My Babies and Me (19 page)

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Authors: Tara Taylor Quinn

BOOK: My Babies and Me
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He didn't quite hide the pain he'd felt at her callous treatment, leaving Susan ashamed. She'd had no idea he'd seen her request like that.
“When you found out you were having twins, you handled the initial impact on your own, waiting until you'd come to terms with it before telling me. Same thing when you found out we were having a son and a daughter.” He just kept rattling things off, making her feel about as likable as cow dung. “I might not have been thrilled about this pregnancy at first, but we were talking about it regularly by then. I'm even the one who suggested you find out, yet when you did, I didn't hear about it. You know—” he looked down at his hands “—I waited by the phone that entire day, waiting to hear from you.”
“I didn't know...” Tears flooded her eyes as she pictured him sitting there. Waiting.
“How could I have known?” she whispered.
“You couldn't. And I'm not saying you weren't perfectly within your rights to do all these things, Susan.
Hell, I'm sure my actions prompted many of them. But maybe if you weren't so eager to go off and handle things, I'd feel differently....”
“Do you think so?” Susan slid down on her knees, laying her arms in his lap as she looked up at him. “Do you really think you'd get over feeling trapped if I...changed?”
“I...”
She could see the truth in his eyes.
“No, because part of the problem is yours, too, huh?” she asked, still leaning on him as tears rolled slowly down her cheeks.
He didn't say anything for a long time. Susan savored his warmth, soaking it in while she could. Garnering her strength for the days and years ahead.
She kneeled there until her back started to cramp, the cut on her leg to throb. And then, painfully, she stood. “You need to go,” she said.
His eyes locked with hers, filled with pain—and regret—but resolution as well. Slowly, so slowly she thought she'd die, he nodded his acquiescence.
“You'll call—”
Cutting him off, she shook her head. “Not for a while, anyway.” Not until she was strong enough.
His hand on the doorknob, he stopped and turned, meeting her gaze where she stood, hugging herself, at the end of the hall.
“I do love you, Sus, more than anyone else on earth.”
She knew he did. And that probably hurt most of all. She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat was so clogged with tears, no sound came out. She nodded.
He stood there a few minutes longer, his throat working as he watched her.
Then, silently, he turned his back and walked out of her life.
Sobs shook her body as she watched him drive away. But somewhere she found the courage to say what she'd tried to say while he was still in her house.
“I love you, too, Michael. I love you, too.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
T
HE LITTLE BOY could hardly walk, but man, could he run. So fast his father was having a hard time keeping up with him. Stopped at a streetlight in Chicago a couple of miles from home, Michael watched the father finally catch up before the child ran headlong into the street. The man scooped the boy into his arms so high so fast, Michael had to wonder if the kid would be sick. The man was angry, scolding the little boy as he held the toddler in front of him. Then he wrapped his arms around that little body, holding the boy close, burying his face in the child's neck....
The drivers behind Michael started to lay on their horns. The light was green and he was sitting through it.
Michael gunned his engine.
He'd left Susan more than a month ago, and he still couldn't get on with his life, couldn't get her off his mind. Couldn't get his mind on anything else. He finally had his freedom—what he'd been craving for months—and the crazy thing was, he still wasn't happy.
He called his closest friend as soon as he was inside his door.
“Seth, I'm losing it, man,” he blurted. He couldn't
believe he'd said the words. Wanted to snatch them back.
“I wondered how long it'd take you to call.”
“Just tell me how she is,” he said. If he knew she was all right, he'd be able to get on with things. Quit worrying about her and worry about the Miller deal that had been hanging on the edge far too long.
“She's fine,” Seth said. And then, as if taking pity on Michael, added, “She's huge. Can't reach her feet at all.”
“How's she put on her shoes?”
“She and Laura went out and bought a bunch of slip-on things, a pair in every color known to man.”
Pacing his living room, Michael nodded. She'd handled that problem in typical Susan fashion. That should make him feel a little better.
“She's only working part-time at the office right now. Tricia brings most of the stuff to the house.”
“It's that hard for her to get around?” Michael asked. See, he
was
needed there.
“Not once she's standing.” Seth chuckled. “It's just a bit of a chore for her to get up.”
He knew it. She needed help.
“So how's she managing to take care of herself?”
“She's found a way to get up, of course,” Seth said with admiration. “But it involves some rolling and sliding, and she refuses to do that at the office any more than she has to.”
Oh.
“So, how you doing, brother?” Seth asked quietly, seriously.
“Fine. Great.” He lied.
“Doesn't sound that way.”
Running his fingers through his hair, Michael glanced down at his impeccable suit, his shiny designer shoes, and didn't find a single thing he liked. “I should be feeling fine,” he said. “She threw my offer to marry her right back at me, which certainly relieves any feelings of guilt I'd been harboring.”
“She told me.”
“You think she meant it?” Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he didn't believe Susan's claim that she didn't want him around. Maybe that was why he still didn't feel free.
“Yep. I know she did.”
Michael swallowed. Seth's words should be liberating. They shouldn't hurt.
“I guess I just need a little more time to realize I did the best I could and my best wasn't good enough. That I'm truly free.”
“You wanna know what I think?” Seth asked. But he didn't wait for an answer. “Of course you do or you wouldn't have called.”
“Smart-ass.”
“Yeah, well, you got the smart part right. Here's the thing.” Seth's voice lowered, filled with respect. “I think maybe you had to be free from any sense of obligation to be able to determine how you really felt. And maybe, just maybe, what you're feeling now is the true problem.”
“I'm not following you.”
“You've been feeling trapped, right?”
Michael stood by the window, looking out into the gathering dusk. “Right.” That was an understatement.
“And you blame the feeling on your impending fatherhood.”
“Of course.” He'd only started feeling claustrophobic after Susan had brought up the whole pregnancy thing.
“What if it was something else, instead?”
“Like?” He rubbed his forehead, as though he could actually make the throbbing go away.
“Maybe what's been trapping you is your job. Maybe it's your career keeping you from what you really want, not the other way around.”
No way. “I love what I do.”
“Yeah, man.” Seth's voice sounded almost sad. “I know.”
“Don't tell Susan I called.”
“Don't worry, I won't.”
“You'll call if she needs anything?” That understanding had been in place forever.
“No,” Seth said. “I don't think I will.”
Michael was struck dumb—and left with a dead phone at his ear. Seth had hung up.
 
