Sasha left for work after checking on her, Morgan just lay there crying, and she and Alex talked about it that night.
“Honestly, I don’t think she should have the baby,” she told Alex. “She’s completely traumatized. Anyone who doesn’t want kids that badly shouldn’t have them.”
“So why doesn’t she have the abortion?”
“She doesn’t want to lose Max, and she will if she does it. He offered to take sole custody if she’ll have it and give it to him, and she won’t.”
“This sounds crazy,” Alex said, sorry for both of them.
“It is crazy. For some people, having a baby is not an easy concept. For others, it’s an obsession. There are a lot of issues around pregnancy. It’s great when it’s nice and simple and straightforward, but that’s not always the case.” And this was one of the most complicated situations she’d seen. Morgan was so desperate, torn between the two options, that Sasha was afraid she’d become suicidal. She was terrified whichever way she turned. Sasha tried to convey that to Max when she stopped by the restaurant to have coffee with him earlier that week, and he didn’t want to hear it. For him, it was simple. Have their baby and stay together, or abort it and break up.
“It’s not that easy,” she told him.
“It is for me.” And with that, he ended the conversation.
The absolute deadline for an abortion was the following Monday, and that weekend Sasha and Alex were going to Atlanta, so her parents could meet him. She wasn’t looking forward to it, and would have preferred to stay home and keep Morgan company, but they couldn’t cancel. They weren’t going to have another weekend off for two months, and the wedding was in three, so they flew to Atlanta on Friday night. Her father had invited them to stay with him, but they wanted some time to themselves to decompress between warring parents, so they were staying at a hotel.
They had dinner that night at a restaurant her mother liked. Her mother examined Alex like a piece of property she was buying, and asked him a thousand questions about his parents, and particularly his mother’s law practice. She had checked her out on the Internet and was impressed, but didn’t admit it.
“You know that I don’t believe in marriage, don’t you?” she asked him, and he nodded. He was more than a little daunted by her, and he thought she was the toughest human being he’d ever met, male or female.
“Yes, I know that, Mrs. Hartman,” he said politely.
“Muriel. Sixty percent of marriages today end in divorce, and the statistics are going up. Why bother? You lose property, you lose income, you pay support. It’s a lousy investment. You’ll lose less money playing blackjack in Las Vegas. There, at least you have a decent chance if you get a good hand. Even if you get a good hand in marriage, it all blows up in your face sooner or later. One of you cheats, or you both do. They get fat, old, or boring. You can’t talk to them. You get to hate them. You stop having sex. It all looks sexy and romantic in the beginning, but it doesn’t last. And when it does, you wish it wouldn’t. Take my advice—live together, don’t commingle your money, and don’t waste it on a wedding, or throw your life out the window by getting married. Believe me, you’ll thank me one day for the best advice anyone ever gave you. I hear bad stories every day.”
“Maybe because the good stories don’t wind up in front of a divorce lawyer,” Alex said doggedly. “My parents have a good relationship, and they’ve been married for thirty-eight years.”
“That’s an accident. Like twins. It doesn’t happen often. And maybe you don’t know the real story. A lot of parents hide it.”
“No, I think they genuinely love each other.” And it was what he expected to have with Sasha. Muriel Hartman just shrugged and made it clear she didn’t believe it. She was a physically attractive woman in a hard way, but she had the meanest, angriest eyes he’d ever seen and harsh lines on her face.
Sasha tried to get them out of the restaurant as quickly as possible, and she suggested brunch on Sunday before their flight. Her mother said she was playing golf with two women friends who were judges, and couldn’t make it.
“I assume you’re seeing your father and his airhead wife tomorrow,” she said coldly.
“Yes, we are,” Sasha said through clenched teeth.
“Enjoy it,” she added sarcastically. “See you at the wedding,” she said to Alex, hugged her daughter awkwardly without an ounce of warmth, got in her Jaguar, and drove away. Alex looked like he was about to collapse on the sidewalk.
