Baby Business

by Brenda Novak

  And the handwriting at the bottom was clear as crystal:

  As you can see, the pregnancy test came back positive. Congratulations! The baby is due on Valentine’s Day. I’ll contact you closer to that time.

  Macy

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CALL HER.

  Thad stared at the phone from where he sat on the couch and wished he’d stayed at work. He would have, had he not been too exhausted to think. He needed to relax and escape before he blew a gasket. His secretary and everyone else in the office had ordered him home. So here he was, at eight o’clock on a Friday night, trying to watch a movie. But even Die Hard wasn’t enough to capture his attention tonight.

  He eyed the phone again. What could one little conversation hurt? Macy was going to have his baby. He just wanted to talk to her, make sure she was doing okay, ask if she needed anything. But he was afraid if he called, he’d break down and ask to see her. And if she said yes, he’d head straight over there. And the moment she opened the door, he’d sweep her into his arms. And then he’d be right back where he was ten days ago.

  No, he’d already let Macy down as easily as he could, and he’d set his family straight that everything was over between them. Haley was doing great, better every day, from what his mother said and from what he’d seen himself. If everything went as planned, she was getting out of the hospital on Wednesday. And Macy wasn’t going to contact him until she was ready to deliver. She’d made that clear in the note she wrote on that lab report she’d forwarded to him. She’d let him go just that easily, and hadn’t even called. She was probably over him already.

  So everything was downhill from here.

  Except that he was going out of his mind.

  But better him than her.

  Hauling himself to his feet, he crossed to the phone and dialed Kevin. “Hey, what are you doing tonight?”

  “Thad? That you, buddy?”

  Thad could hear a woman whispering something in the background and wondered if he’d called Kevin at a bad time. “Yeah, it’s me. I didn’t realize you had company, though. Why don’t you call me back tomorrow?”

  “No, uh, it’s okay. Listen, remember Rhonda? You met her outside Bellini’s a couple weeks ago?”

  When he was with Macy. Thad remembered her, but he was surprised Kevin did. Most of his girlfriends didn’t last two weeks. “Yeah.”

  “Well, she’s here tonight, and she has this gorgeous friend, a real knockout. She’s a friendly girl, if you know what I mean. Why don’t you come over? We’ll get the two of you together, have a little party.”

  Thad considered the kind of party Kevin meant and wondered why he couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for it. Wasn’t his excuse for wanting Macy that he hadn’t had sex for eighteen months? So where was all that libido now?

  “Actually I’m pretty tired,” he said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

  “Man, what’s up with you?” Kevin demanded. “How long are you going to mourn? You’re turning into a freakin’ hermit.”

  “I’m just not interested in getting it on with some girl I don’t even know.”

  “Give her a chance. How do you know you don’t want her until you’ve seen her? I’m telling you she’s hot!”

  “I’m married!”

  “You’re in love again, that’s what you are. Only you’re too stubborn to face it and too scared to let go of the old and bring in the new.”

  Anger flashed through Thad, causing his hand to tighten on the telephone until the muscles of his arm stood out in relief. If Kevin had said that to his face, he might have hit him. “What the hell would you know about it? You’re so afraid of commitment that you won’t take the same girl out more than three times in a row. Neither will you date anyone deep enough to tempt you to have a real relationship.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one with a thorn in my paw, buddy. And I’m not going to give you the target you want. You’ve been spoiling for a fight ever since you broke it off with Macy. Why don’t you make it easy on both of us and call her?”

  Thad opened his mouth to make a retort worthy of all the anger and frustration stewing inside him, but Kevin hung up, leaving him with nothing but a dial tone.

  Slamming the phone down, he cursed aloud and dialed Macy. She answered on the fourth ring, just before he expected her machine to pick up.

  “Hello?” She sounded as if she’d had to rush for the phone.

  “It’s me,” he said, and held his breath, hoping for…something. What he got was silence. “I want to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? I don’t know. I’m…I just have to see you.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s not in our agreement.” And then she hung up.

