Life Unexpected

by J A Stone

  Kathryn looked as though Corey had just told her there was no Santa Claus. Corey was trying hard to be strong and not let Kathryn see how upset she was. But suddenly the strain of the secret she’d been keeping for so many months was too much for her. She sat down on the couch, put her face in her hands, and started sobbing.

  “Now, now,” Kathryn said soothingly as she rubbed Corey’s back. “You know, decorators are just like therapists. We never air our clients’ dirty laundry, and anything they tell us must be held in the strictest confidence.”

  Corey looked up and gave Kathryn a weak smile. “I guess I do need to tell someone. I can’t keep this secret by myself any longer.” Rather calmly and without hesitation, Corey said, “Tripp is the father of my baby.”

  “I knew it,” Kathryn said excitedly. “I never believed all that malarkey about artificial insemination. After all, when did you have time to do that?”

  Corey nodded silently in agreement.

  “And you told him last night, and he doesn’t want to have anything to do with you and the baby. That bastard! He—”

  “No,” Corey interrupted her, “he doesn’t know.”

  Kathryn seemed to deflate right before Corey’s eyes. “You didn’t tell him? Why?”

  “I don’t know . . . scared, I guess. I’m just so afraid about what might happen next. I want this baby, but I can’t see how Tripp can fit into the picture. And nothing he said or did last night made me change my mind. At one point, he started talking about how perfect my life is here, and it seemed like a sign. Besides, this isn’t 1959. A woman doesn’t have to have a man to raise a baby anymore.”

  “I don’t know about this, Corey. You may not need Tripp to raise a baby, and it might be less complicated not to tell him, but doesn’t he have a right to know? Aren’t there certain paternal rights that exist regardless of how the parents feel about each other? Hey, I’m sounding like the lawyer around here, which is kind of scary, don’t ya think?”

  Corey stopped and thought about what Kathryn had said. It was as though the fog that had been clouding her mind for the past five months lifted, and she realized clearly for the first time that Kathryn was right. Tripp did have a moral and legal right to know he was the father of this baby, which trumped whatever uncertainty she had about her feelings for him.

  “You’re right,” Corey said. “I need to tell him. But he’s already back in Florida, and I can’t tell him something like this over the phone. As soon as the holidays are over, I’ll drive down to Dothan and tell him to his face.”

  “Why not earlier?”

  “I’ve got a lot of work that has to be finished by the end of the year. No way can I take a couple of days off before then.”

  “Okay, the first of the year. I don’t know how we are going to survive until then.”

  Corey smiled. Kathryn was certainly “all in” as far as Corey’s life was concerned.

  Just as she’d predicted, work was horrendous up to and including Christmas Day. Corey drove out to Peachtree Wilden on Christmas morning to spend the day with Nancy, and was pleasantly surprised to see how well she looked. Corey found Nancy waiting for her in the lobby. She was dressed elegantly in a red suit with matching red heels. She was chatting pleasantly with some other women and looked happier than Corey had seen her look in years. At least some good has come out of my lies, Corey thought. She didn’t want to think about what the truth about the baby’s paternity might do to Nancy. Corey was going to do everything in her power to keep Nancy thinking that Luke was the father of her baby.

  “Merry Christmas, my darling,” Nancy said, smiling at her. “You remember Claire and Nina, don’t you?”

  “Of course. Merry Christmas, ladies. Shall we go in for lunch? It smells divine.”

  “Our families aren’t as prompt as you. But they should be here shortly.”

  “Okay, we’ll see you in the dining room.” Corey reached out for Nancy, and they walked hand in hand into the dining room past the largest Christmas tree Corey had ever seen.

  “How are you feeling?” It was always Nancy’s first question these days.

  Corey smiled. “Fat, but other than that, good.”

  “Don’t be silly. You barely look pregnant. I remember when I was pregnant with Luke; I had gained thirty pounds by now. Of course, I never exercised like you do, and I took those cravings very seriously! It was nothing for me to eat a whole pint of ice cream every day. What did the doctor say at your last appointment?”

