Merry Christmas, Babies

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I’m a survivor, Joe. I’m only telling you about all this so that you can understand.”

  And because, as of today, there was no way her choice wasn’t going to affect his life, as well, at least peripherally.

  “I’m thirty-two years old. I’ve got my body back, my career and financial security are set, but my sense of self, of being grounded, which I lost in that fire, is still missing. I have no significant other. I’ve been finding my solutions on my own for a long time.”

  “And so you decided to have a baby, start a new family, on your own.”

  The knot between her shoulder blades loosened and Elise almost smiled. “Yes.” He got it.

  “Okay.” He drained his drink, sat forward. “You have my full support.”

  Elise was tempted to stand, to leave it at that and let him leave, but knew she couldn’t. She’d opened the door to truth between them. She was no longer hiding.

  “There’s more, Joe.”

  Lips pursed, he nodded. “I kind of thought so.”

  “I had an ultrasound today.”

  He peered at her through narrowed eyes. “There’s something wrong with the baby?”

  If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was personally invested in her answer. But this was Joe. He’d chosen divorce over creating a baby with the woman he adored.

  “Not as far as they can tell,” she answered slowly.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “There are four of them.”

  JOE DROVE HOME. His older brother Kenny was waiting on the lighted basketball court behind Joe’s home, just as Joe had requested from his cell phone immediately after leaving Elise.

  Kenny, like Joe, was unmarried, unencumbered with a houseful of needs that couldn’t possibly be met. He was also unemployed—for the fourth time in almost as many years.

  By choice.

  His brother got bored easily.

  “What’s up?” Kenny asked as Joe joined him five minutes later, having exchanged his shirt and tie for shorts, a T-shirt and three-hundred-dollar tennis shoes.

  “Just needed a game,” Joe grunted as he sank a three-pointer.

  Kenny swiveled, butted up against Joe as he dribbled and went up for a successful slam dunk. “It’s after nine o’clock. You work in the morning.”

  “You don’t, so what’s it to you?” Joe rebounded, took the ball back and lined up another three.

  With a quick jump, Kenny stole the ball from him.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Kenny said, turning to grin at Joe as he bounced the ball between his legs and caught it behind him. “I sold Wambo.”

  One of Kenny’s many animated video characters. He named a well-known, international video game producer as the buyer.

  “I’ve got some changes to make to him—he needs to be a little taller and more agile. And they want a woman to go with him.”

  Joe stood while Kenny made the next shot. His brother was up on him four to three. “Congratulations!” he said, slapping Kenny on the back.

  Kenny got his own rebound and shot the ball at Joe’s chest.

  “Can’t let you be the richest guy in the family,” he joked, but Joe could tell that his big brother was proud of Joe’s accomplishments, too. Mostly Joe was relieved to see that Kenny was finally finding some success with what he most loved to do. What he was good at.

  He deserved it.

  Joe sank another three. And was in his brother’s face, up and down the half court, pounding the pavement, the backboard, anything he came in contact with as he trounced one of Michigan State’s most celebrated basketball stars.

  Kenny asked him again what was wrong.

  Joe insisted nothing was wrong. And he showered and went to bed telling himself the same thing.

  Elise was a business partner who’d survived incredible odds.

  Her private life was not and never had been any concern of his.

  Sleep was elusive.

  ELEVEN O’CLOCK and Elise still couldn’t quiet her mind at all. She’d taken a hot bath. Done breathing exercises. She’d watched a sitcom. Tried to read—and to coax her independent housemates out from under the bed.

  And then she picked up the phone. It was an hour earlier in Arkansas. He’d be home by now after his evening jog. Turning seventy hadn’t slowed him down a bit.

  “Elise! Good to hear from you.”

  Standing in the middle of her bedroom, Elise studied herself in the antique free-standing, floor-length mirror. There wasn’t a single visible scar on her face. And her body was almost as beautiful.

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late.”

  “You are never a bother, my dear. But I hear something in your voice that concerns me. Need to talk?”

  He’d know it was why she’d called. Why, after all the years since being his patient, she still called. At least once a month. She’d grown up with Thomas, confided her deepest secrets to him, trusted his advice.

  After the death of her family, he’d become her protector.

  There’d been a time of despair—of separation—when he’d fallen from his pedestal. He’d published photos of her at the various stages of her plastic surgery. She’d long since forgiven him, though.

  Now he was just a man. And a very dear friend, with faults and failings like everyone else.

  And he’d created the woman who now stood on expensive carpet in a spacious bedroom in a beautiful old home in Lowell, Michigan.

  “I’m pregnant, Thomas.”

  “Congratulations!” her ex-doctor said with real joy. “So it took the first time!”

  “It more than took.” She turned away from her image as fear twisted her features. “I’m carrying quadruplets.”

  He swore—something he rarely did. And that scared her anew.

  “You’re worried,” she said.

  “No,” he answered immediately, his voice reassuring even halfway across the nation. “Just wishing that something would come easy for you.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  Silence. He had doubts. She’d known he would. Feared he would.

