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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Research Subject - by MMB
Chapter 2: Consequences
God! What was I going to do NOW?
I stared down at the little plastic unit, the blue plus mark staring back at me, bold and convinced - and I could hardly believe my eyes. Pregnant. Me. At my age. I had a grown daughter, for God's sake! What would she think? And Jake, whether I liked it or not, still wanted to hover proprietarily. He'd be livid - and jealous, because I hadn't wanted to let him touch me for months before we separated. And Sydney...
Oh God, what was I going to tell Sydney? HOW was I going to tell Sydney?
No, we hadn't used precautions that night - the thought hadn't even crossed our minds. We were both adults supposedly past our prime - the chance of pregnancy was supposedly far enough behind us by then to hardly even matter. Besides, our night together had been completely unscripted, unplanned, unexpected. Thoroughly unbelievable. And afterwards, he had begged me, pleaded with me with that sonorous and hypnotic accent of his, to come back to him some day. He had given me his sweater and made me promise that I'd bring it back to him myself.
I still had the sweater, and it still smelled of him - I kept it in a plastic bag to preserve that crisp and spicy tang, and never washed it. When I was alone and started to feel abandoned, I knew I had but to dial his number - which I knew by heart now - and I could touch someone who cared for me, not as a mother or provider or employer, but for ME. Or, when it was too late or too early to bother him, I'd bury my nose in his sweater or put it on, and feel his arms around me again for a little while in my mind.
He still asked me to “come home to me”, every time we spoke by phone - he'd warned me that he was both patient and insistent, and had proved beyond a doubt that he'd been telling the truth. I'd even gotten so far as to tentatively schedule a vacation at the end of February - the earliest I could get time off without making people suspicious - but that was over six weeks away. How could I go to him now with this bit of news?
I wouldn't even have thought to check this out if it hadn't been that I'd been having trouble eating in the mornings lately. I had thought myself far enough into menopause that my having missed my period twice in a row hadn't raised any alarms - but now I was having trouble holding anything down, and my breasts were getting tender too. I'd been pregnant twice; I knew the signs - but I bought the little test, figuring I was just eliminating distant possibilities. Distant my ass!
Rene was coming down this weekend to go to the theater with me and then spend a couple of weeks between terms at the university. One of the blessings to come of that draining set of interviews at the Centre - and my all-too-short time with a Centre psychiatrist - had been a renewed sense of closeness with my daughter. She had been so pleased when I called her not long after I'd gotten back from Delaware, asking if she was coming home for Christmas. During her vacation we had spent long hours talking, REALLY talking, for the first time since her father and I had divorced. We talked about everything and anything - but I hadn't told her about Sydney. He was my secret touchstone, my inner amulet.
I didn't know how I was going to keep this from her, as lousy as I was feeling - and in the end, I couldn't. She could see that I was losing weight and not feeling well and being generally more emotional than usual. And there were other things as well. Always a bright child, and a pre-med student at that, she finally put two and two together.
"Who is he, Mom?" she demanded, standing in my kitchen in her favorite silk bathrobe that Sunday morning, hand on her hip while I tried to choke down my morning cup of mint tea.
"He who?" I asked, hoping she'd take the hint and drop it. I knew better. I knew I knew better. But I still hoped.
"Gimme a break. You've been sick as a dog every time you eat since I got here," she announced as if she were a newscaster, "and frankly, you look as if you've had breast enhancements. I'm not stupid, Mom - please don't treat me as if I were." Well, she WAS studying medicine - what did I expect? "You're pregnant. So... who is he?"
"You... don't know him," I admitted finally, feeling my stomach twist at the admission.
"Who. Is. He?" When I refused to answer her, she sat down next to me and put her hand on my arm. "Does he know?"
"I just found out myself a day or so before you got here," I snapped at her a little more sharply than I should have. I knew better, and was instantly contrite. "I'm sorry, poppet. No, he doesn't know."
"Are you going to keep it?" was her next question.
I stared at her in dismay, my hand dropping as almost instinctual protective shield to the life I was carrying. "I..." I hadn't even thought of that. This child was as unexpected as the circumstances surrounding its begetting - but those circumstances had been as loving in their own way as the circumstances that had given me Rene at the time. "Yes," I said finally, coming to a decision. In this child I would always have a little piece of Sydney with me, even though our lives were so far apart in other ways. In forcing me to face the question, Rene had helped me realize that I wanted this child very much.
"Then you should call him and tell him," she told me firmly. "He deserves to know."
"I know, but..." I couldn't continue. He didn't deserve to be tied down to a baby. Not over a one-night stand that was as much my fault as his.
"How did this happen - outside of the obvious?" Rene had her hand on my arm again, and her voice was comforting, supportive. She thought for a moment. "This is something that happened when you went back East, isn't it? Something you didn't tell me about?"
I nodded. "He was the psychiatrist that did the final interview of the study," I began, and found that as I spoke, sharing this with my daughter was a genuine relief. "I stayed an extra day in Dover to visit the ocean. We ended up at the same beach the next midday, completely by accident. I found out he was... struggling with some of what I'd just worked through about your Aunt Caryn, and I offered to listen." Rene's face crinkled in disbelief, and I patted her hand on my arm. "You see, the questions he'd asked me really helped me finally work through things regarding Aunt Caryn's death - I thought it would be nice if I could return the favor."
"You evidently did more than just listen, Mom," Rene said, her lips twitching with the irony of the statement. And, thinking about it, I had to smile too.
"You're right, I did. I'm not ashamed of it, though." I looked her square in the eye. "He is everything that your father never was - and we still care very much for each other. He..." How could I tell her this? "He keeps asking me to come back, when we talk on the phone."
"So... go." She looked at me evenly, taking in my surprise without a flinch. "If what you say is true, then he's at least fond of you - maybe even loves you. God knows you should see your face when you talk about him. I know YOU love HIM, or at least are very fond of him too. That's better than what you had with Dad for a long time. Go. You shouldn't have to go through this alone."
"I can't just leave, Rene! I have projects to finish at the lab..."
"You'll have to leave them in seven or eight months at the latest anyway, Mom, not to mention that the fumes in there sometimes could be very bad for the baby." She leaned forward and patted me on my tummy. "This is my little brother or sister we're talking about here. You have to take care of him or her."
"Julia..."
"Oh, Julia can just go screw herself. She's let you work yourself to a frazzle for years and made a bundle of change off your findings. You know that as well as I do."
"Rene!"
"Mom," and with that, my twenty-five year old daughter stood up and walked over to me and put her arms around me, "you've been so sad and so alone for so long. You deserve a little happiness for a change. Go stay with your Delaware shrink for a while. You'll need someone to take care of you now a little anyway - and he's the one who most deserves the job, as I see it. And if it doesn't work out, you know Julia will have you back in a heartbeat..."
I put my arms around my little girl - not so little anymore, evidently. "I was afraid you'd be angry or disappointed in me."
"I am disappointed," she said gently, "that between Daddy and Aunt Caryn, you pushed me away so far and for so long that you don't know me as well as you used to. But I can't judge you for your time with this man - and I'm certainly not angry about little “peanut” there." She pushed back a bit and gave me a brilliant smile. "I always wanted a brother or sister, remember? Took you long enough to get around to it..." She kissed my forehead. "And at least it isn't Dad's..."
That statement warmed my heart, and then froze it. "Poppet, you're studying medicine - you know how dangerous it is for someone my age to have a baby. Besides, we've been forgetting something."
"What's that?"
"What happened after Andrew."
I knew it the moment she realized what I was talking about, because she hugged me just a little tighter. "Oh Mama, that was just an accident, right? You fell..."
Fell nothing. Jake had been angry with me, and pushed at the wrong time - and I'd fallen backwards down the stairs and then lost our second child, the son he had so desperately wanted. That had been the real start of our marriage falling apart, years before anything actually fell apart between us. I had forced myself to hold everything together for the sake of our eight-year-old daughter - even when there was little to hold together anymore.
"The doctors told me not to try to have more children, Rene," I explained, even as I had explained it to her before several times. "Dr. Bishop told me that I might never be able to carry to second trimester, much less term, again - and that even if I could, it would be very hard on me." My hand dropped to my belly. My God! My baby!
"If this is going to be a high-risk pregnancy, then you really need to call him, the father..."
"Sydney."
"Sydney. Right. You need to call him, Mom." At my stubborn expression, her face got hard - probably a mirror image of my own. God, she could be so stubborn! "I mean it. If you don't, I will. I'm not going to be here after a couple of weeks, and I don't want you doing this alone."
"Please," I asked quietly. "Not if I'm just going to lose the baby, Rene."
"It's his baby too, Mom."
I couldn't argue with that, and I didn't even try. And I knew Rene watched me very carefully for the rest of the day to see if I finally did call - but I didn't. I couldn't. I didn't know what to say to him.
I knew better. I knew I knew better. I just hoped Rene would let it go this once.
