Thanksgiving Daddy

“I can imagine.”

He probably could. Only she hadn’t given him the opportunity to do that. He waited, and finally she decided to tell him more.

“When I missed my second period, I felt like I’d been hit over the head. I couldn’t deny it anymore. I wanted to ignore it, but...well, even as I was getting mad, and having wild urges to run away from reality, I couldn’t ignore it. Even when I couldn’t stand the thought I felt like I had to do what was right for the kid. That meant seeing the doc.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “I can’t explain. I was seriously mixed up for a while, bouncing between fury and despair. I was taking prenatal vitamins and trying to tell myself it wasn’t true. I look back at it and hate myself.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s not me. I don’t run from things. I deal with them.”

“Blame it on shock.”

“Yeah.” She gave an unsteady laugh. “I was still in shock when they grounded me and sent me home. I could have still done the job, you know.”

“I’m sure you could have.”

Again her hand came to rest on her swelling belly. “What’s best for the kid. That stress wouldn’t have been good.”

“It really shook up your life.”

“Top to bottom.” No point in denying it. “Everything changed, and it changed fast. Well, except for the emotional roller coaster. And the morning sickness. It took a while for that to pass.”

“Was it bad?”

“Awful, for a while. And you might as well paint it on a billboard when you show up for duty every morning with soda crackers.”

At that he smiled faintly. “Oops.”

“Yeah.” She shook the tension from her shoulders. “I needed a while to face it all. I kept looking for ways to get around it. Ways I could manage my career and a kid. The two aren’t going to mesh well.”

She looked beyond him, into the past, knowing she was minimizing the turmoil she’d endured as she adjusted. “I felt betrayed,” she admitted. “Not by you, but by my body. God, how many women get pregnant from one time, when a condom is being used? The doc wasn’t sympathetic to that argument. He just said flatly, ‘It happens. Condoms aren’t failure-proof.’ He said next time I should be on the pill.” She shook her head. “Next time? There wasn’t even supposed to be a first time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No. Don’t even go there. I’m a grown woman. I did something I knew damn well I shouldn’t have. That I’d never done before because I didn’t want to submarine my career. I know it caused some talk about me that I didn’t ever go with a man, but I didn’t care. It was better than what they’d say if I dated the wrong man. Besides, I didn’t want any messes.”

“And I handed you one of the biggest of all.” He looked annoyed again.

“Hey, it took two of us, and I don’t remember protesting.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “At least let me own my share of the blame. It did take the two of us.”

She didn’t say anything, but looked down at her hands resting on her tummy. He drew her too strongly. Getting away from him might be the only smart thing she could do now. But the baby...

She sighed. “But back to the saga. I argued for a while that I could do my job. I believed it, too. Except they were right and after they grounded me, even I could get it. I’d be up there with something to consider besides my job. I could put a lot of people at risk worrying about the baby. And, frankly, I don’t think I was emotionally stable. Not then, maybe not now.”

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