by R. R. Banks
“What happened?”
“They held an intervention for me.”, I answered.
“An intervention for what?”
I accepted the cool cloth that Christopher held out to me and wiped it across my chest. The waves of nausea that I had been feeling eased and I took in a breath, letting it out slowly to ease my trembling.
“Apparently, they think that I’ve been bewitched in some way, I think. I’m not entirely sure. I couldn’t totally follow everything that was being screamed at me.”
“So, the takeaway lesson for the day is that the people of Whiskey Hollow aren’t ready to have a surrogate mother in their midst.”
“No, the takeaway lesson for the day is that the snake handlers of Whiskey Hollow should be turned over to the FBI and not be allowed to operate motor vehicles, even if they are marked for farm use only.”
I tried to sit up but felt another rush of nausea and rested back again.
“I thought that the morning sickness was supposed to go away by this point,” Christopher said.
“That’s another one of those delightful lies people tell you about being pregnant,” I said. “They say that you’ll feel so much better by the end of your first trimester. I felt fine up until these last two weeks. Now I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”
“What about Richard?”
“I’m sure he’s feeling fine.”
“No,” Christopher said, sitting down beside me and pressing another cool cloth to my forehead. “What about Richard?”
He knows me too fucking well.
“I can’t think about Richard,” I said. “I go back to the midwife in two weeks and I’ll see him then, but that’s really all I can think about.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’? You know exactly why.”
“No, I know that you said that this man has been falling over himself to make you happy.”
“And that he’s getting married.”
“In theory. In theory, Rue, and to a woman who you, yourself, said was the Bitch of All Evil.”
“I might have been a little hasty about that. I don’t really know her. Besides, it doesn’t matter what I think of her. He chose her. He is planning a family with her. He intends to marry her. What I think of her is completely inconsequential.”
“You can’t just give up on him. I haven’t seen you look like this when you talked about a man - you know what? I’ve never seen you look like this when you talked about a man. This is different. There’s something here, and you can’t just let yourself pretend you don’t feel it because it’s convenient for you.”
“There’s nothing convenient about this, Christopher. Nothing at all. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Yeah, I can see your conflict. A gorgeous, exorbitantly wealthy man builds a medical center to ensure you get the best care possible, spends Thanksgiving with you, decorates your home for Christmas. I just don’t know what you could possibly see in that.”
“He didn’t build the medical center for me. He built it for the baby.”
“The baby that is half yours, I’ll point out.”
“It’s not half mine,” I said, trying not to let the tremble come into my voice. “It’s all theirs. I’m just an oven.”
“If that’s what you want to think,” he said, shaking his head, “but I know you. I know you better than you want to admit. And I can see it. I know that you have feelings for him. You just have to accept it.”
****
“Hello?”
“Rue?”
I was so groggy I could barely decipher my name.
“Yes? What time is it?”
“It’s midnight, did I wake you?”
“Midnight?”
Last time I looked at the clock it was 8:30 and I was sitting on the couch binge watching a British baking competition.
“Yes. I’m sorry it’s late. I needed to talk to you before tomorrow.”
“It is tomorrow.”
I was coming awake and I dragged myself up into a sitting position as I realized that I was still sitting on the couch and half the competition was now over. I didn’t even get to see the much-ballyhooed frozen custard cake sabotage scandal. I was going to have to go back and watch it all again.
“I needed to talk to you before later. I’m getting on a plane for a business trip and I wanted to let you know this first. I moved up your next appointment with the midwife.”
“Richard?”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone.
“Who did you think you were talking to.”
“I wasn’t entirely sure.”
“Yes, it’s Richard. I moved up your appointment.”
“Why?”
“I really liked Kathryn’s idea about announcing the pregnancy on Valentine’s Day, but I’m leaving the next day for nearly a month to handle some overseas business. I didn’t want to miss the appointment, so I thought that it would be best to move it up.”
“Did Kathryn say that was alright?” I asked. “I thought that she scheduled them on a particular timeline.”
“She said that a few days either way is fine.”
The sleepiness was gone now, and the tension in Richard’s voice was more evident. It sounded like he was holding something back, like he was trying to keep his emotions in check and not say something even though he wanted to. I figured that meant that I needed to be the one to say what we were both thinking.
“Then fine, I’m ok with it if she is.”
“Good. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. I’ll have Kathryn call you with the new appointment time.”
“Alright. Travel safely.”
“I will.”
The call disconnected, and I listened to the silence for a few moments, willing the tears to stay in my eyes.
****
Dear Baby,
The first trimester is officially over. Today starts the second. We’re one-third of our way through, now. That’s hard to believe. I feel like I can breathe a little bit better. They say that now that we’ve gotten this far I can feel safer knowing that you have an even higher chance of getting here. I hate the way that that sounds, but it’s reassuring all the same.
You have all of your organs. Did you know that? There are bitty little lungs, and a teeny tiny stomach, and all sorts of other weenie things. They aren’t ready to work yet, though, so don’t get any ideas about testing them out.
