by W. Winters
“I’m not entertained,” I add.
“Then you’re more foolish than I thought and perhaps I’ve made a mistake.”
“Was it meant to frighten me, Marcus?” I question him, walking toward a pallet of stacked boxes in the corner. There are wooden toys inside of them. Little knickknacks that toddlers would play with. Over here, the light is scarce, making it more difficult for him to see me… I presume. “Or did you want me to be aware that you don’t trust me?” I ask a bit lower, not bothering to raise my voice this time.
As I open a lone box lying behind the stack, I peer at Walsh from my periphery. He stays where he is, leaning against the rail and waiting patiently. Both his hands grasp the rail behind him while he watches the elevator doors.
“Have you done this before?” I direct my question at Walsh, who stares down at me since I’m now crouched. “Come to meetings with Marcus that are more of a show than anything?”
“It’s always a show.” Walsh’s response is easy, although his expression is anything but. I respect the man at least for that.
“I can see you’re frustrated,” Marcus answers, his voice coming from a level above and to my right. The light doesn’t reach that corner. “I never had any intention of showing myself to either of you. You should know that. You are a smart man, Seth.”
“What are your intentions?” I ask. Walsh’s footsteps clack on the concrete floor as he walks closer to me, where he could get a view as well. There’s nothing to be seen from the corner on the second floor, but the next time Marcus speaks, there is no sign of a speaker or any device. It’s him.
His voice bellows down from the second floor as he says, “I have a proposition for each of you, and I’m scarce on time.” He must signal someone, because a thick shadow shifts in the distance. It’s the only sign of movement.
There he is. Still hidden, but there nonetheless.
“You know how to reach me,” Walsh says carefully.
“Our form of communication has been compromised,” Marcus admits from upstairs and Walsh’s brow furrows.
“Isn’t that right, Seth?” Marcus’s voice is accusatory.
“We found your letters, if that’s what you’re referring to.” Heat dances along the back of my neck and my palms itch as Walsh’s gaze moves to my form. I don’t take my eyes from Marcus though. Or rather, where I know Marcus is.
“Where at?” Walsh questions and I answer, still not averting my gaze although I can feel Walsh’s piercing mine.
“The post office.”
“You could have told me on the way over so I didn’t feel like a dumb prick,” he mutters beneath his breath for only me to hear. The anger is temporary.
“We have other ways,” Walsh speaks to Marcus.
“I don’t trust them any longer,” comes the reply. Marcus’s harsh and darkened voice seems… tired, resigned even as he talks to Walsh. He corrects it as he raises his voice to say, “I thought you’d like to hear this as well. It’s quite interesting, if nothing else.”
My pulse quickens as my palms sweat. Waiting for whatever it is to come, still, I can’t hold back a line I’ve been rehearsing in my head the entire silent train ride here.
“You made a mistake targeting the Cross brothers. We know you know that. You admitted it in the letters.”
Walsh peers at me, his head dropping and I note that he stares at the floor as I speak. As if considering what I’m saying, debating whether it’s true or false.
Marcus’s silence urges to me to continue. “They don’t need to be on your list. All we want is to go back to our former relationship.”
“That’s not going to happen,” he says and Marcus’s response only makes my hackles rise. Anger stirs in my blood.
“Then what is it you want?” I question, my voice coming from deep in my gut. “War?” I hate him in this moment. A bloody battle is the last thing I want.
His answer hits me hard in the chest, not just surprising me, but instilling a new fear. “To save Laura.”
“Don’t you fucking dare mention her name,” I say and the sneer leaves me before I can think twice. Fists turn my knuckles white and I step closer to the edge, hating that he’s not on this floor.
“You can’t play God,” Walsh bites out.
“I’m not,” Marcus answers. “God has mercy.”
“Don’t you touch her,” I say and I don’t bother to hide the threat in my snarl.
“I don’t plan on it. Let me explain.”