“She is one tough woman,” he said looking at Sasha. “How did you grow up with her?”
“She wasn’t as bad then, before the divorce. They were unhappy for a long time, but they kept it quiet. Then he left her, and she turned into the witch in The Wizard of Oz, with the green face. I was out of the house by then, thank God. She badmouthed my father constantly once he left her. I guess her ego was bruised. But when he met Charlotte, the woman he’s married to now, she went insane. She never forgave him for starting a new life and being happy with another woman. And it’s worse because Charlotte is so much younger, and beautiful. And she’s furious they had more kids. Now she hates everyone. I don’t know how her clients stand her. You have to really hate the man you’re divorcing to hire her. She kills them. My sister insists she used to be human once upon a time. I sure don’t remember it. She gets along better with Valentina. My mother and I just don’t make it anymore.” Sasha looked exhausted, and he put an arm around her. “It sure is different than your parents, huh? They’re like a family TV show compared to mine, who are like some kind of horror movie. I try not to come home anymore. It’s just too hard. And Valentina hates my father. She thinks he turned my mother into this by leaving her, and she says his wife is a ditz. She is, but she loves him, and it’s what he wants, and she’s really kind of sweet. We’re not best friends, but I like her. My father has tried to bury the hatchet with my mother, but she won’t let him.” Muriel Hartman was angry at the world.
“She makes it very difficult,” Alex said as they walked back to their hotel. Atlanta seemed like a nice city, but they hadn’t had time to explore it, and all Sasha wanted, whenever she went back to Atlanta now, was to leave town again as soon as she could. She never even called her old friends. Her mother had ruined it for her.
They met her father at his country club for lunch the next day. Steve Hartman was a handsome man, and it was hard to imagine him with Muriel for a day, let alone the twenty-six years they’d been married before he left her. He wasn’t an intellectual or an academic, but he was an intelligent businessman who had done extremely well. He wasn’t as sharp or astute as Sasha’s mother, but he was a kind, warm person, and Alex liked him.
And after lunch they followed him to Buckhead, the very expensive residential part of Atlanta where they lived. They had an enormous house that was more like an estate, with a tennis court and an Olympic-size pool, and beautiful old trees lining the driveway. It was very Southern, and there was a lovely young woman barefoot on the lawn, smiling and waving at them as they drove up, and two beautiful little girls. Steve looked ecstatic as he got out of his car, tossed them in the air, and kissed his wife. As soon as Alex and Sasha got out of their rented car, Sasha saw a problem on the horizon, a big one. Charlotte was pregnant again, which her father hadn’t mentioned, and Muriel was going to split a gut at the wedding when she found out. It would be further proof of his happy marriage to someone else. Her mother had never wanted more children after the twins, and her father had always wanted more. Now he had them. And she could never forgive him for moving on without her, and being happy.
“Congratulations,” Sasha said after hugging Charlotte, and indicated her round belly in the pretty sundress. “That’s exciting.”
“Yes, it is,” her father acknowledged, beaming at his wife. She was thirty years old, as she had told Alex before, two years younger than Sasha, which hadn’t sat well with any of them when he married her at twenty-three, but it no longer mattered to Sasha. Valentina thought it
was disgusting, and now she was doing the same thing herself with Bert, who was younger than she was, though not by as many years. Her father and Charlotte were nearly thirty years apart. But so what, if it worked for them?
“When is it due?” Sasha asked, praying it would be before the wedding.
“August,” Charlotte said in her Southern drawl that always annoyed Valentina. An August due date meant that she would be seven months pregnant at the wedding—the picture of maternal splendor on her father’s arm. Sasha nearly groaned when she said it.
“Will you be up to coming to New York for the wedding?” Sasha asked with a false smile.
“My doctor says I can travel till eight months. Both of the girls were late.” Sasha nodded, with a sinking heart. It was one more thing to worry about at the wedding. Elvis Chapel, here we come, she thought.