SHE HAD TO CALL HIM. After five weeks of running their last conversation over and over in her mind, Susan knew she couldn't leave things as she had.
Through a series of phone calls, she caught up with him in a hotel room in Nebraska.
“Susan?” At least he didn't sound mad. “What's wrong?” No, not mad, only worried sick.
Smiling in spite of her admonitions not to do anything stupid, like get her hopes up, she said, “Nothing, at least nothing immediate.”
“You're okay?”
“Fine.” She looked down at the beach ball that had taken over her stomach and propped another pillow under her head. She had pillows everywhere these days. Here on the couch, on a chair in the kitchen, in her car. She'd bought an even dozen just to make sure she had enough.
“And the children?”
“Huge.”
Don't listen,
she mouthed to the beach ball. “How's work?”
“Good. Busy.”
And then the pleasantries were out of the way and a heavy silence fell on the line.
“Nothing's changed. I know that—it's just...I wanted to clear something up.”
“What's that?” He still didn't sound annoyed. As a matter of fact, he sounded as though he didn't mind her calling him at all.
But then, she'd been the one who'd insisted on no contact.
“You said something that night, a few things actually, that weren't accurate, and I need to set the record straight.”
“Yes?”
“You weren't just a stud service, Michael.” She couldn't believe she hadn't had a little more finesse than that. “When I asked you to be the father of my child, it was because I didn't want a child at all if it couldn't be yours.”
“You never told me that.”
“I know. I didn't want to put that much pressure on you.”
He chuckled. “Lady, if you think you didn't put pressure—”
“I know,” she interrupted. Damn, he sounded good. It was wonderful just hearing his voice. Her two-ton body felt better than it had in weeks. “I'm sorry, Michael. And one other thing.” She rushed on before she could chicken out. “Being in control of my life doesn't mean more to me than you do.” She'd given the matter a lot of thought, continuous thought, over the past weeks. “Maybe at one time it did, maybe even when we got divorced, but I've changed, Michael.”
She didn't know why it was so important to her that he understand this. But it was. Michael knew her better than anyone, and she needed his view of her to be accurate. Almost as though she couldn't be who she was unless he saw her that way.
“Michael, I don't have to fight anyone else's preconceived notions anymore. Not my father's ideas. Not my brothers'. Not anyone's. I have confidence in my strength to be true to myself, in my ability to handle whatever comes my way.” Confidence gained, in some part, during the past five weeks. She'd managed to live without Michael. To survive. “And so—” She broke off, swallowed back tears. “It's no longer a threat to share who I am.”
Michael was silent so long she was afraid he'd fallen asleep. “You there?' she finally whispered.
“I am.” He fell silent again, but only for a second. “I'm proud of you, Sus. You've grown up.”
“Yeah.”
“Your children are very lucky to have a mom like you.”
The warmth, the sincerity in his voice was her undoing.
“Well, I gotta go—”
“Take care.”
“I will. Bye.” She didn't wait to hear him echo the word. Her heart just couldn't take it. With her finger on the disconnect button, she cradled the phone to her chest and bawled like a baby.
 
