He began to pull her toward him, but she grabbed his wrist. He could feel her unsteadiness.
“I just wanted you to know that I’ve loved you more than anyone could ever love another person, Chet.”
This was starting to sound…
Like a warning?
“What’s wrong, Mina?” he asked.
She closed her eyes, as if she was gathering every bit of strength she had. As the seconds passed, it felt like daggers in his skin.
Finally, she opened her eyes again, pushing the dress down the rest of the way over her hips, discarding it.
Taking him by the hand and placing it on her belly.
“Chet,” she said in a quivering voice, “we’re going to have a baby.”
Chapter Eleven
The announcement rang in Mina’s ears for what seemed like a full minute as she watched Chet for a reaction.
Would he turn on her for keeping this a secret from him?
Had she told him too late…
…or still too early?
“A baby,” he said, as if it hadn’t quite sunk in yet.
She tightened her hold on his hand, which was still on her bare belly.
“A baby,” she repeated, her heart throbbing in her ears.
Just as she thought she might not be able to take another breath, a smile broke out over Chet’s face. And his eyes…
They were shining, welling with what she thought might be incredible, glinting joy.
Then he laughed, hugging her to him, putting his hand right back on her tummy. At the same time, he was kissing her forehead, cradling her, and now it took her a few moments to process his response.
He wasn’t mad at her….
She held to him, hardly believing that it could be this easy. He stroked her hair, and for a while it seemed as if this would go on for hours.
Then the moment she’d been dreading arrived.
As he still hugged her close, he rested his chin on her head. Her hand was over his heart, and she thought she could feel his pulse underneath her palm.
The slowing of its rhythm.
His silence cut into her, because the surprise had clearly passed for him. Reality had set in.
She didn’t want to look up, into his eyes. But she did.
And what she saw shot her into pieces.
The moonlight revealed shadows—the ones that she thought had gone by the wayside already.
Sorrow flooded her. “Chet?”
“It had to have happened all those months ago,” he said, almost as if to himself. “That night I came to your apartment.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t go on, but she knew just what he had to be thinking.
“You’re going to say that you wore a condom,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure it broke. Afterward, both of us weren’t paying as much attention to it as we should have—there was so much else going on.” With her still trying to comfort him about the scandal and everything. “And I didn’t find out for certain that I was pregnant until fairly recently. I wanted to tell you right away, but…”
He had come to touch her belly again, looking down at the place where their child was growing. “But you wanted to see how things would go with me and my family before you said anything. You thought I might take the news badly.”
She didn’t even know if she should say yes, so she didn’t move, just waiting for him to go on instead.
He let go of her, and she scooted from him a few inches. They merely lay there for a while, next to each other, and soon he put his hand on her tummy again, as if he wanted the baby to know that he or she wasn’t responsible for this tension.
The quiet was excruciating, because Mina knew that all Chet’s demons had arrived, whispering in his ear.
An illegitimate baby, just like you, they had to be saying. History repeating itself.
But this wouldn’t be a forbidden baby. Or an accident.
Didn’t he realize that Mina had lived through the same sort of scenario and she would never allow a child to suffer because of the way he or she had been conceived?
That wasn’t the worst part, though. Those demons would also be driving home to Chet that Mina hadn’t let him in on the secret until now, after she had already known for a bit.
Keeping the truth from him would be just the same as a lie in his book.
What should’ve been the most wonderful moment of their lives was quickly going dark as the night collapsed around them. What made it worse was that she didn’t even know what to say now, while he was so lost in his own mind and emotions.
At least his fingertips were still on her tummy, as if he’d already fallen in love with his child.
Was it only the mom he was angry at?
Her?
And she knew why he might be disappointed in her, too, even if she didn’t know how to remedy it.
“I’m not like your mother,” Mina said.