I went to work on Monday as always, having packed soda crackers and mint tea bags for lunch while Rene fussed at me to go downtown and get pre-natal vitamins and iron supplements. Tuesday I felt a little better, maybe because I'd started taking the pills Rene had recommended, and actually ate three bites of a tuna salad sandwich at work that stayed down almost a whole hour. I should have known something was up Wednesday evening when I got home to find a pot of chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove and a daughter with a cat-catching-the-canary look on her face. But I had spent an entire day with my stomach raising enough hell with me that all I wanted was to go to bed.
Rene wouldn't leave me alone until I'd at least tackled a small bowl of soup, and then she badgered me to just lay down on the couch for a while and watch TV with her instead of going to bed like I wanted. She made the mistake of tucking me in under my mother's crocheted afghan, however, and I was out like a light within minutes.
As it was, I didn't even hear the doorbell ring or the sound of voices speaking softly in the hallway in front of the stairs. I only know that suddenly I could smell the crisp and spicy tang that had haunted my dreams and fantasies for weeks. I opened my eyes just as a large hand touched my cheek, and I stared. "Sydney?" I gaped, then was swept up into his arms.
He held me tightly against him for a long time, while I struggled to wrap my mind around the idea that this wasn't just one of my favorite night-time fantasies. Then he let me go just enough so that he could kiss me gently and smooth back the hair from my face. "Why didn't you tell me, Cat?" he asked softly in that wonderful, warm, accented baritone that held a subtle hint of scolding.
I looked up over his shoulder at Rene, standing there with a soft and satisfied smile on her face. "I hadn't worked up the nerve yet," I admitted, then looked back into his face and found myself trapped within the dark honey gaze I'd grown so fond of so quickly. "I just found out a few days ago myself..."
"You still should have called me right away," he chided me gentle. "I'd have been here that much sooner."
"I can't believe you're here now!" I ran my hands gently over his face, still having a hard time believing that he really WAS here. I looked up at Rene.
She shook her head. "I warned you that if you didn't call him, I would."
"You didn't!" I gaped.
I looked up at Sydney, only to find him nodding slowly. "She was the last person on earth I expected to hear on my answering machine, I promise you - and what she had to tell me when I called back was the last thing I EVER expected to hear." He shot her a look that was obviously impressed. "It took a lot of courage to make that call, young lady - and I'm glad you did."
He may have been pleased, but I was confused. "When? How?" I demanded.
"I dug out your phone bill, Mom. You said you were talking to him - I figured the only number in Delaware that you would have been calling would be his. I left a message and had him call me back while you were at work yesterday."
"But what about your job?" I asked him in amazement. "Your research..."
"This is more important," he told me simply. "YOU are more important, and," he put his hand on my middle for the first time, "our child is more important. I caught the first available flight."
"How long can you stay?" I whispered, afraid of the answer.
"Until I take you back with me to Delaware," he said firmly, and I knew I was going to have a battle on my hands convincing him otherwise. He must have seen the flash of stubbornness in my eyes, because he added, "I told them a week, but left myself an out for it to take longer than that."
Wouldn't you know it, just about then, the chicken noodle soup decided to rebel. "Sorry... Excuse me... I have to..." I began, and then pushed him roughly out of the way so I could throw off the afghan and make a mad dash for the bathroom.
"She isn't holding much of anything down," I heard my traitorous daughter inform him grimly as I darted past, and then heard him murmur something low in reply that I was too busy heaving behind a partially closed door to catch.
I felt him come into the bathroom behind me and then wrap one arm carefully around my middle while the other large hand came up to give my forehead something besides plastic to rest against. I was tired and worn out enough to appreciate the help in such a vulnerable and intimate situation, and when the heaving stopped, I let him pull me back to lean against him limply. I could feel him reaching and stretching, and then I had a cool cloth wiping my face gently. Then, "Here," he said and put a glass in my hand so I could rinse out my mouth.
Then I leaned back against him and relaxed when I felt his arms wrap around me again. "Is there nothing that stays down?" he asked gently.
I shook my head against his chest. "Not for long."
"C'mon," he urged after a while, "this is no place for you to rest." He caught me by the elbows and helped me to my feet, then tucked me securely against him and wrapped his arms front and back to make sure I was well supported and helped me out of the bathroom.
Rene, having obviously planned for this, had his suitcase and clothing bag in hand. "I'll show you to her room," she offered after shooting me a look that told me that not only was she just as glad he was here as I was, but she had no problems with his moving into my bedroom with me. I didn't know at that moment whether I wanted to hug her or shoot her, and I was too miserable to want to take the time to figure it out.
I was glad for his arms around me, because I honestly don't know that I would have made it up the stairs that night. Rene put the luggage down at the foot of my bed and watched him settle me down onto the edge of the bed. "I'll be downstairs watching TV if you need me," she told him, "and there will be a pot of chicken noodle soup on the stove for a while, in case you get hungry."
"Thanks, but I ate on the plane. I think I'll stay here with your mother for now." His tone was warm and gracious, but all of his attention was on me.
"I'll see you in the morning again, then," Rene said, and pulled the bedroom door closed behind her as she left.
I had forgotten how expressive his eyebrows could get, but evidently my daughter had surprised him enough to have them soaring. "You have quite the intelligent and resourceful daughter, Cat," he told me, sitting down at my side, "with a surprising strength of character to take all this in stride so well."
"She has a mind of her own, that's for sure," I grumbled at him, then reached up for his face again. "I still can't believe you're here," I repeated as he caught my hand, deposited a kiss on the palm and then leaned forward to kiss my cheek. "I thought I'd never... I'm sorry," I said finally.
"For what?"
"For all of this. For interrupting your life this way." I let my eyes twinkle a little with the joy of having him near me again. "For not being able to welcome you properly."
His eyes twinkled back at me. "True... It isn't often I'm greeted by having the person I've traveled halfway across the continent to see rushing off to the bathroom to loose her supper." He smiled down at me and smoothed his fingers across my look of chagrin. "I'm just sorry my son or daughter is giving you such a hard time."
"With any luck, I'll be fine in a couple of weeks or so," I told him. "I was both the other times. The moment I hit twelve weeks, everything would clear up and I'd feel fine again."
It took a moment for him to process what I'd said. "I thought you only had the one daughter." His brow wrinkled slightly.
"I lost a son in the sixth month," I told him quietly. "I fell down a flight of stairs and miscarried."
"We'll just have to make sure you don't do anything like that again," he grumbled, his fingertips caressing my cheek softly.
"Sydney, it may not matter." He looked at me sharply at my tone. "I was told never to try for another child - that I probably would only miscarry again." I reached up to him. "That's why I didn't want to tell you right away. If the doctors were right, I may not be able..."
"No! Everything is going to be just fine, you'll see, and we'll have a fine son or daughter to prove them wrong." He leaned his head down until it was laying on my shoulder while his hand stretched and spanned my stomach. "Do you hear that?" he spoke downward to my tummy. "You just stay right where you belong, little one, until it's the proper time for you to come out and join us. I'm your father, and I'm telling you to behave and stay put."
I giggled as I ran my fingers through his unstylishly long grey hair as he lay against me. He had his large hand covering my abdomen as if the thought of the life it held were of utter fascination to him, as if he could feel that life already. These were certainly not the actions I would have expected of a man with a grown son of his own. I was touched and pleased that he was taking this unexpected turn of events with such grace and even humor. But I wasn't prepared for him to sit up again and look into my face with glowing eyes that warmed me at their mere touch. "Do you have any idea how much I love you, Cat? Love you both?"
"Sydney..." My heart gave a hard thump at the sound of the words. "You don't have to say that, just because I'm..."
I didn't get a chance to continue, because he had me by the shoulders almost faster that I thought it possible for him to move. "Listen to me," he insisted, his accent growing more pronounced in his agitation. "I've been trying to tell you this every time we spoke on the phone, but you weren't hearing me. And it has nothing to do with your being pregnant now, so put that thought out of your mind." He pulled me into his arms again and held me to him tightly. "Hear me now. I love you, Cat. I should never have let you leave me in the first place. I was glad Rene called me - it gave me the kind of excuse I needed to come and make my case to you again in person."
I wrapped my arms around him and held him back. "This is crazy, but I love you too," I said very softly, feeling safe and loved and warm and cherished for the first time since our one beautiful night together over two months ago. "I was just afraid I would have been a passing infatuation for you - just a one-night stand - that you were just telling that to make me feel better about falling into bed with you..."
"I'm not that honorable," he informed me quickly. "If I were, you wouldn't be in this predicament. If I had any honor at all, I'd have been the perfect gentleman, and you'd have spent the night in my guest room completely unmolested."
"I'm glad you're not, then," I snuggled deeper into his arms. "Because I don't regret what happened - any of it."
"Neither do I. But now I really do need you to come home with me," he whispered into my ear, in that low register that I found so hard to refuse. He set me back so that he could look into my face again. " Marry me."
"Marry you?" The immensity and sudden nature of his suggestion took me completely by surprise.
