My Babies and Me

She wilted before his eyes. But only briefly. Straightening her shoulders, she sat on her side of the bed. “Please talk to me, Michael.”

It was extremely difficult to resist the soft pleading in her eyes, but Michael managed. Barely. “Let’s get some sleep, Susan.” He held up the covers for her to climb back underneath. “If you still want to talk in the morning, we will.”

Susan studied him. And shook her head. “I’m not going to be able to sleep now. And obviously, you’re not having much luck at it, either. You might as well tell me whatever you’ve been thinking for the last hour and a half.”

“Hour and twenty-four minutes.” He had no idea why he’d said it. Only that he wasn’t ready to say anything else. Wasn’t even sure what he had to say.

SHE WAS LOSING HIM. Susan knew it as surely as she’d known when to stop fighting him about the divorce. Maybe it was because she was such a good lawyer, maybe because she loved him so much, but she could sense defeat.

“I’ve been thinking...” he finally said, and she almost cried. She’d won the battle. He was going to talk to her. But she’d lost the war, and she wasn’t ready to deal with that.

“About the babies?” She found the strength to help him when he faltered.

His eyes, when he looked over at her were tired but stony as well. “Yeah.”

“And?”

“I don’t have any choice in the matter.” He sounded like a man who’d just been sentenced to life imprisonment.

“If you mean whether or not I have twins, no, you have no choice,” she said. She was having a hard time breathing. And appearing calm at the same time. But she couldn’t fall apart. It wasn’t fair to him. She’d asked for this. Against his will, she’d coerced him into this. Now she had to let him go.

“That’s not what I meant.” He actually grinned at her—sort of—as he drawled the words.

Susan grinned back. Sort of. God, she loved the man.

“What matter, then, do you have no choice in?” She couldn’t let him distract her. This was too important—for both of them.

Shoving aside the pillow, Michael stood and pulled on his jeans. He zipped them, but left the snap undone.

“I have to take some responsibility for them.”

“No, Michael.” Susan stood, too, the unmade bed between them. “I did this. I handle it.”

“One, maybe,” he said, gesturing at her with his hand, then letting it drop to his side. “Not two.”

“This isn’t your decision to make, Michael, it’s mine.”

“You’re a lawyer, Sus, you know the courts would differ with you.”

“This isn’t about courts. It’s about me and about you. We went into this with promises. And I intend to keep them.”

Holding her gaze with his own, Michael asked, “But do you want to keep them, Susan?”

He knew she couldn’t lie to him.

“Yes,” she said, still meeting his eyes. Because the part of her that loved him, that understood him, that couldn’t bear to let him down, did want to keep her promise to take full responsibility for her children.

Relief flashed across his features, but they quickly shadowed again. “Let me ask that a little differently,” he said, and she knew, even before he opened his mouth, what was coming. “Can you honestly tell me that, given the choice, you’d rather do this alone? That you’d rather your children not have a father?”

He’d lived with her for too long. Known her for too long. Heard her prepare arguments for too many cases.

“No.”

His shoulders fell. “Like I said, I have no choice in the matter.”

“We always have choices.”

“I’m a decent man, Susan.”