OUR SECRET BABY

by Paula Cox

  But then I stop, and think, really think. What am I doing? What, exactly, am I doing? Who am I? Who is Kayla Pearson? If someone were to ask Macy, who is Kayla Pearson, what would she say? Before today, she would say I am an attentive, nice, kind girl. She would say I am a good housekeeper. She would say I was the only good housekeeper she’d ever had. And after today? She will call me a leech, a thief, something despicable.

  Walk, walk, get out of here, walk.

  But . . . I take a deep breath, the thought hitting me by surprise. But—

  “I don’t want to be a rodent anymore,” I mutter, breath coming fast. “I don’t want to be less than a person.”

  For the first time in a long time, I try to analyze exactly what I just did. I found out I was pregnant; I immediately began to steal. But why? Because I need to provide for my child, the reasoning goes. But does that really make sense? Doesn’t it make more sense to try and be a good person if I am having a child, to try and set a good example, to try and make something of myself, something legal, something good?

  No, I will not be a rodent anymore.

  I turn away from the road, back toward, the house, and make my way back down the driveway, toward the old woman and my confession.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kayla

  “I am pregnant, and I was going to steal these.” I drop the bag of jewelry on the table in front of Macy, and then stand with my hands interlocked, head bowed, waiting. “I’m sorry,” I add, but I can’t look up or meet her gaze. With her blue eyes and silver hair, she looks fierce, a beautiful witch in a fairy story ready to cast some harrowing spell on the misguided housekeeper.

  “Wait a second,” Macy says slowly, trying to process the information, I can tell. She clears her throat, and I cannot help but judge the throaty growl as the first coughs of thunder before lightning strikes. “So the tests were positive? Let’s get that straight, first, I think. The tests were positive, Kayla?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say.

  “I thought I told you about calling me ma’am.”

  “I think it is appropriate after today, ma’am.”

  “Hmm. Both tests were positive, then.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then you are pregnant.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Right, and what are these?”

  I glance up. She gestures at the plastic bag.

  I tell her that I crept into her room and intended to steal the jewelry.

  “You went into my bedroom without my permission and stole my jewelry,” Macy says. She speaks as though struggling to believe that I would ever do something like this, which is like being stabbed in the gut. She doesn’t see me as a rodent; she doesn’t see me as a waste of breath. She sees me as a person, a real person, and I have disappointed her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I whisper.

  Macy’s eyes flare for a moment, the blue becoming icy. Her cheeks tremble, wrinkled skin shaking. She clenches her hand into a fist. I wait for the explosion, already wondering if returning was a mistake if she is going to kick me out anyway. But no, I can’t see it as a mistake. I am going to be a mother; I will be a better person. A better person for my child, for Dante’s child . . . for Dante’s child! I want to grip my heart at that, to stop it from beating so frantically. There is a piece of Dante inside of me, a slice of the President of the War Riders, a chip of my lover, a piece of the man I ran away from. Deep in my belly, there is Dante. I swallow.

  Macy’s explosion never comes. She settles into her chair, and nods at the chair beside her, one of many around the long oak table. “Sit.”

  I do as she says.

  “Look at me, Kayla.”

  I do as she says.

  Her features are softer, her eyes less judgmental. It is the most humane expression I have ever seen on her face. “Listen to me, girl,” she says. “I know you’re young. I know you’re scared. I know this is your first child. And I . . . But before I get into anything else, I need to say something first, to make something clear. You are never to steal from me again. It is good that you came back and came clean, yes, good and proper, but you are never to even think about stealing from me again. If I am to extend any sort of olive branch to you, I need to know that I am safe from your thievery.”

  “I won’t,” I say. “I won’t. I promise. I never will.”

  She watches me for a long time, perhaps trying to gauge the truth of my words. Finally, she nods.

  “I believe you. Please, do not reveal my mistake to me in some spectacular, awful fashion. I do not want to wake up one day to find all the shingles removed from the roof and rainwater sluicing down into the drawing room, dear.”

  She smiles, a small smile, but better than nothing.

  “Right, with that out of the way, I want to make a proposal. I like you, Kayla. I like you an inordinate amount. Perhaps it is because I can see the iron in you. Yes, I have a good eye for people and I am sure there is iron in you. Or perhaps I am going mad and attaching myself to someone equally mad. Either way, I like you, and I want to propose this: I will pay for the medical bills, the newborn’s room, the birthing costs, the clothes, and any other costs which may arise.”

  She folds her hands placidly, as though she has not just offered to make my life infinitely easier, and watches me with an equally placid expression. It takes me off guard at first. I am not used to placidness. If a person’s life is a ship, my ship has sailed dangerously through choppy waters since the day I was born, first with a mother paranoid and used and eventually murdered by a sick old man, and then a life spent scuttling from place to place. This old woman, patiently watching me and waiting, is difficult to comprehend. But, I don’t have the luxury of this anymore: of hesitation, of second-guessing.

