Robin Cook - Marker

After taking a few bites of his calamari and another sip of beer, Jack cleared his throat. Superstitiously, he didn't want to ask the question, but the suspense was killing him: "Was there anything else you wanted to tell me tonight, or was it just this BRCA1 issue?"

Laurie put down her fork and locked eyes with Jack. "There is something else. I wanted to tell you that I am pregnant."

Jack swallowed, tipped his head slightly to the side as if something had just caromed off his scalp, and put his beer back on the table. He kept his eyes glued on Laurie's. Laurie being pregnant was perhaps the last thing he expected to hear, and his mind was a jumble of complicated thoughts. He cleared his throat again.

"Who's the father?" Jack questioned.

Laurie's face clouded over like a sudden summer storm, and she leaped up so fast that her chair tipped over backward. The crash brought general conversation in the restaurant to a sudden standstill. She threw her cloth napkin down onto the top of her salad and started for the front of the room. Jack, who had initially recoiled from the unexpected flurry, regained his senses enough to reach out and catch Laurie by the forearm. She tugged back, but Jack held on tightly and wouldn't let her go. She glared down at him with nostrils flared.

"I'm sorry!" Jack blurted and then hastily added, "Don't run off! Obviously, we need to talk, and perhaps that wasn't the most diplomatic first question."

Laurie gave another tug to free her arm, but it was with less force than the first.

"Please sit down!" Jack said in as calm and reassuring a voice as he could muster.

As if suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings, Laurie's eyes swept around the room, and she saw that the restaurant had been seemingly caught in a freeze-frame, with all eyes directed at her. She looked down at Jack, nodded, and took a step back around the table. As if on cue, the waiter materialized, righted her chair, and took away both the napkin and plate of salad. Laurie sat down, and as soon as she did so, the conversation in the restaurant recommenced as if nothing had happened. New Yorkers were accustomed to the unexpected and took it in stride.

"How long have you known?" Jack asked.

"I suspected it yesterday but didn't get confirmation until this morning."

"Are you upset about it?"

"Of course I'm upset. Aren't you?"

Jack nodded and paused for a moment while he thought. "What are you going to do?"

"Do you mean whether or not I'm going to have the baby? Is that what you're asking with your damn question?"

"Laurie, we are having a discussion. You don't have to act angry."

"Your first question, as you called it, struck the wrong chord."

"That was apparent, but considering that you have been having what seems from the outside as an intense affair, my question isn't so inappropriate."

"It struck me as inordinately insensitive, since I have not had sex with Roger Rousseau."

"How am I supposed to know? Over the last few weeks, I've tried on a number of occasions to call you in the evening. One night I continued the effort until rather late, which lead me to believe you were not there."

"I have stayed at Roger's on a few occasions," Laurie admitted. "But there was no sex involved."

"That sounds like a rather suspect distinction, but let's move on."

The waiter reappeared with a fresh napkin and salad for Laurie. Sensitively, he quickly withdrew.

"How pregnant are you?" Jack asked.

"Six weeks, although the OB office would call it seven weeks. There is no doubt in my mind that it occurred that last night we spent together. It's rather ironic, wouldn't you say?"

" 'Surprising' is the adjective that springs mostly to my mind. How could this have happened?"

"I hope you are not blaming me. If you remember the day before, you had asked me where I was in my cycle. I told you that it was probably safe, but that it was close. When we made love, it was technically the next day, and obviously not safe."

"Why didn't you put a limit on our lovemaking?"

Laurie glared at Jack. "You are starting to anger me again. It sounds like blame to me, and you know something, it was the two of us involved in the decision to make love, not just me, and we both had the same facts."

"Calm down," Jack said appeasingly. "I'm really not placing blame. Honest! I'm just trying to understand. Your being pregnant has taken me totally and completely by surprise. We had done well to avoid it in the past. Why did we mess up on this occasion?"

Laurie glare softened. She took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. "Well, at this point, it's probably best to be completely honest. That morning, when I began to suspect that we might make love, I did think that we were taking a chance, and I was certain you did, too. It wasn't a huge chance in my mind, considering I thought it was the tenth day, but a chance nonetheless. With as much as I wanted a family with you for both our sakes, I was comfortable with the risk. From your point of view, I thought that somewhere in the depths of your soul, you were of the same mind, with the idea that conceiving a child would help push you beyond your past to start a whole new personal life. Maybe I was projecting too much of my own desires onto you, I don't know, but that was the long and short of how I felt."

Jack mulled over what Laurie had said. Absently, he chewed the inside of his cheek in the process. Life had thrown him some curve-balls, and this one seemed right up there with the best of them. The shock of being presented with the news that he had possibly fathered another child caught him completely off guard. It also terrified him, mainly because he feared he would love it too much and it would make him as vulnerable as he'd been in the past. Losing a family had been the biggest trial of his life, and he doubted he could survive it again. Yet on top of these disturbing thoughts was another, more positive one. If he had learned nothing else in the past miserable six weeks, he'd at least learned that he loved Laurie more than he had admitted. How that was going to play out in the current situation he had no idea. He had no idea how she felt about her current boyfriend.

"I have trouble with these silences of yours," Laurie said. "Not only is it not like you, but I need feedback. Anything, even if it is bad. I need to know how you feel. We have some decisions to make, or if you don't want to be involved, tell me. Then I'll make the decisions myself."

Jack nodded. "Of course I want to be involved, but this is a little unfair. It's difficult for me to have all this dumped in my lap and then be expected to respond in the spur of the moment. In fact, it seems to me to be unreasonable for you to expect that. I would have preferred that you told me the moment when you learned so that we could both have had a chance to think in tandem. Then, at this dinner we could have shared our thoughts."

"You have a point," Laurie admitted. "I don't mean to put you on the spot, even though I wish you would respond the way I want you to respond."

"And how is that?"

Laurie reached across the table and gripped Jack's forearm. "I'm not going to put words into your mouth other than to hope this event can be positive and draw you out of your grieving role. Having a child will not demean your late family. But go home and think about it. I'm on call this weekend, so if I'm not at home, I'll be at the OCME. I'll wait for your call."

"Fair enough," Jack said in a tired voice.

"Hey, don't get depressed on me," Laurie chided.

"I won't get depressed, but I can tell you one thing. I'm no longer hungry."

"Neither am I," Laurie said. "Let's call it a night. We're both strung out." Laurie raised her hand and the waiter came over on the run.