His gaze was filled with his love for her, and it broke her heart. “I want us to grow old together, Lis, just like we planned, but only if you can be happy without a father for your baby.”
Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away as she continued to hold his gaze, truly seeing inside him for the first time in months. Marcus was such a proud man, a man who stood by his convictions. She’d always loved those things about him. She’d never dreamed they might put an end to his dreams.
She ached for him, for his inability to allow himself the happiness that was his for the taking, for the insecurities that made it so hard for him to accept anything he didn’t provide for himself. And she ached for the child she was carrying, who might never have all the benefits of his father’s great wealth of love.
“I love you, Marcus, with all my heart. And if this is what you need, we’ll find a way to make it work,” she said, falling apart inside.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her from across the room. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” But she wasn’t. Not at all. Not for herself. Not for their baby. But most of all, not for the man she loved. Marcus was meant to be a father, he was a natural care giver with a heart bigger than the state of Connecticut. And she feared that he’d never be happy if he continued to deny himself this chance.
“YOUR FATHER-IN-LAW is returning your call on line six, Marcus.” Marge’s voice on his intercom interrupted Marcus’s reverie about his wife. In the week since he and Lisa had talked, he seemed to spend more time thinking about her than about the work at hand.
He pushed a button on the intercom. “Thanks, Marge,” he said. He picked up the phone. “Hello, Oliver.”
“Marcus? Is something wrong? Is Lisa all right? And the baby?”
Marcus chuckled. “Everything’s fine. We’re just a little concerned about you. We haven’t heard from you since the day after Thanksgiving. Lisa’s starting to get worried.”
“Ah, you know how it is, Marcus. I always lose touch a little bit as finals draw near.”
“That’s what I told Lisa, but she worries, anyway. Especially now. Was Barbara emotional when she was pregnant?”
“I’ll say she was,” Oliver said. “I came home one day when she was pregnant with Lisa and found her crying because I’d bought a green teddy bear for the nursery, instead of the yellow one she’d wanted. I tried to convince her that one was just as nice as the other, but she wouldn’t hear it. Said it didn’t match the wallpaper.”
“So what’d you do?” Marcus asked, thinking of Lisa’s disappointment when he’d accidentally brought home chocolate-chip ice cream, instead of the fudge ripple she’d asked for the previous night.
“I returned the green teddy, of course.”
Marcus settled further into his chair and smiled. He’d gone back for fudge ripple, too.
“Seriously, son, things okay with you two now?”
“They’re better. We’ve reached an understanding that I’m confident will work.”
“An understanding?”
Oliver was family. He was going to have to know. “We’re staying together, but not pretending I’m the child’s father.”
“So what are you?”
“Lisa’s husband.”
“And the child?” Oliver sounded doubtful.
“Her child.”
“And you’re sure you’ll be able to handle this? Sharing her with the baby but not sharing the baby with her?”
Marcus wasn’t sure yet, but he was working on it. “I love her, Dad. I want her to be happy.”
“I know, son. But it isn’t wrong to want a little happiness for yourself, too, is it?”
Marcus didn’t know what happiness was anymore. “I’m happy,” he said.
“You want to tell me how you do that?”
“Do what?” Marcus picked up the gold pen Lisa had bought him when he’d graduated. They’d had so many dreams back then.
“Convince yourself to be happy with what you have when you want more. I’m thinking I could use the lesson.”
Marcus sat up, concerned. “Why? What’s up?”
Oliver chuckled, but there was no joy in the sound. “I’ve just been thinking about the next twenty years of my life and wondering which part I’m looking forward to.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ve had the love of my life, Marcus. I’ve reached the pinnacle in my career.” He paused. “I’ve been starting to question where I go from here.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I’m not certain yet. Let me ask you this. Do you consider fifty-three too old to begin thinking about starting over?”
Marcus couldn’t think of a career that suited Oliver better than the one he had, but he knew it wasn’t for him to make that determination. “Not if that’s what you really want to do.”
“You wouldn’t think I was just being an old fool?”
“Never. You’re the least foolish person I know, Ol iver, and if there’s something out there you want, then go get it.”
“I’m not sure I can, son, but, thanks. You’ve given me something to ponder.”
Marcus wasn’t at all clear on what they’d just been talking about, but he was glad to have been able to help someone else, since he couldn’t seem to find a way to help himself.
Shortly after hanging up the phone with Oliver, Marcus packed it in. Wednesday was Lisa’s early day, and he’d been driving her to and from work most of the week. They’d often traveled to work together back before Marcus’s diagnosis. It was something he’d missed when they’d started working such crazy hours. Something he was enjoying doing again when he could.
He also enjoyed the massages he gave Lisa each night before dinner to help ease the cramps in her muscles. And he looked forward even more to the lovemaking that always came later. He’d made love to Lisa every night since the doctor had given him the okay to do so, and he still couldn’t get enough of her. All she had to do was look at him in that way, or he at her, and they started undressing. He’d wondered a time or two if maybe they were falling into bed so much because that was the only part of their relationship that was working, but decided that if that was the case, he was just grateful that something was working.
