Another Man's Child

“Really?” Lisa popped up.

“Lie still and we’ll see,” Debbie said, pushing gently against Lisa’s shoulders until she was flat on the table again.

Lisa barely felt the chill of the stethoscope against her stomach as she studied the concentrated look on the doctor’s face, waiting while Debbie listened for the baby’s heartbeat. She held her breath, afraid the sound of her breathing would drown out the fainter sound Debbie was seeking.

The doctor froze suddenly, holding the stethoscope just to the left of Lisa’s belly button. “Don’t move. It’s right here,” she said, sounding excited. “Here, Marcus, let’s put your mind at ease. You come listen first.” She held out the other set of earpieces.

Lisa looked over at Marcus, impatient for him to hear their miracle, to share with him the most exciting moment of their lives. Hoping to see her favorite smile lighting his features, warming his serious blue eyes, she was shocked at the brief glimpse she caught of his face before he turned, and without a word walked out of the room, closing the door behind him with a definitive click. Her new, oh-so-foolish hopes shriveled and died right there in the examining room, to be replaced by the fear that had become too common a companion these past months. Fear for herself, for her baby, but most of all, fear for Marcus. Was he never going to allow himself the happiness she was trying so desperately to give him?

At Debbie’s urging she listened to the faint steady beat of her baby’s heart, but rather than the elation she’d expected to feel, she felt only despair. What had she done? Dear God, what had she done?

CHAPTER EIGHT

LISA GOT THROUGH the rest of the doctor’s appointment as people usually get through a crisis, simply because she had no other choice. She made some inane excuse for Marcus, something about his being embarrassed showing emotion in front of people, and while she was sure Debbie didn’t buy it, the woman was too kind to say so. And while she listened to Debbie’s orders for more exercise and vegetables over the coming month, her mind was on Marcus, on the depth of despair she knew that frozen look of his hid, on whether or not he’d be waiting for her on the other side of the door—or anywhere.

She almost wished he’d just leave her and get it over with. The thought panicked her, devastated her, but she honestly didn’t know how much longer she could go on walking on eggs, afraid to upset the fragile peace under which they’d been going about their days, wondering when he might reach his threshold of endurance and walk out on her again.

She held her breath as she left the examining room, hoping Marcus would be waiting for her, ready to tell her he’d just become so overwrought with joy that he’d needed a moment to compose himself. Or that he’d had an instant of panic as it finally hit home what a mammoth responsibility they’d undertaken by bringing a new life into the world. Anything. She’d accept anything. As long as he was waiting there.

He wasn’t waiting outside the door. Bracing herself for whatever the next hours might hold, Lisa said goodbye to Debbie, avoiding the pity she knew she’d find in the doctor’s eyes, and took the elevator back downstairs to her office, telling herself to hold it together at least until she got home. She’d think about Marcus then. Just let her get home.

He was waiting for her in her office, his overcoat already on, but unbuttoned. He looked so solid and male and dependable. Relief flooded through her in that first second when she saw him standing there, but one glance at his face, and the knot in her stomach returned, tightening painfully.

“Can you leave?” he asked, his jaw clenched with the effort it was taking him to contain whatever emotions were roiling within him.

Lisa nodded, collected her keys and slipped into her winter coat. Picking up the phone to call her receptionist, she cleared her calendar for the day, with orders to send any emergencies to the pediatrician on call, and followed her husband’s forbidding back out to the parking lot, where they climbed into their respective cars.

She drove home dry-eyed, a cloud of dread pervading her, and pulled the Mercedes into the garage beside Marcus’s Ferrari, closing the automatic garage door behind her. She felt trapped as she sat there, not wanting to follow him into the house, not wanting to find out how bad things really were. And she was trapped by her own body, too, by the life growing within her from which there was no escape. Trapped by the dreams that made this child so essential to her happiness.

He was sitting in the middle of the velvet brocade couch in the formal living room, his overcoat tossed carelessly over the back of the matching Queen Anne chair. The coat frightened her. It was unlike Marcus to leave anything lying around.

Unless he was planning to go out again.

He stared up at the portrait of his father that hung over the fireplace. His face was no longer a frozen mask. He looked sad, defeated. Lisa felt physically ill, watching him.

She’d done this to him.

He reached out his arm to her as soon as he noticed her standing there. “Come. Sit with me,” he said, helping her off with her coat.

He didn’t sound like Marcus at all, lacking the pride, the self-assurance, that had first attracted her to him all those years ago, when he’d informed her that day outside her new sorority house that he’d carry in the rest of her boxes.

She thought of those few crucial seconds in Beth’s examining room and wished there was some way she could undo them. She’d meant to give her husband back his dreams. Instead, she’d taken away his selfrespect.

“I’m sorry.” The words weren’t enough, not nearly enough, but she meant them with all her heart.

Marcus slid his hand-beneath hers, curling his fingers around her palm. “No, I’m sorry, Lis. I’m sorry I can’t give you the children you need but—”

“No, Marcus,” she interrupted, needing to make him understand once and for all. “You can’t take responsibility for what happened. You can’t keep blaming yourself for the negligence you suffered as a child. I don’t blame you. I don’t love you any less for it. Your sterility is something that happened to both of us, equally, just as if our house burned down, or we lost all of our money on Wall Street. It was just a piece of bad luck.”

His jaw clenched, and Lisa wished she could know what he was thinking.

“—but I’m sorrier still for what I’m about to say,” he continued as if she’d never interrupted him.

Lisa went cold at his words, her hand still locked with his.

“I love you, Lisa, far more than anyone or anything else in my life. And I’ll stand beside you until the day I die, as long as that’s where you want me to be.”

“Always, Marcus. I want you there always,” she said, running her free hand along his cheek. How she loved this man!