by Gina Ardito
“Great. Got any suggestions on how?”
“The ‘how’ is up to you. But I suggest you repair the damage before the rift becomes too wide to ford. For her sake, as well as yours.” She sighed and propped her chin on one fist. “You can’t say we didn’t warn you, Sean. I, myself, told you after the sorry episode between Isabelle and Nicole’s mother that if you used your sensory link to Isabelle without authorization again, both you and Xavia would suffer the consequences.”
Ah, so we finally got to it. He’d always known this whole Machiavellian episode was because of Isabelle. No matter what they said to the contrary. “You picked a helluva way to punish us.” On a screech of chair legs on linoleum, he rose. “Fine. I guess I should get started then. I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“Sit down, Sean. We’re not done yet.”
She might not have been done, but he was long past finished. “What makes you the one to decide when we’re done?”
“Because one word from me can have you banished to the Chasm.”
Christ. She’d do it, too. No doubt about it. With a huff of resentment, he sat. “What else is there to talk about?”
“One more thing. We’re cutting you off from Isabelle Fichetti. But not to worry. You’ll have several offenders to replace her.”
“You’re what?” Cutting him off from Isabelle? He was going to lose her? “You can’t do that.”
Her forehead pleated in neat lines. “Why not?”
He had no ready answer. All he knew was the idea of never seeing Isabelle again left him hollow.
“Do you have reason to believe Isabelle will attempt to harm herself, Sean?”
“No.”
“Then your work with her is done.” That victorious smile reappeared, and she lifted her mug in mock salute. “Congratulations. Now, I’d suggest you work just as hard at re-establishing a working relationship with Xavia.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Let’s just think positively for now.”
Right. Because this hellhole screamed, “Happiest Place Off Earth.”
~~~~
Kneeling in front of the toilet, Isabelle wiped her mouth and picked up her head. This was getting ridiculous. How could she continue to throw up when she had nothing in her stomach?
“That does it,” Justin announced from above her. “Tony, call an ambulance.”
“No!” She struggled to her feet, and the dizziness overwhelmed her again, forcing her to grab Justin or risk smacking her head on the porcelain throne. “Tony, don’t,” she called out.
Too weak.
Too late.
Tony was gone.
Justin wrapped an arm around her waist to support her. “Belle, you’ve been like this for over a week now. For God’s sake, you can’t even drink water without running to the bathroom to heave. Something’s wrong. We need to find out what it is.” His complexion paled. “What if the tumor’s back?”
Leaning into him, she sighed. “That’s always been a possibility. You knew that. Dr. Regalbuto said the gamma knife slowed its progress, but—”
“But didn’t eradicate it completely,” he finished.
“Okay, then. So you know my being sick is perfectly normal.”
“No, it’s not. The gamma knife was more than four months ago. Nausea and vomiting were not part of the side effects and shouldn’t be happening now.”
She stepped out of his hold to stand on her own two unsteady feet. “Maybe it’s food poisoning.”
“Like hell. Tony did his research. He’s been extremely careful to keep you on an all-natural diet with raw foods, no carbs, no sugar, and no trans fats.”
“Is that why I put on ten pounds in the last two months?”
“Ten pounds you desperately needed,” he reminded her. “But now, I’m betting you lost more than those ten.” He skimmed a hand down her cheek and crooned, “You’re sick, baby. And if you don’t want to face it and see a doctor, then I’m going to insist you go to the hospital and have some tests run so we can find out what’s wrong.”
“I don’t want an ambulance coming here,” she insisted with an exaggerated shiver. “The lights, the sirens. I might as well call the press personally and invite them to meet me at the ER.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. Say yes, and I’ll take you over to the stat clinic instead of the hospital. Dr. Moriarty’s a friend. She’ll keep your visit a secret. I promise. No one will know you’re there.”
This was emotional blackmail. He knew how much she didn’t want a scene—almost as much as she didn’t want to see another doctor. She’d had enough of doctors, enough of blood tests and paper gowns and lying on exam tables. But she’d had more than enough of throwing up the last few weeks, too. Decision made, she nodded. “Yes. Okay.”
“Good girl.” He kissed her head, then leaned out the bathroom door to call out, “She’s going for it, Tony.”
Realization sunk in, and she frowned at him. “You tricked me.”
“No, not really. We just forced you to get out of your own way. Get dressed. You’ve got an appointment at ten.”
She tried to appear angry, but wound up going for admiration instead. “Wow. You seriously outmaneuvered me.”
“Did you think we would wait until we found you passed out cold on the tile?” He turned to leave, then tossed over his shoulder. “And please brush your teeth before you get close to anybody else. Morning breath is one thing. No one wants to smell vomit breath—no matter what kind of ailments they’re used to dealing with.”
She couldn’t hold back a snort of amusement. “Be grateful I don’t grab you and give you a big, slobbery kiss right now, binky.”
Within an hour, she was in a paper gown, sitting on a cold exam table, waiting for another strange doctor to enter the room. She scanned the counters, ignoring the pile of old tabloids with splashy covers; the jars of cotton balls, tongue depressors, and swabs. Every exam room in every doctor’s office was the same: cold, sterile, and dehumanizing.
