Ever Since Eve (The Keeping Secrets Series, Book 1)

by Pamela Browning

  "I beg your pardon?" Doug looked genuinely confused.

  "I didn't want her to have this baby," he said slowly, his desperation making him uncharacteristically talkative. "I wanted her to have an abortion."

  Doug didn't speak for a long time, but finally he thought that he had been mistaken about Derek Lang. If he, Doug, was any kind of friend to Eve, he would also be a friend to this man, whom Eve liked and admired. It was clear that Derek Lang had suffered, was still suffering.

  "She told me about it," he said to Derek reluctantly. "We've been friends since we were kids; we grew up together, and I'm an attorney. It was natural for her to talk to me about her situation." He shrugged. "I didn't have such a high opinion of you, to tell you the truth." His clear eyes assessed Derek. "But now—"

  "Now?"

  Doug shrugged. "I see what Eve meant. You don't mean her any harm."

  "I wish she'd never been dragged into this mess, had never become—" He stopped abruptly. He had been about to say that he wished Eve had never become pregnant, but was that true? Eve herself had said that she was glad she was pregnant in spite of everything. Derek searched his mind, searched his heart, and in them he found gratitude.

  This baby that was being born now, this very second, was his flesh and blood. Eve could so easily have gotten rid of the baby when he pressured her, but she hadn't. She had gallantly and valiantly refused to have the abortion, and she had taken care of herself and the baby, as well as her dependent father, before Derek had found her again. How could he, Derek, have been so stupid, so foolish, so confused? It must have been his grief over Kelly that had kept him from thinking straight. For now, with the impact of a blow to his solar plexus, he saw that the baby was worth her protection, was worth something in his eyes. It would be more grief for him if it didn't survive, because the child was his own—and Kelly's.

  "She insisted on saving the baby," he said softly. "She was right." A fierceness came upon him when he thought of the defenselessness of the child, and adrenaline surged through him. He would protect the baby now. He couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to it. But how like him, he thought bitterly, always too little too late.

  "I should have helped her up the stairs; then she wouldn't have fallen," he said helplessly. He stared into space, seeing Eve's crumpled body lying so forlornly in the snow only a couple of days ago when they had built the snow woman.

  A nurse in pastel-printed scrubs arrived silently on rubber soles and looked from one of them to the other. "Which one of you is Mr. Lang?" she asked.

  Derek sat up straight. "I am," he said.

  "Dr. Perry will speak with you now. Follow me, please."

  * * *

  It was dark outside when Derek finally crept into Eve's hospital room.

  Her body scarcely mounded the white bed coverings; the bed seemed so large it almost swallowed her up. The covers rose and fell with the steady rhythm of her breathing, and Derek paused in the doorway to collect himself after the events of the day. He sagged with the burden of his weariness; his eyes were smudged shadows beneath his brows. Nervously, he twisted the bright bow attached to the vase of flowers he had bought in the hospital gift shop. Eve wasn't a carnation type, but carnations were all they had. He would have to find out what her favorite flower was.

  "Derek?" she said fuzzily, turning her face toward the door. His heart turned over in his chest at the sight of her familiar face. She looked pale and wan after her ordeal; one hand was attached to tubing running to an IV hanging from a stand.

  "Yes," he replied, shutting the door silently behind him and not knowing where to go.

  "You can sit down," she said, lifting her free hand as though with great effort. "Over here." He saw an orange plastic chair beside the bed.

  "Eve—"

  "I heard the baby cry," she said softly, her eyes huge and velvety. "That's a good sign, don't you think?"

  The thought of what she'd been through hung like a weight on his heart. "I hope so, Eve." He set the vase carefully on the radiator cover in front of the window, hiked his pants legs by the creases at the knees, and sat down in the chair.

  "Oh, Derek," she said, looking at him, and her voice sounded sleepy like a young child's. "Your tie is perfect, and your shirt isn't even rumpled. How like you."

  "Eve, I've been frantic with worry. I didn't want anything to happen to you or the baby." His eyes searched her face urgently.

  "I knew. I don't know how, but I did."

