm the baby? When she was pregnant, Georgie wouldn’t take an aspirin without checking with the doctor. All that medication they gave me after the fire. I cover my mouth. All that smoke I inhaled. Oh my God. What have I done?
It’s almost eight o’clock. I grab the phone and call my gynecologist’s office, pacing the room until someone answers.
“Angel Oak Gynecology,” the receptionist says.
“Good morning. I’m pregnant. I was in a fire. They gave me all kinds of medicines for anxiety and for my lungs. I might have hurt the baby. I need to see Dr. Williams as soon as possible.” I blurt out the entire sob story with tears trickling down my face.
“It takes a lot to hurt a baby,” she says reassuringly. “Don’t worry yet. What’s your name, dear?”
“Gabrielle Duval.”
“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” she says. I hold my breath while she checks for an appointment. “I squirrel away one time slot every day for emergencies. And I’m the one who gets to decide what’s an emergency.” She chuckles. “Eleven-thirty, right before lunch. Can you make it?”
Thank God. “Yes. I can be there.”
“Great. Bring a list of all the medicines you’re taking and anything you took after the fire.”
* * *
I ask Lally to make a rack of ribs for dinner tonight. JD loves them and I might as well put him in a good mood before I break the news.
“You didn’t eat much,” he says, helping me rinse the dishes to put in the dishwasher. “And you’re out of sorts. What’s going on?”
I stare out the window over the sink. It’s a moonless night and the back lights aren’t on. I can’t see a thing. I practiced what I was going to say to JD at least twenty times today. Tweaking each word, turning each phrase, like I was writing a damn novel. But when I start to tell him, I freeze.
“Gabrielle,” he says, putting a hand on my back. “Is it about the fire?”
I shake my head. “No. But there is something I need to talk to you about.”
“I’m listening.” I don’t know how to begin. “There’s no courage out there on the back lawn, darlin’. So why don’t you just say what you have to say?”
I squeeze the edge of the countertop. It’s cold and unforgiving. And for a moment, I’m afraid that’s what I’ll get from JD too. “I went to the doctor this morning.”
“You’re sick?” he whispers. His voice is raw.
I shake my head and turn to meet his eyes. There’s fear in those bright blue eyes that I’ve come to read so well. “I’m pregnant. The baby will be born in October.”
His body relaxes. Visibly relaxes. “Pregnant,” he says carefully, as though he’s testing the word on his tongue. He doesn’t say anything else. And he doesn’t move a muscle.
“Pregnant,” he repeats, pulling me into his arms, cupping the back of my head with one strong hand, with the other settling into my lower back.
“The doctor thinks that either I forgot to take a pill, or that something they prescribed for me in the hospital made it ineffective. It’s also possible that the trauma caused my body to ovulate. They probably warned me before I left the hospital to use back-up birth control, but I don’t remember.” His heart is pounding while I ramble on.
“I know I’m supposed say something sensitive, like, ‘how do you feel about this,’ or ‘what are your plans?’ But I’m not that guy.” He kisses the top of my head with the greatest care. “We’ll get married as soon as the license can be pushed through. Less than a week. We might not be able to get a big thing together in a week, but we can do it agai
n in a month or two. With flowers and a long white dress. Anything you want.”
I start to laugh uncontrollably. JD pulls back and stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. But I can’t stop. His reaction is so predictable. The only normal thing that’s happened today. “What’s so funny?”
“All day I felt as though everything happening was so foreign and beyond my control. But I knew you’d say you wanted to get married right away. Because you’d want to do the right thing by me and the baby.” His head is cocked to the side, and I can tell he’s trying to decipher what I just said.
“It’s more than just about doing the right thing. If something happens to me, it will be so much less messy if we’re married. The terms of my grandfather’s will are very specific. My lawful children inherit my share of Sayle. Gray and Chase won’t fight you, but if we’re not married, my father will drag you through the courts for years and make your life miserable. You’ll likely prevail in the end, but it will be hell.”
I feel his words in the pit of my soul. I know he means well, and maybe I should be practical, but I’ve always believed that above all else, marriage is a matter of the heart. “There was a time when we were teenagers that I dreamed of marrying you. Maybe more often than was healthy. But not once in any of those dreams did you tell me we should get married as soon as possible in case something happens to you, so it would be less messy for the baby to inherit your share of Sayle.” I pause to take a breath. “Of course, in my fantasies the baby came after the cake was cut.”
“Gabrielle.” He slides his hands up and down my arms. “I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“I’m conditioned to go straight to the practical part.”
I look up at him. “I don’t want to get married.”
His hands tense on my skin as soon as I say the words. “You don’t want our baby.” He doesn’t ask. He just jumps right to the worst.
I slide my hands over his and lace our fingers together. “Of course I want our baby.” The lines on his face ease and my heart clenches. “But we’re not ready to get married. And just a few months ago you told me you didn’t want a family.”
“I did. But lately I’ve been letting myself imagine it again.” One corner of his mouth turns up. “I don’t care what the neighbors do, but I’m old school. I want us to be married before the baby is born. Don’t fight me on it, Gabrielle.”
“We’ll get married when it’s right. When our relationship is ready. The baby gets to be a baby. A joy to his or her parents. It doesn’t have to carry the burden of a marriage that might not last.”
His eyes flicker with some kind of understanding. “I respect everything you’ve said, and I know you don’t want to hear this—but there’s a lot at stake here. My share of Sayle Pharmaceuticals is no small matter.”
He’s not going to let this go easy. “I won’t put money into the mix. This is too important. This is a matter of the heart, JD. Not of the pocketbook.”