They sat by the pool while a maid in uniform served lemonade and iced tea and lemon cookies, and her dad offered Alex a mint julep or Pimm’s Cup, which he declined and stuck with lemonade. It was delicious, and the little girls swam while they chatted, and a nanny came out to dry them off. Their mother had had help for her and Valentina too, while she practiced law, but it was always more haphazard and less formal—local young women, college age babysitters, or foreign au pairs. Steve and Charlotte’s nanny was English and formally trained, and extremely polite, as were the children who climbed all over Sasha and called her their big sister, while she teased them and chased them around the lawn. They were cute, and had a wonderful life. Their mother didn’t work and hadn’t since she gave up modeling to marry Steve, and never looked back. Her days consisted of shopping, manicures, a little charity work, and lunch with her friends.
Her father asked Alex about his residency, and they talked until dinnertime, and then had an early dinner in the gazebo on the lawn. They left by eight o’clock, and all Sasha wanted was to go back to New York. It wasn’t anything like their trip to stay with his parents in Chicago, where they actually had fun. With Alex’s family, they all had medicine in common, and his mother was the nicest woman she’d ever met, who actually seemed to care how Sasha felt.
“Thank you for being such a good sport. My parents exhaust me.” She laid her head back against the seat and looked wiped out as they drove back to the hotel.
“Your father is nice,” he said honestly. They were in agreement about her mother and had said it all the night before. Her father and Charlotte were like something in a Southern movie and never seemed real to her. No one was ever tired or dirty or messy or swore, or talked about problems, or things she cared about. It all stayed very superficial.
“My mother is going to have apoplexy when she sees Charlotte pregnant again at the wedding, although she should be used to it by now. And they’ve been divorced for nearly eight years. I think she’ll be pissed till the day she dies, and she wouldn’t want to be married to him anyway. They were both unhappy. I think she forgot.”
“Pride maybe. It doesn’t help that Charlotte’s younger than you are, and she’s a damn pretty girl,” Alex said sensibly.
“Yes, she is.” Sasha sighed. It was too late to catch a flight that night, but she switched their flight to an earlier one the next morning, and they left the hotel at eight o’clock, and were back in New York at one. She wanted to kiss the ground.
“Well, that’s over with,” she said, as they got into a cab at the airport. “We don’t have to see them again till the wedding. Are you ready to back out yet?” she asked him, and he laughed.
“Of course not. Just don’t ever leave me alone with your mother. She scares me to death.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I promise. Don’t leave me alone with her either.” He agreed.
They went back to the apartment to drop off their things, and everyone was out, even Morgan, who had hardly left the house recently. Sasha hoped it was a good sign.
—
At that moment, Morgan was sitting by the river, thinking about her life. She didn’t want the baby, but she felt a responsibility to it. It wasn’t the baby’s fault she had gotten pregnant. She had made her decision. She was going to have it. But she was leaving Max. The fact that he’d been willing to leave her if she didn’t have his baby told her what she needed to know. She didn’t want to be wanted for their child. And if he wasn’t willing to stick by her, whatever decision she made, he didn’t really love her. He could have visiting rights to the baby, and even joint custody if he wanted it. But he couldn’t have her. He had blown it.
She had written him a letter and dropped it in the mail. She wasn’t going back to the restaurant, and didn’t want to see him. It was over, and she’d let him know when the baby was born in October, since that was all he cared about. She went for a long walk then, alone.
Chapter 21
Morgan stuck to her decision about Max, and the baby. He groaned when he got the letter at the restaurant, and tried to call her, but she wouldn’t take his calls. She had the rest of his clothes dropped off at the restaurant. They hadn’t spoken in four weeks since his ultimatum, and now the tables had turned. Morgan wouldn’t speak to him. And Max felt helpless to reach her. She had shut the door, and intended to keep it closed. Finally Max called Sasha in desperation.
“You two need to talk to each other,” Sasha said sensibly.
