Taylor Made Owens (36 page)

“Well, Bobby?” said Jennifer, “What have you got to say?” He hung up his phone and left the room, his face still divulging his absolute shock. Kristen followed. “Bobby, please tell me what’s wrong.”

“I, I don’t believe it,” he finally choked out. “Why can’t anything go smoothly? Why is life so hard?”

“What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

He sat. “That was Jenny. She’s … she told me …” He looked up at Kristen and couldn’t finish.

“I’m your wife to be. I’ll stand by you. Tell me!”

“She’s pregnant.”

Her initial reaction was much the same as his—thunderstruck—but then it diverged with a wretched screech as she bolted from the room with her right hand to her mouth. He didn’t follow; he couldn’t. He just sat there bewildered. Kristen’s father, Bill, came into the room to ask what the matter was. Robert told him in a detached manner that Jennifer was pregnant by him, and that everything was wrecked. Bill sighed and went out to inform the rest of the family. Robert’s phone rang again. He ignored it.

A few minutes later, he went in search of Kristen and found her crying on her bed. “Krissy, I’m so sorry,” he said as he sat next to her and stroked her hair. “I know I’m in another mess, and I’m making you miserable again. I wanted only happiness for you, and this is what I give you. But I swear to you, Krissy, I’ll straighten this out.”

“How? She’s carrying your child.”

“Maybe it’s not mine.”

“It’s yours. She knows you’re not stupid. She wouldn’t make this up.”

“Okay, then, maybe I can talk her into an abortion.”

“No! Don’t do that. It’s not the child’s fault the parents are divorced. Anyway, Jenny will never give up her baby, especially one fathered by you. It’s her best bet of reeling you back. The only proper course is to marry her again,” she moaned as her face fell into her pillow.

“No, never! I don’t love her. I love only you. I’ll work this out. Please trust me.”

She removed her engagement ring and held it out to him. “Take it back.”

“No, Krissy. You said you’d marry me! I’m holding you to your promise.” He withdrew from the ring.

“This situation changes everything. Do you think I do this lightly? There’s nothing I wanted more than to marry you.”

“Then, let’s just get married. Right now!”

“No. You have a sacred obligation to her now. You have to do the right thing.”

“To hell with the right thing. All I care about is you. I don’t give a shit about her baby.”

“How can you say that? It’s your baby, too. If I were to get pregnant, would you be as callous?”

“No, of course not. I love you and I’ll cherish our children. Let’s get married, and we can start a family right away. You’ll see what a great husband and father I’ll be.”

“Here you are bragging about being a great father while promising to disown your own child. I can’t believe you. Take your ring back.”

“No, I don’t want it back,” he said with tears in his eyes. “Please don’t do this to me. I love you. Don’t turn me away again. I’ll go see her and work it out. Then we’ll get married, all right?” She put the ring in his hand, closed his fingers on it and told him to go to Jennifer. “Don’t do this to me, Taylor. I’m warning you. If I walk out that door, I will never be back!”

“So we both see how deep your love is for me.”

“And how deep yours is for me,” he rejoined bitterly. “Thanks for standing by me. The very first problem that presents itself and you’re out the goddamn door. Goodbye!” He rushed out of her room and her house. He ran up the street and out of their neighborhood. Finally, after almost five miles, exhaustion stopped him, and he collapsed on the side of the road. He broke down, crying and cursing his awful luck. The fury in his soul spilled out of him and made everything cold and black.

His phone rang. He looked at the display and saw it was Jennifer. He pushed the button, but didn’t say anything. “Hello?” said Jennifer. “I can tell you’re there, Bobby; I can hear your breathing. I tell you I’m pregnant with our child and you hang up on me?” she chided.

Out rushed his bile. “You cost me everything, you bitch!” he hollered. “I had just proposed to Kristen, and she said yes. Your news ruined everything. Now she’s rejected me again. I hate all Taylors! Not only will I never marry you again, I’ll never even talk to you or Kristen again. Drop dead and take the fucking baby with you!” he yelled as he hung up. Jennifer stood there in disbelief then sat down to cry.

