Another Man's Child

Lisa shook her head. “I’m not hungry.” Continuing on through the house to the kitchen, she fell into a seat at the kitchen table, staring aimlessly into space. Just as she’d done the night before. And the night before that. She didn’t even kiss him hello anymore.

“You ready to give up your fight, Lis?” he asked softly from the doorway behind her. Her apathy alarmed him.

“No!” She swung around, jumping up out of her chair. “Why would you even say such a thing? Is that what you want? For me to give up? Let her go? That would suit you just fine, wouldn’t it, if it was just you and me again. Isn’t that what you really want?”

Her words stung. “Of course I don’t want that, Lisa. I’m not heartless.”

“Aren’t you?” she cried. “Aren’t you? What do you call it, then?” She stepped closer. “Our daughter’s barely big enough to fill your hand, let alone a cradle. She may be dying. She’s certainly hurting, and still you don’t claim her. Damn you! Why don’t you claim her?” she screamed, hitting him in the chest with her fists.

The pain her words inflicted far surpassed that of the physical blows. “I can’t, Lis. I’ve tried, but I just can’t.” Grabbing her wrists, he held her hands still against him. “She isn’t mine to claim.”

She could have no idea just how much he wished, every minute of every day, that the tiny baby fighting so stalwartly was his to claim. But that choice had been taken out of his hands long ago.

“She is so yours! She’s your daughter, Marcus, just as much as she is mine.” Her voice broke. “You’re just too damn stubborn to see it.” Tears dripped slowly down her cheeks, the fight going out of her as she gazed up at him.

“I wish she was, Lis. More than you’ll ever know, I wish she was,” he said, wrapping his arms around her to hold her close to his heart. He wanted to make love to her, to sink into her velvety depths and find forgetfulness for both of them. To reaffirm that they were still part of the same whole. But she wasn’t ready. It was still too soon after her baby’s birth.

The child was less than a month old, and already she was coming between them.

LISA HAD THOUGHT, back when they’d first found out Marcus was sterile, when her marriage had been disintegrating right before her eyes, that things couldn’t get any worse. She’d thought she’d reached the depths of despair and couldn’t hurt any more than she’d been hurting. She’d been wrong. Because these days she’d discovered a whole new realm of despair where the pain was so fierce, so frightening, it rendered her powerless.

Never in her worst nightmare could

she have imagined anything like the situation she was facing. Her life’s dreams were warring against each other. Eventually one had to lose.

“I figured I’d find you here.”

Lisa turned away from the window of the nursery viewing room to see Beth sit down beside her. “I’d be in there if I wasn’t so damned worried about infection,” she said, looking back at the familiar twofoot box, the only home her daughter had ever known.

Beth’s arm slid through hers. “I know.”

“She’s not gaining like she should,” Lisa said, forcing herself to face the truth.

“I know.”

“I’ve been pumping my milk four times a day for a month, sure that she’d soon be needing every drop. My freezer’s so full that yesterday I had to throw some out.”

“Are you thinking about drying up?” Beth’s question was hesitant.

Though no one talked to her about it, Lisa figured it was what everyone wanted. Debbie Crutchfield thought Lisa was making things harder on herself, but this was one time that Debbie Crutchfield didn’t have a clue. “No.”

Beth surprised her by nodding. “Good. Your daughter’s held on too long to be robbed of any single chance she has. And once she’s ready to digest it, your milk will be the best thing for her.”

Lisa blinked away sudden tears. “Thanks, friend,” she said, squeezing Beth’s hand. “You know, I’m a mother, but I’m not. It’s like I’m still pregnant, waiting for her to be born, but instead of feeling my baby growing inside me, I have to watch her development through a maze of wires and tubes and plastic, watch other people taking care of her, changing the diaper underneath her, doing the things I should be doing. About the only time I feel like a mother is when I sit by myself with my breast pump. And someday, she’s going to be ready for all those nutrients I’m providing. I have to believe that.”

“You bet you do,” Beth said, squeezing Lisa’s hand back. “That little fighter in there deserves to have all of us believe in her. She’s already come farther than anyone predicted. And she’s going to need the support from all of us even more in the months’ ahead. There’ll be a lot of lost time to make up for.”

Thinking of what lay ahead, the least of which was the developmental catching up her baby, her fatherless baby, faced, Lisa felt a fresh surge of tears. “I know.”

“Lisa?” Beth looked at her, her brow lined with concern. “What is it? What’d I say?”

Lisa shook her head. “It’s nothing you said.” She met Beth’s gaze, knowing she had to face facts if she was going to survive. “If Sara lives, I have to leave Marcus.”

“No!” Beth shook her head in confusion. “I thought he’d finally come around. He’s been wonderful through all this, anticipating your every need, cutting back so much at work…” Her voice trailed off.

“I know,” Lisa said again, smiling sadly. “He’s been the best Which just makes everything worse. I love him so much it hurts, Beth, but he isn’t going to accept Sara. Not as his own. And if I ever get to bring her home, it can’t be to a father who rejects her. It just can’t. Can you imagine how awful that would be for her?”

She paused, then went on, “In every way that matters, Marcus is her father. She was born into our marriage. She has his name. Can you imagine how much his neglect would hurt her? Because she’d know, if we were living with him, that it was her he didn’t want. But if we’re divorced, she’d be just like any other kid in a single-parent home. Not the best situation, God knows, but at least she wouldn’t feel personally rejected.”