Anne Haven - Because Of The Baby

Briefly she stared upward at a dark, cloudless sky dotted with thousands of glittering pinpricks of light. So many, many stars. And they were so far away her mind couldn’t even begin to grasp the distance. She marveled at the vastness of the universe the way a child would.

In such a big space as the universe, she was small, and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but she existed.

I’m right here with Kyle. Kyle Davenport, my best friend.

And by midspring our baby will be with us, too.

Our baby. The phrase still had the power to shock her. Even after six weeks she couldn’t quite believe she was pregnant.

Barely aware of her actions, she cupped the faint curve of her abdomen.

“No one else knows?” Kyle asked as they turned the corner onto her street.

“No.”

“You could have told your sister.”

Melissa grasped his meaning. She could have told Anita and gotten her to move back in. It would have been the perfect way. Her sister would have come back to help her throughout the pregnancy. But then, Anita would have been the one taking care of her. And it was supposed to be the other way around, wasn’t it?

Maybe Kyle was right. Maybe that was why she hadn’t told her sister yet. She couldn’t stand to be the one in trouble, the one who might need support.

“There’s a lot we’ll have to discuss,” Kyle said.

“I know.”

“You should let me know when you’re ready to tell other people. I won’t do it until you’re ready, but we should both tell our families soon. You are going to keep the baby, I assume.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

They both understood she could never have an abortion, even though she believed in a woman’s right to choose.

“How much time do you think you’ll need?” he asked. “Before you’re ready to talk again.”

“I don’t know.” She fished her keys out of her handbag as they climbed her front steps. The two-bedroom bungalow, painted light blue, seemed lonely and dark.

“I need some kind of timeline, Melissa. Come on. This isn’t fair.”

She acknowledged that he was right. Opening the door, she reached inside to flip on the porch light. It bathed them in a pale-yellow glow. She turned around in the doorway to face him. “How about a week.”

“So we’ll talk next Wednesday?”

“Yes.”

“And this weekend? We’re still on for Sunday dinner with your dad and Anita? We’re still going to Whitney’s dance performance on Friday?”

The possibility of canceling their plans surprised her. She’d been behaving as if everything were perfectly ordinary for so long now. Going through the motions. She’d gotten used to it.

“You don’t want to?” she asked.

“It’ll be awkward, that’s all. Especially around your family.”

But we’re so good at pretending nothing’s wrong, she thought. We’ve had plenty of practice since July. How many times have we seen Dad and Anita and acted as though we were still the same platonic pair as always?

He shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll deal with it. We’ll touch base tomorrow night, okay?”

She nodded.

“Melissa?”

“Yes?”

He raised a hand to her hair. She tried to hide a shiver as he stroked his fingers through the strands, rustling them and making her scalp tingle.

Why are you touching me like this? It isn’t allowed. It’s against the rules. I can’t let you do this.

But it felt so good.

Kyle stopped and cupped the side of her face. “Don’t worry. We’ll work this out.”

He turned around and left.

ONLY MELISSA.

Only Melissa, Kyle thought, could have kept her pregnancy secret for so damn long. Only she could have maintained the fiction that nothing had changed, could have managed not to reveal anything through words or expressions or actions. It was simply a logical extension of her business-as-usual performance after they’d made love.

Oh, Mel.

The woman was purely herself. She didn’t try to act like anyone else.

He knew some people considered her inhuman, even cold. She wasn’t. She might be more subtle, less immediately accessible. But the depth and the feelings were there. Only people who had no patience for subtlety had a hard time with her. People who needed everything to be simple and easy and obvious.

Kyle changed into sweats and shoved on his court shoes. It was Thursday afternoon and he’d made plans to meet his friend Jerome down at the park for some hoops. He needed the physical activity and the diversion of athletic competition. Badly.

His keys sat on his dresser, next to a framed photo of Felicity and him. He grabbed the keys and stuffed them into the zippered pocket of his sweat-pants, then jogged down the stairs and left the building at an easy run, warming up his body slowly. The October air felt cool and refreshing against his skin. The change to standard time hadn’t occurred yet, so a few more hours of daylight remained this afternoon.

He tilted up his face to the sun, briefly closing his eyes as he ran along the sidewalk, and thought, How could this have happened? This impossible, incomprehensible situation. How can Melissa and I be having a baby together?

Neither of them had expected to have children—let alone with each other.

How strange and terrifying…

Not that either of them had something against kids. No, they both liked them. They’d enjoyed the times when Kyle’s brother and his wife—now his ex-wife—had come to visit, bringing little Danny and Mira. They often volunteered to baby-sit for friends.

But to take on parenthood themselves?

Kyle reached the park, saw Jerome and waved as he jogged toward him.

“Hey,” the other man said, clasping his hand in a quick man-to-man shake when he reached the court. “How’s it going, Kyle?”

He shrugged. “You know.”

I’m going to be a father.

The thought resounded in his head like the echoing announcements in a sports arena. He tried to ignore it and said, “Ready to be the old farts who kick some seventeen-year-old butts?”

Jerome laughed. “You bet, man.”

Within a couple minutes they’d found more players and started a game. Kyle worked up a sweat. As the only white guy this afternoon—and one who was only five-eleven at that—he had to work extra hard to prove himself. And then there was the age thing. He and Jerome were thirty-two and thirty-six respectively. The teenagers here really did see them as old farts.

I’m going to be a father.

He jumped up and aimed for the hoop. The ball made a satisfying whoosh as it slid cleanly through; unlike some public courts, this one had nets hanging.

Jerome tagged him on the arm as they moved back out. “Good shot, buddy.”

“Thanks.”

I’m going to be a father. They played another thirty minutes before taking a break. Kyle walked over to the water fountain, breathing hard. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm.

A few yards away children laughed and shouted as they pumped back and forth on the swings and climbed all over the brightly painted jungle gym.

Hell.

I’m going to be a father.

Jerome caught up with him as he leaned down for a drink. “Hey, old man,” he teased. “Too much for you?”

Kyle swallowed a mouthful of water. “I’m not the one who was gasping and wheezing on the court back there,” he said, and took another long gulp.

His friend laughed.

Kyle felt dizzy and weak. And it wasn’t because of the basketball game.

ANITA LOPEZ did not look forward to seeing her sister. She loved Melissa and usually enjoyed spending time together—but sometimes the tensions in their relationship were more than she wanted to deal with.