ONE EAGER BRIDE TO GO

by Pamela Burford

  She chewed her lip. "So it'll probably work, but it's not a sure thing."

  "Right. And I've got to tell you, Sunny, this operation is expensive, about four thousand dollars."

  "That's a lot of money."

  "And my medical insurance won't pay for it. I'll have to borrow the cash. I've put all my savings into this move and the house. I'm tapped out."

  "But if the surgery works…"

  "If it works, it'll be worth every penny. I'm willing to go into debt and go through this whole thing, even knowing it may not work, but I need something from you before I do it."

  She waited for him to continue.

  Kirk took Sunny's hand. "I need to know that we're in this together. That you're committed to me regardless of the outcome."

  Reflexively she tried to pull her hand away. He held on tight. "Sunny, look at me."

  She did.

  "I know how important it is to you," he said quietly. "Becoming a mother."

  "I know you know: It's why you…" Her features tightened in pain.

  "It's why I let you believe I could still father children. That was wrong of me. I shouldn't have done it. The reason I did … Sunny, I was so afraid of losing you." With a lopsided smile he added, "Something tells me I'm not the first guy who did something stupid because he was hopelessly in love."

  She took an unsteady breath and let it out. "I wish … I wish we knew for sure that this operation would work."

  "Listen to me," he said. "You and me, we're about you and me. Having a child with you would be, well, it would be incredible, I won't deny it. But even if that's not meant to be, we can still have a wonderful life together."

  Her eyes briefly closed, as if she were shoring up her defenses. "To me, a wonderful life means—"

  "I know. It means a family of your own. A man who cherishes you and a bunch of kids who look like you and him."

  She was surprised to hear it put so succinctly, he could tell. Perhaps she was surprised that he understood her so well.

  "Sometimes," he said, "life throws us a curve ball. We have to alter our plans."

  "Charli said something like that," she murmured.

  "Take me, for example. I had the life I'd always wanted in California, I had this great job teaching at Stanford, everything was wonderful—just like I'd planned. Then I lost Linda and my world bottomed out. I knew I needed a radical change—just like I knew Ian needed something more than I could give him out there—so I pulled up stakes and uprooted us. I was worried that maybe I was making the worst mistake of my life, but it turned out to be just what we needed." He gave her a significant look. "For me as much as for Ian. I wouldn't have met you again if I'd stayed out there."

  "You can't compare our experiences," Sunny said. "You're still doing what you love—teaching college—just in a different place. No one asked you to redefine what it took to make you happy. No one suggested that maybe you should give up physics and teach English literature. Or teach elementary school kids. Or do research for some company instead of teaching. The only thing that's changed for you is the setting."

  "All I'm asking is for you to consider alternatives."

  "God, I hate that word," she muttered. "I don't want to hear any more about alternatives. Adoption. Artificial insemination."

  He couldn't restrain a smile. "Raven and Charli and Amanda have been offering pearls of wisdom, have they?"

  "Along with Mrs. Rossi."

  "Charli's mother?"

  "Her grandmother. She was the one who suggested I use a sperm bank."

  Kirk had met Charli's grandmother. He tried to imagine that conversation and failed miserably.

  "I'm willing to go any route that you're comfortable with," he said. "If you change your mind and want to try adoption, whatever. As long as we're together."

  "I … I don't think I'll change my mind about that."

  "Well, that leaves the reversal surgery."

  She wouldn't meet his eyes.

  "I meant what I said," he continued. "Before I take this step—before I go under the knife for an expensive procedure that may or may not work—I need to know that our future together doesn't hinge on whether we can make babies."

  He watched competing emotions battle it out behind her eyes. The longer he waited for a response, the more he felt hope drifting away from him. Sunny looked down at their linked hands, and only then did he realize how tightly he was squeezing her fingers. He let go.

  "I wish I could give you that assurance," she said, her eyes fixed on her lap. "I can't."

  A heavy silence settled between them, punctuated by the muffled sounds of conversation elsewhere in the building.

  Kirk's throat felt constricted. "Do you need more time? To think about it?"

