The Baby Agenda (5 page)

She distantly heard the microwave beep and ignored it.

 

Moira,

I'm sorrier than I can say that you've had to deal with this on your own. I should have told you that night why the one night was all I could offer. I suspect that, despite my denial, you still worried I might be married, engaged, whatever. It wasn't anything like that. I had just accepted a job from a nonprofit committed to build schools and medical clinics in sub-Saharan Africa. I've been in Zimbabwe for nearly four months now, and have made a two-year commitment. I often have no access to email for weeks at a time. I just read yours last night.

It would never have crossed my mind to think you'd tell me the baby was mine if it wasn't. Maybe you believe I don't know you, but I thought I did. Well enough to be sure you're honest, and that your invitation to me
was out of the ordinary for you. I hope you know me well enough to guess what I'm going to say now.

No child of mine is going to grow up not knowing his father. I can't do much to help you right now, although I am more than willing to offer financial support if you find you can't continue to work all the way through your pregnancy. I ask that you stay in touch and let me know how you're doing. I'll be back in the states every few months, and we can talk the first time I am. Come up with a plan. But fair warning: I will be involved.

 

He gave her the website address of the foundation he worked for in case she was interested, and repeated that he wanted to hear from her. He closed by asking what she did for a living.
Tell me about yourself,
he said.
Please.

Moira cried for the first time in months, and she didn't even know why. She
didn't
need him. She kept remembering the intense note in his voice when he told her about his worst nightmare. “Being trapped. Spending my life doing what I have to do.” There was more, but she'd known what he meant.

This
was what he'd been trying to say. Getting stuck with an obligation he hadn't willingly, wholeheartedly made. Having to accept responsibility for helping raise a child he couldn't possibly want.

Her email, she thought wretchedly, was his worst nightmare.

 

T
WO DAYS LATER, MOIRA REPLIED
.

 

Will,

Now I think I'm sorry I told you. I remember that you
said your worst nightmare was to get stuck, to spend your life fulfilling obligations. I don't want to be your nightmare. And please, please don't feel you have to be involved if you'll resent it. That would have to be awful for a kid, don't you think? I barely remember my father—did I tell you that?—but even though I often wished that he was around when I was growing up, I know it might have hurt worse if he'd been there because he felt he had to be. I really will be fine, you know. We won't starve without you.

If you want to look me up when you get home, that's fine, though. I live in West Fork, and work here, too. I'm an architect, in partnership with a friend. Van Dusen & Cullen. I'm Cullen. I guess you can tell that from my email address, huh? It's not a real physical job, which is good right now. And I'm hoping I can bring the baby to work some of the time. I know Gray, my partner, won't mind.

 

She went on to say that she'd looked at the foundation website and was impressed with what they were trying to accomplish. She'd taken the time to read some about Zimbabwe, too, and knew how high the rate of AIDS and HIV was and how desperately more accessible medical care was needed.

Will brooded some before he hit Reply, trying to get over being mad before he said something that would stiffen her resolve to keep him at a distance. And yeah, that made no sense when he didn't
want
to be a family guy, but, man, had she turned him into a mass of warring emotions. She could enrage him quicker than the most venal local bureaucrat, and he'd done his share of
teeth grinding these past months dealing with them. She also had a way of zinging him with powerful protective impulses.

Did she really think so little of him, she believed he'd let any kid of his feel
resented?

Damn it, damn it, damn it, he wished he couldn't so easily picture her as a freckle-faced kid herself who couldn't understand why she didn't have a daddy like everyone else did. He wished he hadn't seen that fleeting, wistful look in her eyes as she remembered.

Finally he sighed and started typing.

 

Moira, I can promise you I won't feel resentment. Someday I'll tell you why I said that, about my worst nightmare. It doesn't really matter now. You reminded me, as I recall, that life's made up of obligations. Not all kids are planned. They should all be loved. I never doubted that my parents loved me, and I was lucky enough to have a stepmother who did, too. Another promise: I'll love any child of mine.

 

Will hoped that was true. He wanted to believe it was. The idea of holding that baby was pretty abstract right now.

But he thought of himself as a decent man, and even though there'd been times he
had
felt resentment for getting stuck raising his siblings, he thought what they'd most been aware of was security and love. Yeah, they'd probably known on some level how he felt. No twenty-year-old kid was capable of completely hiding his shock and desperation. But he'd tried, they'd understood, and he was damn proud of how they had all turned out.

He went back to his email.

You don't say whether you're feeling okay. Aren't pregnant women supposed to be sick to their stomachs and tired? Or is that the exception?

