Mixed Blessings (26 page)

Pilar called her mother on Christmas Day, and the temptation to tell her about the baby was great, but somehow she managed to resist it.

And she also knew that half of her desire to tell her was to prove her wrong, and let her know that she was not too old to have children. But Pilar was smarter than that, and she said nothing about it as she wished her a Merry Christmas.

She called Marina, too, who was in Toronto, celebrating the holidays with one of her many sisters.

And later in the day, Brad and Pilar opened their presents with Todd and Nancy and Tommy and little Adam. Pilar had spoiled everyone, especially the baby. There was a huge teddy bear, and a little swing, and some adorable clothes she had found in a boutique in L.A and a beautiful German rocking horse she had ordered from New York. And she had lovely gifts for everyone else. She was thrilled to see Todd, looking handsome and well and full of tales of his job and girlfriend in Chicago. And she felt closer to Nancy than she had in years.

They had so much in common now, although her stepdaughter did not yet know it.

They had a wonderful meal, and as they drank champagne and ate Yule cake afterward, Brad smiled at her, and she nodded.

"I have something to tell you all, which I know will come as something of a surprise. But life is full of wonderful surprises."

She smiled at Adam gurglinginhis high chair as she said it. He was wearing a little red velvet suit she had bought him and given Nancy before Christmas.

"You're becoming a judge tool" Todd guessed, pleased for both of them.

"What an impressive family!" Todd saluted.

"You're buying a new house!" Nancy offered, hoping that her father would let her live in this one if they decided not to sell it.

"Better than that." Pilar grinned. "And much more important---and no, I'm not becoming ajudge. One is enough in this family, I'll leave those important matters to your dad." She smiled tenderly at him while everyone waited, and then she took their breath away, as she spoke softly but proudly. "We're having a baby."

There was total silence in the room, and then Nancy laughed nervously.

She didn't believe it. "You're not."

"I am."

"But you're so old," she said rudely, as her father watched her. She reminded him suddenly of the spoiled little girl she had been when she objected to his going out with Pilar when he first met her.

"You told me you had friends older than I who were having first babies," Pilar said quietly. "You told me I should think about it before it was too late." She was forcing her to remember her own words, and Nancy didn't like it.

"But I never thought . . . I just . . don't you and Daddy think you're too old for a child now?" she said bluntly, while her husband and brother watched her in silence.

"No, we don't," her father said calmly, "and apparently Mother Nature doesn't think so either." He was happy about the baby, and for Pilar, and he wasn't going to let Nancy spoil it. She had her own life, her husband, her child, and she had no right to cast a shadow over theirs, or spoil Pilar's pleasure by being jealous. "I'm sure it's a surprise for all of you, but we're very happy, and we hope you will be too. And I think it's wonderful that Master Adam will have a new uncle." He laughed, and Todd raised his glass to them.

"Well, Dad, you two are always full of surprises. But I'm happy for you both, if it's what you want," he said fairly. "I think you're both good sports. I can't even imagine having kids, especially if they turn out like us"-he looked pointedly at his sister-"but good luck to you both!" He toasted and then drank, and Tommy added his good wishes.

Only Nancy looked annoyed, and she never recovered before they left.

She snapped at Tommy when he picked the baby up, kissed her father good-bye with tears in her eyes, and never even ii thanked Pilar for their presents.

"I guess she hasn't grown up as much as I thought," Pilar said softly after they left. "She's furious with me."

"She's a spoiled brat, and our life and what we do with it is none of her business." He refused to let his children run his life, just as he refused to run theirs. They were grown-ups, and so were he and Pilar.

And he wasn't going to be affected by what his children thought. He wanted Pilar to have this baby. He knew how much it meant to her, and she had a right to have children, and if it was late in her life, then that was her business and no one else's.

 "Maybe she thinks I'm competing with her," Pilar mused as they cleared the table and stacked the dishes in the sink, to leave them for their cleaning woman the next morning.