"Marry me," he insisted even more firmly.
"Just because I'm pregnant..."
"Because we love each other. Marry me!"
"You're crazy!"
His dark-honey eyes danced. "You've told me that before, for all the good it did you."
I had to say it. "And if I lose the baby?"
"You're not going to lose the baby."
"But what if I do?" This was important - I couldn't let him just brush this aside.
"Then we'll mourn together, because we'll have lost something we both wanted very much." His face was serious, his eyes sad, and I knew that he wasn't just trying to brush the idea aside anymore. "But I told you that this has nothing to do with the baby. I love you and I want to be with you. Marry me. Let me take care of you both. Please!"
I leaned into him, too tired to continue. "Right now, all I want is for you to just hold me," I told him quietly. "I'm tired, and I feel like hell, and I just want you beside me. We can have this out in the morning, I promise. Please?"
"Where's your nightgown? I'll help you get undressed," he said, instantly solicitous, and all challenge evaporated from his voice.
I directed him to my chest of drawers while I started to peel off my blouse and slacks. He had a shift out for me soon, and came back to me as I sat on the edge of the bed folding my clothing wearing nothing but a bra and panties. He sat next to me and waited for me to finish, then put the shift in my hand and leaned back to unsnap my bra so I could remove it. While I was drawing the shift over my head, he was moving my folded clothes to the top of the dresser. I stood long enough to pull the covers back from the pillow and then slipped beneath them.
Then I watched as he carefully shed his jacket and shoes, shirt, socks and then trousers -until all he was wearing were his boxers. He folded his clothing and piled it next to mine on the dresser, then went and turned out the overhead light. I held the covers up so that he could slip into bed from the other side, and then he gathered me into his arms and pillowed my head on his chest the way I remembered so clearly from before. "Go to sleep, Cat," he murmured against my hair. "I love you. I have you now, and I intend for it to stay that way."
"I love you too," I replied softly, turning into him and letting my arm find a comfortable spot stretched across his body. This was paradise, to feel him holding me, his skin soft and warm against mine. His hands soothed against my upper arms, stroked my back slowly and worked out some of the stress-induced knots that had started to form there. This was tenderness of a kind I'd never dreamed would be mine.
In time we slept, and I turned in my sleep. I roused slightly as I felt him moving behind me, wrapping his body down my entire back and curling his legs up behind mine like a warm spoon and still cradling me close in his arms. Only now one arm held my upper body to him while his other hand had sought out and lay outspread and warm over my abdomen, over our child. Even in his sleep, he was still wondering at and celebrating this!
I awoke, as usual, about an hour before my alarm was set to go off. Only this morning, I didn't need to relive my favorite dream of him and our one beautiful night together before rising to go to work. My dream was my reality. I lay quietly in his arms and marveled that he was really here, curled comfortably and warm against my back, really holding me again. I turned very carefully within his embrace, trying not to awaken him, but he roused at my slightest movement. Suddenly I was drowning in his dark honey gaze.
"You're really here," I murmured softly, putting a hand up to his slightly bristly cheek.
"I'm really here," he replied in a very low register, and then kissed me. The kiss started softly and sweetly, but quickly deepened and became charged with all the longing the both of us had held back. His one hand swept up my back to tangle in my hair while the other pulled my lower body into him, where I could feel him wanting me. His hand wandered to my thigh, to the hem of my nightgown, as I arched into him, then pulled back slowly. "We shouldn't be doing this," he muttered as he dropped kisses of fire against my chin and neck. "I don't want to hurt you or the baby."
"I'm pregnant, not broken," I told him with a chuckle. "Please, God, don't stop!" I urged and then kissed him hard as I felt his hand move again, find the hem and begin a slow and erotic path northwards on bare skin. The ache in parts of my body that had been merely sore became pulsing aches of want, and I couldn't help the shudders and moans when he found those places and with gentle and skillful fingers turned the pain into pleasure. He made love to me more slowly and carefully and tenderly than I ever thought possible, holding back from putting his full weight on me or moving too quickly or too abruptly inside me and yet making my memories of his lovemaking before mere shadows of the reality of now. Afterwards, he gathered me close in his arms again so that we could catch our breaths together.
"I want you to call in sick today," he told me eventually, when his breathing had slowed to normal again.
"Sydney..."
"Or, better still, call in and give your notice." I struggled just free enough of his embrace to prop myself up on an elbow, so he could see the look of determination I was giving him. He gave me one of his own right back, obviously ready now to wade right back into the discussion we'd been having the night before. "I mean it, Cat. Your weight loss isn't healthy for you or the baby. Going to work only spends energy that you can't afford right now."
"I'm not sick. My hormones are just going crazy. I'm pregnant, not broken - remember?"
"I know that, but I'd like to see if I can help you hold some food down today - and I can't do that with you perched on a lab stool playing with test tubes."
Something he'd said finally penetrated. "Give notice?" My voice must have given away my suspicion.
He reached up to run a thumb along my chin line. "Or tell your supervisor you're taking an indefinite leave of absence. Whatever." I could see where his mind was going.
"I haven't said yes," I reminded him, laying my head back down on his chest and feeling him gather me close again.
I felt and heard the chuckle well up from deep inside him. "You haven't said no either," he reminded me back. "I'm deliberately interpreting that as encouraging."
He was right. I hadn't said no. I was even less likely to say no now than I was an hour earlier - but I didn't want him to think I could be that easily convinced by a roll in the hay with the man of my dreams. This was MY life we were talking about here too... "I'm still considering my options," I informed him.
"So... are you calling in sick, or going in to work?" he asked, his hands stroking down my arms and back again in movements that had me practically purring.
"You're spoiling me again," I grumbled into his pectorals.
"I'm being persuasive and using every means at my disposal to persuade - and you didn't answer my question," he replied gently and with what I guessed was his best professional air. "So...?"
"OK. Alright. I'm calling in," I relented and pushed out of his arms to sit up. "But just for today. I have a project I need to finish tomorrow that I've been working on for over two years..." I reached for the phone handset on the night stand and dialed the number for the lab. "Julia? It's Cathy. Listen, I've been feeling under the weather the past couple of days, and I thought I'd stay at home and try to get on top of it today."
"Not a prob," my boss assured me. "Jim can take charge of doing the final readouts today. Will you be in tomorrow?"
"To do the final report, yes. But my stomach's not doing so great. lately - I think I'd rather do the typing while Jim handles disposal this time." I smiled. Sydney had sat up behind me and was rubbing my shoulders gently. God but I could get used to having him around, I thought. “Being persuasive” was a masterpiece of understatement - he was now kissing the back of my neck very softly, and those kisses were becoming very distracting.
"I was thinking you'd been looking a little on the droopy side lately. Take as long as you need and feel better soon," Julia chirped at me and then disconnected.
I put the phone set down again and turned to him. "There. Happy?"
"Very." His hands at my shoulders pulled me into leaning back against him. "I didn't realize you could be so stubborn." His hands wrapped around my naked front, one immediately spreading and covering my abdomen and the other coming up and across my chest to caress a cheek.
"That's the biggest problem with us," I told him, closing my eyes and enjoying his caresses immensely. "We've talked about a lot of things, but we still don't KNOW each other that well. Face it, we fell into bed together a little fast that night - both of us a little more vulnerable and needier than we might have been otherwise. We'll be taking a big risk to base an entire life together on one very special twenty-four hour period, no matter how much we both enjoyed our time together - then and this morning."
"I've known people who knew their partners for years before they got together, and still the relationship fell apart in the end," he said softly in my ear, then kissed the top edge of it and made me shiver. "But more importantly, I know I love you - and I do know the difference between love and simple lust. I know I love this baby because we created it together - and I want to be part of our child's life from the very beginning." His hand moved on my abdomen lovingly while his voice grew melancholy. "I missed out sharing every important part of my son's life, Michelle's pregnancy, delivery, his first steps, all those years of raising him. Hell, I didn't even find out about him until he was already grown and going to college." He buried his face in my neck. "I don't want to miss out again. Don't ask me to, because I can't - I won't."
So THAT was why he was acting so much like a first-time father - this WAS his first time going through this! "You didn't tell me this before," I said softly, turning in his arms. Another piece of the puzzle that was Sydney fell into place, and I suddenly knew what my decision had to be - for his sake, as well as my own and our child's. I took a deep breath - feeling like I was stepping off of a precipice - and looked up into his face hesitantly. "Yes."
There it was, for the first time since he'd gotten here - that wide, even-toothed smile of pure happiness and contentedness. "God I love you," he whispered emotionally, and lowered his lips to mine again to steal away my breath and my ability to think clearly.
Eventually I pulled on a very loose-fitting caftan over some stretch tights and a long-sleeved T-shirt while he unpacked into my closet and climbed into informal but warm garb. I brushed out my hair and braided it back while he shaved, sharing the mirror and the intimacy of such mundane personal tasks and finding it a comfortable, easy adjustment to make.
