Rebecca Winters - The Baby Dilemma

“Yes, of course.”

“Darling—” Philippe’s voice sounded frantic.

“I’ll be right outside the curtain.”

She pushed the stool back in place, then lifted the flap to wait in the main room of the E.R. In a minute the technicians emerged with Philippe. Like lasers, his dark eyes burned into her soul.

“Promise me you’ll be here when I get back.”

The tears she’d been fighting spilled down her cheeks. “Where would I go?”

You’re my whole life, Philippe. Without you, there’s nothing.

When he’d disappeared through another set of doors, she realized his parents needed to be notified, then Marcel. But her body was slow to obey her brain.

As she retraced her steps to the reception area to make the calls, she heard the hysterical woman behind the first curtain crying out Philippe’s name. Kellie froze.

“Calm yourself, Mademoiselle Boiteux,” said another female voice. “Monsieur Didier will be in to visit you as soon as he comes back from X ray.”

“I need to see him. I love him. He’s the father of my baby. I’m going to have his son. Promise me he’s not hurt, that he’s all right!”

“You mustn’t get upset. It isn’t good for you or the baby. You have toxemia. Your blood pressure’s too high. We need to get it down, so you have to cooperate with us.”

“It was my fault we were in the accident. He offered to drive me home and I let him. I shouldn’t have agreed to it, then he wouldn’t have been hurt. He’s so wonderful. He saved my life once before. If anything happened to Philippe, I’d want to die.”

“No, mademoiselle. You want to live. You’re going to be a mother very soon. Think of the joy you’ll have in raising your child. We’ve called your mother. She’ll be here soon to comfort you.”

“No,” she cried out. “Without Philippe, I don’t care about anything else. Please tell him to come. This is his child. You don’t understand. He’s my whole life!”

This is his child. He’s my whole life.

Kellie felt as if someone had just walked across her grave.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Madame? You look like you’re feeling ill,” one of the nurse’s aides observed. “Do you want to lie down?”

“N-no. I’ll be all right.”

“Let me at least help you to the reception room where you can sit while you wait for your husband.”

“Thank you.”

Her limbs felt wooden as he assisted her to a chair beyond the swinging doors.

“Someone will let you know when he’s been brought back. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Kellie felt like she was in the middle of a nightmare where she was running from something, but everything was happening in slow motion.

“Could you please phone his secretary and inform him of the accident? He lives here in town. Ask him to call Philippe’s parents.” She would phone everyone later, but for the moment her strength seemed to have left her body.

He pulled a notepad out of his pocket. “What’s the secretary’s name and number?”

She gave the aide the information. Once he’d disappeared, she sat there until her terrible weakness had passed. Then she got up from the chair and went over to the woman at the desk.

“Would you call me a taxi please.”

Ten minutes later, Kellie entered the apartment. She walked straight into Philippe’s study and sat down at his desk. Withdrawing the gold pen from its holder, one of their many wedding gifts, she reached for a notepad.

My darling husband—

Never doubt that I will always love you, but Yvette loved you first. We’ve only been married thirty days. She’s been carrying your baby for eight months. The “for worse” part of our vows didn’t cover that.

I heard her call out your name. She had no idea I could follow her conversation with the doctor from the outside of the curtain. She was begging, pleading for you to come to her.

After the things she told the doctor in confidence, there’s no doubt Yvette is pregnant with your son. I don’t blame you for anything, darling. But you must see she needs your help and protection now because she’s very sick with a high-risk pregnancy.

I know you’re not the kind of man to abandon your responsibilities the way my birth father abandoned my mother and me, so I’m going back to Washington. When I get there, I’ll start divorce proceedings. Soon you’ll be free to marry her and be a full-time father to your child.

Be assured the only alimony I want is your promise that you’ll do the right thing for Yvette and your son. No one will make a better father than you.

All my love, Kellie.

She pulled off her wedding ring and left it on top of the note, then she phoned for another taxi to drive her to the airport. She’d worry about what plane to take when she got there.

Before the taxi arrived, she changed into wool pants and a sweater. After putting the food in the fridge and straightening the kitchen, she threw some clothes and toiletries in an overnight bag. When her packing was done, she grabbed her passport out of the dresser drawer, left her car keys on top, then walked out of the apartment without looking back.

The second she got into the taxi, her cell phone rang. She ignored it and told the chauffeur to get her to Geneva as quickly as possible.

During the drive, the phone went off at least twenty different times. Evidently Philippe had come back from X ray and was wondering where she’d gone.

The ringing would stop once the doctors told him Yvette was calling for him and he realized how sick she was.

“Kellie?” Her grandfather’s gray head peered around the door of the restaurant’s kitchen. “The phone’s for you!”

“I’ll have to call them back, grandpa.”

He walked behind the huge stainless-steel island where she was preparing the salads. “It’s Claudine.”

Fresh pain stabbed her heart.

“You’ve avoided every call from Philippe since you got home a week ago. Surely you’re not going to ignore his sister, too. That’s not right, honey. I’ll take over here. You go upstairs to the office and talk to her.”

She took a deep breath, realizing this couldn’t be put off any longer. In any event, it wasn’t fair to her family.

“All right. I won’t be long.”

“Take all the time you need. You’re so bottled up, you’re going to explode one of these days. It’ll do you good to talk to her. She’s a sweetie.”

Kellie’s grandfather, James Madsen, was crazy about Claudine who had lived with them for a month during her American homestay. She was a Didier through and through. Dark good looks, intelligent, high class, charm galore.

He loved talking fractured French to her, and was hurt because Kellie’s marriage to her brother had broken up. Everyone in her family knew the reason why she was getting a divorce. She loved them for never having said a negative word or interfering.

But she was aware that they were very fond of Philippe. Kellie’s mom was still grieving over her daughter’s smashed dreams, yet they’d all honored her wishes by keeping silent.

She hurried to the sink to wash her hands. After leaving the kitchen she raced up the stairs to the next floor where their family lived above the thriving restaurant.

Her grandfather had bought the property and opened it in the late sixties. He’d named it The Eatery, a play on words because they lived in Eatonville, Washington, gateway to the Cascades and Mount Rainier.

Growing up it had been Kellie’s dream to turn it into a French restaurant one day. All her university education in French, plus her subsequent training as a French chef in Napa Valley, California, had been chosen with that end in mind.

Then her grandfather had surprised her by sending her to France on a homestay through the university to improve her French. That was how she’d met Claudine. It was there in the Didier home she’d been introduced to Philippe who just happened to be visiting his family for the day.