O
ne hour ago, life was perfect. One hour ago, everything was finally as it was supposed to be, and it all made sense. One hour ago, he could finally look back with equanimity and reason that all the strife was worth it if that’s what it took to get to this point. One hour ago, his future was set. He could face anything life could throw at him with his loving wife by his side. One hour ago.

Now, as he lay in the stubble that had been a cornfield until a few days earlier, he looked beyond the sky that was somehow still a picturesque azure despite the blackness that enveloped him, and hollered to the welkin, “I hate you!” Robert sat up and called a taxi to take him to the airport.

Kristen knew him better than anyone else, but not even she comprehended the depths of despair he suffered at the loss of love. His psyche had never completely recovered from losing his entire family to a plane crash when he was but eight-years-old. He couldn’t cope with lost love or rejection and always overreacted to them. He despised her for rejecting his hand for the second time, for taking away her love once he finally declared his, his most dreaded fear. “Never again!” his anguished pride roared. Determined to forsake the Taylor clan forever, he called Sprint to cancel his phone account, tossed his phone under a passing truck—and briefly considered tossing himself there, too, before concluding that would be counterproductive—so that they had no way to contact him.

Kristen and Robert, two passionate people so much alike in so many ways, reacted rashly to Jennifer’s news and said things better left unsaid. Once Kristen had time to calm down and reflect—just a matter of hours—and to discuss the issue with her parents, she concluded she’d been too harsh and sincerely regretted her precipitate words. She was ready to help him and Jennifer work through the problem and to proceed with the marriage. When she endeavored to call him, though, she was horrified to hear his number had been disconnected. She phoned Kim Arnold, the mother of his son, but she hadn’t heard from him, so she made a difficult call to her cousin to ask if she’d heard from him. Jennifer’s report reduced Kristen to hysteria.

The cab arrived and took him to the airport. The jet whisked him out of Kristen’s life and into … Into what?

Robert was a baseball player. That’s what his dad had been, albeit for just one day at the major league level, and that’s the only thing that Robert had ever wanted to be. Like his father, Robert had a world of talent as a pitcher, but a critical weakness in his golden arm, a fragile shoulder that would doom his career. In trying to avoid his father’s fate, he always held back a little. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work in the majors; the hitters are too good. He’d been mediocre thus far, spending most of his professional career in the minor leagues. Worse yet, his efforts to prevent a career-ending injury to his shoulder didn’t appear to be working. As the season came to a close, his shoulder was so tender, it was hard to throw. Add to that a slightly disfigured pitching hand, which had been injured in a bloody conflict when he was in the Army, and he began to despair that his baseball career was to be short and inglorious. Then what?

For fear of losing his precarious place on the Minnesota Twins, he’d kept from the team the physical ailments plaguing him. Management could tell there was something wrong. His speed was down, his breaking balls were flat, and he’d grimace when he threw. To this point, he’d denied any problem, but with little to lose at the end of the season, he belatedly confessed his maladies to the team’s doctor, who sent him to a specialist in Atlanta just before the season finished. The specialist put a splint on his index finger to more properly align it. For his shoulder, rest and a physical therapy program to stretch and strengthen the ligaments and muscles were recommended.

There were four months off until spring training began the next season. What to do? It wasn’t just a question for the coming months. He had to face the possibility that his baseball career was finished. How was he to earn his living? What was he to do with his life? With the one career he’d ever envisaged crumbling before him, the future seemed terrifying.

For now, the wisest move seemed to be to extend his education. He’d earned a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from Berkeley the year previous. He had taken computer science because he excelled at programming—it came as naturally to him as baseball—but he didn’t relish the thought of spending his life working in an office tapping on a keyboard. What could be more opposite to the excitement of pitching in the majors? But he’d already invested four years in the field, and no other possibilities of interest occurred to him.

To stave off boredom the previous autumn, he’d started a graduate course in computer science at Berkeley, doing the work online. Dad had got his PhD from Berkeley; so would he. So he went to Berkeley to do the physical therapy and take more classes toward his PhD.

