Jack's Baby

“He’s got my ears, poor little blighter.”

Jack smiled. “Well, one can always resort to plastic surgery.”

Maurice laughed indulgently. “They’re not that bad. He’ll grow into them.”

“Bound to,” Jack agreed, his face aching with smiling.

Maurice looked besottedly at his wife. “I’m glad he’s got Ingrid’s nose.”

Jack obediently performed the comparison, studying the straight, aristocratic nose of Maurice’s buxom blonde wife and the longer, slightly bumpy one of his friend. He forced another smile. “Yes. Much the better nose.”

Why was it obligatory to divide a baby’s features between the parents? It was inevitably done, like a ritual, perhaps affirming true heritage, or an assurance that a little replica would fulfil its parents’ expectations. Not only was it a deadly boring exercise to Jack, it almost drove him to snap, “Let the kid be himself, for God’s sake!”

But that wasn’t the done thing.

He wondered whom Nina had been visiting on this floor. Not that it mattered. No point in trying to find some contact point with her. From the attitude she had flashed to him, it would probably constitute harassment. Besides, Jack had a built-in inhibitor against going where he wasn’t wanted.

“Give me the baby, darling, while you open Jack’s present,” Ingrid commanded, brandishing the newborn power of being a mother. This was definitely one time she could boss Maurice around. The proud and grateful Dad would undoubtedly lick her feet if she asked him to. Jack knew from observation that the flow of uncritical giving wouldn’t last.

He watched Maurice lay the precious bundle in his wife’s arms with tender care. It was really a pity such blissful harmony didn’t last. They looked good—loving mother and father with child. Idyllic. The rot didn’t set in until they went home from hospital.

Ingrid’s long blonde hair gleamed like skeins of silk falling over her shoulders. Jack frowned at the reminder of Nina’s hair, which some idiot had clearly butchered. What had possessed her to have her beautiful hair cut? She’d looked like a ragamuffin, wispy bits sticking out as though she’d run her fingers through the short crop instead of brushing it. The style didn’t suit her. It made her face look thinner.

Maybe her face was thinner.

Had Nina been ill?

It was a disturbing thought. Frustration boiled up again. He hated not knowing what had been happening to her. Her face had looked paler than he remembered, too, all healthy colour washed out of it. If she’d been ill, was ill…no, it still made no sense for Nina to look at him with fear and anger.

It was no reason to cut him out of her life, either. She could have stayed with him. He would have looked after her. Did she have anyone looking after her now?

“My favourite champagne, Veuve Cliquot!” Maurice beamed at him. “Great gift, Jack.”

“I won’t be able to drink it,” Ingrid wailed. “It’ll sour my milk.”

New regime rolling in, souring more than her milk, Jack silently predicted. He grimaced an apology. “Sorry, Ingrid. I’m an ignorant male.”

“Never mind, love.” Maurice dropped a kiss on her puckered forehead. “We’ll keep it until the little guzzler here goes onto a bottle.”

“I don’t know when that will be.” She pouted. “Look how big my breasts are swelling up with milk. They’re even beginning to leak.”

They were certainly stretching her nightgown to its limits of stretchability, Jack observed, and suddenly had a flash of Nina in the elevator, her arms hugging her rib cage, her breasts pushed up, surely far more voluptuous than they used to be.

She’d been wearing a loose, button-through dress, her shape disguised by it initially. Besides, his attention had been riveted on her face then, the expression in her eyes. But when she’d turned around in the elevator, pressing back against the wall, holding herself defensively, her breasts had definitely bulged.

His heart skittered. He gave himself a mental shake, pushing the idea away. To associate Nina’s breasts with Ingrid’s—swollen with milk—was a neurotic vision he could well do without. Nina couldn’t have had a baby. It was only eight months since she’d left him.

After an argument about babies.

His mind whirled at sickening speed. Maternity hospital…not a dress, a free-flowing housecoat…tired, careless of her appearance…shock, disbelief, fear at seeing him here…anger…

He felt the blood draining from his face. He clenched his hands, gritted his teeth and willed his heart to pump his circulation back into top working order. He had to think clearly and rationally, not leap to wild conclusions. If Nina had been pregnant, surely to God she would have told him. Flung it in his face, most likely, in the middle of that argument. She couldn’t have thought he’d turn his back on her.

Maybe she had thought it, deciding to take that initiative herself rather than confront what he might say or do, given his negative attitude to having children.

Nausea cramped his stomach and shot bile up his throat. If she’d gone it alone because she hadn’t trusted him to respond supportively…

“Are you all right, Jack?”