“Explain,” Walsh pipes up, reaching out for me. Not holding me back, but simply putting out his arm as if to stop me. There’s nowhere for me to go, no way to get to him from here.
A new terror binds me in place at knowing she’s anywhere near this man’s radar.
It takes everything to be silent as my vision turns red.
“You had what I had. On the West Coast, you had control and power. The streets whispered your name like they do mine here. So naturally I had to keep an eye on you.”
He pauses, although I don’t know why or what he expects from me. All I keep thinking is that the moment he mentions her name again, I’ll kill him. I will find a way to kill him.
“It became very clear that you followed her to the East Coast. Laura Roth. Love is so unpredictable. While everything else is… easily controlled.”
“I’m warning you.” My voice is barely contained. A deep-seated fear of losing her takes over. It claws at my stomach, tearing up everything inside of me. I don’t let it show. Not an ounce of it. But I can’t react either. I can’t speak or else he’ll hear it. He can’t know.
“I want to save her.” Marcus repeats what he said before and my head drops.
A sick, twisted smile lingers around the threat that leaves me, keeping the words steady as I say, “If you kill her...”
“I won’t.”
“Is she a target? Who’s going after her?” My voice holds nothing but a menacing tone. All I need is a name.
“You should talk to her,” he says and Marcus’s easy response angers me even more. “Seth, she isn’t well.”
Questions race in my mind while emotions run through me. Is it a threat? Is that what this is? Does he know she’s pregnant? Does he think there’s something else going on with her? What the fuck does he mean by, “she isn’t well?” My mind races and I can’t stop it from going to the darkest of places.
As if reading my mind, he speaks, “It’s more than her pregnancy. You’ll see.”
“You’re lying.” I hiss the response and oh so subtly, Walsh nods in agreement with me. His gaze is fixed on the spot where Marcus remains hidden.
“She’ll tell you. I have faith that she will.”
“Fuck you!” I can’t control the chaotic response and Walsh grabbing my wrist is the only indication I have that I’ve stepped forward once again. “Stay away from Laura,” I warn Marcus while shaking off Walsh’s grasp.
“I have a way to save her.” Marcus’s voice is calm and at his admission, Walsh’s expression turns quizzical. He stares into the darkness as I glance between the two of them. “And I promise you,” he says, his voice becoming easy, like it was earlier with Walsh, “I have no intention of going anywhere near her or hurting her.”
The pounding of the blood in my ears calms me. Save her. I would beg on my knees for him to save her if I truly thought he could. Or that he would. Or if she truly needed saving.
“I see you’re skeptical,” Marcus says, “but I’ve made the gathering of valuable information my life’s work. I see everything, even things I don’t care to see.” He practically whispers the last line.
“What do you want from me?” I question him, my eyes narrowed.
I can practically hear the smile in his voice as he says, “I want you to owe me something.”
“Tell me what you want,” I say, pushing for him to get on with it.
“Walsh,” Marcus says in a way that causes chills to roll down my arms, “this is where it gets interesting.”
Laura
“So… if the baby isn’t Seth’s?” The small room is far too sterile for this conversation. “How do you think he’ll react?” she says and I take in a deep steadying breath.
Bethany gives me a moment to think up an answer, glancing between me and the tall machine in the room with the monitor that I can’t take my eyes from.
The ultrasound gel is being warmed up, the machine is on and a textbook is open next to the keyboard on the desk for Bethany to reference.
I answer honestly, “I don’t know.” I genuinely have no idea how he’ll react. But I know it’ll crush the happiness he had. I’m all too aware of it.
Laying my head back on the small and thin disposable pillow, I listen to the rustling of the paper under my ass. I opted to take off my pants and I still have my shirt on, just lifted. Aiden better not come in here or he’ll get an eyeful, that’s for sure.
