Another Man's Child

“Are you gonna be okay now?” he asked, feeling awkward. After all, this had nothing to do with him.

Lisa nodded.

Marcus got to his feet. “I, uh, guess I’ll be going then. I just came back to get a book I forgot.”

Lisa stood up, as well, and moved to her sink. “Have a good day,” she said, reaching for her toothbrush.

Marcus stood there for a second longer, wishing there was some way he could make everything right again. He missed her so much. “Yeah, you, too,” he finally said, stopping in the bedroom to shrug back into his suit jacket.

“Marcus?” Lisa poked her head around the bathroom door.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Marcus nodded and left, his day suddenly a little brighter.

LISA WAS SICK again that evening after dinner, and several more times during that next week. The violence and frequency of her vomiting started to alarm Marcus. He’d been waiting to leave with her in the mornings since the first time he’d found her sick, and after the fourth morning of nausea in a row he was an old hand at soothing her through the episodes. But while he quieted her fears, his own grew. It seemed to him that these bouts of nausea were far more than normal morning sickness.

“I want you to talk to Dr. Crutchfield today when you get to the hospital, Lis,” he said on Wednesday morning while they both got ready for work. It was the middle of the last week in October, Lisa’s ninth week of pregnancy. “You’re sick all the time now.”

“It’s perfectly normal,” Lisa said, chuckling. She opened her eyes wide to apply her mascara.

He couldn’t tell, looking at her now, that she’d been so violently ill only half an hour before. She looked healthy. Better than healthy. She was glowing. Still…

“I can’t believe that every woman goes through this every time she’s expecting, Lisa.”

“Some women just have it worse than others,” she said, continuing with her lashes.

Why was she taking this so lightly? Few things in life scared him, but the thought of something wrong with Lisa, seriously wrong, scared the hell out of him.

“I’d still feel better if you talked to the doctor,” he said.

Lisa met Marcus’s gaze in the mirror, her eyes amused. “I am a doctor, if you…” She stopped midstream when he stared, stone-faced, back at her. “You’re really concerned, aren’t you?” she asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Marcus admitted, refusing to apologize for that.

“I’ll stop by and see her this morning, Marcus. I have office visits until eleven, but I’ll go over straight after. Okay?” She smiled at him, looking about sixteen in her slip and bare feet, with her makeup only half-on.

“Okay.” Marcus smiled back. God, how he loved her.

“IF LISA CALLS, put her right through, no matter what,” Marcus told Marge as he walked into his office later that morning.

“Nothing’s wrong, is there?” Marge asked, getting up to follow him. She stood in his doorway, a mother’s worried frown on her brow.

Marcus had not yet told anyone about Lisa’s pregnancy. He hadn’t wanted to face the inevitable questions, the role he’d have to play in order to protect his wife’s privacy. And his own.

But no matter how much he resented the position Lisa had put him in, her condition wasn’t something he was going to be able to hide much longer. “No. As a matter of fact, she’s pregnant,” he said, trying to sound happy about the situation.

Marge was so effusive in her congratulations Marcus felt more like a fraud than ever, but he accepted them because he had no other choice. He tried to measure up to her expectations of a happy father-to-be. And by the end of the morning every other member of his immediate staff had been in to congratulate him. He found it increasingly wearing to keep up the pretense, but it warmed him to see how much genuine affection his coworkers seemed to have for Lisa and him. He hadn’t expected everyone to be so excited. His paychecks guaranteed their loyalty. Not their well wishes.

It warmed him far more when, shortly after eleven, Lisa called to say that eve

rything was just fine with the baby and her. He brushed right by the part about the baby, giddy with relief to hear that Lisa was in perfect health. He’d been more worried than he thought.

He forgot himself long enough to go out and share the good news with Marge.

“It sounds to me like you need to read up on the next seven months, Marcus, if a little morning sickness throws you so off kilter,” Marge said, grinning at him.