CHAPTER TWENTY
Kelly
I arrived, exhausted and drained, at my apartment at round about five in the evening. I was tired and dirty and desperately confused.
I unlocked the door, letting out the scent of floor cleaner, and hauled my suitcases through the door. Then I waddled to the bed, suitcases clutched to my body, and set them on the floor. I lay down.
I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this drained.
My eyes closed, I let my body sink into the mattress and tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. My head hurt and my back hurt and my one leg was still cramping after having gone to sleep on the flight. But it wasn’t those things that I meant.
My heart is sore.
I sat up, sniffing hard. I was not going to go there. Reese wasn’t going to pop into my mind anymore.
I strode through to the kitchen and made myself coffee. Then I sat down at my clean, white, classy table and flipped through a clean, stark, classy magazine.
Somehow, the life portrayed in the pages, that would have been glamorous and something to covet, now seemed colorless.
I looked out of the window. The sky was cloudy, the first streetlamps throwing their yellowing haze into the clouds. I saw no stars.
I missed the big sky. The silence, rich with crickets singing. The peace.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
I stood and went through to my sitting room. Oddly, my nice furniture and my potted cactus were good company. I had missed the finer things in life while I was out there, I reminded myself. Grandpa’s house, while beautiful and peaceful, did rather lack for plush leather couches and glass occasional tables.
My phone rang as I sat there with my mug. I set it down and reached for the phone, answering quickly.
“Miller!”
“Hi, Kell. You’re back, yeah?”
“Uh-huh.” I smiled, feeling relieved at the friendly human voice.
“Great. How’d the flight go?” she wanted to know.
I chuckled. “My foot’s still cramped.”
She laughed. “It’s always a problem. Well, at least you’re home now. Want to join me for dinner?”
I considered it. Shook my head. “It’d be great. But I’m too tired.”
“Okay,” she said. She paused. “I want to hear all about the trip when you visit tomorrow.”
I sighed. “I’ll do my best.”
“Okay,” she replied. “Well, I don’t want to tire you out. It’ll be nice to see you at work tomorrow. We can have coffee then.”
“Great,” I replied.
We chatted a bit more and hung up. It was seven o’ clock. I decided to make some dinner and then think about what I was going to do at work tomorrow. I had a mountain of email correspondences to answer and some forms to complete before I even started.
I’ll do those now. Don’t think about it.
I made dinner, ate it. Went through to my room and switched on my laptop, answering mails.
At ten o’ clock I went to bed and woke up at seven-thirty, ready for work.
I spent most of the morning at work in a hazy state. I did the things I had to, said hello to my boss who said he was pleased to have me back. Did the paperwork.
At coffee-break, I met with Miller.
“Kell!” She embraced me enthusiastically. “You look amazing! Wow! I think I’ll go up there for my next vacation, if that’s what it does for one.”
I laughed. “Thanks, Miller. Good to see you.”
We sat and chatted for a while, catching up on the local news. My thoughts were distracted from my own worries and I felt better, listening to the gossip about our fellow employees.
“And did you hear? Pearl is going to have a baby!”
Pearl was one of the lawyers; a pretty and softly-spoken woman we both liked.
“Oh, wow!” I enthused. “That’s so exciting! When’s the birthday?”
“Um, I don’t know. November, probably.”
“Oh, wow!” I said again. “That’s great. We have plans to buy her something?”
“I don’t know,” Miller supplied. “We should. Let’s start collecting. I’m thinking maybe a pram?”
“I dunno,” I said, frowning. “They might have plans about that—you know, people can be fussy. Has she made a gift registry?”
“Maybe,” Miller nodded. “Let’s check.”
We talked for a while longer and then Miller saw the time. She jumped up.
“Oh! Heck! Sorry, Kell. Meeting just now. Gotta go.”
“Okay,” I called after her rapidly-retreating form. “See you sometime.”
I was thinking over the conversation as I drove home, spending the time stuck in traffic planning a gift for our expectant mom, when it hit me.
I really should have had that period by now. Fine, it was only four days overdue, three days if I allowed for the impact of travel and a bit of natural uncertainty. But four?
This talk about babies was getting to me. I wondered if I shouldn’t check. I have taken the Pill for a few years now, but with all the traveling, it was possible that I forgot. I do it so automatically that it’s rare I check what day it is.
I was still thinking about it when I got home. I put my bags in the hallway, changed my shoes and put some forms on my desk. Then I marched through to the bathroom to check.
It was Monday today. But Monday’s pill was still there.
I missed a day somewhere.
Oh. The missed period took on new significance now. What if I was pregnant?
I checked the time and went down the drugstore—luckily there was one just close to my apartment-building. I took it back upstairs, my heart thumping. What if it was positive? What would I do?
I knew my job was steady and that I had a good health insurance. Paying for the birth and getting paid leave were in the bag. I was already luckier than millions of women who had no such security.
But what would I do after that? When the maternity leave was over, the bills paid, the birth completed.
Then I would be here in my apartment in LA, trying to work and having a small helpless baby to care for. Reese’s baby.
I didn’t think I could tell him.
The more I thought about it, sitting there on the chair in my sitting-room with the unopened packet from the drugstore on my glass-topped coffee-table, the more I thought the answer was no. I couldn’t tell him. I recalled the way he’d handled things in the past. How he’d lost it with me when I’d made a cake. Lost it again when I was crying in the hospital…yes, he’d made up but it didn’t take away from the fact that his first port of call was anger. I thought about how he’d reacted to my grandfather’s frailty at first.
Is this the kind of person I want to trust with a child? Or with myself? How would he handle the news?
I had seen how Reese valued strength, how he scorned weakness. That was no mindset to bring near a helpless baby—or even near myself in this precarious state. What would he do?
I decided that I wasn’t going to tell him.
Even if he took it well—and I don’t think he would—how is he going to support a family? He has big dreams for his farm. He wants to take risks and make a new future for himself. I don’t want to be the thing that stops him from making a stable, successful life. He’d hate me for it and I’d hate him for hating me.
With a flutter of fear in my stomach, I went to the bathroom.
Ten minutes later I was sitting in my sitting-room with half my heart in hell and the other half floating about the room, excited and awed.
I was pregnant. With Reese’s child.