Surprisingly enough, he was even finding himself turned on by Lisa’s expanding belly. Regardless of how the baby came to be inside her, she looked so womanly to him, so sexy, growing big with child. He was awed by her physical ability to do that which he, a mere man, could never do.
And he was awed by the things he was finding out he could do. It was hard to feel like a failure when all it took to make his wife stop crying was for him to walk into the room.
He arrived at the medical complex a few minutes early, and not wanting to bother Lisa while she was working, decided to pay a visit to little Willie Adams while he waited. The convalescent center was at one end of the medical complex, and he’d been in to see Willie a few other times during the boy’s long recuperation, finding himself drawn to Willie’s cocky selfassurance against all odds.
“Hi, Mr. C. I just saw Dr. C. this morning. It’s pretty cool, you two having a kid and all,” the boy said as soon as Marcus walked into his room. He’d offered to pay for a private room for Willie, but the boy preferred to have the company of other children, and so shared a room with two other long-term orthopedic patients. He was alone that afternoon, however.
“Dr. C.’s been wanting one a long time,” Marcus said. He was learning to think of the baby only in terms of Lisa, hoping that would eventually make the whole thing easier somehow.
“Yeah, she’ll prob’ly be a great mom, too, for a woman.” Willie grinned, his red hair and freckled skin standing out against the stark white sheets of the hospital bed.
“I hear you’ve been doing pretty well yourself,” Marcus said, sitting down on the end of the bed. “Dr. C. tells me you’ve taken a few steps without any assistance.”
“I got to if I’m gonna be runnin’ by next summer,
” Willie said, his chest expanding importantly.
“Just don’t overdo it, fella. Dr. C. and your other doctors are doing everything they can to get you ready in time, so don’t go messing up all their hard work by rushing things.” Lisa had told him just the other night that Willie had been caught trying to get out of his bed by himself over the weekend to practice walking.
“I only did it once, Mr. C., honest. They canceled my therapy Saturday morning, and I didn’t want to waste a whole day of getting better.”
“They canceled your session because of some swelling in your muscles, Willie. I guess you pushed yourself a little hard on Friday, huh?”
“I guess.” The boy looked contrite for all of two seconds and then grinned up at Marcus. “But I was awesome, Mr. C. You shoulda seen me. I made it all the way across the bars, only stopping once.” Marcus knew a lot of Willie’s workouts consisted of forcing his legs to move forward in walking motions while he supported his weight with his arms on the bars on either side of him.
“I’m proud of you. Keep up the good work, and you and I’ll hit the batting cages before you go to camp next summer. Can’t have your hitting rusty when you’re playing with those older guys.”
“Cool! You mean it, Mr. C.?”
“Yep. Just as soon as Dr. C. says you’re ready.” He glanced at his watch. “And now I’ve got to get over to her office before she gets mad at me for being late.”
Willie’s eyes opened wide. “She really gets mad at you?”
“Yeah, but I can handle it,” Marcus said, ruffling the boy’s hair affectionately.
“Hey, Mr. C.?” Willie called just as Marcus reached the door.
“Yeah?” he looked back at the boy, thinking how small and defenseless he looked in the bed.
“Your new baby sure is gonna be lucky, having you for a dad and all.”
Marcus felt the sting of the boy’s words clear down to his soul.
THE FOURTH MONTH of her pregnancy was both the best and the worst time of Lisa’s life. In some ways she and Marcus had never been closer. She cherished their love, knowing what an incredible gift it was.
And she was pregnant, soon to have the baby she’d always wanted. Her morning sickness had subsided and she felt great. She was even starting to show enough to need some of the maternity clothes she’d already purchased, with Beth’s help, one Saturday afternoon. And she spent a lot of time daydreaming about the months to come. She was scheduled for her first ultrasound during her four-month checkup and might even then know the sex of her baby.
Everything would have been perfect if Marcus had shown any interest whatsoever in the life her body was busy creating for them.
She’d chosen the bedroom across the hall from them to use as the nursery, instead of the room Marcus’s parents had used farther down the hall, and by the fifteenth week of her pregnancy, she was well under way with plans for decorating it. She and Marcus had always said they’d decorate the nursery themselves, piece by piece, rather than hire a professional as his mother had done when she’d been expecting him. And though Lisa longed for Marcus’s help, she settled, instead, for remembering as best as she could the opinions he’d had when they used to talk about the nursery they’d have someday. He’d wanted colors, lots of them, all primaries, and balloons, too. He’d also wanted a race-car motif, but she was holding out on that, waiting to see whether the baby was a boy, or a girl who might prefer something a little softer, like the teddy bears she’d always wanted.
Marcus had also always wanted a Raggedy Andy doll. It was something he’d confessed to her one night after they were first married, and only after having had a couple of drinks. One of his earliest memories was of wanting the doll because of a cartoon he’d seen where the boy, Andy, had saved a little girl’s life. And that was one of the few times he’d received his father’s complete attention. The old man had blasted Marcus for wanting a doll, any doll. Cartwright boys didn’t play with dolls.