Rene had the coffee made by the time we sauntered down the stairs, and she smiled at us knowingly as she poured a single mug for Sydney and turned the tea kettle on for me. "Good morning. So..." she asked once we had all sat down at the table, "any decisions made?" Sydney and I exchanged glances, and Rene's smile got wider. "Good," was all she said. There are times that girl is too damned smart for her own good.
"You don't mind?" Sydney asked gently, hesitantly. It was a poignant and powerful gesture, his asking my daughter's permission. It showed that he knew he was taking me far away from her and actually cared enough to worry about her reaction. If I had loved him before, I adored him now for his consideration of my daughter's feelings. And even Rene was surprised at being consulted in this as if her opinion mattered. Her father had never done that.
"Mind? Of course not," Rene exclaimed quietly. "Look at her," she nodded in my direction. "She looks happy - or, at least, as happy as she can be while in the middle of morning sickness. I knew I'd done the right thing calling you when I saw you two together last night." My daughter winked at me, which made me chuckle despite the tendency of my stomach to twist with the fragrant smell of coffee. I could tell that she'd decided that she liked him, which relieved me no end. "So when do you take her home with you?"
"I still have to tell Julia," I piped up. "And finish the report I have to write tomorrow."
"She's procrastinating again," Rene stage-whispered at him.
"I know it looks that way, but a two-year-long research project isn't something that a person can walk away from all that easily," he answered with obvious experience. "You finish that report tomorrow," he told me, "and talk to this Julia again."
"I'll have to arrange to put everything here into storage," I said, keeping my nose in the stream of scented steam from the mint tea - it seemed to help against the onslaught of other smells - "until Rene is living somewhere other than in the dorms."
"Rene and I can go out later this morning and find a storage locker large enough for what you need stored," he announced decisively, "while YOU start making lists of what you want to take with you and what you want stored. I want you to lounge on the couch quietly all day. You will do nothing but rest and work at keeping your food down for a change."
Now it was my eyebrows that rose. "You're not asking much of me, are you?"
"You're already doing the really important job, Cat, let Rene and me concentrate on doing the rest of it," he replied, smoothing the back of his fingertips across my cheek without concern for our being watched. Rene, for her part, wisely kept her mouth shut, but I could see her eyes widen in surprise and amusement, and then approval. Her father had never shown me any tenderness openly - and damned little of it privately in later times. Obviously Sydney had managed to make serious headway in the winning of my daughter's full support and affection.
Sydney had Rene make me some dry toast, deliberately ignoring my look of dismay, and had the pieces cut into quarters. Then, while they munched out on buttered toast and jelly, he gave me one quarter of a piece and told me, in no uncertain terms, to chew it thoroughly and slowly and wash it down with a small bit of mint tea. I'd get some more after a while after I'd held that down, he reassured me. I may have grumbled loudly, but I did as he instructed, buoyed along soon enough by the ripple of conversation between these two people that I loved best.
He began to ask her knowledgeable questions about her pre-med program of studies, and soon she was asking him back about his work as a psychiatrist. Somewhere along the line the discussion turned to applications of the scientific method, at which point I could begin to chime in too. We talked long into the morning, the flow of conversation taking off occasionally at oblique tangents and nobody seeming to mind. I could see both of them slowly relaxing toward the other, slowly letting their senses of humor show. Later, when I had the time to think about it, I decided that we had built the foundations of a new family unit in those cozy minutes in my kitchen.
While Rene cleaned up breakfast and then went upstairs to get dressed, I found out in no uncertain terms that I wasn't the only stubborn person in the house besides my daughter anymore. He was serious and very determined that I was to stay on the couch for the day, and would hear no argument from me on the matter whatsoever. He tucked me in firmly beneath mother's afghan, much as he'd found me the night before, and then put a legal pad and pen in my hands for me to start making my lists of what to store and what to ship. Then, while he went upstairs to fetch his heavy coat for the trip to rent storage space, Rene came over to me.
"You didn't choose half-badly this time, Mom," she said softly with her approval obvious in both voice and expression. "This Sydney of yours is a real sweetheart and an absolute charmer. What a change from Dad!"
"He is something, isn't he?" I asked almost proudly.
"And he's so good to you. I wish you'd found him a long time ago." She bent over me as she heard his footfall on the stairs. "At least I won't have to worry about you anymore if you're with him - he knows how to keep you in line..." she told me with another wink and then bussed me on the cheek messily like she used to when she was younger as I began to bluster. She waited patiently while I was fussed over and then kissed thoroughly by the new man of the house, then contentedly followed him out the door as if it were something she'd done all her life.
The following days were a blur. At work, Jim had done such a good job with the final tabulations that typing up the final report on my project was a breeze - giving me a huge sense of accomplishment for seeing the job through to the end. Julia's expression when I told her I was quitting as I handed her the report - not to mention WHY I was quitting - was priceless. Sydney's look of utter contentment when I told him that I'd not only given notice but out-and-out quit was heart-stopping.
After that, I reconciled myself to my assigned job as supervisor as the two of them went through everything and started packing. I was allowed the couch and the job of traffic director most of the time, and got to watch my living room slowly fill with packing boxes. But I was firmly put to bed to rest for a while on those increasingly rare occasions when my stomach simply refused to cooperate with any new adjustments to my diet. I was pampered and cajoled and wheedled and blatantly manipulated during the day, and then at night lay in warm contentment in the arms of the man I was going to marry very soon.
One of the last things to be packed was my clothing to take on the plane with me. Rene was going through my chest of drawers, emptying them into the large suitcase and travel bag, when she ran across the plastic bag with the cardigan sweater neatly folded inside. I was sitting on the bed, suitcase open in front of me and putting lingerie into it piece by piece, when she brought the bag over to me, her eyes filled with curiosity. "Mom?" she asked, from her voice, obviously hoping for a story to go with the sweater.
I just put my hands up for the article. "It's part of a promise to Sydney I have to keep yet," I told her cryptically, tucking it into the suitcase amid silks and laces, "something left over from the first time we met that hasn't been finished yet."
"You aren't going to tell me," she said, disappointed.
"I'll tell you later, the first time you come visit us in Delaware, poppet," I promised. "Right now, it's a private matter between him and me. By then, it will be story material."
"I'm going to miss you," she said with a sniffle, returning to the drawer to haul out the final armload of lingerie. "I'm glad you're going, but I'm going to miss having you closer." She sat down on the bed next to me after she'd put her deposit near the suitcase, where I could reach it. "I won't see you again until little peanut will be just about ready to hatch."
"You don't have to wait that long," I told her, pulling her into my arms. "There's Spring Break..."
"You'll just be getting settled in," she complained.
"Rene..." Sydney's voice sounded from the bedroom door, "I think Spring Break sounds like a good time for you to come home to Delaware to visit with your mother." He came in and stood next to the two of us, and then very hesitantly put a hand down on her shoulder. "I want you to know that you have a place in our home - that it is your home too... now."
I don't ever think I've seen Rene so surprised that she was speechless before - and then suddenly she was on her feet with her arms wrapped tightly around Sydney's neck for the briefest of moments before making a beeline for the bedroom door. "What was that?" he asked, bemused, looking after her.
I just shook my head and went back to my packing. I knew very well what was going on - my daughter was slowly coming to realize she finally had found someone she could look up to as a father figure - but it wasn't my place to comment. I knew better than that. I knew I knew better. And I was determined to let them forge their own relationship properly, without any interference from me.
It was nearly dark and quite cold when we finally got to Blue Cove after the emotional rollercoaster of handing over my precious house keys - keys to my haven of independence from Jake - to the realtor and then bidding my daughter goodbye at the airport. He helped me from the car in the shelter of the garage and popped the trunk, but: "Wait a minute," he stopped me just as I was reaching for the door. He came over to me and lifted me up into his arms. "Traditions matter," he said, kissing me softly, then carried me over the threshold of his... our... house.
That night, while I was slowly unpacking only the most essential stuff into the space he'd made temporarily for me in his chest of drawers, I uncovered the plastic bag Rene had found for me. With a smile I pulled the sweater from its bag and walked over to him as he stood carefully hanging out my dresses and good clothes into his closet and tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
When he turned, I held the sweater out to him. "I brought it back, just like I promised."
He smiled - another one of those wide, even-toothed smiles of pure happiness - and took the sweater from my hands. "It's about time," he growled, tossing the sweater on the top of the dresser, and reached for me. He pulled me close into his arms and framed my face between his hands, and I found myself drowning anew in those dark honey eyes of his. "God, I love you," he rumbled at me in that low register that never failed to thrill and then lowered his lips to mine passionately. His hands began to move slowly and surely - finding skin on my arms, and then my throat, and then my chest as the buttons of my blouse seemed to just come open at his touch - pulling me into him and letting me know that we were definitely done unpacking for the time being.
So THIS was Delaware in winter, I thought as I arched into his hands that were now stroking me to distraction, turning soreness into desire.
That was my last coherent thought for the day.
