"It would be better if I wasn't so damn fat." At this he poked his head out of the bathroom.
"You're insane. You look the same as you did three months ago. Nobody can tell anything is different."
"I can and that's really all that matters." I slid on my original pair of jeans.
"Yes dear." Connor called out from back in the bathroom.
I came up behind him and hugged him tight. "Has anyone ever told you that you really are the perfect man?"
Connor chuckled low and smiled at me through the mirror. "The funny thing about that is yes, this one girl used to before she went completely insane."
"I blame you." I kissed his back as I walked away.
The doorbell rang and I smoothed my shirt before I opened it.
"Hey, it's good to see you." I hugged Ben.
"Mads, you look good. This place looks great. I knew it would. You all settled in?"
"Yes, pretty much." I walked with Ben into the kitchen where Connor was putting lunch out on the table.
"Ben," Connor nodded in Ben's direction, " it's good to see you again. Can I get you a beer?"
"Sounds great. House looks really good man. You did a good job."
"Thank you, I appreciate it. You can really thank your friend there. She's the interior decorator extrodanairre." Connor opened two beers and set one down on the table in front of Ben.
We sat and ate and talked. Ben regaled us with his newest exploits of the women in his life.
"That was awesome. I'm stuffed." Ben sat back in his chair and took a sip of his beer. Connor cleared the plates and gave me a look.
"Thanks, uh hey, I have something to run by you." I tried to keep it together but my nerves were starting to catch up to me.
"What's up?"
"Well I need you to not freak out."
"Uh, ok. However that sentence is making me freak out a little bit."
"Well Connor and I have decided to have a wedding sooner rather than later.
"Ok?" He let the word trail out for a few extra syllables.
"It's about four weeks away."
"Holy shit Madison, what's the rush? It's like a shot gun, I knocked you up wedding."
At Ben's response I couldn't help but look at Connor. His eyes were large and a smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth. A blush had set up shop on both of his cheeks.
"Surprise!" The look on his Connor's face as he spoke that one word was priceless.
"Madison, you're pregnant?"
I simply nodded. Not sure of what his reaction was going to be.
"What the hell, did you do that on purpose? How far are you?"
"About 14 and a half weeks. It was definitely a surprise. We've both come to terms with it and we're excited."
"Jesus Madison. Four weeks until you're getting married. A baby on the way. Holy shit." Ben's face registered absolute shock.
"I want you to be happy for me," I said quietly.
"I am happy for you, it's just holy shit, a lot to take in."
"I understand, I wanted to tell you though, before it was out in the open."
Ben didn't say anything for a minute. "Well, congrats you guys." He got up and hugged me tight. He even walked over to Connor and shook his hand.
"Thanks Ben. Madison has been stressing over this, we're so glad to have you on our side."
"So this is your handy work huh? Damn. I can't believe you knocked up my best friend."
Connor shifted uncomfortably. "I'll take good care of her man, I promise."
"I know, she wouldn't have kept you around if that wasn't the case."
I smiled and stood with my arm around Connor's waist.
"Well I guess you really did bounce back from that whole thing at the office Madison. Shacking up with big poppa here. I'm proud of you."
I smiled, slightly awkward and slightly confused. "What do you mean?"
"I was just playing. I was just thinking it's been just over 3 months since the whole thing at the office."
It was like all of my organs were going to fall onto the floor. I immediately felt a cold sweat break out and went light-headed. I felt Connor's muscles tense and met his eyes. They reflected the same unpleasant thought that had just dropped down into my own brain.
"Holy shit," Connor said barely above a whisper.
Chapter 26
Connor and I had been sitting at the dining room table in silence since Ben had left. I kept my eyes focused on my hands on the table. Connor moved onto to take a sip of his beer. We were at an impasse. We could go down one road and end up happily ever after or the other road could cause massive destruction.
"Connor." My voice was barely a whisper. I needed to break the silence.
"Don't, I'm not ready to deal with this right now." His tone was no nonsense.
"I think we have to deal with this right now. It's a huge possibility."
"Madison, stop." Again, nothing but stern and shortness.
"You're mad at me." It came out more of a statement than a question.
He sighed loudly. "No, I'm not. I'm not mad at anyone. Well I take that back. I'm mad at that asshole for putting us in the situation. I'm made as hell to think of his hands on you in any way. I'm fucking pissed to think that right now part of him is still stuck with you, with us."
The low tone of his voice and the anger that radiated off of him made me uncomfortable. I hadn't gotten to see this side a lot in our relationship and I was thankful for that right now.
