Fix You (40 page)

28

              “
N
o. Oh no; oh no; oh no.”

             
Her unnecessary tears at Halloween two weeks before had been just one of several niggling clues. But today, the sweeping waves of nausea had been proof. The EPT test stick she held in front of her face now was
irrefutable
proof: at thirty-two-years-old, in the middle of a divorce, in a stall in the little girl’s restroom of her son’s school, Jessica Mae Walker was seven weeks pregnant.

             
“This is not happening,” she whispered as cold chills overtook her and she leaned against the side of the stall for support. But it
was
happening, and it took a Herculean effort not to throw up all down the front of her skirt and sweater ensemble. Her first slamming thought was a shame the likes of which she’d never felt. And she nearly laughed at the sick irony of it; she’d always wanted more children, and now she’d have another…by another man. She’d slept with two men in her life and both had managed to impregnate her. To think of Tyler…of having to explain…dear Lord, of
Chris
…

             
It was all too much.

             
She wrapped the stick in toilet paper and let herself out of the stall. The cinderblock walls of the restroom were painted a vivid pink and dotted with yellow butterflies. The low sinks and sound of giggling little girl laughter made her feel obscene as she trashed her evidence and washed her hands, glancing sideways at the innocent little heads bobbing around her. Her complexion was downright sallow and no amount of cheek-pinching would help, so she gave up and headed down the hall toward Tyler’s classroom. The bell would ring any minute and she felt like walking him out rather than waiting in the car.

             
A chat with his teacher about his progress, the feel of his warm little hand sliding in hers, his mile-a-minute monologue on the way home…none of it soothed her pounding nerves.  This new thorny secret clawing at her insides wasn’t an admission that could leave her lips and then leave her life; she could think of nothing more irreversible or life-altering than a child.

             
Her anxiety tripled when she pulled into her empty drive and was reminded that, though the inn had been operational for two weeks, they had yet to house a paying guest. Her eyes roved over the shiny new paint, the landscaping, the tight, brown November grass, and felt tears stinging the backs of her eyes. She would fail; her dream of starting over would crumble and now she had to admit to her boyfriend that she was pregnant. A new start, it seemed, had always been out of reach. She’d only been fooling herself.

             
While Tyler sat down at the table with his homework, she slid a Stouffer’s lasagna in the oven and went through the house, tidying what was already tidy, lingering in the front room she’d turned into an office and going back over her ledgers and computer files. She searched for…she didn’t know what. Her brain was restless and in need of a distraction. But the shiny, resplendent mansion around her mocked her with its silence. For some reason, it sounded like Dylan:
Oh, Jessica, when will you learn?
You don’t
deserve
to be happy.

             
She had no idea how long she sat, but her eyes had fuzzed over by the time the backdoor opened and she heard Chris and Tyler greet each other as if they were…
family
. They sounded, she noted with a lump in her throat, like they were family: like father and son saying their hellos at the end of a long day.

             
Across the long empty stretches of hardwood floor, Chris’s voice carried: “Where’s your mama?” And then his boots started toward her and her heart stuttered.

             
Go away
, she willed. She didn’t know how to look at him while his baby was growing inside her.

             
But he came, and he propped a shoulder in the doorway and flashed a smile that left her stomach churning. It was cold – there was steam on the windowpanes – and he was dressed in jeans and flannel and a canvas jacket. “You workin’?”

             
“No.” She returned her attention to the computer, pulse thundering. “I don’t have any guests. How can I be working?”

             
In her periphery, she saw his eyebrows shrug. “About that: I told my folks about the place and they wanna see it. They could be your first guests.”

             
Oh, God
. It was a sweet gesture, but it was hitting her at the worst possible moment.
Hi, Mrs. Haley, I’m Jess. Your son knocked me up; isn’t that nice? Would you like a wakeup call?
She snorted before she could catch herself, her chest tight with emotion. “Yeah, no thanks. Like I need to be indebted to anyone else in your family.”

             
She felt the charge her words touched to the air, the sudden arc of electricity she sent crackling between them. He stiffened. His boots shifted over the hardwood. Try as she might, she couldn’t soften her words, or wipe the sour expression from her face.

             
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His tone was soft, the words razor-edged.

             
“I’ll pull some guests in,” she said, not willing to make eye contact. “I don’t need you running to my rescue yet again.”

             
“Goddamn. I’m not keeping score, Jess. Just ‘cause I try to help…you know what,” his voice hardened and he took a step into the office, looming on the other side of her computer, “I’m tired of having this same damn conversation. When are you gonna get the hell over it?”

             
“And when are you,” she fired back, gaze snapping to his, “going to stop having an emotional reaction to every little thing I say? Is that what they taught you in the army? How to overreact?”
How badly will you overreact when I tell you I’m pregnant?
she wondered.

             
She had him, and he knew it, lips compressing into a tight white line. “I think you’re bipolar or something,” he said.

             
“If I am, it’s because I can’t take any more macho possessiveness. I do not
belong
to you; it’s not your job to find a solution for every problem I have.”

             
She expected an outburst, but instead, he waxed thoughtful, brow furrowed, stroking at his goatee. “You know, I’m just the dumbass bachelor here, but I’m pretty sure you never had a damn clue what being married was supposed to be like.”

             
“Excuse me?”