You're right about the toll AIDS is costing here. It's painful to see. Unlike in South Africa, the majority of AIDS orphans are being raised by relatives, which is a testament to the power of family here. This is a country of astonishing contrasts. The literacy rate is quite high and schools good. Meantime, out in the countryside, medical care is close to nonexistent, and what itinerant medical clinics are held are often outside, with patients lined up waiting to see a nurse who sits at a folding table beneath a shade tree. Not much that nurse can do for the desperately ill. I'm often struck by the patience people here seem to have. I imagine Americans throwing a temper tantrum because the line for the drive-through window at McDonald's is four cars long.

My part in this project is less important than the care that will be provided—the nurses and doctors, the AIDS cocktails, the surgical supplies. I provide only the walls and roofs, and simple ones at that. We've finally broken ground on the first clinic, and it will have brick walls and a metal roof, like the store in the village. The homes are crude, with thatched roofs.

 

He told her about the architectural drawings he'd scrapped and why, about his need to build structures that belonged, that people would be comfortable going to. In fact, when he reread his email a few minutes later, it was to find he'd waxed eloquent, revealing more of the passion
quietly building in him than he'd intended. He frowned, finally, and left what he'd written. She was an architect herself; she might be interested. And anyway…he wanted to know her. To be fair, he had to reveal something of himself in return.

By the next day, he had an email back from her.
She
waxed eloquent on her belief that structures should meld with their surroundings. Her partner, apparently, teased her about emphasizing function over form, although Gray, too, she said, preferred to design buildings that didn't immediately command attention. She told him about her partner's house, which appeared to be part of the riverbank so that a fisherman casting his line below might not even notice it was there atop the bluff. She thought many of the more admired homes featured in magazines were hideous. Original, yes, interesting, but jarring.

 

I'm content to design staid but dignified office buildings that have grace and pleasing proportions but do not startle. If I were to plan a medical clinic for a small town in the African savannah, I'd go with mud brick and a metal roof, too. Good for you.

 

Will found himself smiling.

 

I was sick to my stomach for a couple of months, although not as miserable as some women are—Gray's wife, Charlotte, could hardly keep any food down—but it's passed, thank heavens. Now I'm starved all the time, making up for the weight I lost. I dread my next monthly weigh-in and the lecture I'm bound to get from the doctor. I'm trying
very hard
not to gain
too much. I am a little more tired than usual, but all it means is that I go to bed earlier than I used to. No big deal. So you see, I really am fine.

 

Without you,
was what she meant. Will suppressed his irritation.

He wrote an email in response longer than the ones he'd sent Clay and the others. He felt a strange tension, sitting here digging into himself for what was most important to tell her about his life and values. It was as if they were connected by a thread so delicate, he could snap it with the wrong word, but perhaps with the right ones he could lend it strength. He was hungry to hear back from her. Half an hour ago, when his messages had been loading, it was
hers
he'd hoped for with eagerness that embarrassed him.

He felt, Will realized after he'd sent his response, like a boy with his first crush. Ridiculous, maybe, when they'd already made love and now he longed for so little: the equivalent of a shy glance.

This time she didn't write back right away. Stuck in Harare meeting with government officials, Will was therefore able to obsessively check his email in any stray minutes, which made the three days before he did get a reply from her seem endless. But her response was long and satisfying. She'd read more about Zimbabwe and wondered whether he was in any danger, a white man in a country where white-owned land was still being violently snatched by black mobs.

She was worried about him. He felt a warm glow to realize it.

She told him about a movie that had recently been released about South Africa and talking to a woman whose daughter was currently in Ghana with the Peace Corps.

Several people I know who've been to Africa tell me they'd give anything to go back. They always have this look in their eyes, as though there's some kind of magnetic pull. Although that's silly, isn't it? Africa is an enormous continent. I'm sure Zimbabwe is nothing like… I don't know, the Ivory Coast or Kenya. See, I've revealed typical American ignorance about a huge swath of the world.

 

He assured her that, as a foreigner, he felt safe and that people were warm and friendly. He told her more about what he'd seen, about the astonishing sight of elephants ambling across the road in front of his Datsun, about seeing so many hippos in a river he could have walked across, stepping on their backs. About Victoria Falls where water plummeted into a canyon and raised a cloud of spray so vast, it created a rain forest for miles about. He told her that he hoped soon to go see the Great Zimbabwe, the granite ruins of the greatest city in ancient Africa. About the rock art, more faint traces of people long gone, that could be found everywhere.