  * * *

  “WHAT DO ALL the blood tests and X rays reveal?” Macy sat across from Dr. Forte in his office at the hospital. It had been thirteen days since the transplant. She’d finished all her finals and felt fairly comfortable that she’d passed two, but the others? She couldn’t say. They’d been difficult. She’d struggled through and done her best, but she didn’t know if she’d succeeded or not. Grades hadn’t been posted yet. There was a chance they’d be up today. If not, then later in the week. But Macy was more worried about Haley. The doctors had been running tests all week, checking for cancer cells. Macy dug her nails into her palms as she waited to hear the results.

  Dr. Forte smiled. “Dr. Vincent and I agree that Haley’s prognosis is very hopeful. I don’t have to warn you that things can change,” he said, raising a cautioning hand, “but for now, Haley’s body seems to be accepting the new marrow with a minimum of problems.”

  “Does that mean she can come home as planned?”

  “She’s had a little jaundice. We’d like to keep her an extra two days so we can make sure her liver continues to function properly, but I don’t see any reason why she can’t go home on Friday. I think children recover much more quickly in their own environment. Just watch her closely for any sign of rash or fever.”

  Macy couldn’t believe it. That was it? After spending nearly a year in and out of the hospital and nearly one hundred days straight during this last stretch, Haley might be well enough to come home on Friday? That was only three days away! She’d been hoping for it, telling herself to plan on it, but deep down, she’d feared something would happen to snatch that homecoming away.

  “For good?” she asked.

  “Unless something new crops up. Of course, we’ll have to keep her on steroids and immunosuppressants for a while, just to make sure her body doesn’t end up rejecting the graft, but I think you can handle that at home.”

  Tears sprang to Macy’s eyes, happy tears, the happiest she’d ever shed.

  At long last, Haley’s ordeal might be over.

  Wiping her tears away, Macy stood. “Thank you,” she said. She would have hugged him, but there was still the desk between them, so she shook his hand, instead.

  “Don’t thank me,” he replied. “I won’t take credit for those who survive just as I won’t bear the blame for those who go the other way.”

  * * *

  COME ON, COME ON, Macy chanted silently, sitting in front of her personal computer in her guest room/office on Thursday and using her mouse to click on the test results for Pharmacology 6030. The cursor turned into an hourglass and grew and shrank until finally a list of names appeared on the screen.

  Macy started scanning from the bottom, looking for “Winters” before realizing that she hadn’t changed her name on any of her school stuff.

  “McKinney…McKinney. Here it is.” She clicked on it, and after another second with the hourglass, four words appeared on the screen. McKinney, Macy Grade: B.

  Slowly, Macy let her breath go. She’d been right. She’d passed pharmacology without any problems. Combined with her other tests from earlier in the block, she could even end up with an A–for her final grade in the class. Amazing.

  But Pharmacology had been the easiest exam.
She had to pass all her exams in order to move on to her third year.

  Still nervous, she backed out of Pharmacology and clicked on the test scores for Art of Medicine, then Science of Medicine, and finally Hematopathology. She’d received a C, a B–and a C–, respectively.

  She could slip through by the skin of her teeth, if only she managed to do as well in Neuroanatomy.

  Biting her lip, Macy waited for the score of her last final, the one she’d worried about most, but when the list of students appeared on the screen, her name wasn’t there. Had something gone wrong? Had the computer been unable to score her exam?

  Her stomach knotted. Oh, no! Had she forgotten to put her name on her score sheet? Surely not!

  Grabbing her purse, she ran out of the house, jumped into the Pinto and thanked heaven when it started right up. She wasn’t sure what kind of office hours her professor kept now that school was out, but it was barely three o’clock in the afternoon. Maybe she’d be able to catch him.

  The campus was almost empty. Macy had no problem finding a parking space or making her way to Professor Lumkin’s office, where she found him hunched over his desk. An older man with snowy white hair and piercing blue eyes, he looked up when she knocked on his open door.

