by Holly Jacobs
Eli tried to say something, tried to make words form, but all she could do was moan as another spasm hit her back.
“Ms. Cartwright?” Ariel asked at the same time that Zac said, “Eli?” There was concern in both their voices.
“I think that maybe the back pain I’ve been having all day is more than a pulled muscle.”
“Back labor. I remember you taught us about that,” Ariel said. “I didn’t have it.”
“But I think I am. And I really think I need to go to the hospital. I’m sorry to cancel our dinner, Ariel.”
“Come on, Ms. Cartwright, this is so much more important.”
The pain subsided, and Eli gently touched Ariel’s cheek with her finger. “Ariel, you are important to me, and we’re going to take a rain check, okay? This day deserves to be celebrated.”
“Yes, it does,” Zac agreed.
“I’ll be taking Ariel and her aunt out now, Ms. Cartwright,” Charlie said, “and you guys can take her sometime after your baby’s here, okay?” Still holding Nora, Charlie wrapped his free arm around Ariel.
“Thanks, Charlie.” Looking at the three of them, Eli recognized a family in the making and though she knew odds were stacked against them, she hoped that Ariel and Charlie would make it.
“Come on Eli, let’s go.” Zac took her arm as if she couldn’t manage by herself. She was about to tell him that she could, when another pain hit and she gratefully leaned on him.
“Hey, Mr. Keller, will you call me?” Ariel called.
“Sure.” He dropped his voice and said, “Let’s get you out of here before you have your baby on the floor.”
“It would be a graduation first,” Eli joked, smiling through the pain.
ZAC WASN’T SOME BIG-GAME hunter, and he’d never thought it overly prudent to bungee-jump or sky-dive, but still he thought that when it came to bravery he had an ample amount. Instead, as he raced through the bustling downtown traffic to the hospital, he felt panic.
“Zac, how much longer?”
Eli had asked him that question countless times between Whedon and Erie. Finally, he was able to say, “Only a couple more minutes. I can see the hospital.”
“Good. The E.R. entrance is in the back.” Her voice was breathy.
“You okay?” He’d lost precious time because he’d been stupid enough to let Eli push him away. He should never have listened to her, or left. He should have stuck to her regardless.
“I’m fine,” she managed to say.
Thankfully there were valets in the parking lot. Zac tossed them his keys, and took the slip, before helping Eli inside.
A nurse settled her into a wheelchair so she could escort them to the obstetrics floor.
“Well, Zac, thanks for everything.”
Zac realized he’d never told her what he’d planned on telling her.
“Eli, I’d like to come…if you want me. I want to be here for you. I came tonight to talk, but I don’t think right now is the best time. But please, let me stay. We’ll talk later.”
He was afraid she’d say no, but he could see the relief on her face. “Thank you.”
While the nurses prepped Eli, he called her parents.
“We’re on our way in,” her mother told him. “It would be nice if you’d at least stay with her until we get there.”
There was a coldness in her mother’s voice that had never been there before.
“I’m not going anywhere, Mrs. Cartwright. I planned on telling Eli after the graduation, but other things took precedence.”
Just like that, her mother warmed. “I knew you’d work it out. I tried to understand why she did it, but still, I felt she’d been hasty and told her so.”
“Maybe, but it was even worse that I listened and went anyway. I worked out a lot of things last week, ma’am.”
“Things you probably should tell Eli before me.” Eli’s mother laughed. “We’ll be there soon. I’m glad you’ll be staying, Zac.”
He’d be staying for a lot longer than the delivery if he had his way. He was just about bursting with the need to tell Eli his feelings, but he knew right now she had other things to concentrate on. “I’ll look after her, Mrs. Cartwright.”
“Let me be the first to welcome you to the family, Zac. I knew you’d be a part of it when I saw the way you looked at my daughter that first time I met you, right after she told us about the baby. That look…that’s why I wasn’t sure if the baby’s was yours or Arthur’s. You mean a lot to Eli, and I’m sure you’ll mean a lot to this baby, too.”
Eli’s mother’s words meant so much. “Thanks, Mrs. Cartwright. I—”
The nurse interrupted. “Mr. Keller, Eli’s asking for you now.”
“Mrs. Cartwright, I have to go.” He snapped his phone shut and hurried into the room. “I texted Tucker, and I called your mom.”
“Great. She’s so—”
Another pain hit and began a cycle of contractions and breathing, brief rests, then back at it again. He fed Eli an occasional ice chip, helped her concentrate on breathing, but basically felt useless. He hated to see her in pain.
The nurse told him that back labors tended to be more intense, and helped them position Eli more comfortably. But more comfortably wasn’t nearly comfortable enough in Zac’s opinion. When they offered her pain meds, Eli insisted that she didn’t want to miss a moment.
