Chapter6
Jamaica sat at her desk going over her art lesson plan for the next day’s class. Without even thinking about it, she reached her hand down to her very round belly and rubbed it gently, feeling the two babies in it, who were both kicking her simultaneously in different places.
The door to her classroom opened and she looked up to see Penny walking through it with a small pastel envelope in her hands and a wide smile on her face.
“Hey girl!” she greeted Jamaica with a happy lilt to her voice, coming to her friend and hugging her neck as she dropped a light kiss on her cheek.
“Hi!” Jamaica said with a smile.
Penny let her go and stood there near her, gazing at her for a moment. “You look so beautiful! You’re glowing! I just can’t get over how well pregnancy agrees with you.”
Jamaica laughed lightly and rubbed her hand over her massively swollen belly again. “I like it, actually much more than I thought I would.”
Leaning her backside against the edge of the desk, Penny held the pastel envelope in her hands and her expression softened considerably.
“So, I know there’s no baby shower or anything, and I know you’re not keeping the babies, but I really feel like you deserve something good. You’re eight months into this pregnancy deal and I just feel like you haven’t been spoiled enough. I thought that you should have a little gift, just because this is a special time in your life and I thought that you deserved something… extra special.” She trailed off a little bit and shrugged as she handed the envelope in her hand to Jamaica.
Looking at her in wonder and surprise, Jamaica took the envelope and smiled with nothing more than a shake of her head. “What did you do?” she asked quietly as she opened it.
“It’s a full day at a spa. You need it. Self-indulgence is good sometimes,” Penny answered her as she pulled a gift certificate out of the envelope.
“Oh my gosh… Penny, you didn’t have to do this!” she gasped, looking at it with wide eyes. She knew Penny didn’t make too much money, and she was grateful that her friend had been so thoughtful toward her. “You really didn’t have to. Thank you so much. I know I’m going to love this.”
“I know you’ll love it too.” Penny smiled at her. “I just… I wanted to get you something. I know no one has gotten you anything, and you’re going through a big thing right now… very big,” she teased, glancing at the nearly full term baby bump on Jamaica’s lap. “And I just thought I’d do something for you.”
“This means a lot to me. Thank you, Penny. I love you,” Jamaica told her happily, reaching to hug her again. She was letting go when her shoulders began to shake and tremble and Penny looked at her worriedly.
“You’re crying? Why are you crying? What’s wrong? Is it the spa gift?” Penny asked with an edge of panic in her voice.
Jamaica shook her head. “No… it’s something… difficult,” she tried to answer as her heart felt like it might break in half. She closed her eyes and did all that she could to hold in the tears that flooded them. They squeezed through her lashes anyway and rolled down her cheeks.
Penny seemed helpless for what to do to fix the emotional breakdown that Jamaica was going through. Jamaica dropped her hands from her face and just let herself cry.
“Talk to me sister; what’s going on?” Penny did her best to comfort her friend, kneeling down and looking up at her as she held her hands.
Taking a deep breath, Jamaica tried to calm herself. “I guess… well no… I know for a fact that I’ve grown too close to the babies. I love them. I can’t help it. I know they’re half mine. I didn’t think it would happen. I just thought that I would get pregnant and I’d feel two little babies moving around in me and then I’d give birth and give them to Mr. Ellison, and that would be it. I thought that I wouldn’t have any attachment to them, especially since I would be giving them to him right away. I didn’t know that I could become attached to them while they were still inside of me, but it’s happened, and at first I was in denial about it. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t feeling anything for them, but every time they moved and turned, every poke, every hiccup… every time I went to a doctor appointment and saw them on the monitor, their little hearts beating, and watching them as they moved and grew and have slowly become these little people… My own little people that I made with my own body… it’s just changed. I’m so attached to them! I love them. I don’t know how I’m ever going to walk away from them now. I’ll be honest with you, I really don’t think that I can do it.”
Penny groaned and shook her head slowly. “Oh no… Oh no. I’m so sorry honey.”
“I can feel everything that they’re doing, when they move independently of each other, I know when they are sleeping, when they’re awake… and I’ve even started calling them by names that I thought up in a dream one night. I call the boy Casey and the girl Beth. I know I shouldn’t do that, I know it’s not helping me to keep detached from them at all, but I just can’t help it. I talk to them all the time. I tell them what a wonderful life they’re going to have and that there will be a loving father for them, but then I have to stop myself instead of telling them that there is no mom for them. I don’t think he has anyone around like that. I mean, I know that Ms. Landers said that they have it all worked out, but from what I know, there is no mom. These babies of mine are going to a home where they’re only going to have one parent. I can’t stand that!” Jamaica began to sniffle again and look as if she might start crying again.