“She thinks I don’t love her, just the baby.” His threat to leave her if she had an abortion had hit her too hard. “I want the baby because I love her, not in lieu of.”
“She’s very emotional right now,” Sasha explained.
“She won’t see me.”
“And you wouldn’t see her for four weeks.”
“I wanted to pressure her into keeping it. I wasn’t trying to break up with her.”
“You said you’d never see her again if she had an abortion. Now she’s keeping it and won’t see you.”
“What can I do, Sash? This is a disaster.”
“I know. Maybe give it time.”
“I want to be with her, and help her. It’s our child, and I love her.”
“I think the whole mess with her job and now this was too much for her,” Sasha said sadly. Morgan was being very quiet at the apartment, sleeping a lot and going for long walks every day. She was feeling physically better, but Sasha could see she was very depressed. And she was very quiet at their Sunday-night dinners, which Oliver was cooking now. It was strange without Abby and Max.
Morgan decided to tell everyone about the baby later, when it showed. She wasn’t happy about the baby and didn’t want to pretend she was. The only one she told was her brother, and Oliver and Greg were thrilled and promised not to tell the others. Morgan was in no mood to celebrate it. She was in mourning for her life, Max, and her career. She had called a headhunter for a short-term job for four or five months, but nothing had turned up yet.
She had a lawyer contact Max with an agreement for visitation rights, with an offer to negotiate possible joint custody later. He had thought she was kidding when she said it in her letter. And it almost killed him to hear from her through an attorney. She wasn’t fooling around. The letter said that she didn’t know the sex of the baby, and didn’t want to, and he would be advised after the baby was born. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he read it. Morgan was out of his life, even if she was going to be the mother of his child.
Max spoke to Oliver too, who said his sister was the most stubborn woman he had ever met. Oliver said she was deeply upset and emphatic that she didn’t want to speak to Max. All he could do now was wait till the baby was born, and see if she softened then, but that was more than five months away, an eternity to him. He couldn’t even concentrate on his work, was short tempered with his staff, and whenever he cooked, he burned the food. He was obsessed with Morgan and the baby. He still had the key to the apartment, but he didn’t dare use it to see her. She’d probably call the police if he did, and have him arrested. He knew now she was capable of it. As far as Morgan was concerned, there was no turning back. Her relatio
nship with Max was over, and Max had gotten the message, loud and clear.
—
Claire’s shoe samples arrived from Italy the first week in April, and they were gorgeous. She screamed when she saw them and danced around the room while her mother laughed. And they had come just in time for the trade show in Las Vegas. She had hired an assistant to go with them, and work for them for a while in New York when they got back. And her roommates were continuing to be patient about the boxes and samples arriving at the apartment. With Sasha and Morgan’s permission, she had turned Abby’s bedroom into a storeroom, and she and her mother slept in her room. And there were more boxes in the living room. She hired a fit model for an afternoon, and checked the fit. The model said they felt great, and the high heels were at a good pitch. Claire was beside herself with excitement when they got on the plane to Las Vegas.
They stayed at the MGM Grand, and spent most of the day at the convention center, with her mother and Claudia, her new assistant. They set out all their samples in a good-looking display, and a number of retailers wandered by to check them out, including buyers from several big department store chains. They asked her questions about the styles, availability, their price point and delivery capabilities, and quantity, which was an issue for big stores. Claire could satisfy one store, but not ten branches, until they started producing on a bigger scale, and this would only be their first season. But the reaction to their designs was positive from everyone. The buyers loved them.
And on the second day, Claire got the ultimate satisfaction. She spotted Walter from across the room, and he sauntered over to them, trying to be nonchalant, while ogling the shoes on the table. Claire almost laughed and pointed him out to Claudia and her mother. And then he headed straight for her.
“Whose shoes are you selling now?” he said in a cantankerous tone, and she smiled at him and pointed at their sign, with the logo she had designed herself. The sign said clearly Claire Kelly Designs, and his mouth nearly fell open. “Where did you get them made?” he asked her, shocked.
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