Kristen went to Minneapolis to find him before the season ended, but learned that he was just put on the disabled list and had left the city. The team wouldn’t give out contact information without prior approval, and she didn’t have it. She tried Kim again, begging her to help her contact Robert. Kim sincerely apologized, but said Robert was adamant that she was not to pass on his whereabouts or phone number to any Taylor. She also passed along his warning not to approach him at a baseball park or anywhere else. At Robert’s request, Kim had returned his mother’s engagement ring to his trunk, which sat gathering dust in her basement. A morose Kristen returned to her residency at Stanford’s children’s hospital.

This episode was a watershed for Kristen. She had a breakdown of sorts, akin to what Robert had suffered in the wake of the school bus incident ten years prior when Jennifer publicly abased him with a rejection of his love. Then, Robert vowed never to love anyone ever again, something it took Kristen years to overcome, something that Jennifer never did overcome.

Now, reason told Kristen she had to give up on Robert Owens, but her heart could never let go. With that passion risking her very sanity, reason forced her passion for Robert deep into her psyche, deep enough to convince herself she was finally over him. With her profound love buried, she could face a future without him and get along. She would dedicate herself to her profession and excel. If another man came along, fine; if not, that was okay, too. When she saw him on TV from time to time over the next year that part deep inside her—her essence, her id, her being, her soul, whatever it really is—would try exhuming itself, crying,
I’m supposed to be with him!
, but layers of sorrow, disappointment, anger, and jealousy kept it suppressed.

In banishing her soul, she paid a heavy price that was apparent to no one but her parents: she had exiled what was most special about herself. She remained a brilliant, caring person and an excellent, compassionate doctor, but her extraordinary radiance that lit up a room when she entered was extinguished. Her parents sensed something wrong.

“Is there anything the matter, Krissy?” her mom would ask every time they were together. “You don’t seem yourself.”

Kristen would insist everything was fine.

“You just don’t seem happy,” her father would note. Before long, Kristen got impatient with the concerns, and her parents thenceforth kept it to themselves.

But, “What happened to our dazzling little girl?” they’d ask each other when she left. Bill blamed it on Robert.

•

A glum Jennifer had a major decision to make regarding her unborn child and her career as a singer. Her recording contract prohibited her from getting pregnant. Having this baby might cost her her career, an enormous sacrifice given the success she was enjoying at that particular time, but aborting the child of the man she loved would be a greater sacrifice. The chances of getting pregnant by him again when it suited her career had to be close to nil.

Anyway, along with success, money, and fame comes arrant hubris, which came in handy when she informed her record company of her pregnancy and invited them to fire her. “I’ll have the competition lining up to sign me,” she boasted. Executives concurred and informed her they were holding her to her contract. The parties agreed to play down the pregnancy. She would stop appearing in public after month seven and have several months after delivery to restore her figure to begin touring again. During her time out of the public eye, she would record her third album.

When spring training commenced for pitchers, Jennifer went down to Ft. Meyers, Florida, where the Twins held their camp, but no Robert. The specialist had informed the team a week before that Robert would need another two months mending before he could begin training. The team told him to continue physical therapy, and to report to their double-A affiliate in Connecticut in late March. Jennifer attempted to use her influence to learn his whereabouts, but Robert had made a specific request to keep this information from her, and the team respected his request. She checked with the triple-A affiliate, but all they knew was he wasn’t on the team. She had no way to contact him unless and until he made it back to the majors.

In late March, Jennifer was seven months pregnant and, with entertainment reporters speculating as to the reason for her now evident girth, she went on a popular talk show to make the announcement. After singing her most popular song, she joined the host for a chat.

“That was awesome,” pronounced the host as Jennifer took her seat and crossed her legs as best she could. “You have such a nice voice. Believe me, we get a lot of pop stars on the show who can’t sing any better than I can.” The audience laughed as the host sang the chorus from Jennifer’s song. “Almost all of them lip sync—was I supposed to admit that?—so we were a bit nervous when you said you’d be singing live, but your voice is strong, yet still so feminine and sexy.” Jennifer smiled and thanked him. “So, since I don’t believe in pulling punches, maybe you can tell me what’s going on there,” he said while pointing to her midsection.