Chapter 2: Consequences
God! What was I going to do NOW?
I stared down at the little plastic unit, the blue plus mark staring back at me, bold and convinced - and I could hardly believe my eyes. Pregnant. Me. At my age. I had a grown daughter, for God's sake! What would she think? And Jake, whether I liked it or not, still wanted to hover proprietarily. He'd be livid - and jealous, because I hadn't wanted to let him touch me for months before we separated. And Sydney...
Oh God, what was I going to tell Sydney? HOW was I going to tell Sydney?
No, we hadn't used precautions that night - the thought hadn't even crossed our minds. We were both adults supposedly past our prime - the chance of pregnancy was supposedly far enough behind us by then to hardly even matter. Besides, our night together had been completely unscripted, unplanned, unexpected. Thoroughly unbelievable. And afterwards, he had begged me, pleaded with me with that sonorous and hypnotic accent of his, to come back to him some day. He had given me his sweater and made me promise that I'd bring it back to him myself.
I still had the sweater, and it still smelled of him - I kept it in a plastic bag to preserve that crisp and spicy tang, and never washed it. When I was alone and started to feel abandoned, I knew I had but to dial his number - which I knew by heart now - and I could touch someone who cared for me, not as a mother or provider or employer, but for ME. Or, when it was too late or too early to bother him, I'd bury my nose in his sweater or put it on, and feel his arms around me again for a little while in my mind.
He still asked me to “come home to me”, every time we spoke by phone - he'd warned me that he was both patient and insistent, and had proved beyond a doubt that he'd been telling the truth. I'd even gotten so far as to tentatively schedule a vacation at the end of February - the earliest I could get time off without making people suspicious - but that was over six weeks away. How could I go to him now with this bit of news?
I wouldn't even have thought to check this out if it hadn't been that I'd been having trouble eating in the mornings lately. I had thought myself far enough into menopause that my having missed my period twice in a row hadn't raised any alarms - but now I was having trouble holding anything down, and my breasts were getting tender too. I'd been pregnant twice; I knew the signs - but I bought the little test, figuring I was just eliminating distant possibilities. Distant my ass!
Rene was coming down this weekend to go to the theater with me and then spend a couple of weeks between terms at the university. One of the blessings to come of that draining set of interviews at the Centre - and my all-too-short time with a Centre psychiatrist - had been a renewed sense of closeness with my daughter. She had been so pleased when I called her not long after I'd gotten back from Delaware, asking if she was coming home for Christmas. During her vacation we had spent long hours talking, REALLY talking, for the first time since her father and I had divorced. We talked about everything and anything - but I hadn't told her about Sydney. He was my secret touchstone, my inner amulet.
I didn't know how I was going to keep this from her, as lousy as I was feeling - and in the end, I couldn't. She could see that I was losing weight and not feeling well and being generally more emotional than usual. And there were other things as well. Always a bright child, and a pre-med student at that, she finally put two and two together.
"Who is he, Mom?" she demanded, standing in my kitchen in her favorite silk bathrobe that Sunday morning, hand on her hip while I tried to choke down my morning cup of mint tea.
"He who?" I asked, hoping she'd take the hint and drop it. I knew better. I knew I knew better. But I still hoped.
"Gimme a break. You've been sick as a dog every time you eat since I got here," she announced as if she were a newscaster, "and frankly, you look as if you've had breast enhancements. I'm not stupid, Mom - please don't treat me as if I were." Well, she WAS studying medicine - what did I expect? "You're pregnant. So... who is he?"
"You... don't know him," I admitted finally, feeling my stomach twist at the admission.
"Who. Is. He?" When I refused to answer her, she sat down next to me and put her hand on my arm. "Does he know?"
"I just found out myself a day or so before you got here," I snapped at her a little more sharply than I should have. I knew better, and was instantly contrite. "I'm sorry, poppet. No, he doesn't know."
"Are you going to keep it?" was her next question.
I stared at her in dismay, my hand dropping as almost instinctual protective shield to the life I was carrying. "I..." I hadn't even thought of that. This child was as unexpected as the circumstances surrounding its begetting - but those circumstances had been as loving in their own way as the circumstances that had given me Rene at the time. "Yes," I said finally, coming to a decision. In this child I would always have a little piece of Sydney with me, even though our lives were so far apart in other ways. In forcing me to face the question, Rene had helped me realize that I wanted this child very much.
"Then you should call him and tell him," she told me firmly. "He deserves to know."
"I know, but..." I couldn't continue. He didn't deserve to be tied down to a baby. Not over a one-night stand that was as much my fault as his.
"How did this happen - outside of the obvious?" Rene had her hand on my arm again, and her voice was comforting, supportive. She thought for a moment. "This is something that happened when you went back East, isn't it? Something you didn't tell me about?"
I nodded. "He was the psychiatrist that did the final interview of the study," I began, and found that as I spoke, sharing this with my daughter was a genuine relief. "I stayed an extra day in Dover to visit the ocean. We ended up at the same beach the next midday, completely by accident. I found out he was... struggling with some of what I'd just worked through about your Aunt Caryn, and I offered to listen." Rene's face crinkled in disbelief, and I patted her hand on my arm. "You see, the questions he'd asked me really helped me finally work through things regarding Aunt Caryn's death - I thought it would be nice if I could return the favor."
"You evidently did more than just listen, Mom," Rene said, her lips twitching with the irony of the statement. And, thinking about it, I had to smile too.
"You're right, I did. I'm not ashamed of it, though." I looked her square in the eye. "He is everything that your father never was - and we still care very much for each other. He..." How could I tell her this? "He keeps asking me to come back, when we talk on the phone."
"So... go." She looked at me evenly, taking in my surprise without a flinch. "If what you say is true, then he's at least fond of you - maybe even loves you. God knows you should see your face when you talk about him. I know YOU love HIM, or at least are very fond of him too. That's better than what you had with Dad for a long time. Go. You shouldn't have to go through this alone."
"I can't just leave, Rene! I have projects to finish at the lab..."
"You'll have to leave them in seven or eight months at the latest anyway, Mom, not to mention that the fumes in there sometimes could be very bad for the baby." She leaned forward and patted me on my tummy. "This is my little brother or sister we're talking about here. You have to take care of him or her."
"Julia..."
"Oh, Julia can just go screw herself. She's let you work yourself to a frazzle for years and made a bundle of change off your findings. You know that as well as I do."
"Rene!"
"Mom," and with that, my twenty-five year old daughter stood up and walked over to me and put her arms around me, "you've been so sad and so alone for so long. You deserve a little happiness for a change. Go stay with your Delaware shrink for a while. You'll need someone to take care of you now a little anyway - and he's the one who most deserves the job, as I see it. And if it doesn't work out, you know Julia will have you back in a heartbeat..."
I put my arms around my little girl - not so little anymore, evidently. "I was afraid you'd be angry or disappointed in me."
"I am disappointed," she said gently, "that between Daddy and Aunt Caryn, you pushed me away so far and for so long that you don't know me as well as you used to. But I can't judge you for your time with this man - and I'm certainly not angry about little “peanut” there." She pushed back a bit and gave me a brilliant smile. "I always wanted a brother or sister, remember? Took you long enough to get around to it..." She kissed my forehead. "And at least it isn't Dad's..."
That statement warmed my heart, and then froze it. "Poppet, you're studying medicine - you know how dangerous it is for someone my age to have a baby. Besides, we've been forgetting something."
"What's that?"
"What happened after Andrew."
I knew it the moment she realized what I was talking about, because she hugged me just a little tighter. "Oh Mama, that was just an accident, right? You fell..."
Fell nothing. Jake had been angry with me, and pushed at the wrong time - and I'd fallen backwards down the stairs and then lost our second child, the son he had so desperately wanted. That had been the real start of our marriage falling apart, years before anything actually fell apart between us. I had forced myself to hold everything together for the sake of our eight-year-old daughter - even when there was little to hold together anymore.
"The doctors told me not to try to have more children, Rene," I explained, even as I had explained it to her before several times. "Dr. Bishop told me that I might never be able to carry to second trimester, much less term, again - and that even if I could, it would be very hard on me." My hand dropped to my belly. My God! My baby!
"If this is going to be a high-risk pregnancy, then you really need to call him, the father..."
"Sydney."
"Sydney. Right. You need to call him, Mom." At my stubborn expression, her face got hard - probably a mirror image of my own. God, she could be so stubborn! "I mean it. If you don't, I will. I'm not going to be here after a couple of weeks, and I don't want you doing this alone."
"Please," I asked quietly. "Not if I'm just going to lose the baby, Rene."
"It's his baby too, Mom."
I couldn't argue with that, and I didn't even try. And I knew Rene watched me very carefully for the rest of the day to see if I finally did call - but I didn't. I couldn't. I didn't know what to say to him.
I knew better. I knew I knew better. I just hoped Rene would let it go this once.