  Mutely she shook her head, then abruptly grabbed her purse and leaped to her feet. Her voice was hoarse with unshed tears. "I have to go."

  Before he could respond, she was out the door.

  * * *

  Sunny stood in the open doorway of her apartment just after 11:00 p.m. Kirk had just buzzed her from the lobby, interrupting her perusal of the archaeology notes Dr. Goldfarb's assistant had given her that afternoon. She tightened the sash of her pink-and-white seersucker bathrobe, closing it more firmly over her nightgown.

  She was staring in the direction of the elevators when she heard a grating noise as the fire door leading to the stairway at the end of the hallway opened behind her. She turned to see Kirk emerge, drenched to the skin. The thunderstorm that had been threatening all day had finally struck around dinnertime, and it had yet to let up. He'd climbed the four flights of stairs, apparently too impatient to wait for the elevator.

  "Kirk, is something wrong?" she asked as he joined her at the entrance to her apartment. He hadn't called to let her know he was on his way, had simply shown up unannounced.

  "We need to talk," he said.

  "We talked earlier. I told you, I can't—"

  "I know what you said. This won't take long."

  Sunny swallowed hard. Something about his flat tone of voice, the hard set of his features, sent a shiver of unease down her spine. "What is it?"

  "Not out here."

  "Kirk, it's late. I … I was getting ready for bed," she lied. "You said it won't take long, so just tell me—"

  He pushed past her into the apartment and stood in her foyer, dripping rainwater on her floral-patterned area rug. Sunny followed him inside and closed the door.

  She asked, "What's so important that—"

  "It's over, Sunny."

  Something kicked in her chest, hard. She should have expected it, had expected it, but now that it had actually happened…

  Sunny tried to force words up her throat, some kind of rational response, but nothing came.

  Kirk wiped his palm over his face and pushed his fingers through his sodden hair. "You know this isn't what I want," he continued, "but what I want doesn't seem to make a damn bit of difference."

  She struggled to regulate her breathing, to maintain her dignity. "This isn't what I…" She didn't finish. How could she stand there and tell him this wasn't what she wanted, either, when her actions of the past two weeks said otherwise? If not for the Wedding Ring's three-month rule, she would have broken up with Kirk the night she'd learned the truth about him.

  "I can't do this anymore." Kirk spread his arms. "I can't invest myself emotionally in a relationship that no longer exists. I've just been fooling myself."

  "We … we have a relationship, Kirk."

  He studied her expression. What did he see? She looked away.

  "Do we?" he said quietly. "You've closed yourself off to me, Sunny. Nothing I do seems to get through. I've apologized for deceiving you. I've tried to give you time. Time to get over the shock, to come to grips with it. And to realize what you're throwing away."

  She leaned back against the door, her legs too shaky to support her. She whispered, "It's more complicated than you know."

  A wry expression twisted his f
eatures. "Yeah, I'm getting that."

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. Moments later, lightning flashed in the night sky beyond the living room windows.

  She said, "This isn't what I wanted, Kirk."

  "I know what you wanted. You wanted the dream family you've been fixated on since you were a teenager. You want all the pieces to fall neatly into place."

  "Stop it."

  "But life isn't like that. Shitty things happen, and you have to roll with the punches or you'll be left with nothing."

  Sunny's chin wobbled. "I'm not asking for anything special. I only want what everyone else takes for granted."

  "'Everyone else'? Don't you know that a significant percentage of married couples have fertility problems? Or haven't you heard all the hoopla about in vitro and surrogate mothers and—"

  "You make me sound selfish for just wanting—" She broke off with a sob.

  "Sunny." Kirk tried to hold her, but she stiffened and pulled away, keeping the tears at bay with a supreme effort.

  He sighed. "Sunny, I love you. I love you so much it's ripping me apart. If it were in my power to give you everything your heart desires—be it a houseful of children or the moon and the stars—I'd gladly do it. But I'm just a man. I've made choices. Choices that were carefully thought out, choices I felt were right at the time. I may not be able to give you babies, but I can give you a lifetime of love. Enduring, exclusive, unconditional love."

