Danielle Steel - Heartbeat

She wanted to go to the airport to meet his plane on Friday night, but in the end she had to work late, and she didn't see him until she got back to the apartment. He was unpacking his bags and watching TV, the stereo was on, and the whole place had come to life again now that Steven was home from Chicago. He was humming to himself when she walked in and he smiled when he saw her.

“Hi, there …where've you been?”

“At work, as usual.” She grinned nervously, and slowly she approached him, but when he put his arms around her, she held him close, as though she might drown if she left him for an instant.

“Baby …what's wrong?” He had known something was wrong all week, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. She looked all right to him now, and then suddenly, with a feeling of dismay, he wondered if she might have been fired and was embarrassed to tell him. Maybe with his own job going so well, she was just afraid to say it. And it was such a good job, too, he was really going to be sorry for her if she lost it. “Is it work? …is …” He stopped when he saw the look in her eyes. He didn't know what it was, but he knew instantly that something serious had happened. He pulled her down on the bed next to him with his arm around her, wanting to offer her all the support he could. He could afford to now, his own life was going so well, and Mike had already told him that he would get a huge promotion if the agency actually landed IMFAC. “What is it?”

Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him, and for a moment she couldn't bring herself to say the words. This should have been the happiest moment of their married life, and yet because of the things he had said to her in the past, this was instead their most frightening moment.

“Were you fired?”

She laughed through her tears as she shook her head at him. “No, unfortunately. Sometimes I think that might be a relief.” But he didn't take her seriously. He knew how much she loved her job. It was a great job. He knew that.

“Are you sick?”

She shook her head more slowly this time, and her eyes locked on his with quiet desperation. “No, I'm not …” And then she took a quick breath and prayed that he would accept it. “I'm pregnant.”

There was an endless silence in the room where she could hear her own heart pound and his breathing as he held her, and then suddenly he wrenched away and stood up to look down at her with quiet desperation. “You're not serious, are you, Adrian?”

“Yes, I am.” She had known it would be a shock to him. It had been a shock to her, too, but it had been an honest error.

“Did you deceive me?”

She shook her head solemnly. “No, I didn't. It just happened.”

“That's unfortunate.” Something in his face turned to ice, and as Adrian looked at him, she felt awash with panic. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“That's too bad,” he said quietly with a look of intense chagrin. “I'm sorry, Adrian. That's rotten luck.”

“I wouldn't exactly call it luck,” she said. “We had a little something to do with it, you know.”

He nodded, feeling sorry for her, and himself. “I guess you'll have to take care of it next week.” Her blood ran cold as she looked at him. It was that simple to him. Take care of it But it wasn't that simple for her anymore as she stared at her husband.

“What does that mean?”

“You know what it means. We can't have a baby, for God's sake, you know that.”

“Why not? Is there something I don't know about? Some terrible hereditary disease, are we planning a trip to the moon? Is there some reason why we can't have a baby?”

“Yes. A very good one.” He looked adamant suddenly as they stood facing each other across their bedroom. “We agreed a long time ago that we didn't want to have kids. And I thought we both meant it.”

“But why not? There's no real reason why we can't have kids.” She looked at him pleadingly. “We both have good jobs. We have a good life. We could support a baby easily on our income.”

“Do you have any idea how much children cost? Education, clothes, medical. And it wouldn't be fair to bring an unwanted child into our life. No, Adrian, it is not right.” He looked terrified, even more so as he saw that he hadn't convinced her. She knew how extreme he was in his views because of the poverty of his own youth, but their life was entirely different.

“Money isn't everything. We have time and love and a nice home and each other. What more do you need than that?”

“The desire to have them,” he said quietly, “and I don't have that. I never have. I don't want children, Adrian. I never have and I never will. I told you that before we got married, and if you turn on me now, I'm not going to stand still for it. You have to get rid of that …” He hesitated but only for an instant. “…the pregnancy.” He refused to call it a baby.

“And what if I don't want to?”

“You'd be a fool if you didn't, Adrian. You have a shot at a great career yourself, if you set your mind to it, and there's no way you can do what you do and have a baby.”

“I can take a leave-of-absence for six months and then go back. A lot of women do it.”

“Yeah, and eventually they give up their careers, have two more kids and become housewives. And in the end, they hate themselves and their children for it.” He was voicing the worst of her fears, but she still thought it was worth taking a chance and having the baby. She didn't want to give it up just because it was easier not having children. So what if they weren't millionaires? Why did everything have to be so goddam perfect? And why couldn't he understand what she was feeling?

“I think we ought to think about it for a while, before we do anything drastic that we might both regret later.” She had friends who had had abortions and hated themselves for it, and admittedly, others who hadn't. But Steven didn't agree with her.

“Believe me, Adrian,” he gentled his voice a little bit and took a step closer to her, “you won't regret it. When you think about it afterward, you'll be relieved. This thing could be a serious threat to our marriage.” This “thing” was their baby. The baby she had come to love in the four days she had known of its existence.

“We don't have to let it be a threat to our marriage.” Tears started to fill her eyes as she leaned against him. “Steven, please …don't make me do this …please. …”

“I'm not making you do anything.” He sounded annoyed as he walked around their bedroom like a caged animal. He felt threatened to his very core, and deeply frightened. “I'm just telling you that this is a rotten piece of luck, and a bit of insanity to even consider going through with it. Our lives are at stake. For God's sake, do what you have to.”

“Why do you have to see it that way? Why is a baby such a big threat?” She didn't understand why he felt so radical about it, she never had. He had always regarded children as if they were the threat of enemy invasion.

“You have no idea what kids can do to your life, Adrian. I do. I saw it in my own family. My parents never had anything. My mother had one lousy pair of shoes, one pair of shoes for my entire childhood. She made everything she could and then we used it till it fell apart, or the clothes fell off our backs. We didn't have books or dolls or toys. We didn't have anything, except poverty and each other.” She felt sorry, and it must have been terrible, but it had nothing to do with the reality of their lives, and somehow he refused to understand that.

“I'm sorry that happened to you. But our children would never have to live like that. We both make healthy salaries and there's enough for us and a baby to live more than comfortably.”