A Little Bit of Déjà Vu

by Laurie Kellogg

  “John, it’s Jake Manion,” he said after John answered. “I’m sorry to call at this hour, but I could use your help.”

  “What do you need, Jake?” The man yawned in his ear, making Jake feel even guiltier.

  He explained what had transpired that evening and finished by saying, “I know it’s too early to file an official missing person report, but I’m worried about Alex. I’m hoping you could ask your patrol officers to keep an eye out for my son’s Explorer.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll call headquarters right away and issue a BOLO. If we find Alex, I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks. I owe you.”

  Jake continued circling the town, calling the hospital every hour to get an update on Emma’s condition and check if his son had shown up. At four-thirty in the morning, Emma’s blood pressure was still dangerously high.

  When Jake still hadn’t found Alex by five, an icy tingle of fear crept down his back. What if his son wasn’t simply brooding somewhere? Jake made one more trip through the business district, praying nothing had happened to his child. If only Maggie had told him what was bothering his son, Jake might have some idea where he went.

  Earlier that evening, Alex had mentioned he needed to talk. But all Jake had been able to think about was the situation with Maggie.

  While cruising through the high school parking lot for the third time, he noticed a vehicle’s bumper sticking out from behind the field house and stomped on the brakes. Why hadn’t he thought to look back here? He parked behind the Explorer and peeked inside.

  No Alex.

  Jake broke into a full run to scour the school grounds. Passing the stadium’s gates, he glanced up and spotted the silhouette of a lone figure sitting at the top of the bleachers, backlit by the predawn sky’s soft glow.

  Jake blew out a relieved breath and loped across the field toward the stands, trying to think of the best way to tell Alex about the trouble Emma was having.

  His son sat hunched over, holding his head between his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. On spotting Jake climbing the bleachers, he straightened up.

  “I’ve been searching for you all night, Sport,” Jake said, using Alex’s childhood nickname. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been running laps around the track. I would’ve called, except my phone is broken.”

  “I know. Emma told me.” Sinking next to his son, Jake’s throat closed up as he rasped, “There’s no way for me to prepare you for this—”

  “What?” Alex’s head snapped up. “Is it something to do with Em?”

  “She’s in the hospital. Dr. Brennan says she’s developed something called pregnancy induced hypertension. He’s giving her some medication to try to bring down her blood pressure.”

  Alex opened his mouth and nothing came out for a second. He shook his head and buried his face in Jake’s shoulder. “God, no. I read about that on the Internet.”

  When he jumped up and scrambled down the bleachers, Jake sprinted after his son as he dashed across the field. Once they reached the Explorer, Alex wiped his eyes, and his chest shuddered. “First she found out about what happened with Brandy, and now this. I should’ve been there. She told me she had a headache. I thought it was just from being upset.”

  “That probably didn’t help.”

  Leaning against the fender, Alex covered his face with his hands. “This is all my fault, Dad. The other night, I swore on our baby’s life I wasn’t interested in Brandy. I don’t blame Em if she never forgives me. She must hate me.”

  Jake held his son. He hadn’t seen Alex cry like this since he was a little boy. “She doesn’t hate you. She’s just very hurt.” Jake opened the passenger door to the Aston Martin. “Get in. You’re in no condition to drive.”

