All I Want (A Farmers' Market Story)

by Helm, Nicole

  When she slipped her hand in his, he could breathe easier. Easier than when they’d been waiting. Easier than possibly he had all day. She linked her fingers with his and they walked into the room cramped full of equipment and a computer and a bed-type thing.

  The nurse offered directions, and Meg remained frozen. Until he squeezed her hand. He’d tell himself that was what had snapped her out of it. Because it would make every gesture like it come infinitely easier. If she needed it. If she needed him.

  She disappeared into the little bathroom off to the side, and Charlie arranged himself uncomfortably on the chair in the corner that would allow him to watch the proceedings while the ultrasound technician situated herself.

  “There’s nothing to be nervous about,” the woman said kindly, doing who knew what with the computer and machines until Meg stepped out in the hospital gown.

  “All right, have a lie-down up here,” the tech said, patting the paper-covered exam table.

  She got Meg situated, doing all sorts of horrible-looking things with all sorts of horrible-looking instruments. But she talked Meg through it, and in the end it wasn’t like Charlie had a choice. Except to close his eyes.

  But he wasn’t a coward.

  The woman was silent as she worked, one hand and what it was doing with one of the horrible-looking tools hidden under Meg’s exam gown, the other typing away on the computer.

  Charlie inclined his head to look at the screen that was pointed toward Meg. There were splotches, and a lot of black static. Occasionally the screen would flash, or the tech typed letters or numbers that appeared on the screen, but Charlie didn’t know what any of it meant.

  “See that flash there?” the tech finally said, pointing to a dot where something flashed over and over.

  He nodded wordlessly, transfixed on the steady blinking. “That’s the baby’s heartbeat. One-seventy-one beats per minute. Which is perfectly healthy. In fact, everything looks right on target.”

  “So, everything’s okay? Everything’s...viable?” Meg asked in a tremulous voice.

  The technician offered a broad smile. “One hundred percent, honey. That baby of yours looks exactly like it should.”

  She pulled her hand out from under Meg’s paper gown and pulled the gloves off her hands. “Now, Meg, if you want to change back into your clothes, I’ll print out some pictures you can take with you.”

  Meg slid off the table and disappeared into the little bathroom, and after a few more button pushes on her varied machines, the technician handed him a strip of printouts.

  Black-and-white, the words BABY CARMICHAEL in type across the top. The last name would be something they’d need to discuss, but not now. Not when he could see his viable baby as a real, living thing. It looked like a gummy bear, all in all, but it was clear. A body, little arm and leg buds, a head. A heartbeat.

  He hadn’t realized Meg had returned until he felt her little gasp of pleasure next to him. “Oh” was all she said, but it spoke volumes.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder, staring down at the picture. Like time had ceased to exist, and everything centered on this picture.

  “That’s our baby,” she whispered, tracing the outline.

  “Our baby,” he repeated, felled, again. Over and over again. In the most wonderful way he’d ever been knocked off his feet.

  “I know it’s a big day, guys, but you’re going to have to leave so I can get ready for the next appointment. Feel free to sit in the waiting room as long as you need to.”

  “Right. Of course.” Charlie didn’t manage to take his gaze off the picture they held together, but he at least got his brain engaged enough to move them toward the door, then out and down the hall.

  “I can’t stop looking at it.”

  “You don’t have to.” He squeezed her shoulder and gave her full ownership of the picture. He led her toward the door out of the hospital complex. “Look all you want. And I’ll drive us to Moonrise for lunch.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, though her eyes never left the picture she clutched in her hands. “Take us somewhere we won’t know anybody. Then we can keep it out and look at it together.”

  “Even better.” He planted a kiss on her head and led her to the car. Things couldn’t be better.

  * * *

  IT WAS THE most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She wanted to blow it up and frame it. She wanted to wallpaper her house with it. She wanted to never look at anything else because this was a baby. Her baby. Hers.

  Even though it was so big and scary and overwhelming, there was a baby on that picture.

  “I should have taken you to McDonald’s. The food and ambience will be lost on you completely,” Charlie teased. But it was teasing because he hadn’t cracked his menu either. All they’d done since they sat down at the restaurant was stare dopily at the picture in front of them.

  Meg had barely even noticed that it was a nice place. The kind of place her parents would have taken her to for interminable lunches where they’d pick at her manners and her posture and...

  She sat up a little straighter as if out of reflex, finally breaking her gaze from the picture. Oh no.

  “The pasta is good here. So’s the pork chop.”

  “Yeah.” She looked back at the menu. She’d never been here, per se, but it could have been right out of her childhood. It could have been right out of that life that had crushed her into bits.

  She’d been so blindsided by the perfection of a picture that she’d entered here willingly and stupidly.

  It’s fine. Charlie was tracing the picture of their baby with his fingertip—over and over. The same awe and reverence in his expression as she felt. So this was fine. He wasn’t going to complain about her table manners, or the appropriateness of her smile or clothes.

