Her Christmas Future

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Not seriously. Not in any kind of committed way. How can I? When I know that if you called, I’d likely be unfaithful?”

  “But...what about the stocks we still share that we didn’t want to sell because they’ll be worth more if we hold on to them?” She was grasping.

  “Our lawyers can handle any communication or paperwork in the event we decide to sell,” he told her. Originally everything had been set up that way. Until one or the other of them—she couldn’t honestly remember who at the moment—had suggested that it was just as easy for them to talk to each other than to communicate through lawyers.

  He was so sure. And had ten years’ worth of perspective on her.

  He had to go. She had to tell him goodbye. But she just stood there and stared at him, doing her best not to cry. Succeeding. For the moment.

  As long as she held on to the moment, just stood there, the next moment wouldn’t come.

  Except that it did. Martin took a step closer. He was going to give her a final, parting hug. She saw it coming. Shook her head. Stepped back.

  His hands dropped to his sides, and he cocked his head and reached out again, to touch a lock of her hair, running his fingers down its length, before settling it behind her shoulder. When he sighed, her heart leaped with hope.

  “Do you honestly want to try again?” he asked.

  Olivia noted that she wasn’t jumping for joy.

  Instead, she was thinking back to the last months of their marriage, to the things they’d fought about, her dedication to her classes, his need to do more than just hang around LA. He was a doer. One man with the energy of three who bored easily.

  She remembered how just being with him had drained her emotionally—because she’d never been what he’d needed.

  She remembered realizing that, while she was in love with him, he hadn’t really been what she needed, either.

  She still wanted him in her life. To know she could spend a night in his arms. That she could call him if she needed his opinion. That he’d call her if he wanted hers, or to share some news with her.

  She wanted what they had. But they weren’t good together.

  And he was right—maintaining their status quo was preventing both of them from finding anything more anywhere else. With anyone else.

  When she glanced back up at him, she knew he was not only waiting for her answer, but he’d already guessed what it was going to be.

  “No,” she said.

  And she stood there alone as he walked out the door.

  Chapter Seven

  Martin didn’t leave Marie Cove right away. He should have, but he just didn’t. He’d never lived in the town. Olivia had chosen to do her residency in the small southern coastal community and had accepted the full-time position she’d been offered afterward. She’d been there six years and he’d never bothered to get to know it.

  Why do so when its residents no longer had any bearing on his life?

  Olivia had lived in Marie Cove almost three times as long as she’d lived with him, yet he’d never really considered her move there to be permanent. She had friends in LA. Spent a lot of her free time there. The majority of it not with him.

  Lily was buried in LA. And Olivia visited their daughter a couple of times a month. At least. She left fresh lilies, and they made him feel closer to her when he’d see them during one of his weekly visits. Lily was someone the two of them shared—even if they visited separately.

  As he parked downtown and walked along Main Street, passing by the upscale pubs that called out to him, then drove past the Oceanfront Hospital Complex that had won her away from LA, he fought back the emotion trying to consume him.

  Sometime past nine he ended up down at the beach. Sitting in the sand in the dark, listening to the waves as the cool October night breeze washed over him.

  There was no doubt in his mind that he’d done the right thing.

  For himself, yes, but for Olivia, too. Maybe more for her. She was thirty-one. A successful pediatrician on staff at a prestigious hospital. She had a slew of friends that she kept safely in a social circle, and she had her mother.

  She had no partner. No one to rub her shoulders when she came home at night. To hold her while she cried away the grief from losing a patient. No one to laugh with her over a stupid joke at the dinner table.

  She was beautiful and vibrant and sexy, and he had no right to continue to hold her. To stand in the way of her finding another man.

  A weight had been lifted from his shoulders that night. He knew the future was going to be brighter because of it.

  He sat there, looking out to an ocean he could only see through shadows of glistening moonlight, and let the memories wash over him. Olivia the first day they’d met; he’d been stunned with just a look. The first time they’d made love. The night she’d announced that she was pregnant.

  One time, after an evening of lovemaking, she’d insisted on them making a pizza out of whatever they could find in the refrigerator, only to discover that they didn’t own a pizza pan. She’d been so disappointed he’d gotten dressed and headed to a twenty-four-hour big-box store and purchased one for her. Along with proper fixings. He remembered licking some of the sauce off her breasts...

  Then he remembered her distended belly as she’d carried their daughter. The baby had been small from the beginning, raising some concern, but not enough to warrant more than a close watch. The first time Lily had kicked hard enough for Martin to feel her, he’d thought he’d found heaven. Knowing his child was inside his wife, moving around, kicking out at him—that was something far greater than anything money could buy. Anything he could do himself. He’d been more humbled that night than he’d been as a kid standing in the free-lunch line at school.

  He remembered Lily. Not just her tiny body hooked up to tubes that were bigger than she was, but those eyes...round and dark like her mama’s. She’d look right at him, and the wisdom he read in that gaze...

