First Comes Baby

I’m still feeling some physical effects, she’d written, in what he guessed was a masterly understatement. The dean says whenever I’m ready. Next fall looks better.

She talked about autumn leaves and lilacs coming into bloom, about windstorms and politics, but not herself. Mention of mutual friends became rare. In fact, he began to suspect she wasn’t seeing anyone but her father and sister.

She always responded to his e-mails, but started to take a couple of weeks to do so. When the time for his return to the States neared, she wrote, So, are you coming back to the Seattle area? If so, we’ll have to get together some time.

Some time? They were best friends. What did she mean, some time?

A couple of his buddies were at the airport along with his parents to greet him when he landed at Sea-Tac. Not Laurel. When he called and tried to set up a dinner, lunch or anything else, she had excuses. Caleb called Nadia and found out that she hadn’t seen Laurel in six months. She’d given up. Finally, he just went by her dad’s house.

Laurel was shocked to find him on her doorstep, but not as much as he was by the sight of her. It wasn’t so much the injuries—he’d expected those. A scar ran from the crest of her cheekbone into her hairline. Her face wasn’t as perfectly sculpted as it had been. But that didn’t matter.

What got him was the weight she’d lost, the paleness of her face, the dullness in her eyes. She was thin, washed out. Her arms were wrapped around her waist instead of outstretched to draw him into a big hug. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

He couldn’t say, What in hell happened to you? He already knew. He just hadn’t known how far the effects went beyond the physical.

He hugged her, pretending he didn’t notice the way she shrank away. He talked about his flight, about his culture shock, persuaded her to take a walk to a small park he’d noticed driving there.

The next time he called, she made excuses again. He dropped by again. And again.

She quit even talking about going back to law school, but she did heal to the point where she got a job at a downtown law firm and with her dad’s help bought the house and moved out on her own once again. By that time, few of her old friends came around anymore. Even Nadia, now married and working full-time as a marketing executive, had given up. Only Caleb stuck it out. Sometimes he wondered why he persisted. But…she was Laurel. He’d known from the first time he saw her that she was special. He’d said friends forever, and meant it.

He used to think they might get together sometime. As in, sleep together, or maybe even fall in love and go off into the sunset. At first it didn’t happen because their timing wasn’t right. He had a high school girlfriend when they first met; by the time he and Danica called it quits at October break, Laurel was dating some guy. It worked that way until their senior year, when they were both briefly single. He thought about making a move on her. He wanted to make a move on her. Damn, he’d wanted to. But then he looked at her and thought, Yeah, but she’s my best friend. It can’t work out long term. I’m leaving for two years. What if screwing her now ruins what we have?

In the end, it hadn’t seemed worth it. But he’d left for a summer in Europe believing that someday Laurel would be the girl for him. If he had a choice between time spent with Laurel and anyone else, Laurel always won. Once he got back, he thought, then he’d get bold.

That wasn’t how it happened, of course, or how it ever would happen. They’d stayed friends, since he wouldn’t let her quit on them. But romance was not a possibility anymore. She wouldn’t let it be.

Nonetheless, he’d been royally pissed when she told him she had chosen Matt Baker to father her baby. She’d decided to pick a friend, and she hadn’t picked him? He hadn’t even made her goddamn list? For a minute, he’d seen red. Or maybe green, because he was jealous as hell. If any man’s sperm was swimming inside Laurel Woodall, it was going to be his.

It would, that is, if he could get it up and manage to jack off in her bathroom, knowing she was sitting out in the living room pretending to watch TV. Him, he’d never felt less aroused in his life.

And this was the big day, outlined in red on his calendar. The day of the month she deemed her most fertile. Something he had never expected to know about her.

Of course, instead of being the big day, it was going to be a humiliating one for him if he couldn’t perform.

To start with, her bathroom wasn’t conducive to erotic activities, even self-managed ones. The damn room was tiny—as in, you could wash your hands while you were still sitting on the toilet. For that matter, you could stick your head in the shower and wash your hair without leaving the toilet, either. Good thing if he ever had to take a shower here, because his entire body sure wouldn’t fit in that stall.

