Bundle of Joy (9 page)

"Kids have enough to fight growing up these days. Why give ours anything more to explain or wonder about?"

She paused, struck by his words. With his statement, Donohue had neatly summed up the basic difference between men and women. Caroline could only think of the fetus curled inside her womb, of the baby who would nurse at her breast. And yet there was Donohue, considering the feelings of the child who would venture out on his or her own.

"I--I hadn't thought of it quite that way." Although why she hadn't was beyond her. Hadn't she helped her goddaughter Patty search for a father not even two years ago? Patty had wanted a daddy more than anything in the world, despite Sam's best efforts to be mother and father to her little girl. Sam and Patty had been happy as a family of two, but that happiness had truly soared when Murphy O'Rourke came onto the scene.

The waitress, blatantly curious, deposited Caroline's dinner salad and Donohue's side of beef. The porterhouse was rare, just the way he'd ordered it, and Caroline watched a thin trickle of pink juice ooze from the steak where he pierced it with his knife. "Excuse me." She scraped back her chair and rose, unsteady, to her feet.

"You don't look too good," said Charlie, pushing his own chair back and getting to his feet.

"Eat," she said, praying her stomach would stay where nature had intended it to stay. "One of us might as well."

#

Charlie watched as she disappeared down the hallway in search of the ladies' room.
Green,
he thought, reclaiming his chair. He'd never actually seen anyone turn green before but damned if the beautiful Ms. Bradley hadn't turned a beautiful shade of chartreuse right before his eyes.

"Everything okay, sir?"

He looked up at the perky waitress with the intricate braid, who had obviously waited for Caroline to disappear before she dared approach the table again.

"Great," he said, cutting a slab of steak. "Couldn't be better."

"The lady...." The waitress paused delicately. "Is something wrong with her salad?"

"Salad's great. Everything's fine."

The waitress didn't look as if she believed him. Reluctantly she returned to her post near the kitchen, casting a watchful eye for Caroline's return.

"Right," he said into his beer. "Everything's fine."

He'd walked into that restaurant a happy-go-lucky bachelor with nothing on his mind except tomorrow's Yankee game. Ten minutes later he was an expectant father. He knew he should be thinking profound thoughts about the future, about immortality, about having someone to carry on his name but his mind had gone blank. Things that had seemed so clear when he looked into Caroline's huge blue eyes no longer seemed clear at all. Suddenly he felt as if someone had dropped anchor on him without his knowledge, weighing him down with responsibilities he hadn't wanted or asked for.

But then, neither had she asked for those responsibilities. What had happened between them in the fur storage vault had been a mutual coming together of two adults. Unfortunately neither of those two adults had had brains enough to give even lip service to birth control.

He pushed his plate away and stared blankly at Caroline's empty chair. One night. That was all it took. A few hours and life as he knew it had vanished right before his eyes and he had no one but himself to blame.

Caroline, paper-white now instead of pale green, crossed the room toward her chair. He stood up and went around the table to hold it for her.

"Feeling better?"

She nodded. "Much."

He motioned for the waitress to clear the table.

"You didn't eat your steak," said Caroline.

He shrugged. "Lost my appetite."

Her smile was gently sardonic. "Morning sickness?"

"Shock."

She closed her eyes for a moment, looking delicate and wan and terribly appealing. Too damn appealing. "I know what you mean."

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"Not yet." She folded then re-folded the pale rose linen napkin at her place.

"Is there--I mean, could there be a chance you're not really pregnant?"

Those beautiful blue eyes turned cold as the North Sea. "Wishful thinking, is it, Charles?"

"Practical thinking," he shot back. "I can't believe those home pregnancy kits are foolproof."

"They're not." Her gaze lowered to her breasts, fuller even to his untrained eyes. "Some things, however, are dead giveaways."

"You need a doctor," he said. "Someone to make it official."

She wanted to say that spending her mornings in an intimate relationship with the underside of her toilet bowl was official enough for her but she didn't have the energy. "I'm not going to hold you to that proposal of marriage, if that's what you're worried about, Charles," she said in a weary voice.

He wanted to say that the proposal still held, that he'd meant every word he'd said, that he would embrace the prospect of a child wholeheartedly but Charlie Donohue wasn't a very good liar and so he said nothing at all.

#

Caroline made an appointment with her gynecologist for the next afternoon. The heat wave had finally broken and with it came a rush of cool air that promised an autumn filled with splendor. There were so many wonderful things Caroline loved about the autumn. Gorgeous suedes the color of fine sherry. Sleek evening clothes in drop-dead black and siren red. The parties Princeton was known for kept
Twice Over Lightly
in business, and provided Caroline with a social life beyond compare.

And that social life was important. Many of Caroline's best customers were found at cocktail parties or gala balls. Young wives on a tight budget, businesswomen with more savvy than cash, they all found their way to Caroline's shop to rent the absolutely perfect dress for that once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

Oh, how the questions would fly the day she showed up in maternity clothes for the first time. She dreaded those questions, the teasing, the defiantly independent stance she knew she would adopt. How much easier it would be if she had a husband....

She pushed the thought from her mind as if it were treasonous. Never once, not even as a little girl, had she daydreamed about weddings and babies. Why on earth at thirty-one was she suddenly thinking about marriage?

