First Comes Baby

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Once, he would have talked about how he felt with his father, also a businessman. Even if—when—his parents came around, he was going to have a hard time forgiving their reaction to the news that Laurel was pregnant. With his anger running so deep, he and his father weren’t doing much talking at all. This was something he had to work out on his own.

  His next stop was Cuzco, the ancient city in Peru he’d grown to love. In part thanks to tourism, it had held on to its charm.

  Again, he faced delays and frustration. He had no time for strolls through the narrow, cobble-stoned streets, or for browsing open-air markets in search of new craftspeople. Nope, he dealt with business, and four days later had to leave.

  He loved this city, but flying in and out of here was something else again. Buying a ticket on any of the small South American airlines was like bargaining with God.

  Today he took his seat, then watched with incredulity as the flight attendant used a bungee cord to secure the door. He actually unbuckled his seatbelt and started to stand, then thought, Crap, who knows when I can catch another flight? They’d probably been securing the damn door this way for months. What were the odds the cabin would lose pressure this time?

  Those odds were higher than he liked, Caleb admitted to himself as he sat back down, buckled up tightly, gritted his teeth and closed his eyes in anticipation of takeoff. The airport here was notorious, because planes had to climb so steeply to make it over the ridges surrounding the city. Flying in felt like a plunge into hell. The plane went so low over ridges you could study the leaves on the trees. No matter how many times you did it, you knew the next time there was no way in God’s green earth the pilot was going to be able to abort the descent, lift the nose and land.

  Caleb wasn’t a praying man, except at times like this. More bargains: I’ll be good if you’ll let me survive this flight.

  This was another way in which he’d changed: he worried about dying now.

  He couldn’t be as philosophical about the risk of one of these duct-taped-together airplanes falling from the sky, or the fact that he knew his dead body might be found someday in a Jeep beside the road in one of the many countries where government forces and rebel guerrillas waged constant war.

  Peasants who were economically well off were unlikely to support antigovernment forces, which made him unpopular with them. Brutal bands of the Senderistas in Peru, better known as Shining Path, the National Liberation Army in Colombia and their counterparts in half a dozen other Central and South American nations roamed at will, terrorizing villagers and conducting bloody skirmishes against Army units. In countries like Haiti, it was the government forces Caleb had to worry about, as brutally as they worked to suppress the peasants whose lot in life he aimed to improve.

  Over the years, Caleb had had several near misses. In Guatemala he’d managed to convince a small band holding guns on him that he, too, thought the government needed overthrowing, that he was here because he sought to undermine it. He’d had death threats, and had slipped into the jungle a couple of times just ahead of guerrillas.

  When he was young and foolish, he’d been exhilarated every time he emerged from danger unscathed. But now he was going to be a father. He wanted to be around not just to see his baby born and to support Laurel as much as she’d allow, but to be there when his kid grew up. He was thinking about soccer games and school conferences and high school graduation.

  And Laurel. Always Laurel.

  She might not think she needed him, but she did.

  He had rewritten his will just before he left for this trip, leaving everything he owned to her. He doubted she’d approve if he had asked her, but tough—if this damn plane went down in a fiery ball, at least he’d know she was financially set.

  But damned if he was willing to die. She was bound to want a second child, and he’d have to rise from the grave when she asked Matt Baker for sperm again.

  The plane felt as if it were climbing straight up, the body shaking and rattling. Even businessmen who flew often sat silent, grips tight on the armrests. When the plane cleared the mountainous rim of the bowl that held Cuzco, the sighs of released breath were audible the length of the plane.

  Caleb kept an eye on the door secured by the bungee cord, but it held until the plane landed in Bogotá, Colombia. A week here, then on to Honduras, then home.

  He strolled down the street from his hotel that evening, enjoying the pleasant temperature that was nearly year-around in Bogotá, and found a small café where he ate ajiaco, a traditional chicken-and-potato soup with capers and avocado on the side. Walking back, night air cool on his skin, he thought ruefully about the next day, when he would head for the lower-lying coastal area notorious for sultry heat and 100-plus inches of annual rainfall.

  A number of time zones ahead of Seattle, Caleb had to struggle to stay up late enough to call Laurel after she’d be home from work. At last he deemed it worth taking a chance and dialed from his hotel room, waiting through interminable bursts of static and clicks until her phone rang and she picked up.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Caleb! You sound far away.”

  “I am far away. Bogotá.”

  “Checking up on me?”

  Was he? Maybe. He wasn’t sure he’d ever have faith she was safe again. And if he felt that way, it was no wonder she fought a myriad of fears.

  “I miss you,” he said. “The nomadic life is losing its glamour.”

  “Thinking about your own bed?”

  No, yours.

  Lucky those words hadn’t slipped out.

  “I was thinking about our week together. Watching you pull weeds. Going out to lunch together every day. Cooking. Reading. Playing Scrabble.”

  “It was a lovely week.”

  Stretched on a lumpy bed in the small hotel off the tourist route that he frequented whenever he was in Bogotá, Caleb listened to the wistful tone of her voice.

  “How are you?”

  “Good,” she said. “Really good. I saw the doctor Tuesday. The baby is getting so active, she wakes me up at night sometimes.”

