My Babies and Me

Well, that was okay then.

Michael fell down to the couch beside her, feeling a little drunk, though he’d only had the one shot. “Thank God.”

Only him. In her entire life. He started to grin.

She grazed his face with one slim hand. “Would it really have mattered so much if there was someone in Cincinnati?” Her words were soft, easy, but the light in her eyes was soul-deep.

“It would.” In seven years’ time, they’d never discussed fidelity. Or infidelity, either.

“I’m glad.”

Pulling her into his arms, Michael held her, wondering if they’d just made some kind of crazy commitment in this relationship that wasn’t. And hoping, irrationally, that they had.

Slowly, though, as he sat listening to her breathing in the quiet of the night, Michael’s mind started to clear. He still had his good news to share. But first...

“Why did you say you were going to have a baby if you aren’t?” he asked, frowning in the near darkness.

“Who says I’m not?” She turned to look at him.

“You just did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Susan...” His tension was building again. “You just said—”

“That I’m not pregnant,” she finished for him. “But I’m going to be.”

“When?”

“Soon, I hope.”

Aghast, he stared at her. “Why?”

“Because I want to be.”

“But...” He was adrift. Lost. He stared at a scrap of paper he’d been doodling on earlier and left on the coffee table. “...then you’d have a child.”

“I know.” It was the quiet conviction in Susan’s words that got to him. And scared the hell out of him. Who was this woman? Susan didn’t want children.

Did she?

“Will you give me a baby, Michael?”

Michael jumped up again. “No!” He hadn’t meant the word to be so loud—so harsh. “You’re kidding, right?” It was late; she’d been working long hours. That must be it.

As soon as she started to shake her head, Michael looked away.

“Please try to understand, Michael.”

Looking back at her, he nodded. He wanted to understand.

“Having a baby is something I’ve always planned to do.”

“Since when?”

“Since before you and I were married.”

“And you don’t think I should have known about this?”

“Probably, but we were young. We had so many goals.” She shrugged. “Neither one of us wanted a child then.”

“But you planned to have one later.” He was trying to understand. He really was.

“By the time I was forty.”

“You never mentioned it because you weren’t planning to stay married to me?” He supposed the question was a bit ludicrous considering that they weren’t married, but had she gone into the marriage knowing it wouldn’t last?

“I just figured that once we’d both done what we had to do, reached our career goals, we’d be ready to talk about having a family.”

He nodded. At least she hadn’t been planning their divorce before she’d even married him. And they’d never actually said they were never going to have children. He’d just assumed, since she was as career-driven as he was—since she put job above all else and completely accepted the fact that he did, too—he’d just assumed she didn’t want a family as much as he didn’t want one.

Maybe he knew her better than she knew herself.

Sitting down beside her, Michael once again took her in his arms. Having her there with him was the only thing that felt right, natural... normal.

“Susan, honey, you’re at a particularly vulnerable time in your life. A time when people make rash decisions. And then spend the next twenty years regretting them.”

“Don’t patronize me, Michael.” She pulled away from him, one-hundred percent intimidating attorney, even while wearing nothing more than his shirt. “I am not going through a midlife crisis.”

“It’s perfectly natural.”

“And I’m not going through one.”

“Most people don’t realize that they are.”

“And do they start them in their twenties?”

“You can’t honestly consider some half-baked thought you once had about having a child as proof that you really wanted it. If you did, why’d you wait so long?”

“Because I knew I could afford to wait. That I needed to wait.” Her eyes pleaded with him to take her seriously. “The thought, even back then, wasn’t half-baked.”

“How can you be so sure about a decision like this?”

“Remember when I went to Kentucky that weekend before we got married?”

“Of course.” He’d been scared to death she was going to change her mind.

“I went because I was having second thoughts. I was afraid that by marrying you, I was going to lose me.”