Heartbeat

by Danielle Steel

  “I don't think so.”

  He felt as though he was going to faint as she said it. “What do you mean, you don't think so?”

  “I mean no. But it would depend on the circumstances … on a lot of things …Bill, I don't love him anymore, if that's what you're asking. I love you. But there's more than just us …there's the baby.”

  “Would you go back to a man you didn't love, for the sake of his child?”

  “I doubt it.” But she couldn't swear that she wouldn't.

  He got up and left the table then, and it was a difficult few days until they both calmed down again. And finally, they made a truce, and spent the weekend in bed, talking and making love, and trying to explain their positions. She just wanted to be sure that Steven wasn't going to change his mind and want the baby. She thought he should at least see it when it was born. And Bill didn't like the idea, but he was willing to accept it. And after Steven's performance the night before, he considered it highly unlikely that he would come to see it.

  “And after that, will you marry me?” he asked her seriously, and she beamed when he asked her.

  “Yes, I will. If you still want me.” But she didn't want him to tell the boys they were getting married until all the details were out of the way, the termination papers, the divorce, and they were sure about Steven. Bill still felt it was a courtesy her ex-husband didn't deserve, but he was willing to indulge her. And he was thrilled to think that eventually they would be getting married. “Do you think the boys will mind?” she asked worriedly. She was starting to worry about everything, but the doctor had explained that at this stage, anxiety was to be expected. She was worried about the delivery, the labor, the pain, the baby's health, all the normal things that women worried about, and Bill also knew that the divorce was a strain on her, and so had been selling the apartment. And she had held up beautifully, but now she was starting to worry about little things. And he suspected that her obsession about being fair to Steven was part of the same process.

  She was still tenser than usual when Adam and Tommy came. She was terrified that they were going to be upset about the baby. And she decided to be honest with them. They looked undeniably surprised when they saw her stomach when she and Bill picked them up at the airport.

  “Wow!” Tommy said, looking awestruck. “What happened?”

  “Don't ask questions like that!” Adam scolded.

  “I'm having a baby,” Adrian explained unnecessarily, that much was obvious, even to Tommy.

  “Is it Daddy's?” he asked, and Adam kicked him.

  “No, it's not,” she explained, once they were at home, drinking hot chocolate in the comfortable kitchen. “It's my husband's. But we're still getting divorced. In fact …” She was going to be totally up front with them, and Bill had already said that he would support her. “…that's why he left me. Because he didn't want a baby. So we're getting a divorce, and he's giving up all his rights to the baby.” She said it very simply and the boys looked shocked, particularly Adam.

  “That's awful!”

  “No, it's not,” Tommy said matter-of-factly. “If she weren't getting divorced, she wouldn't be with Daddy, and she wouldn't have been there to save me at Lake Tahoe last summer.”

  “That's true,” Adrian laughed. They had a way of reducing it to practical basics.

  “When's the baby coming?” Adam wanted to know.

  “In January. In about seven weeks.”

  “That's pretty soon.” Adam looked very sorry for her. “Where are you going to live? In your apartment?” But this time their father interrupted.

  “No, right here, with us …with me.” He smiled. “We're going to put the baby in the guest room.” “Are you going to get married?” Tommy looked hopeful, and Adam didn't look as though he'd be averse to the situation either.

  “Eventually,” Bill supplied. “But not for a while. We need to sort things out first.”

  “Wow!” Tommy was visibly pleased, and Adam leaned over and hugged her. He was horrified by the story of her husband deserting her, and later he told his father that he thought he should marry her before she had the baby.

  “I'll keep it in mind, son.” And then he answered him seriously. “I'd like to. But we have to wait for her divorce to be final.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Pretty soon. We'll let you know what's happening.” It seemed like a lot for them to absorb, but by the next morning, everyone was back to normal. The television was on, there was laundry everywhere, the boys were hopping all over the place, and Bill was making breakfast in the kitchen. It felt like one happy, normal family, and Tommy told her he hoped the baby was a boy, because girls were so dumb, but Adam only smiled and told her that whatever it was, they would love it. His gentleness made her cry, and she tidied the apartment up afterward when they went out for a while with their father. And when they came home, they brought her a huge bouquet of flowers.

  She and Bill cooked Thanksgiving dinner for them, and it was a beautiful holiday for all of them. The only flaw in a perfect day was when Bill overheard her calling her mother.

  “No, he's fine,” she had just said, “he had to go to London on business.” And then she saw Bill's face, and after she hung up, he cornered her in the kitchen. Their Thanksgiving dinner was over by then, and the boys were already asleep in their bedroom.

  “What was that all about?” But he knew without her telling him. She was lying to her mother about Steven.

  “There's no point in upsetting her. No one in my family has ever gotten divorced, and it's the holidays, for heaven's sake.”

  “He's been gone for six months, Adrian. You've had plenty of time to tell her.” And then something else occurred to him. “Have you told her yet about the baby?” She shook her head, and he sat down in a chair and looked at her. “What kind of game are you playing? Why are you protecting him?”