 

For all my wonder, I feel an astonishing pang of homesickness every so often. I didn't expect that. To miss my brothers and sister, yes, but not the mundane realities of everyday life at home. For all the beauty here, I sometimes feel a strange sense of not-belonging. As if I never could, even if I lived here for the rest of my life. It works both ways, though. I met a white couple a few weeks ago who fled the country some years back, when it was obvious what was happening, but after staying for two years in England—where their daughter and her family live—they came home even though
there was no way they could recover their farm. That was how they put it: they came home. It was too late for them to really belong anywhere else.

 

Four days later, without having heard from her again, he left Harare, this time for the eastern lowveld near the Sanyati River. He sent Moira a quick email before he left, telling her he'd be out of touch for two to three weeks.

Then he worried. Had he said something wrong in his last, long email? Or did she not want to continue exchanging long, chatty communications with the man who'd fathered her baby but whose involvement in their child's life she didn't
welcome?
Was she not feeling good?

God. Had she lost the baby? Will thought most miscarriages were earlier in the pregnancy, but he didn't know. He was astonished at how sick he felt at the idea. Did women die when they miscarried? Surely not anymore, not at home, anyway, with modern medical care readily available.

If anything was wrong, would she let him know? Would anyone else?

Had she told anyone he was the father of her baby? He bounced irrationally from the cold sweat of fear at the idea of her sick or hurt or grieving to sharp anger because she might not want her mother or her friends to know who he was.

Checking email wasn't an option; he hadn't even driven on this trip, but had been flown along with Chionesu, his translator, into a dusty bush airstrip in a thinly populated region where the roads, he'd been told, were abysmal.

He evaluated, he met with local leaders, he chose a site. He slept in thatch-roofed huts and dined with host families, sitting cross-legged to eat
sadza
out of a communal
pot. Will had become adept at molding the thick millet or corn cereal into a shape he could use to dip stew.

And the whole damn time, all he could think about was Moira. By the time he was on a small bush plane taking off from the same dirt airstrip, he'd made up his mind he would take a trip home to the States. He had to see her.

“I'
M GOING TO GRAB
some lunch on my way to city hall,” Gray said. “You want me to get you something and drop it off here?”

Moira straightened on the tall stool in front of her drafting table and rolled her shoulders with a groan she hoped Gray didn't hear.

“Thanks, but I brought a sandwich.” She smiled at him.

“Come on, when have you ever known me to let myself go hungry?”

He grinned. “Well…you were looking a little peaked there for a while.”

“I'm making up for it,” she said ruefully. “I swear, I'm ravenous all the time. It's awful.”

He laughed, a warm rumble. She expected him to head for the door, but instead he leaned a hip against his desk and kept looking at her. Finally he said, “I haven't wanted to push, but curiosity is getting to me. Have you contacted your baby's father yet?”

Heat rose in her cheeks. “Yes. I sent him an email…”

His eyebrows rose.

“I tried calling first!” Moira snapped. “It's not my fault I had to email instead. Turns out he's moved to Africa for two years.”

“Good God.”

“He's, um, actually been really nice. We've exchanged half a dozen emails. I told him he was off the hook, but he
insists he doesn't want to be, that no kid of his is growing up without a father.”

“Told you so.”

She rolled her eyes. “It was a one-night stand. I might have picked a scumbag to sleep with.”

“Nah. Not you.” He straightened, came to her and kissed her cheek. “I know you better than that, Moira.”

They hugged, and for a moment she closed her eyes at the pleasure of his solid embrace. Then he stepped back. “What's the guy doing in Africa?”

She told him, and Gray nodded. “Would I know him?”

Moira hesitated.

Gray looked sardonic. “Aren't you planning to put his name on the birth certificate?”

She grimaced. “Yes, of course I am. Uh…his name's Will Becker.”

Her partner's eyes narrowed. “Of Becker Construction?”

“Yes, but his brother Clay has taken it over now, with Will gone.”

“Huh.”

“Do you know him?” she felt compelled to ask. Oh, Lord—was she wrong about Will?

But Gray shook his head. “I hear they do good work. Mostly stuff that wouldn't interest me. Shopping centers, grocery stores, that kind of thing.”

“I don't think it interested Will, either. There's some reason he threw it over to build mud-brick medical clinics in Africa.”

Gray laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. Okay. Is he planning to help financially? See the baby?”

“He says he'll be back in the States every so often, and the next time he is we'll talk.” Moira bit her lip. “He did
say he'd be glad to help financially if I can't work all the way through the pregnancy, so I guess he probably will offer child support at least.”

“Good. Not as good as his being here, but better than nothing.” Gray jiggled his keys in his pocket as if to make sure they were still there. “I've got to run. See you tomorrow?”