  He opened the door and turned back to her one last time. "If you decide that's enough, then you know where to find me."

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  «^»

  "Sunny, thank God you're home. Let me talk to Kirk."

  The caller didn't identify herself, but Sunny recognized the voice on the phone. It was Kirk's mother. "Marianne, he's not here. What's wrong?"

  "He's not there? But he said… Just a second, sweetheart, Grandma's trying to find Daddy."

  Marianne was obviously addressing Ian. Sunny heard him whining for his father, practically into the receiver of the phone. Marianne must have been holding him with her free arm. Something in Ian's voice kicked Sunny's blood pressure up. She heard panic, and pain.

  "Sunny, he has to be with you. He said he had a date in the city. I called your number thinking I'd leave a message on your machine and you'd retrieve it from wherever and he'd call me back."

  "Marianne, I haven't seen Kirk since Wednesday." Not since that stormy night when he broke up with her—a fact he obviously hadn't shared with his parents. That had been a mere three days earlier, and already he was dating someone else. Sunny tucked away that depressing fact to brood over later, and forced herself to focus on the reason for Marianne's frantic call.

  Ian.

  "He's not with you?" Marianne said. "Then who—" She stopped abruptly.

  Sunny waited out the awkward conversational gap while Kirk's mother mentally filled in the blanks.

  "We broke up," Sunny said.

  "I—I didn't know. He didn't tell me."

  "Well…" Sunny sighed. What could she say to that? "What's wrong with Ian?" His complaints were increasing in pitch and volume.

  "Oh, I don't know. I'm so upset. Yes, honey,

  Daddy will be home soon, it's all right, sweetheart."

  To Sunny she said, "It's something with his arm.

  He's holding it and he's obviously in pain—"

  "Hold on." Sunny tamped down her mounting anxiety; it wouldn't help Ian to have every adult in the vicinity panicking. She racked her brain. What were the warning signs of serious injury? "Is the arm swollen?"

  "Uh, no. No, it looks normal. But he keeps babying it. Actually, it may be the shoulder that hurts him, or the wrist. I can't tell for sure, the way he's holding it—"

  "Is it discolored?" Sunny was pacing the length of her bedroom, with her cordless phone pressed to her ear.

  "Discolored? No. That's the first thing I looked for."

  "Not swollen or discolored, I'm thinking it's probably not broken. How long has he been complaining?"

  "About twenty minutes. Oh, it's all my fault! I was holding him by the hand. We'd been to the library—he loves playing with the puzzles there and looking at the picture books. Anyway, we were coming back up the front porch steps and he was kind of fussy. It was past his naptime—you know how he gets, how he kind of balks and tries to pull away?"

  "Yes, I know. Marianne, just tell me what happened." Patience, Sunny cautioned herself. Ian's shrill pleas for his "da" ripped right through her.

  "Well, he just sat down suddenly—boom! Right on his fanny, while I was still holding his arm. And then it started hurting him, and it's all my fault! I must've been holding him too tight, or pulling too hard, or—"

  "It's not your fault, Marianne! I'm sure it's nothing too serious. Is Fred there?" Sunny asked, referring to Kirk's father.

  "No, he went fishing with Stu Baumgarten. I'm here alone with Ian."

  "At your house?"

  "No, at Kirk's."

  "Ian has to see a doctor."

  "I know that, but I just thought if I could get hold of Kirk first…"

  "We can't wait for him. Ian needs to be looked at right away. I'd like to avoid the emergency room if we can."

  "Oh God! The emergency room! Those places are packed on weekends!"

  "Listen." Sunny stopped pacing to sit on her bed and shove her bare feet into sneakers. "Do you know if Ian's pediatrician sees patients on Saturday?"

  "I—I don't know, but I have his number right here."

  "Well, call and find out." Sunny clamped the phone between her jaw and shoulder as she tied her shoelaces. "I'm on my way over. I'll be there in under ten minutes. Wait for me."

  "I can call a taxi." Kirk's mother didn't drive.

  "No! Wait for me. I'll be right there."

