Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) (47 page)

“Uh…four weeks ago. Due any day. You think it’s PMS? That’s how I feel. Probably it.” I’d been stupid to come, and stupider to imagine I was sick. I was just looking for excuses to lie in bed and sleep, that was the truth.

“Mm,” she said. Another doctor noise. “Why don’t you lie down here and let me take a look?”

When she started poking and pressing under my attractive paper gown, though, I tensed. “I’m not pregnant,” I said. “I’m on the Pill, remember?”

“Uh-huh.” She was focusing on the eye chart on one wall, her fingers still moving, and very uncomfortable they were. And then she rolled away, snapped off the gloves, tossed them in the trash, and said, “But you’re pregnant anyway.”

Talk about not being able to breathe.
“What?
I can’t be.”

“About eight weeks, I’d say, but you’ll be able to get a more exact due date once you see an OB/GYN. Not my specialty.”

“I had a period,” I reminded her.
No.
Not possible. “There’s got to be something else.”

Oh, God. A tumor. I had a tumor on my ovary, or in my uterus, more likely. And if it was already affecting my overall health—that wasn’t good at all. My mom had gone so fast. So very fast.

Karen.

Dr. Galbraith pulled back the edge of the gown and checked out my breasts. “Tender here?” she asked when I winced. “Sore? Swollen? Got some tingles?”

“Well, yes, but…PMS.”

She slipped the gown back into place and gave me a pat on the arm. “Nope. Those are pregnant breasts, kiddo. We’ll do a blood test, or if you need the proof right now, you can go pee on a stick. Or you can save yourself twenty bucks, because there’s not going to be any different answer to this one.”

“But my period,” I insisted again, even as my heart started to do a tango. If I hadn’t already been lying down, I’d have
fallen
down.

“Uh-huh. Let me guess. It wasn’t heavy.”

“Well, no. But…the Pill.”

“Implantation spotting. Good news is that you’re halfway through your first trimester already, and you’re probably not going to get any sicker. At least, that’s good news if you want to keep it. If you don’t, you probably want to get moving. I can give you a referral for an abortion, but sooner would be much better there.”

“But how?” I asked again, as if it would make a difference.

She seemed to agree, because she said, “Doesn’t really matter, does it? Pregnant is pregnant.”

Eventually, we figured it out. I’d had some dental work done before we’d gone to New Zealand, and I’d taken antibiotics. “One guess,” she said. “The dentist didn’t mention that they’d interfere with the Pill. Middle-aged guy?”

“Yes.” I barely knew what I was saying. My head kept trying to float away from my body.

“For future reference?” she said. “Backup contraception with antibiotics, please.”

“That’s great to know. Now.”

“What about the baby’s father?” She glanced at my ring. “Is it your fiancé?”

I almost laughed. What, like Hemi’s sperm wouldn’t have duked it out with anybody else’s, and won? “Yes.”

“Remember, your choice is your own. If you’re feeling pressured, if you’re feeling unsafe, talk to me. Meanwhile,” she added before I could tell her that, no, I’d never be unsafe, and that she didn’t know the meaning of ‘pressured,’ “take this.”

You’re Pregnant,
the double-sided flyer read.
Now What?

Now what indeed.

I took the subway home again at the height of rush hour, and this time, when I had to swallow back nausea for the four stops when I was pressed up against a strapholding guy in a tank top, his armpit practically in my face, at least I knew the reason for it.

I longed, suddenly, for New Zealand. For cool green grass and the impossibly exotic creations that were fern trees. For endless green vegetation and clear air. For a wide ocean and a wild wind and an empty beach. For a life that wasn’t mine.

When I got home, I checked my emails. No responses to my applications, except a chipper note from Nathan that he’d asked his dad, and there might be something for me. In banking.

Tomorrow,
I thought, and went into the kitchen to microwave a potato, which had turned out to be one of the few things I could manage. Let’s hope a baby could grow on yogurt and baked potatoes.

I was going to have a baby. Hemi’s baby. Hemi’s son, or his daughter.

I sat at the table with my potato chopped into tiny pieces and ate it one slow bite at a time as my throat threatened to close. And when I got up to wash my plate, my shaking hand hit my mother’s vase and knocked it into the sink.

It was as if it happened in slow motion. The tall white vase wobbled, tipped, and fell. My hand followed after it, grabbed for it, and found only air. And then my last reminder, my best thing—it hit the hard white ceramic sink and split in two.

I set down the plate I still held, lifted out the sharp-edged pieces with a trembling hand, set them on the counter, and tried to breathe.

I wanted to rewind. I wanted a do-over. I wanted…I wanted none of it to be true. My hands were gripping the edge of the counter, and I looked at what I’d done and cried.

My mother’s vase was fractured, broken right down the middle, and so was my life. I was pregnant, and I was alone. I’d left Karen behind, and I’d lost Hemi. It was all my fault, and I couldn’t fix it.

I cried because Hemi had left me alone, and knew I was the one who had left. I cried because he hadn’t called me, and remembered that I was the one who’d asked him not to. And I cried because he hadn’t taken me for a walk, and he hadn’t sent me flowers. Not once. Not ever, since I’d moved in with him.