  As if he were in any better shape, knowing Maggie had the legal right to choose to abort his baby. But, at least, he still had the chance to influence her decision. His grandchild’s fate was beyond anyone’s control.

  ~~~

  Alex stared out the window, silently bargaining with God all the way to the hospital. Emma didn’t know it, but he’d taken Maggie’s suggestion the previous night. He’d gotten up after his wife fell asleep and spent three hours surfing the web for sites about pregnancy.

  One thing that stood out in his memory was a woman with Emma’s condition could go into convulsions and die. And she wouldn’t be safe until after the baby was delivered. He couldn’t take it if anything happened to her.

  Shortly before six o’clock, they crept into Emma’s hospital room and found her asleep and her mom snoozing in the chair next to her. He studied the monitor over the bed. His wife’s blood pressure at her first doctor’s visit had only been 110/72—a long way from 165/100.

  “I have to talk to the doctor.” Alex spun on his heel and dashed out to the nurse’s station.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Brennan left,” The nurse told him after he asked to speak to him.

  “What do you mean he left? My wife is—” Alex swallowed back the panic rising in his throat. “He’s gotta deliver the baby.”

  “Mr. Manion, calm down. We’re monitoring your wife’s condition very closely. If her pressure goes up, the doctor will be called.”

  He sagged against the counter. “God, I can’t lose her.”

  “Hey, Sport,” his father called softly behind him. “Emma’s asking for you.”

  He shoved past Jake and sprinted back to her hospital room. She looked so small and terrified.

  “Angel?” he asked, uncertain if she would speak to him. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”

  “Oh, Alex,” she sobbed and threw herself against him as he reached for her. “I’m so scared.”

  Scared was an understatement. “Me, too. I want the doctor to deliver the baby.”

  “No!” she shoved him away. “I’m not letting anyone touch our child.”

  “But you could die instead.”

  “I’ll take that chance. She needs more time. If she’s born now, she’ll definitely die.”

  “She?”

  Emma nodded. “Dr. Brennan did an ultrasound. He’s fairly sure our baby’s a girl.”

  An awe-filled breath seeped out of him as he splayed his hand over her rounded stomach. His daughter, his little girl. “But, Emmy,”—he pressed his face to her belly—“I can’t take it if anything happens to you.”

  His chest hitched as he felt a little poke at his cheek beneath her hospital gown. He jerked back and stared at Emma. “Was that—oh, my gosh. She actually kicked me.”

  “That’s because her daddy’s goin’ off the deep end,” Jake said, leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb. “Relax, Alex. Dr. Brennan believes everything will be all right.”

  “So I suggest you stop upsetting my daughter so her blood pressure has a chance to come down,” Emma’s mother added from the chair in the corner.

  Maggie was right. He should be helping Emma relax. Alex stroked her dark head. “Angel, I love you. What happened in the locker room was—”

  She pressed her fingers over his lips, smothering his words. “Trust me, that particular subject will not lower my blood pressure.”

  He heaved a resigned sigh, stretched out on the bed next to Emma, and pulled her close. “Okay. We’ll talk when you’re better. You need to sleep now and let the medicine work.”

  ~~~

  A shaft of sunlight shone in the hospital room window and speared Jake in the eye. He stretched in the uncomfortable chair and groaned from the pain in his back. He glanced up at the blood pressure monitor over Emma’s bed. 145/92. Thank God. Her pressure was still pretty high, but it had dropped substantially. Either the medication was working, or sleeping with Alex tangled around her like a kudzu vine had relaxed her.

  Jake stood and gently shook Maggie’s shoulder. Her lashes fluttered up, and she stared at him, looking dazed.

  Holding his index finger to his lips, he nodded toward the monitor and their sleeping kids. It was hard to tell
where one of them began and the other left off.

  “Thank God,” she whispered when she saw the numbers on the display.

  “It looks like she’s out of danger for now. Let me take you home. You’re exhausted.”

  Silently, she let him lead her out of the hospital to his car. They didn’t say a word until they’d been on the road for several minutes. Finally, he looked over at her. “Tough night, huh?”

  She nodded. “Were you telling Emma the truth about when that picture was taken?”

  “Absolutely. I’m not condoning what my son did, but I hope you won’t hold it against him.”

  “I don’t. But it doesn’t mean I trust him.”

  “Maggie, you know men and women are wired differently when it comes to sex and love. A guy’s hormones put his body and heart at cross purposes. It’s a tough thing for a kid Alex’s age.”

  “It certainly sounds as if you’re making excuses for him.”

