Janice Johnson - First Comes Baby

Standing there in the kitchen, the knife poised above a clump of broccoli, she thought, But Matt isn’t.

Well, she did love him, of course. But not…not that way. He wasn’t anybody who ever would have attracted her, not even before. Was that the problem?

Caleb muttered a word she couldn’t quite catch. “I didn’t know you were thinking about anything like this.”

“It’s been just the past few months.”

“Why Matt?”

It was the last thing she’d expected him to ask.

“Well,” she faltered, “he’s a friend. And smart. He’s nice. Healthy. His grandmother lived into her nineties.”

“What does Sheila feel about this, Laurel?”

“She agreed…”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Her breath caught; she had to face him. His eyes were steady. A couple of creases between his brows had deepened.

“I don’t really know,” she admitted. “She seemed okay…” She couldn’t finish the lie. Sheila had agreed, but she hadn’t seemed comfortable with the idea. She’d said yes with reluctance, Laurel guessed, perhaps in part out of pity.

Laurel hated knowing that.

Her cheeks heated and she looked away from Caleb, not wanting to see pity in his eyes, too.

There was a long silence. Neither of them moved. The water boiled beside her, and she stood there with the knife in her hand.

“Did you consider asking other friends?” Caleb’s voice was deep, quiet.

“I had a list…”

“Was I on it?”

The air had been sucked from the room. She couldn’t answer.

“Did you consider asking me, Laurel?” he persisted.

From somewhere, she found the courage to whisper, “What would you have said if I had asked?”

“I would have said yes.” He paused. “I’d like to have a baby with you, Laurel.”

“DO YOU MEAN THAT?” Laurel’s question came out, a mere thread of sound.

“I mean it.” He nodded at the glass. “Have a drink of wine.”

She gulped, grateful for the warmth that flowed to her stomach. Her emotions were in such turmoil she had no idea how she felt about his offer.

Caleb wasn’t on her list. The only guy she’d put on it who wasn’t married was George, who was gay and therefore safe.

Caleb wasn’t safe. She knew that much, from the panic and exhilaration and excitement ricocheting through her.

“Hey,” he said, voice gentle. “We’d better finish dinner.”

“Dinner?” She turned her head and stared blankly at the water boiling over on the stove and sizzling on the burner. “Oh. Yeah.” But she didn’t move.

“Broccoli,” he suggested, and squeezed by her in the narrow galley kitchen to take the lid off the noodles and turn the burner off. “Colander?”

“Um…bottom cupboard.” She pointed.

He drained while she hurriedly chopped and put the broccoli on to cook.

Caleb got plates out and said, “We don’t have to be fancy. Let’s just dish up here. We can come back for the broccoli.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She got out silverware while he dished up, and then followed him to the table.

There she studied him as if for the first time, seeing again the changes maturity had brought to his face. He’d become the man he had hoped to be, something not many people could say. His eyes were more serious, sometimes wary; his smiles still lit up a room, but came more rarely. He thought about what he did and said now, and what had once been idealism had now become acknowledgment of the responsibility he had taken on for so many other people. Once, when she’d looked at him like this, Laurel would have been able to read everything he felt on his face. Sometime in the past ten years, he had learned to shield his emotions. She hadn’t noticed that until now.

He watched her, his expression merely rueful.

“I wasn’t on your list, was I? You wouldn’t be so stunned if you’d ever thought about asking me.”

She struggled to pull herself together. “I didn’t consider asking any single guys. I thought…” Laurel managed a laugh. “Well, that it would send you running in terror.”

“I’m not running.” Why not?

“No. I see.”

“But you’re not saying what you think.”

She let out a shaky breath. “That’s because I have no idea what I do think! I figured you’d try to talk me out of the whole idea. I haven’t even told Dad or Megan. I was sure they’d both say, ‘You’re only twenty-eight, Laurel. Give yourself time. You want a family, not the responsibility of raising a child alone.’”

His mouth quirked. “Been airing all the con arguments to yourself, have you?”

“I’ve been around and around, but I really want to do this.” She raised her chin, letting him see that he couldn’t sway her.

He shrugged. “This is a normal age to start a family. I’ve been wondering about myself, too. What’s stopping me? Is it the travel? I’ve been thinking I’d like kids. You’re my best friend, Laurel. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have them with.”

Them. Not just one. What kind of future was he imagining? With them as a family?

Laurel felt a funny cramp start low in her belly. And even though her emotions were still pinging off each other, she knew: this was right.

A little girl or boy with Caleb’s bright blue eyes instead of her hazel ones, his dark curly hair, his height and athleticism instead of her klutziness. A child who would dream, who’d become passionate about something like Egyptian mummies or dinosaurs by the time he or she was four years old, who would dazzle and annoy teachers all at the same time, who would make Laurel laugh.

Until now, she’d wanted a baby, but that baby had been an abstract concept. Suddenly, the child she would carry would be Caleb’s. Caleb’s and hers.

Goose bumps walked over her skin, and she shivered.

“But…you’re bound to get married.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m twenty-nine. Hasn’t happened yet. The more business expands, the more time I spend on airplanes. Who am I going to marry? A flight attendant? I’m gone too much, Laurel. But I wouldn’t mind having a picture of my own kid to carry in my wallet. Having someone to spend time with when I’m in town.” He frowned. “Or am I making a big assumption here? Maybe you didn’t have any contact with the father in mind.”

“If that’s what I wanted, I would have gone with a sperm bank. I actually was hoping that Matt—that the father,” she corrected herself, “would at least be a friendly figure in my child’s life.”

“You know, our food is getting cold.”

Trust a man to be thinking about eating. But she shot to her feet. “The broccoli.”

SHE PICKED at her dinner.

In contrast, Caleb ate with a good appetite. “I think they gave me some peanuts somewhere about lunchtime. Breakfast was…I don’t even remember when. A long time ago.”

He’d flown from Santo Domingo, Laurel remembered, via Miami. He probably was starving. She decided to forgive him.

Neither talked much as they ate. She mentioned hearing that a mutual acquaintance from college had decided to go back to graduate school. “Oh, and I got an e-mail from Nadia. I haven’t heard from her in ages.”

“Your choice, as I recall.”

It had been. At first Laurel had turned to her best friends, but finally one day she’d looked at herself in the mirror and saw what they did: a woman who bore no resemblance to the Laurel they’d known in college. There was a Before, and an After, and the After was a painful contrast. It was easier, somehow, to be with people who hadn’t known the Before version. Who didn’t ask difficult questions, didn’t look puzzled at her new timidity, didn’t keep expecting her to become herself again. Old friends had refused to understand that this was who she was now, that the old Laurel had died that night in the parking garage. So she made new friends, like Matt Baker. They knew she had been raped and that she hadn’t gone back to law school, but didn’t see the painful contrast. She could feel comfortable with them in a way she would never be able to again with people like Nadia and even Caleb.