  “She? Did you have an ultrasound?”

  Laurel laughed. “No, it just gets awkward saying ‘he or she’ all the time. Besides…”

  “You think it’s a girl.”

  “The flutters feel like a girl.”

  “And aren’t you going to feel silly when he turns out to be a big, strapping fellow.”

  His gaze followed a cockroach that walked into the bedroom from the bathroom, bold as you please. Ah, well. They were a fact of life down here.

  “I’ll never tell him I thought he was a she. And you can’t, either. Cross your heart.”

  “Consider it done.” He wasn’t about to say, Hope to die, not after his day’s ruminations on that very subject.

  They talked for a few more minutes. She’d had dinner the night before with Matt and Sheila Baker. Seattle was having a heat wave, which made sleeping hard for an almost-six-months-pregnant woman. When he mentioned the temperature here in Bogotá, she moaned.

  Oh, and her sister had broken up with her style-challenged boyfriend and was dating a journalist for the Seattle P.I.

  “Although the relationship may be short-lived, because the other day he accused her of having her head in the sand because she doesn’t share his minute-by-minute fascination with breaking news and was unaware of some subtlety of Capitol Hill wrangling.”

  “Tact’s apparently not his strong suit, either.”

  Her laugh rippled. “Yeah, but let’s face it. It’s not Meg’s, either. She says what she thinks.”

  “The first time I met her, she said, ‘Wow, you’re sure skinny.’”

  Another gurgle. “I’d forgotten that. I always suspected her cool up-and-down appraisal had something to do with your decision to prove how rough and tough you were by playing rugby.”

  He was still too embarrassed to admit she was right.

  “What was she? Fifteen?” he complained in remembe
red indignation. “College guys were supposed to look good to her.”

  Caleb had lost sight of the cockroach. He wasn’t worried. He’d sleep well under mosquito netting that kept out larger insects, too. He carried his own netting, malaria and dengue fever lacking appeal. The Radisson Royal Bogotá Hotel might keep their mosquito nets in good repair, but they tended to be full of holes in places like this.

  He said good-night with regret, went to the bathroom one more time, watching where he stepped, then wrapped himself in treated mosquito netting.

  Funny, he thought on the edge of sleep, that he never used to feel lonely, either.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PREDICTABLY, CALEB’S MOTHER kept trying to smooth over the rift with him. She started every phone conversation with “How’s Laurel?”

  Today was the usual after he picked up and she said hello. “How’s Laurel? With the weather so hot, I keep thinking about her.”

  “She’s fine,” he said shortly, as he continued scanning a spreadsheet open on his computer. Oh, hell, pretending to scan.

  In the silence, he could feel her hurt feelings.

  “Mom…”

  “Am I not supposed to mention her name?” she said, with quiet dignity.

  Oh, crap. He didn’t want to do this. But he also didn’t like skating around the subject the way they’d been doing lately.

  So he came out and said, “I keep wondering why you are.”

  “She’s carrying our grandchild.”

  “It’s news to me that you and Dad are planning to acknowledge that you have a grandchild.” Unfair, he knew, but damn it, he was still mad.

  “Caleb, we never said that. You’ve magnified what we did say.”

  “Have I? It seems to me it came down to you being shocked and disappointed that I’d let that floozy ‘reel’ me in.”

  “Your father was tactless.”

  “Dad tends to say what he means.”

  “You’re sulking. If you’d quit, you might be willing to see that we had reason to be shocked. Were we supposed to be thrilled that our first grandchild is being born because our son donated sperm?”

  “It’s Laurel.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But we didn’t realize what she meant to you. You’re not always forthcoming, you know. All we knew is that you still get together sometimes. Do you realize how many years it’s been since we saw her?”

  The spreadsheet forgotten, he frowned. Was it true that his parents had no idea how much Laurel meant to him? Had they really believed that she was no more than a casual friend?

  Maybe. He hadn’t been all that sure in his own mind what she did mean to him. Not since he was a teenager had he talked much to them about any woman he was seeing.

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Graduation day. When we all went out to dinner together.”

  Laurel, her dad and sister had joined Caleb, his parents and his grandmother for dinner that night.

  “Six years ago?”

  “Six years. Your father wasn’t suggesting she was a floozy. What he was telling you is that she’s a stranger. Think about it, Caleb.”

  He heard in the quality of the silence that she’d hung up, and did the same himself.

  So now it was his fault that his parents had been appalled to hear Laurel was bearing his child?

  Caleb ran a hand over his unshaven chin.

  Maybe. Partly. But only partly. Because while he hadn’t said, I always thought Laurel would end up being your daughter-in-law, he also knew he’d never given them any reason to think she was the kind of woman who’d use him and then discard him. Or that he himself was capable of judgment so poor.

  His father in particular hadn’t just been stunned. He’d been angry. And while Caleb’s mother had continued to call regularly as if nothing was wrong, his father hadn’t gone out of the way to apologize.

  His father, apparently, didn’t think he had anything to apologize for.

  Until he did, Caleb wasn’t letting go of his anger.