Eventually, her doctor came in and after checking Eli assured them it was time.
Zac very thankfully remained by Eli’s head, and well out of the viewing range as he continued to play cheerleader. “Breathe, Eli…Huff. Huff. Huff.”
“I can see the baby’s head. This one’s got a full head of hair, Mom,” the doctor said. “Don’t push, Eli. Let me just ease the baby’s shoulders through. Breathe. Breathe.”
Zac breathed along with her, huffing in hopes of controlling the urge to push.
“There, you’re good,” Dr. Benton said. “Push the next time you have the urge.”
There was no waiting. Eli pushed and cried out as she flopped back on the pillow.
A minute later, the doctor cried, “It’s a boy!” And as if on cue, the baby wailed. The doctor held the baby aloft and placed him on Eli’s chest. “Would you like to cut the umbilical cord, Dad?”
Zac didn’t know how to respond, so he looked at Eli. “Zac? Only if you want.”
“I want.”
He followed the doctor’s instructions, made the cut and realized that this baby, who’d been a part of Eli for nine long months was now a separate person in his own right. This tiny little boy would learn to walk and talk. He’d go to school. Maybe play sports. He’d learn to drive.
And Zac wanted to be there for every new skill, every milestone.
He wanted to tell Eli and her son all of that and more, but there were just too many words, too many emotions, so he simply settled for, “I love you. I love you both.”
“We love you, Zac. I know there’s still things to say and there’s Arthur—”
“You should probably call him,” he suggested, more because he needed her to see he was going to be able to handle Arthur.
“Sir, maybe you’d be more comfortable waiting outside for a minute while we freshen up Eli and the baby?” the nurse asked.
“I could call if you want,” he offered. He’d accepted that he was going to have to deal with Arthur for the rest of his life, since he intended it to be that way with Eli. He might as well get started with doing it the right away.
“Really?” Eli studied him, then nodded. “His number’s in my cell, which is in my purse.”
“You do ask a lot from a man, Eli,” he teased. “I mean, going in your purse is the job for only a very brave man.”
She smiled. “I really do love you, Zac Keller.”
ELI HAD NEVER BEEN SO tired in her life, and conversely, she’d never felt more alive. Her parents had come and seen the baby. It was all her father could do to pull her mom back out the door, and the only way he managed that was with Eli’s assurance
she’d need her mother’s help when she went home the following day.
Zac had sat on the couch in the birthing room and had dozed off within minutes of her parents leaving. That left Eli plenty of time to watch him sleep. They still hadn’t talked about what his being here meant, but she hoped that he was back to stay because he’d come to terms with the situation.
There was a knock at the door, which startled Zac awake. The baby stirred as well. “Shh,” she whispered, then called softly, “Come in.”
Arthur stuck his head into the room and for a moment, she thought he was going to bolt.
Instead, he stepped all the way in. “He called me.” He nodded toward Zac. “I thought I should come.”
Eli studied the man she’d once thought she’d loved and realized he’d never shared himself with her the way Zac had.
Zac had told her about the day they’d taken Cessy away. He’d given her son his piggy bank, which represented so much more that a place to save money—it had been a place Zac had saved his dreams. She wanted nothing more than to tell Zac everything she was feeling, but first there was Arthur.
He stood at the very end of her bed, looking at the baby.
“Arthur, would you like to see my son?” she asked. She untucked the blanket and moved the baby so he was facing the ceiling rather than turned toward her.
She saw Zac get up off the couch. “I should go.”
“No, please. I need you.” She wasn’t trying to be cruel. She needed him here. She needed him to hear.
She could see from his expression that he thought staying would be awkward, but she’d said she needed him and so he stayed. “Okay.”
Eli had known that Zac loved her, but how had she not known the second she had met him that she loved him?
Arthur eyed Zac, then addressed Eli, and finally the baby. “I thought about buying him something. It seemed that a father should bring a son a gift.”
She could see Zac wince, but because he was behind Arthur, her ex didn’t notice, and even if he had, she doubted he’d have cared. “But then it occurred to me that I don’t feel like his father. I thought maybe when I got here and saw him that there would be some magic link. But there’s not. I don’t feel anything for him. You were right when you called him your son. He’s yours Eli. I wish I was a better man, one who could stand by you and at least pretend this was what I wanted, but I can’t. I don’t want to be anyone’s father.”
He reached into his suit jacket’s inner pocket. “Here are the papers. They’re signed. And there’s my lawyer’s number along with some basics on the trust I’m setting up for him. You’re supposed to call my lawyer with his name when you know it.”
“I already know it. I’m naming him after my father and his father.” She looked pointedly at Zac. “Jonathan Zachary Cartwright.”
