From Here To Maternity: A Second ChancePromoted to MomOn Angel's Wings

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Why, then?” He continued to watch me and even while my head told me what was happening, that I was falling under his spell all over again, that I’d determined not to, that doing so would only lead to disaster—I fell anyway. I sat there on that bar stool, clutching my lemonade, relegating all the surrounding conversation and myriad sounds of life to the background, shutting myself inside a private little room with Denny.

  “You have a way of looking at a person, focusing on her, that makes her feel as if she’s the only person alive.”

  “When I’m with you, you are the only person alive for me. It’s always been that way.”

  With shaky fingers, I jerked my glass to my lips, hoping to relieve some of the dryness that was nearly choking me. I took a tentative sip, and then another. Slowly. Sticky liquid jostled over the side of the glass and dripped down to my fingers. My stomach was quavering.

  And I blurted, “You’re not going to believe this, Denny, but I’m pregnant.”

  My words were brutal, unfair, unpolished. They made my face burn and my hands tremble. But I couldn’t think rationally while under Denny’s spell.

  I couldn’t want him. Not this time. Not again.

  Denny dropped his beer.

  OUTSIDE, I HURRIED BEHIND Denny, not even trying to pull my hand from his grasp. I knew him—understood that trapped feeling he got. I felt a little guilty about the broken glass and beer we’d left all over the floor, but the twenty Denny had thrown on the bar would probably deal with that.

  We raced past familiar shops—designer clothes, custom jewelry, colorful glass art pieces in the windows. I didn’t ask where we were going. As long as Denny was taking me with him, I didn’t care. I hadn’t grown up at all.

  We rounded a corner. And then another. Now we were passing homes instead of shops. And still the father of my child pulled me along behind him—and I kept up with him. It crossed my mind to be thankful for my years on a treadmill. And to worry about what would happen when we finally stopped.

  Denny was perturbed. I knew that much, and I couldn’t blame him. I just wasn’t sure how equipped I was to deal with his reaction. I wasn’t doing too well with my own.

  Dusk had fallen and as much as I welcomed the fading light, the cool breeze on my skin, I knew our time was limited.

  It’s okay, Denny, I’m not holding you responsible.

  I’m not going to ask you for anything.

  It’s okay, Denny, it’s not yours.

  Denny, really, I was kidding, can’t you take a joke?

  Scenarios played themselves out in my mind. Just as thirty-one years ago, I’d felt compelled to spare him from the effects of our passion. Just as thirty-one years ago, I felt responsible on my own.

  What’s with you? I imagined him saying, in my version of hell. Thirty-one years ago you ruin my life with a child we can’t even provide a tent for, then you show up suddenly wanting me to be a father to this same kid—and now you’re telling me there’s going to be another one?

  Amazing, really, that he was still clutching my hand.

  Oommph. I ran into his back.

  “Sit.”

  We’d arrived at the grounds of one of Palm Desert’s many posh resorts. We were surrounded by cultivated grass, huge trees and a garden of flowers lit by twinkling lights. I sat on a pristine white bench.

  “I don’t know how to do this gently, Mel.” Denny began, pacing in front of me. “We can’t recapture the past, can’t make up for what happened. The hurt’s always going to be there.”

  Because I didn’t disagree with a word he was saying and because I couldn’t think of a single thing to contribute, I remained silent. I hadn’t figured out what this had to do with our current predicament.

  He knelt down, took one of my hands. Oh, God. He wasn’t going to propose, was he?

  What would I say? My heart raced. My breath quickened.

  “I can understand you being overwrought,” he said softly, his brown eyes tender as he looked at me. But I could only remember one other time I’d seen his mouth so pinched. It had been the night I told him I’d signed the papers giving up our baby for adoption. “Us seeing each other again, making love, wasn’t the best choice but, Mel, you have to see that this so-called pregnancy is a figment of your imagination. It has to be.”

  He’d called what we’d done making love. Not having sex. My heart fluttered stupidly. And then crashed. He’d said it hadn’t been a good choice.

  A figment of what?

  I stared at him.

  “Think about it,” he said, standing again, his hands on his hips. He wasn’t breathing too well, either. “We were together one night—not even the whole night. You’ve been through menopause. You’re too old to have a baby.”

  And I’d thought he was the smartest person I’d ever met.

  “Denny, I’m pregnant.”

  Sitting down, he took one of my hands in his again. This time I caught on right away that it wasn’t a proposal. “Mel, you can’t…”

  “I’ve been to the doctor. I’m due in November.”

  “You’re almost fifty years old!”

  “Thank you. I was aware of that.”

  “You weren’t always sarcastic.”

  Wasn’t I? Seemed to me I’d always been mouthy. At least inside. Maybe that was what I had to show for thirty years of growing up. I’d learned how to speak up.

  “I don’t want anything from you, Denny.” I resorted to the trite lines I’d rehearsed. “I’m not trying to trap you, and I’m not asking for help. I just thought you should know.”

  He nodded. “I appreciate that.”

  Well good, then. I stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Mel.” He pulled me back down. “Give me a minute, okay? I’m feeling a little shocked here.”

