a baby.
Well, if that was all she’d take from him, that’s what he’d give her, Caleb thought grimly, and unzipped his jeans.
Think about that beauty who flirted with you in Santo Domingo.
The idea of sitting here in this girlie bathroom, Laurel a room away, getting aroused by imagining the exotic, coffee-skinned beauty who had tried to lure him into her rooms on a back street in the colonial Dominican Republic city struck him as dirty.
It had to be Laurel, Caleb realized, desperate. How could he give her a baby if it wasn’t even her he was thinking about? Whether she would like it or not, he was going to close his eyes and imagine making love with her. Maybe this wasn’t the normal way for a man and woman to conceive a child, but he figured it wasn’t as much the physical act as the emotions that were important. By God, he was going to feel as close to what he should be as he could manage.
But it was the old Laurel he pictured, the one who laughed at him and challenged him and, yes, flirted with him. He fantasized about the young woman he remembered from brief glimpses, in tiny panties and bra. By her senior year, her body was slim and pale but for nicely rounded hips she grumbled about, but looked more than fine to him, and generous breasts she tried to minimize with baggy shirts. It was the sexy Laurel he saw when he closed his eyes, not the traumatized one who shrank from all contact.
Thinking about her that way…well, it wasn’t as much of a reach as he’d thought it would be. And it worked.
No problem.
COULD HER CHEEKS get any hotter without sizzling like meat on a grill? Laurel didn’t want to know.
She accepted the big plastic syringe Caleb had gotten from a veterinarian friend, tried not to look at the milky liquid inside and said, all bright and chirpy, “Oh, good. I hope it wasn’t too…well, hard.”
Humiliation swept over her. Bad pun. Really, really bad.
Yes, her cheeks could get hotter. And did.
“Your turn.” Darned if his cheeks weren’t stained dark red, too. So, okay, this wasn’t an everyday happening for him, either. “You want me to stay?”
And hold her hand?
She shook her head quick. “No, I’ll be fine.”
Caleb was already backing up. “Then, uh, I’ll give you a call.”
“Okay. Sure.”
He had the front door open. “I’ll lock.”
“Good.”
But she was talking to herself. He was gone, duty performed. So much for them laughing together at the awkwardness.
She stared down at the object in her hand before remembering exactly what it was and averting her gaze.
Laurel lay on her bed to insert the syringe, then remembered that standing on your head was supposed to help speed the sperm on their way. She’d been able to stand on her head when she was a kid, but hadn’t in years. Could she still?
She finally slithered off the bed, using it to brace herself, and managed to keep her feet in the air for several minutes. That had to be long enough. Then she read in bed for a while, knowing full well that she wouldn’t remember a word later, and finally dozed off even though it was still early evening.
She woke up later, blinking fuzzily and trying to remember why she was in bed and whether the 8:13 on the clock was morning or evening.
Evening. Oh, God. She was pregnant. Maybe. She hoped. Or at least, in the process of getting pregnant.
She splayed her hands over her belly, a smile curving her mouth as she imagined life inside her, however tiny.
“Are you in there?” she whispered, as if the cells that held the possibility of life could hear. “If you are, welcome. I really want you. And…I think your daddy does, too.”
She had that helium-balloon sensation again, chest swelling with an emotion that felt perilously like happiness. When was the last time she’d been happy? Really, truly, happy? The After Laurel didn’t know. A long, long time. Realizing that she was happy actually scared her a little. Being careful, guarded, made her feel safe. Happiness made you careless.
But she had to open herself to it, if she was to be a mother. She could never let her child realize how vulnerable she felt. Knowing your mom was scared of the world was no way to grow up.
And maybe she could rediscover not just herself, but how it felt to let even something small, like watching a butterfly, make you happy. A child could do that for you, open your eyes to sensations and wonders you’d come to take for granted.
And she, who took so little for granted anymore, was more than ready to rediscover the wonders and not just the dangers of the world around her.
CHAPTER THREE
LAUREL KNEW SHE WAS pregnant within two weeks. She couldn’t verify it, and she didn’t call Caleb with the big news. Not when she’d have to say, It’s actually too early for a pregnancy test. I just have a feeling…
But her period came as reliably as Monday mornings. On Wednesday, when it should have started with a flood, it didn’t. Not Thursday, either, or Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
The following Wednesday, she was so queasy she couldn’t eat her morning oatmeal. A banana was the best she could do.
Caleb had had to fly to South America unexpectedly, promising he wouldn’t be gone for more than a couple of weeks, so telling him she thought she was pregnant wasn’t an option anyway. Not if she didn’t want to make the announcement via e-mail.
She hadn’t actually seen him since the evening he’d disappeared into her bathroom and emerged a half hour later, red-faced, with the syringe he all but flung at her before he fled. Or maybe, left quickly out of consideration for her feelings. Laurel wasn’t sure.
He’d called a couple of times, and they’d had stilted conversations. It was almost as bad as when he’d first come back from his stint in the Peace Corps and been so familiar she felt even more like a stranger to herself.
After a week of nausea, she did tell her rape support group that she thought she was pregnant. The group of nine other women gazed at her in surprise and speculation, waiting for the details.
She’d intended to keep it brief—I want to start a family, I had sperm donated—but once she’d started, Laurel had found herself spilling everything. Her choice of one friend to be donor, and then her decision to change to her oldest, dearest friend, despite the fact that he was single. The only thing she didn’t say was that there’d once been sexual chemistry between them. Because that didn’t matter anymore, did it?
They congratulated her, but they also asked questions, and some surprised her.
Marie, one of the women who was most reticent about the details of her own rape, asked, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
“You mean, before I got pregnant?”
There were nods all around.
“Because…” She didn’t know why.
“You thought we’d try to talk you out of it,” Marie said.
“That’s why I didn’t tell my dad, but…” She looked around the circle. “Would you have tried?”
At least half the women nodded.
“But…why?” she asked.
Again, it was Marie who spoke. “You’re the only one of us who hasn’t had a relationship since her rape.” They’d been meeting for a long time now, with Cherie the most recent addition two and a half years ago.
“A lot of you are married,” Laurel argued. “That’s different.”
“I’m not married,” Jennifer