by Beth Fred
“You’d be in breach of contract and owe me a lot of money.”
I keep my eyes on the TV. “We should all have a Hugh Grant.” I glance up at Eric, who is staring down at me with his hands on his hips. “Fine. Talk. Just don’t expect me to listen.”
He reaches behind him and turns off the TV.
I move toward the head of the bed and dodge under the duvet.
“Mandy, we have to talk about this.”
I push the duvet down and meet his gaze. “There is nothing to talk about. I will campaign for you. I will not make a scene. I don’t have to like you, and I don’t expect you to like me.” I won’t even derail you, though I can.
He moves to sit next to me on the bed, and I leap off of it. “I said I don’t expect us to like each other. So just stay away from me.” Because it would be too easy to let you break my heart again.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, but it’s not what you think.”
“She’s your sister? Your mom?”
He laughs. “No, but I hate her.”
“Hate is a strong emotion. I’m sure you think you hate her, but she obviously matters or she wouldn’t disturb our sleep.” A single tear slides out of my eye. Eff it. I turn my back to him. I refuse to let him see me cry.
“I think if I tell you about her, you might be able to understand, but you should probably sit down for this.”
“Eric, leave me alone and let me get over it. I can get over your infatuation with your ex-girlfriend. But I can’t be involved with you. And it’s making me angry that you’re trying to wear me down.”
“Because it’s working. It’s making you angry, because you know you love me and you don’t want to walk away from me.” He pauses. “I’m twenty points down in the polls.”
“I told you I’ll be back on the campaign trail tomorrow.”
“I lost my temper in that debate. Do you want to know why?”
I turn to face him again. The conversation has lightened up enough that I can. “That’s easy. Simpleton is an enraging moron who should have stuck with her reality TV show, and I’m a Democrat. I’m sure she was on your nerves.”
Eric shakes his head. “My kid died, and I couldn’t stand to listen to that moron sanctify the action.”
“Clarissa was your daughter?”
“Mandy, sit with me, please?”
I bite my lip and take the two steps back to the bed. I sit, and Eric hooks his arms around me but slides down to the floor on his knees. He gazes up at me, and I’m lost in those big brown eyes again.
“My ex-fiancée is a big part of this story, so before I start, this is in the past. I love you, and nothing will ever change that.”
My heart pounds in my chest. He wants to reveal some deep, dark secret about another woman, and because of the pain in his eyes, I will cling to every word of it and tell him it will be okay.
Chapter 34
Eric
My eyes squeeze shut. Breathe in. Breathe out. There is no way to tell this story without talking about how much I loved Clarissa and the knife she put into my heart.
“It was a long time ago, but every now and then, I still dream about it.” That’s the closest I’ll get to admitting I have nightmares as a grown man, and even with those simple words, my eyes grow misty. That image in my mind is something I’ve tried to block for years, and now I’m volunteering to go down this path. As Evan said, it’s that or lose the election. But I know the real reason I will relive this. It’s that or lose Mandy. “I met a girl my first semester of law school.” I swallowed. “She was from Houston, but she’d been raised like a princess, so she was both familiar and exotic. She was smart, incredibly ambitious, and she never backed down.” I take Amanda’s hand in mine. I need something to anchor me to the present, because I’m back to that day.
***
We spend the first week of Christmas vacation with Clarissa’s family. While she and her mom are out shopping, I show her dad a diamond and ask for her hand.
“Did you buy it on a loan?” he asks. “Don’t lie to me, boy.”
Mr. Lawrence is a big burly rancher, and lying to him where his daughter is concerned is about the last thing I’d do. “It was my grandma’s.”
He nods.
“You’re a decent kid. As long as you can take care of her, I’m okay with that. And you have to move her back to Texas. You can’t keep my baby on the East Coast.”
“Yes, sir. But there is one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re moving in together before the semester starts. Her idea.”
“So you feel a need to ask me if you can make an honest woman of my daughter but not to shack up with her?”
“She thinks we could spend more time together that way. We’re in class forty hours a week, and I clerk too.”
“Do you know what I do on Sundays?”
“Preach at a church.”
“That’s right. And because Clarissa is a preacher’s kid, I’ve made a point to let her make her own decisions. My friends say it usually works out better that way. Kid has less to prove and is more likely to stay on the straight and narrow. So I’m not going to forbid this, but I am going to tell you that I don’t like it. Don’t upset me.”
“Are you telling me to back out? She’ll be irate. Clarissa has a temper.”
He laughs. “That she does. Like her mom. Do what you have to do. But take care of my daughter, and I’m telling you don’t upset me.”
The security system chimes, and a blast of cold air blows in as the back door flies open. Clarissa belts out the lyrics to “Deck the Halls.” Her mom laughs behind her. “You still have the same amount of energy you did at three. Calm down.”