Lisa’s first purchase for the nursery was a pair of two-foot Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.
She’d looked through scores of books of wallpaper samples and had settled on a pattern of red, yellow, blue, orange and green balloon bouquets, all floating on a background of soft white clouds. She bought her supplies, but waited until Marcus was at the office one Saturday to begin the actual transformation. She wanted the conversion to be as painless for him as possible.
She managed to sand down three of the walls rather quickly, but was having trouble getting the old wallpaper down from the fourth wall. Turning off the electric sander, which just seemed to be smoothing the wallpaper into the wall, she grabbed a hand sander and started in on the wall with good old elbow grease. Twenty minutes later, she was blinking back tears of frustration, mingled with drops of sweat. She was only about a tenth of the way done with the wall.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing?”
Lisa jumped, dropping the sander on her toe.
“You scared me,” she accused, standing before him in her plaster-spattered leggings and one of his old shirts, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
“I’m sorry,” he said. But he didn’t sound it. “With all this racket going on, you must not have heard me come in. What are you doing, Lis?” He asked the question as if he thought she’d lost her mind.
“Decorating the nursery. What’s it look like?”
“It looks like you’re in danger of hurting yourself. What were you thinking, tackling a job like this all by yourself? You’re pregnant, Lisa. You’re smarter than this.”
Lisa resented his high-handedness. And she’d had enough of sanding a wall that didn’t want to be sanded, of carrying a baby that its own father didn’t want.
“And who was I going to ask to help me with it, since the father of my baby has refused to have anything to do with him?” she hollered at Marcus.
She wanted to take the words back the minute they were out of her mouth. Marcus’s face froze into that awful mask again.
“I’m sorry,” she said, leaving the mess behind her as she walked over to her husband. She laid her head against his chest, sliding her arms beneath his jacket. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Hadn’t meant to hurt him. But she was hurting so damn badly herself the words had just slipped out.
“I’m truly sorry, honey,” she said again as his silence rent the room. “I’ll hire someone on Monday to do the job.”
He didn’t put his arms around her, didn’t reach for her at all, except to push her away from him. “Give me time to get changed and I’ll do it,” he said, turning to leave before she could read what was in his eyes.
But she could read the posture in his back as he crossed the hall into their bedroom. His shoulders were slumped, his gait slow, as if he’d just fought an important battle—and lost.
CHAPTER NINE
THE NURSERY GOT PAINTED. And papered. Marcus tried not to look at the colorful balloons when he pasted them up, which was a little difficult since he had to match the strips as he hung them side by side. He tried not to care that Lisa’s choices were making a room so like what he’d pictured for his own children back when he’d thought he’d have some. He tried to concentrate on her satisfied smiles, instead, as they worked on the room together every evening that week. And was never so thankful in his life as he was the day he finally put the supplies away for the last time. The job was done, and now they could get back to normal—at least for the few normal months left to them.
He took Lisa to dinner Friday night to celebrate.
“Here’s to a finished nursery,” she said, smiling across their intimate table for two at one of New Haven’s elite restaurants. It was a place frequented more by his parents’ generation than his own, but it was quiet.
Marcus tapped the edge of his glass of whiskey to the apple juice she held up to him. “To a finished nursery,” he said wholeheartedly.
“Marcus! Lisa! Goodness, we haven’t seen you in months!”
Marcus cringed when he heard
the voice of his mother’s best friend behind him. Soon after his parents’ death, he’d cut most of his ties with the superficial society they had flourished on, but Blanche Goodwin kept reappearing once or twice a year, like a flu bug he couldn’t shake.
He stood, holding out his hand to Blanche’s silent husband. “Blanche, Gerald. It’s good to see you again.” Gerald’s handshake was slightly unsteady.
Blanche bobbed her silver head importantly. “You’re looking good, Marcus. We read in the paper that you’d acquired Blake’s department stores. Your father would have been proud of the way you’ve taken charge of the business.” She spoke before her husband could get a word in edgewise.
“I hope so, Blanche,” Marcus said politely, angry with himself for the immediate pleasure he felt at her words, for the fact that his father’s approval still mattered.
“Are you still toiling down at Thornton, Lisa?” Blanche asked next, making it sound as though Lisa scrubbed bedpans.
“I am,” Lisa said, smiling graciously at the older woman.
“Let’s leave the kids to their dinner, Blanche,” Gerald said, his words a little slurred. Marcus was pretty sure he was drunk.
“Oh, my, yes, of course. I’m sorry. Your food must be getting cold. It was good to see you again, Marcus,” she said, shaking Marcus’s hand. “And Lisa…” She held out her hand to Lisa, far enough away that Lisa would have to stand to reach it. Marcus recognized the sort of power play meant to make Blanche feel superior.
The bitch, Marcus thought, watching Lisa stand. She looked beautiful in the dark blue maternity dress she’d donned for the occasion. Beautiful and—
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