  “I'm not.” Tears filled her eyes again. “I just don't want to get into it with her. I didn't tell her at first because I thought he'd come back, and now it's so awkward, and I don't need the pressure. They always give me a hard time. I'll tell her later.” There were tears in her eyes and it was hard for her to make him understand how awkward things had always been with her family.

  “When are you going to tell them? After our third child is born? Or at the baby's college graduation? Maybe you ought to give her a little hint sometime before that.”

  “What do you expect me to say? I've never been close to her. I don't want to talk to her about it.”

  “You could just tell her you're having a baby.”

  “Why?” But even she knew it was a stupid question.

  “What are you waiting for?” He looked her dead in the eye, and for once fear touched her heart. He looked hurt as well as angry. “Are you waiting for him to come back, so you can clean it all up for them?” He had hit a nerve and he knew it.

  “Maybe I was at first …and now it's all so damned complicated. How can I ever begin to explain it?”

  “You're going to have to eventually …” unless Steven came home …but he wasn't going to get into that again with her. “Look, it's your life. They're your parents. I just don't understand what you're doing.”

  “Neither do I sometimes,” she admitted to him. “I'm sorry, Bill. Everything got so screwed up when he left, and I didn't tell anyone. I was too embarrassed to at first, and then it was too late, and now it's ridiculous. Hell, half the people at work still think I'm cheating on my husband.” She smiled at him, and he pulled her closer to him.

  “You drive me crazy sometimes, but maybe that's why I love you.”

  “And that's why Harry loves Helen, who was best friends with …”She started to laugh and he swatted her behind with the kitchen towel as he put the last dish away.

  “Stop that! It's beginning to sound like the begats in the Bible.”

  “I'm sorry, Bill …sometimes I make a real mess of things.”

  “We'll get it all sorted out sooner or
later.” He believed that they would, but he was beginning to hope that it would be sooner, rather than later.

  THE LONG THANKSGIVING WEEKEND WENT MUCH too quickly. And there was so much to talk about, now that the boys knew Adrian had moved in, and that she was having a baby. Adam was particularly fascinated with it, and wanted to touch her stomach to see if he could feel it move, and he was thrilled when it kicked repeatedly and he felt it. He turned wide eyes to her as Bill smiled at them.

  “It's neat, isn't it?” It filled Bill with wonder too, each time he felt it.

  And they were highly amused when they all went for a walk in the park, and before they went, try as she might, Adrian could not tie her own sneakers.

  “I feel as though I'm leaning over a beach ball.”

  “So do I,” he whispered as he knelt to help her with her shoes. They still made love whenever they had the time and the energy, but for the same reason she couldn't tie her shoes, it was rapidly becoming something of a challenge. “You know, this is something that could only happen to me,” he laughed as he finished tying her laces, and sat down on the floor looking up at her. She was peering at him over her enormous stomach.

  “What?”

  “Falling in love with a woman who is eight months pregnant.”

  She chuckled, seeing the humor of it too. It was certainly a most unusual courtship. “Maybe you can use it as research for the show. Maybe Harry could desert Helen and she could fall for someone else,” she suggested cheerfully, putting on one of his sweaters.

  “No one would believe this,” he grinned, and they went out to play ball in Penman Park with Adam and Tommy.

  The next day, the boys flew home, and the house seemed too quiet again without them. But now there was a lot to do before the holidays. The newsroom was going wild, and the cast of his show always seemed to get more than a little worked up before Christmas. The pressures of their own lives and the imaginary traumas of the show seemed to combine to make them all come slightly unglued. And Adrian was trying to get the nursery ready too. Every night between the two shows, she would sit for hours, making skirts for the bassinet, or trying to figure out how to hang the curtains.

  “Here, let me do that!” Bill was always chasing her off ladders or wrestling with assembling the crib himself. And then they would look at each other and laugh. It was all getting very exciting. And the boys were excited too. They hadn't seemed to resent the baby at all. They were too sorry for Adrian being abandoned by her husband, and too pleased at the idea of sharing the wonder of the baby. Now every time they called, the first thing they asked was whether or not she'd had it. But Bill promised they would call immediately, and the boys would be the first to know. They were hoping for a boy, but Bill secretly wanted a girl, not that it really mattered.

  They attended their first Lamaze class after Thanksgiving. Adrian managed to sign up for one at the hospital that started right after the evening news show. And they appeared with a dozen other couples, all of whom, save one, were first-time parents. She felt a little strange being there, and she felt awkward about doing exercises and doing Lamaze with a roomful of strangers. But Bill and her doctor had insisted that it would help her.

  “Help me do what?” she argued with him on the way over, eating a turkey sandwich that was left over from lunch. She would have to go right back to work after the class, for her late broadcast. “The baby's going to come out anyway, whether I huff and puff or not.” All she knew was that Lamaze had something to do with breathing.

  “It'll help you relax,” he said calmly.

  And then, almost jealously, she looked over at him as she ate the pickle. “Did you do this with Leslie?” It was beginning to irk her that he had done all this before, and he seemed to know a lot more about the mysteries of her pregnancy than she did.

