by Zee Monodee
They both started talking at the same time and stopped in the same moment.
She took a deep breath. “You first.”
He wrung his hands in his lap. Lowering his gaze, he didn’t look at her. “I read the news, and ...” He stood, turning away from her. “They mentioned you got pregnant on January one, and we both know what happened that day.”
He didn’t pursue his line of questioning any further, though she understood what he was getting at.
“The baby is yours, if that’s what you want to know.”
He stilled. “What would you want from me?”
She gazed at his stiff back for a long time.
“Nothing.”
He whirled and came back to his seat. “You mean that? I can’t give you anything, Jane. Not to you, or the baby. Forgive me for saying this, but I don’t want a child yet. I can’t. Shilpa and I are getting married, and—”
She reached out and touched his hand. “Jeremy. It’s okay. I don’t want it to be any other way.”
She kept her eyes on him. “Rest assured also that this secret is safe with me. No one will know what happened.”
“Does Michael Rinaldi know?”
She nodded, all while shaking the image of Michael out of her mind.
“Saying thanks would sound callous, wouldn’t it?” He gave her a sheepish smile.
“Let’s leave it at that.”
He nodded and stood. “Well, best of luck, then.”
“Thanks. All the best to you and Shilpa, too.”
He nodded.
“You’ll excuse me if I don’t walk you back to the door.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
Jane watched him leave. His step was quick, eager.
He can’t wait to get away. She shook her head. Just as well. What would she have done if he’d wanted to be part of her baby’s life?
A clenching sensation gripped her belly suddenly, and she gasped. A rip of pain shot from her hips and up her spine, and she nearly doubled over.
Goodness, no. She couldn’t be going in labour already, not at seven months.
Forcing herself to take deep breaths, she focused on channelling the air in and out of her lungs. After a few moments, the pain and the iron grip inside her abdomen decreased. The cramp eased away just as abruptly as it had come.
What had that been about? She couldn’t take any chances.
So she reached for the phone and called her doctor. Fifteen minutes later, she eased into the car Charles had provided for her, with one of the security guards at the wheel.
Thankfully, the waiting room was empty when she arrived at Gayle’s surgery, and she was able to see the physician immediately.
After examining her, Gayle patted her hand.
“Braxton Hicks contractions. Nothing to worry about. If the cramps keep coming for more than an hour, then it could be labour.”
“You’re sure?” Jane’s voice was small. If this was pain outside of labour, what would the actual delivery be like?
“We could make sure everything’s okay with an ultrasound. Would that reassure you?”
She nodded.
“Your bladder’s full?”
“I just had lunch, and I must’ve downed the whole pitcher of water.”
Lying back on the examination table, she again yelped when the cold gel hit her skin. Gayle poked and prodded her with the probe. Jane focused on not giving in to the urge to pee.
“Well, look at this. What have we here?” the doctor exclaimed.
Jane straightened her spine, trying to catch a good look at the screen. “What?”
Gayle turned to her. “Congratulations, luv. You’re gonna have a daughter.”
Surprise hit her. She shouldn’t be so stunned. After all, it had been a fifty-fifty chance of either a boy or a girl. But to have it confirmed what gender her baby was took the breath out of her. During her previous scan, the baby had been on her side, and they hadn’t been able to confirm the sex.
She brought a hand up to cover her mouth, before she laughed. “And she’s okay?”
“She looks fine to me. You see here? This is her head. You can almost make out her profile. A tiny nose, it seems ...”
She listened with rapture and watched the screen with awe.
Michael should’ve been here.
She shouldn’t think of him. Not anymore. Her elation died, and she went through the rest of the impromptu visit with a heavy heart.
In a way, she knew the dank cloak of misery would never lift from her existence. She had lost the most beautiful thing to have happened to her through her own actions. She could only be sorry now, and sorry didn’t mend anything when destruction had already taken place.
Charles met her at the door when she returned to his place.
“Where were you?” He drew her to him and hugged her.
“I went to see Gayle.” They started walking towards the stairs.
“You had an appointment today? Why didn’t you say so? I would’ve taken you.”
“It was an impromptu visit. I panicked when I felt pain—”
He stopped in his tracks, his hand closing gently on her arm. “Pain? What did she say?”
“Nothing to worry about. It’s normal. Freak contractions that happen from seven months onward.”
“And the baby is fine?”
Jane smiled. “Yes. She’s fine.”
“She?”
“I’m expecting a little girl.”
Charles hugged her. “Another princess is coming. Good grief, you girls are going to outnumber me.”
She laughed and hugged him back. “I’m awfully tired now. I need a nap, I think.”
“You go ahead.”
She left him and trudged up the stairs. Every step demanded a lot of effort, as if her feet had tripled in width and something prodded the small of her back, making her feel like she’d tumble backward every time she put one foot in front of the other.
She reached the top landing and was about to turn into the corridor towards her room when she heard the doorbell.