He steps back and squeezes the back of his neck. “Money isn’t everything. But it buys financial security. Peace of mind.” He catches my eye and glares.
Glare all you want. I am not intimidated by you.
“Our child will not go hungry or worry about where they’re going to sleep at night, or if they can afford to go to the doctor. And you will not worry about those things either. You will never choose between feeding yourself and feeding our child.”
I will win this battle, but it’s going to be long and ugly. I’m done for now. “Let’s not fight about this tonight. I have something to show you.” I go over to where my purse is hanging in the back hall.
“What else did the doctor say?” he calls after me.
Now that the hard part is out of the way, I’m excited to show him the sonogram images. “He said everything was perfect.”
JD nods. “You have a male doctor?”
I stop short and sneer. “Don’t go there. Not now, not ever.”
“Fine.” He raises his arms in the air. “Just surprises me, that’s all. Your damn car mechanic is a woman. Your dentist is a woman. I just thought that you wouldn’t want some guy with his nose six inches from your pussy.”
“Or his fingers inside it?” I ask sweetly.
“Jesus,” he snarls. I hand him the envelope with the images.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
I pull myself up on the counter and watch his face as he tries to decipher what he’s seeing.
“Those are images from the sonogram I had today.”
“The baby,” he murmurs. “I can make out the head but not much else. Wait. I think it’s a boy.”
“It’s too early to tell.”
“I’m not an expert but this looks like a cock to me.” He holds up the image so I can see.
“That’s a leg, genius.”
He grins. “It’s my kid. He could have a cock the size of his leg.”
I roll my eyes and smile. “I heard the heartbeat today. I wish you could have heard it too.”
He gazes at me. There’s a pang of regret in his face that I feel deeply. “I would have gone with you. You just had to ask.”
“I know. And in retrospect, I’m very sorry. But I wanted to know all the details before I broke the news. There will be more chances to come with me.”
“This doctor you’re seeing, is he any good? The best in Charleston?”
I smile. Only the best for his child—and for me too. “He’s delivered dozens of babies. Ours will be in good hands.”
JD’s still holding the images, and every time he sneaks a peek my heart smiles. “How did they take these pictures?”
“An ultrasound machine. A portable thing that sits right in the exam room. There’s a big-ass wand that they slip a condom on and slide into your vagina with some lube. I’m sure you would have been amused.”
“Maybe we can get one of those machines for the house.”
“What? Do you have any idea how expensive those things are?”
“How much could it cost? We could donate it to some clinic after you’re done having babies. Although that could be decades from now.” He’s grinning again, and my heart is about to implode with joy. “Think about it. We could check on the baby any time we wanted. See what it’s doing in there. Make sure everything’s okay.”
“I’d laugh, except I think you might be serious.”
“Think about it.”
“You want an ultrasound machine for the house, like it’s a toaster? Buy one. Go ahead. But you’ll have to use that wand on yourself because it’s not coming anywhere near me. And you are not going to creep on this baby while it’s in my womb.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds so stalkerish.” He slides the images back into the envelope and lays it carefully on the counter. “But I’m going with you next time.”
“We should tell my parents and your brothers about the baby before we tell anyone else. And Lally of course. And Smith.” I take a deep breath. “What are you going to do about telling your father?” My hands fly to my belly as though they can shield this innocent child from a monster.
“My father will never get anywhere near our child. Ever.” A profound sense of relief passes through me. “Don’t spend a second worrying about him.” He glances at the hands cupping my abdomen. “Can you feel anything?”
“No, it’s still too early.”
He nudges my knees apart and stands between them. “Did the doctor say anything about sex?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so. No sex until eight weeks after the baby’s born. So sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, give or take a week here or there.”
“Between Thanksgiving and Christmas.” He nods. “Okay.” But it doesn’t sound okay. He licks his bottom lip, and then scrapes his teeth over it like he does when he’s got something on his mind. I’m enjoying this way too much. I can barely contain my glee. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Yes
. I’m kidding.”
JD pulls my hair. “You’re gonna pay for that.”
“The doctor said there’s no reason I can’t continue to enjoy sex. Orgasms strengthen the uterus. But we need to be careful about infection, and I should refrain from anything that’s uncomfortable.”
“We’ll save uncomfortable for after the baby comes. But your uterus is going to be so strong they’re going to write entire medical books about it.” He slides his hand between my legs. “You’re wet, darlin’,” he murmurs. “Let me take care of you.”
“You better get plenty of rest. Dr. Williams said some pregnant women want sex all the time.”
“I can’t believe your doctor is a man and you talk about sex with him.”
“I can’t believe you’re still talking, when I need that mouth busy with other things.”
“We’re going down to city hall tomorrow to apply for a marriage license. That way we’ll have it when you change your mind.” I don’t respond because my legs are over his shoulders and his tongue is swirling around my clit.
Lally would kill us if she knew what we were doing in her kitchen.
28
Julian
I have a dozen messages from my father that I haven’t returned. After the fire, and the night spent with Georgie’s journals, it’s been nearly impossible for me to utter a single civil word to him.
I’m not afraid to let him have it, but I’m hoping that when the Feds swept Sayle they found something to bring him down. Because nothing in those journals is going to do it. The information about the accident is all there, too. Not the details, of course, but enough for me to put it all together. But it would never stand up in a court of law. Not by itself. And it certainly isn’t enough to arrest the president of the United States. That’s for damn sure.
What he did to that little girl—Georgie. I keep wondering if there were others. Because for animals like him, there are always others.