  I have a child to think of.

  “Yes, ma’am. I would very much like that. I don’t know how I can thank you—”

  She holds her hand up, cutting me short.

  “No gratitude required, dear, and please, for the love of God, call me Macy!”

  It is difficult for me to accept at first, but this meeting will return to me again and again over the next few months. Macy is incredible. She keeps her word, and the day after I almost stole thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry from her, she accompanies me to the doctor, paying for the scans, paying for everything, and as autumn deepens and then dissipates and gusts of wind blow through naked branches in the garden and I make Macy wear thick layers of fur every time we leave the house, she continues to keep her word.

  We go to baby clothes stores and pick out neutral-colored items, blues the same color as Macy’s eyes, blue overalls and blue bibs and blue mittens, and each time I hold one of the tiny items in my hand, I struggle to believe that one day soon this life inside of me will be a person with tiny hands which fit into the gloves. My mind returns to Dante in these moments, my baby’s father, the only man I have ever felt anything for. Dante with thorns climbing up his arms, with his jet-black eyes, eyes that would tell me he’d never let anything happen to me or his child. But Dante and I could never have been close, could we? There was too much there, too much baggage, too many problems.

  “But things are different now. I am carrying his child.”

  I mutter this into the darkness, lying on my back in the used-to-be guestroom, now my bedroom. After the one-month mark, Macy insisted that I move into the main house. The baby’s room, still under construction, is next door. So far we have bought a mobile, a night light, and a crib that we have yet to unpack and assemble. When they asked her at the store if Macy needed a man to unpack it for her, she curled her lip and said with ice in her tone: “I don’t need a man for anything, dear.” Afterward she admitted she would’ve liked help, but she wouldn’t admit to the acne-speckled teenager that she needed a man.

  I want to contact Dante. More than that, I want Dante to ride into my life and hold me in his arms and whisper that he will always protect me and the child. These are childish fantasies, I know. Dante n
ever wanted me to begin with, not really. He wanted a chef, a fuck toy. He wanted somebody he could use. And yet, those long conversations, learning each other, sliding beneath the others’ skin. Wasn’t there something there? Wasn’t there some kind of connection? I am sure there was. I am sure, had we been different people without all this weight on our shoulders, something might’ve happened. Had we been normal, I might be cradling my baby’s father tonight, instead of the cold bedsheets.

  I wake early and make breakfast for me and Macy. As I place it down and sit beside her, she says: “I will be hiring a replacement housekeeper soon, dear. Oh, don’t look so panicked. You will still have a place here, and after the baby is born and you’ve weaned him, you’ll be back to your regular duties, you can count on it.”

  We eat in the drawing room, next to the icy windows, a light snow falling and blanketing the garden white.

  We sit in silence, but I feel Macy’s gaze on me, and it’s like I can hear that she wants to talk by the way she places her cutlery aside carefully, the way she opens and closes her mouth, these tiny noises which tell me she’s working up to something.

  Finally, she says: “I haven’t asked you yet, dear, because, frankly, it is an awfully awkward thing to bring up in conversation. And, of course, it is your business, not mine. Times have changed since I was a young woman. Times have changed greatly, so I will withhold judgment. But, I must at least make an attempt.” She folds her hands and rests her chin on her folded hands. “Who is the father, Kayla?”

  I swallow, my throat tightening, and for the first time in months I feel the old rodent-Kayla returning. I scan for an exit, think about just running out of the room. Dante—Dante. My Dante, the man who saved me from that hellish burning room, the man who saved me from falling into a world of pain and abuse, the man I came closer to than any man before, and the man who I ultimately ran from. Dante is the father, and I cannot even say his name aloud. Somehow, that would dirty the memory of whatever we had.

  “I . . .”

  I reach for my glass of water, hand shaking, but before I can get to it, Macy lays her hand upon mine.

  “Forget I said anything, Kayla,” she says. “The child is yours; that is all that matters. Forget I said anything, okay?”

  I swallow, nod, and Macy and I hold hands for a while. Her skin is wrinkled, but there is a strength to her which I hope to have when I am her age, a strength which I hope I can have with my child.

  “Thank you,” I say after a while, and then pick up my glass of water.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dante

  A year can pass damn quickly when everything’s just business as usual. The usual runs, the usual schemes, the usual missions, the usual thoughts. I stand outside the club, my breath fogging in front of me. Time passes too fast, like the world is just spinnin’ by me and I’m watching it go, but this past year has been different in one major way: since Kayla, since last year and that madness with her, I haven’t touched another woman. Me, fuckin’ President of the War Riders, and I haven’t touched another woman. There’s something strange about that. Something damn strange. But it’s just like every time I go to fuck some girl, I see Kayla, and I just can’t stomach the sight of this random woman anymore.