“I’ll have to go through the dating apps I had and the schedule I kept to even narrow down who the father is.” My throat is tight at the confession and shame forces my eyes closed. “I should at least know that before I tell him, I think.” I nod with my eyes closed, as if agreeing with myself. “I should know everything before I tell him.”
Bethany doesn’t agree with me and neither does the pang in my chest.
It’s quiet for a long moment and in that time I envision the conversation. I can barely stand the imagined sight of his sadness and disappointment. He wanted this. He was elated when I told him. My throat gets tight and I have to open my eyes to stare at something else, anything else. I can’t take this baby away from him. It’s going to hurt him. No matter the details, I know it’s going to destroy him… and us.
“Okay, hold on.” The sound of Bethany flipping a page in the textbook makes me turn to her. “You know we could wait for Sheila to come in tomorrow?” she says, but she doesn’t take her eyes from the book.
“I don’t want anyone to know until I know.”
Insecurity runs rampant on Bethany’s expression. “It’s been so long since I’ve done this and I don’t want to fuck this up,” she practically mumbles.
“Just do it. We have to hurry anyway before Aiden realizes I stole you away.”
“Cindy can cover for me. She should be here any minute now.” She stares at the textbook, reading something rather than looking at me and my pleading expression for her to hurry the hell up.
“Cindy can’t cover her own ass.” I keep my tone light and so does Bethany with her response: “You’re not wrong.”
My chuckle is silenced by the squeeze of a bottle and gel plopping onto my exposed stomach.
“I think there’s a bump,” she says and Bethany’s voice holds a hint of awe as she stares down at my tummy, now covered in goo.
“You’re going to regret that if all of this is a mistake and I’m not really pregnant.”
Neither of us laugh because she puts the transducer right beneath my belly button. Neither of us do anything at all other than stare at the monitor as the black screen turns to white streaks that resemble the waves of an ocean as they crash on the shore. The wand moves to the right and still nothing. There’s no little blip. No sign of life and fear cripples me.
There’s no little sac, there’s nothing.
Not until the wand is moved to the left and at what I see, my hand reflexively covers my mouth.
“There’s the baby.” Bethany’s sweet voice is all singsong and happy and I can’t say anything at all. I’m too choked up.
My eyes burn with happy tears at the sight on the screen. I can’t think of a single time, in my entire life, that I’ve ever cried happy tears. Not until today.
There’s a flicker on the screen. A little tiny one right where the heart would be and it’s in tune with a steady rhythm that comes through the speakers.
“It sounds like a little train,” I whisper, listening to the chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga that is so steady and perfect. So perfect. Please don’t have a heart like me, little one.
With my bottom lip unsteady, I get hold of my bearings enough to ask Bethany, “Is that you moving the wand or the baby moving?”
“That’s just me. It looks like the fetus is sleeping.” Bethany’s eyes are glossy, but she keeps it professional. Still she whispers, “You’re having a baby.”
It’s okay that there’s no movement yet. Everything’s okay because of the chugga chugga. Even so, I want to see him or her move. Some other sign. I want all the signs, if I’m being honest. Every sign in the world that this baby is okay and I didn’t unknowingly hurt him or her.
Just like that, the little baby moves. He—or she—moves. I see it!
“Maybe that was a kick?” Bethany questions, obviously as thrilled to see the leg jolt like that as I am.
“I can’t feel it.” I shake my head.
“It’s different for every pregnancy and mother. There’s nothing wrong with that,” she says, ever reassuring.
“I know, I know.” I can’t look at her. I watch my baby all the while. I barely even register the word until she starts moving the wand again.
Mother. She referred to me as a mother.
A tingle spreads down my skin and I can’t move my eyes away. That’s what I am, a mother. My head lays back, easier this time, waiting to see if the baby will kick again. I can see the legs, the arms, the big ole head and forehead. There’s a little baby, a little life, inside of me.
Bethany never stops moving the wand and I wish she would hold still over his or her precious face. I want to see my baby. My first thought is that I want to see if the baby looks like me or Seth.