The answer, of course, was obvious.

"Yes," she told Charlie from the pay phone in the lobby of the professional building near the hospital. "Definitely yes."

The silence on the other end was profound.

"Charles?" Her voice was sharp. "Are you still there?"

"I'm still here." She almost felt sorry for him, he sounded so shell-shocked. Almost but not quite. "When are you due?"

"
Late January."

Another silence. She wanted to ram her fist into that silence.

"You're healthy?"

She exhaled loudly. "As a horse. My doctor expects no complications."

"Great," he said in a falsely hearty voice. "That's great."

The third silence of the ninety second conversation.
Three strikes and you're out.
"I must go," she said without preamble. "I simply wanted to let you know of the results."

"Yeah," said Charlie. "Thanks."

She hung up the receiver, stung by his sudden indifference. It couldn't have disturbed her more if he'd ended the conversation with, "Have a nice life." What in hell had happened to his talk of marriage, his dissertation on the importance of family, his easy acceptance of responsibility?

Gone, that's what. He'd had a chance to think, to reevaluate, to consider his options and he'd done a great job of it. Besides, everything she'd told him last night at the restaurant was true. This wasn't the dark ages where an illegitimate birth could blight a woman's life forever and ever. This wasn't the era of
Ozzie and Harriet
and
Leave It to Beaver
where families were arranged with the precision of a Japanese centerpiece. The perfect lockstep arrangement of mommy/daddy/child was as much dream as reality these days, a joy if you were lucky enough to have it but certainly not necessary for happiness.

And, oh, how much Caroline wanted to believe that was true as she climbed into her low
-slung sports car and headed it toward home.

#

Bill O'Rourke gave Charlie the night off and he didn't ask questions. You didn't find many men like that these days, but Bill was one of a kind. "I owe you one," said Charlie as he headed out the door.

"Damn straight," said Bill with a bemused grin. "And I'll make sure you pay up one of these days."

Charlie had no idea where he was going; he only knew he had to get the hell out of Rocky Hill as fast as he could. The walls were closing in on him. There was only one cure for the way he was feeling and that was to jump into his car and drive as far and as fast as he could.

It didn't work. He got as far as Reisterstown, Maryland. "Better get yourself together," said the highway patrolman who had decided to let him go with only a warning. "Keep breaking speed limits and you'll end up on a slab some place."

The notion wasn't one Charlie felt like dwelling upon. In the past the idea of dying didn't unnerve him any more than it did the average man. Now that he was about to become a father, the thought of dying before his time held a poignancy that nearly buckled his knees. He didn't want to care this much but there didn't seem like there was anything he could do about it.

You can run from your values but you can't hide forever. Even two hundred miles away from Rocky Hill he could see the fear in Caroline's eyes and the loneliness and that fear and loneliness spoke to him in a way few things in his lifetime ever had.

#

"It doesn't have to be forever," he said to her later that night as they sat in a diner in Belle Mead and talked. "After the kid's born we can dissolve the marriage, but at least we'll have done things right."

Caroline was silent. Her sandwich and glass of milk were both untouched. "That seems so calculated," she said after a few minutes had gone by. "Does it make any sense to marry with divorce in mind?"

"I think it does."

"We could have your name on the birth certificate without marrying, Charles."

"Take it or leave it," he said, his dark eyes fierce with determination. "The world may have changed but it still matters to a kid that his parents cared enough about him to try to give him the best shot in life they could."

She wanted to argue with him that his thesis had enough flaws in it to drive an eighteen-wheeler through, but she also knew that at the core of his argument was a truth so basic, so visceral, as to be unshakable. Why make their child go through his or her life carrying their excess baggage? How much easier it would be to say, "My parents split up," than to explain about an evening that never should have happened. About a pregnancy that no one had planned for or wanted.

"You're right," she said with a sigh. "Our child deserves more."

"We'll get married?"

She nodded. "We'll get married."

They stared at each other across the remains of Charlie's cheeseburger and her untouched sandwich.

"I guess we should set a date," said Charlie.

"The sooner the better," said Caroline. "I'll be showing any day now."

"Saturday?"

"Saturdays are pretty busy at the store." She ran through her appointments in her mind. "How about Sunday afternoon?"

It was Charlie's turn to hesitate. "I had tickets for the Yankees against Boston at the Stadium."

"After the game?"

He nodded. "Sounds great. Say around seven-thirty?"

"Seven-thirty."

"Where?"

"I don't know." She took a sip of milk. "Sam and Murphy's house?"

"I guess that's as good a place as any."

"I--" She cleared her throat. "I think we should keep it small...for obvious reasons."

He looked as relieved as she felt. "Just Sam and Murph and Patty."

"And Bill."

Charlie grinned. "And Scotty?"

The thought of her pal the professor made her smile in return. "And Scotty, of course."

No family. No limousines and fancy photographers. No bridal shower or bachelor party or three-tiered cake with a bride and groom balanced on the top.

"A business arrangement," said Charlie, extending his right hand.

"A business arrangement," said Caroline, clasping it.

"No entanglements."

"Absolutely not," she said. "And no false expectations."

"Once the baby's born, it's over."

"Guaranteed."

The future Mr. and Mrs. Charles Donohue shook on it. Six months tops and their marriage would be nothing but a memory.