  Often, this past year, my mind has returned to the moment I just let her walk out. To protect myself, I know, to make it so Kayla didn’t pry open my ribcage and prod at my heart. But sometimes, I think about what would’ve happened if I’d jumped out of bed and told her to stay. Where would we be now? Who would I be now? As it is, I’m just Dante, same old President of the same old club.

  I laugh gruffly, stuffing my hands into the pocket of my leather. That’s horseshit. Apart from this thick black beard—since Kayla left, I haven’t had a proper shave, as though wanting to mark the distance of time between us or some shit—I’ve changed in other ways, too. The old Dante would never have thought about the same woman from winter to winter. The old Dante wouldn’t have goddamn dreams about the same woman every night. The old Dante wouldn’t give a damn.

  I walk down the road, wondering, always wondering. About Silvertongue’s killer, who I still haven’t caught, and his debt, which still hasn’t been paid as a result, and most of all of Kayla, with those huge brown eyes, those sleek long legs, that skittish way she had of looking around as though always on-edge; maybe I thought I was the man to stop her from being so scared all the time.

  A year, dammit, and here I am still thinkin’ about the same woman. Either she was really special or there is something wrong with me.

  I kneel down next to the road and pluck the thorny flower, turning it here and there in my hand. It reminds me of the flower that was on the floor when I rescued Kayla, similar thorns. I prick my finger and drop it, and it’s like the past has cut into me, like the past is dripping onto the icy tarmac.

  Thinking about Kayla in between jobs is driving me almost to madness, I reckon. Used to be my thoughts were consumed with the crevice-faced man and how I bashed his skull in, what almost happened to me, or else Sandra and her hacking coughs, but now my mind is consumed with Kayla. I was sent a girl just last week, short, blonde, big tits, ready for anything, and I just sent her back. Couldn’t stand the sight of her. Can’t stand the sight of any woman who isn’t Kayla.

  I need to find Silvertongue’s killer. That’s the excuse I’ve given myself for hiring the private detective. Silvertongue’s killer is the thing, and perhaps Kayla has remembered more in the interim since we last met. Perhaps Kayla has had a lightbulb moment. Maybe she remembers seeing someone before she was taken, perhaps the killer, the man who now owes me a debt. Or maybe I just want to see her again, and all this is an excuse. But fuck it, either way, it’s getting done.

  I drop the flower and wander back to the clubhouse, taking a toothpick from my pocket and chewing the end, the only thing these days which brings me any sort of calm.

  I’ve just sat down in the bar, in the corner away from Ogre and Dogma and some of the guys playing pool, when my cell rings.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s me.” The private investigator’s voice is gravelly, old, a veteran at his trade.

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s in Lawrence. Not sure where she’s staying. But CCTV at an ATM showed her in Lawrence.”

  “An ATM . . . how the fuck you find that?”

  The man laughs. “I know my business, Mr. DeCowl.”

  I shrug. “Alright. Lawrence.”

  “I’ll know where exactly soon.”

  “Alright.”

  I hang up, moving the toothpick around my mouth, from side to side. Lawrence. It’s midday, winter, the sky shielded grey. But there is no rain. Lawrence. If I ride as fast as the ice will let me, I could get there in four hours. Four hours, and then what? Just blindly walk around Lawrence? It’s a goddamn stupid idea, I know, but we haven’t got anything on today, one of those long winter days with fuck all to do. Maybe I’ll take a ride just for the hell of it.

  “I’m going to check out a lead,” I tell Dogma. “Hold the place down.”

  Dogma nods. “Okay, Boss.”

  I return to the winter cold and mount up, rev the engine, and make my way to the highway. As I ride, I think about Kayla. I think about the way she would just sit there and listen to me talk shit, about bikes, fighting, the orphanage, Sandra, any old shit. I think about the Sandras: my mother and hers. I think about the pain she must’ve felt in the Movement, when her mother was killed, and when she was on the run. And as I think I wonder at myself. I’ve never thought about stuff like this before, never thought I would, never dreamed it.

  I’ve never felt so close to a woman that after a goddamn year I’m still thinking about her. It’s messing me up. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be with another woman again. It’s like finding the best beer in the world, a top-shelf beer, and then trying to go back to piss-water. It ain’t happening. Sometimes, at night, I’ll wake up to the sound of Kayla’s giggling and turn over and make
as though to prod her in the belly, playfully, to make her giggle more. And then I’ll wake fully, the bleariness of sleep falling away, and realize I’m prodding the sheets like some kind of freak.

  The engine growls. It’s good to ride through the cold, the wind cutting through my leather, keeping me alert. It’s good to feel like I’m heading somewhere, even if it’s to an entire city and not a single location where Kayla is. Even if I’m just going to be roaming looking for a needle in haystack. Still, just to be in the same general area as Kayla, to know that there’s a one in a thousand chance of me seeing her, is more than I’ve had this past year.