by Kira Blakely
We waited it out in reception, and my phone buzzed in my pocket three times during. I didn’t take it out or look at the name on the screen because if it was Houston, I’d freak out all over again, and I wanted this appointment done before I dealt with him.
“Charlotte Stinson,” the receptionist said, from behind a high desk with a marbleized counter. “The doctor will see you now. Through that door.” She pointed to an archway and the door beyond it.
I rose and Pammy did with me. Together, we walked past the others sitting in the waiting room, reading magazines or fiddling on their phones. We entered the office, and the doctor nodded to me.
He was an old dude, with tufty white hair and an avuncular attitude. “Doctor Henman?” I asked.
“That’s me,” he replied, “I hear you’ve got a baby on the way.” His smile wrinkled his cheeks and the loose skin around his eyes. “And that you’d like to take a look.”
“Yes, please,” I said—thankfully, I’d had the forethought to wear shorts and a blouse instead of a dress this time. No way would I strip it off entirely for this. I’d had enough embarrassment for one week.
I was pretty much maxed out.
Pammy squeezed my arm, and the doctor showed me down the hall and into a special little room that held a machine, a screen, and a rounded, flattened plastic wand.
“You make yourself comfortable on the padded table there, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Pammy helped me onto the table, and I unzipped my shorts and slipped them down a little. The bump wasn’t huge, but it was definitely there—a tiny swelling of my abdomen.
The doctor entered a couple minutes later and laid out a filmy sheet, open in the middle, over my belly. He grabbed a tube of gel and smiled at me. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I replied.
He squished the gel, out and I gave a little yelp, then chuckled. It was cold—a little shock to the system to remind me where I was and how important this moment would be. I’d remember it for the rest of my life.
Doctor Henman spread the gel with the end of that wand then moved it slowly over my bare skin, placing gentle pressure. He shifted the screen so I could get a look. “There we go. There’s your baby.”
“Is it a boy?” I asked, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. The little bean creature on the screen was my baby. My own little baby, sequestered in my womb, waiting to be brought into this world.
I’ll look after you. I’ll make sure you have a happy life, little bean.
“It’s a bit early to tell, right now,” he said and adjusted the wand ever so slightly. “You’re about eight to ten weeks along. Here, let me print out these pictures for you, and you can take them with you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The doctor froze the image on the screen, then placed the wand to one side and swiped the gel off my belly with a swatch of tissue paper.
Tears spilled from my eyes. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I just can’t believe it.”
“Oh, there’s no need to be—”
Pammy let out a monstrous wail beside the padded table, and Doctor Henman and I jumped as if we’d been electrocuted.
“Pammy?” I swiveled in place, propped up on my elbows.
My aunt stood and clutched a tissue to her nose, puffy eyed, wet-cheeked. “Oh, I’m s-s-sorry. It’s just s-s-so beautiful. Oh, honey, oh, sweetheart, you’re going to have the most beautiful little baby. I’m so h-happy for you.” She hiccupped and trembled.
I burst out laughing and the doctor joined me. “You scared me pants-less,” I said.
“I’ll give you ladies a minute. I’ll bring you your pictures in a moment.”
“Thank you,” I said, then lifted my index finger. “Doc, do you have anything for morning sickness? I’ve got it pretty bad.”
“This early? Well, if it’s bad now, it’ll only get worse. I’ll write you a prescription and you can pick something up at the drug store in town,” he said.
“Thanks.”
He left Pammy and I alone, and my aunt let out another wail and hiccupped through her tears. “You’re going to be such a wonderful mother.”
Was I? I’d messed up pretty much everything until this point. I’d omitted the truth and lost my job. I’d hesitated.
I did up my shorts then slipped off the table and dusted myself off. The nausea had dissipated amid the excitement, thank heavens, but now that my feet were back on the tiles in the doctor’s little spare office, my nerves replaced it.
My baby was on the way. Houston’s baby.
“I’m going to have to talk to him,” I said. “I’ll have to call him.”
“Are you sure you’re ready?”
“No, I’m not. And no, maybe I shouldn’t. Ugh, what if I crowd him? He knows now, right? He knows, even though it’s terrible how he found out, but he does know. If he wants to contact us, he can. He can come see me and tell me whether he wants to be part of the baby’s life or not.”
“Part of it?” Pammy raised an eyebrow. “Honey, he should be part of it, and even if he’s not, he’ll have to pay child support.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want his money without his actual presence. I want him to want to be a part of this child’s life.” I pressed both palms to my blouse. My baby inside, waiting for his start in life. I’d do anything to keep him safe and happy. I didn’t want his father to be a passenger in his life.
Ugh, I don’t even know the sex and I’m still convinced it’s a boy.
“So, what are you going to do?” Pammy asked.
“I’ll send him a message,” I replied. “If he wants to talk, he can come and see me and we’ll work this out.” For the first time in weeks, I was in control. No Henrietta to threaten me or Jenny to stalk my every move.
It was as if losing my job and having the truth wrenched out into the open had lifted a weight from my shoulders.
Everything would be OK. It would.
I’d simply have to shove my need for Houston aside.