She cuts her caroling off when she sees me. “Eric!” she squeals and runs across the room. She drops her head on my shoulder, and my arms automatically close around her.
Mr. Lawrence rolls his eyes. “I liked the off-key tunes better.”
I give her the ring on Christmas Day. I get down on one knee, swallow my pride, pour out my heart, and beg her to be mine. She doesn’t say much. She just kisses me. Her mom makes a high-pitched “aww” sound behind us. We don’t care.
“Okay, you can come up for air now,” her dad says.
The last week of Christmas vacation, Clarissa and I visit my family then head back to Princeton. We move into our off-campus apartment on New Year’s Day and celebrate by staying home to watch the ball drop. It’s the first time we’ve really been alone together since the break started.
She grows more and more solemn. I should notice more, intervene more. She misses contracts a few days in a row. Totally unlike her. I wonder if it’s a desperate attempt to get some distance from me. Moving in together did add some quick stressors to our relationship.
Thursday morning, I try to wake her up. She slaps at me and tells me to leave her alone.
“Clarissa, you know Richards takes off for absences. You’ve missed contracts for three days. Get up.”
“Just go before you’re late.”
“I’m not leaving without you today.”
“Why?”
“I promised your dad I’d take care of you, and I don’t think he’d like it if I let you flunk out.”
“Damn it, Eric, leave.”
“No.”
She jumps from the bed and runs to the bathroom, making retching sounds.
“Are you okay?”
She vomits too violently to answer. I follow her into the bathroom and grab her hair, not knowing what else I can do for her. She kneels over the commode, throwing up for twenty minutes. I stand behind her, trying to ignore the odor of bad cheese. Finally, she collapses on the floor. I take a towel from the linen closet, wet it, and wipe her face. “I’m staying home with you today. We need to get you to the doctor.”
“No, you’re not. I’m a grown woman. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“You’re sick.”
“I don’t need you.”
I
sigh. “Fine.”
After lunch, I text her.
Me: Are you okay?
Clarissa: Yeah. I got some antibiotics. I’ll be fine. But it will probably be a few days before I’m back at school.
She’s fine that night. But after lunch the next day, I get a text.
Clarissa: Eric, I’m sorry, and I love you.
Me: What’s wrong?
No answer. I check my phone all the way through civil procedure and leave after class. It was a strange message, and Clarissa won’t reply to me. My gut tells me something is wrong, and I’m not waiting through another class to find out what it is.
It still takes an hour to get home.
I put my key in, turn the lock, and step in.
I know something isn’t right, but I’m not prepared for what I find.
Clarissa lays on the couch wrapped in a white blanket covered with large red spots. Her face ashen, her eyes flutter between open and shut.
“Oh my God. Who did this to you? What happened?”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial 9-1-1.
“No one. No one did this—the pills—side effects.”
“Your antibiotic did this?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers and shuts her eyes.
“No, stay with me. Stay with me.”
“9-1-1. How can I help you?” the operator asks.
“My fiancé is losing a lot of blood. I-I don’t know what happened, and she’s not making sense.”
“Okay. Stay calm. What’s your location?”
“1703 Syracuse Circle, apartment 226.”
“Okay. I got help on the way. Is she conscious?”
“Clarissa?”
She groans.
“Barely.”
“What did she tell you about what happened?”
“She said it was a side effect from her pills. I don’t see how.”
“So she’s taking something. What’s she taking?”
“An antibiotic.”
“Can you give me a name? That will help the paramedics when they get there.”
“I don’t know.”
“Search for the bottle. But stay on the line.”
I gently shake Clarissa. “Sweetheart, where did you take the pill? Is that where the bottle is?”
“Window.”
I glance at the windowsill above the couch. Two pill bottles and a Starbucks cup.
Sirens blare from outside the window.
“Got them,” I say into the phone. “And I think they’re here.”
“Make sure you give the bottle to the paramedics.”
I cut the call and scoop Clarissa up in my arms, her blood smearing my shirt. When I open the door, two paramedics stand in front of it. One has his hand up like he’s about to knock.
“You need a stretcher,” I say.
“We’ve got this,” the larger of the two guys says.
He situates Clarissa on the stretcher while the other guy talks to me. “What happened?”
I hand him the two bottles, which I haven’t had time to read yet. “She says the pills caused this. I don’t see how.”
He scans the labels. “Get her stable. We have to go. Abortion complications.”
The words rock through me. That’s how I learn the woman wearing my ring is pregnant.
***
Mandy runs her fingers through my hair and rests her other hand on my shoulder. “God, Eric. I’m so sorry. Did she live?”
Chapter 35
Eric
“Clarissa? We wouldn’t know for a while. She lost so much blood. I hopped on the ambulance with her and called our parents on the way.” The rest of the scene plays out in my head.