  He was Charlie. Not her parents.

  “M-maybe we should just go to McDonald’s. G-go home.” She was stuttering. She hadn’t stuttered since second grade. She took a deep breath and tried to breathe, tried to be calm.

  She was fine.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” He reached out across the table, as if to take her hand, but she lifted it in a wave. Wave it off. Pretend she was fine. The last thing she was going to do was rehash the ways she’d always failed her parents and this life.

  Not today, when everything was magic. “Just feeling a little sick all of a sudden.”

  “You need to eat something,” he said with a self-assured nod. “I was reading it can help with any nausea to make sure you’re eating a little bit throughout the day—not just three decent meals.”

  She felt some of the panic fade at that, too blanketed in the warmth that he would care—not just to read up on how the baby was developing, or what she should be doing to help grow the baby best as she could, but to read about what might help her.

  Yeah, she was a little more than fine. “Well, I guess I should look at the menu, then. Do you think they can bring up some bread and butter or something?” Because suddenly she was hungry. Hungry and happy and... She touched her index finger to the picture again.

  “This is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me,” she whispered, because the emotions were bubbling out of her, and though it wasn’t easy or in her nature, sharing what she was feeling did really help offset the crying breakdowns she’d been prone to lately.

  It was hard to open herself up like that. So often she could see the end result being ridicule, but with baby stuff...it was easier. Because Charlie would have to be cruel to hurt her with that, and she didn’t believe he was cruel.

  “Me too,” he said, his voice gruff, his finger touching hers—all centered on that little miracle of a picture.

  They soaked up that silence, fingers gently touching. Meg could have lived in this moment, and she vowed that no matter what ha
ppened with them, no matter what missteps she took when it came to a relationship with him—she would remember this moment. This joy.

  They’d figure it out. They’d always choose to make something work, because for both of them this was the most amazing thing—and so she could be assured they would always work together to make sure it was their priority.

  Unless...

  So many unlesses, and she didn’t want to think about them. Didn’t want to give them credence, but they lived in her like organs. Those whispers, those beliefs, those chinks in her armor.

  She could only hope her child would never feel this. Would never constantly struggle to believe in his or her worth.

  I won’t let you.

  “If you want to order a bunch of things, we can always take leftovers home.”

  We. Home.

  Maybe she should tell him. Maybe she should share. It worked for the pregnancy things, for the baby things. To tell people what she was feeling. It lightened the load. It made the anxiety and fear far less potent.

  But how did she tell him something that would give him the ammunition to ruin her? To sweep everything away from her? How did she give him all those feelings and insecurities when it would most surely make him wonder if she could do this?

  She couldn’t have him worrying she’d relapse. Someone had to believe in her. She had to prove someone right instead of wrong.

  “Where do you go?” Charlie asked, leaning forward across the table. “Where is your head when you look so damn terrified?”

  She blinked at him. Where did she go? Oh, just to all the dark, ugly recesses of her soul. She forced herself to smile. “Pregnancy is terrifying, Charlie.”

  She didn’t think he bought it, based on the grim line of his mouth, but the waitress appeared and took their lunch orders.

  She didn’t want him to ponder her terror or where her mind went. She didn’t want him worrying or trying to figure her out, because anything he found out would only lead to him looking at her differently. He would see her as an addict, someone not to be trusted.

  It would be him telling his family against her wishes, only worse—with everything. Every decision boiling down to him being the actual responsible one. The one who knew best, because he certainly hadn’t spent his twenties failing at sobriety and a clean life. He’d been climbing his way up the company ladder.

  She couldn’t allow her future to become her past, and so Charlie could never know the extent of her instability. No matter how kind and sweet and caring he was, she couldn’t allow someone to take the reins and find her lacking, her decision-making suspect, her failure at sobriety inevitable.

  “Have you thought about names at all?” she asked. “I haven’t wanted to dwell on it until the whole viability thing was over, but I do have some pretty specific ideas for a girl.”

  He stared at her for a moment, and she had to hold her breath. Charlie’s will was a thing of iron. Sometimes she thought he might be able to unravel her simply by willing it so.

  “I haven’t thought much about names. I won’t be picky. As long as it isn’t goat-related.”

  She managed to smile, to exhale, to feel some semblance of normal. “No goats. Just...if it’s a girl, I’d want to name her after my grandmother.”

  “I’d never argue with that.”

  “Do you have any family names for if it’s a boy?”

  “Well...”

  He said something, but she didn’t quite hear it because another woman’s voice seemed to jump out of the hum of the crowd around them. “Margaret.”

  The word rang dimly in the back of her head, like something she should remember, but she didn’t want to think about whatever that was. Not when they were talking about names. Names for their baby.

  “Margaret.”

  The sharp command finally broke through, memory flooding over her. Placement. She sat straighter, and she was sure she paled, because she could all but feel the blood draining out of her.