No matter what happened, I’d have my baby, and we’d stick together.
Chapter 28
Houston
I paced back and forth in my old room in my mother’s house. Last night, I’d brought my bags over here and dumped them in the closet—I couldn’t spend a night in a fucking motel room after what’d happened.
Hell, I’d been tempted to spend it outside Charlie’s aunt’s cottage, watching, waiting until she’d come out, so I could pounce on her and ask her what the fuck she’d been thinking, keeping this from me.
But I hadn’t done it.
I needed time to think, and my mother’s house would provide the privacy I needed, particularly since she was an early sleeper and late to wake.
I marched to the window that looked out over the mansion’s grounds—a field of green, pebble paths leading from a fountain to a maze demarcated by lower hedges, and then off around the corner where it’d meet the outside pool.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The baby. Charlie. All the bullshit feelings that had built inside me.
I couldn’t figure out which issue to address first.
She lied to me. She had plenty of opportunities to tell me that she was pregnant. That she had something of mine, and she lied.
Why was that? Had she thought I was some kind of scumbag who’d run?
Or perhaps, she’d been planning on trapping me, as that bitch Jenny had suggested.
I snorted at the thought.
No, I didn’t know Charlie as well as I’d have liked, but I’d spent enough time with her to gauge the type of person she was, and she wasn’t a god damn sleaze. She wasn’t a con.
Charlie had pushed me away, not tucked me into her pocket and tried to manipulate me.
Christ, it ate at me that she’d had to deal with this all on her own.
I turned and lifted one of my two bags, placed it on the bed, and unzipped it. I unpacked some of my clothes, stepped back, and stared at them on the navy-blue sh
eets.
This isn’t right. I don’t belong here.
And I didn’t. I couldn’t stay in this house a second longer.
I dumped the clothes back into the bag, messy for once, anger still fuming through me. Still owning me.
My father had left long ago, and when it’d happened, I’d let my emotions overwhelm me. I’d dealt with it by rebelling, by getting angry, screaming, fucking around. And finally, I’d lost control.
I’d broken into someone’s house and stolen their fucking TV. Trashed it out in the street. I’d broken windows. Vandalized everything in sight, and I’d been arrested for it.
It was a miracle my broken ass had stepped back onto the right track. That I’d found that control again, and that’d only happened because I’d simply shut off all emotion. Refused to acknowledge anything but disdain and lust.
But Charlie had unlocked that side of me again and the good and bad had come pouring out together. Anger, so much anger, and love.
What the hell was I supposed to do? Go to anger management classes? Ha, maybe, because I couldn’t shut this down again. I’d already tried and the emotions remained, a tight ball in the center of my chest.
“Houston?” My mother appeared in the doorway, clutching the front of her silken robe closed, her hair in disarray for once. It was just past nine—way too early for her to be out of bed. “What are you doing here?”
“Butler let me in last night,” I said and grabbed another couple shirts, dumping them into the case. I zipped it up.
“What are you doing, honey? Are you leaving?” she asked.
Poor Mom, she had no fucking clue what ran through my mind, right now. The questions, the confusion. Even I didn’t know what the fuck I’d do. “Yeah,” I said.
“But you just arrived.” She stifled a yawn and scratched the base of her hairline. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”
I shrugged.
“Huey. Talk to me. You’re pale as a sheet, my boy. Tell me what happened. Is it something to do with Charlie? Are you two doing OK?”
She’d almost hit the nail on the head there. I sighed, and my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Fuck, what now?
I’d already tried calling her three or four times today, and she hadn’t picked up. This couldn’t be her.
I brought out my cell and unlocked the screen, tapped the message icon.
I know you don’t trust me, right now, but if you’d like to talk, please come to my aunt’s cottage, and we’ll work through this.
It was almost formal. Professional. Like a fucking business transaction.
Charlie wanted to talk to me.
Had she been to the doctor yet? Christ, I could be her doctor. I could be her damn OB/GYN and deliver our baby.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, pump the fucking breaks. I always went with my gut, but this took more delicacy. This was a serious fucking situation.
“Huey?” My mom shuffled into the bedroom and to my side. She lifted herself to her tiptoes and tried peering at my cell’s screen.
I shut it off and tucked it back in my pocket. “Yeah?” I looked down at the top of my mom’s head.
“Are you leaving?”
“I’ve got some stuff to think about,” I said. It wasn’t a direct answer, because I didn’t have one yet. “Don’t worry about it, OK? You can call me any time, as usual, and I’ll come back and speak to you.”
“I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.” She took me by the arm and tugged once.
My mother was tiny in comparison to me—the reason she’d had a C-section years ago—but I allowed her to pull me toward the chaise lounge beneath the second set of windows.
We sat down side by side and she leaned her head on my shoulder for a second—a brief touch. “You’re too angry these days,” she said.
“I know,” I replied, gruffly. Not my favorite topic of conversation.
“I don’t want that for you, Houston,” she whispered. “But it’s better than the alternative.”
“What do you mean?” I shifted my shoulder and she sat upright again.