She nodded. “Except I'll be out at the Fletcher house first thing in the morning.”

They exchanged a few words about the project that had turned into a huge trial for her, with the clients changing their minds about what they wanted at least weekly.

“Don't worry about the cost,” Jennifer Fletcher would say blithely. “It's important to get it right. Tearing it out at this point is better than living with a layout that isn't perfect.”

Jennifer would undoubtedly want something else torn out this week. The contractor, Dave Hendricks, was getting even more aggravated than Moira was. During most of their meetings, she played peacemaker.

Waiting until the door had shut behind Gray, she strolled to her desk and took out her sandwich. She might as well have lunch now, too. She'd intended to make herself wait another hour, but…damn it, she was hungry. And anyway… She peeked out the window at the parking lot to be sure Gray wasn't coming back for something he'd forgotten, then, when she saw his car gone, sat in front of her computer and went on the Internet. There hadn't been one word from Will in three full weeks. He'd said it might be that long, but she couldn't help worrying. He'd dismissed her concerns, but from what she'd read, Zimbabwe under Mugabe
wasn't
a safe place. Not many nonprofits were working there right now, and she suspected the potential danger was why.

There was no email from him today, either, she was disappointed to see. She'd send him another one tonight, Moira decided, something chatty and casual. She could tell him about the Fletchers. He'd undoubtedly had difficult clients and would sympathize.

She ate quickly, drinking cranberry juice with her ham sandwich and longing for her usual iced tea. She missed caffeine. She
craved
caffeine. Especially these days, when she tended to get drowsy right after lunch. Her body really, really wanted her to take a nap. Even the nine hours she'd slept last night apparently didn't cut it.

Ruefully she laid her splayed hands on her belly and gently rubbed. For Pete's sake, she was only halfway through this pregnancy, and she was so blasted
big.
Didn't it figure? Of course, Will was an exceptionally large man, which meant his child probably wouldn't be petite. She thought he was at least six foot three and maybe taller, with shoulders so broad he'd alarmed her at first sight. His enormous hands had dwarfed hers. She imagined what his hand would look like on her rounded stomach, and felt a disturbingly sexual twinge at the image. No one had ever touched her the way he had, so gently even though she could feel the power he kept curbed. She wondered if, as big as he was, he often felt like the classic bull in a china shop.

With a sigh, Moira managed to get herself back to work.

Jennifer Fletcher
did
want something else torn out when they met the next morning.

Bright eyed, her dark hair artfully disheveled, she swept in and said, “I keep worrying that there won't be enough storage here in the kitchen. And last night it came to me. What if we bump out the dining area here with a bay window instead—” she waved one hand toward
the large, small-paned window she'd been measuring for blinds last week “—and then we could squeeze in a sort of butler's pantry on the other side of the doorway?” She gave first Moira, then Dave, a limpid look and waited expectantly.

Moira heard a rumble rising from the middle-aged contractor and interceded hastily. “Let me do some measuring and we'll see, Jennifer. Did you consult with Stella?” The kitchen designer, Moira suspected, had long since thrown up her hands, or maybe thrown in the towel was more accurate, but she might be a voice of reason.

“Oh, I know Stella will agree with me. Absolutely she will.” Jennifer's smile was radiant. “With Ron and I entertaining so often, we can't live without enough storage for serving pieces. And I have four different sets of china, you know.”

Moira knew. Normally this would be Dave's problem and Stella's problem, not hers, but if they were to knock out this wall…

She made no promises, but soothed Jennifer, who made a whirlwind tour of the unfinished house, pronounced herself delighted and left. Another fifteen minutes, and Moira had Dave settled down, too.

As she walked to her car, the faint flutters she'd been feeling in her stomach intensified, as if the baby had decided to take up swimming the butterfly.

“Just wait'll you're in the last month and the kid weighs thirteen pounds. And
then
discovers the trampoline,” Charlotte had warned darkly. She was eight months along now and could hardly get out of a chair. Moira had heard Gray clearing his throat to suppress his laugh at the idea of a thirteen-pound fetus, but he'd had the wisdom to have noticed that Charlotte's sense of humor seemed to have waned recently. Moira was beginning to see why.

She settled with relief behind the wheel of her car and carefully arranged the seat belt around herself. Everything took longer these days, and it was going to get worse, not better.

She treated herself to the guilty pleasure of a burger and fries on her way back to the office, even though it was awfully early for lunch. She'd probably put on a pound with the one meal.

“I'll have a salad for dinner,” she said aloud, and knew she lied. Maybe a salad and a grilled cheese sandwich. And frozen yogurt after. She'd developed a sweet tooth lately.