***
Clarissa has an emergency dilation and curettage, and they pump blood into her while trying to stop the bleeding. I watch her suffer for as long as I can then walk to the cafeteria for coffee. When I get back to the room, her parents are there.
“Stay outside,” Mr. Lawrence says.
I nod.
Lawrence steps into the hall, closing Clarissa’s door behind him. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you.”
“Because if I had known about it before she did this to herself, I would have gone to work full time and married her. And sir?”
He meets my eyes.
“With all due respect, I just learned my fiancée killed our kid thirty seconds before I called you. I’m not in the mood for idle threats today.”
“You got guts, boy, I’ll say that. But are you saying she did this on her own? You didn’t know about it?”
“She threw up yesterday. I offered to take her to the doctor. She told me she didn’t need or want my help, and she would go on her own. She was fine last night. She sent me a strange message after lunch today then quit responding. When I got home, I found her bleeding. She never even told me she was pregnant.” My voice cracks and tears stream down both cheeks. A grown man crying like a baby. “I can’t believe she did this.”
Mr. Lawrence drops his head. “Me either.”
Clarissa moves from ICU to a regular hospital room, and I quit hanging out at the hospital non-stop and start going to class and work again. I tell myself she has to be sick. This has to have been her only alternative. She wouldn’t have done this otherwise. But why didn’t she tell me? She had to know there was no way I’d risk her.
She comes home a couple of days later. She doesn’t say anything to me. Just starts packing.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“My parents worked it out for me to finish at Southerland.”
“So you’re moving back to Houston?”
A tear rolls down her cheek, and she continues to pack.
“Clarissa, you can’t leave it like this. We have to talk about it.”
She glances up from her suitcase and smiles. “About what?”
I close my eyes and force the words out. “Why did you do it?”
“We’re not even married yet. Do you know how big of a deal this would have been?”
“Probably about the same as you nearly bleeding to death on the couch and letting me find out that you—we—were pregnant from a paramedic trying to stabilize you enough to take you to a hospital?”
She crosses her arms. “It would have been much bigger than that. It would have ruined my life. I missed so much school from an early term abortion. Can you imagine what it would have been like if I’d carried to term then tried to deliver? And how would we support the baby? On my daddy’s money?”
“You know I would have found a way to take care of our baby. You wouldn’t have had to ask. You know it.”
She bursts into tears. “That’s why I couldn’t tell you. My parents planned this for me from the time I was three years old. I had the best tutors all the way through school, went to a prestigious college, and they paid me not to work during the school year. You worked too hard for this for me to take it away from you. You’re two years from everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“So you did this for me? You killed our baby for me? I wanted a family, or I would have never asked you to be my wife. I watched a woman I loved close to her deathbed for two days. Two days, Clarissa.”
“Loved? Past tense?”
“You’re not the kind of woman I want to marry.”
She laughs.
“What?”
“I knew that. That’s why I asked Daddy to get me transferred.”
“Can I have my grandmother’s ring back?”
“Of course.” She takes it off and throws it at me.
“Come on, Clarissa. You did this to us. Not me.”
She rolls her eyes. “I guess that depends on how you think about it. I made a decision about my body without consulting you, and you’re pissed.”
“You made a decision about our life, our family, and our relationship without consulting me. And it’s irreversible. If you regret it one day, you have to live with that. I get to be upset, and I won’t feel guilty about it. Sorry.”
/> “I hate you.” She zips the suitcase. “I’ll send movers for everything else.”
“It’s obvious you hate me. Or at least you don’t care about me at all. You couldn’t have done this without at least talking to me otherwise.”
She walks out with her Tiffany suitcase, and that’s the last time I’ll ever see her.
Chapter 36
Eric
My eyes tear again talking about it. Mandy wipes a tear from my face. “You have to talk about it publicly.”
“What? I can’t do that.”
“Eric, the things you’ve said, they’ll be explained. Women will go from hating you to adoring you. You have to talk about this.”
“She’s an attorney now, and she had a hard time after that. I stayed in touch with her dad for a while. I don’t think she talks about it, and I’m not going to bring it up. We’ve both moved on with our lives. That’s enough.”
“You’re protecting her. Do you still love her?”
I laugh. “No. At least not the same way. I don’t want to hurt her or cause her problems, but I don’t want anything to do with her ever. In my eyes, she murdered my child. Still, we were connected once. It’s hard to forget.”
“Eric, this may be the only way to save your election.”
“I’m not sure I’d gain any points outing a woman.”
Chapter 37
Mandy
Eric convinces me that his dreams of Clarissa have everything to do with the abortion discussion during the debate and nothing to do with a secret desire for her. But he won’t go public with something so private, and I admire that.
Still, he’ll lose this election without the explanation for his extreme stance, and she can spill her guts.
I brush my hair out and stick a plane ticket in my purse. The alarm goes off. I tap it twice and throw the phone in my purse as well.
“Eric, wake up.”
He growls.