“Jami, you can’t think about that. You can’t get close to them like that. You know that. You have to maintain a distance from them, at least as much as you can while you’re carrying them. You’re going to break your own heart! What are you doing?” she asked in a kind and quiet voice.
Jamaica shook her head. “I don’t know. I tried not to, believe me, I really did, but there’s just no getting around it. It’s too late. I love them. I don’t know how I’m ever going to let them go. I have no idea what I’m going to tell Andre.”
Penny frowned. “Wasn’t the deal that you weren’t going to see them again after the birth? Wasn’t that the official agreement?”
“Yes,” Jamaica answered. “That was the original agreement, but now I want to change it. I feel like I have to… I have to at least try. I mean, these babies are half mine… My natural children. That has to count for something, doesn’t it? I must have some kind of rights to them, don’t you think?”
“Girl, I really don’t think you should try to fight what you already agreed to, but I will say this, no matter what you decide to do, I’m going to support you one hundred percent. If you want to let them go, I’m behind you. If you decide that you want to try to keep them and you end up fighting for some kind of visitation, I will be behind you. I just think you should really give this some consideration. Really think about this carefully. What is Andre going to say about it?” she asked with thick concern in her voice.
Jamaica groaned. “Oh… Andre. That’s been bad. He made it very clear that he never wants children of his own and he sure as hell doesn’t want to raise anyone else’s children, so he’s hell bent that these two should go as soon as they are born and I should take the money and run and never set eyes on them again. That is his perfect scenario.”
She sighed in disgust. “Penny, he’s been horrible through this whole pregnancy. He hasn’t been supportive at all, he’s never around, he never asks how I’m feeling or if there’s anything that he can do to help me. He never tries to make any effort to show that he cares about me. We haven’t been intimate at all since the insemination because he refuses to touch me at all while I’m pregnant with another man’s babies. He’s being so utterly ridiculous. I’ll be honest, I feel like I lost every part of him that was my boyfriend when I took on this job and got pregnant. We just haven’t even been close to being a couple since then, and it’s awful. I don’t want to let these two kids go, at least not completely, and I know he’s going to be furious when he finds out about that. I have no idea what he will do or say, but I am pretty sure he’s going to hate it.”
“So, are you going to try to do something about it or are you just going to let them go and suffer through it?” Penny asked quietly.
Jamaica looked up at her friend and drew in a long slow breath. “I’m going to fight for visitation with them. I have given it so much thought and I just can’t let them go. I can’t walk away from them like that. They’re half mine, naturally, biologically, they are half mine and I feel like I’d be deserting them if I did that. As far as I know there’s no mother there to take care of them, and I don’t want to leave them in a single parent household. That’s just not something I’m comfortable with. I didn’t think it would be like that, but it is, and now the only way forward for me is to fight for them. I’m going to go talk to Cara Landers and ask her if there’s any way that we can work out some kind of visitation before I even think about looking at legal action.”
“Okay,” Penny replied simply. “You’re not doing it alone. Just remember that. I’m here for you, no matter what, always, I’m here for you.”
“Thank you so much,” Jamaica whispered, reaching for Penny’s hand and giving it a squeeze.
***
A knock at Jamaica’s front door made her heart skip a beat nearly right out of her chest as she looked up at the door. She knew that it was Andre, and she was not at all sure if she was ready for the conversation that she knew that she had to have with him, but it was time to have it. The babies were due in a month, and she had made up her mind about just what she wanted with the babies, and it had come time to talk with her boyfriend about it. She wasn’t looking forward at all to the conversation, but there was no avoiding it. It had to happen, and it had to happen then.
“Come in,” she called out.
He walked in and his eyes went straight to her massively swollen belly. A look of disgust flashed across his face and he looked away from her, closing the door and heading for a chair opposite the sofa in her living room. He sat.
She watched him and braced herself for what was to come. She sat carefully on the sofa and faced him. “Thank you for coming over,” she began with a pleasant smile, though the smile didn’t at all reach her heart inside.
“Yeah sure. What is it that you want to talk with me about?” he asked with a trepid caution to his voice.
Taking in a long slow breath, she lifted her chin and told him. “I wanted to talk with you about this pregnancy and these babies.”
His eyes shot up to her and pierced her sharply. “What’s going on?” he asked directly.
Never one to beat around the bush, she thought to herself. “I know you haven’t been around much at all. You haven’t supported me through this much at all. You haven’t gone to any of the appointments with me, and you have basically made me face this whole thing on my own.”
“Yeah, well you got yourself into this mess. Why would I be around for any of that? It’s not my job, not my mess, not my problem. You shouldn’t be surprised that I’m not around for it. The only reason that I ever allowed it in the first place was because of the money, and you know that,” he said in a cold voice.
