Claiming His Baby

by Nikki Chase

  “I’ll talk to him.” Ray starts to walk away.

  “Ray, please,” I say as I grab his wrist. “You know you have a talent for starting fights. The cops have arrested you so many times they groan when they get a call about a bar fight and see you there.”

  “That’s true,” he says with more than just a hint of pride. “But I’m going to be real gentle.”

  “Ray, look at me,” I say, hoping he’ll listen to me if he stops staring at Gabe.

  My brother turns his attention to me. He seems impatient. Like a restless horse just before a race.

  “The job market is horrible,” I say. “If I get fired from this job and get a bad reputation, I won’t be able to just find another one. You know that, right?”

  Lines appear on Ray’s forehead. He’s listening, and he knows I’m making a good point.

  “If I’m unemployed, how am I going to pay off my student loan? Are we going to sell the house?” I ask, leveling my gaze at him.

  Despite our money problems, Mom and Ray always refuse to sell the house. They say they want to keep their memories of Sam alive.

  Too bad they never paid much attention to him while he was around. If they had, maybe he’d still be here.

  “You know Dad’s not going to help me pay my debts, right?” I ask. “It’s been a long time since any of us heard from him. He could fly to Thailand tomorrow and retire, and no lawyer would be able to make him pay Mom’s alimony. And then how are we going to pay our bills?”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t be rash,” Ray says.

  Money talks. When all else fails, Ray and Mom will always listen to me if I bring it up. I try to reserve this tactic for when I’m cornered.

  Neither one of them has a clue how we’re doing financially. Ever since Dad left, I’ve been the one to maintain our bank accounts and pay our bills.

  Technically, I could tell them any money-related lie I want. But I don’t even have to do that, because we really have significantly less money than we used to.

  Compared to a lot of people, we’re not hurting. But you wouldn’t know it if you listened to Mom and Ray’s complaints.

  “I’ll show you the way out, okay?” I ask Ray in a soft voice. I don’t play the role of the concerned sister often because it reminds me of Sam, of how things should be between siblings, but I can still pull it off.

  “Okay.” Ray finally turns around and lets me guide him through the hospital hallways.

  We take the long way out. I actually have too much work to waste my time on this, but Ray needs to get as far away from Gabe as humanly possible, and I need to make sure that happens.

  I breathe a soft sigh of relief when we reach the lobby.

  Finally. Encounter thwarted. Disaster averted.

  I did good.

  Before Ray walks through the door, he says, “I wonder if he changed his name. I’ll have to look it up.”

  My heart sinks.

  I’ll have to tell Gabe the truth.

  I’ll need to do that before Ray gets to him first.

  Gabe deserves to hear it from me.

  Gabriel

  “We’re here,” I announce.

  Of course it's not like Jacqueline can't see the vast ocean in front of us. It's fucking massive.

  But she hasn't said anything since we got into the car and she told me to take her anywhere I wanted. Before I could suggest a secluded place where I could fuck her senseless in the great outdoors, I caught a glimpse of her face.

  “Oh,” Jacqueline says, with the same expression she’s been wearing the whole drive.

  Even though we’re only inches apart in my car, it feels like she’s somewhere I can’t reach. She has a vacant stare, and her voice is barely above a whisper.

  What’s gotten into her?

  First, she begged me to take a day off together. Now, when we should be enjoying the day off, she’s sweating like a drug mule about to go through customs.

  “Angel, are you worried about something?” I take her hand as we both make our way toward the boardwalk.

  “We’ll talk later,” Jacqueline says, staring off into the distance.

  “Okay. But I want you to know that no matter what it is, I’m still going to be here for you when you’re done talking.” I stroke the back of her delicate hand.

  There’s a hint of a nod, but otherwise I see no signs of her having heard me.

  “Jacqueline, angel, listen to me,” I say. “I meant what I said. Nothing can change my mind about you. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Uh-huh,” she says. It’s like she has mentally blocked her ears. She turns to me with a fake smile and says, “Let’s get something to eat.”

  I tell her to wait for me on one of the benches while I get some hot dogs from the same stall where I’ve always bought them from.

  How long ago was it, when I first took Jacqueline here on our first date? It feels like a lifetime ago, but it also feels like a second ago.

  Our relationship has grown and strengthened since then. She was just a stranger then, but now she’s my lover, my girlfriend, my partner in life.

  But sometimes, I wonder… I still don’t know something very important about her.

  She has a secret that's apparently dark enough to tear us apart. What could it be?

  And is she about to tell me now?

  I feel like I know her well enough to say that I trust her and love her no matter what.

  At the same time, my rational mind tells me she’s trouble.

  The paranoid conspiracy theorist within me tells me she could be an agent planted by the KGB to dig for information about my work and kill me as soon as she gets what she’s after. But it's not like I know any information worth an assassination.

  “Do you speak Russian, Jacqueline?” I ask as I hand her a hot dog.

  “Huh?” Jacqueline frowns. “No.”

  “Of course you’d say that.” I want to tell her that’s exactly what a KGB agent would say, but her stormy blue eyes say this is not the time for dumb jokes.

