A Promise for the Baby. Jennifer Lohmann

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      No fewer than ten people, not including the gruff waitstaff, came to their table to say hello. Each time, he introduced her as his wife, accepted their congratulations, ignored their looks of surprise with ease and asked about their families. She’d started to wonder if the taciturn man she shared an apartment with had fallen into the twilight zone and been replaced by a politician. Then she’d noticed his glad-handing didn’t extend to his eyes. He smiled, but the twinkle wasn’t there. Her husband played Mr. Important out in public, but he didn’t enjoy it.

      The man next to her in the waiting room, silent, steady and present, was the natural Karl.

      “What are all the forms for?”

      “Everything.” She handed the clipboard to him, embarrassed to be sharing her complete medical history with a man she barely knew. But he was going to learn more about her as soon as they got into the doctor’s office so why hide it now? Jelly Bean was his baby, too. “Family medical history. Vitamins I take. Past illnesses. My doctor in Vegas hasn’t sent over all my records yet, but I think they’d make me fill everything out, anyway.”

      “You missed information here.”

      She looked at the space he was pointing to. “I don’t remember how old I was when I had my first period.”

      Karl’s head jerked and he started to blush. “I guess, I didn’t, I mean...”

      This time she put the supportive hand on his knee. “It’s okay. We have one night of sex and now my menstrual cycle has become important to both of us.” She chuckled because her other option was to cry. “When we leave this office, I probably won’t have any secrets left.”

      “Why’d you come to me instead of finding your father?”

      Of course, she couldn’t blame him for asking the question—she’d practically invited it—but still Vivian tried to pull her hand off his knee. He stopped her, placing his hand on top of hers and keeping it there. She could feel his touch all the way down to her toes.

      “I thought I should tell you about the child in person,” she said. It was the same stupid reason she always gave him.

      “So, still some secrets.” Someday, she knew, he wasn’t going to let it slide.

      “Yes.” And she would keep those secrets as long as she could. He needed to know about her health and her body because the child growing inside her was his as well as hers. He didn’t need to know how she’d waited until the last minute to decide not to sell her integrity, and how the fates had punished her anyway.

      “You said you wanted me here. I can go back to my office if you need the privacy.”

      “No. We’re a team on this—” if on nothing else “—and I’d like a friend.”

      * * *

      IN THE SMALL exam room, Karl turned his back to give Vivian privacy while she changed into the hospital gown. He cracked the door once she had changed, then took a seat in a chair while she sat on the examination table, swinging her feet in the air. The false intimacy of the exam room, combined with the very real consequences of their night of sexual intimacy, made for an awkward situation.

      “Oh, the father is here,” the doctor said as she walked into the room. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

      Karl had felt discomfited enough as the only man in the waiting room without the doctor commenting on his presence in that chipper voice people use to inform their dogs a walk is coming. But the woman didn’t seem to notice his discomfort—or she didn’t care—and the visit wasn’t about him, anyway.

      “Considering how many times I hear people say ‘we’re pregnant,’ I almost never see the father.” His head jerked up when the doctor sat and patted them both on the knees. She looked old enough to be his grandmother, but he hadn’t expected her to treat them like children. “Good.” Pat. “This should be a partnership.” Pat. “And I expect this means both of you will be abstaining from coffee, alcohol, soft cheese and lunch meats.” Pat. “It’s not fair for the mother to bear those burdens alone.”

      He knew about the coffee and alcohol. He hadn’t known about the cheese. How much feta had been in the Middle Eastern food he’d brought home? Had Vivian picked it out? Had she eaten it? Was it even a soft cheese? Karl glanced at her and she lifted her eyebrows in what he expected was supposed to be reassurance, but he still felt as if he was swimming through a bizarre dream the consistency of gelatin and the color of black coffee—with grounds trapped beside him in the jelly.

      “So.” The doctor clapped her hands. “I imagine you have lots of questions...”

      How had offering a drink to an attractive woman at a hotel bar in Las Vegas led to him sitting in an exam room with a stranger in a hospital gown?

      “...let me tell you what’s going to happen at this exam, and you can ask all the questions you want when we’re done.”

      Now was probably not the best time to ask that question—or to ask when he was going to wake up. Although, he cocked his head to the side and caught sight of Vivian’s pink toenails as they swayed in and out of his vision, the dream didn’t really seem terrible. Still bizarre, but not definitively bad.

      “The last thing we’ll do is an internal ultrasound. It’s early yet, so you won’t see much, but we might get to listen to the heartbeat.”

      “The fetus has a heartbeat?” Karl asked, and immediately felt stupid.

      “If the date of your last period is right, the fetus may have a detectible heartbeat. Don’t worry, Dad.” The doctor patted his knee again. “People ask questions when they’re scared and sometimes they’re silly questions. Babies are scary and they’re also wonderful. Stick with your beautiful wife, here, and you’ll be fine.”

      Vivian’s legs had stopped swinging and her lips had pursed as though she might cry. Or—he reevaluated the brightness of her eyes—burst into laughter. He wasn’t the only one who found this scene ridiculous.

      The exam was reinforcing all the many things he didn’t know about his wife. He’d seen the stranger he’d married in a hospital gown, knew she couldn’t remember the age at which she had her first period and knew she’d been exposed to a lot of secondhand smoke on her job. He didn’t know why Vivian had lost her job, why her father was missing or why she wouldn’t tell him about her pregnancy. Until she told the doctor, he hadn’t realized she spent most of her days walking around the city when she wasn’t applying for jobs and cleaning up after the stupid bird.

      These were the repercussions of having a child with a stranger. These strange half intimacies of hearing her describe how regular her menstruation had been—really, did such details matter now that she was actually pregnant?—but not knowing if she’d ever gone to college defined their relationship.

      Vivian and the doctor were talking about genetic testing, but Karl only heard half of it. This wasn’t how he’d planned to have a baby. When he’d sat at the hotel bar knocking back whiskey and waiting to die because being older than his father was inconceivable, he’d thought back on what he’d accomplished in his life.

      And he’d come up short, which had probably been the alcohol and his thirty-ninth birthday talking. He had a job that was more than just important to him, it was important to the СКАЧАТЬ