Your daddy left on a business trip and is off doing whatever it is that he does. Sometimes I wonder if that’s something that I should know. Does it matter that I don’t know what he does for a living? Considering I don’t understand why someone who is already as ridiculously wealthy as he is would want to keep working, I think that the answer to that is probably ‘no’. If I had even a fraction of the money that he has, I wouldn’t work a moment of my life. It’s not that I’m lazy, and I really did enjoy the career that I had, but there is so much more to life than work. Life is full of beautiful things to see and do and experience. There is so much out there, so much more than any person can ever even begin to do, that I don’t understand why anyone who doesn’t have to work to support themselves would spend any of the limited time that they have working.
You are going to get to do so much. You are going to have such a life. It’s all out here waiting for you, Baby, and the limits are truly so few. I hope that you take advantage of every opportunity that is given to you. I hope that you do things that scare you every day. I hope you do a few really stupid things. I hope you do exceptional things. I know you will do exceptional things. We’ll all just have to wait and see.
Rue
Chapter Twenty
Richard
“Is Dr. Finnegan in?”
Sarah, a particularly bubbly receptionist who I sometimes worried had lied about her age just so she could work with the doctor I saw her ogling every opportunity she had, glanced at her computer screen and then back at me. She nodded enthusiast
ically.
“She is.”
“Would I be able to go in and talk to her for a few minutes?” I asked.
I felt like I was talking to a small child, but I figured that was a good thing. I might as well get accustomed to it.
“Sure,” she said. “The other doctors are out to lunch, but she should be in her office.”
“Thank you.”
I walked through the doors to the honeycomb of offices doing my best not to shake my head.
Why didn’t she lead in with that?
Dr. Finnegan’s office door was partially open when I approached, and I rapped on it before pressing it open. Flora’s doctor sat behind a massive scrolled wood desk that swallowed her small frame, her hand holding her phone close to her mouth as she made notes into it. She glanced up and waved me in. I stepped in gently as she finished her recording, not wanting to blot out any of her words with my footsteps. She set her phone to her desk and gestured at me to sit.
“Hi, Richard,” she said pleasantly. “What brings you here?”
“Well, Happy Valentine’s Day, to start,” I said.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she replied, somewhat cautiously as if unsure of my motivations.
“Flora and I have a little bit of a celebration that we wanted to share with you.”
She looked around me.
“Where is Flora?” she asked.
“Oh, she couldn’t be here. But she sends her best.”
It was a total lie. She had specifically said that she didn’t want to go with me as I delivered the news to our friends and family that we were expecting a baby. She said it was distasteful commandeering a holiday that was supposed to be about lovers and making it about the contract baby, but I refused to listen to her. This was something that I had been bursting to tell people for weeks and I had gotten it into my mind that this was when I was going to do it. It wasn’t as though Flora and I had ever shared a special Valentine’s Day. She refused to eat chocolate, she said that roses were woefully cliched, and after three years in a row of me trying to plan special experiences for us and her rejecting them, I had given up.
“Alright,” the doctor said, the word drawn out with expectation.
I drew in a breath, preparing myself for the first reveal after my parents. That had gone spectacularly horribly. I was still trying to get the image of my mother clutching her heart and apparently getting the vapors out of my mind. I was dearly hoping that this reveal would go better.
I took the red paper heart from behind my back and handed it to her. She looked at it for a moment before it seemed to occur to her that she was looking at a sonogram image, the one taken just the day before.
“You’re having a baby!” Dr. Finnigan said.
“We are!” I replied.
She came around the side of the desk and gathered me into a hug.
“That’s wonderful! How is Flora feeling?”
I took a step back, looking at her quizzically.
“Flora?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“Has she gotten over her morning sickness?”
Shit.
A sick feeling was forming in my stomach, but I knew that it wasn’t morning sickness.
“Flora isn’t pregnant,” I said. “We have a surrogate.”
“Oh,” the doctor said, looking confused. “But why? Flora is so young and healthy. Why would you need a surrogate?”
****
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Flora looked at me from her stair stepper, seemingly unfazed by my storming into the home gym. She continued her workout and I stalked toward her, reaching around to slam my fist onto the controls of the machine and turn it off.
“Get those fucking things out of your ears and listen to me.”
She glared at me as she pulled her earbuds out and got down from the machine, picking up a towel to dab at the slight sheen of sweat on her chest. This was the most intensely that she ever exercised, and I realized in that moment just how much it sickened me.
“What’s wrong with you today?” she asked as she swept past me.
I reached out and grabbed her arm, whirling her around to face me. She gave a disgusted gasp and yanked her arm away from me.
“I just went to see Dr. Finnigan,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I wasn’t aware that you were in the market for a gynecologist.”
“Apparently you aren’t, either.”
“What are you going on about?”
“I went to see her to give her the news of our baby. I thought that she would be thrilled that our surrogate choice conceived on the first try. It turns out that she was shocked that we have a surrogate at all. How could you lie to me like that? How could you tell me that you couldn’t get pregnant?”
