“Come on up,” Margaret said, relieved. Kate walked past the doorman with a wintry smile, and Margaret opened the door to her daughter and saw that she looked ravaged. “Did something happen to Bart?” It was all she could think of unless Kate had been lying to her about the children being all right.
“No, and the kids are fine. They’re all alive anyway.” She walked into the kitchen and sat down, and Margaret followed her with an anxious expression. Kate looked at her mother mournfully. “Claire is pregnant. She’s having the baby, and not getting married. She doesn’t think marriage is ‘necessary’ anymore, it’s an archaic tradition, according to her. She doesn’t feel ‘ready’ for marriage, not for several years anyway, but she does feel ready for a child. According to her, they’re ecstatic. He offered to marry her, and she refused.” Margaret sat down across from her daughter at the kitchen table and looked at her intently.
“When did you find all this out?” Margaret looked as unhappy as her daughter.
“Friday night. I haven’t stopped crying since. She hates me because I’m not happy about it. Maybe this is my punishment for setting the bar too high for them, as you always say. I never knew she had such an aversion to marriage. She’s known Reed Bailey for three months. This is insane.”
“Did she tell you how it happened?” Margaret said thoughtfully.
“The usual way, I assume,” Kate said with a wry smile.
“I meant was it an accident, or did she plan this?”
“I was so shocked it never occurred to me to ask, and I don’t think she’d tell me the truth anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a decision on both their parts, since he told her he wanted her to be the mother of his children. I didn’t think he meant this soon.”
“She always gets carried away,” Margaret said with a sigh, “although this is definitely extreme.” Then she narrowed her eyes as she gazed at Kate. “It’s not the end of the world though. Don’t let it destroy you.”
“It feels like it. It’s so wrong.”
“By our standards, not hers,” Margaret said, sounding like a therapist again.
“She’s not even embarrassed or remorseful. She was incredibly hostile with me. I’m so disappointed in her, Mom. And I know it sounds stupid, but it’s embarrassing.” She had a million emotions about it, and was proud of none of them, nor of her daughter, for the first time in her life. Claire was rejecting everything her family believed in, and the values she’d grown up with.
“The embarrassment is irrelevant. You’ll get over it. My real concern is if she’s ready to mother a child, and if this man is someone she can count on, or if she’s just a passing fancy to him. We don’t know him, and neither does she.”
“She says he wants to meet me, but I’m not up to it.” Kate felt as though her whole world had caved in. For the first time, one of her children had done something terrible and foolish that would impact her life forever. She was brokenhearted for Claire, who didn’t understand what she’d done, and in some circles, her reputation would be ruined forever. The world wasn’t as modern as she thought, not among the people they knew.
“You should meet him,” Margaret said firmly, “and see what he says. Your judgment is a lot better than hers.”
“Tom would die if he were still alive.”
“Well, he’s not. So you’ll have to figure this out yourself.” She paused for a minute then and looked at Kate. “Do they know about you? Have you ever told them?”
“No, that’s irrelevant. They don’t need to know.”
“It’s not irrelevant. It’s about you. They’re old enough to know and it will humanize you in their eyes. It’s part of your history. You should share it with them.”
“It’s not going to change anything.”
“You should have told them years ago,” Margaret said firmly and Kate disagreed. She spent another hour with her mother, and then walked back to her apartment, feeling a little better but not much. She called Bart back, and he was shocked when he heard her.
“You sound awful. You must be really sick.” He couldn’t tell the difference between tears and the flu, and she had refused to do FaceTime with him. He told her to stay warm and get well soon. She still had no intention of telling him, but sooner or later, everyone would know. There was no hiding an illegitimate child. And Claire had no intention of keeping it a secret so Kate would have to get used to it. She wondered when Claire would tell her brother and sister and what they would say.
Claire called her that night, not to apologize for any of the things she’d said to her mother, but because she said Reed was insisting he wanted to see her. He had told Claire that no matter how angry she was at her mother, he wanted to meet her and at least let her know that he was an honorable man and wanted to marry her.
“She’ll just try to force us to get married, and I don’t want to, just because it’s what she wants,” Claire said to Reed. “I want to get married when we’re ready to and want to, not for her, or because we ‘have to.’ She’s expected us to be perfect at everything all our lives, I’m sick of it. I don’t want to be perfect anymore. I want to do what’s right for me, and for you,” she added as an afterthought.
“It might be nice for the baby too if we did,” he said gently, but she looked like a petulant child as she shook her head.
“Two of my friends have had babies without being married, and the sky didn’t fall in,” she insisted, and he didn’t press the point. He was happy either way, as long as he had Claire and their child. Things had happened quickly, but he really loved her, and wanted her family to know it too.
Kate reluctantly agreed to meet them the next day at her apartment after work. It felt like a déjà vu of Friday, when Claire walked in scowling, but this time Reed was with her, and he looked kind and apologetic from the moment he came through the door.