  He swallowed. "And now, if the baby doesn't live—" he began, but he couldn't continue.

  Her hand crept across the sheet, found his and nestled into his palm. Slowly he lifted his eyes to hers, and he saw that hers glimmered with tears. But there was courage in the set of her chin.

  "The baby will live, Derek," she said, because it was what she had to believe. The tears spilled over and trickled down her cheeks.

  He couldn't speak because his mouth ached from holding it so stiffly, but he knew it was right to gather her in his arms, to hold her close to his heart, and so he did, being careful of the IV apparatus taped to her hand. And when he saw her eyes closed, the shadow of her damp feathered eyelashes dark against her cheek, his heart was full. She was so beautiful and brave and strong that he should have admitted his love for her long ago.

  He had almost lost her. Dr. Perry had made that clear. And if they lost the baby... But Eve did not believe the baby would die. She had been right about a lot of things, and perhaps she was right about this, too.

  Derek had a son. He wanted that son to be part of his life more than he had never wanted anything except Eve herself.

  * * *

  Bless Doug, Eve thought the next morning. He had taken it upon himself to go to her father and break the news that the baby had been born prematurely. Al had taken the news well, considering his concern about Eve. His voice had sounded stronger than Eve had expected when he called Eve first thing in the morning.

  "You take care of yourself, Evie," he cautioned. "Don't be up and around too quick, now."

  "I'll be all right," she assured him. She was sitting up in bed this morning and already regaining her strength.

  "I'll come see you as soon as Nell can drive me," her father told her. "Probably this afternoon."

  They hung up, and Eve lay back on her pillows, thinking. She knew how much her father had looked forward to grandchildren. She could only imagine what he must be feeling over his own daughter's risking her life for a child that was not even hers.

  But the baby felt like her own. Intellectually she knew it was Kelly's and Derek's—but emotionally she was bound to the baby as though it belonged to her.

  "Ready to go see your little boy?" caroled a nurse as she maneuvered a shiny wheelchair through the wide hospital doorway. The nurses didn't know the circumstances of this baby's conception. That secret rested solely with Dr. Perry.

  "Oh, yes," Eve said eagerly. This morning she had eaten well and was feeling much less groggy. Dr. Perry had stopped by; so had Dr. Ellisor, the pediatrician. He had been serious but not unencouraging.

  "The baby is small, Ms. Triopolous," Dr. Ellisor had told her. "Only four pounds. And we can expect him to lose some of that birth weight—all babies do."

  "But otherwise he's normal?" She held her breath while waiting for the answer.

  "As far as we know," he had replied. "Of course, he's not out of danger yet. Barring any unforeseeable circumstances, though, I'd say you have a healthy infant who will pull through this."

  Eve found the pediatrician's words encouraging despite this cautionary note. And now she was to see the baby!

  The helpful nurse installed her in the wheelchair with a blanket tucked around her legs for warmth before wheeling her down the hall. The neonatal intensive-care nursery was separate from the regular newborn nursery, which they passed in transit.

  A proud grandmother stood at the window of the newborn nursery, tapping the glass and cooing to a pink bundle being held up for her inspect
ion on the other side. In their bassinettes lay sturdy babies wearing tiny caps, red faces howling mercilessly, small ears as pink as seashells and dimpled fists experimentally flailing the air. Healthy babies, born at or near term.

  Eve's heart beat faster as they approached the intensive-care nursery where the most advanced technology aided premature babies, all of whom fought for every heartbeat, every ounce of body weight, every precious breath.

  No one had prepared Eve for what she would see there—for the immense room, all intimidating stainless steel and glass, for the tiny babies with tubes and wires crisscrossing their wizened bodies and the air filled not with lusty cries but with the hums and bleeps of monitors.

  The picture of a rosy-cheeked baby faded forever in Eve's mind when she first glimpsed the child she had carried inside her for the past seven and a half months.

  His face was wrinkled and red, and his eyes were swollen shut. A scattering of brown fuzz was the only hair on his head. He lay naked in the position the nurses had placed him, and he did not respond to Eve's presence.

