The Good Enough Husband (30 page)

What had seemed so esoteric all the time she’d chased the dream of having a child, was becoming a cold, hard reality very quickly.

“Can we do it here, even if I’m having twins?”

“Yes, of course. Should complications arise later in the pre
gnancy, we can reevaluate. But for now, we can assume that you’ll have a normal delivery. So do you think you’d like to do it here?”

Freja’s hospital experience in 1970s New York City scared the shit out of her. She knew they didn’t gas women or do twilight birth anymore, but the thought of going to a hospital wasn’t we
lcoming. “Yes, I think I would. What preparations do I need to make?”

Adalena laughed. “Nothing for now. All that will come much later after week thirty-six or so. For now, you need to make sure you are eating and sleeping well.”

***

“Ben, it’s Hannah.”

“Cody misses you.” Did he miss her too? She didn’t want to ask. The answer might devastate her.

“Is he alone all day?” Maybe she did run away. A sudden wave of guilt overwhelmed her for abandoning her dog. First she’d taken Cody from the only life he’d ever known with her and Michael. Then she’d left him.

“I take him to work with me.”

“What about the motion sickness?”

“He’s mostly outgrown it. Probably a puppyhood thing. Stopped feeding him breakfast, and he’s been fine.”

“I have to tell you something.”

He sighed as if she were about to drop the weight of the world on his broad shoulders.

“It’s not about Michael or anything like that. It’s about the b
aby … no, babies. I’m having twins.”

He was silent for a long time. “They don’t run in my family. What about yours?” His response was as cold as the Pacific Ocean in winter. She shivered in the chill morning air. The heat would go on in a second. Axel liked a warm apartment in the morning when he got ready for work.

“I was on Clomid when I got pregnant. It stimulates…”

“I know what it does, Hannah. Because you and your husband were trying to conceive, right?”

“Yes.”

He hung up.

Despite the heat and tea, her morning chill never abated. For a week, Copenhagen was cold, bitterly cold. Hannah’s mom insisted the weather was no different from that in New York, but no matter what Hannah did, she couldn’t get warm. The knee length down coat with its fur tipped hood didn’t help. Neither did the big sheepskin-lined boot, nor the bulky gloves.

***

“Ben, it’s Hannah. Please don’t hang up.”

“What time is it there?”

“Six o’clock on the morning. I’m nine hours ahead.”

“So they’re probably fraternal twins.”

“Probably, although my midwife told me that there’s no way to tell.”

“Midwife? This isn’t the 1800s. Aren’t you seeing a doctor?”

“I’m not sick.”

“But that’s what pregnant women do.”

“Can’t dogs and cats give birth without a doctor? Don’t you send them home to work it out? I haven’t heard that you have a birthing section in your clinic.”

“Mmmm.”

“This is not the U.S. I saw a doctor and he referred me to a midwife because prenatal care, birth, and postpartum is what she does. If anything comes up, I’ll go to the doctor. Otherwise, I’ll assume that everything is okay.”

“I’m okay with the midwife, if she’s going to assist. You’ll be at a hospital anyway, surrounded by doctors.”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Haven’t decided what?

“Home birth is an option. I think I want to do it here with my mom by my side.”

“Hannah, twins are a high risk pregnancy. Don’t you—”

“You know what, it’s my decision alone, Ben.” She took the phone from her ear and pressed the end button.

***

The next morning, as she had so many of the past mornings, she did not call him. Instead, she joined her mother for an early morning coffee in the kitchen.

“You’re here early.”

She grabbed her mother’s hand. “I wanted to spend some time with you.”

“Why aren’t you talking to Ben this morning?”

“You knew I called him?”

“The flat is not that big. I peeked in a few mornings ago when I heard talking.”

“To check that I was not a raving lunatic?”

“To make sure you were okay. You looked serene when you were speaking with him, so I left you alone.” Freja looked at the small wall clock. “Are you going to call him before too late?”