His real problem, though, was that the bathroom felt virginal. White-painted cabinets, wallpaper—although there wasn’t much wall—that was also white strewn with violets. He used to think it was funny that tough, argumentative, take-no-prisoners Laurel had a secret girlie side. Right now, gaze on the tiny, green-glass bottle with tiny white bell-shaped flowers in it that sat next to the sink, Caleb wasn’t so amused. Trying to get worked up, he felt as if he was raping her in a figurative if not literal sense.

She wants your damn sperm.

No, she didn’t. She wanted an immaculate conception. But she couldn’t have one, so she was hoping for the next best thing. A tube of some unacknowledged substance that she could use like a douche. She didn’t want him, she wanted a baby.

Well, if that was all she’d take from him, that’s what he’d give her, Caleb thought grimly, and unzipped his jeans.

Think about that beauty who flirted with you in Santo Domingo.

The idea of sitting here in this girlie bathroom, Laurel a room away, getting aroused by imagining the exotic, coffee-skinned beauty who had tried to lure him into her rooms on a back street in the colonial Dominican Republic city struck him as dirty.

It had to be Laurel, Caleb realized, desperate. How could he give her a baby if it wasn’t even her he was thinking about? Whether she would like it or not, he was going to close his eyes and imagine making love with her. Maybe this wasn’t the normal way for a man and woman to conceive a child, but he figured it wasn’t as much the physical act as the emotions that were important. By God, he was going to feel as close to what he should be as he could manage.

But it was the old Laurel he pictured, the one who laughed at him and challenged him and, yes, flirted with him. He fantasized about the young woman he remembered from brief glimpses, in tiny panties and bra. By her senior year, her body was slim and pale but for nicely rounded hips she grumbled about, but looked more than fine to him, and generous breasts she tried to minimize with baggy shirts. It was the sexy Laurel he saw when he closed his eyes, not the traumatized one who shrank from all contact.

Thinking about her that way…well, it wasn’t as much of a reach as he’d thought it would be. And it worked.

No problem.

COULD HER CHEEKS get any hotter without sizzling like meat on a grill? Laurel didn’t want to know.

She accepted the big plastic syringe Caleb had gotten from a veterinarian friend, tried not to look at the milky liquid inside and said, all bright and chirpy, “Oh, good. I hope it wasn’t too…well, hard.”

Humiliation swept over her. Bad pun. Really, really bad.

Yes, her cheeks could get hotter. And did.

“Your turn.” Darned if his cheeks weren’t stained dark red, too. So, okay, this wasn’t an everyday happening for him, either. “You want me to stay?”

And hold her hand?

She shook her head quick. “No, I’ll be fine.”

Caleb was already backing up. “Then, uh, I’ll give you a call.”

“Okay. Sure.”

He had the front door open. “I’ll lock.”

“Good.”

But she was talking to herself. He was gone, duty performed. So much for them laughing together at the awkwardness.

She stared down at the object in her hand before remembering exactly what it was and averting her gaze.

Laurel lay on her bed to insert the syringe, then remembered that standing on your head was supposed to help speed the sperm on their way. She’d been able to stand on her head when she was a kid, but hadn’t in years. Could she still?

She finally slithered off the bed, using it to brace herself, and managed to keep her feet in the air for several minutes. That had to be long enough. Then she read in bed for a while, knowing full well that she wouldn’t remember a word later, and finally dozed off even though it was still early evening.

She woke up later, blinking fuzzily and trying to remember why she was in bed and whether the 8:13 on the clock was morning or evening.

Evening. Oh, God. She was pregnant. Maybe. She hoped. Or at least, in the process of getting pregnant.

She splayed her hands over her belly, a smile curving her mouth as she imagined life inside her, however tiny.

“Are you in there?” she whispered, as if the cells that held the possibility of life could hear. “If you are, welcome. I really want you. And…I think your daddy does, too.”

She had that helium-balloon sensation again, chest swelling with an emotion that felt perilously like happiness. When was the last time she’d been happy? Really, truly, happy? The After Laurel didn’t know. A long, long time. Realizing that she was happy actually scared her a little. Being careful, guarded, made her feel safe. Happiness made you careless.