A quick rap on the door ushered in a steely-haired woman with blue-framed cat glasses on the bridge of her hook nose and a manila folder tucked under her white-coated arm. “I’m Dr. Moriarty.” She slapped the folder on the counter and offered her hand to Isabelle.
“Isabelle,” she said.
With introductions out of the way, the doctor began the exam with Isabelle’s medical history. After the usual details about the brain tumor were concluded, the doctor rambled through standard questions, including, “First day of your last menstrual period?”
Isabelle hesitated, thought backwards. “Umm...April, I think. Or March, maybe. Between the tumor and the radiation, I didn’t really think about it.”
The woman’s forehead furrowed in lines. “Nearly five months ago. Any chance you’re pregnant?”
Isabelle would’ve fallen off the table, laughing, if the woman hadn’t seemed so stern. “No. Definitely not.”
The doctor nodded, jotted a few notes on the chart, and segued into current symptoms. After Isabelle had described the excessive vomiting, the constant heartburn, and her extreme tiredness, Dr. Moriarty handed her a specimen cup. “I’d like a urine sample. Bathroom is through that door. And I’m going to send the nurse in to draw a little blood.”
She left again, allowing Isabelle some privacy with the plastic cup and her doubts. What if the tumor had spread? False bravado for Justin’s benefit aside, she was terrified of her pending death. Of the coming days of memory loss, adult diapers, and I.V. tubes. Of death.
Looking up at the ceiling, she murmured, “Sean? Are you there? I sure could use your soothing voice right now. I’m pretty scared of what they’re going to tell me.”
Silence answered her plea.
Her guardian angel had picked a helluva time to pull another disappearing act. This time around, he hadn’t even left her any dreams to assuage his loss. No dolphins, no sultry days on the beach. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Total radio silence. Talk about a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. O
ne really wild sex dream, and he’d floated off into the ether, never to be seen or heard from again.
Placing her filled specimen cup on the counter, she returned to the white paper-covered exam table to wait for Act Two. Another knock, and a fifty-something-year-old nurse popped in, wearing a too-bright smile and Cat in the Hat scrubs. Isabelle struggled to avoid rolling her eyes. Leave it to Justin—every old woman’s darling—to have a harem of gray-hairs ready to swear loyalty and secrecy to him. After five minutes of nonsense conversation about the weather, the nurse withdrew three vials of blood, took the specimen cup, and left the room. Once again, Isabelle sat alone, staring at the counters.
Time ticked by, interminable and formidable until, at last, Dr. Moriarty and the nurse with the Dr. Seuss scrubs returned. “Well, the news isn’t quite as bad as you thought, Isabelle. Your recent bouts of illness have nothing to do with your brain cancer.”
“Really?” Relief rippled through her, along with a sense of justification. Justin owed her big time. Turned out she was right. All his fuss for nothing. “So what is it? The flu?”
“No.” The doctor offered her an uncertain smile. “But I do want to call the hospital and have you admitted immediately. You’re suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, excessive morning sickness.”
Chapter 18
“Oh, my God, sweetheart!” Justin practically swallowed his tongue. “You’re really pregnant!”
Lying in her hospital bed, an intravenous line providing her with fluids to keep her from becoming dehydrated, she shook her head. “The doctor ran the tests twice. I’m four months along. Now they want a sonogram to check dates and make sure all my time on my knees in the bathroom hasn’t adversely affected the baby.”
Justin and Tony exchanged dreamy looks.
“The baby,” Tony cooed. “Our Belle is going to be a mama. And we’re going to be the best uncles ever. Think about it. Visits to the park, Christmases with tons of toys, pony rides, first day of school…”
She held up the unhindered hand. “Slow down, guys. You’re getting way ahead of me here.”
“Why?” Justin asked. “You’re going to keep the baby, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.” At his gasp, she added, “What I mean is, I’m still trying to process all this.”
“How could you not know?” he demanded. “Why wouldn’t you want a baby? A precious new little bundle for us to spoil with love.” Hugging himself, he swished from side to side, then stopped and sobered. “Unless…oh, God. The father. Please tell me Carlo’s not the father.”
His horror at the idea gave her the instant giggles. “No, he’s not.”
“So, who is?”
She clamped her lips shut. That was one of the things she’d yet to fully process. The father. Good God, how laughable. She hadn’t had sex with anyone in over a year. Anyone living anyway. So apparently, that intense sex dream she’d had about Sean, four and a half months ago, wasn’t a dream after all.
Was it possible? No. The idea was preposterous. But what other explanation could there be? She’d been through some major league weird shit in the last year, but this pregnancy thing was beyond her grasp of the surreal. And no one in the world would ever believe the truth.
“Belle?” Tony prodded. “Is there something we need to know about the father?”
“You don’t have to concern yourself about the father,” she said. “He’s dead.”
“Dead?” Justin sucked in a breath, and tears sprang to his eyes. “Oh, Belle, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Is the father that Sean guy?”