“No, Mor, I don’t think I’m going to call him. I’ve been pursuing him since day one. It was the wrong thing to do, you know, without breaking things off with Michael, but I don’t regret it. I’m tired now. I have to figure out how I’m going to be the mother of twins. How I’m going to support the three of us. Where I’m going to live. I’ve been waiting for nearly twenty years for a man to come save the day. First I was waiting for Dad, then Lucas, then Michael, and now Ben. It’s time I saved myself.”

“I think you’re making the right decision,” Mor said smiling weakly. “I’m sorry that all this had to happen for you to finally focus on what is important. But I am glad that you are looking to the future, and putting yourself and your children first. It is about time.”

20

Ben pulled to the side of the road. He turned and looked in the back of the truck. The dog looked fine. Then he pulled the still shiny phone from the cup holder. Nothing. No messages, no texts, no calls. He’d heard nothing from Hannah for two weeks. If som
ething had happened to her or her babies, he would have heard, surely. His sister seemed to have Hannah’s number. Quickly, he thumbed in her cell number.

“Abbe, it’s Ben.”

“New number?”

“I got a new cell in case Hannah needs to reach me.” He heard the sound of rustling as Abbe moved the phone away from her ear. “What are you doing?”

“I’m writing this number down. So I can text it to everyone I can think of when you hang up.”

Once that would have made him laugh. “Whatever.”

“Geez, Ben are you okay? I was writing it down, but I was kidding about texting anyone. I know you like your privacy now that you’re a freaky recluse. Every time I see you, I’m afraid you’re going to have one of those lumberjack beards.”

Ben rubbed his jaw covered with a week of stubble. He’d shave tomorrow. “Have you heard from Hannah?”

“Seriously?”

“Abbe, can you answer the question?” Ben said, trying to keep his voice in check. His sister was mostly funny, except when she wasn’t.

“No, I haven’t talked to her since she left New York. I think she texted me her number in Denmark a few weeks ago. Do you need it?” He heard the clunk of metal against wood as she pulled open various kitchen drawers. “Haven’t you guys been talking?”

He could hear Abbe bustling in the kitchen and her kids a
rguing in the background. The sounds of normalcy made him feel a little better. It was only
his
life that had gone off the rails. “She’s been calling me every night since Christmas, up until a couple of weeks ago. We’re having twins.”

There was a loud crash. “Holy shit, no! Congratulations, that’s so cool. Are you jazzed? Or … Ben, I don’t know if I should be happy and rooting for you, or setting you up with an attorney who can handle custody arrangements.”

“I can’t answer any of that. I thought Hannah and I were working things out, but she stopped calling.”

“You’re using the phone right now. Now that you’ve gotten that skill back, why don’t you call her?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“What? Do you not have the number? What time is it there, a
nyway?”

“It’s four in the morning,” he answered without thinking. He’d added nine hours to the time so often over the last few weeks; he could do it in his sleep.

He heard his sister tell one of her kids to stop riding the broom, and the other to stop chasing the cat. Abbe got back on the line. “So, wait a few hours and call her. I’m not getting this conversation. Did I miss something?”

“She. Calls. Me,” he explained.

“Oh, I get it. You’re the injured party. She begs for forgiveness, and you grant absolution depending on the day of the week, the phase of the moon, or whatever criteria you have. Geez, have you converted to Catholicism? You sound like a priest. Does she have to say ‘Hail Marys’ too?”

“You know what Abbe, I don’t need this. If you haven’t heard from her, then fine. I have to get home anyway.” He ended the call with an angry flick of his finger, and started the car.

He’d barely unharnessed Cody from the truck, when the phone started ringing. He raced into the house, and picked up the kitchen extension without checking the caller id.

“Hannah?”

“It’s Michael.”

“What do you want, Michael?”

“You haven’t given me an answer. I got the papers from my lawyer. I can sign everything, including giving up parental rights to the baby, and then Hannah and I can be divorced after the waiting period. If I don’t sign these documents, then Hannah and I will stay married.”

Michael had said baby. He didn’t even know that there were two babies who would need a father. “Sign them, Michael. I’m the babies’ father.” He slammed down the receiver. In the yawning silence, there was clarity. He knew what he had to do.