  Mom’s world-weary sigh. “Fine,” she muttered, finally coming into view from behind. “Meg. What are you doing here?”

  Meg blinked up at her mother, and then—even more shocking—her father not far behind. Out to lunch. On a weekday. Together.

  She couldn’t speak, because she realized way too belatedly that the picture was laid out on the table between her and Charlie. A long row of evidence. If Mom looked down, she would see it. She would know.

  She’ll ruin everything.

  So Meg swallowed, her hand shaking as she casually placed it on top of the table. She kept her mother’s gaze as she inched her hand, slowly, carefully, as inconspicuously as possible, toward the picture.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” Meg asked, trying not to sound too acidic or anywhere near panicked. Distant politeness. Like what Mom always employed.

  “A friend of mine called me up and told me she thought she saw you here, and we were just so surprised after all the times you told us places we frequented were beneath you.”

  “I never said that,” Meg returned, feeling cold all over.

  Mom pursed her lips together, and then Meg made a fatal mistake. She flicked her glance to the picture on the table because her fingers were so close. One more inch and she could casually lean her arm over them and obscure—

  “What’s this?” Mom snatched the picture up right before Meg could place her arm over it.

  “Baby...?”

  It was Mom’s turn to pale, and Meg wished she could get some satisfaction from it, but all she felt was sick.

  “It says Baby Carmichael, Jeffrey,” Mom intoned dully, tipping the picture so Dad could see.

  The nausea waved through Meg, hard and uncompromising. “I... Excuse me.” She pushed out of the booth and hurried to the bathroom, making it into the fancy stall just in time to heave the contents of her stomach.

  Tears burned and fell. Her stomach heaved again. Her parents knew. They knew.

  And she’d left them alone with Charlie.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHARLIE STOOD TO RUN after Meg, but two middle-aged people stood firmly in his way.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” he said through gritted teeth. “I need to make sure she’s all right.”

  “Don’t be silly,” the woman said with a dismissive wave. “You can’t go into the women’s bathroom. I will check on her.”

  “Why would I let you do that when the sight of you sent her running?”

  The woman pursed her lips and gave him a dismissive once-over. “And just who are you?”

  He came up a little short at that, because he knew Meg wouldn’t want this woman to have that information. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put together these people were her parents. Partially because of the way they’d acted, but also because he knew the name of the man standing there.

  Jeffrey Carmichael.

  Charlie had golfed with him once, was all he could think. Some customer outing with Carmichael Grocery and he’d been put on the CEO’s team.

  These were the parents who’d treated Meg so poorly.

  Directly tied to a business he hadn’t been trying too hard to get back into because he’d been so wrapped up in this weird new world.

  He didn’t know how to tell them to go to hell, considering Jeffrey Carmichael likely knew exactly who he was.

  And Charlie knew exactly what the head of Carmichael Grocery could do.

  “Let’s sit, son,” the man said, genially enough. “Lisa will go check on Meg, as it is a women’s bathroom, and regardless of what Meg might have told you about us, we aren’t evil.”

  Charlie swallowed down the retort. Partially because...hell, it was natural. This man could make it so he never got a job in the St. Louis area in anything related to food ever again. But also be
cause he didn’t want to make a scene.

  He would be reasonable and rational and careful, because he knew so very little. When Meg reappeared from the bathroom, he would do whatever it was she wanted. He would whisk her away, he would spit on these people, he would do whatever she needed him to do in order to take that terrified look off her face.

  “Sit, son, sit.” Jeffrey slid into the seat Meg had vacated, and the absolute last thing Charlie wanted to do was sit. Sit with this man. A man who likely knew far more about what put that scared, faraway look on Meg’s face time and time again than Charlie did.

  “You look familiar. You’re with Lordon, aren’t you?”

  “I was,” Charlie returned dully. It felt like a betrayal to be sitting here with this man, but he didn’t know how to avoid it. What he should do instead.

  “Ah, you got booted in the buyout, then.”

  Booted. It sounded a little less pleasant than laid off. But he couldn’t deny the fact that he had indeed been booted. “Yes.”

  “So what are you doing now?”

  Charlie didn’t know where to look. At this shrewd man obviously assessing him in some way, or the hallway that led to the bathrooms. Perhaps he should be barging in there, women’s room or no women’s room.

  But he didn’t know how Meg wanted him to handle these people, because she’d kept avoiding the subject. Changing the conversation whenever he brought it up. She didn’t seem to want him to know anything, and so he didn’t know what to do.

  Which pissed him the hell off. “I’ve been doing some consulting,” he said, purposefully vague, purposefully giving as little as possible.

  “I see.” There was a harsh gleam in the man’s eye that nearly made Charlie’s blood run cold.

  Charlie had met the man before, but he’d never developed an opinion about him. A golf outing, and seeing each other in passing rarely. He was the head of a customer company, and therefore Charlie hadn’t formed any judgment.

  The idea was to sell, not make friends.