She nodded. How in the hell could she explain to anyone that the father of her unborn child was a man who died in 1982?
“Did you love him?”
Love? She’d started to think so, still wondered if he’d been about to say those words to her when he disappeared from that ski chalet. When she thought back to that day in the radiology suite, how he’d calmed her fears, how grateful she’d been when he appeared, she couldn’t help but think his actions came from love.
Then again, did love really exist at all? Her mother professed to love her, yet sold her first to Hollywood, then to her stepfather. Her agent claimed to love her, then dumped her when she couldn’t find another acting role after “Shipp Shape” went off the air. Her ex-husband loved her—until a younger version came along. Only Justin had truly loved her for her. Still did. Still stayed here with her. She might have eventually loved Sean, if he’d stuck around. But, for whatever reason, like all the others, Sean had taken all she had to give and then disappeared.
“We shared something very special for too short a time,” she said aloud. “Something pure and magic that I couldn’t possibly explain.”
“Sounds like love to me,” Tony summed up.
She didn’t argue. Maybe she had loved him. But he hadn’t loved her back.
“Then why aren’t you sure you’re keeping the baby?”
She speared Justin with an icicle look: cold and piercing. “You know why.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. “The tumor.”
With her index finger and thumb pointed, pistol-like, at his face, she nodded. “Very good, binky. I have no idea what’s going to happen in the next five months. What if the doctor wants to do another bout of radiation? Or chemo? I can’t undergo any major league treatment if I’m pregnant. And even if I live through the pregnancy and delivery, what’ll I have? Five years with this baby? Ten, at best?”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Yeah, I do. And so do you.” She clutched his hand, then grabbed Tony’s to pull him down to a seated position next to Justin. “I’ll only go through with this pregnancy on one condition: I want you two to become this child’s guardians once I’m...gone.”
Justin’s jaw fell open. She could almost see his brain pulsing behind his forehead, struggling to catch up. “Wait. What are you saying?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying.”
His frown etched deep half-moons at the corners of his mouth. “Maybe. But, why? If you’re that unsure, why go through with this? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled you’re having a baby, but if you don’t want to, if you’re feeling pressured because of us, or…” He shook his head and grabbed her into a fierce bear hug. “If there’s a chance that taking this pregnancy to term is going to cut your life even one second shorter, please don’t.”
She dropped a kiss on his shoulder, then pulled out of his embrace. “That’s why I love you so much. You always know the right thing to say. Sean did, too. Once, when he and I were talking about my suicide attempt, he said that every life is put on this earth for a purpose. And if I didn’t know my purpose yet, I couldn’t take my life and ruin the chance to find out. I think I know now what my purpose is. My purpose is to give you two the family you’ve always wanted.”
The tears hovering in Justin’s eyes fell. “Oh, sweetie.”
“You saved my life, Justin. It can’t be coincidence that you guys have spent so much time, money, and effort to adopt a baby and suddenly, I’m pregnant. Everything happens for a reason.” She ran a hand over her abdomen. “This was the reason. We’ll make it all legal once I’m discharged from here, I promise. So?”
“No.” Justin pulled away, and a shadow passed over his eyes. “No, Belle. This isn’t right. If it comes down to a choice between you and this baby—”
“I’m dying, Justin!” After the initial outburst, she lowered her voice to a more somber tone. “I’ve been dying, and we all know it. Whether or not I have this baby, I’ll be dead within a year or two. I want this baby to live on after me. You and Tony want a family. A family I can provide. Don’t deny a dying woman’s last wish because of sentimentality.”
Sniffling, Justin turned to Tony, who wiped his own wet eyes before murmuring a heartfelt, “Yes. God, yes. Justin?”
Justin sighed in defeat. “If you’re sure, Belle…”
“I’m sure. And one more thing,” she said, drawing t
heir sentimental focus back to her. “Not a demand, a request. If you guys are okay with it, I want to move in with you permanently. I’ll pay rent. I’ll sub-let my house as soon as I’m outta here. I’m thinking the baby and I can live with you until…” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “…the end. This way, once I’m gone, there’ll be no traumatic, ‘Now you get to live with Uncle Tony and Uncle Justin’ for him.”
“Or her,” Justin amended.
“Or her,” she agreed. “Promise me you’ll love him—”
“Or her.” At her sharp look, he responded with a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I’ve just always pictured Tony and me with a little girl. But, boy or girl, I swear to you, your baby’s going to have the very best of everything.”
She grabbed each of their hands. “He or she already has the best parents. I’ve seen to that. You guys wanna come with me to see the sonogram?”
Tony sat up, eyes wide. “Really?”
“Really. And I’m probably gonna need a birthing partner. Any volunteers?”
“Tony’s better with that stuff than me,” Justin replied with a quick head jerk. “I usually fall apart in emergency situations.”
She turned to Tony to gauge his reaction. “You okay with that?”
His brows drew down, and he frowned in obvious suspicion. “Do you promise not to curse me out or punch me in the delivery room?”