“I’m sorry this has happened so quickly, and that we’ve dumped it on you like this,” Reed said, and sounded sincere. He was pleasant looking, with wavy brown hair and warm brown eyes, and appeared slightly older than he was. He seemed proper and respectful in khaki pants, a freshly pressed white shirt, and well-polished shoes. He appeared to be an adult and a gentleman, and he was very sympathetic with Kate. “I can imagine how upsetting this is for you. I would love to marry Claire, when she’s ready to. I want to assure you that my intentions are honorable, and I intend to take good care of her. I love her very much.” He smiled at Claire and then at her mother, as tears filled Kate’s eyes. He was saying the right things, but the situation still shocked her. It was everything she had hoped never to face with one of her daughters, and didn’t think she would. But at least he seemed like a decent man, and he loved Claire and wanted the baby. He explained that both of his parents had died when he was young, they had been older when he was born, and very conservative, and would have been shocked by the situation too, just as Kate was. He had grown up in New York and she could tell that he was well brought up, polite, and well educated. He wasn’t a rebel like Claire had suddenly become, and he seemed like a responsible adult.
“Thank you,” Kate said, fumbling for words. “I’m still stunned by the whole thing, and how adamant Claire is about not getting married. I never knew she felt that way.” This was the rebellion her mother had warned her of for years, because she set the bar so high for them. But with a baby on the way, now was the time for Claire to be reasonable and mature, not act like an angry teenager. It was a little late for that.
“We’ll get there eventually,” Reed said soothingly. They didn’t stay long. Kate offered him wine, but he declined, and he hugged Kate before they left, and thanked her for being so understanding, which she wasn’t. He had done all he could to put oil on troubled waters, and she respected him for it. Claire was the problem more than Reed.
Kate called her mother after they left and told her about it.
“I think she
got lucky. He sounds like a nice man.” Something else had occurred to Kate when she saw them together. “He’s very fatherly with her. She was only seven when Tom died. Maybe Reed is the father she didn’t have. I get the feeling he’d prefer being married now too. Maybe he can talk her into it.”
“Eventually, it won’t matter if they’re married, if he’s a good man and a good father and doesn’t run out on her. Let’s hope he sticks around. And being married isn’t a guarantee he’ll stay either,” as they both knew.
“It sounds like he will.” Kate was slightly relieved after meeting him. She was glad he had insisted, but she still had the shock about the baby, her disappointment in her daughter, and the embarrassment factor to deal with. It was a lot. She decided that her mother had been right about something else. She texted Claire that night and asked her to come back to the apartment the next evening, alone this time, and she assured her it wouldn’t take long.
* * *
—
Claire looked hostile and suspicious as soon as she arrived, and somewhat mystified about why Kate wanted her there, but at least she had come.
“If you got me here to try and convince me to get married, it won’t work, and I’ll leave now.”
“Actually, it’s about something else. Something your grandmother thinks that I should share with you. I wasn’t going to. But maybe it’s good for you to know that I made my mistakes too. Please come in and sit down.”
They sat facing each other on opposite couches, as Claire waited expectantly, and Kate didn’t waste time.
“I got pregnant by accident when I was young too. I was younger than you are, I was nineteen, he was twenty. We’d been dating for a few months. I didn’t know him well. I wasn’t madly in love with him as you are with Reed. It was a stupid teenage mistake. I was a sophomore at Northwestern, and very innocent. I’d been pretty sheltered growing up. He was the first boy I ever slept with. His name was Ethan Henry. My father had a fit and insisted we get married. His parents agreed, and so we did. It was over the summer so we were at home here in New York, not in school. He had a summer job at a beach club on Long Island, where he lived with his parents. We were two dumb kids who hardly knew each other, and neither of us were ready for marriage or to have a child. We got married in June, when he got back from school. I was three months pregnant. In August, we went out one night on Long Island. He was driving and he’d had some beers. I was five months pregnant, and we got in a terrible accident. He wasn’t hurt, but I broke my pelvis and lost the baby. We hit another car, and a twelve-year-old passenger was killed, a little girl. My father had the marriage annulled as soon as I lost the baby, and I guess I was relieved. They told me the baby was a boy, and I felt terrible about it. I think I was in shock when I went back to school in September. Some of it is a blur. There was a trial later, and Ethan went to prison for seven years for manslaughter. I never heard from him again, and his life must have been ruined by going to prison. We never wrote to each other, and I don’t know what happened to him. I always felt bad about it, him, the baby, the little girl, all of it. I put it all behind me, and a year later I met your father, and we got married after I graduated, and you know the rest of the story after that. But none of you knew the first part.” Claire’s eyes were wide as she listened.
“You were married before Dad?”
“For two months, because of an unwanted pregnancy. But it shows you that I did some foolish things too.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Of course. I told him before we got married. I wouldn’t have kept that a secret from him.”
“Why did you tell me, and why didn’t you tell us before?” Claire’s tone was accusatory more than sympathetic.
“I never thought you needed to know. Your father and I agreed that you didn’t. But your grandmother thought I owed it to you to humble myself. I’m not as perfect as you may think and I pretend.”