             
“Your pussy little husband wasn’t any kind of good husband at all, and you, sweetheart, have no goddamn clue what it’s like to have a man.”

             
Never in her life had she known anyone who she’d wanted to strike so often – and he was the father of her unborn child no less. She gritted her teeth. “Don’t give me any more of that ‘I’m the man’ bullshit. I don’t know how your stupid fat head even fits through the door!”

             
“This isn’t ego talking,” he continued. “Do you see your sister and her husband? Jordan and Ellie? Look at your brothers and sisters,” he pressed. “When a man
cares
,” he thumped his hand down on the edge of her desk, “when he really cares, he wants to do everything humanly possible to make his woman happy and safe. Do you not get that? Did Dylan suck so bad that you never figured that out?

             
“You think I
like
arguing with you?” he asked when she only blinked. “I hate it. But I have to, ‘cause you’re stubborn as all hell and you fight me about everything.” His dark eyes were sharp, serious. “I’m here, Jess. Okay? I’m here. And you probably oughta be on a runway or a movie set somewhere and I’m just trying hard as I can to keep you around here, with me, because I don’t want it any other way.”

             
He was hovering over her now, both hands braced on her desktop, his face hard with sincerity, chest lifting as his breathing quickened. With her head tipped back and her insides quaking, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to reach up and wrap her arms around the love he was so inelegantly trying to give her. She could kiss him and admit to him what she’d learned that day, and he’d kiss her back and fold her up in his arms and tell her how he was going to take care of her. It would have been so easy to forsake the freedom she’d fought to gain; to leap from the frying pan into the fire, to become someone else’s little missus and someone else’s future castoff.

             
Don’t be so cynical
, a voice in the back of her head whispered. Because Chris was right – because Tam loved Jo and Jordan loved Ellie and Mike loved Delta…and they all belonged together. Belonging to someone wasn’t the way she’d always thought it was: it wasn’t a cage.

             
But she was too emotional and too hormonal, and she sank back in her chair. “You shouldn’t care so much,” she said quietly, and turned back to her computer.

             
He lingered, the silence hanging heavy between them. “Have you talked to Dylan yet?” he asked after a moment.

             
“His attorney. We should have the papers signed within the week.”

             
His knuckles rapped the desk and he retreated, leaving her alone with what they’d done.

**

              In retrospect, had she known the dam would burst just three days later, she might have done things differently. Might have touched his face and pressed her lips to his and promised that, one day, she wouldn’t be crazy anymore. Might have whispered to him in the stillness of that night that at forty-two, he was going to become a father for the first time. In retrospect, the trust had always been there, but she’d been blind to it in that moment in her office. Because three days later, all she’d been was uncertain when Dylan’s knock had interrupted their dinner.

             
They were having spaghetti; she was hiding bites in her napkin so it looked like she was eating. At the knock, she leapt to her feet. “I got it.” Chris made to protest but she was already moving. “I won’t answer the door if it’s Leatherface, okay?”

             
The downstairs was now a rich tribute to the Victorian era, and the walk to the front door was no longer a shadowed trip through haunted hallways. She’d left a few lamps burning and they cast warm puddles across the hardwood. The new porch lamps that flanked the front door burned, and in their light, through the sheers of the front windows, she recognized Dylan standing against the porch rail. With a sigh, and a regret that she was in sweats, she slipped out to join him.

             
The night was cold and smelled of burning leaves; she pulled the halves of her sweater together and folded her arms, rolled her socked toes up under her feet on the welcome mat. “What do you want? We’re eating dinner.”

             
Reclining back against the bannister, he was as dark and handsome as ever: casual and wealthy in designer jeans, charcoal sweater and crisp white oxford beneath. His eyes, she noted, were ringed with dark smudges of fatigue, but he was otherwise untouched by the battle they’d waged the last six months. “’We’?” he questioned. His face was impassive save the twitch of one seal-brown eyebrow. “Does he live here with you now?”

             
“He has a house.”

             
“Does he stay there anymore? Or is he with you and Tyler all the time?”

             
“Dylan.” She was too tired and strung out to work together any sort of venom to pour across her words. She settled for resignation. “Why are you here?”

             
He pulled a narrow accordion of paper from his back pocket. “I was getting ready to sign these,” he said, and she knew they were the divorce papers.

             
“I would appreciate that.”

             
“I didn’t sign them.”

             
Her molars ground together, but her voice remained calm. “Why not?”

             
His performance was Oscar worthy. He pinched the bridge of his nose, contemplated the papers, shook his head, blinked: all the hallmarks of fighting a drowning wave of emotions. When composed, he settled back against the rail and fixed her with a look so grave she nearly laughed. “If I sign these, then that’s the end.”

             
“The end’s come and gone,” she said with a sigh. “The day you went outside our marriage was the last day we owed one another anything.”

             
“I was
driven
outside of our marriage,” he countered, just as calm. “We drifted apart and I couldn’t find you

again –  ”

              “Spare me the poetic sob story. We were so close, but a world apart…bullshit. I was there every day, Dylan. I made your meals and ironed your shirts and raised your son. I was there.” A strange shiver of delighted conviction went down her spine as she recalled Chris’s words, all his insistence that Dylan had been threatened by her. “You didn’t want a true marriage,” she said, a humorless smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You wanted a wife and you wanted a plaything on the side to help you live out your sick fantasies.”