  “The doctor said the baby is growing just fine and that my mother-in-law should stop worrying so much.”

  Nancy smiled at her. “I have some presents for you and the baby upstairs.”

  “Nancy . . . ,” Corey said accusingly, “I thought we’d agreed to do just a little something this year. I’m going to feel terrible if you’ve gone all out and I just have one little present in my purse for you.”

  “Ah . . . but you are giving me the best gift of all. How could I ever top that?” The nagging guilt that was never far away when Corey was with Nancy made its presence known.

  After lunch there was sing-along Christmas caroling, but Corey and Nancy decided to skip it. When they entered Nancy’s apartment, Corey was stunned. The biggest white wicker basket she had ever seen sat on the coffee table, with pink-and-blue bows cascading down from the handle. It was stuffed with individually wrapped presents. “It’s like an instant baby shower!” she laughed. “How in the world am I going to carry this out?”

  “I’ve already arranged for Tyler who works at the front desk to come and help you when it’s time for you to go. And you need to get Romeo or Gary to help you at your place. Can’t have you straining anything now, can we? The basket is for the baby, but I also have a little something for you.” Nancy opened a jewelry box, and Corey recognized Nancy’s exquisite eighteen-inch strand of pearls. “These were given to me by Luke’s father when Luke was born. I want you to have them now. Things will be so hectic later.”

  “Oh no,” Corey objected vehemently. “I can’t take your pearls. I wouldn’t feel right. You love these pearls, and they are perfect on you.”

  “I will love them much more when I see them on you, the mother of my grandchild.”

  Corey felt as if she were the worst person in the world. But recognizing that refusing the pearls would only hurt Nancy’s feelings, she took them with a heavy heart. Corey gave Nancy her small gift, a locket with one of her favorite pictures of Luke in it, and then she apologized for having to leave so soon. And she honestly did have work waiting for her back at the condo.

  Corey threw herself into her work because it was necessary, and also in the hope that it would make the time pass more swiftly. Finally, the day before New Year’s Eve, Corey could see that the end was in sight. One more day of burning the candle at both ends and she’d be able to go to Dothan on New Year’s Day and tell Tripp the truth about the baby. She wouldn’t allow herself to think too much about that conversation now or about what might happen afterward. However, regardless of what happened with Tripp, she thought she’d spend a couple of days in Marianna. Corey needed time to tell Diane and Jack the truth as well.

  Ironically, Diane called that night, and she seemed to be in one of her chatty moods. Corey cut her short. “Di, I really can’t talk right now. But I promise I’ll have some time to catch up soon.” Corey decided it would be better to tell her in person in just a few days.

  “Okay, but first let me tell you one more bit of news. I saw Tripp yesterday, and he told me that he and that girl Lucy got engaged at Christmas. They’re planning on getting married in June. I thought you would want to know.”

  Corey felt stunned. “Uh . . . yeah, thanks for letting me know. I really have to go now.”

  After she hung up, Corey sat in disbelief. How could she tell Tripp about the baby now? Everyone would wonder why she’d waited until after he was engaged to Lucy to break such important news. What was the moral and right thing to do now?

  Corey ca
lled Kathryn. “I’ve had something come up,” she said in a deadpan voice.

  “Is it the baby? I’ll be right there.”

  “No, it’s not the baby. It’s Tripp. He’s getting married.”

  “Oh . . . no . . . I’m on my way.”

  Despite Corey and Kathryn talking everything through again and again until they both felt exhausted, there appeared to be no good solution. If Corey went to Dothan now and told Tripp, it would look as if she were trying to break up his relationship with Lucy. And even if Corey convinced Tripp that she had no designs on him, Lucy might be a little upset that her boyfriend had slept with Corey a little more than five months before proposing to her. Lucy might ditch him anyway. After going through everything for the hundredth time, it seemed that the best solution was to just leave everything as it was. Tripp would likely have other children with Lucy, and he couldn’t be hurt by something he didn’t know.