Morning sunlight picked up the grays in her hair. My mother was older all right. She’d always been my tenuous connection to the real world other people shared. The world where people had emotions, shared love and happiness, and their lives.
Tiny crow’s feet decorated the sides of her eyes, and they wrinkled as she smiled at me.
“I mean you were so closed off before,” she replied. “I never told you about this, but the way you’ve behaved these past years, your manner, your silent disapproval of everything and everyone, reminded me of your father.”
Thud. The sound of my stomach crashing to the fucking floor. He was the last person I wanted to be like. He was a loser. A man who’d walked out on his wife and son. We hadn’t even been in a tough financial spot.
He’d just lost interest in us. Abandoned us.
“You never saw much of him, apart from the holidays, and neither did I. But when he was with me in private, he was totally closed off. It wasn’t always like that. I think that he couldn’t handle having a happy family. Maybe, he didn’t want one.”
“He was a narcissist,” I grunted. “I’m not.”
“Oh, honey, of course you’re not,” Clarissa replied. “You care for other people. You deliver babies for a living, for heaven’s sake.” She patted my arm. “And you do love. You love me and you love Charlie.”
I stiffened.
“Don’t think I can’t tell. You’re not your father, Houston. You’re a far superior man. You’re in another league, and that’s why I’m so proud of you.” She struggled upright, then walked a few steps, turned, and planted her feet.
She fisted her hips atop her robe.
“And that,” she said, “is exactly why you need to go to Charlie, right now.”
I couldn’t get any stiffer. A thrill of alarm passed through me, but I didn’t let it show.
“What are you talking about?”
“I know, honey. I know she’s pregnant and you’re the father. It’s the entire reason I called you back here,” she replied, then winced as if she anticipated the explosion that would follow the confession.
“You knew?” I growled and forced myself to my feet. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?”
“I respected Charlie’s wishes. She wanted to tell you herself.”
“And that’s why you invited her here on the same night I arrived back in Summit Springs.”
“Well, I had to invite her a week in advance. I didn’t know for sure you’d be here. It was just a happy coincidence that you made it in time.” Clarissa wriggled her nose. “If only she’d stayed and told you then. Though, I can’t fault her. She was scared and confused.”
“Christ,” I grunted and fisted two handfuls of my hair. “Mother.”
“Calm down, Huey.”
Because that was a surefire method of calming someone down. To tell them to do it.
If I’d been angry before, it was nothing compared to the white-hot rage that streaked through my veins.
I was a fucking chump.
Everyone around me had kept this little secret from me. They’d hidden it and whispered behind my back. I’d lost my job for this.
“Houston,” Mom said.
I glared at her, breathing hard.
“You can be angry with me if you want, child, but it doesn’t change anything. You’re still going to be a father. And there’s still a woman out there who needs your help.”
Did she? She’d run out yesterday. She’d refused to tell me. In fact, she’d let me find out from a bunch of bitches at her school.
“What are you going to do?” Mom asked. “Are you going to walk away from her? Just like your father walked away from us.”
“Stop.” I placed a palm outward, tried blocking that from my thought process.
I hated being compared to him. Hated that I might seem like him even in the smallest manner possible. I wouldn’t allow that. I wouldn’t be
a shitbag like daddy fucking dearest.
“You need to go see her, sweetheart. She’ll need you for this,” Clarissa said. “Especially, if the horrible women at her school find out about this. They’ll use it as an excuse to bully her.”
“She was fired,” I said, and my anger cooled.
She was fired. She was pregnant. She was scared.
Charlie had gone through all these things alone. Sure, it’d been her choice to do that, but she’d still suffered in silence.
No wonder she’d acted weird after the whole Plan B incident. If this humiliated me, how did it feel for her?
“You already know what to do, son,” Clarissa said. “I don’t have to tell you. You’re a better person than most I know, myself included.”
I couldn’t deal with anyone else’s input anymore. I zipped up the bag on the bed, lifted it, and slung it over my shoulder, then lifted the one from the floor.
“Houston.”
I didn’t speak. I walked past my mother and out of the bedroom, down the long hall that flanked the open plan living area and entry hall below.
“Houston!” my mom yelled behind me.
I couldn’t turn back now, or I wouldn’t make it. I wouldn’t leave this damn mansion for good.
Finally, I reached the entrance hall and snatched the Audi’s keys from where I’d left them in the decorative glass bowl there.
Whatever had happened, whatever Charlie had done or hadn’t…
Do it, Houston. Do it. Do what you know you should do.
I jogged down the front steps to the car, waiting on the gravel, sparkling clean, mocking the mess that’d fallen around my ears. The one I had to either pick up or leave behind forever.
Chapter 29
Charlie
I’d already taken my pre-natal vitamins and a little tablet for the nausea, but the nerves hadn’t waned. I’d texted him a half an hour ago and he hadn’t replied. He hadn’t called, texted, nothing.
“Relax,” Pammy said and placed a cup of tea in front of me. “Drink this.”
“You know, tea has as much caffeine as coffee in it.” I shifted at the tiny kitchen table and ran my finger around and around in a circle over the knot in the wood. “I probably shouldn’t.”