"Maybe. But it's time she learned the world doesn't turn around her. Tommy will set her straight, and so will Todd." He was staying with them for a few days during his vacation.

"I thought Todd was wonderful and it must have been a shock to him too."

"Probably, but at least he's mature enough to know it's not going to change anything in his life. Nancy will figure that out eventually, too, that it doesn't diminish my affection for them. But she'll make your life miserable in the meantime, if you let her."

And then he looked sternly at Pilar. "I don't want her upsetting you right now. Is that clear?" He sounded very firm, and she smiled at him as they went back to their bedroom.

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Good. And I don't want to hear from the little beast until she remembers her manners."

"She'll be okay, Brad. It was a big surprise for her."

"Well, she'd better shape up, or she'll be in big trouble with her father. She gave you enough trouble fifteen years ago to last for several lifetimes. She has no tickets left for this one, and if need be I'll remind her of that. But I hope I won't have to."

"I'll call her next week and invite her to lunch and see if I can e her feathers."

"She should be calling you," he growled, but she surprised them both by calling to apologize later that night. Her brother and husband had forced her to admit that she had no right to disapprove of what they did, and she had behaved very badly.

She cried when she talked to Pilar and told her how sorry she was for being rotten to her, and Pilar cried too.

"It's all your fault, you know," she said emotionally into the phone,

"if Adam weren't so cute, I might never have done it."

But there was a lot more to it than that and she and Brad knew it.

"I'm sorry . . . and you were so sweet to me when I told you about Adam."

"Don't worry about it." Pilar smiled through her tears. "You owe me a cheesecake." It was her only craving for the moment.

And the next morning when they got up, there was a cheesecake in a pink box on the front step, with a pink rose on it. And Pilar cried all over again when she showed it to Brad. But he was glad that Nancy had come to her senses so quicKly.

"Now all you have to do is relax, and have the baby." It seemed like an endless eight months to wait till August.

Diana and Andy spent a quiet Christmas in Hawaii, and it was just what they needed, as they lay in the sun and baked day after day at the Mauna Kea. It was the first time they'd been alone and away since the agonies of what they'd been through, except for their disastrous weekend in La Jolla in early September. And both of them were startled to realize how close they had come to destroying their marriage. They seemed to have nothing in common anymore, nothing to say, nothing to share, nothing to look forward to. They had been treading water for almost four months, and in truth they'd actually been drowning, until Thanksgiving, when for a moment there was a glimmer of hope.

It took two days of lying on the beach before they spoke to each other about anything other than food and weather. But it was the perfect place for them. There was no television in the rooms, nowhere to go, nothing to see, they just lay on the beach, and slowly began to recover.

On Christmas Day they shared a quiet dinner in the main dining room, and then went for a long walk on the beach, holding hands at sunset.

"I feel like we've been to the moon and back this year" Diana said quietly. After a year and a half of marriage, she was no longer sure what she wanted or where they were going.

"I felt that way too," he admitted to her, as they sat on the white sand and watched the surf roll in. And in a little while, when it was dark, the giant manta rays would come in to shore to feed, and the hotel guests would watch them. "But the thing is, Di . . . we made it . . . we didn't go under. . . . we're still here, talking to each other, holding hands. . . . That means a lot. . . . We survived it."

"But at what price," she said sadly. She had given up all her dreams.

And what was there to look forward to now? All she had ever wanted were children . . . but she had also wanted Andy. And he was still there. The only thing lost were her babies. It was hard to live like that, but on the other hand, he was right. Losing their dreams hadn't killed them either.

"Maybe it'll make us stronger in the long run,' he said thoughtfully.

He still loved her. He just didn't know who she was anymore, or where to find her. She had been hiding from him emotionally for months, and from herself. She had been in her shell, going to work earlier and earlier every day, coming home later and later, and getting right into bed when she got home, and falling asleep the moment she got there.