  CHAPTER 13

  The remainder of January was bitterly cold and dreary. Corey hated cold weather during the best of times, and her situation certainly didn’t qualify as the best of times. Yet the baby had finally started making its presence known, so for once the cold weather couldn’t bring her spirits down. At first she’d been unaware that the light fluttering she felt in her stomach was the baby. When the movements became more pronounced and Corey realized what they were, she had to stop every time it happened and marvel over the life she carried within her. The novelty never wore off. And she joked happily with Diane that the baby would likely become a gymnast, for it was definitely doing somersaults inside her belly.

  In early February, Atlanta got a couple of inches of snow and ice, and predictably the city shut down for two days. Corey was thankful for this unexpected time-out and actually enjoyed spending the days alone at her condo. She’d been working as hard as she could to finish up some cases before her maternity leave. The weight she’d finally gained was making her feel awkward, and she had to be conscious of staying off her feet as much as possible or they were likely to swell. For two days, Corey remained stretched out in front of her fireplace reading the dozen or so child-rearing books Diane had sent her. It reminded her in many ways of cramming for a final exam, and that gave Corey confidence because she’d always done really well on finals.

  At the end of February, Corey and Kathryn started going to the natural-childbirth classes. They watched some pretty graphic films and talked about breathing a lot, but Corey wasn’t sure she was getting much out of the classes. She did make a couple of new friends, Ralph and Judy, who happened to live down the street from her. They lived on Morningside, not too far from her condo on Rock Springs. When the weather wasn’t too cold and Corey was home at a decent hour, they would all go for a walk. Ralph and Judy were in awe of her decision to have a baby alone. “I’d be too scared to do this by myself,” Judy had said on more than one occasion. And each time, Corey had to remind herself that they thought she’d made a conscious decision to get pregnant and have a baby alone, rather than just trying to make the best of a difficult situation.

  In March, Kathryn organized a combination birthday party/baby shower for Corey. She invited a few of her work friends, Judy and Ralph, and as a special surprise, Diane came up from Florida.

  “This is gorgeous,” Diane complimented Kathryn during the tour of the nursery. Since Corey didn’t know whether she was having a girl or a boy, the nursery had been decorated in shades of white and yellow. “It’s too perfect to use.”

  “I hope not.” Kathryn laughed. “Otherwise, your sister just wasted an awful lot of money.”

  After everyone was gone, Diane and Corey sat on the floor of the nursery. Diane grabbed a pillow off a chair and threw it at Corey. “I can’t believe my baby sister is thirty-three years old today and is about to have a baby.”

  Corey took the pillow and held it to her chest. “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m about to have a baby either. It seems so unreal to me.”

  “It doesn’t seem real until you’re sleep deprived from getting up every two hours to feed that baby. Then it will be all too real.”

  “Hush, no negative talk. Misha, the natural-childbirth instructor, says to focus on what is good and positive.”

  “I’m just telling you like it is. There’s a reason Jack and I only have Marcy, you know,” Diane said sarcastically.

  However, Corey knew that it had been their parents’ car accident that had made Diane and Jack postpone having a second child, until after a while they’d decided Marcy was all they needed. “Do you ever think about how different our lives would have been if Mom and Dad hadn’t died?” Corey asked carefully.

  “Of course. Although, honestly, mine probably wouldn’t have been that different because I was already married and had a child. But I think your life might have been incredibly different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You seemed to get serious with Luke real fast. And he was so domineering.”

  “Luke wasn’t domineering,” Corey disagreed. “He was just confident.”

  “Yeah . . . confident that he always knew best.”