"Madison, I swear I could kill him. I tried to keep those thoughts to myself but I swore if I ever saw him, he would not survive. When you were laying unconscious for days at a time I pictured the ways I could make him feel a fraction of how much I hate him. Now I have to pretend and wonder if this baby isn't a piece of him. A fucking disgusting legacy he's left us with." Connor got up from the table and I heard the pop of a cap.
"It makes no difference. If you do anything, he still wins."
"Well it'd make me feel a whole hell of a lot better to kick the shit out of his pathetic, rapist ass." He had returned to his seat across the table.
I didn't look up once. I knew the stony look I had recently seen was all over his face and that might be the stone that broke the camel's back.
"I don't want you to be ill with me." I couldn't stop thinking that he was pulling away.
"Please just stop, I am not mad with you. I'm trying to comprehend that the woman I love was brutally assaulted and now I'm expected to be a father to a child that I didn't have any part in creating."
I looked up at this. "This isn't want you want anymore?"
"I didn't say that."
"You said I was expecting you to be around for a child that's not yours."
"Madison don't play this semantics game with me. I'm not in the mood."
"You said expecting Connor. Do you want to bail? Because if you do that's information I need."
"I want this to fucking go away. I want to go back to when I could love you because you were great and beautiful and didn't take any shit. I don't want to think about a child running around this house that has nothing to do with me."
"The only way this is going to go away is if I go with it. If you want me to pack up all of my baggage and walk out, just tell me. I hate to inconvenience you with a baby that I clearly asked for. My dream as a girl was to have a child with a man who was insane and didn't give me a choice. Whatever you decide I'm going to hold out a little hope that it could belong to someone who deserves it." I got up from the table. I couldn't handle his tone, this whole conversation and definitely not the thought that this might be the last evening I spend sitting across from him. I got almost to the bedroom before I decided against it and turned back.
"And another thing, regardless of the truth behind all this I expected more out of you Connor. You've always been a stand-up guy and I really believe that is who you are. But that Connor has disappeared at the first sign of struggle. I get it, this struggle is not the normal fight every couple has. But
you're forgetting you're not the only one involved here. It wasn't your body and mind that were violated. It isn't you who no matter what, has to live with this. You don't get a choice other than to stay or walk way, but I don't get a say in a damn thing. I do this with or without you. And I don't even get to decide which one it's going to be. I have to live with his decision to do everything possible to torture me and I have to live with your decision to stay or walk away when I need you. It's all on me, you can walk away without a scratch, but god dammit I'm the one who is going to have all the scars. So you can pout, and scream, and get pissed off and you can even keep sitting there and get drunk. That's your choice. But there's an undetermined amount of time that I'm going to take your actions and read into them what I feel they are saying. If you keep acting like this is the end of your world then I'll be sure to make it so you can forget this ever happened. If you man up then I'd like us to lean on each other as we figure out this fucked up situation." I took a deep breath and walked my way into the bedroom. I closed the door to the bedroom and got under the covers. In the darkness of the room I sobbed until I fell asleep.
****
I was startled awake and was slightly disoriented. It was pitch black in the room as I turned to look at the bedside clock. It read 3:11 in the morning. My hand hesitantly searched the side of the bed only to come up empty and cold. I slid my robe on and walked quietly out into the living room. Connor was sprawled out on the couch snoring loudly. The lights were still on in the kitchen and I couldn't help but notice that the number of bottles on the table had doubled. I took the one that was still in his hand and set it on the coffee table. I unfolded the afghan on the back of the couch and covered him in it. He looked so peaceful fast asleep.
In a very short time he had displayed these other, intricate pieces of his personality. He was unconditional in his love, I felt that. His personality was pure goodness, and I felt that. I believed that he truly was the sweet man I had fallen in love with. However, his insecurity that had surfaced was frustrating. He didn't believe that I felt the same way about him, as he did me. I realized that this coupled with my own emotional insecurities exponentially hurt the situation. I wasn't as open about my emotions as he was, I couldn't be. I had experienced different things that caused me to be disconnected. I didn't think that made me a bad person. Did it make me a bad person for Connor?
Next was his inability to see the whole picture. Right now he was living in a world where all he could see was the bad. It was an awful situation. I agree with that whole heartedly, but right now this was about Connor. Why was this either his child or not? Why did we have to wonder? Why couldn't it just be his? Maybe this was the difference between men and women. Maybe it was some sort of claiming his territory, some other man had completely defaced his property. I wanted Connor to be the father even if he wasn't. In my head he already had the brown fluffy hair and the eyes that could melt my heart daily.
