A Xmas Gift: The Sperm Donor (10 page)

“She is in a very fragile state right now, Mr. Morgan. We will be waiting outside. If you think you’ll run into any trouble or if she starts getting emotional and you think you can’t deal with it, I want you to call us.”

A lump bolts up Justin’s throat. He makes no attempt to chase it away.

“All right,” he says. “Have you called anyone else? Her father?”

“No. You were listed as her emergency contact. No one else.” Dr. Killeney pauses. “I’ll leave it to you to inform her family.”

They lead him up to the medical ward. Along the way, they pass nurses and doctors and interns and medical attendants, all going about their business. Some of them glance at the handsome but untidy-looking man as they stream by.

They know
, he thinks dully.
They know I’m responsible for this.

He pauses outside a single room, his pulse all aflutter. He’s scared. No, he’s more than scared. He’s terrified.

“Go on,” the nurse urges him. “And remember, we’re outside.”

Justin raps once on the door and nervously wrenches the handle.

Abby lies on the hospital bed. She is pale and wan and barely awake. Her eyes flutter open weakly at his entrance.

“Abby?” He slowly takes a chair and seats himself by her bedside. His heart is hammering in his chest.

The back of her hand is marred by an intravenous drip, whose branula is taped down by white surgical plaster. She raises it and moves her fingers in a semblance of a grip. Justin takes her hand gently and squeezes her fingers.

“I thought you would never come back,” she whispers.

“I’m here.”

Abby’s eyes are bloodshot and the areas beneath them wear dark circles.

“Say you’ll never leave me again.” Her voice is tinny and strangled. “Please, Justin. I would die without you.”

He sits there desperately, letting her hold on to the lifeline of his hand.

*

Justin makes sure Abby is stable before he leaves the hospital. He has spent the whole day with her, and with her permission, called her parents. He knows her father will blame him.

And he was right.

Thaddeus Morton glares at him as he whisks past Justin to go into Abby’s room with her mother. Justin watches through the small window carved into the door. Abby’s mother is crying, and her father is not far from tears himself. Justin forces himself to move away. He’s painfully hungry. It’s already eleven and he hasn’t eaten anything since last night.

As he walks towards the cafeteria, he rings Elise.

She picks up immediately. “Justin, is everything all right?”

Grimly, he tells her what happened. She listens without interrupting.

“I see,” she says in the end.

“Elise, what happened between us was special and real . . . but I can’t leave her like this right now.”

“I understand.” She pauses. “So what about the . . . contract? The baby?”

His conscience is weighted down by anchors.

He says, “I hope that whatever we did last night was enough to get you . . . ”

“Pregnant,” she finishes for him. “Yes, your Christmas gift to me. Thank you very much.” Her tone comes off bitter.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.”

“I know.”

“It’s just that she’s really vulnerable right now and I can’t leave her like this.”

“I totally understand. Say no more, Justin.”

A long silence hangs between them.

“I want to see you again one last time,” he says simply.

She sighs. “It’s best that you don’t. You’ve made your choice, Justin.”

“It isn’t my choice.”

“Then when would it stop?”

“Elise – ”

“No, you listen to me. When is she going to stop holding you to emotional blackmail? Every time you don’t do what she wants, she holds you at gunpoint and threatens to kill herself.”

He feels like he has been slammed in the face. “It’s not every time. She hasn’t done this before. But that’s because I haven’t broken up with her before.”

“It’s the truth.”

“What about you? You never did tell me about your ex-husband. Every time a man does wrong by you, you give up on men completely? You don’t want a husband, you say. You want a child. You don’t want me in the picture. I leave Abby, she kills herself, and you don’t want me anyway. So what do you expect me to do?”

“I didn’t say that,” she says softly.

Justin closes his eyes and leans against a doorway. People passing him eye him strangely.

“What did your ex do to you? Beat you up?”

“No. But he did . . . other things,” she says.

He can sense her shrinking away on the other side.

“And you’re telling me I’ll do those other things to you too? That’s why you don’t want me? Because of what I
might
do?”

Her voice is filled with pain. “No, never.”

He feels torn apart, like the fabric of a curtain that is ripped right in the middle. He feels quartered and drawn, pulled in all limbs by invisible horses.

“Look, I’ll get out of this hospital in a couple of hours. Give me time to shower, change and eat. Then let’s meet and talk. What about tonight?”

She hesitates before saying, “All right.”

“I’ll pick you up at your inn at seven thirty.”

He hopes Abby and her over-possessive parents will let him get away for an hour or so.

16

When Justin pulls up at the inn, he goes to the reception. The Indian guy from yesterday night recognizes him.

“Hello,” he says brightly, “I hope you are feeling much better, sir.”

“I am. Thank you.” Justin strides to the stairway.

“Um, if you are looking for Ms. Ratner, she has checked out, sir.”

Justin stops in his tracks. “What? When?”

“Seven hours ago. She asked me to call a taxi for the airport.”

Justin groans inwardly. He whips out his cellphone and dials Elise’s number, but it goes straight to voicemail.

17

At Heathrow airport, Elise finds herself looking over her shoulder now and again as she lines up for her departure boarding pass. She has discarded her London prepaid SIM card because it ran out of credits.

I’m being a drama queen
, she thinks.