  Corey thought for a moment. She supposed it had been Luke’s confidence that had attracted her to him. When he believed something, he was capable of making others believe it too. After her law-school graduation, she’d stopped in Atlanta for a visit with a sorority sister on her way back to Florida. Corey had never thought about moving to Atlanta. In fact, Atlanta wasn’t even on her list of possibilities until that night when she was sitting next to Luke at a bar, waiting for her friend to return from the dance floor. Somehow she and Luke had started talking, discovered their common interest in the law, and before she knew it, she was considering interviewing at Landon, Crane, and Forrester, where Luke had a connection. And then she was moving to Atlanta. Yes, Corey supposed, things had moved rather quickly once she met Luke, but when something was right, you knew it, didn’t you?

  “Hel . . . lo.” Diane interrupted Corey’s thoughts. “You still with me?”

  Corey nodded her head yes, and then her thoughts went off in a different direction. “Diane, I really want you to be here when the baby is born.”

  “Call me when you first think you might be in labor, and I’ll get here as fast as I possibly can.”

  Tax day came and went, as did Tripp’s birthday a few days later. A very lethargic Corey continued to waddle into the office and do paperwork, even though she hadn’t scheduled any more client appointments. When she went to see Dr. Byrne, he wanted to induce labor, but she stubbornly refused. “Only if the baby is in danger,” Corey stated firmly.

  Finally, early in the morning on May 1, two weeks after her real due date, she woke to a feeling of wetness in her bed and knew that her water had broken. Corey felt thankful that she’d made it into May. She called Dr. Byrne, who told her to go on to the emergency room even though she hadn’t felt a labor pain yet. She called Kathryn, who was planning to take her to the hospital, and woke her up. And then, because she had twenty minutes or so before Kathryn could get there, she called Diane and Nancy and woke both of them up as well. After the excitement of those calls, she sat down next to the overnight bag that had been so carefully packed, and she realized how depressingly quiet the house was. This is not a time to be alone, Corey thought. She wished her mother were still alive. She wished Luke were still alive. She even imagined for a moment calling Tripp and breaking the news to him over the phone that he was about to be a father. However, when her first labor pain suddenly radiated through her abdomen and into her back, the only thing she could think about was that maybe she should call a cab rather than wait for Kathryn to take her to the hospital. By the time the pain had passed, Kathryn was there and they were on their way.

  At the emergency-room entrance, a nurse whisked Corey and Kathryn up to the maternity ward and assigned them a birthing room. Corey was extremely thankful that the room included a rocking chair, because when a labor pain hit her, rocking seemed to be the only thing that helpe
d—so much for all those breathing exercises she’d been practicing for months. Kathryn served admirably and enthusiastically as her labor coach. But after several hours, Corey broke down and asked for an epidural. She irrationally made Kathryn promise not to tell Misha, the natural-childbirth teacher, that she’d failed at natural childbirth.

  Stella Louise Bennett was born at eleven that night. It had been a long day for Corey, but at least Stella had waited until her Aunt Diane and Uncle Jack arrived before making her appearance. She was a respectable seven pounds, two ounces—not too big and not too small. No one questioned her birth date coming a little earlier than expected. Cleaned and swaddled tightly, Stella was placed in Corey’s arms, and tears fell freely from her eyes. She couldn’t help but imagine how different this day would have been if Luke were still alive and this had been their long-anticipated baby. How excited and confident he would have been about the future—unlike Corey, who felt scared of what was next. All she knew for certain was that her life had changed, and she prayed she was ready for it.

  CHAPTER 14

  The next day, Sunday, Diane drove Corey and Stella home from the hospital in Corey’s Lexus. Diane was a nervous driver in the small town of Marianna, and now driving in Atlanta, she alternated between hitting the brakes and the gas in such a brutal cycle that Corey was beginning to feel carsick. Jack had left early that morning to go back to Florida and would return the following weekend to pick Diane up. Although Diane had taken a leave of absence for a week from school, she would have to return to finish up the remainder of the school year.

  “When will the nanny start?” asked Diane.

  “Next Monday,” Corey answered, carefully concentrating on the scenery outside the car to help fight off her feelings of nausea. “I had thought about having her start this week but decided I’d rather it just be you and me for these first few days.”