  * * *

  "You're right, it's not swollen or discolored," Sunny murmured to Marianne, as she carefully examined Ian's arm. As gentle as her touch was, he whined and pulled away. He kept the arm close to his body, the elbow slightly bent, supporting its weight with his other hand.

  "Ian, I know it hurts." Sunny sat on Kirk's living room sofa, with the boy on her lap. "It's an owie, isn't it?" she asked sympathetically, using the term he was accustomed to.

  He nodded. "Owie."

  A surge of protectiveness welled up inside Sunny, of a magnitude she'd never felt before. In that instant she knew she wouldn't rest until he was all better. Thank goodness Ian's pediatrician was still in the office. He'd been about to leave for the day when Marianne had called. He'd promised to wait for their arrival.

  "I'm going to take you to the doctor," she told Ian. "Dr. Davidson. You like Dr. Davidson, don't you?"

  He shook his head, scowling. "Owie."

  Marianne explained. "Ian had a vaccination a couple of weeks ago."

  "Well, I don't think you're going to get a shot today. Dr. Davidson is going to look at your arm and make it all better." Please let it be true, she prayed as she stood up with the little boy in her arms.

  Marianne said, "Kirk left Ian's booster seat for the car. I'll bring it outside for you."

  As Marianne positioned the elevated seat in the back of Sunny's five-year-old Corolla, she said, "I keep paging Kirk, but he hasn't responded. I can't imagine why."

  One obvious reason pounced into Sunny's consciousness before she had a chance to leash it. You wouldn't hear the beeping of the pager clipped to your belt if you were nowhere near your clothes, now would you?

  The image of Kirk writhing naked in some bed with some other woman planted itself in Sunny's mind like a burr. Let it go, she told herself firmly. Just get Ian through this. Later, when this is all over, you can feel sorry for yourself all you want.

  "Kirk always calls when he's out, several times," Marianne said from the interior of the Corolla's back seat, where she was positioning the booster. "Well, you know. He checks up on Ian constantly."

  It was true. Sunny used to tease him for being o
verprotective. "But today?" she asked.

  "Today—" Marianne let out a shout as she straightened out of the car, having smacked her head on the door frame. Rubbing her scalp, she said, "Today I told him not to call. I was very firm about it. 'Just have a good time,' I told him. 'You have the beeper. It's not like I can't get ahold of you if I need you.'" Helplessly she lifted her hands and let them drop. "But I've been trying and trying to get in touch with him. This is all my—"

  "No more of that!" Sunny strapped Ian into the booster seat, murmuring reassurances to him. She kissed his forehead and closed the car door. Then she gave Kirk's mother a much-needed bear hug. "You didn't do anything wrong, Marianne, you hear me? You did everything right, including calling me."

  Marianne's eyes misted. "God bless you, Sunny. I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't been home." She started to open the passenger door.

  "No, you've got to stay here." Sunny slid behind the wheel. "In case Kirk calls."

  "Oh. Yes, I suppose someone has to stay near the phone." Anxiously she looked from Sunny to Ian. "Are you sure you don't need me…?"

  "Of course I'm sure." Sunny started the engine. She forced a confident smile onto her face. "If Kirk does call, tell him everything's under control."

  * * *

  "Can you do this?" Dr. Davidson bent his own wrist back and forth.

  Ian, perched on the examining table, shook his head.

  "How about this?" The young doctor wiggled his fingers.

  "Uh-uh."

  "He can't move his hand?" Sunny asked, as alarm spiked.

  "Oh, I'm sure he can, but it hurts, so he won't try. That's okay, you don't have to," he told the toddler with a warm smile as he continued to gently manipulate the arm. As before, Ian complained loudly, refusing to let his palm be turned forward.

  "What's wrong with his hand?" Sunny heard the panic that infected her voice. "Is it sprained? It can't be broken, can it?"

  "No, no, it's not broken. And it's not the hand, it's the elbow."

  "The elbow?"

  "Nursemaid's elbow, it's called. It's dislocated. The head of the radius, one of the bones in the arm, had slipped out of position. A very common childhood injury, especially for this age group."