I went to work on Monday as always, having packed soda crackers and mint tea bags for lunch while Rene fussed at me to go downtown and get pre-natal vitamins and iron supplements. Tuesday I felt a little better, maybe because I'd started taking the pills Rene had recommended, and actually ate three bites of a tuna salad sandwich at work that stayed down almost a whole hour. I should have known something was up Wednesday evening when I got home to find a pot of chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove and a daughter with a cat-catching-the-canary look on her face. But I had spent an entire day with my stomach raising enough hell with me that all I wanted was to go to bed.
Rene wouldn't leave me alone until I'd at least tackled a small bowl of soup, and then she badgered me to just lay down on the couch for a while and watch TV with her instead of going to bed like I wanted. She made the mistake of tucking me in under my mother's crocheted afghan, however, and I was out like a light within minutes.
As it was, I didn't even hear the doorbell ring or the sound of voices speaking softly in the hallway in front of the stairs. I only know that suddenly I could smell the crisp and spicy tang that had haunted my dreams and fantasies for weeks. I opened my eyes just as a large hand touched my cheek, and I stared. "Sydney?" I gaped, then was swept up into his arms.
He held me tightly against him for a long time, while I struggled to wrap my mind around the idea that this wasn't just one of my favorite night-time fantasies. Then he let me go just enough so that he could kiss me gently and smooth back the hair from my face. "Why didn't you tell me, Cat?" he asked softly in that wonderful, warm, accented baritone that held a subtle hint of scolding.
I looked up over his shoulder at Rene, standing there with a soft and satisfied smile on her face. "I hadn't worked up the nerve yet," I admitted, then looked back into his face and found myself trapped within the dark honey gaze I'd grown so fond of so quickly. "I just found out a few days ago myself..."
"You still should have called me right away," he chided me gentle. "I'd have been here that much sooner."
"I can't believe you're here now!" I ran my hands gently over his face, still having a hard time believing that he really WAS here. I looked up at Rene.
She shook her head. "I warned you that if you didn't call him, I would."
"You didn't!" I gaped.
I looked up at Sydney, only to find him nodding slowly. "She was the last person on earth I expected to hear on my answering machine, I promise you - and what she had to tell me when I called back was the last thing I EVER expected to hear." He shot her a look that was obviously impressed. "It took a lot of courage to make that call, young lady - and I'm glad you did."
He may have been pleased, but I was confused. "When? How?" I demanded.
"I dug out your phone bill, Mom. You said you were talking to him - I figured the only number in Delaware that you would have been calling would be his. I left a message and had him call me back while you were at work yesterday."
"But what about your job?" I asked him in amazement. "Your research..."
"This is more important," he told me simply. "YOU are more important, and," he put his hand on my middle for the first time, "our child is more important. I caught the first available flight."
"How long can you stay?" I whispered, afraid of the answer.
"Until I take you back with me to Delaware," he said firmly, and I knew I was going to have a battle on my hands convincing him otherwise. He must have seen the flash of stubbornness in my eyes, because he added, "I told them a week, but left myself an out for it to take longer than that."
Wouldn't you know it, just about then, the chicken noodle soup decided to rebel. "Sorry... Excuse me... I have to..." I began, and then pushed him roughly out of the way so I could throw off the afghan and make a mad dash for the bathroom.
"She isn't holding much of anything down," I heard my traitorous daughter inform him grimly as I darted past, and then heard him murmur something low in reply that I was too busy heaving behind a partially closed door to catch.
I felt him come into the bathroom behind me and then wrap one arm carefully around my middle while the other large hand came up to give my forehead something besides plastic to rest against. I was tired and worn out enough to appreciate the help in such a vulnerable and intimate situation, and when the heaving stopped, I let him pull me back to lean against him limply. I could feel him reaching and stretching, and then I had a cool cloth wiping my face gently. Then, "Here," he said and put a glass in my hand so I could rinse out my mouth.
Then I leaned back against him and relaxed when I felt his arms wrap around me again. "Is there nothing that stays down?" he asked gently.
I shook my head against his chest. "Not for long."
"C'mon," he urged after a while, "this is no place for you to rest." He caught me by the elbows and helped me to my feet, then tucked me securely against him and wrapped his arms front and back to make sure I was well supported and helped me out of the bathroom.
Rene, having obviously planned for this, had his suitcase and clothing bag in hand. "I'll show you to her room," she offered after shooting me a look that told me that not only was she just as glad he was here as I was, but she had no problems with his moving into my bedroom with me. I didn't know at that moment whether I wanted to hug her or shoot her, and I was too miserable to want to take the time to figure it out.
I was glad for his arms around me, because I honestly don't know that I would have made it up the stairs that night. Rene put the luggage down at the foot of my bed and watched him settle me down onto the edge of the bed. "I'll be downstairs watching TV if you need me," she told him, "and there will be a pot of chicken noodle soup on the stove for a while, in case you get hungry."
"Thanks, but I ate on the plane. I think I'll stay here with your mother for now." His tone was warm and gracious, but all of his attention was on me.
"I'll see you in the morning again, then," Rene said, and pulled the bedroom door closed behind her as she left.
I had forgotten how expressive his eyebrows could get, but evidently my daughter had surprised him enough to have them soaring. "You have quite the intelligent and resourceful daughter, Cat," he told me, sitting down at my side, "with a surprising strength of character to take all this in stride so well."
"She has a mind of her own, that's for sure," I grumbled at him, then reached up for his face again. "I still can't believe you're here," I repeated as he caught my hand, deposited a kiss on the palm and then leaned forward to kiss my cheek. "I thought I'd never... I'm sorry," I said finally.
"For what?"
"For all of this. For interrupting your life this way." I let my eyes twinkle a little with the joy of having him near me again. "For not being able to welcome you properly."
His eyes twinkled back at me. "True... It isn't often I'm greeted by having the person I've traveled halfway across the continent to see rushing off to the bathroom to loose her supper." He smiled down at me and smoothed his fingers across my look of chagrin. "I'm just sorry my son or daughter is giving you such a hard time."
"With any luck, I'll be fine in a couple of weeks or so," I told him. "I was both the other times. The moment I hit twelve weeks, everything would clear up and I'd feel fine again."
It took a moment for him to process what I'd said. "I thought you only had the one daughter." His brow wrinkled slightly.
"I lost a son in the sixth month," I told him quietly. "I fell down a flight of stairs and miscarried."
"We'll just have to make sure you don't do anything like that again," he grumbled, his fingertips caressing my cheek softly.
"Sydney, it may not matter." He looked at me sharply at my tone. "I was told never to try for another child - that I probably would only miscarry again." I reached up to him. "That's why I didn't want to tell you right away. If the doctors were right, I may not be able..."
"No! Everything is going to be just fine, you'll see, and we'll have a fine son or daughter to prove them wrong." He leaned his head down until it was laying on my shoulder while his hand stretched and spanned my stomach. "Do you hear that?" he spoke downward to my tummy. "You just stay right where you belong, little one, until it's the proper time for you to come out and join us. I'm your father, and I'm telling you to behave and stay put."
I giggled as I ran my fingers through his unstylishly long grey hair as he lay against me. He had his large hand covering my abdomen as if the thought of the life it held were of utter fascination to him, as if he could feel that life already. These were certainly not the actions I would have expected of a man with a grown son of his own. I was touched and pleased that he was taking this unexpected turn of events with such grace and even humor. But I wasn't prepared for him to sit up again and look into my face with glowing eyes that warmed me at their mere touch. "Do you have any idea how much I love you, Cat? Love you both?"
"Sydney..." My heart gave a hard thump at the sound of the words. "You don't have to say that, just because I'm..."
I didn't get a chance to continue, because he had me by the shoulders almost faster that I thought it possible for him to move. "Listen to me," he insisted, his accent growing more pronounced in his agitation. "I've been trying to tell you this every time we spoke on the phone, but you weren't hearing me. And it has nothing to do with your being pregnant now, so put that thought out of your mind." He pulled me into his arms again and held me to him tightly. "Hear me now. I love you, Cat. I should never have let you leave me in the first place. I was glad Rene called me - it gave me the kind of excuse I needed to come and make my case to you again in person."
I wrapped my arms around him and held him back. "This is crazy, but I love you too," I said very softly, feeling safe and loved and warm and cherished for the first time since our one beautiful night together over two months ago. "I was just afraid I would have been a passing infatuation for you - just a one-night stand - that you were just telling that to make me feel better about falling into bed with you..."
"I'm not that honorable," he informed me quickly. "If I were, you wouldn't be in this predicament. If I had any honor at all, I'd have been the perfect gentleman, and you'd have spent the night in my guest room completely unmolested."
"I'm glad you're not, then," I snuggled deeper into his arms. "Because I don't regret what happened - any of it."
"Neither do I. But now I really do need you to come home with me," he whispered into my ear, in that low register that I found so hard to refuse. He set me back so that he could look into my face again. " Marry me."
"Marry you?" The immensity and sudden nature of his suggestion took me completely by surprise.
