Her Christmas Future

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Just until they’d passed the critical three-month mark at least. A lot of people waited until after the first trimester before announcing baby news.

  “Whatever it is, just tell me, Liv. Or maybe I can help. You’re getting married, right?”

  “What?” Openmouthed she stared at him. “What?” she asked again, frowning.

  “I assumed that’s what you’ve come to tell me. That you’ve been involved with someone and you’re getting married.”

  “We just had the most incredible sex ever thirteen days ago and you think I’m getting married to someone else?” She wasn’t sure whether to just stay shocked, or to get pissed, too. “What do you take me for?”

  Brows raised, he kind of cocked his head. Half shrugged. The foot dangling over his knee was tapping air in beat with the thumb he was tapping against his thigh.

  “Seriously, Martin. You think I’d be unfaithful to a man I was planning to marry?”

  It mattered not at all in the scheme of things. And she couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t get herself back on track. All she’d done, seemed like every second since they’d made love, was think about that night.

  Deal with the consequences.

  And he thought of it as a roll in the hay? A premarital fling?

  “Say something.” Her tone wasn’t all that kind, but she didn’t raise her voice. But then, Olivia pretty much never raised her voice. She was more the “kill them with silence” type.

  “You were...different...that night,” he said. Which was no answer at all.

  “Different?”

  “More like...” He shrugged again, meeting her gaze and looking away, several times, clearly uncomfortable. It was a new thing, Martin seeming a bit like a kid to her. She filed the impression away in case she ever had a chance to give it a moment.

  “Like what?”

  “You’d had a bit to drink.”

  “So had you.”

  “You want the truth?”

  “Have I ever not wanted the truth?” She could play his game as long as he kept dishing it out. He’d insulted the hell out of her and she didn’t deserve that.

  He’d cheapened what to her had been an almost spiritual bonding—a night that had completely changed her life. She truly wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  Wasn’t sure if she even wanted to tell him about the consequences of that night, after what he’d said.

  “You were more like the woman I married,” he told her. “Open. Uninhibited. Hungry.”

  Oh. Well. He’d noticed that the night had been good, too, then, she translated.

  “I thought you were saying goodbye.”

  She stared. Leaning a bit forward, toward him. Was that why he’d said they couldn’t see each other anymore?

  “So all that stuff about wanting a partner, about needing to move on—that wasn’t true?” she asked. “You were just giving me what you somehow thought I wanted?”

  Was the world ever going to right itself?

  His vigorous nod, and then shake of his head, just confused her more. “I don’t deny that I’d try to give you what you want or need, Liv. I think that’s been proven out multiple times over the past ten years. But everything I said was most definitely true. I meant every word, so if you’re here to revisit that situation, I’m sorry, Liv, but I’m not changing my mind. Not even for you.”

  Her mind quieted. Her emotions gathered into a hard ball and settled in her stomach.

  Not even for you. Silly, really, considering they were divorced and had recently said a permanent goodbye, but she’d never thought she’d hear those words from Martin. He’d once told her that, no matter what, she’d always hold a special place in his heart.

  She’d believed him.

  Funny how the older you got, the more you realized that nothing was forever. Everything changed. Everyone changed. With enough time.

  “I’m not here to revisit that situation,” she said quietly when she was ready to speak. Even if, in some small part of her, she’d held out hope that the baby might change the new rules implemented between the two of them, she no longer felt that way.

  He’d effectively quashed all hope in that one sentence.

  Had changed everything between them, effective forever, with those four words.

  Because no matter what, she’d never close herself off to changing her mind for him.

  * * *

  Martin didn’t like the way the visit was going. Didn’t like not knowing what was going on. Didn’t like feeling powerless.

  Didn’t like the way Olivia was suddenly looking at him. Like they were strangers. He wasn’t sure he’d ever even seen the invisible shield that seemed to come down over her pupils as he met her gaze. He couldn’t read her. It was like looking at blank orbs of color.

  What the hell...?

  He sat forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. Facing her. He had to fix this. To help her see that moving forward was best for both of them.

  Liv was the smartest person he’d ever known. And had always been open to seeing both sides in any situation. Their problems didn’t stem from either of them refusing to see the other points of view but from seeing both and knowing that they didn’t fit. Or coexist.

  So how did he fix this?

  When no answer came to him, he knew he had to slow down. That he needed more information.

  “Why did you need to speak to me?” His question filled with all of the caring he’d ever felt for her, he willed her to meet his gaze. For real.

  For a second there, he thought he’d been successful. That he’d reached her. He saw a shadow, then maybe a glint, in her eyes, but it was gone too quickly for him to be able to successfully decipher it.

  “I came to tell you that there were consequences from that night,” she said, sounding like she was giving test results to a patient. At least he assumed that’s what he was hearing. She’d certainly never talked to him like that before. As though she was on the outside looking in at him.

