“I guess you saw my embarrassing exhibition,” he said tautly.
“Your hand shook.” That had been the starting point, although it was his infuriated reaction that had created most of the awkwardness.
He plunged ahead. “I have Parkinson’s disease, diagnosed about a year ago. That’s why the department transferred me to public information. I’d rather no one else learned about this, please.”
Stunned, Marta blurted, “I thought only old people…” She stopped, and wished she’d bitten her tongue before uttering those cruel words.
“That’s what most people believe.” Angrily, Derek began pacing. “In case you’re curious, the cause is a mystery. And the course is unstoppable, which makes my future a big zero. Interesting life I’ve been leading, isn’t it?”
She didn’t have to ask why he’d kept this secret. Distress blazed from every movement. “That’s why the auction worried you. You didn’t want a crowd to see your symptoms.”
Marta knew little about the disease. TV and newspaper images of sufferers flashed into her mind, except she wasn’t certain which of many much-publicized afflictions she was picturing.
She might as well ask the tough questions. “How bad will it get? And how soon?”
“It’s progressive,” he responded. “Slow but inexorable. I’m taking medication to control the symptoms. Fate catches up with Sergeant Hit-and-Run, I suppose some people would say.”
“Only if they’re jerks!” she responded sharply. “I’m really sorry, Derek.”
For anyone, the diagnosis would come as a blow. For such a fiercely independent man, the prospect of disability must be intolerable.
“I don’t want your pity,” he ground out.
“That isn’t pity.” Marta sought a more accurate word. “It’s empathy. Don’t forget that I understand what it’s like to have the rug pulled out from beneath your feet. It happened to me.”
Derek wavered, perhaps tantalizingly close to accepting that they were on the same side. Then the protective wall slammed into place.
“I appreciate our similarities, but there’s one fundamental difference. You can reclaim your future, and I applaud you for it. Mine’s finished. This won’t get better and it won’t stay the same.” After nearly colliding with her TV, he glared at the thing before resuming his route. “I can hope for a medical breakthrough, but in the meantime, I have to live in the real world.”
A world of bitterness and resentment. Under other circumstances, Marta might have remained silent rather than provoke him. But this strong, desirable man had no business sinking into despair.
“In the real world, you’re still an incredible guy that any woman would value,” she retorted. “Maybe that doesn’t matter to you, but it ought to. As for your refusal to accept pity, what about self-pity? You’re wallowing in that.”
She stopped, shocked by her audacity. And by the fact that she’d just uttered the most scathing remarks of her life to the man she cherished.
Derek’s eyes glittered with anger. “I suppose I should ignore the whole thing. Count my blessings, perhaps?”
Marta would never be sure what possessed her, but the next statement out of her mouth was: “Well, you’d better pull your act together, because you’re about to become a father.”
He froze. Disbelief displaced his wrath.
“That’s why you visited the doctor?” he managed to say at last. “What about Thanksgiving Day?”
“I threw up,” Marta explained. “Yolanda’s pretty perceptive.”
He seemed to be struggling to assemble the puzzle pieces. “Did you already know?”
She shook her head. “I guess I was in denial.”
Derek stared at the floor, breathing hard, as if he’d run all the way here. “What do you intend to do?”
What did she intend to do? Infuriating! How naïve to have imagined that he might rise to the occasion by offering to support her.
“It’s yours as well as mine!” she snapped.
“I didn’t mean to imply—”
“You implied that this is my problem and I should deal with it!” An inner voice warned that she had passed into the realm of unfairness. In her current cranky state, she didn’t care. “I’m sorry about your illness. That doesn’t excuse you from shouldering the consequences of your actions! We both made love that night and neither of us stopped to use protection.”
He stared as if she’d grown a second head. Marta doubted her friends would recognize her crabby self, either.
Derek responded at last with frustrating obliqueness. “What do you expect from me?”