But she had to open herself to it, if she was to be a mother. She could never let her child realize how vulnerable she felt. Knowing your mom was scared of the world was no way to grow up.

And maybe she could rediscover not just herself, but how it felt to let even something small, like watching a butterfly, make you happy. A child could do that for you, open your eyes to sensations and wonders you’d come to take for granted.

And she, who took so little for granted anymore, was more than ready to rediscover the wonders and not just the dangers of the world around her.

CHAPTER THREE

LAUREL KNEW SHE WAS pregnant within two weeks. She couldn’t verify it, and she didn’t call Caleb with the big news. Not when she’d have to say, It’s actually too early for a pregnancy test. I just have a feeling…

But her period came as reliably as Monday mornings. On Wednesday, when it should have started with a flood, it didn’t. Not Thursday, either, or Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

The following Wednesday, she was so queasy she couldn’t eat her morning oatmeal. A banana was the best she could do.

Caleb had had to fly to South America unexpectedly, promising he wouldn’t be gone for more than a couple of weeks, so telling him she thought she was pregnant wasn’t an option anyway. Not if she didn’t want to make the announcement via e-mail.

She hadn’t actually seen him since the evening he’d disappeared into her bathroom and emerged a half hour later, red-faced, with the syringe he all but flung at her before he fled. Or maybe, left quickly out of consideration for her feelings. Laurel wasn’t sure.

He’d called a couple of times, and they’d had stilted conversations. It was almost as bad as when he’d first come back from his stint in the Peace Corps and been so familiar she felt even more like a stranger to herself.

After a week of nausea, she did tell her rape support group that she thought she was pregnant. The group of nine other women gazed at her in surprise and speculation, waiting for the details.

She’d intended to keep it brief—I want to start a family, I had sperm donated—but once she’d started, Laurel had found herself spilling everything. Her choice of one friend to be donor, and then her decision to change to her oldest, dearest friend, despite the fact that he was single. The only thing she didn’t say was that there’d once been sexual chemistry between them. Because that didn’t matter anymore, did it?

They congratulated her, but they also asked questions, and some surprised her.

Marie, one of the women who was most reticent about the details of her own rape, asked, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“You mean, before I got pregnant?”

There were nods all around.

“Because…” She didn’t know why.

“You thought we’d try to talk you out of it,” Marie said.

“That’s why I didn’t tell my dad, but…” She looked around the circle. “Would you have tried?”

At least half the women nodded.

“But…why?” she asked.

Again, it was Marie who spoke. “You’re the only one of us who hasn’t had a relationship since her rape.” They’d been meeting for a long time now, with Cherie the most recent addition two and a half years ago.

“A lot of you are married,” Laurel argued. “That’s different.”

“I’m not married,” Jennifer said. She was a quiet blonde about Laurel’s age.

Three others reminded her they weren’t married, either.

“And I wasn’t married when I got raped,” Cherie said. “I met Greg later.”

Laurel lifted her chin. “What’s your point?”

Marie spoke for all of them. “That sex and relationships with men are harder for us than they used to be, but not impossible. Having a kid is great. Just…. don’t give up on men until you’ve given ’em a fair try. Okay?”

How was it that she hadn’t realized she was the only one in the group who had resolved to stay celibate?

She nodded, although she hadn’t changed her mind.

“When are you due?” someone asked then.

In chatter about bottle-feeding versus breast, offers of hand-me-down clothes, even a stroller and tales about their own children, Laurel almost forgot their reservations.

Almost.

DESPITE HER CERTAINTY, she was so nervous when she went into her doctor’s office to take the pregnancy test, she couldn’t just sit and wait for the results, pretending she cared what Good Housekeeping said about organizing closets. She went for a walk, just a couple of blocks, but it was easier to reason with herself when she was moving than sitting still in a waiting room full of other people.

You think you’re pregnant, her doubting inner self said, but so did Bloody Mary. Haven’t you ever heard of hysterical pregnancy?

She had, and she might be a good candidate, as desperate as she was to be pregnant.

“I’ll bet Queen Mary didn’t have morning sickness,” she argued with herself.

