by Kim Karr
I am not okay.
Keen’s been calling me for the past three hours and I haven’t been able to pick up. It’s now one in the morning and I haven’t moved since the plus sign made its appearance.
The text messages started soon after the first call and I haven’t been able to answer those either.
3 hours ago
Mr. Tall, Dark & Handsome: Hey, I thought you’d be home by now. Call me.
2 hours ago
Baby Daddy: Maggie, where are you?
1 hour ago
Baby Daddy: Where the fuck are you?
1 minute ago
Baby Daddy: Listen baby, I’m worried. Call me.
I have no words to tell him.
How do you tell someone that his whole life is about to change when you can’t even begin to fathom it yourself?
I turn my phone off and go back into the bathroom.
Stare at the test.
Then the second one.
And the third.
None of them have changed.
They are all positive.
I throw them away.
And even that doesn’t change the fact that I am having a baby.
Turning on the shower, I step in and allow myself to cry. I go down to my knees and let the hot water pound on my naked skin and I try to figure out how this happened. Try to come to terms with the fact that I am having a baby.
I am having a baby.
And with those five words, I allow myself to come undone.
I am not okay.
Keen.
Oh, God, Keen.
What will he say?
How will he react?
I’m worried and afraid. Will I be doing this on my own, like my mother did? And my grandmother did?
Will I lose him?
I can’t breathe at the thought.
I gasp and choke, and clutch my face.
I am not okay.
The knock on the door has me jumping up and once I take a deep breath, I call out, “What?”
The door opens. “Maggie?” It’s my mother.
I peer out the side of the shower curtain but leave the water running so she can’t hear the strain in my voice. “Yeah, Mom?”
She’s in her robe with her makeup off, and she’s holding the house phone with her palm on the receiver. “Keen is on the phone, honey—he’s worried about you. Is something going on?”
I reach my hand out. “No. Everything is fine. I’ll talk to him.”
Handing it to me, she stares at me with knowing eyes. “You sure?”
I nod. “I’m fine. Go to bed. Sorry he woke you.”
When she leaves, I turn the water off and slip out of the shower. Once I’ve wrapped a towel around myself, I put the phone to my ear. “Keen,” I manage.
“Hey,” he says, his voice low and taut. “You didn’t answer my calls. What’s going on?”
Taking a few steps, I turn and slide down the door to sit on the floor. My voice is shaky and my entire body is trembling. “I can’t.”
I hear the sound of the mattress, like he’s sitting up. “Can’t what, Maggie?”
Water drips onto the floor and I try to hold back my tears. “I can’t,” I say again.
“Hey, is this about yesterday? Because if it is, I should have told you that I love you. Maggie, I love you.”
I cry even louder.
“Hey, I didn’t say it because I didn’t want to scare you away. And maybe because I was a little afraid myself. To be honest, this feeling terrifies me.”
I cry even louder because I think I love him too. And I don’t know how I feel about that. The only thing I know about love is that it hurts, and what if I don’t want to be hurt?
“Maggie, do you hear me? I love you.”
The strength in his tone. The sound of his voice. The resoluteness of it breaks me, and I find myself saying something I never thought I’d say to a man. “I love you, too, Keen. I love you, too.”
“Okay,” he laughs, “that’s good, but why are you crying?”
The rise and force of all these feelings comes rushing out and I know I have to tell him. This isn’t something that is just a part of me. It’s a part of him too. “Because I’m afraid what I’m going to tell you is going to break us.”
“Nothing can do that.”
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out, “and I can’t talk about it right now, so I’m hanging up. I’ll call you tomorrow. I promise.”
Right or wrong, I have to accept this for myself before I can expect Keen to. And whatever he decides, I will have to live with. With that, I end the call and leave the phone off the hook. And then I head to bed.
Tomorrow I will face whatever this means.
Tomorrow.
38
CLEAN
Maggie
The thing about Katherine May is that she is very perceptive.
Some celebrity gossip show seems to have her attention. I attempt to creep into her state-of-the-art kitchen in the penthouse overlooking Central Park that she now shares with Winston Trust and try to steal a cup of coffee unnoticed before heading out to my last meeting of the week.
“Margaret Elizabeth.”
I freeze, and glance over my shoulder as I finish pouring the hot brew. “Yes, Mother.”
Formal words for the formal greeting.
“Let’s talk.”
“I can’t. I have a meeting that I don’t want to be late for.”
There’s a look of disbelief on her face. “I spoke to Jordan earlier about some Simon Warren loose ends, and he happened to mention to me that your meeting isn’t until ten.” She tilts her head to the side and motions toward the table. “We have plenty of time.”
Sighing, I fix my coffee and then take a seat at the table and look out the window at the rain.
Dreary.
Dreary.
Dreary.
My mother sits across from me with her cup in her hand. “What’s going on, honey? Whatever it is, you know you can talk to me.”