She had no idea. Compassion and love weren’t his style. “Nothing,” she answered at last. “You’ve made it clear how you operate. Enjoy the moment and then throw out the baby with the bathwater. Literally, in this case.”
He tried again. “Of course, I’ll take responsibility.”
That simple statement hurt more than an insult. “Please, don’t spare a single second from your absorption in your own problems,” Marta said angrily. “I survived the car crash without my father’s assistance and I can survive this pregnancy without yours. I’m sure Connie and Rachel will be there for me, the way they always are.”
“Marta…” He stopped, at a loss for words.
Maybe he expected her to function as usual, delving beneath the surface and empathizing until she drew out his deeper meaning. But the agreeable Marta had vanished. Blame her hormones, or maybe her heartbreak. No use pretending she didn’t love the guy, for all his flaws. But this baby needed her more than he did.
“You’d better go.” Pushing up from the sofa, Marta marched to the door and held it open.
“This is getting to be a bad habit,” Derek said with a hint of irony. “Throwing me out, I mean.”
“I never did that before!”
“You tossed me out of your bed, didn’t you?” His expression perplexed, he trudged toward the exit. “This conversation isn’t over.”
Hope, that eternal traitor, poked its head from the ashes of her dreams. Marta gave it a mental thump. “If you say so.”
“We’ll work this out. I wish…I meant for us to have fun on our date.” Derek looked so lost, she nearly hugged him.
She had to stand tough or she’d fall apart.
No sooner had he vanished down the walkway than doubts assailed her. How could she have treated him with such coldness after he’d confessed his agonizing secret? Tough as he appeared on the outside, his behavior at the café had demonstrated his vulnerability.
The man had to cope with an incurable illness. Marta remembered his confession last week that he felt he wasn’t contributing enough to the force. Guilt, depression and anger were all understandable responses.
Then she’d sprung the pregnancy on him. How unreasonable to expect him to counter with a romantic declaration!
Ashamed, she nearly dialed his cell to apologize. If she caught him before he reached home, he might turn around.
No. She wasn’t ready for a rematch.
In the kitchen, Marta fixed a cup of herbal tea. Good thing she planned to dine with her two dearest friends tonight for the first time since her birthday. Although Connie usually spent Saturday evenings with her husband, Hale had flown to Lake Tahoe to go fishing with his father. As for Rachel’s spouse, he’d volunteered to cover a hospital shift for the pediatric-emergency specialist.
Now that she’d told Derek about her condition, Marta felt free to enlighten Connie and Rachel. She longed for their comfort and uncritical companionship.
With an hour to spare, she logged on to the Internet and checked sites concerning Parkinson’s disease. She’d better learn more before she ran into Derek again.
Phrases leaped out. “Cause unknown…possible genetic component…toxins in the environment…progressive impairment of neurons…a lack of the chemical messenger dopamine…” Technical, and scary.
The symptoms included tremors, slow movements, stiffness and balance problems. “
Patients struggle to understand and control the disease,” one author wrote. “Adapting is difficult.”
What accusation had she flung at Derek? Don’t spare a single second from your absorption in your own problems. She shuddered.
Marta switched off the computer, freshened her makeup and drove to the development where Connie lived. Her ranch-style home lay next door to Hale’s former dwelling. They still enjoyed his pool in good weather, and he and his pals played video games and drank beer in the den as in the old days, but Connie had mentioned that they planned to rent it soon.
When Marta rang the bell, childish giggles accompanied the thumping of little feet. Seven-year-old Skip admitted her, with five-year-old Lauren right behind.
“Hi, Marta!” the little boy greeted her. “We’re having pizza!”
How could she have forgotten they’d be sharing the meal with two children? Cute as they were, the squirming and kicking under the kitchen table quickly wore thin in Marta’s present frame of mind.
Connie kept too busy attending to the kids to register her cousin’s unusual reserve. A relaxed Rachel grinned at odd moments as if relishing a private joke.