She saw the words impact on Zac. She remembered what Cessy had said at dinner…that she could talk to Zac without words. And right now, she didn’t need words to know he was touched, and that he had taken to Johnny as his son long before she gave him his name.
Zac loved them both.
He’d come today even though he knew that Arthur might decide to stay. He’d come because he cared about them more than he worried about his own pain. “Jonathan Zachary Cartwright Keller,” Zac corrected. “That is if you both will have me.”
It was a proposal. And maybe in any other circumstances, proposing while someone’s ex was standing there would have been bad form, but given everything they’d been through, it was fine.
She nodded.
Arthur looked at the three of them. “Good luck, Eli. I wish you all the best.”
He kissed her lightly on the cheek, then turned to Zac. “You’ll take care of them?”
“They’re my family,” Zac said simply, moving to Eli’s side. “I figured it out. We match.”
Arthur seemed confused, but Eli got it. She understood. “We match perfectly,” she assured him.
“I’ll let the three of you bond then, as all the books mention.”
Eli looked surprised.
“Elinore, I’m an academic, I read up on the process. And I get it now.”
“Get what, Arthur?” she asked.
He stood still, studying the three of them. “Get why I never felt a connection to this child…because I was never really his father.”
Arthur turned and when he opened the door, Zac called, “Arthur, if you want to know how he is, if you want to check…”
Arthur glanced over his shoulder and shook his head. “I won’t, but thanks. Just take care of them.”
He left, and Eli focused on the man she loved.
Zac had one hand on her, one on Johnny. “You do realize that when I said his name would be Jonathan Zachary Cartwright Keller, I was asking you to marry me?”
“Elinore Cartwright-Keller. It has a nice ring.” She picked up the baby and held him out to Zac. “Johnny, meet your father. Zac, your son.”
Zac took the baby in his arms. Johnny was a bit red-looking, but Zac had only ever seen one thing more beautiful. He looked at Eli—so beautiful.
“Eli, remember at Christmas when you gave me that painting and I said it was the best gift I’d ever received?”
How could she forget. “Yes.”
“I lied.” His voice was husky with emotion. “You are. Johnny is.”
“That’s two things,” she joked.
“No, it’s not,” Zac argued. “You and Johnny are one—a family. My family. Our family. We all match.”
EPILOGUE
“Delivering your baby might seem as if it should be the end of the book, but there are still more chapters left. Because carrying and having a baby is the easy part. Raising that child, creating your own family…those are lessons you never stop learning.”
—Pregnancy, Childbirth and Parenting for
Teens, by Mary Jeanne Lorei
ARIEL JIGGLED NORA on her knee and saw that Mrs. Cartwright, Eli’s mom, was doing the same thing with Johnny. Both babies had reached a crawling-all-over age that made them less than happy about sitting through a marriage ceremony.
But Ariel had seen Mrs. Cartwright dab at her eyes, just as she’d dabbed at her own as Eli and Zac said their vows in front of a church filled with friends and family. Even Tucker, who was wearing a dress and standing next to Eli as her maid of honor, was misty-eyed.
“And I promise to stand by you through it all. You and Johnny are my world, my heart, my life,” Zac vowed.
Cecily and Mrs. Keller burst into noisy tears, the rest of the Keller family looked on the verge of crying as well.
“I, Elinore, take you, Zachary, for better and worse. You came to me at one of the most confusing times in my life, and you gave me the strength to find a new path. Once I found it, it made sense that you were there, walking alongside of me. Wherever we go, I know I’ll be just fine as long as you’re there. I’m a teacher, but it took me until recently to figure out that life just happens…I didn’t plan any of this, but I’m so lucky to have found it. To have found you. I love you, Zac….”
Charlie took Ariel’s hand and squeezed it.
He’d asked her to marry him, but Ariel had said no. For now, it was enough that he was in her life, that he wanted to be a father to Nora. They were both still young. Maybe someday, when they were older, when they were sure they were marrying for the right reasons, but she wouldn’t marry because it seemed convenient. And not just for Nora’s sake. She wanted a family who matched. So, maybe someday…
For now though, Ariel would revel in Zac and Eli’s wedding and enjoy the day. Tomorrow she had to go back to juggling her daughter, her college classes and work.
But it was worth it because Ariel had direction.
In a few years she was going to be a teacher like Elinore Cartwright-Keller and be a positive influence in her students’ lives like Eli had with her kids.
That thought, that goal, was enough to get Ariel through the hardest moments. She was going to take it one
day at a time because like Ms. Cartwright had said, life just happens. There were no crib notes for it.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4335-8
UNEXPECTED GIFTS
Copyright © 2009 by Holly Fuhrmann.
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