A couple of passing teenage boys in gigantic pants and black bandannas gave her a “yo, you’re crazy, lady” look.

Maybe she was. Her breath came short. Thank God she hadn’t told Caleb.

There was one way to settle this.

Laurel turned resolutely and went back to the clinic.

The receptionist didn’t even let her sit down. “Dr. Schapiro will see you now.”

She escorted Laurel to an office rather than an examining room.

The doctor was perhaps fifty, with a dark bob of hair, crinkles beside her eyes and a warmth that seemed genuine. She stood and shook hands with Laurel across the desk.

“I know this is good news for you. You’re pregnant.”

Laurel closed her eyes momentarily against a wave of joy and relief.

“It is good news?”

“Yes, I…yes.”

Her gaze was curious, but she didn’t ask why Laurel hadn’t been back to have the sperm implanted here. “We’ll get you scheduled for your first prenatal exam, and I’ve already written you a prescription for vitamins. How are you feeling?”

“Nauseated.” Laurel made a face. “Pretty much constantly. Or maybe I should say, unpredictably. I thought it was called morning sickness. Shouldn’t I feel great in the afternoon?”

Dr. Schapiro laughed. “Unfortunately, it’s called that only because nausea on first rising is common. There are women who tell me they feel dandy in the morning and then can’t eat dinner, and others who suffer from a certain level of nausea pretty much all day. I take it you’re one of those?”

Laurel nodded. “I’m trying to keep eating. I know it’s important. But it’s hard. Every so often I’m suddenly starved, but if I eat very much I throw it up an hour later.”

“The good news is, morning sickness usually only lasts through the first trimester. But it’s really important that you’re able to keep food down.” She talked for a few minutes about eating small amounts, what foods were least likely to cause nausea and which were most important for the fetus’s development.

Armed with a pile of handouts and an appointment a month later, Laurel walked out of the clinic in a daze. She was pregnant. First try. She’d known she was pregnant. So why the sense of unreality now?

Because she hadn’t gotten pregnant the usual way? Well, yeah. The big event had borne more resemblance to treating herself for a yeast infection. Except for the standing-on-her-head part.

A chilly trickle down her spine made her wonder whether she was really feeling fear. She’d taken a huge step, and now had to live with the consequences. And she had to tell everybody, starting with her dad and sister. She’d have to suffer the questions and curiosity of everybody at work. She wasn’t even sure how the women in her support group truly felt about her decision.

But it’s my decision, she reminded herself. Nobody but hers. Which, when she got right down to it, was what made it so scary.

Managing financially was a worry, of course. She made a decent living at Vallone, Penn and Cooper, the law firm, but she’d need to take maternity leave, and then find reliable day care. Caleb had insisted on paying child support at a very minimum. She knew he’d give her more if she’d take it, but the reality was, Caleb had fathered her baby out of kindness, no matter what he’d said to the contrary. What happened once he got married and had other children? What if his wife resented the existence of this child that wasn’t even the vestige of a former relationship? Laurel had to be self-supporting. She wanted to be able to put away a good deal of the money from Caleb in a college fund.

When she got home, Laurel called first her father and then her sister and invited them to dinner Saturday night.

“I have news,” she admitted to Megan. “No, not a word until Saturday.”

“You’re going back to law school!” her sister crowed.

The pain took her by surprise. She should have realized that’s what Meg would assume. Why did it hurt so much? Because her own sister didn’t know her well enough to understand why she couldn’t go back? Because a part of her hadn’t quite let go of the dream?

She managed to say, “No. It’s not that. Sorry.”

“Oh. Well,” Meg rallied, “don’t be sorry. I can’t wait to hear what the news is. Dad’s coming, you said?”

Friday afternoon, as she left work, Caleb fell in step with her in the lobby. “You going to let a guy take you out to dinner?”

Startled, she spun so quickly her ankle turned and she would have gone down but for his quick grip on her arm. “You always manage to sneak up on me!”

“What better place to lie in wait for you?”

“Did you just get in?”

“12:16 p.m. I went home, took a shower, changed clothes, then headed here.”