“What’s up?” Marta asked after the kids finally dashed off to play with Legos in Skip’s room.
“Two pieces of good news,” the policewoman announced. “First, I made detective.”
“Bravo!” Connie cheered.
“I didn’t know you took the test!” Marta cried. “That’s wonderful.”
“Wasn’t sure I wanted to leave patrol,” Rachel conceded. “But Russ and I decided to add to our family. The second piece of news is, I’m pregnant!”
“Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!” Connie ran around and hugged her.
Marta stammered out congratulations. Rachel required no encouragement to fill in the details, including a due date a month before Marta’s.
Their babies would be almost the same age. They could grow up together. Or, she reflected with a pang, if she relinquished hers, she’d forever mark its stages of development by watching Rachel’s child.
“Russ is beside himself,” Rachel enthused. “He’s crazy about kids.”
“Hale suggested we provide Skip with a younger sibling one of these days,” Connie noted. “Not too soon, though. I’m too busy with the Con Amore line. It’s selling like crazy.”
Marta listened with genuine gladness for her friends. Much as she wished them well, however, she missed the old sense of riding—or sinking—in the same boat. Once, the three of them had shared everything. But since Rachel’s and Connie’s marriages, they’d entered a new stage of their lives.
She refused to dampen Rachel’s high spirits by citing her own dilemma. Instead, Marta smiled and reserved her problems for another day.
As her friends celebrated plans for the baby, how she yearned to join Rachel in shopping for a stroller and a crib, in deciding on color schemes and discussing names. To keep this infant and treasure the marvelous changes as it grew.
Despite the sacrifice and the risk of further alienating Derek, Marta clung to a tiny spark of hope. And felt it growing like the baby nestled inside.
Chapter Thirteen
Late on Monday morning, Will Lyons’ assistant, Lois, popped in to see Derek from her office, which lay sandwiched between his and the chief’s. “Hey, handsome. The boss wants to see you pronto.”
“What’s up?” Derek logged off the computer.
“Well, there’s good news and bad news.” Over the weekend, the sixtyish grandmother had performed her monthly ritual of dyeing her hair. The color varied from carrot red to faintly pink; this time, it bore a lavender cast. “The good news is that Rachel McKenzie’s pregnant, although I don’t suppose he plans to discuss that.”
Derek gave a slight start. “Good for her.” He liked the straightforward officer, and not only because she was friends with Marta.
Her pregnancy was an interesting coincidence, or perhaps an ironic twist by a fate that seemed determined to corner him. Since Marta’s revelation on Saturday, he’d seen babies everywhere. In his condo complex. On television. At the supermarket. They aroused an unfamiliar tenderness coupled with near panic.
The responsibility of becoming a father threatened to overwhelm a future in which Derek might lose the ability to support himself, let alone a family. Furthermore, Marta’s failure to appreciate the gravity of his illness had left him feeling isolated. He’d come to rely on her more than he’d realized.
“What’s the bad news?” he asked.
Lois pursed her lips. “More trouble with Ben. Beyond that, I’d rather not say.”
“I understand.” Derek accompanied her past her small office. On Lois’s desk stood a framed photo of her children and grandchildren, flanked by images of her nieces. She’d attempted on several occasions to matchmake for Derek, but had finally declared that his playboy reputation made him a bad bet.
With a quiet thanks to her, he entered the chief’s sanctum.
Since assuming the role of media and community liaison, Derek routinely consulted with Will. No longer daunted by the large office with its conference table and multiple windows, he took his usual seat.
Lyons’ brown hair looked uncharacteristically rumpled. “You’d better prepare for another PR mess. City council hired me to dry-clean our image, but my son keeps throwing dirt at it.”
“What’s he done now?”
“Last week I loaned him my personal car. He dropped it off first thing this morning, as agreed.” The chief’s thin mustache twitched. “Unfortunately, he also left a plastic bag with a trace of drugs stuck in the crack of the passenger seat.”