  “Consequences?” He frowned. “What does that mean? Did you get some kind of infection or something? Because I can guarantee you, I’m completely clean and—”

  “Oh my God, Martin! Shut up!” She didn’t raise her voice, but he felt slapped. Her tone... If she hadn’t been done with him before, it was becoming pretty damn clear that she now was.

  She glanced down for a few seconds, then back up. “I apologize,” she said, her arms wrapped around her middle like she was cold. He didn’t dare offer her the afghan off the couch.

  “I got pregnant, Martin. I got pregnant. If you recall, we didn’t use protection. I was ovulating. And I got pregnant.”

  His entire system shut down. Froze. If he had thoughts, he wasn’t aware of them. And then he was. Aware that she was sitting there. Her shirt was purple and hugged her beautiful breasts. The cardigan he could do without. His shoes had a smudge on them. Her hair was falling out of its bun, a few tendrils on each side. She didn’t usually like that. He did.

  Her lips might have moved. He didn’t hear anything.

  Except a suddenly loud and continuous replay of her voice from a moment before. I got pregnant, Martin. I got pregnant. I got pregnant, Martin. I got pregnant.

  “You’re pregnant.” He coughed as he pushed the words through a throat gone dangerously dry. He wanted to glance at her stomach.

  Didn’t. Couldn’t.

  Rooted to the edge of his chair, he couldn’t do much of anything. Couldn’t get through the moment, so he couldn’t get past it.

  Olivia couldn’t bring a pregnancy successfully to term.

  How in the hell...?

  He was forty-one years old. Had left behind thoughts of being a father. Except to Lily. He was the dad who visited his only child’s grave every week and talked things out. He’d be pushing fifty by the time a kid born i
n nine months would be ready to play serious sports. Most of the dads at softball practice would be younger than him. More agile. More...whatever. He was closer to the empty nest stage of life. Had entered it early, really, when Lily died, and his marriage had gone to the grave right along with her...

  “I’m actually not pregnant anymore...” She drew the words out. He heard the emphasis on the first word, but attached no significance to it.

  Instead, feeling like his head was encased in cotton, like there were little black bugs running beneath his skin, he stared at her.

  “You had an abortion?” He didn’t judge. Or blame. His question was soft. Caring.

  And he had to hold back tears.

  Oh God. And where had he been when she’d needed him? Off telling her that they were never going to see each other again...

  “That’s why you texted and asked me to call...” He was catching up to some parts of it.

  She nodded. And then said, “I didn’t have an abortion.”

  “You lost the baby.” He supposed that was for the best. And good that it had happened that quickly.

  And needed a moment to grieve, too, before he could be there for her. Not because he was in any way looking to become a father at forty-one, but because he and Liv had never really had a chance.

  And the pain just kept on coming...

  “I’m...not doing this very well,” she said, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry, Martin, I’m just having a really hard time here.”

  He started to tell her she had no reason to apologize, wanted to go to her, take her in his arms and never let her go, but she held up her hand.

  “Let me finish,” she said. And then didn’t do it. Licking her lips, she glanced at him.

  He looked at those wetted lips and wanted to kiss her. To show her that there was good between them, too. To make the horrible feeling permeating the room go away.

  “When I left here on that Saturday, I went straight to Christine to get a morning-after pill.”

  He’d heard of it, of course, but wasn’t at all familiar with something that was, from what he’d heard, used more often by young people, college kids. A solution that hadn’t been around when he’d been in college. Or sleeping with multiple partners.

  “But I couldn’t take it,” she said, and he cursed a fate that gave Olivia a body that made things so difficult for her.

  “Because it would mess with your system?” he asked, calming a bit as she talked, knowing that his job was to be there for her. To help her through. That’s why she’d come to him. Because he was the only one who’d understand.

  She shook her head, and he was confused again. “Because I just couldn’t. If I’d ovulated, chances were the embryo was already in the process of forming,” she said. “Taking that pill would kill it.”

  He nodded, though he thought she was splitting hairs, being far harder on herself than she needed to be. Which had been a problem with them in the past, too.

  After Lily’s death, the woman he’d fallen in love with had disappeared, taken over by someone who blamed herself for something that was absolutely not any fault of hers. She’d been a victim of her malfunctioning uterus as much as their daughter had, but she’d never accepted as much. She’d been so certain she could see both sides—but then, if you couldn’t see what you weren’t seeing, how would you know?

  But...wait... She hadn’t taken the pill...and she hadn’t had an abortion. She wasn’t pregnant.

  “No way...after Lily...there was just no way I could kill another life that had formed inside me.”

  He got that. Completely. “So you had an early miscarriage,” he guessed again, a bit dizzy with the circles, but determined to stick with her.

  She was... Olivia. He couldn’t not sit with her through this.

  “I had an embryo transfer, Martin.”

  “A what now?” Squinting, he stared at her as though, maybe, she was a mirage. That he’d had more than the one beer at lunch. Or was having one hell of a sick nightmare and would wake up any second.