They emerged onto Fourth Street, where traffic was bumper to bumper and the sidewalks jammed. Caleb laid a hand on her back to steer her. “I’m a block down.”

“Of course you are.”

His grin flashed. As long as she’d known him, everyone had teased him about his luck.

In the crowd, talking wasn’t practical. Horns sounded, bus brakes squealed and the sound of a deep bass pounded from a car that was stuck in traffic. Neither Caleb nor Laurel said a word until Caleb unlocked his Prius and they both got in and the racket of the outside world was buffered. He put the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. Instead, he looked at her. “So?”

She knew what he was asking. “I’m pregnant.”

His smile was a glorious burst of delight. “Really? Now?”

“No, tomorrow.” She poked him. “Of course, now.”

“You’ve had a pregnancy test?”

“Yes, and I’m spending half my time hugging toilets.”

“Morning sickness?”

Laurel sighed. “In lieu of rejecting the fetus, my body is rejecting everything else I put in it.”

“My mom swears morning sickness is why she never had another kid. She actually ended up in the hospital when she got dehydrated.”

Great. She’d needed to hear this.

“Most women go through it and come out just fine on the other side.” She was counting on it. “Which is usually after three months.”

“And right now, you’re—” he frowned, calculating “—five weeks?”

“Six.”

“Have you told anyone?”

She took a deep breath. “Tomorrow is the big day. I’m having my dad and Meg over to dinner. I admitted to Meg that I had a big announcement.”

He must have heard something in her tone. “Did she guess?”

“She assumed I was going back to law school.”

“Ah.” Caleb studied her, but said nothing.

“What?”

His eyebrows rose. “I didn’t say anything.”

“But you were thinking it.” Laurel knew she sounded bellicose.

“I was thinking, My God, we’re having a baby.”

Tears abruptly filled her eyes, and she bit her lip. “We are, aren’t we?”

He reached out and took her hand. “Did you ever think, back in college, that we’d come to this?”

“Not that you’d donate sperm.” She had sometimes dreamed that one day they would look at each other and realize that the like they’d fallen into had become love. Maybe it had, on her side. Or at least, she’d become aware of the possibility. But that she’d cold-bloodedly choose him to father her baby because he was handsome, smart and healthy… No, never that.

“Yeah, that one would have taken me by surprise, too.” Still smiling, he started the engine. “Do you want me to be there tomorrow night?”

She turned her whole upper body. “Would you?” Hope trembled in her voice.

“I’d like to be.” He looked over his shoulder to merge into traffic. “I was afraid…”

“What?”

His shoulders moved, a small jerk. “That you wouldn’t want to be open about me being the father.”

Nonplussed, she realized she had never really thought it through. If Matt had fathered her baby, she’d intended to keep the knowledge among a chosen few. Probably her dad and sister. They’d met Matt a few times and knew he and Laurel were friends. But a more public announcement would have been awkward all around. Either she explained to everyone that it was just sperm, or people would think he and she had had a fling, which wasn’t kind to Sheila.

But with Caleb… It wouldn’t matter if most people assumed they’d had a brief relationship. At least, it wouldn’t to her.

She sneaked a glance at his profile.

He turned his head, his blue eyes meeting hers. “This taking deep thought?”

“No, I was just realizing that it didn’t. Unless you’d rather I kept it to myself, I don’t mind if everyone knows you’re the father.”

“Like I told you, I want to be a father. In every sense of the word.”

If he hadn’t signed a contract and parenting plan—well, okay, if he wasn’t Caleb—that might have scared her. If Matt had started talking like that, she would have freaked. She’d wanted the baby to be hers. Hers alone.

How funny that now she was okay with this baby being theirs.

Unaware of her reverie, Caleb muttered a profanity as a hulking SUV cut him off on the freeway.

“Have you told your parents?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I figured I’d wait until it happened.”

She couldn’t blame him, since she’d done the same. Almost at random, Laurel said, “I’m planning dinner for six tomorrow.”

“Cooking doesn’t nauseate you?”

“Yeah, but I’ll survive.”

“Why don’t I cook? You have to admit, my sweet-and-sour pork is to die for.”

“Why aren’t you married?”