Stupid kid, Derek thought. Stupid to use drugs and stupid to leave the evidence where his father would find it.
“With such a small amount, I have discretion about how to treat this. I keep asking myself, if he weren’t my son, what would I do?” The words spilled out of the usually guarded man. “Even though I’d probably give a stranger’s child a break, I’m not sure that’s the right course in this case. I could smack that kid for putting me in this position!”
Derek recalled the open window he’d glimpsed in the parking lot. “Maybe someone else dropped it there.”
Will dismissed the notion. “Don’t try to excuse him. He’s an expert at doing that already. I should have been tougher from the start. I left the discipline up to my wife, and after she died, I sympathized with what he was going through. I was too soft. I missed the warning signs.”
Ben had been fourteen when he lost his mother and seventeen when he got busted, Derek recalled. “Drugs hook a lot of young people. You can’t lay all the blame on yourself.”
Regret shadowed the chief’s eyes. “My wife and I married young. Maybe we weren’t ready to be parents. But he’s a grown man now. He insists on living independently and claims to be an adult, so he ought to act like it.”
Derek had never before related personally to the chief’s situation. He certainly hadn’t contemplated what kind of father he would become. Now the fact hit him that the baby-to-be inside Marta wouldn’t remain an infant. Whatever Derek chose to do, a young man or woman might one day hold him accountable.
“What’s your decision?” He hoped the chief didn’t intend to slap his son in jail.
“I’m not sure.” Will stared through the window blinds. “I left a message on Ben’s cell. Guess he’s in class this morning. With luck, I’ll calm down before he returns my call.” Will thumped the desk. “I half believe he pulls stunts like this on purpose.”
“If it’s any consolation, I went through a troubled phase as a teenager,” Derek said. “No drugs but some serious fighting. I grew out of it.”
“Let’s hope he does.” The chief indicated Derek’s notepad. “We’d better prepare a statement in case word leaks, which I have a nasty suspicion it will.”
They spent the next half hour hashing out a declaration that summarized the events and the applicable law. Then Will left to attend a meeting with the city
manager.
Derek ate a sandwich at his desk. With forty-five minutes left in his lunch hour, he decided to visit Marta. He’d intended to text an invitation to dinner, but his talk with the chief had provided new reason for him to take action.
He crossed to the hospital. In the lobby, through the glass wall of the boutique, he watched her assist two customers in choosing a flower arrangement. Small and solicitous, she remained patient as she produced balloons and cards for their selection.
Finally they completed their purchase and left. Derek entered the shop.
Marta’s initial glint of warmth shaded into uncertainty. Their last encounter had obviously unsettled her.
Derek seized on a neutral opening. “I guess you’ve heard that Rachel’s expecting.”
“She told Connie and me yesterday. I didn’t say anything about my situation yet.” She halted, awaiting his reaction.
“About the last time we talked…” Derek cleared his throat. “I didn’t conduct myself very well.”
“I’m the one who screwed up,” Marta replied. “I can’t believe how insensitive I was. Derek, I’ve been reading about your illness. My comments were inexcusable.”
“Hardly!” He’d said far worse to her. “Can you forgive me for the way I acted about the pregnancy?”
“I sprang it on you,” she protested. “You must have been in shock.”
“For once in my life, I’m apologizing. Enjoy the moment,” Derek teased.
Her tension melted. If they hadn’t stood in full public view, he had a feeling she’d be in his arms. Instead, they hovered a short distance apart.
“I’m glad you’re not angry,” Marta told him.
“Whatever course you choose, you have my support.” Inadequate as that sounded, Derek considered it an improvement on his performance Saturday. “I can help with medical bills. Feed you hot tea and rub your feet.”
Her tremulous smile touched him. “I’m having an ultrasound Wednesday afternoon. The doctor says I’m large for how far along I am. I’m betting it’s because I’m so short and carrying a big guy’s baby. Would you attend with me?”
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