  With no comforter on his bed.

  “I had the embryo removed from my womb at the blastocyst stage, before uterine implantation, and had it implanted in a surrogate. We found out today that the procedure was successful.”

  He nodded, his brain a bit behind on putting meaning to the words. He got the word successful, though.

  It came through loud and clear.

  “What are you telling me?”

  “I’m going to have a baby.” She said it so calmly. So matter-of-factly. He could be forgiven for thinking she was telling him she was accepting a new position at the hospital. Or buying a new car.

  Then his heart started to thud. “You can’t have a baby, Liv. You know what will happen...”

  “I’m not carrying it in my body,” she said, and he knew what she was saying. He just had no idea in hell what he was supposed to do. To say. To feel.

  “There’s a woman out there, this surrogate, who is, at this moment, pregnant with our baby.” He had to get it out there. Just for the record.

  “Yes.” She smiled, almost apologetically. And he knew what was different about her.

  She was wearing the glow of motherhood again.

  It looked good on her. Fit.

  And left him sitting there looking not good. Feeling bad.

  Olivia was alive again. More like the wife he’d adored. The pregnancy had given her a new lease on life.

  And he felt...upset.

  Chapter Ten

  “I should have had a say in this.” Martin wasn’t proud of the words. Feeling ripped open, helpless, with all control of his life stripped away from him, he stared at his ex-wife sitting over there, happy, reminding him of a kid at Christmas. She was young. Ready to take on life. He was smack-dab in middle age. Hanging out with friends whose kids were heading off to college.

  Needing three showerheads to deal with muscles that had taken up complaining as a way of life.

  And it would only get worse as the kid grew. He’d be fifty when the kid was nine. Hell, he was only a few years younger than Olivia’s mother, the baby’s grandmother.

  He was completely unsure of himself as a father to a living child...

  “I texted and asked you to call.” Her words came softly. Almost tentatively. He heard guilt and part of him wanted to cash in on it. Except there was no value in doing so.

  And no reason, either. He wasn’t blaming her for her choice. He was railing against a fate that had irrevocably changed his life without a heads-up. Or any say. He couldn’t even wrap his head around the future ramifications.

  As a provider, he’d be right there.

  “You said it wasn’t an emergency,” he said back, equally soft. And probably with some guilt attached. He’d been as remiss as she had the night of the greatest sex he’d had since...her. In the early days. Which had been the best he’d ever had, period.

  He could have stopped things after she’d unexpectedly slid home. Could have pulled out and applied a condom, or even put one on beforehand.

  She was nodding.

  Leaning over, elbows still on his knees, staring at the floor, he glanced over at her. “It’s a moot point.”

  “Because it’s done. Too late to do it differently.”

  “Because there’s no way I would have ever asked you to kill an embryo,” he said. “I wouldn’t even have suggested doing so, though I’d have supported your choice, your right to the choice, either way.”

  “I figured...if there wasn’t a viable embryo, or if implantation was unsuccessful, there was no reason to bother you with it.”

  No reason to bother him with it?

  The words hung there. She’d been scared to death of the consequences resulting from an action for which he was equally culpable, and she’d felt like he’d given her no reason to “bother”
him with it. They’d become that far removed from each other.

  He’d succeeded in creating the chasm between them he needed.

  And, after doing so, was facing a situation that would bind them together for life.

  “If the choice had been yours, me aside, what would you have done?”

  It wasn’t a question he wanted to ask himself. Her big brown eyes implored him, communicating some deeper need, whether or not she’d intended to. Whether or not the need was there.

  He felt the pull of her. Fought and welcomed it at the same time. This was exactly the situation he’d tried so hard to eradicate—this constant back and forth with her.

  They weren’t right for each other, but he couldn’t get them out of each other’s lives, either.

  She wasn’t asking about their lives, though. She was asking about the new life just beginning to form out there somewhere, in the body of a stranger.

  A new life.

  A child.

  Their child.

  “If I’d been offered the chance of a pill to prevent the pregnancy, I’d have taken it,” he said. And the silence that fell demanded that he finish. “If I’d been told the circumstances as you’ve presented them, the chance of a live embryo already having formed, with everything we went through with Lily, how hard we all fought...” He glanced up at her, his head hurting, his throat dry. “I would have had to try to save the embryo.”

  Tears flooded her eyes. She didn’t get up and move closer to him. Didn’t speak. And he felt as though he’d been put in a straitjacket with the bindings growing tighter by the second.

  “I’ll be in my fifties before the child is even out of elementary school.” He wasn’t sure how that mattered, how any of it played out. But it didn’t sound good.

  “I’m not asking, or even expecting, you to take this on, Martin.” Olivia’s nurturing tone got his attention. “I knew when I made the choice that if it was successful I was signing up for single motherhood.”

  What was she saying? Had she forgotten who he was? “There is no way on earth I’m walking away from this,” he told her.