And, yes, the other part of me knew that was all completely unfair and insisted on reminding me of how busy and stressed he was, and of everything he’d done for Karen and me. But still. He’d said he wanted me, but only on his terms. Only if I stayed right there and did exactly what he wanted and was in his bed every night when he finally showed up.

I was going to have his baby, and I was a hot mess who wasn’t even ready to be a good partner, let alone anybody’s mother. And I’d broken my mother’s vase.

Finally, I stopped crying. I had no tears left, and they wouldn’t have helped anyway. I blew my nose, washed my face, picked up my phone, and made a call. And after that? I packed my suitcase.

Hemi

It was after eight by the time I was standing outside Hope’s building. I pressed the buzzer, and then I pressed it again, and then I leaned into it. And when nothing happened again, I did the thing I hadn’t done all along. I used the key.

I hadn’t used it so far, had I? I’d respected her wishes, but I wasn’t respecting this. If she was ill…

Suddenly, I knew she
was
ill. All those weeks last autumn, when Karen had grown ever weaker and sicker, what had Hope done? She’d kept working, had cared for her sister, had sat up with her, had dealt with everything life had thrown at her. She’d grown paler, and she’d grown thinner, but she’d kept going. Now, she couldn’t stay awake past nine. It had happened so gradually, I hadn’t noticed it. Or maybe I’d stopped noticing her at all.

I’d given her a bracelet, and a ring, and a pendant. I’d sent her roses, again and again. And then she’d moved in with me, and I’d given her nothing but sex. I hadn’t even given her my attention. I’d barely been willing to take a walk with her—once, in a month. No wonder she hadn’t thought she could tell me she was ill.

Now, I finally pulled out the key Charles had had cut so he could have her apartment emptied, all those weeks ago. Four flights of stairs later, I was flipping on the lights in a dim apartment, and seeing nothing.

No dishes on the counter. No more dust on the floors. A made-up bed. Everything was clean, and it was tidy. Except for one thing. Two pieces of white ceramic, sitting by the sink. I picked them up, fitted them together, and set them down again.

She’d broken the vase. And she’d left it there like it didn’t matter.

I moved on, then. When I opened the single closet in the living room, it was empty. A row of wire hangers stared back at me, and that was all.

I didn’t even know when she’d left. It could have been days. The panic tried to seize me at the thought. She could be anywhere. She could be in danger.

No,
my mind finally caught up enough to say. She’d talked to Karen every night. She’d taken her clothes. She was gone from
here,
that was all.

I pulled out my phone to call her, and it rang in my hand. It wasn’t Hope, though. It was Karen.

“Hemi?” She didn’t sound a bit like her usual breezy self. “Hope just left. She came right after you left, and she said…” Her voice wobbled. “I said I wouldn’t call you, but I am anyway. She’s going to be pretty mad, because I promised.”

“What? She was there?” The relief was trying to make me shake. “Good, because I’m here, at the apartment.” She’d, what? Come back to me, then decided to leave again? That was all right. If she’d come back once, she could do it again. I’d stay here until she turned up and make it happen. Even if I had to apologize.

“But she’s not going
back
to the apartment,” Karen said. “She came on her way out to tell you. And to get me. But I wouldn’t go, and she was crying, and…Hemi.” Karen was crying herself, a great gulping sob that made her sound about four. “I feel so
bad.
Should I have gone?”

“Where?” The hair on my arms was rising.
To hospital,
the voices said.
You’ve been focused on everything else, and she’s been getting sicker all the time.

“To New Zealand,” Karen said. “Koro told her to come. He told her to come now. And she left. Twenty minutes ago. She’s on her way to the airport.”

Hemi

“It’s all right,” I managed to tell Karen. “I’ll go get her. Did she say which airport? Which airline?”

“Um…no. She just said she was going. I’m sorry. I couldn’t even
think.
I was just surprised. And I know I should have gone with her, because she’ll be all alone, and she never left
me
alone. And I’m with you, and I’m thinking…is it awkward? I know you’re able to sign things and stuff, but you probably think I should go. I should probably go.”

“No,” I said. “You shouldn’t. I want you to stay. And never mind. I’ll bring her back, even if I have to go to New Zealand after her. She won’t be alone. And neither will you,” I thought to add. “If I have to leave you here, I’ll get Debra or Inez to come stay. Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll take care of it.”

I rang off, then, and tried Hope’s number. Three rings. Four. And voicemail.

The frustration rose, and the anger came with it. “Call me,” I said. “You were going to leave without even telling me? You’re not doing that. We’re talking about this. We’re dealing with it.”

Except we weren’t, because I was saying all that into a box. I rang off once again, but I was out of the apartment, locking the door, and taking the stairs two at a time as my fingers pushed another button.

This time, there was no wait. Two rings, and I heard the slow old voice saying, “Hemi. I wondered how long it would take.”

I reached the bottom of the stairs, pushed my way out of the door, and realized I’d left Charles circling the block.
Bloody hell.
“Why did you tell Hope to leave me?” I asked, not bothering to hide my anger with him, even though expressing it went against everything I’d ever been taught. But then, I was apparently wrong all over the shop, so what was one more? “Did she tell you she’s ill? Did she mention that? Why would you encourage her?”