"Marry me," he insisted even more firmly.
"Just because I'm pregnant..."
"Because we love each other. Marry me!"
"You're crazy!"
His dark-honey eyes danced. "You've told me that before, for all the good it did you."
I had to say it. "And if I lose the baby?"
"You're not going to lose the baby."
"But what if I do?" This was important - I couldn't let him just brush this aside.
"Then we'll mourn together, because we'll have lost something we both wanted very much." His face was serious, his eyes sad, and I knew that he wasn't just trying to brush the idea aside anymore. "But I told you that this has nothing to do with the baby. I love you and I want to be with you. Marry me. Let me take care of you both. Please!"
I leaned into him, too tired to continue. "Right now, all I want is for you to just hold me," I told him quietly. "I'm tired, and I feel like hell, and I just want you beside me. We can have this out in the morning, I promise. Please?"
"Where's your nightgown? I'll help you get undressed," he said, instantly solicitous, and all challenge evaporated from his voice.
I directed him to my chest of drawers while I started to peel off my blouse and slacks. He had a shift out for me soon, and came back to me as I sat on the edge of the bed folding my clothing wearing nothing but a bra and panties. He sat next to me and waited for me to finish, then put the shift in my hand and leaned back to unsnap my bra so I could remove it. While I was drawing the shift over my head, he was moving my folded clothes to the top of the dresser. I stood long enough to pull the covers back from the pillow and then slipped beneath them.
Then I watched as he carefully shed his jacket and shoes, shirt, socks and then trousers -until all he was wearing were his boxers. He folded his clothing and piled it next to mine on the dresser, then went and turned out the overhead light. I held the covers up so that he could slip into bed from the other side, and then he gathered me into his arms and pillowed my head on his chest the way I remembered so clearly from before. "Go to sleep, Cat," he murmured against my hair. "I love you. I have you now, and I intend for it to stay that way."
"I love you too," I replied softly, turning into him and letting my arm find a comfortable spot stretched across his body. This was paradise, to feel him holding me, his skin soft and warm against mine. His hands soothed against my upper arms, stroked my back slowly and worked out some of the stress-induced knots that had started to form there. This was tenderness of a kind I'd never dreamed would be mine.
In time we slept, and I turned in my sleep. I roused slightly as I felt him moving behind me, wrapping his body down my entire back and curling his legs up behind mine like a warm spoon and still cradling me close in his arms. Only now one arm held my upper body to him while his other hand had sought out and lay outspread and warm over my abdomen, over our child. Even in his sleep, he was still wondering at and celebrating this!
I awoke, as usual, about an hour before my alarm was set to go off. Only this morning, I didn't need to relive my favorite dream of him and our one beautiful night together before rising to go to work. My dream was my reality. I lay quietly in his arms and marveled that he was really here, curled comfortably and warm against my back, really holding me again. I turned very carefully within his embrace, trying not to awaken him, but he roused at my slightest movement. Suddenly I was drowning in his dark honey gaze.
"You're really here," I murmured softly, putting a hand up to his slightly bristly cheek.
"I'm really here," he replied in a very low register, and then kissed me. The kiss started softly and sweetly, but quickly deepened and became charged with all the longing the both of us had held back. His one hand swept up my back to tangle in my hair while the other pulled my lower body into him, where I could feel him wanting me. His hand wandered to my thigh, to the hem of my nightgown, as I arched into him, then pulled back slowly. "We shouldn't be doing this," he muttered as he dropped kisses of fire against my chin and neck. "I don't want to hurt you or the baby."
"I'm pregnant, not broken," I told him with a chuckle. "Please, God, don't stop!" I urged and then kissed him hard as I felt his hand move again, find the hem and begin a slow and erotic path northwards on bare skin. The ache in parts of my body that had been merely sore became pulsing aches of want, and I couldn't help the shudders and moans when he found those places and with gentle and skillful fingers turned the pain into pleasure. He made love to me more slowly and carefully and tenderly than I ever thought possible, holding back from putting his full weight on me or moving too quickly or too abruptly inside me and yet making my memories of his lovemaking before mere shadows of the reality of now. Afterwards, he gathered me close in his arms again so that we could catch our breaths together.
"I want you to call in sick today," he told me eventually, when his breathing had slowed to normal again.
"Sydney..."
"Or, better still, call in and give your notice." I struggled just free enough of his embrace to prop myself up on an elbow, so he could see the look of determination I was giving him. He gave me one of his own right back, obviously ready now to wade right back into the discussion we'd been having the night before. "I mean it, Cat. Your weight loss isn't healthy for you or the baby. Going to work only spends energy that you can't afford right now."
"I'm not sick. My hormones are just going crazy. I'm pregnant, not broken - remember?"
"I know that, but I'd like to see if I can help you hold some food down today - and I can't do that with you perched on a lab stool playing with test tubes."
Something he'd said finally penetrated. "Give notice?" My voice must have given away my suspicion.
He reached up to run a thumb along my chin line. "Or tell your supervisor you're taking an indefinite leave of absence. Whatever." I could see where his mind was going.
"I haven't said yes," I reminded him, laying my head back down on his chest and feeling him gather me close again.
I felt and heard the chuckle well up from deep inside him. "You haven't said no either," he reminded me back. "I'm deliberately interpreting that as encouraging."
He was right. I hadn't said no. I was even less likely to say no now than I was an hour earlier - but I didn't want him to think I could be that easily convinced by a roll in the hay with the man of my dreams. This was MY life we were talking about here too... "I'm still considering my options," I informed him.
"So... are you calling in sick, or going in to work?" he asked, his hands stroking down my arms and back again in movements that had me practically purring.
"You're spoiling me again," I grumbled into his pectorals.
"I'm being persuasive and using every means at my disposal to persuade - and you didn't answer my question," he replied gently and with what I guessed was his best professional air. "So...?"
"OK. Alright. I'm calling in," I relented and pushed out of his arms to sit up. "But just for today. I have a project I need to finish tomorrow that I've been working on for over two years..." I reached for the phone handset on the night stand and dialed the number for the lab. "Julia? It's Cathy. Listen, I've been feeling under the weather the past couple of days, and I thought I'd stay at home and try to get on top of it today."
"Not a prob," my boss assured me. "Jim can take charge of doing the final readouts today. Will you be in tomorrow?"
"To do the final report, yes. But my stomach's not doing so great. lately - I think I'd rather do the typing while Jim handles disposal this time." I smiled. Sydney had sat up behind me and was rubbing my shoulders gently. God but I could get used to having him around, I thought. “Being persuasive” was a masterpiece of understatement - he was now kissing the back of my neck very softly, and those kisses were becoming very distracting.
"I was thinking you'd been looking a little on the droopy side lately. Take as long as you need and feel better soon," Julia chirped at me and then disconnected.
I put the phone set down again and turned to him. "There. Happy?"
"Very." His hands at my shoulders pulled me into leaning back against him. "I didn't realize you could be so stubborn." His hands wrapped around my naked front, one immediately spreading and covering my abdomen and the other coming up and across my chest to caress a cheek.
"That's the biggest problem with us," I told him, closing my eyes and enjoying his caresses immensely. "We've talked about a lot of things, but we still don't KNOW each other that well. Face it, we fell into bed together a little fast that night - both of us a little more vulnerable and needier than we might have been otherwise. We'll be taking a big risk to base an entire life together on one very special twenty-four hour period, no matter how much we both enjoyed our time together - then and this morning."
"I've known people who knew their partners for years before they got together, and still the relationship fell apart in the end," he said softly in my ear, then kissed the top edge of it and made me shiver. "But more importantly, I know I love you - and I do know the difference between love and simple lust. I know I love this baby because we created it together - and I want to be part of our child's life from the very beginning." His hand moved on my abdomen lovingly while his voice grew melancholy. "I missed out sharing every important part of my son's life, Michelle's pregnancy, delivery, his first steps, all those years of raising him. Hell, I didn't even find out about him until he was already grown and going to college." He buried his face in my neck. "I don't want to miss out again. Don't ask me to, because I can't - I won't."
So THAT was why he was acting so much like a first-time father - this WAS his first time going through this! "You didn't tell me this before," I said softly, turning in his arms. Another piece of the puzzle that was Sydney fell into place, and I suddenly knew what my decision had to be - for his sake, as well as my own and our child's. I took a deep breath - feeling like I was stepping off of a precipice - and looked up into his face hesitantly. "Yes."
There it was, for the first time since he'd gotten here - that wide, even-toothed smile of pure happiness and contentedness. "God I love you," he whispered emotionally, and lowered his lips to mine again to steal away my breath and my ability to think clearly.
Eventually I pulled on a very loose-fitting caftan over some stretch tights and a long-sleeved T-shirt while he unpacked into my closet and climbed into informal but warm garb. I brushed out my hair and braided it back while he shaved, sharing the mirror and the intimacy of such mundane personal tasks and finding it a comfortable, easy adjustment to make.