That sudden pain is a fast blow to my gut. I force it down and away though.
“That is the skull, we have a skull forming.” I’m grateful for the distraction in Bethany’s observation. I don’t want anything to steal this moment from me. I’m having a baby. This is a happy time. I want my baby to know I’m so happy to see him or her. All I want this baby to feel is loved. Regardless of how fucked up I am.
“There are each of the sections of the skull…” Bethany’s professional tone catches me off guard until I realize why she said it.
“Okay, so how far? How far along when the skull forms?”
“I don’t… wait, let me…” Bethany doesn’t refer to the textbook but instead continues to scrutinize the screen. “There’s no yolk sac so you’re more than ten weeks along.” She’s just rattling off facts.
But that’s a fact that hits home.
Ten weeks. There’s a dull thud in my chest. That confirms it. Seth hasn’t been back in my life that long. Plain and simple. I was pregnant when I got in that car with Laura and saw him for the first time in years. I was already pregnant.
Even though it kills a piece of me, the piece that let him hold me in the living room, pretending we were a happy, perfect couple, I stare at the monitor and force myself not to feel the pain from knowing this isn’t Seth’s baby. My baby is okay.
“Do you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?” Bethany asks, quickly moving the wand from wherever it was positioned so I can’t see for myself. As if I could tell what’s going on down there. The rotation I did for maternity went by in a blur and the only thing I learned is that I didn’t want to work in maternity.
With a quick sniffle to shake any bad or negative energy away, I nod and say, “Yes. Yes, I want to know.”
She moves the wand just slightly to the right and the picture on the screen changes. At first I see a little foot, the tiniest little foot and all five toes. Then a leg, followed by both legs and a lean tummy.
“See that?” she asks and I shake my head but don’t respond verbally. I’m still in awe that there’s a baby in me.
“Boy,” she says softly and gently.
“Are you sure?” I question her and then the pain hits again. Seth wanted a boy.
“I’m positive,” Bethany answers and I smile. Genuinely.
“I’m having a baby boy.”
I’m ov
erwhelmed with so many emotions. There’s a calmness in seeing my baby boy and knowing he’s there and from what I can tell, healthy. But I don’t know how Seth will react and that discomfort, that anxiousness, that fear of losing him—it all lingers over the small bit of happiness, tainting it.
“There’s hardly any fat.”
“What?” I question Bethany’s comment.
“That’s in the book. It’s in here.” The excitement from Bethany isn’t contagious. Maybe we’ll be able to tell how far along we are. There I go again, my mind picturing Seth with me through all of this… “Hold this.”
I obey Bethany and hold the wand as still as can be over my belly.
The second I take it, my little boy touches his face. I saw it and I can see each little finger as he does it. My heart swells with the kind of happiness that also makes it ache.
“Did you see?” I whisper the question but Bethany didn’t see. That little movement was just for me.
Bethany talks to herself, turning over a page then turning it back again instead of answering. I don’t blame her. I hope she’s close to knowing.
“He’s a little shy of a foot long.” Her exhale is loud before she tells me, “I think you’re around twenty-two or twenty-three weeks. Definitely not twenty-five weeks because he’s not tall enough.” She sounds so certain.
“What if he’s just short?” I ask her, remembering how my grandma used to tell me how small I was as a baby. I was a teeny tiny preemie.
“Umm, I don’t… there’s also… I don’t know for sure but there’s not a lot of fat on him like in these pictures and that’s around twenty-five weeks.”
“So more than twenty-two but less than twenty-five.” So somewhere around June. I have to take my phone out to double-check. But it would have been a date in June. I can’t even begin to think back that far, but I didn’t go on many dates at all this summer and the double-dipping I did was in April or May. That’s what Bethany called my two nights back-to-back with two different men: double-dipping. Technically I was the one dipped, but either way it doesn’t matter. I imagine it won’t be hard to figure out what fling led to this little blessing.