Having Nathan's Baby (14 page)

Chapter Ten

Christmas seemed to arrive with no notice whatsoever. One minute it had been Thanksgiving, and I’d been wearing a cute little black dress and throwing myself into the festivities with bold determination. Then suddenly it was snowing, and slushy, and nothing fitted anymore, and I was heaving through shoppers trying to find a maternity dress to wear to Lauren’s on Christmas Day. I found an empire waist dress – which seemed to be my only option in terms of style these days – and then went in search of shoes. By the time I’d circled the pumps section, I had to sit down. Even the notion of trying them on seemed exhausting. I realized I wasn’t looking forward to the big Christmas Day bash at my sister’s.

Since when hadn’t
I enjoyed Christmas? Usually it was held at my parents’ brownstone instead of Lauren’s elegant apartment, but this year wouldn’t be so different: all of the family, nuclear and extended, would be there, dressed up, having fun. It was normally my favorite time of year. I loved seeing all of my cousins and sharing stories and swapping gossip. This year I felt like skipping the event all together. I wondered if my parents would let my use their summer house out in the Hamptons to hide out for a while, but then dismissed the idea; they’d immediately presume I was being maudlin and anti-social. They were unimpressed enough as it was by the pregnancy and my refusal to discuss the situation with Nathan.

I
stared around at the excited shoppers. I tried to recharge my enthusiasm via their bustle. A few of the children made me smile, but my mind swung around to next Christmas and I wondered where I’d be. Would I be in this store again, carrying my son, looking for something to wear to my parents’ bash? Would I be alone? An image arrested my thought process: Nathan, waiting for me patiently in a changing room as he played with our tiny son. I inhaled sharply. The image lingered but I buried it with other thoughts, looking around for a distraction.

Eventually
I gave up on searching for new shoes. I didn’t need new shoes, I decided. My feet were still the same size. For the moment, anyway. I’d realized by this point that buying a new outfit was not going to build up my enthusiasm for the approaching festivities. Retail therapy was a bust, especially since I’d already bought and wrapped all of my gifts. Seeing my lunch hour was nearly over, I decided to head back to the office. I’d grab a salad on the way there, eat at my desk.

Lauren was waiting for
me in reception when I arrived. Lauren never usually came to my workplace. My empty stomach heaved. “Is everything okay?” I said, as I bustled my sister inside my warm, quiet office.

“I don’t know: is it?” Lauren sat down and gave
me a pointed stare. “No one’s heard from you since time began.”

False alarm.
I shook my head. “I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been avoiding us,” she said. “
If you’re avoiding us it means you’re hiding something, and I want to know what that is.”

“Lauren, I’m not sure
other families are like this.” Having slipped off my coat, I sat at my desk. “There’s usually a bit if small talk, and some hesitation before approaching sensitive subjects.”

Lauren made a sound of impatience.
“I don’t have time to be sensitive,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” Grabbing the salad from
my bag, I proceeded to open it noisily. As usual I was starving.

“Is everything okay health-wise? Have you been to all of the check-ups?”

I listened for a moment as the questions continued. I rummaged for the fork. I took a bite of the salad and nodded. “You know I’d tell you if I wasn’t okay,” I said with a full mouth, responding with instinctive patience to her concerns. I couldn’t help but add, “Anyway, you and Mum are the nation’s experts when it comes to pregnancy,” with a sarcastic lift of my brows.

“Is it work?”

“Lauren, I’m fine!” I insisted.

“Is it Nathan?”

My expression crumbled. Before I could stop them, scalding tears spurted from my eye sockets. I was as surprised by the development as Lauren clearly was. The salad turned to sawdust in my mouth. I had to put my hand in front on my mouth and force myself to swallow to stop from choking.

Lauren was on
her feet. “For goodness’ sake!” she said, making maternal sounds. “Why can’t we just talk about things like normal people, Chloe? It’s always fine, fine, fine – and then suddenly you’re a wreck and it’s about as far from fine as it could possibly be!”

“I am fine,”
I said. Subdued, I was taken aback by the wayward emotion. I brushed the tears back from my cheeks, remembering I was in the office. “You shouldn’t have come here. I’m at work-”

“You’re clearly not fine, and I had to come
here because you’ve been ignoring my messages,” Lauren said. “I barely get two words out of you on the phone-”

“I know, but I can’t talk right now.”
I beseeched my sister with my eyes. “I have meetings scheduled all afternoon. I can’t walk into them like this.”

“What’s going on?” Lauren sat on the e
dge of the desk. “I thought you guys had this long-distance co-parenting thing all worked out. Why are you so upset?”

I
sighed. My sister was like a dog with a bone when it came to fixing other people’s lives. How had I ended up here again? “He’s seeing someone,” I said. I sat back and digested this news; it was the first time I’d said it aloud. I pushed the salad away. “Or he was seeing someone. I haven’t heard from him in a while, but there was a bit of a scene…”

“
Another scene?”

“This
woman turned up at his house when I was there.” I cast Lauren a sheepish glance. “I was in bed.”

Lauren recoiled.
“Whoa … okay.”

“It wasn’t a big scene.
She left; I left afterwards. I’ve spoken to him by email a few times, just to send news on the baby,” I said, the words an effort.

I
didn’t mention that Nathan had asked me several times to meet with him. It just seemed so futile; I knew Lauren, with her eternal optimism, would berate me for refusing to see him. How could I explain? I wasn’t even angry anymore. I’d just realized that we were two very different people who wanted very different things from life. It hadn’t always been like that, but I hadn’t always been pregnant. I’d turned a corner. I wasn’t sure where it was taking me, but I was sure there was no way back.

“He was seeing both of you at the same time?”
Lauren asked.

