Laura Gale - The Tie That Binds

“No…yes, I mean, I will be. I just need to…collect myself. Just give me a minute.” She glanced up at Lucas, caught the flicker of something liquid and black in his eyes, felt herself melt somewhere deep inside. He seemed so like the Lucas of old—and she was responding to it.

Biting her lip, she broke their eye contact, looking somewhere, anywhere, for a route that would put distance between them. Between the counter of the bar and Lucas’s solid body, she didn’t have much room to move. But she had to. She had to get away from him.

She turned abruptly, finally freeing herself of his presence, and drifted back to the couch. Dios mio, I need some space.

And she needed him—there was no way to get around that. But she couldn’t need him for herself. Only for Michaela. She couldn’t trust him, no matter how much he might seem like the Lucas she used to know, however briefly he might seem that way. No, she couldn’t let those kinds of thoughts cloud what was happening. She couldn’t afford to. She was better off keeping certain emotions, and the paths to those feelings, well and truly buried. It had worked for her so far. It was the only way.

“Okay,” she said on a deep breath. “You’ll need to talk to Dr. Campbell.” Normalcy, that’s what she needed to project. But it wasn’t terribly convincing. Her careful facade had cracked, and they both knew it.

“Dr. Campbell,” she continued steadfastly, “will explain the typing procedure as well as the donor procedure. Typing has to be done first, of course, then if you’re compatible, they’ll set you up for the donation procedure. He’ll be able to tell you about DNA, too. He’s at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, in the Samaritan Medical Center.”

“Is that where…Michaela is?”

“Yes,” came her prompt answer. “Lucas, you have to understand. Michaela’s a very sick little girl. Her leukemia came on fairly quickly and it just sapped her energy, her strength. The chemo took whatever was left. She doesn’t…she doesn’t look much like that picture anymore.”

“But she can again, right?”

“Yes. In time. But it will get worse before it gets better.”

She met his eyes again, this time wondering if her eyes reflected as many silent messages as his. And wondering what those messages were. There had been a time when she had understood them. Now she couldn’t be sure. Now she wondered how much Lucas had seen in her eyes this afternoon.

“I can make time today to see this doctor.”

“Bueno. That would be great. Let me see what I can do.” She pulled out a cell phone, quickly punching in numbers.

“Hi, Linda. It’s Rachel. Is Evan available? I need to schedule an appointment with him today.”

Within a few minutes, Rachel had set the appointment and ended the call. “Three o’clock it is then, Lucas.” She slipped the phone back in her briefcase and gathered her things.

“Lucas, you know there is nothing I can do to repay or thank you adequately for doing this. If there were, I’d do it. Please know how grateful I am.” She started toward the door, knowing he was just a few steps behind her. Her personal radar, the one that sensed him, was working again.

“Rachel.” His voice stopped her. “Why didn’t you tell me before? I mean, that you were pregnant?”

She looked at him carefully before responding. “Deep down, Lucas, I think you already know the answer.”

“But five years, Rachel. That’s a long time to hide such a big secret.”

“It was never a secret, Lucas. We were separated, remember? It was part of the new life I started for myself and, well, I just lived my life. There was no reason to think we’d ever run into each other. We don’t exactly move in the same circles. That was part of the problem in our marriage. Not seeing each other, moving in different circles.”

She smiled sadly. “It’s funny, you know. You were always going on about how you needed me to support you. But I had needs, too, Lucas. I needed a husband. I thought I had one, but you…vanished somehow.

“I wanted to tell you about the baby so badly, Lucas. I was excited.” Rachel looked down at her hands, the ones gripping her briefcase strap so tightly that her knuckles showed white. “I found out I was pregnant when you were in Las Vegas, that last trip. But I wanted to see your face when I told you, so I didn’t call you.” She lifted her head, seeking his face this time, too. “Of course, you didn’t call me, either. And once you got home, well—” she shrugged “—a different kind of conversation was forced then, wasn’t it? Telling you about the baby didn’t seem to be a priority anymore. I knew you’d make accusations, that you would make it ugly. I didn’t need that.”

And, her words conveyed, I don’t need it today, either.

“I figured if I was going to end up on my own, at least I was going to do it on my own terms.”

Lucas studied her face but said nothing.

She tossed her head, trying to look beyond Lucas as she focused on something in the past. “I tried to live with the way things were, Lucas, I really did. I tried hard to be reasonable. I even believed, for a while, the things your parents said—that my inability to cope was the problem. It took time before I decided I had the right to expect more than you were giving, that you weren’t being fair.” She reached for the doorknob, knowing she needed to make her escape. Emotions were coming too fast to handle; those emotions were trying to surface. “Do you have any idea what I do for a living, Lucas?”

He shook his head, indicating he didn’t know.

“That’s what I thought. You weren’t in touch with what I was doing.” She sighed again, her words empty of criticism, full of resignation.

“Aside from everything else that happened between us, Lucas, I didn’t tell you I was pregnant because I couldn’t. You wouldn’t have listened to me. Listening to me simply was not on your agenda then. Maybe I could have forced you to listen, but…how? I never figured out a way. Anyway,” she said, seeking a positive note, “I appreciate that you listened today. This was important, too.”

Opening the door, Rachel was nearly flattened by the huffing figure of her father-in-law as he stormed into Lucas’s office. “Damn you, Rachel! What the hell do you think you’re doing here?! You left my boy—you’re out of his life! There’s nothing for you here!”

Rachel couldn’t help it. She stared at this vile individual, this repulsive creature—this man who had been instrumental in causing her so much grief, his features distorted by hatred—and by something else she didn’t want to contemplate but which she recognized anyway. She owed this man nothing. She thought of being polite, then dismissed the idea. In spite of herself, Rachel burst out laughing.

“Oh, Arnold,” she said, shaking her head, “you haven’t changed a bit! And you know what, Arnold? I’m not happy to see you, either. But I’m not the least bit interested in anything you have to say, so—save it.”

“Dad,” Lucas cajoled in hushed tones, “don’t speak to Rachel that way. You’re in the corridor, for God’s sake. Everyone’s listening.” He was embarrassed, for all three of them.

“Oh, Lucas,” Rachel cut in, tsk-tsking at his foolishness. “Give it up, will you? Your father has always spoken to me like that, sometimes even worse. Everyone has always listened. Except for you.” She sobered suddenly. “Somehow you never noticed.”

She looked again at Arnold Neuman, then back at his son. Her husband. The father of her child. “This is your father, Lucas. This is what he is.”

With that, she turned on the high heel of her black pump and headed toward the elevator. She stepped inside and the doors closed promptly. Not quickly enough, however, to drown out her father-in-law’s parting words: “Yes, get out of here! And don’t come back! We don’t need your kind in here!”