  But he was noticeably vague. He didn't like comparing his previous life to this one. This one was different from anything he'd ever shared with anyone, and it was unique. “Yeah …sort of …” was all he would say, but he continued to insist that the natural childbirth class was worth doing.

  “I still think I'd rather have the baby at home.” It was a refrain he'd heard before, and wouldn't even let her consider.

  They parked in the hospital garage, walked into the hospital, and followed a number of extremely pregnant-looking women up to the third floor, where they all gathered with what the lecturer referred to as their “significant others.” They were invited to make themselves comfortable on the floor, where they sat cross-legged on exercise mats, and introduced themselves, and their husbands. There were two teachers, a nurse, two girls who didn't work, a secretary, a postal employee, a swimming instructor who looked as though she was in fantastic shape, a hairdresser, a musician, and a woman who tuned pianos. And their assortment of mates was equally diverse. If anything, Adrian and Bill were the most sophisticated, and the most successful, but they just said they worked in TV, in the production end, and no one was impressed. The only thing that they all had in common was their pregnancies. Even their ages were widely different. Of the two women who didn't work, one was nineteen and still in college, and her husband was only twenty. And the postal employee was forty-two, her husband fifty-five, and this was their first baby. And somewhere in between was a range of people in their twenties and thirties, of various sizes and shapes and interests. Adrian was faintly intrigued with them, and she spent more time looking around than exercising until they were invited to stop for a “coffee break.” The women drank sodas and water, while the men drank tea and coffee. And everyone looked more than a little nervous.

  The instructor addressed all of them then and assured them that if they practiced enough, the breathing techniques would really help them. And to illustrate her point of how well it could work, she showed them a film of a natural delivery using Lamaze, from beginning to end. And as Adrian watched the woman on the screen writhe in pain, she gripped Bill's hand in horror. It was the woman's second child, the instructor said. The first had been a “medicated birth,” she said with disdain. And this one was supposed to be a great improvement. They could hear every push and groan as she labored on the screen, and Adrian found the blow-by-blow descriptions of what was happening to her anything but comforting. She looked as though she were going to die, and finally, using the pant-blow technique, and then pushing until her face was dark red, there was a long, reedy wail, and a terrible series of grunts and screams, and a tiny red face appeared between her legs and she started to cry as she smiled, and everyone in the delivery room exclaimed as her baby was born. It was a girl, and the woman lay back victoriously as her husband beamed and helped cut the cord. And then, as the lights went on, the movie was over. Adrian looked horrified by what she'd seen and they didn't say another word until they left and were back in Bill's car on the way to the station.

  “Well,” he said quietly, “what did you think?” He could see that she was upset, but he had no idea to what extent, until she looked at him with wide eyes filled with terror.

  “I want an abortion.” He almost laughed, she looked so sweet, and he leaned over and kissed her, feeling sorry for her. He had thought the film was a little extreme. There would have been ways to make the entire process seem a little less awesome. And he wasn't sure that showing a film of an actual birth was such a great idea to a roomful of first-time mothers. “Primips,” as the Lamaze teacher had called them.

  “It won't be so bad. I promise.” He loved her more than ever before. And he just wanted everything to turn out all right, and for her to have a healthy baby, and for it to be easy for her. He still remembered what a hard time Leslie had had, and how scared he had been himself when Adam was born. But Tommy had been a lot better. And he was hoping that he could use the little he knew and remembered, to help Adrian this time. The only thing he hated about it was the prospect of seeing her suffer.

  “How do you know it won't be so bad?” she asked angrily. “Have you ever had a baby? Did you see that woman's face? I thought s
he was going to die while she was pushing.”

  “So did I. So it was a lousy film. Forget it.”

  “I'm not going back.”

  “That won't solve anything. Let's at least get the breathing down, so I can help you.”

  “I want a general anesthetic,” she said matter-of-factly, but when she broached the subject to Jane, her doctor, the next time they went, she only smiled sympathetically.

  “We only do that in very rare cases, in instances of a serious emergency when we don't have time to do a cesarean with an epidural. And there's no reason at all to think that you'll have any problem at all. Just go to the classes, Adrian, and you'll be surprised at how smoothly it goes for you when you're in labor.”

  “I don't want to have it,” Adrian repeated to Bill as they left the doctor's office. She was matter-of-fact, and absolutely terrified.

  “It's a little late for that, sweetheart,” he said calmly. She was wearing a pink dress and ponytail as they walked back to his car. She was scared to death at having the baby now, ever since the first Lamaze class, and they had been to two now.

  “That stupid breathing doesn't work. I can't even remember how to do it.”

  “Don't worry. We'll practice.” And that night, he made her lie down and pretend she was having a contraction. He pretended to time the pain, and she tried the breathing technique, and halfway through it she stopped, and slipped a graceful hand into his trousers. “Stop that! Will you be serious!” He tried to get her hand out of his pants, but she was tickling him and he was laughing.