  Someone, he couldn’t remember who, had once said that Lily was an ancient spirit. He’d scoffed at the time, but the words had hung around him ever since.

  At some point, Martin became aware of moisture not far from the corner of his mouth. The trickle of tears that were falling slowly down his cheeks. Though he hadn’t cried since his daughter’s funeral, he didn’t fight the slow release of emotion.

  Sometime after the moon had passed from the center of the sky, he arose, brushed himself off and made his way back to his car.

  Leaving his past back on that beach.

  It had been a hard night, a long time coming.

  But he’d said his final goodbye to Olivia.

  * * *

  Martin’s last visit served at least one good purpose. It managed to distract Olivia’s emotional energy somewhat, to burn up enough massive waves to ease at least a bit of the burden of waiting ten days to find out the status of the rest of her life.

  She cried more during that first week than she had since Lily’s death. And she worked as much as she had during the first year of her residency. Pouring herself into the neonatologist part of her—the part that helped ease suffering and save lives. Work had always been able to consume her, to take her out of herself and give her rational brain the lead. It had saved her life once.

  On Wednesday she had the rescheduled dinner with Christine but didn’t mention the split with Martin. It was still too new. Too raw.

  She had to process before she put it under scrutiny. Which was why she neglected to tell her mother, as well. Some things were too private to be shared.

  Jamie was teaching a couple night classes at the arts college on the outskirts of Marie Cove that fall, coinciding with the nights Christine normally volunteered at the women’s center. Since William had come, they’d managed to make it all work. Had childcare arrangements and adjusted their schedules to trade off caring for the baby them
selves.

  Olivia listened, thought about how having a baby changed you from the inside out. Once you’d held that son or daughter in your arms...

  Maternal instincts, the magic air that permeated your world just because your child had entered it—that became life’s driving force.

  Christine thought her relationship with Olivia would remain the same after the second baby came—thought that their friendship wouldn’t change—but Olivia knew differently. Two babies would be so much more time-consuming than one.

  Olivia felt lonelier than she’d ever been.

  But she tried not to let herself imagine how it might be if she and Christine both had babies to raise. Her own hopes for herself weren’t a part of this. She couldn’t let them be.

  Beth called on Thursday to let Olivia know she hadn’t had her period yet. The contact wasn’t necessary, hadn’t been discussed as part of the plan, but Olivia had given the woman her cell number.

  “I hope I’m not making this harder or something. It’s just I’d be wondering if it was me and...it seems like this baby is everything to you and I wanted you to know.”

  Olivia’s heart was thudding, her mind in cope mode as she sat down at her desk. Tried to find some bedside manner. “I... Thank you,” she said. “Please, call me anytime. I...just... Thank you.”

  The call only lasted seconds. Olivia welled up as she stared at her phone after they disconnected.

  This baby is everything to you. Had she given that impression?

  Keeping the embryo alive had been all she could think about. Still all she could think about.

  It wasn’t like this was her only chance to have a child with a surrogate. There was nothing wrong with her eggs. It wasn’t about the choice to have a child. She’d chosen long ago not to do so on her own.

  But this one...it had been conceived inside of her, had found life there, out of a night of intense bonding. It already existed.

  It wasn’t a matter of having a baby. It was a matter of saving her child’s life.

  So, yes, maybe this meant everything to her. Not because she needed to be a mother, but because she needed her baby to live.

  On call that weekend, Olivia slept at the hospital—as was common—and had another quick call from Beth, telling her there’d still been no sign of menstruation.

  “I want this for you,” the woman said. “I know we don’t know each other, but I can’t stop thinking of you. I just want you to know that my family and I...it’s pretty much all we’re talking about. Even my seven-year-old, who doesn’t grasp the whole concept, understands that I’m laying low because I’m trying to have a baby for a woman who can’t have one. And my aunt and my sister and Brian... Seems like every time I go to the bathroom they’re watching me come out, and smile when I shake my head.”

  It could have been too much information. Olivia, who’d just come into her office with a tray from the cafeteria, settled back onto the couch perpendicular and down the wall from her desk. She had a view of the ocean and stared out to the distant sea. “I can’t thank you enough for this,” she said, nonplussed. Moved beyond any words she could find. Being privy to intimate family information was not new to her. She spent her days sharing some of the most intense moments as people fought for the lives of their children, bonding to cope. Giving them everything she had.

  She’d never been on the receiving end, though.

  “Tell them thank you from me,” she added before they hung up. But that didn’t in any way cover it. No one at work knew that she’d had the procedure. No one knew she was waiting on a very thin precipice.

  And those in her life who did know, Christine and Sylvia, were allowing her space as always. She shared when she was ready. Until then, they let her be.