  “Ms. McKinney. I thought I might hear from you.” He smiled.

  Macy prayed it was a good smile. “Hi, Professor. I just tried to check the score for my final exam on the Web site, but…”

  “It’s not there,” he finished. “Come in. I’d like to talk to you.” Setting down his pen, he pulled a folder from beneath an avalanche of paper and began thumbing through it. When he reached Macy’s exam, he pulled it out of the stack and set it in front of him, then motioned for her to pull up a seat.

  “Neuroanatomy can be a difficult subject,” he began, but Macy couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. Her mind had shut out everything around her—everything except the 59 percent scrawled across her paper.

  She’d failed.

  * * *

  THE SMALL MEXICAN restaurant on State Street in Murray smelled of the chili verde Macy liked so well. She stood at the entrance, close to the clatter coming from the kitchen, and searched the dining room for her mother and Lisa. They’d insisted she meet them for supper tonight, while Edna was in town for Haley’s homecoming, to celebrate if she’d passed her finals, or to commiserate if she hadn’t.

  Spotting them sitting not far away, waving to her, she told the approaching hostess that she’d already found her party and made her way through the crowd.

  “Haley’s what’s important,” Edna said, watching her face as she approached. “She’s coming home tomorrow.”

  “Right,” Lisa echoed. “And if you didn’t pass your exams, there are plenty of other things you can do with your life.”

  “Well, it’s kind of mixed news,” Macy admitted, sliding into the booth next to her mother, across from Lisa. “I passed all my finals except neuroanatomy.”

  Lisa arched a worried eyebrow. “Which means…”

  “Normally it would lower my grade point average and get me kicked out of the college. But my professor knows what’s been going on with Haley’s illness and says in order to give me a fair shake, he’s going to let me retry the exam in three weeks.”

  “You’re kidding!” Lisa said.

  “No.”

  “So you have more studying to do?” her mother asked.

  “Yes, but I’ve got three weeks to do it in, and now that Haley’s better, I can finally concentrate. Professor Lumkin even said he’d tutor me. I’m supposed to meet him at his office weekdays at three o’clock.”

  Lisa gaped at her. “That’s great!”

  Macy smiled and sat back so the waitress could deliver three glasses of ice water. Another stab at passing neuroanatomy was great, she thought, but not nearly as incredible as Haley coming home in the morning.

  “So, are you going to call and tell Thad?” Lisa asked.

  Macy had just taken a drink of her water and nearly choked on it.

  Her mother, who’d turned her attention to the menu, quickly lowered it. “Why would she do that?” she demanded.

  “Because he called yesterday to talk to Haley and asked how things were going. I told him Macy would find out about her finals today. He sounded like he really wanted to know the results.”

  “Then he could have stood by her, like he should have,” Edna snapped.

  “Let’s not start that again, Mom,” Macy said. “Although it might be a bit premature, this is supposed to be a celebration, remember?”

  “Well, Haley was really happy to talk to him,” Lisa said, a defensive note creeping into her voice. “You should probably know that she told him she’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow and begged him to come see her off.”

  A trickle of unease crept down Macy’s spine. She’d boxed up Thad’s toothbrush and hairbrush, his aftershave and cologne, and the few clothes he’d left at her place and delivered them to his back door almost two weeks ago while he’d been at work. But she hadn’t seen him since the transplant and wasn’t sure she was ready to face him again. “Did he say if he was coming?” she asked hesitantly.

  Lisa shook her head. “I doubt he’ll show without some indication from you that it’s all right. But you could call him.”

  “He doesn’t deserve to be included,” Edna said.

  Macy wasn’t so sure. He’d been good to Haley. And she was carrying his child. Part of her wished they could at least be friends. For Haley’s sake, she thought maybe they should try. “Haley really misses him,” she pointed out. “If she’s expecting him tomorrow, she’ll feel terrible if he doesn’t come. She’s been begging to see him for days.”