  I take a seat beside her on the wooden bench and watch as she takes one tiny bite after another. She stares off into space again.

  What kind of a wound has she been carrying around, in that petite body of hers?

  I diagnose and fix what’s wrong with people every day, but I can’t help the woman I love. It makes me feel powerless.

  I hate this feeling. It reminds me of a moment on the night of The Incident. the cops kicked the door open, and just as I’d feared, Sam was no longer breathing.

  I need to fill this silence. I have to find out what’s bothering her. Everything sucks when she's unhappy; even this kick-ass hot dog tastes like shit.

  “You know, you can eat the entire hot dog,” I say the first thing that comes to mind.

  “Huh?” Jacqueline asks, taking a break from chewing the tiny morsels of food in her mouth.

  “I only owe you half a hot dog, remember?”

  “Oh. Right.” Her lips spread into a small smile. Finally, her gaze focuses on me and she sees me. “Thanks.”

  “It’s just a hot dog.” I raise my hand to caress her cheek. “If I could buy you a thousand hot dogs and get a thousand smiles in return, I’d do it. Happily.”

  Jacqueline’s smile widens, but then sadness clouds her eyes. “Sorry, Gabriel.”

  “What for, angel? You’ve given me some of the best moments of my life.”

  “Sorry because I’m not who you think I am. Because I’m going to disappoint you. I should’ve left you alone on the balcony that night.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew the truth,” Jacqueline says with a wry smile.

  “Try me.”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this.” Jacqueline drops her gaze and absently plays with the phone in her hands. “But let me start by saying that it was never my intention to deceive you. I just wanted to say hi to you, but the
n the conversation went in an unexpected direction and I…couldn’t just walk away.”

  “Okay. I'm going to need some context to understand what you’re talking about… but okay.”

  “You’ll see when I tell you everything.” Jacqueline gazes into my eyes and says, “I’m scared you won’t see me the same way again after I tell you. I’m terrified I’ll never catch you with that same look again on your face.”

  “Angel, I’ll still be here when you’re done. Everything between us will stay the same. I told you.”

  She keeps staring at me like she’s recording every word and filing it in her mind in case we never see each other again.

  This is getting on my nerves.

  This means she doesn’t trust me when I pledge her my loyalty.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” I say, a little more brusquely than I intended.

  “I know. I just need time to get it all out. That’s why I asked you to take the day off. This is not something I can just blurt out in a few minutes. I need to organize my thoughts. I’ve imagined this moment for years and now that it’s finally happening, I can’t believe it’s real.”

  Did she just say “years”? But we haven't even known each other for half a year.

  Jacqueline pauses to take a breath and gives me an apologetic look. “Sorry. I don’t want this to end. I know we’ll fall apart once I tell you the truth, but I have to say it anyway. I don’t want you to find out from someone else. The least—”

  BEEP.

  A loud electronic noise from the pocket of my jeans interrupts Jacqueline.

  Hurriedly, I take my pager out and light up the screen. I told an intern to only page me in case of absolute emergency, but I hope he’s just paging me to let me know he’s ticked off another unimportant thing on his to-do list. As usual.

  …

  Fuck.

  Jacqueline and I share a look. Neither one of us wants to delay this conversation, but we both know duty calls.

  Jacqueline

  I'm running out of nails to bite.

  I haven't stopped fidgeting since Gabe dropped me off at home.

  On the bright side, the apartment is sparkling clean.

  Maybe I should've spent my time napping while waiting for him to come home—with my 80-hour work week, I need all the rest I can get. But I had this ball of energy inside me, roaring to go.

  Exhausted now after getting a ton of housework done, I lay sprawled out on our new sofa. It still emits that new chemical smell that spreads all over our living room. I’d get up and open the windows if I weren’t so tired.

  There's one thing I can't get out of my mind.

  John Dorian.

  The name of the lead character from Scrubs. I can't believe I used that as Gabe's fake name.

  I'm a smart girl. I graduated from medical school. I could've come up with a different name. Like… Jim, for example. That's a good, normal, common name. Jim… Carrey?

  Okay, I'm bad at this.

  But still.

  John Dorian?

  I work at the hospital. I come across hundreds of names throughout my day. I know doctors’ names, nurses’ names, and patients’ names. I couldn't have just picked one of those?

  I could've said Sam West—that’s the pretty young nurse who was sitting just a few feet away from us. But Ray was eyeing her so there was a chance they were going to talk at some point.

  Why did I have to go with a fictional character from a famous TV show? What is wrong with me? Do I secretly want to get caught?

  I can’t stop worrying.

  How much longer is it going to be until Gabe comes home?

  At any time, Ray could realize I gave him a fake name. He could be Googling “John Dorian” right now. He could be driving to the hospital… Or he could be there already, roaming the hallways, searching for Gabe.

  I hold up my phone and light up the screen.

  Nothing.

  Is this a bad sign? Ray would’ve called me if he found out, right?

  God, I can’t just sit here and do nothing.

  I call Mom.