She hadn’t planned to linger to find out who it was, but upon hearing Charles’s voice, she paused.
“Came here to gloat?” Reproach hung evident in his tone.
“Shut up, Charles. Where is she?”
Marenka. What was her mother doing here?
“I doubt she’ll want to see you. She just went up to rest.”
“Well, I’ll go see her, then.”
“No, you won’t.” His tone had been deathly calm this time.
“And why not?”
“I won’t have you stress her any further. Where were you all these days since she came back home?”
“Let go of my arm.”
“You’ve done enough damage already all these years. I won’t let you keep on killing her spirit when all the poor child is screaming for is a chance to live her life the way she wants to.”
“What are you insinuating?”
“That it’s time you stopped harassing her. She’s been through enough, Marenka. You’ve always centred everything on your needs, but don’t tell me you’ve become so blind to the world that you don’t see that Jane is going through Hell right now. And it’s all because of you. She’s afraid to step out. She looks after the world, but she hides when it’s time to look after herself.”
“And how is that my fault?” Marenka spat out.
“You never cared for her. It was always all about you, you, and you. Never did you wake up to realize you had a daughter who loved you despite the fact that you’re not worth one ounce of her consideration. Jane’s always had it tough because you never made it easy for her.”
Jane closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the cool paper on the wall. These two wouldn’t have a row, would they? And not because of her? She remembered the fights before they’d broken up. Half the time, her name had come up then, too.
“She’s pregnant, Marenka, and she’s lost the man she loves just because you never gave her any reas
surance and allowed a storm of anxiety and insecurity to build up in her.”
Silence settled in the hallway downstairs before the door slammed a moment later. She gathered her mother had left.
Peeling herself from the wall, she edged towards the door to her room. Once inside, she headed straight for the bed to lie down.
Charles’s words rang in her head. Was that how he saw her? How much truth was there in his statements?
A hundred percent certitude. She couldn’t deny it. Never had she thought of it in those terms, but her mother had never really cared for her. David Smithers had needed an heir to give the Arana clan, and Marenka had done her duty. That’s all her existence had been about.
Well, she would make sure her daughter never knew anything like that.
She wouldn’t keep on hiding. What good would it do her? Life would go on whether she remained cooped up inside the house or she got back to her activities.
That’s settled. She was going to start living again, in honour of welcoming the life she carried.
She placed a hand to her belly and caressed it.
Tomorrow, she was going back to work.
***
Her decision the following morning when she came down dressed in a wraparound skirt and a yoked top that accommodated her bump was met with a wide array of reactions.
Mrs. P was aghast. Charles was prudent. And Umberto nearly fell out of his chair when she walked into his office at nine.
“The sun is waking in the west lately.” She laughed and went about the room righting piles of files that threatened to fall and putting every object back in its place. “Did you miss me?”
His stricken expression, as if he’d seen a ghost, made her want to keep on laughing. He was a much-needed touch of lightness and normalcy in her otherwise topsy-turvy world.
“You’re back.” Her boss stared at her as if he were seeing an apparition.
“And I’m here to stay. At least until I go on maternity leave.”
“Yes, of course.” He still looked stunned. “You’re okay? And the baby?”
“She and I are both fine.”
“She?” Umberto stood.
“It’s a girl. The doctor confirmed it yesterday.”
“That’s wonderful news.” He paused. “Shouldn’t you be resting? After what happened … we never got round to talking about—”
She’d thought about this, that he’d want to know the whole sordid story behind her and Michael’s involvement. She bit her lip.
“Umberto, please, let’s not talk about that.”
“Jane.” He sounded worn and weary. “Whatever went wrong?”
This question, she hadn’t expected. He could’ve asked why she’d done this to his son. He could’ve asked how she could’ve been so unscrupulous. But no. Here he was asking her why she and Michael had severed their relationship.
She was unprepared for a proper answer.
“I didn’t deserve any of him.”
Turning towards the door, she added, in a stronger tone that didn’t falter, “Please, let’s not talk about this again.”
She left before he could reply, but she needn’t have worried. He didn’t broach the topic again, and somehow, she could even believe things were back to normal.
Almost.
***
“Sir?” Rory said over the intercom. “There’s a man here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment, though.”
Michael dropped the report he’d been trying to read without any success for the past few hours. Damn it. He couldn’t concentrate on anything. He’d even contemplated not coming to work for every single day in the past two weeks, but in the end, the choice had been made for him. He’d trudged to his law chambers one day and had ended up sleeping on the couch when evening had rolled in.
He’d repeated that for nearly every day since. Only on the weekends did he go back to the house in Hampstead. There, he drowned his sorrow by locking himself in the study, coming out only twice in a day to grab a quick thing to eat from the fridge after he exhausted himself physically in the pool.
Everywhere he looked at home, he could see her. Her things were neatly arranged in the wardrobe of the main suite. He didn’t go there any longer, preferring to crash in the relative anonymity of the first guest room he came upon.