But what she feels for Justin is so complex that she can’t even begin to outline it. She loves him. She has no doubt about that now. But he is in a very difficult position right now. On one hand, she would like to believe that he feels something for her. Maybe not yet love, but his words seem to intimate that he thinks he would like to explore something further.

If only it weren’t for Abigail Morton.

And yet . . . does she really want to be with another man for keeps?

She remembers what Leonard, her ex-husband, did to her in the brief time they were together. She had married him out of a lark – out of loneliness. For the sake of having someone to share things with. He was funny and successful and rich and handsome. In the first couple of months, he had been tender and gentle. Then his sexual demands escalated. He practically wanted sex with her every night, even when she was sore.

Soon, he progressed to wanting anal sex, and he had forced himself upon her when she didn’t capitulate to his demands. One night, he tied her up and sodomized her.

That was when, weeping, she fled to the police station and reported him for rape.

No, she would never want to go through that again.

But Justin wasn’t Leonard. He’s the opposite of Leonard. He never was, and he never will be.

“There you go, Miss,” says the guy at the counter. He hands her the boarding pass. “28C.”

“Thank you.”

She picks up her overnight bag and looks around again. Who is she kidding? If she is expecting Justin to run after her in a crowded airport like romantic heroes do in the movies, she has got to be deluding herself.

She slowly makes her way to the departure gates. No one calls out her name. There is no commotion, no parting crowd to let someone through.

As she enters customs, she surveys the throngs once again, and resigns herself to the fact that Justin belongs to someone else.

17

Christmas morning dawns bright and cheery, for once. Because of Abby’s illness, they have decided to celebrate Christmas morning by opening their presents at her family’s home.

The Mortons live in a gorgeous rambling house in Hampstead. A fire crackles in the heath, and the entire living room is bedecked with stockings and mistletoe and Christmas paraphernalia. A huge Christmas tree groaning with a hundred glittering decorations sits in one corner, and the gaily wrapped presents beneath it extend several feet out upon the plush white carpet.

Outside, it is snowing.

Justin stares out of the window, wondering what Elise is doing back in Arizona. Would she be celebrating Christmas with her parents? He pictures her gruff, chain-smoking father and her apple-cheeked mother (who is apple-cheeked not from natural rosiness but a skin condition called rosacea, unfortunately), who have both been extremely kind to him.

Is Elise knocked up by now?

He debates whether or not to call her, and then decides – hell, let’s not revisit something that is going to open up a whole bunch of painful memories. Elise has decided to close the door upon him by leaving, and he will respect that.

Abby is seated cross-legged upon the floor by the tree. She is in a purple turtleneck sweater and tartan slacks. Her skin is still pale from lack of sun, but she is laughing as she carefully undoes the wrapper to one of her presents. Thaddeus and Emily Morton are chatting lovingly to each other upon the couch while two of their college-aged children enthusiastically test out their new Kindle Fires.

What am I doing here?
Justin wonders. Then his gaze alights upon Abby.

Oh yes. I’m snared in the vise grip of a guilt trip.

It sure works though. There’s no way he can leave Abby while she’s still on suicide watch.

Abby squeals. He winces, although he’s glad she’s looking so much chipper.

“Oh my God, Daddy, is this for real?” She holds up a Cartier box and takes out a diamond-encrusted watch that dazzles in the sunlight streaming from the windows.

Uh oh, guilt present.

“Anything for you, sweetheart.” Her father holds out his arms, beaming, and she gladly comes into them.

Justin watches as Abby’s parents exchange loving hugs with her. That’s why you can’t compete, he tells himself. With a father like that, she expects nothing but absolute dedication from her lover.

Abby’s eyes glitter with unusual excitement as she looks at Justin.

“Daddy, Mummy, I have something to announce.”

The cold hand of dread grips Justin. Both her brothers look up from their Kindles – a feat in itself.

Abby continues, “Right here, in front of everyone, I’m going to say something.”

She pauses.

“I know the past few weeks have been trying for all of us, especially me. I’ve been cut up and upset, but I’m better now. I’m taking my meds and I’m seeing the psychologist daily . . . and like I said, I’m really better now.”

A palpable silence descends upon the room.

She’s laying it thick, Justin realizes. Reminding everyone of how psychologically fragile she is. Why can he see through her so clearly and yet he’s helpless to do anything about it? Because he knows he’s
not
really being played? That she is every bit as psychologically needy and damaged as she appears to be?

She laughs. “So in front of everyone present, I would like to perform a little role reversal before, you know, I lose my nerve. Life is transient. My stay in the hospital has taught me that. So, like my psychologist says, I should seize the day before sunset comes, as corny as that may sound.”

Her intense gaze scorches a hole in his face once again.

“Justin,” she says, her voice trembling, “will you marry me?”

18

Elise is spending Christmas morning with her parents. The whole family has come home for Christmas from whatever state they are working or studying in, and the house is a rustic, festive affair filled with the redolent smells of cookies and punch.

Her family home was always such a happy house. She would like to keep it that way, and so no mention is made of Leonard or what she has tried to accomplish with Justin.

“Sweetheart, are you all right?” her mother says.

Elise looks away from the window. She smiles. “I’m OK, Mom.”

Her dark-haired, pretty mother with the always slightly flushed cheeks that used to amuse Justin so much (“so she’s got a skin condition, what’s the big deal?”) takes her arm.