***

Hannah pushed the duvet off, not caring about the cold air, as she dived for the ringing phone on the table between her bed and the couch in the room.

Her own number stared back at her.

“Michael. You got the papers.” Grady had sent over her pr
oposed settlement, giving Michael all the personal property he wanted. Selling the house and the rest, and dividing the money some day in the future when it was all said and done. He’d also drafted documents that would absolve Michael of any responsibility for their children.

“I’m not going to sign them.”

Hannah looked at the image of the windows dancing on the back of her eyelids. This nightmare was never going to end. “Why not, Michael? I thought we agreed to divide the stuff. We’re not talking heirlooms. We’re talking Pottery Barn.”

“Not that one, Hannah. The other.”

“But you’re not the father, Michael. Ben is.”

“I’m not going to let your child go fatherless. I’m not that guy. You know what it’s like to have a dad come and go in your life. You shouldn’t do that to your child.

“I love you. You’re pregnant. We made plans, we have this house, your SUV. We can be that family we planned. I read something that said over ten percent of men are raising children who are not their own without even knowing it. I know it, and I’m still willing to take you back. We can do this, Hannah. Come home.”

“What about Ben?”

“I called him, Hannah. I’ve talked to him twice. I told him I’d have no problems giving up custody if he promised me he’d man up.”

He hadn’t called. It had been over two weeks and Ben hadn’t called. She knew she’d been doing the heavy lifting, trying to r
epair what they had. She knew all along it had been a long shot. She had hurt him too deeply. She was the last betrayal he was going to stomach. “Sign the papers, Michael.” Hannah hung up and quietly put the phone back on the table before lying down, pulling the blanket up as high as it would reach.

***

Copenhagen was a lot colder than San Francisco. Ben was glad he had kept his old coat from his days in Ithaca in the far recesses of his closet. He shoved one bare hand in his pocket. He hadn’t been able to find anything resembling real gloves in California. He wheeled his carry-on to the ground transportation sign, happy that the second language everywhere appeared to be English. When his turn came up in the cue, he handed the address he’d gotten from Abbe, scrawled on a prescription pad, to the taxi driver.

“
Tak
.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Danish.”

“English, then,” the driver said, his own English heavily accented.

“Yes. Thank you. I’m going to that address.”

The driver squinted at the paper. “Maybe twenty minutes, okay?”

“Yes.” Two days standing in line in San Francisco getting an expedited passport, and nearly twenty hours on planes and in three airports, and he’d see Hannah in twenty minutes. He looked at his hands, achingly cold, but rock solid on his lap. He wasn’t nervous at all.

Twenty minutes later on the dot, the driver deposited him on the corner of Peter Hvitfeldts Sraede and Krystalgade. He thrust a few thousand kroner through the window, and took the slip of paper back. He looked up at the brick and stone buildings. He walked down the street a ways, matching the numbers on the building to the paper in his hand.

He looked at the names on the buzzers. He had no idea what Hannah’s mother or stepfather’s last name was. Nothing stood out in the sea of foreign looking names with ‘oh’s slashed through, ‘a’s and ‘e’s joined together. Fortunately, the door opened, a pierced and tattooed man rushed out. He grabbed the door and walked the four flights to the right apartment number, 402. He pulled his phone from his pocket, and dialed Hannah’s phone. He could hear faint ringing from inside the flat, and muffled voices.

“Hannah, it’s me, Ben. Please don’t hang up.”

“Ben?” Her voice questioned.

“I’m outside your front door.”

He heard the patter of feet rushing to the door, and heavy locks being turned. In seconds, Hannah stood there in the doorway in scruffy jeans, a big lumpy sweater, no makeup, hair sticking up on one side. She had never looked more beautiful. He dropped his
suitcase, the paper in his other hand falling to the floor unforgotten, and he gathered her in his arms, momentarily surprised at the bump of belly between them. Ben loved Hannah the way she was, and that was more than enough.