She narrowed her eyes and felt the fires of indignation and frustration flare up in her. “Now see, that’s something that’s really been bugging me this whole time. You keep saying that you allowed me to do this… that I have your permission because of the money I’m being paid.
“First of all, Andre, I don’t need your permission or anyone else’s to do anything. I can do whatever the hell I want to do, anytime I want to do it. It seems to have escaped your notice, but I’m actually a real, live, full grown adult woman, and I don’t need a keeper or a caretaker. I’m taking care of myself just fine on my own, thank you very much, and the last thing in the world that I need is a man telling me that I have his permission to do anything with my life, and sure as hell not with my own body. Those choices are my own to make!
“Second, you keep bringing up this money like you’re have some say over that too, like it’s going to be yours at all. It’s not. I’m the one who took on this pregnancy and who has carried these babies. You haven’t been around at all for any part of it, you just abandoned me to do the whole thing on my own, so you should know right now that it doesn’t matter how much money I make on this pregnancy job, because you’re not going to see a single damn penny of it. Not one. So you have no business going on about the money, because that’s going to be all mine. Period.”
He scowled and was about to snap back at her, but she held her hand up to stop him, and she continued.
“There’s something else that we have to talk about though, and it’s pretty important,” she told him seriously.
“And what is that?” he snapped at her.
“Something happened that I didn’t expect. I have grown really close to these babies. In fact, I’ve grown so attached to them that I want to talk to Mr. Ellison about sharing some custody of them. I don’t feel like I can give them up totally. I want to be part of their lives. It’s become really important to me,” she said in a level tone.
He glared hotly at her. “I knew it! I knew this was going to happen. It almost never happens that a chick can get pregnant and then leave her kids or give them up. Damn it! Well I’ll tell you right now that you better not even think about it because if you do we’re going to have a big problem.”
Her heart was pounding in her chest. Her blood felt hot, racing through her veins and pushing fast as it burned all over her. Her cheeks felt warm. “Then we have a big problem, because while I didn’t expect it or plan it, it’s happened. I love them. I want to keep them at least half of the time. I want to be in their lives. I don’t know how that’s going to happen, if they would be living with him and me or just him and I’d see them there or what, but I don’t want to let them go totally. They are going to be part of my life, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure that that happens. If you have a problem with that, then we need to work it out right now.”
He shot up out of the chair that he was sitting in and looked down at her with deep anger in his eyes. “Well then we have to work it out right now, because I have a huge problem with this!”
She looked up at him and felt like everything inside of her was going so fast and so hot that she might explode. “Well then, what do you want to work out?” she asked, feeling a strange mixture of fear, determination, anger, protectiveness, and defiance.
He took a step toward her. “It’s simple. It works like this… either you choose them or you choose me. That’s it. Plain and simple. There’s no alternative. I don’t care how it works out about where they live or how often you see them. I told you that I didn’t want a relationship with anyone where I was going to be raising some other guy’s kids, or one where my woman had kids. I meant that. So, you have a choice to make right now. It’s either me or them. That’s it. Make your choice.”
She saw that there was a cocky confidence in his eyes and she realized as she sat there that he truly believed that by forcing her back against the wall that she was going to choose him because she would rather have him than the babies. He was making her leave them so that he could have her, have his way; his woman without kids. She saw it crystal clear in his eyes that he had thrown the ultimatum at her because he was so sure that it would work.
The realization of it infuriated her. She pushed herself up off the sofa and faced him, squaring her jaw as she gazed at him coolly. “I choose my babies. If that means it’s over between us and you’re out of here, then that’s what it means. You can leave if that’s what you choose, but I’m not asking you to leave. I’m asking you to work this out with me. If you walk out of that door because I’m keeping these babies, then that’s all on you. That’s your choice.”
A wave of shock flashed over his face as her words took hold in his mind, and he gave his head a shake. “My god… you’re serious,” he barely whispered. “Fine!” he raised his voice, shouting at her. “Fine!” he repeated. “You chose them, so I’m out of here. That’s it. We’re done!”
He turned on his heel and stomped to the door, yanking it open and shouting a few obscenities before he went through the doorway and slammed the door behind him. The windows in her little house shuddered and a tremor moved through the living room.
She stared at the door and felt a few tears rising up in her, but she shook her head and swallowed them back down. She wasn’t going to cry over him. She refused to cry over him. He simply wasn’t worth it. If he had cared about her and made her a priority then he might be worth it, but he never had, and she was done with him.
Reflexively she placed her hands on her belly and rubbed it. Her voice was soft as she spoke to the babies. “It’s all right little ones. It’s all okay. I’m here and I’m taking care of you. You’re never going to have to be around anyone like that in your own home. Don’t you worry. Your lives will be beautiful, and you won’t see anything like that growing up.”
It was a promise that she knew she would do anything to keep.