  “I’m not. I’m just trying to explain that guys show their feelings through chivalry and romance. Sex isn’t how a man expresses love—it’s how he receives it.”

  “So in other words, they can fool around without it meaning anything.”

  “Basically, yes. Women are the ones who tend to attach love to physical intimacy. But what you don’t get is, even though fidelity might not come naturally to men, once a guy is emotionally committed, the last thing he wants is to hurt the woman he cares for. Alex is crazy about Emma.”

  “So you think they’ll be okay even if, God forbid, they lose the baby?”

  “That’s a tough call. Tragedy can tear apart even the strongest relationship.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “But worrying won’t change anything.”

  “I wish I was just worried. I’m actually feeling a little guilty.”

  “About what?” He braked for a traffic signal and stroked her hair. “I hope you don’t think you could’ve kept this from happening.”

  “No, I’m not blaming myself. It’s just that, as much as losing my grandchild would hurt terribly, I can’t help thinking it might be best for Emma and Alex in the long run.”

  “That’s normal. Don’t think the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, too.”

  “That wasn’t what made me feel so guilty.” She stared down at her lap, unable to look at him while she made her confession. “After shutting my mother out of my life for so long, seeing things through her eyes is very painful.”

  Jake nodded. He could just imagine. “I’m feeling guilty for a completely different reason.” He chewed on the inside of his lip. “You see, I spent the night hoping maybe something good would come out of this awful night, and you’d forget about having an abortion.”

  “What?” She turned in her seat and stared at him. “How could you even suggest I’d do such thing?”

  “How?” He did a double take. “You told me in the mall there wouldn’t be a baby in a few weeks. Besides, don’t you think your past performance speaks for itself?”

  “My past perform—” Her jaw snapped shut, and she gazed at him in silence.

  “Maggie.” He sighed as the light turned green and he accelerated through the intersection. “I realized tonight we can never have a future together until I let go of the past. I sometimes think I’ve been nurturing my bitterness all these years to punish myself for wanting you. I’m done with that. I forgive you, Rosebud.”

  “You forgive me? For what?”

  “For denying me my child.”

  “Jake, how can you still blame me after I explained everything in the letter?”

  Letter? He wrinkled his forehead. “What letter?”

  “The one I sent you nineteen years ago—after the abortion.”

  “I never got a letter from you.”

  “You had to have. I certified it and got the green postcard back with your signature.”

  “That’s impossible. I never received it.”

  “So you think I chose to terminate my pregnancy?”

  “Well, didn’t you? I understand your mother pressured you into it. But all you had to do was call me. I would have come for you.”

  “My mother didn’t pressure me, Jake. She blackmailed me.”

  The bitter taste of dread filled his mouth. “What do you mean she blackmailed you?”

  “When I got home from school that Monday, there was a lawyer friend of my mother’s sitting in our kitchen. He explained that, since you were five and a half years older, you could be charged with a felony and sentenced to up to a year in prison for statutory rape.”

  Oh, God. Maggie had terminated her pregnancy to save his sorry ass?

  “My mother gave me an ultimatum. I had to agree to an abortion, or she would have you thrown in jail and kick me out. Don’t you see, if you were sitting in prison, I couldn’t have taken care of our baby on the streets.”

  “Maggie, didn’t it occur to you she was bluffing?”

  “Yes, but I was scared, and I couldn’t take the chance she wasn’t. I was only eighteen. The lawyer intimidated me, describing what happens to inmates convicted of sex crimes, and then he pointed out that just the publicity of having criminal charges filed against you would ruin your career.”

  He was confident Maggie’s mother would’ve backed down at the last minute rather than see her grandchild’s father go to jail. Then again, if she’d carried her bluff into the criminal court system, she wouldn’t have had any say. His fate would’ve been completely in the DA’s hands.

  While doing research for his dissertation, Jake had learned that California prosecutors had cracked down on statutory rape since the state had the highest teen birthrate in the country. According to one report, almost seventy percent of those babies in California were fathered by adults.