  Sinking to the handmade floral quilt on her king-size bed, she asked, “What am I going to do, Thomas?”

  “Follow doctor’s orders explicitly and have healthy babies.”

  The answer surprised her.

  “And after that?”

  “You’ll raise them.”

  “How?” She only had two arms.

  “You lived through six years of agonizing pain and debilitation, Elise, beating all the odds over and over again. And you did most of it with a smile on your face. What’s raising four children after that?”

  Four children was one thing. Four children at once was another.

  “They talked about selective reduction.”

  “It’s an option.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Removing one or two fetuses is common enough practice in quadruplet pregnancies. But it also poses risks to the remaining fetus or fetuses.”

  “Do you think I should do it?”

  “Do you want to?”

  No. Not at all. She could hardly bear the thought. But for the sake of doing the right thing, she was forcing herself to consider the option.

  “You can do this,” he said. “You can go through this pregnancy, have these babies, do a good job raising them.”

  “I’m scared to death.”

  “It’s not the first time, is it?”

  He knew it wasn’t.

  “Hey.” His voice came again, softer now. “Have you forgotten the one rule of life?”

  His wife, Elizabeth, had taught it to her. And to emphasize the message, after every single procedure Elise had undergone during the six years of her recovery, there’d been a gift waiting for her when she awoke.

  “To always look for the gift in every situation,” she repeated now.

  “You wanted a family. You’re thirty-two. By the time you’re thirty-three, you’ll have a full house.”

&nb
sp; With a trembling chin, Elise faced the mirror again. “Mama raised four babies. So can I.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  JOE DIDN’T GET ANGRY OFTEN.

  Anger brought chaos, for which Joe had a deep-seated aversion.

  He avoided glances from everyone in the payroll department as he strode the short distance from his office on one end of the fifteenth-floor condominium suite to Elise’s office on the other.

  It had been two weeks and a day since he’d met the real Elise Richardson—or at least a more complete Elise.

  Two weeks and a day since she’d told him she was carrying four babies at once.

  Neither of them had mentioned the conversation since.

  He could think of little else.

  She was on the phone when he arrived. The second she disconnected he announced, “I just heard you climbed fifteen flights of stairs with a bag of groceries.”

  He could only see the top half of her sleeveless white summer dress, and she wasn’t sweating a bit.

  “I had salad dressing and meat for the chicken Caesar salad we’re having for lunch. I couldn’t leave them in my car. It’s summer outside, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Don’t humor me, Elise. I’m not out of line here.”

  “You’re upset over nothing.” She didn’t have to flick her fingers through that short dark hair to make her opinion perfectly clear.

  “You climbed fifteen flights of stairs!”

  “The elevator was out.”

  “You’re carrying four babies! You should have called someone.”

  She glanced to the hall outside the big glass windows on either side of her door. “The bag wasn’t heavy and exercise is good.” Her voice had lost much of its force.

  “You still haven’t told anyone.”

  She shook her head.

  “When are you planning to do it?”

  “As soon as the timing’s right. At the moment we’re hiring a new pay tech to take care of the payroll-only clients. And something’s up with one of our couriers—checks have been misdelivered twice.”

  “Lunch today would be good timing,” Joe said, refusing to be distracted by business when what he really wanted was to never again speak of anything else with his partner. “Putting yourself—and your babies—in danger is ludicrous.”

  “There was no danger, Joe! I’m not stupid. I went slowly, took breaks when I needed to. I just saw my doctor this morning and she says the more I exercise the better we’re all going to be.”

  He closed her door, then stood in front of her desk like some kind of drill sergeant. Unusual for him.

  “On to something that matters,” she said, eyeing him with warning. “First International is threatening to raise our group rate again. I’ve got an appointment on Monday with Great State.”

  Both substantial and reputable insurance companies, and nothing to do with the stairs she’d climbed—or the reason he cared that she had. “I suspect their quotes will be similar.”

  “Our value comes in offering insurance to employees of independent companies at a rate their companies can’t afford to offer. If our rates change too much, we lose that value.”

  “We offer a great package,” he said. “Payroll, workers’ comp, tax compliance—and group insurance. And if our rates raise, so will everyone else’s. Unless they drop the lower rate structure for larger groups—which would put them out of business—we’ll still have the advantage.”

  “I have an idea that will give us more of an advantage.”

  He recognized the glint in her eye and sat in a visitor chair. “I’m listening.”

  “What if we bundle a package of vendors? You know, a workers’ comp specialist, a strategic planning counselor, a tax consultant, a retirement counselor, psychiatric counselor, a corporate lawyer and maybe some kind of team facilitator—all things that are offered to employees of larger companies.”

  “Benefits that bring higher levels of success,” he added, already hearing the presentation in his mind as he imagined himself selling the idea.

  “Exactly.” Elise folded her hands on her desk, watching him. “The vendors would all bill us and we’d bill the companies, based on how many options they choose.”