I
turned my attention back to my sister. “No. He and I were never really…” What? In a relationship? In love? I swallowed again. “It was a misunderstanding. This pregnancy has confused everything-”

“Well, that’s an understatement if ever I heard one.” Lauren’s tone was dry,
her expression stoic. I shook my head in wonder. “So he’s with someone else?”

Tapping my laptop to life, I said,
“Lauren, I really have work to do-”

“I just find it weird that he’d hook up with someone else while you’re pregnant,” Lauren continued, undeterred. “I’m not saying I’ve ever understood your relationship, but he’s never struck me as that guy – you know? The one who sleeps around when he’s in a relationship-”

“How many times do I have to tell you that we’re not in a relationship?” I said, exasperated now.

“Not with you
,” Lauren countered, just as impatience. “– with this other woman, I mean. Who is she?”

I
exhaled. I opened my inbox, dismayed by the volume of unopened emails. Maybe if I just starting working, Lauren would eventually leave. “Her name’s Jennifer Gandy,” I said in distraction. “Her family owns some music label-”

“I know
her!” Lauren grabbed my arm. “Her brother is Amy’s violin teacher! The whole family is involved in music somehow. I’ve seen her – he’s mentioned her a few times, and I’ve seen my in the news-”

“Lauren, I’m happy for you.”

“No, I mean recently!” she said, and frowned. “She just moved to the UK. London.”

My
eyes darted from the laptop screen to my sister. Lauren was watching me with equal suspicion.

“
She’s starting up a new label there, or something like that.”

In the numb, silent seconds that followed this new
s it struck me that there were two scenarios here: the first, much more likely scenario where Nathan and Jennifer had indeed ended their relationship; the second scenario, which was absurd when I thought about it rationally, was that Jennifer and Nathan were still in a relationship and were planning to live together in the UK. Just the idea of that made me feel like I’d received a blow to the head.

Lauren, as usual, went with the rational scenario.
“It doesn’t sound to me like she’s in a relationship if she’s packing up and moving to a different continent.”

I had to agree, even if I didn’t dare to.
“I told you he was seeing someone – I didn’t say they were still together,” I offered weakly.

“Were they still
together when you and he…?” Lauren’s voiced trailed off. For all her forthrightness, my sister, like my mother before her, seemed unable to utter the word ‘sex’ aloud. “You know…” she prompted.

“I hardly think
she’d come hightailing into his bedroom if they weren’t,” I said frankly.

“And w
hat did he say about it afterwards?”

I
thought about this. I frowned. What had he said? “He said it was over, I guess. Just recently over, but that they weren’t together.”

Lauren looked at me like I’d just spoken Chinese.
“And you don’t believe him?”

“I don’t know what to beli
eve!” I said in a heated whisper, aware of the thin walls. “It doesn’t seem like this Jennifer person thought it was over.”

“
I – honestly, I know your relationship with Nathan is none of my business, but you need to talk to him about this,” Lauren said. “Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to start motherhood with all this baggage between the two of you.” She blew air out of the side of her mouth. “It’s going to be hard enough. You’re going to need his support. Besides, you’re clearly upset about this. I can’t help but feel you keep underestimating your feelings for him.”

I
bit the side of my lip and contemplated the view. There was no doubting my feelings for him. It was his feelings for me I couldn’t isolate. I’d told him I loved him. He’d said the same words … and yet his behavior said something entirely different.

Lauren got up finally. “Has it ever occurred to you that he’s probably as confused as you are? The two of you aren’t exactly up for a prize when it comes to committed relationships. He’s the only long-term relationship you’ve ever had - as weird as that is-”

“Okay, thanks, Lauren.”

“I wouldn’t be surpri
sed if it was the same for Nate,” she said. She picked up her bag and slid it over her forearm. “Did you ever tell him how you felt about him?”

“Yes,”
I said in a small voice.

“Do you want to be with him?”

Yes, I heard my subconscious reiterate, the voice gaining strength. I blinked. Did I? Did I really want to be in a conventional, committed relationship with Nathan? What about our jobs? We lived on the other side of the continent from each other. Besides, he’d never shown any indication that he wanted a committed relationship with me.

Lauren turned and made a sound of impatience. “You’re impossible. I’m leaving.”

When
I got home there was a voicemail message waiting for me. I felt a tremor of excitement as I wondered if it was Nathan. Again, it struck me: what would I do it he was moving to the UK? I’d been ignoring his messages for over a month now – to a large degree anyway. I’d made the decision to move on. It felt foolish even hoping that it was him. Why did I want to hear his voice? What was I hoping to hear him say? Lauren’s words from earlier that day echoed in my consciousness. She hadn’t said much about Nathan or his behavior – as usual she’d criticized me as ‘impossible’. Was I making it impossible, for myself, for Nathan? For this baby?

I
rubbed my swollen stomach distractedly and sat down. The message icon on my phone flashed away, oblivious to the tumult inside my head. He’d said the relationship with Jennifer was over. It had been over long before I’d gotten pregnant. Was it true?

After leaving the brownstone i
t had seemed like the mature decision to move on. We needed distance, I’d decided, before the baby was born; time to get some perspective on our relationship and how we were going to work together to raise this child. Yes, it had felt good to bask in his love for a while. But that love wasn’t … I sighed. It wasn’t reliable enough. It had been enough in that moment, while he’d held my in his arms, but then, as usual, it had just dissipated. Real life had come clattering in with all its complications and Nathan and I had once again stumbled over it and fallen.

Nathan picked himself up pretty quickly this time, I had to admit, given how quickly he’d contacted me afterwards.
He picked himself up, brushed himself off, and he’d kept trying, calling me at least twice a week.