I looked at my brother with new eyes, wondering when he had started to grow up.
“Perhaps,” I said grudgingly.
He smiled again, reminding me of the pesky, cocky kid that had been like my shadow. “Perhaps?” he said. “You know I’m right, brother, but I won’t make you admit it. I’m going to celebrate,” he said, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
I put a hand on his arm. “Sorin, keep this quiet, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, and then he headed off.
After he left, I thought about what he’d said. Maybe he was onto something. And then again, maybe he wasn’t. But in this thing he spoke the truth. This was a time for celebration, and I should spend it with my woman.
When I arrived home, I found her sleeping. I crawled into bed beside her, wrapped my arms around her waist, put my hands on her belly, and fell asleep with images of my new family filling my mind.
Twenty-One
Fawn
* * *
“You’re driving today?” I asked.
“Yes. I want to be alone,” Vasile said.
The churn in my gut sped to hurricane speed, and I worried I might pass out from the wave of dizziness that hit me.
I’d been nauseous for a couple of weeks, but this bout was not brought on by what had been confirmed as a pregnancy, at least in my mind.
No. This was dread pure and simple. Disbelief that he was making me do this.
“Fawn, we must go. We don’t want to keep the doctor waiting,” Vasile said.
He looked at me patiently but expectantly, hand on the door handle, and though my mind screamed at me to run, I complied. He got in after me, and then drove off, guiding the car with sure, efficient movements. He was intense as always, but he didn’t seem especially bothered. He glanced over at me quickly before turning his eyes back to the road.
“It’s early, but I wanted to see the doctor before he opened for the day. We’re going out of town because I want this to stay secret. But it will be quick. Don’t worry.”
I gripped the door handle, surprised when I didn’t toss whatever meager contents remained in my stomach.
Left hand on the steering wheel, he reached over and patted my knee. “You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to do this,” I said, hating the weakness in my voice, terrified of how he might react.
“Why not? Are you afraid of doctors? My grandmother, she was too.”
I was almost sick with confusion. This was as close to idle chatter as Vasile had ever gotten, and it had me even more off balance.
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t easy for me. I know we didn’t plan it, but I want to keep it.”
There. I’d said it, and I’d deal with the consequences.
“Of course we’ll keep it. What else would we do…?” He trailed off and gripped the wheel tighter and looked at me, pure malice in his eyes.
Then he pulled off the road and parked, expression calm, but the rage that poured off him was palpable.
“Where do you think we’re going, Fawn?” he asked. The low, firm tenor of his voice, the precision with which he spoke only heightened my fear.
“To the doctor. To…”
“To what?” he asked flatly.
“To get rid of it,” I said, my voice trembling with the fear that had begun to spring up.
He gripped the wheel tighter and muttered a low oath.
“You think I’m going to take you to kill my baby?”
When he asked like that, used that voice, those words, I saw the stupidity of it. He would kill everything, anyone, before he would harm his own, and I wanted to curse myself for even entertaining the idea he would make me get rid of it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sounding frail, pathetic. “I just thought…”
“That I was a monster. That I would force you to…”
He trailed off, and I worried he might rip the wheel right off the car, he gripped it so tight.
“I am, you know?”
“What?”
“A monster. A very bad man. Maybe that’s why you can’t believe me. Don’t trust me.”
His words pierced right to my very core, and shame overtook the fear.
“It’s just that you didn’t seem happy,” I said.
“I wasn’t,” he confessed.
“So you see—”
“But then I thought about it, thought about my son, a tiny little baby with your eyes. I was happier than I’ve ever been.”
He looked at me then and I saw the truth of it in his eyes, felt the fear and shame displaced by love, hope for our new family.
As he turned back to the road, he put his hand on my knee again. I reached out and entwined my fingers with his.
“It might be a girl,” I said.