Flora stared at me, a look in her eyes that said that she knew she had been caught and that this was the one time in her life when she couldn’t talk her way out of it.
“I thought that it would make you shut up about wanting a baby.”
The answer hit me even harder than I anticipated it would.
“What?”
“You wouldn’t stop talking about having a baby. It’s all you cared about. You never even proposed to me. We’re supposed to be getting married, but we aren’t even engaged, and all you would ever talk about is how much you want a child.”
“You talked about it, too.”
“Because I felt like I had to. It was the only way that you would interact with me. I hoped that if I told you that I couldn’t get pregnant that you would stop. I hoped that you would think about me and what I might be going through, and that you would get over the baby thing. That way we could actually move on with our lives. Do you know how humiliating it is for me that we’re not married?”
“Don’t try to turn this around on me,” I said, a warning note in my voice. “Don’t you dare. You lied to me. You should have just been honest with me. How could you let me go through all of this? Why did you even agree to go along with the contract? Just to save face?”
“I can’t do this, Richard.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t do this. I can’t stay here. I can’t be a mother.”
“You’re telling me this now? Rue is pregnant! She’s in her second trimester. We’ve signed contracts, written checks. This isn’t just an idea. There’s a real baby now.”
“I know that. That’s why I can’t do it. I thought that I might be able to change my mind. I thought that maybe as we went along I’d see what you saw and start feeling what you feel. I thought for sure that when I saw the ultrasound I would connect with the baby and be excited, but that’s not what happened. When we were at the doctors’ yesterday and I saw the ultrasound---” she shook her head as if just the thought of it was horrifying. “It terrified me. I wanted to just get the hell out of there and never look back.”
“What are you saying?”
I knew exactly what she was saying, but she needed to say it. For once, she needed to be accountable.
“I want out. I don’t want this.”
Without saying another word, I turned and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rue
I barely had time to process the front door crashing open before I saw Richard stalking down the hallway toward me. His eyes burned into me, an intensity in them that left me breathless before he even touched me. I started to say his name, but before I could, his mouth was on mine. His arms wrapped around my waist and he scooped me off of my feet, kissing me with a possessiveness that seemed to reach down into my soul and touch something that had never been discovered. I clung to him, not caring what brought him here, not caring about anything. I couldn’t deny myself any longer.
Richard held me to him and sank to his knees, tipping me back so that I lay across the kitchen floor. We tore at each other and for a moment I wondered if I was dreaming again. This was dizzying, overpowering, and I couldn’t bring myself to believe that it was real
. In an instant, though, Richard had tugged my pants away and plunged his fingers inside of me. I cried out, knowing that this was utterly, undeniably real. As his fingers explored my core, coaxing my arousal upward, I reached down and pulled off my shirt, exposing my breasts to him, not wanting anything between us.
He reciprocated, and I could finally see his body. I ran my hands down his chiseled muscles and he leaned down over me again, catching my mouth again. He tore his mouth away from mine and reached down to grab his pants. I saw him fish in his pocket and come up with a condom. He tore it open and rolled it down his cock in record speed, and suddenly he was inside of me. My body was only just ready for him and I screamed out at the intensity of the sensation of him filling me. Richard didn’t slow down. It was as though all of the need, all of the tension that had built up between us had reached such a fevered pitch that it could no longer be controlled and all we could do was let it burn.
I gave myself over to the power of his thrusts, luxuriating in the feeling of our bodies together. He dropped his head down and caught one of my nipples in his mouth, sucking it in and encircling it with his tongue. I gasped at the feeling and arched up into him. Richard tucked his head into the curve of my neck and shoulder and continued to stroke deeply, his grunts shivering across my skin and his sweat mingling with mine. Suddenly his sounds grew desperate and he thrust into me hard one more time, roaring as simultaneous orgasms slammed over us. My body clenched down on him, drawing him deeper and milking him, seeking as much of him as I could bring into myself.
****
Richard
I felt the plane touch down, jostling me out of my sleep. In the first few seconds that I was awake I wondered if I had imagined it all. Had I just made it up? Was I going to look down at my phone and see a message from Flora complaining that I hadn’t done something at the house before leaving? Had I dreamed of Rue, imagined what it would feel like being pressed deep inside her on the kitchen floor?
As the plane glided to a stop, though, I knew that I hadn’t imagined it. It had been real, every moment of it, and I couldn’t help the smile that spread over my lips thinking about it. Rue’s body had been sweet and compliant, ready to accept me, wanting me as much as I wanted her. I hated that I had only gotten to spend such a short time with her before leaving. We had been sitting on the same floor, not trying to hide our nakedness from one another, eating cold leftovers, when my phone rang, and the sound of Ellery’s voice had brought me back to bitter reality. I had to go to the office for a presentation and gather up the papers I would bring on my trip with me, then pack and get to the airport in time for my flight. Leaving Rue had been the most difficult thing that I had ever done, but I had to do it. There were things that I needed to do, and I couldn’t just turn my back on them because I wanted to do nothing but explore every inch of her body in every room of her house.