  But just south of LA was an entire family giving their energy into seeing her embryo maintain life. Trembling, she grabbed a pillow off the couch, hugged it to her and cried a little. Then a little more. There were hormones involved, she knew that. Her body had been pregnant for a moment. Hormones would have already kicked in to see that embryo safely to her uterus. To prepare her uterus.

  But the tears weren’t just hormonal.

  How could you want something, need it, so badly you couldn’t breathe, when you’d thought not having it was what you’d wanted?

  There was no room in her life for a baby. She had no idea how to be a single mother. Her condo didn’t have a playground, or any place for kids to run about. She worked long hours and was on call every other weekend.

  She could be on the brink of living the rest of her life with the possibility of losing another child...

  Every emotion within her froze at that thought.

  Her soup and sandwich had grown cold, but she ate them. And when, just after ten, she got a stat call to the unit, she presented herself immediately, did her job efficiently and brought Baby V back from the brink of death one more time.

  * * *

  The pain would pass. Experience had taught him that. Busy schedules were a godsend when one needed distraction from the goings-on inside. And when all else failed, alcohol could take the edge off the immediate stabs of pain. Martin allowed himself a bit of overindulgence for the first week. And when his time was up, forced himself back to his doctor’s earlier advice, drinking in moderation, in spite of the excruciating loneliness eating him up inside.

  How in the hell did a guy feel lonely when he was surrounded by people who were focused on entertaining him? Listening to him?

  Pleasing him?

  He’d turned down the couple of offers he’d had over the past days to find forgetfulness in the arms of a beautiful woman. He’d never been keen on using anyone.

  Sex had to be open, honest, mutual—or it didn’t happen.

  It would happen again. He didn’t worry about that. He worried about Olivia. Wanted to call, just to make certain she was okay. Sober, he struggled to forget the vulnerable look on her face as they’d said their final goodbyes.

  And knew that it was all just part of the process. Knew that he had to stay strong. For both their sakes.

  In the past he could appease himself with the knowledge that she’d call if she had any kind of emergency. Half waited for her to do so, just to talk about their latest breakup one more time if nothing else. To be certain they were doing the right thing.

  When a few days had passed and he hadn’t heard from her, it had dawned on him that he wasn’t going to.

  Living without that safety net was proving more difficult than he’d imagined.

  Until it hit him—not knowing about Olivia could be a blessing in itself.

  The idea was to be free. To move on.

  To create a world for himself where he didn’t live alone. Travel alone. An existence where he had a partner whose purpose, whose goals, matched his. He’d opened the door.

  A new life awaited him.

  He just had to welcome the “not knowing” where Olivia was concerned. To figure out how to truly let go. Of her. And of the worry, too.

  If he couldn’t worry, then he could no longer carry the weight of her grief around with him. He’d carry his own until the day he died. But if he could let Olivia go...if he could quit hurting for her even more than he let himself feel his own pain...

  A small bit of relief came with the thought.

  He welcomed it. Relief felt good.

  Just as the future should.

  So he’d cling to it—that small bit of positive emotion. Expand upon it.

  Move forward.

  Yes, it was that hint of relief that would take him into the future.

  He was good to go.

  Chapter Eight

  Beth Applegate traveled alone to Marie Cove for the pregnancy test that first Thursday in November. She’d called Olivia to invite her to attend her appointment at the Parent Portal with her, but Olivia had a meeting a
t the hospital and the actual appointment had only been for a blood draw.

  However, after having just worked two twelve-hour days, she was off the rest of the day and invited Beth to lunch after the appointment. She and Beth agreed to meet at an upscale restaurant in town with gorgeous ocean views.

  She was telling herself that the lunch invitation was to thank Beth for coming forward as she had, especially on a moment’s notice, to help Olivia with her problem. Thanking her in person, for the phone calls that had come every two days since the embryo transfer. And...she’d wanted to wait with Beth for the test results, which had been promised within a couple of hours of the blood draw. Drawing on Martin’s example, she tried not to think about what those results might show. Tried not to build herself up so high that she’d be irreparably hurt by the resulting fall if the test results were disappointing.

  Beth had not yet had her period.

  And that didn’t mean anything other than that the hormones she’d been given during the transfer process, to help prepare her uterus for implantation, had done their job.

  In skinny black jeans, a knitted formfitting purple shirt and black-and-purple short cardigan with the sleeves rolled up, Olivia was the first to show up. And waited for Beth outside the restaurant.

  “How’d it go?” she asked as soon as the athletic-looking blonde in colorful leggings and a thigh-length long-sleeved yellow blouse and sandals approached.

  “Good,” Beth said, smiling as she reached out a hand and squeezed Olivia’s. It wasn’t a handshake.

  The gesture had been more like a hug.

  Beth’s cheer, her positive nature, seemed to reach even to the ponytail that swung as she walked, and occasionally as she spoke energetically over lunch. Any baby she carried would get a cheerful start on life. Olivia wanted to hug the woman and not let go.