  Taking pity on him, I stayed where I was and didn’t run—as I longed to do.

  “And I thought facing a thirty-one-year-old stranger was my biggest challenge of the year,” he muttered a few seconds later, as if in the middle of a conversation with himself. “But now…a baby?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HEADLIGHTS APPROACHED, passed, leaving taillights in their wake. And again.

  I listened for sounds of birds, but apparently they’d decided our party was a bust.

  “Can you do this?” Denny asked, after one of the longest silences of my life. “What did the doctor say? I’m assuming, since you’ve told me about it, that you’re planning to have it. Is that safe? A baby’s not worth the risk of losing your life, Mel.”

  Comforted by his concern, I focused on the realities. “I’m at higher risk for some things, but overall, I’m pretty safe,” I assured him—hoping I was listening in, too. “More and more women are having babies in their forties these days. It’s not as uncommon as it used to be.” If I repeated Lynn’s words often enough, I might eventually convince myself. “Right now, physically, everything looks great.”

  “What about birth defects?”

  “The biggest concern is Down syndrome—a one in thirty chance, less than five percent. There are early tests that indicate the condition, but I can tell you right now that whatever that test shows I’m going to have the baby.”

  “You’re going to be sixty before this child reaches high school.”

  I swallowed. Tried to calm the swarm of butterflies in my stomach.

  “There’s not much I can do about that at this point.”

  Except pray for energy.

  He didn’t say anything for so long I thought the conversation was over. And then, out of the blue…

  “Thirty years ago I would have given my right arm to marry you.”

  Thirty years ago I’d have accepted. Thirty minutes ago I’d have accepted.

  “I know.”

  “I have a different life now.”

  I tried not to feel crushed. Of course, he had a life. Hadn’t I told Shane so just the night before? What had I expected, that he’d spe
nt thirty years mourning for me and the love we’d lost?

  As I had. The small voice inside me that was more enemy than friend took a potshot. But I had to sit there and be strong, to hear about the people who shared his life, to be happy for him.

  I had to be able to walk away.

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I have my place up north, but as I told you, I spend the majority of my days on the road,” he said, looking away. “I come and go as I please. No ties, no expectations.”

  Tears filled my eyes at the thought of Denny so alone.

  “I like it that way.”

  I could feel the truth of his words—his life was as he needed it to be. Knowing Denny, I understood those words. And because I loved him so completely, I accepted them.

  “I can’t imagine not being on a bike.”

  The teenager I’d known had never even ridden a motorcycle.

  I rubbed my arms. The night air was cool, but I was chilled from the inside out.

  “I can’t think of one single good memory of family life.”

  I’d tried to give him some, to include him in the safe cocoon my parents had kept me in during my youth, but they hadn’t been willing to accept Denny. Quite the opposite. They’d forbidden me to see him.

  I’d seen him, anyway—for two years before they found out.

  “Look at you and your parents. You said six weeks ago that they retired to Phoenix, which is just four hours away. Yet you see them—what, once or twice a year?”

  “They never quite forgave me for…well…some of the choices I made.”

  “Me,” he said, glancing at me.

  I held that gaze, in spite of the darkness, connecting to Denny as completely as I always had. “I’ve never once regretted seeing you, in spite of their disapproval.”

  “I thought when I left, when you gave up the baby, they’d come around. It was obvious they loved you and just wanted the best for you.”

  “Their version of best.”

  He shrugged.

  “They did come around,” I said after a long moment. “For a while.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got married.”

  Denny sat back. Stared out at the street. His silence was painful—mostly because I sensed that he was hurting.

  “Let me guess. He wasn’t good enough for them, either.”

  “No, he was,” I said, bumbling a bit in my rush to explain. “He was the son of my dad’s boss at Vector. My folks were thrilled. His folks were thrilled.”

  “And you.” He turned to look at me. “Were you thrilled?”

  “I felt dead inside, Denny.” There was no room for pride when Denny was around. There never had been. “The minute you left my heart stopped feeling anything real at all.” I paused, tried to detach my thoughts from the emotions that were building in my chest. Consuming me.

  “Shane was a good friend—the best. And I didn’t want to live alone.”

  “Six weeks ago you said you weren’t married.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What happened?”

  “Shane found his true love.”

  Sitting up straight, Denny turned to face me. “He left you for another woman?”

  “No.” I shook my head, allowing myself a small smile. “He left me for another man.”

  “Damn!”

  “I knew he was gay when I married him.”

  I could only imagine what he thought of that.

  “My father never forgave me.”

  “For marrying him?”

  “For not being woman enough to ‘cure’ him.”

  “Your father has one hell of a lot to answer for.”

  “He does his best,” I told him, straining to grasp the peace I’d worked long and hard to find with my parents—a peace that lasted, as long as I didn’t see them very often. “He’s old school, Denny. He can’t help that any more than I could help loving you.”

  “You said you work at Vector, that you head the corporate sales team.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Does Shane’s father still work there?”

  “No, he retired.”

  He nodded.