Rene had the coffee made by the time we sauntered down the stairs, and she smiled at us knowingly as she poured a single mug for Sydney and turned the tea kettle on for me. "Good morning. So..." she asked once we had all sat down at the table, "any decisions made?" Sydney and I exchanged glances, and Rene's smile got wider. "Good," was all she said. There are times that girl is too damned smart for her own good.
"You don't mind?" Sydney asked gently, hesitantly. It was a poignant and powerful gesture, his asking my daughter's permission. It showed that he knew he was taking me far away from her and actually cared enough to worry about her reaction. If I had loved him before, I adored him now for his consideration of my daughter's feelings. And even Rene was surprised at being consulted in this as if her opinion mattered. Her father had never done that.
"Mind? Of course not," Rene exclaimed quietly. "Look at her," she nodded in my direction. "She looks happy - or, at least, as happy as she can be while in the middle of morning sickness. I knew I'd done the right thing calling you when I saw you two together last night." My daughter winked at me, which made me chuckle despite the tendency of my stomach to twist with the fragrant smell of coffee. I could tell that she'd decided that she liked him, which relieved me no end. "So when do you take her home with you?"
"I still have to tell Julia," I piped up. "And finish the report I have to write tomorrow."
"She's procrastinating again," Rene stage-whispered at him.
"I know it looks that way, but a two-year-long research project isn't something that a person can walk away from all that easily," he answered with obvious experience. "You finish that report tomorrow," he told me, "and talk to this Julia again."
"I'll have to arrange to put everything here into storage," I said, keeping my nose in the stream of scented steam from the mint tea - it seemed to help against the onslaught of other smells - "until Rene is living somewhere other than in the dorms."
"Rene and I can go out later this morning and find a storage locker large enough for what you need stored," he announced decisively, "while YOU start making lists of what you want to take with you and what you want stored. I want you to lounge on the couch quietly all day. You will do nothing but rest and work at keeping your food down for a change."
Now it was my eyebrows that rose. "You're not asking much of me, are you?"
"You're already doing the really important job, Cat, let Rene and me concentrate on doing the rest of it," he replied, smoothing the back of his fingertips across my cheek without concern for our being watched. Rene, for her part, wisely kept her mouth shut, but I could see her eyes widen in surprise and amusement, and then approval. Her father had never shown me any tenderness openly - and damned little of it privately in later times. Obviously Sydney had managed to make serious headway in the winning of my daughter's full support and affection.
Sydney had Rene make me some dry toast, deliberately ignoring my look of dismay, and had the pieces cut into quarters. Then, while they munched out on buttered toast and jelly, he gave me one quarter of a piece and told me, in no uncertain terms, to chew it thoroughly and slowly and wash it down with a small bit of mint tea. I'd get some more after a while after I'd held that down, he reassured me. I may have grumbled loudly, but I did as he instructed, buoyed along soon enough by the ripple of conversation between these two people that I loved best.
He began to ask her knowledgeable questions about her pre-med program of studies, and soon she was asking him back about his work as a psychiatrist. Somewhere along the line the discussion turned to applications of the scientific method, at which point I could begin to chime in too. We talked long into the morning, the flow of conversation taking off occasionally at oblique tangents and nobody seeming to mind. I could see both of them slowly relaxing toward the other, slowly letting their senses of humor show. Later, when I had the time to think about it, I decided that we had built the foundations of a new family unit in those cozy minutes in my kitchen.
While Rene cleaned up breakfast and then went upstairs to get dressed, I found out in no uncertain terms that I wasn't the only stubborn person in the house besides my daughter anymore. He was serious and very determined that I was to stay on the couch for the day, and would hear no argument from me on the matter whatsoever. He tucked me in firmly beneath mother's afghan, much as he'd found me the night before, and then put a legal pad and pen in my hands for me to start making my lists of what to store and what to ship. Then, while he went upstairs to fetch his heavy coat for the trip to rent storage space, Rene came over to me.
"You didn't choose half-badly this time, Mom," she said softly with her approval obvious in both voice and expression. "This Sydney of yours is a real sweetheart and an absolute charmer. What a change from Dad!"
"He is something, isn't he?" I asked almost proudly.
"And he's so good to you. I wish you'd found him a long time ago." She bent over me as she heard his footfall on the stairs. "At least I won't have to worry about you anymore if you're with him - he knows how to keep you in line..." she told me with another wink and then bussed me on the cheek messily like she used to when she was younger as I began to bluster. She waited patiently while I was fussed over and then kissed thoroughly by the new man of the house, then contentedly followed him out the door as if it were something she'd done all her life.
The following days were a blur. At work, Jim had done such a good job with the final tabulations that typing up the final report on my project was a breeze - giving me a huge sense of accomplishment for seeing the job through to the end. Julia's expression when I told her I was quitting as I handed her the report - not to mention WHY I was quitting - was priceless. Sydney's look of utter contentment when I told him that I'd not only given notice but out-and-out quit was heart-stopping.
After that, I reconciled myself to my assigned job as supervisor as the two of them went through everything and started packing. I was allowed the couch and the job of traffic director most of the time, and got to watch my living room slowly fill with packing boxes. But I was firmly put to bed to rest for a while on those increasingly rare occasions when my stomach simply refused to cooperate with any new adjustments to my diet. I was pampered and cajoled and wheedled and blatantly manipulated during the day, and then at night lay in warm contentment in the arms of the man I was going to marry very soon.
One of the last things to be packed was my clothing to take on the plane with me. Rene was going through my chest of drawers, emptying them into the large suitcase and travel bag, when she ran across the plastic bag with the cardigan sweater neatly folded inside. I was sitting on the bed, suitcase open in front of me and putting lingerie into it piece by piece, when she brought the bag over to me, her eyes filled with curiosity. "Mom?" she asked, from her voice, obviously hoping for a story to go with the sweater.
I just put my hands up for the article. "It's part of a promise to Sydney I have to keep yet," I told her cryptically, tucking it into the suitcase amid silks and laces, "something left over from the first time we met that hasn't been finished yet."
"You aren't going to tell me," she said, disappointed.
"I'll tell you later, the first time you come visit us in Delaware, poppet," I promised. "Right now, it's a private matter between him and me. By then, it will be story material."
"I'm going to miss you," she said with a sniffle, returning to the drawer to haul out the final armload of lingerie. "I'm glad you're going, but I'm going to miss having you closer." She sat down on the bed next to me after she'd put her deposit near the suitcase, where I could reach it. "I won't see you again until little peanut will be just about ready to hatch."
"You don't have to wait that long," I told her, pulling her into my arms. "There's Spring Break..."
"You'll just be getting settled in," she complained.
"Rene..." Sydney's voice sounded from the bedroom door, "I think Spring Break sounds like a good time for you to come home to Delaware to visit with your mother." He came in and stood next to the two of us, and then very hesitantly put a hand down on her shoulder. "I want you to know that you have a place in our home - that it is your home too... now."
I don't ever think I've seen Rene so surprised that she was speechless before - and then suddenly she was on her feet with her arms wrapped tightly around Sydney's neck for the briefest of moments before making a beeline for the bedroom door. "What was that?" he asked, bemused, looking after her.
I just shook my head and went back to my packing. I knew very well what was going on - my daughter was slowly coming to realize she finally had found someone she could look up to as a father figure - but it wasn't my place to comment. I knew better than that. I knew I knew better. And I was determined to let them forge their own relationship properly, without any interference from me.
It was nearly dark and quite cold when we finally got to Blue Cove after the emotional rollercoaster of handing over my precious house keys - keys to my haven of independence from Jake - to the realtor and then bidding my daughter goodbye at the airport. He helped me from the car in the shelter of the garage and popped the trunk, but: "Wait a minute," he stopped me just as I was reaching for the door. He came over to me and lifted me up into his arms. "Traditions matter," he said, kissing me softly, then carried me over the threshold of his... our... house.
That night, while I was slowly unpacking only the most essential stuff into the space he'd made temporarily for me in his chest of drawers, I uncovered the plastic bag Rene had found for me. With a smile I pulled the sweater from its bag and walked over to him as he stood carefully hanging out my dresses and good clothes into his closet and tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
When he turned, I held the sweater out to him. "I brought it back, just like I promised."
He smiled - another one of those wide, even-toothed smiles of pure happiness - and took the sweater from my hands. "It's about time," he growled, tossing the sweater on the top of the dresser, and reached for me. He pulled me close into his arms and framed my face between his hands, and I found myself drowning anew in those dark honey eyes of his. "God, I love you," he rumbled at me in that low register that never failed to thrill and then lowered his lips to mine passionately. His hands began to move slowly and surely - finding skin on my arms, and then my throat, and then my chest as the buttons of my blouse seemed to just come open at his touch - pulling me into him and letting me know that we were definitely done unpacking for the time being.
So THIS was Delaware in winter, I thought as I arched into his hands that were now stroking me to distraction, turning soreness into desire.
That was my last coherent thought for the day.