SITTING IN AN AIRPORT almost a week after his conversation with Susan, Michael was still thinking about the things she'd said. He knew there was a message in there for him. He just hadn't figured it out yet. But he would. He wasn't going to rest until he found for himself the peace he'd heard in Susan's voice.
A woman with a double-wide stroller was trying to maneuver between the rows of seats at the gate where he was waiting to catch his flight to Atlanta. Michael moved his briefcase and carry-on to make room for her.
“Thanks,” she panted, falling into the seat next to him.
Now that she was closer, he could get a peak at the cargo in her stroller. She had a couple of sleeping babies wrapped in pink blankets.
“How old are they?” he asked quietly.
As she glanced down at her daughters, the exhaustion completely left the woman's face, to be replaced by a very proud smile. “Three months.”
Michael nodded politely and picked up a newspaper he'd been trying to read earlier.
“You find that stroller preferable to the front-and-back kind?” he asked, peering over the top of his paper. Just in case he talked to Susan again, he'd let her know.
“Yeah.” She really was pretty, Michael thought, taking in her clear skin and unmade-up face, her straight brown hair. Her generic slacks and top. There was just something about her expression, her air of—what? Happiness? “—I just want to be able to see them both at all times,” she was saying and it took him a minute to realize she was still talking about the stroller. “Besides, I want them to be company for each other.”
Sound reasoning. Michael nodded. And returned to his paper.
Until one of the babies whimpered. Everyone knew a baby crying was hard to ignore, so he didn't even try. He watched, instead, as the woman bent to her child, gently patting her back and cooing her to sleep again.
“You do that well,” he felt compelled to say.
“Thank you.” She grinned at him. “I've had practice.”
“They wear you out then, two at once?”
“Only when they get up every other hour during the night, and don't synchronize their schedules.”
“They get up every other hour at opposite hours?” he asked, appalled.
“Not often,” she laughed, “but sometimes.”
“Doesn't that get old fast?”
“No.” She glanced down at her babies, that glow lighting her face. “They're only this little for such a short time, what's a few hours less sleep in return for more hours with them?”
Sound reasoning, he thought again. Michael told himself to return to his paper. Held it up in front of
his eyes. But focused, instead, on the bundles in the stroller beside him.
“You have kids?” the woman asked, noticing his interest.
“I'm expecting twins.”
Michael had no idea where the words came from. He'd had no thought of uttering any such thing. But suddenly, with a stranger babbling excitedly beside him, his way became clear.
Seth had been absolutely right. He'd been searching in all the wrong places.
His ex-brother-in-law had been right about something else, as well. Michael's entire identity had been wrapped up in his career. He was what he worked. Until this moment.
Suddenly, with one sentence, he'd become something else. A father.
He couldn't get up fast enough, get out to the Pathfinder, then home to his condo to make some calls.
“Wait!” the woman beside him called as he hurried away. “Aren't you on this flight?”
He turned halfway just long enough to call back, “Not anymore.” And hurried out into the rainy September day.

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