  “Shane does, though. He’s vice president now.”

  “You work for your ex-husband.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said you knew he was gay when you married him. Was the marriage ever consummated?”

  Call me stupid, but I hadn’t expected the question. Some things just weren’t meant to be said.

  “Yes.”

  The burst of air he released was far more brutal than a sigh.

  “Come on, Denny,” I said, trying to work up enough anger to carry me through this. “You can’t tell me you haven’t had other women in the thirty-some years we’ve been apart.”

  “Thirty-two years,” he said with exaggerated precision. “Thirty-two years, and yes, there have been women. Just no commitments.”

  I wanted to ask how many women, but knew I wouldn’t handle the answer well. I had enough open wounds already without inflicting more.

  “Shane and I experimented, trying to ignite real desire between us, but after the first year or so we gave up. We were afraid if we kept forcing things, we were going to lose the one thing of value that we had.”

  “What was that?”

  “Our friendship.”

  “And in the end, did you lose that, too?”

  I shook my head. “I still see him and Derek—his partner—on a regular basis,” I told him. “As a matter of fact, I had dinner with them last night. Derek’s the one who said I should call you and tell you about the baby.”

  “They know about you and me?”

  I nodded. Would that make him angry?

  “What did Shane say?”

  “That I should wait for you to call.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t listen to him.”

  Strange as it might seem, considering the fact that Denny wasn’t going to have anything to do with the baby, so was I.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ON TUESDAY a letter arrived from Denny.

  He’d walked me back to my car at the end of our conversation about Shane. He’d kissed me goodbye and made no promises. I didn’t know if I’d ever hear from him again, until I found his letter waiting in my mailbox three days later.

  I made myself go into the house. Change clothes. Fix the light dinner of chicken and fruit that Lynn had recommended. Eat at least half of it. And then, without doing the dishes, I tore open the envelope.

  Dear Mel,

  I hope you’re well.

  He followed that with apologies for choosing this form of communication, adding that he’d always been better at getting his feelings down on paper than expressing them in person—as if I hadn’t already known that. He mentioned that I’d given him my home address, but not my e-mail address.

  I hadn’t even thought of it. When I was with Denny I slid back thirty years. E-mail didn’t exist then.

  But I still had every love letter he’d written to me during our time together. I’d read them all again on Sunday.

  I stopped by your office a couple weeks ago. And it was as if the past thirty years of making a good life for myself had never happened. You were speaking with a couple of people, and their respect for you was obvious from the way they were hanging on your words—and joking with you at the same time.

  I had no idea what he was talking about. Denny had been at Vector and I hadn’t known? How could that be?

  I was shocked by how small I felt again, standing there. How inadequate. You were the prom queen and I was a thorn in everyone’s ass.

  I could hardly read through the tears in my eyes. Thirty years before, his words might have been closer to the truth.

  I did the only thing I know how to do, Mel. I left. I know this about myself—I am a leaver. I am content only when I’m going.

  I know something else, too.
I loved you completely. And I had to get over that love in order to survive. I will not tell you that I feel nothing for you now. That wouldn’t be true. But I can’t tell you what I feel. I don’t know. I can’t tell you that I’ll be around when you have this baby. Or that I’ll ever be a part of his life. I don’t know.

  I can tell you that I’m thinking about you. I wish things were different. If you get into trouble, if you have any problems, I want you to call me. I’m not asking you to, that wouldn’t be fair, but I want you to know that I want you to.

  This isn’t over for me, Mel.

  Denny.

  This wasn’t over for him? What was I supposed to do with that?

  Kylie’s reaction to the news wasn’t much better than her father’s. I’d decided to have her over for dinner the next day and come clean before I drove myself crazy worrying.

  “You’re pregnant,” my daughter echoed me, with a deadpan expression and voice to match. We’d finished eating the Chinese chicken salad I’d prepared, but we were still sitting at the drop-leaf table in my kitchen.

  Perpetua, in the empty seat across from Kylie, stared sadly at the food that remained. I didn’t seem to be able to please any of my loved ones.

  “I know it seems pretty incredible. Believe me, no one’s more shocked or appalled than I am.”

  Kylie nodded, gazing at me until tears flooded her eyes.

  I reached across for her hand. “What?”

  Shaking her head, Kylie said, “I’m thirty-one years old and I can’t have a baby to save my soul and you—you’ve gone through the change of life, you have sex once and end up with a baby. Doesn’t seem fair, you know?”

  “Oh, sweetie.” I didn’t know what to say, except that my heart was breaking. More for her than for me, and it was pretty broken up over my own circumstances. “I’d change places with you in a split second if I could.”

  “I know.” The words were softly uttered, but I had no doubt she meant them.

  “Come on,” I said, agonizing over the pain in her eyes. “You said you always hated being an only child, that you wished you had brothers and sisters growing up. Now you’ll have one.”

  “I wanted a playmate, Melanie. I have Sam for that now. Besides…” Her voice trailed off and she stood up, scraping the food from my plate onto hers, stacking the dishes for a trip to the sink. Perpetua perked up hopefully.