  Completely without warning, she burst into tears. Before, she had been unshakably sure that the baby would live. That certainty was gone now that she had seen him. He was so little, so helpless.

  "There, there," comforted the nurse, but the words were no consolation at all.

  Why hadn't anyone told her how he would look? Why hadn't she been better prepared? Clucking like a mother hen, the nurse wheeled her swiftly back to her room, Eve sobbing into her hands all the way, eliciting concerned looks from each person they encountered in the hall.

  Eve huddled in her bed afterward, refusing lunch.

  In the afternoon, Aunt May descended upon her, offering chocolates and solace of a sort, and Aunt May asked her if she had seen the baby yet, whereupon Eve cried and cried. And then her father and Nell arrived, and her father caressed her shoulder, and Nell maintained a chirpy one-sided conversation, and Eve cried some more.

  Where was Derek? Why didn't he come? She wanted someone with her who understood. And then she would not feel so utterly alone.

  * * *

  The intensive-care nursery was not an encouraging place. The baby was not a beautiful baby. But nothing could describe the thrill that Derek Lang felt when he first laid eyes on the small scrap of humanity that was his son.

  "My son," he said out loud as though he could not believe it.

  "Yes indeed," said the nurse's aide who had brought him there before she discreetly bustled away.

  "My son," he said again humbly, knowing that the world was not a place worthy of this child, that life would be harder than a child could know, and that this baby deserved the guidance and care of his father in order to make his way through it all. This baby would have that care and guidance no matter what.

  "I love you, my son," he whispered over the hum of the machinery that kept his baby alive, and his eyes filled with sudden tears.

  * * *

  Eve was sleeping when he entered her room, and he sat for a long time beside her, feeling thankful that he and Kelly had chosen Eve and not some other surrogate mother. For Derek well knew that many another woman would have bowed to his wishes for the abortion. The thought made him shudder.

  At long last, she opened her eyes, instantly awake.

  "I saw the baby," he said. "He's beautiful."

  "Beautiful?" was all she could say, and then her eyes clouded with tears that she could not stop.

  He held her, hugging the warmth of her body against his. "Shh, everything is going to be all right. He's going to make it."

  She managed to stop crying. He handed her a tissue, and she blew her nose. "I wish I could be like the heroines in books and cry without looking awful," she said shakily.

  He smiled. "You look fantastic," he told her, but she rolled her eyes.

  "We need to decide what to name the baby," Derek said, walking to the window and then turning to face her. "He should have a name."

  Eve stared at him, the afternoon sunlight slanting through the blinds and marking his face with a pattern of light and shadow.

  "But that must mean that you're—that you're going to—" She stumbled over the words at the full impact of Derek's words.

  "That I'm going to keep the baby. Yes." He smiled at her, but his smile was serious.

  "But that's—that's—" She had been going to say that it was wonderful, but the words wouldn't shape themselves. If Derek kept the baby, then she would not be able to. If the baby survived, that is. And she couldn't imagine being parted from this child, could not imagine, after all the two of them had been through together, giving him up. She would have gladly died for this baby, who had been part of her but not of her; because of her pain he was even more indelibly hers than Derek's. She began to cry, not bothering to hide her face, just letting the tears slip down her cheeks.

  "Now, Eve," Derek said, hurrying to her side, and his touch was gentle, drying the tears.

  "It—it's normal to have postpartum crying jags," she said when she was able to speak. "Perfectly normal."

  "What should we name him, do you think?" he said, reasoning that if he could get her thinking about the name, she wouldn't feel like crying.

  Eve pleated the sheet into accordion folds, avoiding Derek's eyes. His willingness to name the baby signified his change of heart and should have made her happy.

  "Kelly wanted to name the baby after you if it was a boy," she told him, memory conjuring up the night she and Kelly had stayed up to watch late-night television because Derek was working. They had propped a popcorn bowl on a cushion between them, and Kelly had confided that she wanted the baby to be Derek if a boy and Elizabeth if a girl. "Kelly wanted to name him Derek Robert Lang, Junior. She said he would be called Dob."

