Which was why she’d always been afraid to start.
When she started to choke, Rick pulled her onto his lap, cradling her like one of her charges, bearing most of her weight with his right arm. With his left, he smoothed hair away from her face. Ran a finger along her neck. Her shoulder. He started to notice the little things. “Come on, sweetie. Talk to me.”
“Oh, Rick.” She shuddered. Picked at a string coming loose from one of the buttons on his shirt, while tears dripped down her cheeks. “I…can’t tell you.”
“Of course you can.” Taking hold of her chin, he made her look at him. “This is me, Rick, remember? I’m the guy who understands that you’ll never give him your whole self, but who just keeps coming back anyway.”
“I was a jerk.”
“Berating yourself isn’t going to do anyone any good,” he said now. “I just need to know what this is about.”
Sue could hear Grandma, telling her that all she had to do was speak her heart. To be honest.
Grandma, who’d kept secrets.
And that was wrong. Secrets hurt.
“I had a baby….”
The words, stark and cold and unfamiliar, hurt just coming out of her mouth.
Rick quieted. His hand slowed where he’d been rubbing her shoulder. His breathing, even his heartbeat beneath her cheek, seemed to revert to slow motion.
She wanted to rest. To sleep for a good long time.
“When?”
Rick’s question was fair. And what did it matter, now, if he knew? Her secret was out.
“Almost ten years ago.” She started to cry again when she’d thought she was done. Joe’s daughter, Kaitlin, was ten.
“Did you give it up for adoption?” That was the obvious conclusion.
She shook her head. “No.” She had to stop her voice from shaking. Her mind from working.
“Tell me about your baby, honey.” His voice was kind. Compassionate. And demanding, too. “Tell me what happened.”
“I—it—I…” She was on the floor, hard tile, cold. All she could see was a toilet. And blood. So much blood.
“Sue?”
Rick’s concern stopped her tears. Stopped everything. “I was young and stupid,” she said, her voice thick from crying so much. And then, barely above a whisper, she continued, “The night Joe got married, I slept with this guy. It was horrible. Painful. Degrading. I’d never really even made out with anyone before. When it was over I just wanted to put the whole thing behind me. The guy was long gone. He’d been a visitor to campus, someone I met at a party. I didn’t even know his full name. And he never tried to contact me again afterward. And then a couple of months later, I realized I was pregnant. I didn’t tell anyone. Couldn’t. I was barely eighteen. In my freshman year at State. I couldn’t raise a child on my own, with no way of finding the father…not that I wanted to. If I told my parents they’d make me come home and my life would be over. I decided to have the baby in secrecy—somehow—give it up for adoption, and go on with my life and they’d never know.”
“That didn’t happen?”
She shook her head. “I was in this physical fitness class and we were required to jog three times a week. Since I hadn’t told anyone I was pregnant, I jogged.”
“Didn’t your doctor tell you that was dangerous?”
“I didn’t have a doctor.”
His silence said a lot.
“I killed my baby, Rick.”
“You did not kill it.”
“I started to cramp really bad one afternoon after I got back to my dorm from jogging. I tried to call for help, but the pain was so bad, I couldn’t make it to the door. I lost the baby on the bathroom floor.”