  IN PROFILE, LAUREL AT six months pregnant was the graceful personification of pregnancy. She didn’t yet lumber or have trouble levering herself from chairs or into cars, but was blatantly expecting.

  Caleb hadn’t expected to find the sight of her carrying his baby so sexy.

  Back from the latest trip, already planning the next without even a drop of enthusiasm, he was trying to focus on enjoying the time he had with her. He sure as hell didn’t want Laurel to know he sometimes got aroused just watching her stroll to the kitchen.

  The pregnancy was amazing enough, the change in only a few weeks dramatic.

  They had planned to do something this Saturday. He’d dropped by late morning, catching her showered but still reading the newspaper.

  “Do you still fit in that shower?” he asked.

  Setting aside the sports section unread, she laughed. “Yes. It’s not that much smaller than normal. Not all of us have a shower that’s a whole room.”

  His bathroom was a major indulgence. The windows surrounding the Jacuzzi tub made him feel as if he was in a treetop. The tub was separate from a huge shower tiled in forest green. The vanity was higher than usual so he didn’t have to stoop. The towels were huge, thick and luxurious. Laurel had teased him about the bathroom when she stayed with him.

  Caleb poured himself a cup of coffee, thinking about the day. “How about the UW bookstore? I’ve been wanting to go for a while. There must be someplace we can grab a bite to eat on the Ave. Maybe wander a bit.”

  If he hadn’t happened to glance her way when he mentioned the UW bookstore, he wouldn’t have seen her flinch. The reaction was so fleeting, the next minute he wondered if he’d imagined it. Because if he hadn’t, she’d managed between one blink and the next to relax completely, deliberately.

  Maybe she’d just felt a twinge. Didn’t women’s uterine muscles have warm-outs for the big event?

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I was thinking it might be fun to go see Nadia and the baby. We could stop for lunch somewhere on Bainbridge, say hi and coo to Alex, then do whatever.”

  That sounded good, too, but something compelled him to push, find out if he had imagined her momentary tension.

  “Didn’t you go over last weekend? I feel lazy. And I’m out of reading material.”

  She sipped her herbal tea. “How about Elliott Bay instead, then? We know there are good restaurants in Pioneer Square. Trattoria Mitchelli…”

  Dangling another longtime favorite of his in front of him was a cheap trick. Caleb carried his coffee over and sat across the table from her.

  “I like the University Book Store better,” he said perversely.

  A flicker of distress marred her serenity. He watched carefully, without appearing to, as she struggled to hide it.

  “Stubborn,” she murmured.

  Caleb reached across the table for the weekly events section that ran in the Thursday Times. Laurel had apparently set it aside in case they wanted to consult it about weekend happenings. He found what he wanted quickly.

  “Did you notice the Korean dance troupe that’s performing next weekend at Meany Hall?” The University of Washington sponsored a world-class lineup of international performers at the theater. “Do you ever go? I haven’t been in years.”

  “Me, either.” She was definitely tense now, but trying hard not to show it. “But I’m not sure this one appeals to me.”

  Cutting to the chase, Caleb set down his coffee cup. “Do you ever go near the campus?”

  She sat quiet for a minute, probably tempted to feign ignorance of where he was going. But she had the courage to instead lift her chin and look him in the eye. “No.”

  “Never?”

  “No.”

  “Not once since…”

  “No.”

  The hard, defiant quality of her single-word answers took him aback.

  “Is that healthy? What’s your counselor say?”

  “I don’t see a counselor anymore.” No
t that it’s any of your business, her tone implied. “I haven’t in years. I go to a group at a rape center. The subject hasn’t come up.”

  “Are you afraid to go anywhere near the campus?”

  Caleb wasn’t sure what compelled him to prod for answers, but he felt as if they were important.

  Her hands out of sight on her lap, she sat as stiff as a witness on the stand. “No. Just…uncomfortable.” Her eyes were dark with hostility. “Is that a crime?”

  “What was done to you was the crime.”

  “It’s the criminals that are reputed to go back to the scene. Not the victims.”

  Should he back off? Was he risking her trust by pushing too hard?

  “I wasn’t suggesting we go near the garage…”

  “How did you know…?” Laurel bit off her question. “I suppose someone told you.”

  “It sure wasn’t you.” Buried frustration surfaced. “Do you know, you’ve never talked about the attack to me? Not once?”

  Her shoulders hunched. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “We’re best friends, Laurel.” Caleb pitched his voice low and gentle. “I’ve always been here for you to talk to.”

  “I have my group.”

  “Of other rape survivors.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t talk to anyone else about it.”

  “No.”

  “Why?” he asked, equally blunt.

  “Because no one else understands.”

  “How can we understand if you won’t talk to us?”

  She shook her head in quick denial. “You’re a man.”

  He thought of the years of restraint it had required to sustain any kind of relationship with her at all and began to feel pissed. “And that equates me with rapists?”

  She had to hear the edge in his voice. Her gaze flashed to his. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “You have no idea how it feels to be a victim. You’ve always been tall, strong, confident.”

  “My Jeep was pulled over in Peru by Shining Path guerrillas.” Actually, he didn’t know that the nasty bunch who threatened him were really Senderistas, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “Ever hear of them?”