And yes, I know this, and that is why those tears I forced myself to stop shedding sometime before dawn come back before I can even take my first sip of coffee.
Quick to action, my mother takes charge and we move to the family room and sit on the white sofa, where I cry and cry and cry in her arms and cry some more until I finally tell her, “I’m pregnant.”
At first she says nothing, but then her face lights up. “Oh Maggie! I can’t believe it, but my baby is having a baby.”
I force myself to sit up. “Mom, I’m unmarried and with a man I’ve only been together with for two months, tops.”
She shrugs. “Do you love him?”
I nod.
“Does he love you?”
I nod. “I think so.”
“Then Maggie, the rest will work itself out.”
That’s not true. It’s not that simple. He’s not a prince and I’m not a princess, and this isn’t some fairy tale that I never read. Resolutely, I look at her and shake my head. “No, Mom, it won’t. What if Keen isn’t ready for a baby? What if he turns his back on us? What if—”
Oh, God, the what-ifs…I learned this from Makayla.
Damn her!
My mother smooths her hand down the side of my face. “Oh, honey, he might be shocked, and it might take him a bit to figure out what this means to him, but Maggie May, he is not your father.”
A shiver runs through me. I was an unwanted daughter. I would never want to put my child through that.
My child.
My baby.
My baby.
Our baby.
An emotion I can’t decipher crosses my mother’s face. “I’ll be right back.”
She gets up and once she leaves the room, I put my hand on my belly.
My baby.
This is my baby.
Our baby.
And maybe for the first time I really, truly understand why my mother kept my father’s identity from me as long as she did. Thinking about
him as a powerful man who was very busy doing great things was easier to accept as a child than the truth. The truth that the man she loved had chosen another, married another, had a family of his own, and the very real truth that he never wanted me. He didn’t want me, but she did. And she didn’t want to hurt me.
My mother returns and hands me an envelope I thought she’d long ago destroyed. “I think it’s time you read this, Maggie.”
With trembling hands, I take the envelope my father left me when he died. “You were supposed to burn it.”
She tilts her head to the side. “I kept it for you until you were ready to read it. And I think you are finally ready.”
I nod. Swallow. Gulp.
My mother leaves me alone, and with shaky fingers I unseal the envelope and then slowly unfold the parchment paper.
Maggie,
If you’re reading this, I was a coward. I never approached you. I tried at least one hundred times.
My beautiful little girl grew up so fast. I blinked and you went from a child to a young adult, and yet I still didn’t find the courage to introduce myself.
Regret is a hard thing to live with and I am filled with it. I wish I would have embraced fatherhood, I wish I wouldn’t have turned my back on your mother when she told me about you, and even more that I wouldn’t have turned my back on you. I wish I had been stronger and hadn’t listened to those around me about what was best for my political career.
In the end, you must know that I’m the one who missed out.
Know this, Maggie: I watched you from afar, and never has distance been so great. Not having the courage to bridge that distance is my biggest regret.
My best wishes for all that this world holds for you,
Your father.
As the rain falls outside, I fold the letter up with tears streaming down my face, and then I look out the window and the day seems a little brighter.
My father wanted me.
He wanted me.
39
WHITE HORSE
Maggie
New York City weather sucks.
Plain and simple.
The rain falls cold and relentless in sideways sheets. The wind whips it in every direction and makes my raincoat nearly useless. Trying to force my umbrella open, it refuses and then snaps backwards, rendering it as useless as my raincoat.
I lived in New York City for years, so you’d think I’d remember how to dress in the spring.
Wrong.
My cute little jacket advertised as water resistant cinches around my waist and does nothing to protect me from the bone-chilling cold. The new suede platform shoes I bought because they were blue and reminded me of Elvis are completely ruined, and the swishing of them makes me wish I were barefoot. Even my skinny leggings leave me feeling naked and cursing myself for not adding the tights I’d considered and then rejected for fear I would be too hot.
I heard pregnancy does that to a woman.
As if to punctuate the thought that I can’t get back to California soon enough, a cab barrels through a yellow light and blares its horn at me just as I’m about to cross the street to hit up the donut vendor outside the park.
Pregnancy has obviously removed all of my filters, and I don’t hold back when I give the taxi driver my middle finger right in the heart of Manhattan.
Forget the donuts.
I’ll grab something later.
Considering the height of my platform heels, I make decent progress for the next two blocks. Sixth Avenue, Seventh Avenue…it isn’t that much farther now to my meeting; then, once it is over, I can call Keen and we can talk about all of this.
My thoughts are interrupted by the distinctive tone of my iPhone.
Walking fast, I stop to huddle under the protective confines of a building’s entryway and pull my phone from my bag. My screen flashes Makayla’s name and for a moment I consider hitting Ignore. Not that I don’t want to talk to her, but I can’t be late, and I shouldn’t tell her about the baby until Keen and I have talked about it.
“Hey, I’ll be back tonight—can we talk then?” I answer over the rain and wind.