  "All right," said Derek. "Derek Robert Lang, Junior, is his name. Would you like to go see him?"

  How could she say no with Derek gazing at her so expectantly? After all, she had hoped for so long that he would recognize the baby as his. Now she would have to nurture that relationship and make sure bonding between father and son took place. It was the last thing she could do for the baby, after all, before she left him. It was the last thing she could do for Kelly.

  She remained silent as Derek wheeled her to the intensive-care nursery. As they stood together—well, actually only Derek stood; Eve sat in her wheelchair—looking at little Dob, Derek's hand rested lightly on Eve's shoulder.

  "Look, Eve," he pointed out, his voice eager. "He has Kelly's mouth! Doesn't he?"

  Eve nodded. She had to admit that Derek's son's skin seemed pinker this afternoon and that he reacted to the noise when someone dropped a metal pan in an adjoining room.

  Yet after Derek had wheeled her back to her room and kissed her elatedly on the cheek, Eve sank even deeper into depression. On top of her failure to accomplish the carrying of this baby to term, she had to deal with the fact that he was no longer hers in any way.

  Dob was Derek's child. Irrevocably, undeniably, scientifically and for all time. Nothing in the world could alter that irrefutable fact.

  Chapter 11

  "Eve, dear, imagine my surprise when Susan turned out to be the sister of the lead singer of Purple Madness. You know, he's the one who's been waiting for a kidney transplant, and now they're all putting pressure on her to donate one of her kidneys to her long-lost brother so he can marry the girl who used to be engaged to the hockey player, but Susan doesn't want to donate her kidney because her brother was so rotten when he was a kid, but he's reformed, and I really think that Susan ought to be nicer to her own brother. I don't care if she's been living in a cave for the past three months; she still has her suntan, so she's probably very healthy and all—" Aunt May continued loudly in this vein, filling in Eve about Love of Hope.

  I suppose it's too much to wish that Aunt May came equipped with a volume knob, Eve thought wearily. As though she could care about the problems of Susan and the hockey player or the surly lead singer of Purple Madness whil
e Dob lay helpless in his crib.

  Three days after Dob's birth, Eve had gone home from the hospital. Dob had not. He would not be allowed to leave until his weight reached four and a half pounds and he was able to take all his nourishment by mouth.

  Nell had invited Eve to come home to Wrayville where Nell would care for her, but Eve insisted that she wanted to visit the baby three times a day, and driving back and forth to Wrayville would exhaust her. At the Myers Park house, Aunt May and Louise cosseted her and catered to her more than she had a right to expect.

  "Ready to go, Eve?" Derek's smiling face appeared around the arch leading into the sun room where she was waiting for him to arrive home from work.

  "Yes," she said gratefully, glad to be spared any more of Aunt May's interminable saga. Derek helped Eve with her coat, solicitously suggested that she wear her gloves, and held the door for her as they trooped out to his car.

  "Aunt May driving you crazy?" he asked with an understanding sidelong look at her profile once they were riding down the street.

  "Not exactly," she said, staring straight ahead into the gathering dusk.

  In the old days she would have defended Aunt May. Derek concentrated on his driving, worrying about Eve. She wasn't the same person since the baby had been born, and he missed her cheerfulness, her optimism, and most of all, her willingness to converse. They'd had interesting and spirited conversations in the old days.

  Derek saw Dob three times a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once at night. His work schedule was suspended for the time being. Whenever it was possible, he went to the office, but when it was not, he delegated his duties to subordinates. For now, Derek wanted nothing more than to be with Eve and his son.

  "Dr. Ellisor called just before we left the house," Derek said.

  Eve snapped her head around, clearly surprised. "What did he say?"

  "A progress report. Dob is doing fine."

  She sank back into the bucket seat and blinked rapidly. Her forehead ached from dammed-up tears. Surely the doctor had said more than that. Maybe Derek was keeping something from her. In spite of all the attention and sympathy, day by day Eve sank even deeper into a morass of depression. Seeing Dob three times a day, watching him helplessly as he lay there, did not help matters. Neither did the antidepressant she was taking.