  “Individual services billed at a package-deal rate.”

  “Correct.”

  He loved it. Would have thought of it himself if he didn’t have her there to do that kind of thinking for him. Or not.

  The tension that had become almost a constant companion to Joe these past couple of weeks returned in force. He needed Elise. Couldn’t afford to lose her. B&R couldn’t afford to lose her.

  But how could four newborn babies possibly fit into the mix? Or four toddlers, for that matter?

  “SO WHAT ELSE DID the doctor say?”

  Elise stared at Joe, at the closed door to her office, then the hallway. They were working. In ten years, they’d never talked about personal stuff during working hours. At least not her personal stuff. She wasn’t forthcoming. He never asked. This was the second time in an hour.

  She didn’t want that to change. Maybe she’d made a horrible mistake—or many of them. Confiding in Joe about her past. And her present. Visiting the fertility clinic. Thinking she needed more out of life. Thinking, period.

  “You know doctors,” she conceded with an answer of sorts when it became clear that he’d sit there through the noon hour if she didn’t ante up. “They’re always worried about malpractice suits.”

  Sitting forward, Joe held her gaze, not bothering to temper his frown with even a hint of a smile. “What did she say?”

  Angela Parks walked by—probably on her way to the water fountain, judging by the big blue thermal cup in her hand. She filled it at least three times a day. Elise was a little concerned that the twenty-five-year-old pay tech might be diabetic.

  “She went over the potential risks.” She’d also given Elise a written list of them. She needn’t have bothered. They were stamped so clearly on her mind she was having trouble focusing on other things.

  “Such as?”

  Joe looked so earnest, sitting there, his tie slightly askew. Should she tell him? Didn’t he see they were pushing boundaries here? Was he ready for that?

  Was she?

  “Premature birth is the biggest. A normal pregnancy goes forty weeks. If mine goes to thirty-four she’ll be pleased. Thirty-one is average.”

  “Does she see any reason you won’t?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “What else?”

  “Even if I make it to thirty-six weeks, the babies will have lower than normal birth weights.”

  “Why is that?”

  “With four of them sharing space, their growing room is limited.”

  He fidgeted in his seat, looked down.

  “Anything more?” he asked, taking a noticeable degree of interest in a speck on his shoe.

  She threw out a hand, wishing she felt even a tenth as nonchalant as she’d have him believe. “Various little problems I’ll be prone to with that many babies pressing on my internal organs.”

  Elise started to sweat again, just thinking about the “little problems” of gestational hypertension, anemia, diabetes or any of the other things Dr. Braden had warned her about. She’d never considered, until that morning, that she wouldn’t be physically capable of taking care of herself through all this. She was strong. A survivor.

  And if she didn’t, who would?

  Helplessness was not an option for family-less people.

  “I’m assuming she had orders for you?”

  Dozens of them. A few she’d share. “Just lots of rest, a careful diet and vitamins at this point,” she told him honestly. She couldn’t think about any more than that. Being confined to bed the last trimester wasn’t an option.

  Elise’s life was about miracles. She’d survived the fire that had killed her entire family. She had little trace of the burns that had covered forty percent of her b
ody. She could be one of the three percent of women who had relatively normal quadruplet pregnancies—and she’d start the percentage for those who made it the entire way upright.

  “Did she advise you to quit work?”

  “No.” Not yet, anyway. Dr. Braden expected she’d eventually prescribe bed rest, though. She probably assumed that Elise would understand that bed rest meant not working.

  The assumption was wrong.

  “MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION please?”

  Joe stood in the doorway of the kitchen, searching the room for his partner. She was over by the sink, still serving plates of food.

  When she’d originally started the tradition of providing Friday lunch, their office had been one room with partitions and she’d cooked at home and brought lunch in. There’d been just the two of them and they’d pulled up chairs at Joe’s desk and eaten together.

  Voices slowly stopped as faces turned toward him. Joe counted all nine of them. Everyone was there. Good.

  “Sorry to interrupt your lunch, but we have an announcement to make. Elise?”

  He would not feel guilty about this. Elise’s health was at risk.

  “Ah, yes.” He heard her voice and studied the flooring. The travertine had been a good choice. Elise’s, of course.

  “B&R is going to expand our program of services…”

  What? He did everything he could to bore a hole with his eyes into his partner’s forehead as she expounded on the plan the two of them had agreed upon that morning, giving their employees assignments, timelines and a bonus program. The woman was good.

  But she wasn’t getting away with it.

  After the applause died down and questions were answered, Joe stepped farther into the room.

  “That isn’t all Elise has to say,” he told the group. This time his gaze let her know in no uncertain terms that if she didn’t do this, he would.

  She’d put away the lunch leftovers and moved aside as Ruth Gregory and the two girls who worked under her supervision carried over the dishes and started rinsing them.

  “I…”

  Her eyes pleaded with him. He didn’t back down.

  “I…”

  “You aren’t quitting, are you?” The horrified call came from the end of the room. Sam Watterson, his senior sales associate.