“No, wait, Maggie, don’t hang up.”
“What is it?” I ask as a nasty gust of wind propels me forward, causing me to lose my balance and step right into a black, slushy puddle of mud on Fifty-ninth Street that I really, truly hope is mud.
No.
No.
No!
“I have been trying to reach you for over twelve hours. Is everything okay?” Makayla asks.
Standing like a flamingo perched not so gracefully on one submerged foot, I consider my options as I answer her. “I was really tired last night and went to bed early, and now I’m late. Can we please talk tonight?”
“Yes, sure. I was just worried about you. It’s not like you to not answer your phone.”
Dropping my foot in the pool of hell, I stand utterly still and stare at the Time Warner Center. My destination is so close. “Don’t be. I’m fine. I love you.”
She’s still talking but I can’t hear her over the rain and the traffic, and my toes are screaming from my shoes to get the hell out of the foulness I’m standing in.
“Maggie!”
I know that voice.
I push the phone even closer to my ear. “Is someone with you, Makayla?”
“No, why?” she asks.
“Maggie!”
Okay, the voice is not coming from the phone. I turn, and search for the voice I’d know anywhere.
And then I spot him. Keen, with his thick dark hair and sparkling blue eyes and drop-dead-gorgeous looks, sitting in the front of a carriage on the perimeter of Central Park.
With a white horse.
A white horse.
“I have to call you back, Makayla.”
Staring at Keen in shock, I drop my phone in my purse, and I’m not even sure it makes it in there.
I don’t care.
All I care about is this man—brilliant and wild and crazy, and coming for me like some Prince Charming out of a fairy tale.
In five long strides Keen is standing in front of me. “Maggie.”
My whole body is shaking. “Keen. What are you doing here?”
Acting more like a knight than the naughty boyfriend I know him to be, he bends and kisses my hand tenderly. “I need to talk to you and it couldn’t wait.”
All I can do is stand in shock.
Him.
Here.
And the white horse.
The.
White.
Horse.
Straightening to his full height, he places his hands on my face and pulls me to him for one earth-shattering kiss.
“Keen,” I say around his lips.
As he stares at me with those bright blue eyes that make me feel like today is the warmest day of the year, he puts a finger over my lips and continues staring at me for a long, long time.
I swear he is covered in sunshine on this dreary day, and all I can do is stare back as I try to comprehend exactly what this is. I told him about the baby. Told him I couldn’t talk—that we’d talk today. Rather than wait, he flew out from California last night. He came to see me. He’s here in New York. And this is not a dream. I don’t dream that way, or didn’t…until him.
His grin grows wide and then, like a prince out of some fairy tale, he lifts me out of the Manhattan cesspool that we are both now standing in. And with all his brute strength, he carries me in his arms across the street to the waiting carriage.
Once he sets me down right beside the white horse, he drops down on one knee and pulls a shiny box from his coat pocket.
I watch as his fingers open the box and I forget how to breathe. I wait, each moment longer than the last, my entire body trembling from my head to my toes. And then the box is open, and even in the dreariness of the rain and the gray clouds, the ring inside it sparkles so bright it’s nearly blinding.
“Maggie,” he says. His voice is a little shaky, but it st
ill manages to ooze sexiness. “I might not have known it, but I do now. I loved you from the moment I saw you under the haze of the purple lights. With your smile so much like summer and your eyes so full of curiosity and wonder, you hit me at first sight like no one ever has.”
My hands fly to my mouth and I fight back tears.
This is so romantic.
“Every day I find myself wanting to tell you things I’ve never told anyone. Every day I know will be better because you are sharing it with me. I might not have known what love is, but I know now it’s you. You are everything I could ever want or need in my life, and I can’t live without you.”
With my pulse pounding in my ears, I look down, trembling, shaking, and happier than I ever knew anyone could be. This is so not me, or the old me. But I’ve changed with him, and I love who I am now maybe even better than who I was before.
“Maggie May,” he says, in a voice that sounds like dripping honey, “will you marry me and be my wife?”
As I look down at him, I’m still not able to breathe. “I don’t want to get married just because of circumstances.”
Confusion furrows his brow. “Circumstances might have sped this up, but you were always the one for me. From the moment I saw you downing that whiskey, it was you. And I think you know that.”
Laughing a little, I finally remember to breathe. “Are you sure?”
“Never more sure about anything in my whole fucking entire life.”
“Say it again, Keen Masters.”
That grin is sly, and yet humble—so freaking adorable. “Maggie May, will you marry me?”
So, without another second of hesitation, I yank him to his feet and throw myself at him. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“Don’t fucking hang up on me again,” he breathes harshly in my ear.
“I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what to do.”
His head is shaking back and forth. “You’re enough to make a grown man cry,” he says quietly. This time his voice is hoarse, and yet still so incredibly deep.
And that right there. That. It’s enough to bring me to my knees.