At the office she told Gray about the latest hitch at the Fletcher house, he commiserated then grumbled in turn about the city council. He swore they'd gotten less cooperative now that they knew he was on his way out. Moira felt even guiltier about that than she did about the sinful lunch. She was glad when he left for city hall.

She determined that yes, they probably could install a bay window and find room for Jennifer Fletcher's new pantry, called Dave who ranted for a few minutes, then went back to the drawing she'd begun yesterday of a building that would house a new real estate office. She used her computer at a certain point, but liked to rough out ideas with pen and paper, and found that clients liked a drawing, too.

A client popped in at one point and looked at preliminary sketches, after which Moira checked email for the second time today. Still nothing from Will.

It wasn't like they were best friends, she reminded herself. She hadn't even wanted to tell him about the baby, for heaven's sake. But she was honest enough with herself to admit that, somehow, in the past six weeks he'd become important to her. Only because knowing she had some
support from him made her feel a little less scared about the future, she tried to convince herself. She knew it was more than that, though.

When she read his emails, she could almost hear his voice, as if he were talking to her instead. He had a good voice, deep and relaxed, laced with amusement that she sensed was often directed at himself instead of at other people. The emails reminded her why she'd trusted him enough to make love with him. She'd freaked the next morning, but the truth was she couldn't remember ever liking anyone as much so quickly. She guessed in some ways he'd reminded her of Gray. There was something rock solid about him. She'd be surprised if he had one-night stands with women he barely knew very often.

Her mind wandered; her hand stilled.

Had he really thought she was beautiful? she wondered wistfully. He said he'd been watching her for quite a while through the glass. That might have been a line, one of those things he'd have said to any woman who joined him out there. But she thought maybe he'd meant it. He didn't seem…slick. The way, she had belatedly realized, Bruce was.

When the door opened, Moira turned in surprise, her hand pressing her lower back as she summoned a polite smile. They didn't get that much drop-in traffic. Who…?

She gaped. Will Becker, who was supposed to be in Africa, had just walked into Van Dusen & Cullen, Architects.

 

“W
ILL?” SHE WHISPERED
.

He'd been dreaming of Moira for months, and still she looked better than he remembered. Although…different. He took in the sight of her freckled face and astonished
green eyes, the copper bright curls escaping the knot she'd fashioned at the back of her head, then lowered his gaze to the unmistakable swell of her belly. The knowledge that she was pregnant suddenly became a whole hell of a lot more visceral.

“Can you feel the baby moving?” he heard himself ask.

She nodded and stared at him from her perch on a tall stool in front of a slanted drawing table that stood before one of the large windows.

He wound his way past desks until he was only a couple of feet from her. Made a little uneasy by her obvious shock, he cleared his throat. “I should have told you I was coming.”

She blinked a couple of times in quick succession. “I thought…you were still out, um, wherever you went.”

“I got back to Harare a few days ago, and caught a flight as soon as I could. I, uh, needed to clear some decisions with people back here.” That was a flat-out lie; sure, he wouldn't waste his time here, but he'd endured the twenty-five-hour flight to see her.

Will still wasn't sure why that had been so important. There'd been a couple of emails from her waiting for him when he got back to Harare. He'd known she was fine, the baby was fine. But once he'd let himself formulate the desire to see her, he couldn't seem to let go of it. He
had
to see her.

And there she was, right in front of him, lush, curvaceous and pregnant with
his
baby.

“How are you, Moira?” he asked quietly.

“You didn't believe me when I said I was fine?”

“You have a backache.”

She hastily withdrew her hand from the small of her
back and clasped her fingers together in front of her. “I've been bending over all afternoon.”

“What are you working on?”

She seemed to hesitate, then swiveled toward the drafting table. “You can take a look, if you want.”

It was a typical architect's rendering, but skillfully done. He liked the look of the bungalow-style building with a deep front porch.

“A real estate office,” she told him.

“I like it,” he said simply.

“I can't believe you're here.”

“I kept thinking about you,” he admitted. She was even prettier close up, with the sunlight slanting in the window turning her freckles to pale cinnamon. This was the first time he'd seen her in daylight. He wished he could tell better what she was thinking. She was surprised, certainly, maybe even stunned, but beyond that… Was she glad to see him, or unhappy?

His mysterious redhead, he thought, was still mysterious.

“I was a little worried,” she admitted. “When I didn't hear from you, I mean.”

Chagrined, he said, “I should have emailed. Once I realized I had a chance to come home, I wanted to surprise you. I don't know why.”