She didn't want to talk to him or anyone, she scarcely called her parents, and never her sisters, or her friends. They had suddenly all become strangers. And she'd taken every trip she could get her hinds on in the office. He'd offered to meet her a couple of times, thmldng they could take a few days of pleasure at the end of the trip, but she didn't want to have a good time, and she didn't want to be with him.

And she always said she was too busy.

"The big question," he said hesitantly, wondering if it was too soon to broach the subject, "is where do we go from here?

Do you want to be married to me anymore? Has there been too much pain for us to get back to the good stuff again? I just don't know what you want anymore," he said, thinking how tragic it was that he was asking her if she wanted a divorce, sitting beneath this gorgeous sunset in Hawaii. She was wearing a white cotton dress and she already had a deep suntan after two days, and her dark hair was blowing in the breeze tantalizingly. But no matter how beautiful he still thought she was, he also knew she didn't want him.

"What do you want?" She answered his question with one of her own. "I keep thinking that I have no right to hang on to you. You deserve so much more than I can give you." She was ready to give him up, for his sake, if not for her own. And she would live alone, and pursue her career. She knew she would never marry again if he left her, or at least she thought so. She was twenty-eight years old and ready to give it all up, if that was what he wanted, but it wasn't.

"That's bullshit, and you know it."

"I don't know anything anymore. All I know is what isn't. I don't know what is, or what's right, or what I should do, or even what I want." She'd even thought of quitting her job and moving back to Europe.

"Do you love me?" he asked softly, moving closer to her, looking into the eyes that were always so sad now, so empty, so broken, everything inside her had been scorched and burned and torn from her soul, and there were times when he thought there was nothing left but ashes.

"Yes, I do," she whispered. "I love you very much . . . I always will . . . but that doesn't mean I have the right to keep you. . . . I can't give you anything, Andy . . . except myself, and 5 not much left

"Yes, there is. You've just buried yourself, in work, and pain and grief. . . . I can help you climb out of all that, if you'll let me."

He had started seeing a therapist a few weeks before, and he was feeling stronger.

"And then what?" she asked. To her it seemed so fruitless.

"Then we have each other, which is more than a lot of people can say.

We're two good people who love each other and have a lot to give each other, and the world, and their friends. The whole world doesn't revolve around kids, you know. And even if we had our own, sooner or later they'd grow up and go away, or maybe they'd hate us, or they could be killed in a car accident or a fire. There are no guarantees in life.

that they were everywhere, in the streets, in the supermarkets, sometimes even in the elevator at her office, tiny little people with big eyes and open hearts, holding their mothers' hands, or crying and being held and comforted in a way Diana would never be able to do now.

There were women with huge pregnant bellies everywhere she looked, filled with hope and promise in a way Diana would never know, never share, never feel in her heart or her body. It wasn't easy to give all that up, and it didn't seem fair to her that Andy had to.

"I think it's unfair of you to live a childless life, because I have to. Why should you do that?"

"Because I love you. And it also doesn't have to be childless.

It can be, if we want it to be. But if not, there are other options."

"I'm not sure I'm ready for that."

"Neither am I. And we don't have to make any decisions about that now. All we have to do is think about us, and do something before it's too late and we blow it. Baby . . . I don't want to lose you "I don't want to lose you either," she said, as tears sprang to her eyes, and she turned away then. Over his shoulder, far down the beach, she could see children playing, and she couldn't bear it.

"I want you back... in my dreams... in my life. in my days . . . in my heart . . . in my arms . . . in my bed in my future. God, I've missed you," he said, and he pulled her closer, feeling the warmth of her body next to his, and he ached for her. "Baby . . . I need you. ."

"I need you too," she said as she started to cry. She needed him so badly. She couldn't do it without him, couldn't give up all those dreams, and yet somehow in the midst of the horror, she had lost him.

"Let's try . . . please let's try He looked at her and she smiled and nodded. "It won't always be easy, and maybe sometimes I won't understand, and I won't always be there but I'll try to be. And if I'm not, tell me." All he wanted was to get her back now.