He? When had it gone from a situation, to a baby, to a boy? The answer was pretty easy. Connor was so fully a man that of course he would produce a male. He was so utterly manly that he would have a pack of little boys that looked just like him. The thought warmed my heart. I could imagine Connor towering over a pack of boys, teaching them how to hit a ball off a tee. He would be the rugged, and good looking baseball coach. He would be the man on the floor in the family room being used as a jungle gym. He was that man who would be so perfect as a father. He would teach them how to be not just a man, but a gentleman. He would not let the tiniest part of what his father taught him go to waste. That was my next step. I had to see the source, to see if there was any chance in fighting to get him to see that he was made to be a father, and he was made to take care of this baby.
I brushed his hair back and kissed his forehead and he didn't stir. I quietly padded back to bed and fell asleep when my head hit the pillow.
***
I heard the shower turn on and literally jumped out of bed. I had heard Connor going about his business in the house for the last half hour. I had kept my eyes close, faking a deep, comfortable sleep. The water running in the shower was my best chance.
I threw on some jeans and a Tshirt, pulled my hair back into a ponytail and asked the dental gods to forgive me for stuffing a piece of gum in my mouth rather than risking brushing my teeth. I scrawled a vague note and left it on the kitchen table. I grabbed my keys and bag and was backing out of the driveway in minutes.
I thanked God silently that a familiar face was at the desk.
"Madison, good to see you. Is Mr. Matthews with you?"
"No he's not. I'd love to go see his father though, if I could Sarah."
"Yes, of course. He seems to be in good spirits today so you should have some good luck." She smiled pleasantly at me as she wrote me a guest pass. I traveled down the short hallway and took the right into the last room on the hallway.
Mr. Matthews was sitting up in his bed, a breakfast tray in front of him. His eyes were glued to the screen and his hands were fumbling with a fork.
"Mind if I come in?" I said as I knocked on the door.
"Oh my, you're a sight for sore eyes. Please come in. How are you pretty lady?" His smile was so soft and so sweet. An older, more mature version of the boyish grin that Connor was displaying less and less.
"Let me help you with this, it looks delicious." I cut a piece of pancake with the side of the fork and brought it up to his mouth."
He chewed slowly and finally swallowed.
"Thank you. Things aren't what they used to be I guess."
I spent a few minutes in silence, just giving him a bite when he was ready. He held up his hand, signaling he had had enough and cleared his throat.
"I believe you have not come to give an old man his breakfast. Your face is not your own today, you are heavy with something."
I smiled. He might not know who I am by name, or Connor or even know he was related to anyone, but he was still sharp and perceptive.
"No sir, I guess I needed your advice. About Connor?" The last part was more of a question as I wondered whether he would know who I was talking about.
"Your boyfriend?" That told me what I needed to know, he didn't know Connor, he didn't know me except he knew he had met me before.
"Yes sir, my boyfriend. I was wondering if you could help me. If you were going to have a son, how would you raise him?"
"Well my dear, though it is very late in this man's life to be thinking about children, I do believe there are things a man must do in order to really be called a man. Men in my day had a role. Men were the head of the household. As a boy I saw my father go to work before the sun came up and came home after the sun went down. He came home and he was so tired he could hardly move. But when he came home he had made sure us kids behaved. He would come in everyday like clockwork. He would set down his lunchbox, put his hat on the chair next to the door and he would kiss my mother's cheek. After that he would scoop myself and my little brother up and ask us about our day as he sat down at the table. I looked forward to the routine. I knew what came next and I couldn't wait for him to pick me up each evening. No matter how tired he was from working, we had our father every night at our disposal. That was a good man. His family was his family no matter what the day had brought."
I knew life was similar for Connor. With his mother's passing, his father had held the role of father and mother. Connor sometimes talked about something similar. His father would spend every evening cooking dinner for him and his brother. He would tell them stories about the different jobs he was doing for people. One in particular was building a whole new roof for a widow in town.
"What about women, how were you taught about women?"
"Oh well from day one I knew a woman was a force to be reckoned with. My mother was quite feisty in her prime. We all understood that my father was the brute of the household, but the mother, the woman, the woman is the heart. She thought, cooked, cleaned, and loved with every piece of her heart. Economically we would surv
ive with just my father. But without the woman, without my mother we would have turned into monsters. We watched my father wrestle and horseplay with us and then whisper softly into my mother's ear as he touched her gently. She was the calm to his storm." He took a breath and a shaky sip from his orange juice.
"That my dear, is where the real beauty is. The house would survive no matter what. But men know that the moment the woman goes things begin to crumble. It is not in our nature to be nurturers you understand. No, we need the woman to reassure us that things are ok, that we are in every aspect of our job, fulfilling the requirements. A man is strong, don't ever forget that, but it is the love of our woman that allows us to remain so."
Until You Believe Me Page 17