  He swung the Aston Martin into a parking space in front of Maggie’s condo and stared out the windshield, his stomach threatening to revolt. His baby had been sacrificed for him.

  “I didn’t want to do it, Jake. It went completely against everything I believe. You have no idea the kind of guilt I’ve lived with.”

  “You’d be surprised by how much I understand. I’m a psychologist, remember?” In his clinical training, he’d worked with a number of teen girls eaten up by remorse and suffering from posttraumatic stress after aborting their babies. “That kind of regret isn’t an easy thing to deal with—especially when it goes against your beliefs.”

  “I should’ve had the courage to stand up to my mother and face whatever happened. But I knew if I let her destroy your life and career, you would’ve hated me.”

  Ironically enough, that’s exactly how he’d ended up feeling anyway. He’d spent nineteen years blaming Maggie for something she would’ve given anything not to do.

  “Please don’t blame yourself, Rosebud. You were just a kid who was ill equipped to deal with that kind of fear and pressure. He leaned his forearms on the steering wheel and rested his head on them. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea it wasn’t your choice. I wish you had told me this the night your mother called me.”

  “I tried to.” Maggie rested her hand on the nape of his neck. “I was so upset and groggy from the sedative the doctor had given me I didn’t realize you’d gotten the wrong impression until after you’d hung up. I planned to call you back in the morning and explain after my head was clearer. But by the time I woke up, my mom had thrown out your phone number and the garbage truck was just pulling away from my house.”

  He closed his eyes. “She knew it was unlisted?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not. But at the time, I believed she did. So I wrote you that letter explaining it all and telling you I still wanted to marry you. After I got the postcard back and didn’t hear from you, I left home. I couldn’t live with my mother after what she’d done. Since I found out I’m going to be a grandmother, I’ve begun to realize how unfair I’ve been to my mom.”

  Apparently she had been harboring the same kind of bitterness toward Katherine that he’d carried for Maggie all these yea
rs.

  He straightened up and turned to gaze into her eyes. “I know what your mother did was inexcusable, but you need to forgive her, if only for your own peace and happiness. Regardless of how wrong it was, I’m sure Katherine believed she was doing the right thing for you. In her own sick way, she loved you.”

  Pulling Maggie to his chest, he buried his face in her hair. “It’s all ancient history. Something we’re better off forgetting. So please, just marry me now and have my baby.”

  She shoved him away and opened the car door. “No. The reason I told you there wouldn’t be a baby by next week is because I’ll probably miscarry.”

  “Why would you assume that?”

  “Because Dan and I were very lucky to have Emma. I’ve been pregnant numerous times, four that I’m sure of, since she was born. I lost every baby. The doctor said it was possible there was some genetic abnormality.”

  When she slammed the sports car’s door and strode toward her porch, he scrambled out of the car and raced after her. “Maggie, I want to marry you regardless. Maybe we’ll have a perfectly healthy baby.”

  “Absolutely not.” She unlocked the door and opened it. “I’m not stupid enough to agree to a loveless marriage again simply because I’m pregnant. Be honest. If Alex hadn’t been in love, would you have wanted him to marry Emma just because she was having his child?”

  Jake didn’t need to be hit over the head. She couldn’t have said any plainer she didn’t love him.

  Except—when they made love, the look in her eyes and her touch said she did.

  Damn it. Maybe everything he’d said about male and females’ expressions of love was pure crap. Apparently, the intimacy they’d shared must have been meaningless sex for Maggie.

  Pursing his lips, he shook his head. “No, if my son hadn’t loved your daughter, I would’ve moved heaven and earth to keep him from marrying her.”

  “There you go.” She stepped inside the doorway. “If a miracle happens and I manage to carry this baby to term, I’ll raise it by myself.”

  “Like hell! That baby is just as much mine as it is yours.”