  “But what about your feelings?” Edna demanded. “It might be a disappointment for Haley, but sooner or later she has to learn that he’s out of the picture. He can’t be trusted to—”

  “Mom, don’t,” Macy interrupted. “Thad’s not like that.”

  “Why are you always defending him? After what he’s done?” Her mother glared pointedly at her stomach.

  After what he’d done? He’d given them Haley. If her mother only knew, Macy thought, and for her, it went even deeper than that. “Because I love him,” she said simply.

  * * *

  HE WASN’T GOING to come.

  The following morning, Macy smiled and thanked the doctors and hospital staff that had stopped in to say goodbye to Haley, but she couldn’t concentrate on the chaos in her daughter’s room. She was too busy listening for Thad’s tread in the hall, keeping one eye trained on the door just in case, and hoping—hoping to see him, hoping it wouldn’t hurt too badly when she did, hoping her daughter wouldn’t be disappointed.

  But if Thad had received the message she’d left on his answering machine last night, inviting him to the hospital to help take Haley home, he hadn’t responded. She’d told him to come at ten o’clock. It was nearly eleven.

  Lisa and Edna stood on the other side of the room, out of the doctors’ way, holding balloons and cards and stuffed toys they’d gathered from the tables and chairs. Haley sat on the bed, center stage, dressed in the matching shorts and T-shirt set Edna had bought her and looking healthier than Macy had seen her in almost a year. What a relief! What a tremendous blessing! The moment was almost perfect. If only Thad was here…

  What was wrong with her? Macy chastised herself harshly. Wasn’t the miracle of Haley’s life more than she had a right to expect from God or the world or anyone else? That she might also pass her second year of med school was a bonus. She had no right to feel sorry for herself because she couldn’t have Thad, too. That was asking too much.

  “The nurse will be here with your wheelchair soon. You all set?” she asked her daughter when the last of the staff had wished them well and filed out.

  Haley frowned. “We can’t go yet,” she said. “Daddy isn’t here.”

  Macy glanced at Lisa, who looked almost as disappointed as she felt, then noted t
he you-should-have-listened-to-me arch to her mother’s eyebrow. “I bet Thad had to work, honey,” she said. “He would have come if he could have.”

  “He’ll be here,” Haley insisted. “He wouldn’t want me to go home without him.”

  Macy tucked her hair behind her ears and zipped up the suitcase that held the last of Haley’s things. “You know Thad and Mommy are only friends now, honey. I’ve explained that to you already. He might act differently than he once did, but you can still be friends, okay?”

  Haley stuck out a pouty lip, telling Macy what she thought of her “friends” idea, but the nurse they’d been waiting for appeared at the door with Haley’s wheelchair just then, distracting them all. Haley could walk short distances, but it was the hospital’s policy to see she made it safely to the car via wheelchair.

  “Are we ready for our little princess to take a ride downstairs?” the nurse asked.

  “No,” Haley responded. “I can’t leave until my daddy gets here.”

  “I’ll let you call Thad once we get home,” Macy told her. “But we have to go now. We can’t make everyone at the hospital wait. They may need this room for another sick little girl. Besides, I have a surprise waiting for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise.”

  Evidently, that wasn’t good enough. “I don’t want to go without Daddy.”

  Macy sighed. “Okay, it’s that new art set you saw in the toy magazine, remember? The one you wanted so badly?”

  “With those special chalks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I play with it when I get home?”

  “You bet.”

  The art set finally won Haley’s cooperation, but her reluctance was still apparent when they loaded her up and headed out. “What if Daddy comes and we’re not here?” she asked as they got on the elevator.

  “He knows where you live, honey,” Lisa responded. Macy was too busy watching the elevator doors close on the place she’d grown to know so well. It was difficult to believe she wouldn’t be frequenting the hospital anymore, that she and Haley would be living a normal life. Excitement bubbled up inside her at the thought of having a future that was now bright because her daughter would be part of it.