“This is different. Reed and I are in love,” she said stubbornly, but Kate could see that she was shaken by the story. “Why did you tell me? Are you suggesting I go out and get in an accident to get rid of the baby?” she said cruelly, and Kate felt like she’d been punched in the stomach and looked it.
“I told you because I’ve been foolish too, and I thought you deserved to know that. Maybe you didn’t though if that’s all you can say.” Claire looked embarrassed when Kate stood up. It had been hard enough to tell her and dredge up old history, she didn’t deserve the reaction she’d gotten.
“Are you going to tell that to the others?”
“I will,” she said simply, and Claire walked to the door, looking pensive, and then looked back at her mother.
“I’m sorry, Mom. That must have been hard for you to go through.” It was the first sign of humanity Kate had seen from Claire since the whole mess had started about her pregnancy.
“It was hard,” she said coolly. Claire had just disappointed her again. Their relationship had taken some hard hits in the past few days. Kate wondered if they’d recover from them, or if her family was starting to disintegrate. It was possible, no matter how hard she’d worked on it for years and how much she loved them.
Claire left and Kate called her mother to tell her she’d done it, told Claire the story of her first marriage.
“How was she about it?”
“Not very nice,” Kate said, sounding exhausted. She hated to remember it herself. It had been a sad painful time in her life that had forced her to grow up.
“Give her some time to think about it. She’s going through a lot right now too. That was a big dose of some heavy information about you.” She hesitated for a moment and then went on, “Did you tell her about her father?” Margaret asked.
“No, I didn’t, and I’m not going to. Some things they don’t need to know, and never will.” Kate sounded tense when she answered.
“It would only be fair to you, if they knew.”
“It doesn’t matter now. He’s dead.”
“But you’re not. They’re adults, Kate. They need to know who you are and what you’ve been through. That’s a heavy burden for you. They’re too old for secrets now.” Kate thanked her mother and got off the phone. What her mother was referring to was the one secret she intended to keep. For them, and for their father.
Chapter 6
As July progressed, Anthony felt as though he was being driven to the edge of sanity by his double life. All he wanted was to be with Alicia, but he had to go home to Amanda at some point every night, and he felt dizzy every time he faced her. He was waiting for one of them to find out, and finally he knew he had to do something about it. He wanted to be honest with Alicia. He genuinely loved her and didn’t want to hurt her any more than he already had. And he didn’t want to hurt Amanda either.
It was a warm night and he and Alicia had taken a long, slow walk by the river to cool off. On the way back to the subway he kissed her, and realized he had never loved her more. His integrity finally took the upper hand. He stopped walking and looked at her. There was something deeply wrenching in his eyes, a bottomless sorrow she didn’t understand.
“I have to tell you something,” he said in barely more than a whisper. “I should have told you a long time ago, but I didn’t. Remember in the beginning that I said I was seeing someone? I was, and it wasn’t over. I didn’t have the guts to tell you, and it’s not over yet. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it. I’m so in love with you, Alicia. I don’t want to risk losing you, but I think I need a little time to figure this out. I can’t do this anymore, sleeping with you every night. My life is becoming completely crazy and I feel horrible about this. You’re where I want to be, but there’s somewhere else I’m supposed to be. I need to sort that out, Alicia, and then come back to you without a string of tin cans trailing behind me. I hope you can forgive me. I want to work it out.”
“Wait a minute.
” Alicia stopped dead in her tracks, trying to understand what he was saying to her. “Never mind about tin cans and all that crap. Who are you supposed to be with, and just how much have you still been ‘seeing’ her? You mean like every day? Are you living with her?” He nodded, and looked like a beaten dog when he did. “Are you married?” she shrieked at him, so loud people a block away could hear her, and he cringed.
“No, of course not. I’m not that big a creep.” He decided to make a clean breast of it. “I’m supposed to get married in December. I’ve never felt about her the way I do about you. This has been agony, lying to you. I need to figure it out, Alicia. I know it sounds like shit now, but I’m in love with you. I swear that’s true.” The big question was if he loved Amanda too. He wasn’t sure.
“Hold on here. You’re engaged to some woman you’re supposed to marry in December, in five months? And you go home to her every night after you make love to me, and you didn’t fucking tell me you’re living with someone and about to get married? We’ve been together for almost two months, and you didn’t fucking tell me that?” She was screaming at him, but he knew he deserved it.
“I don’t go home to her every night. That’s the whole point. I’ve been lying to everyone while I tried to figure it out. I need to talk to her and clean up the whole mess and come back to you if you’ll have me. I want to do this right, for everyone.”
“Right? Are you some kind of lunatic? You’ve been lying to me for two months, and now you want to do this right? What do you do? Make love to both of us every night? What kind of shithead are you? Who are you? You lying shit. Don’t talk to me about ‘doing this right.’ Go back to whoever she is, and don’t ever call me again,” and after she said it, with a wild look in her eyes, she punched him so hard that he reeled backward and almost fell. Then she delivered two more punches to his chest and stomach. He was bent over as he looked at her. He had never been punched in the stomach before, and they both knew he’d get a black eye out of it, which was what she had intended. She hadn’t broken anything, but she could have.
Child's Play Page 7