  She picks up on the fourth ring. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, honey. Is everything okay?” she asks in a worried voice.

  “Yeah,” I lie. “I’m just calling because Ray said you were looking for me.”

  She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, but I can hear her breathing through the microphone. “Where are you, honey?”

  “I’m, uh, at a… friend’s place.” I curse myself as soon as the words come out of my mouth. Why am I such a bad liar?

  “A male friend?”

  Damn it. I should’ve known that answer would just lead to more questions.

  “Uh… no,” I say. “It’s Karen’s apartment. You’ve met Karen.”

  “Oh, I have. She’s a lovely girl,” Mom says.

  I can almost hear the grin in her voice. Mom’s mood can swing wildly from one extreme to another. It’s great when she’s suddenly happy, but it goes the other way too sometimes.

  “I should’ve told you this earlier, Mom, but I’m looking at apartments downtown. I’m thinking about renting a small one-bedroom for myself. I’ve been sleeping at Karen’s because it’s close to the places I want and the showings are really early.”

  I have to resist the urge to pat myself on the back for this lie. I’ve been thinking about how to tell Mom I’m moving out, so I already have a short script in my head of what I want to say.

  “Oh.” She sounds disappointed. “You’re moving out?”

  “Yeah. I’ll miss you, of course, but all my colleagues are living on their own and I think it’s time for me too.”

  “This is what Ray said was going to happen,” Mom says.

  My heart starts to race. “What did Ray say?”

  Mom has a problem determining what’s important so she has messed-up life priorities. It sometimes shows up during conversations, too. She’d spend half an hour chatting about what she had for lunch and only tell me at the end that someone from the hospital called the home phone and left me an urgent message.

  “He said you’d found a boyfriend, and you weren’t going to come home anymore,” Mom says.

  Okay, that is bad.

  But maybe he only said that because I hadn’t come home for so long and he wanted Mom to stop nagging him to find me.

  “When did he say that?”

  “This morning. He said he saw your boyfriend at the hospital.”

  Shit.

  “What else did he say?”

  “He said you were trying to hide your boyfriend from us. But you’ll introduce us, won’t you, honey?” Mom asks.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend, Mom. Ray was lying to you.”

  “He also said you’d say that.”

  Damn it.

  “What else did he say?” I ask.

  “Oh, I don’t remember, honey. I’d ask him, but he’s not home.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear for a second to check the time on the screen. We haven’t hung the clocks we bought yet, so we've been relying on our phones to tell the time.

  It’s about noon. Ray’s usually still snoring in his bed. What’s he doing out so early?

  “Where is he?” I ask as anxiety grows in my chest.

  “He said he was going to see you.” Mom’s tone is casual, but her words chill me to the bone. “Oh, you should call him, honey, and tell him you’re at your friend’s place. I think he was going to the hospital.”

  Gabriel

  “I’m told you’ve been making yourself at home,” Dad says sternly from behind his big wooden desk.

  I stand in the doorway to his office, my hand on the doorknob. “Dad, I’d love to chat, but I’m supposed to be here for an emergency. Dr. Grant told me to ask you where to go.”

  I'm always rushing anyway because it's often a matter of life and death. But today I'm anxious to get my work done and go home because Jacqueline obviously needs me. The way s
he looked at me while I was driving away… It almost made me turn around and come home to her. But someone’s life could depend on me.

  “This is exactly where you're supposed to be. Come in,” Dad says. “Close the door.”

  I frown. It's not that we don't talk, but Dad has never taken me away from my work for a mere chat.

  “What is it?” I ask as I take my seat across the desk from him.

  Dad has put a lot of thought into how he wants to be perceived by his staff of smart, ambitious, hard-working medical professionals. He works out to stay in shape, he dresses sharp, and he always looks like he’s in control.

  But he looks a lot older than he did when I left. It's only natural, of course. People age, and I was gone for a long time. Still, there are moments it surprises me to see him as an old man.

  “I was happy to hear that you got yourself an apartment, so I didn’t say anything about your girlfriend,” he says.

  I frown. “I thought there was no rule against dating co-workers in this hospital.”

  “Sure, that’s not a problem, as long as you’re not dating a patient.”

  “Okay.” I lean back in my chair. Maybe I’m not about to get some bad news after all. “So everything’s okay?”

  “No,” he says.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “What is it?”

  “Don’t sound so alarmed. I’ve taken care of everything. I have the perfect solution.”

  Don’t sound so alarmed, he says, while behaving in an exceedingly alarming fashion.

  I remember the last time he said something like that. I ended up on a plane to Africa.

  “Just tell me what it is, Dad.”

  “Let’s start from the beginning. There’s no need to rush. Like I said, everything has been taken care of.” Dad leans all the way back, places his elbows on the armrests of his big leather chair, and gives me a confident smile. “You’ve been here for a month. You must’ve received some pay. I think you can agree that, even though the HMOs are making it harder and harder to make any real money, the money is much better here.”

  “Compared to Africa?” I narrow my eyes at him. “Of course. I didn’t have to fly here and actually work here to know that.”