“Sir?”
“Who is it?” He rubbed his aching forehead.
“His name is Jeremy Wickham.”
He sat up with a start. Wickham? What did he want? Had he found out anything, and was he here to settle the score?
Running one hand on his face, he exhaled slowly. Better face it head on and find out what Wickham was after. “Send him in.”
The door opened, and Rory ushered the other bloke in. Again, Michael was struck by how young and innocent he looked. And that darn lock that fell on his forehead, giving him that angelic air. Wickham hadn’t hesitated to sleep with another woman behind his girlfriend’s back. And now, Jane was paying the price for it all.
Wickham clutched a Manila envelope in his hand and remained where he stood once Rory had closed the door and left them alone.
Michael stood, extending a hand. He wanted to send his fist flying, but he remembered his manners. Still, common courtesy ran just this much. “Why are you here?”
Wickham paled, taking a step back when Michael released his hand. “I, um, spoke with Jane.”
Bloody hell. What now?
“I suppose you know what happened.” Wickham paused. “Between me and her. I wanted to say I’m sorry. We were clearly inebriated, or I would never have even flirted with a taken gal.”
Michael crossed his arms in front of his chest. “It’s to her you should be excusing yourself. Jane and I weren’t together back then.”
“You weren’t?” Bewilderment painted itself on the young man’s features. “But at the club, you said—”
“I know what I said. Now, if that will be all ...”
Wickham shook his head. “I came to give you this, actually.”
He handed Michael the envelope he clutched.
“What is it?”
“The papers that stipulate I am renouncing all parental rights in this matter.”
He frowned. “Why would you give this to me?”
Wickham shrugged one shoulder. “You’re a lawyer. I thought you’d want to check if everything was as it should be in the document. And, it seemed to me you handled Jane’s legal matters. Weren’t you the one who initiated a suit against Viewstand not so long ago?”
Michael nodded.
“Can you give this to Jane after you’ve checked it?”
“I will,” he heard himself replying.
Now, why would he do that? This would mean meeting Jane and talking to her. Not something he thought he could do. She’d shut him out. Slammed him down sounded more like it, but he wasn’t going there. Not again. Not today, too.
“I’ll leave, then.” Wickham headed towards the door. “And best of luck. For both you and Jane.”
Michael nodded. What more could he do? All he tried to do was shield the image and the thought of Jane and the baby out of his head. Wickham had brought it all back with full force.
Shaking his head, he went back to his seat and dropped the envelope on the tray on his desk. As he picked up the report he’d been browsing before he was interrupted, he winced when pain shot behind his eyes.
Why was he forcing himself on concentrating when he wouldn’t make sense of anything on the paper?
His attention veered back to the documents Wickham had left with him. He found himself reaching for the envelope, and he pulled out the sheaf of papers. With focus he dredged from Lord knew where, he read every single clause in the text.
An obviously competent lawyer had drawn up the agreement. Wickham’s signature was clearly legible on the last page, his initials at the bottom of every sheet indicating he’d read and agreed to every part in the legal brief.
At least there, Jane would be free. She woul
d be able to bring her child up without any interference and without the spectre of an absent father who may one day claim his paternity out of the blue.
It would also mean her child could be adopted by another man.
Don’t go there. Jane and her baby weren’t a part of his life any longer. He had no right to care or even be concerned.
The door to the office flew open, and he looked up at a frantic Phillip stumbling in.
“What’s the matter, mate?” He stood and stepped around the desk.
“Claire. She just left for the hospital. Water broke or what else.” Phillip came up to him and clutched the lapels of his jacket in a death grip.
If he could have, Michael was sure he would’ve shaken him. Instead, it was his whole body doing the shaking.
“She’s having the baby, Mike.”
Claire’s pregnancy couldn’t be further than eight months gone. This was bad.
“Phil.” He placed his hands on his best friend’s shoulders. “Calm down, okay?”
Phillip actually started to shake him this time. “What’ll I do, Mike? I don’t have any idea what to do. I was at the pub when she called.”
He caught the whiff of alcohol that lingered on Phillip. Of course he’d been down at the pub. That’s where he spent most of his time lately. On many an occasion, Michael had been tempted to join him so they could wallow in their misery together.
No point in trying to reason with Phillip, though. If his reasoning weren’t gone already with the amount of alcohol he’d downed, then the panic that was evident in him would fry any remaining functioning neurons.
And, what were friends here for?
“Come on.” He released his friend’s grip on his jacket and went to grab his car keys in the top drawer of his desk. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Phil was a wreck throughout the ride, even going as far as biting his cuticles. That had been a habit of his when he’d been a teenager, a nervous edge he’d long since won over.
The first thing they did when they reached the maternity department was check at the nurses’ station for an update on Claire. She was being prepared for an emergency C-section. Would Phillip want to be in the theatre if the doctor allowed it?
His friend paled and balked, going to a bench and slumping down on it.