The Pregnancy Bond

what’s the point?’

‘So you’re not going to answer my question?’

‘What question?’

‘Who are you sleeping with?’

She turned slightly, resting her arm on the back of the sofa, and smiled. ‘Mind your own business, Jake.’

He acknowledged this with a quirk of the mouth. ‘I’m still in the habit of thinking you are my business.’

‘You’ll get used to things being different,’ she told him, charming and implacable.

He allowed one finger to trail across the bare skin of her shoulder. ‘I’ll say things are different,’ he murmured, his eyes on her breasts, their shape emphasised by the shine of the black satin. ‘I could get jealous.’

The admiration in his eyes was frank, and for a moment the old Kelly, the one who jumped for joy at his slightest attention, lived again. But the new Kelly firmly sat on her. She knew every trick in Jake’s book, and once you could see the strings being pulled you were safe. Right?

With a face full of amusement she said, ‘Don’t waste your time, Jake.’

‘Sure I’m wasting my time?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘So it is one of them?’

‘You’re wasting your time again.’

He removed his hand. ‘I guess things really are different. You used to tell me everything.’

‘That was when I never had anything interesting to tell. I’d hunt around in my mind trying to find something about the house or my job that wouldn’t bore you rigid when you’d just come back from Egypt or Burundi, or wherever. Then you’d go on TV and talk about fascinating things in faraway places, and I’d think, Heavens, I told him about my argument with the dustman!’

‘Maybe I liked hearing about the dustman. It was real. It kept me down to earth.’

‘And maybe I got tired of just being your “down to earth”. You did all the flying for both of us. I was just earth-bound.’

‘I didn’t even know you tonight,’ he complained. ‘I left a librarian and I came back to the last of the red hot mommas.’

‘Not mommas,’ she said quickly. ‘Not red hot or any other kind.’

He frowned. Then her meaning hit him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It slipped out without my thinking. I didn’t realise it still hurt you so much after all this time.’

‘Yes, it’s seven years ago. I should have forgotten all about it,’ she said tensely. ‘Like you.’

‘That’s not fair. I haven’t forgotten that we nearly had a child. A child I wanted very much, by the way.’

‘Yes, enough to marry me just because I was pregnant,’ she said quietly. She didn’t add what she was thinking, And that was the only reason.

Perhaps wisely, he decided not to answer this. ‘Anyway, I meant the “red hot” bit,’ he said. ‘You really set the room alight this evening. Maybe I should stand in line behind Carl and Frank, and half a dozen others.’

‘No, you were at the head of the queue, but your time has been and gone. It’s over.’

‘But how “over” can it be when people have meant that much to each other for eight years?’

‘Now you’re being sentimental,’ she said firmly. ‘You meant “that much” to me, but I meant very little to you.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Yes, it is. Jake, this is probably the last time we’ll ever meet, so just for once let’s be totally honest. Let’s get the facts straight before we draw a line under them and move out of each other’s lives. You married me because I was pregnant and you believed in “doing the decent thing”.’

‘There was a bit more to it than that-’

‘Yes,’ she conceded, ‘you really wanted a baby. You couldn’t wait to be a father. It was one of the nicest things about you. And if I’d had the baby maybe we’d have been happy. But I didn’t. I miscarried in the fourth month, and I’ve never managed to get pregnant since.’

‘Not for lack of trying,’ he mused.

‘We tried and tried, but I guess that was my one shot and it’ll never happen again. And you still want to be a father, don’t you?’

‘It would be nice,’ he agreed after a silence. ‘But maybe it’s not meant to be.’

‘It isn’t meant to be-for us. But your next wife will probably give you a dozen.’

‘Don’t talk about my “next wife” like that. We haven’t been divorced twenty-four hours and already you’re marrying me off.’

‘I’m saying that we’ve both moved on, and that’s good.’

‘And what have you moved on to?’

‘Archaeology. I’m an academic now.’

‘And no doubt you’ll be spending your vacations on digs-with Carl. Good plan. It’ll keep the others wondering.’

Kelly merely raised her eyebrows. Jake frowned, trying to decipher that look. It threw him off balance not to be able to read her easily. Just who was this woman?

‘Enjoying yourself, are you?’ he demanded.

‘You’ve already agreed that I’m entitled to.’

‘Just be careful, that’s all. I’ve got my doubts about some of the men here tonight.’

‘I’ve got my doubts about just one,’ she riposted.

‘Hey, you really snap back at a guy these days,’ he said, nettled. ‘Except when you won’t answer him at all, that is. Faxes, e-mails, letters-you name it. I sent it, you ignored it.’

‘I didn’t ignore them all. I answered at first, but I stopped when it was clear you weren’t listening to what I said.’

‘That was because you made me mad by not letting me pay you anything. You gave up college to help out with my career. You’re entitled to a big chunk of what I make, and I’ll bet your lawyer told you the same.’

‘Oh, he’s as mad at me as you are,’ she confirmed.

‘I told him, “Anything she wants”. And you made him write back saying you didn’t want anything from me. Boy, that was a great moment! And I’ll tell you an even better one-when I found out that you’d taken a job. A real dead-end job after all the other dead-end jobs you took to help me! How can you get a good degree if you’re wearing yourself out working as well? You supported me in the lean years. You should at least let me support you through college.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because I owe you that,’ he said angrily. ‘And I like to pay my debts.’

Kelly regarded him levelly. ‘If you think of our marriage as a debt to be paid off, then we’re further apart than I thought. You’ll never understand, will you?’

He wanted to slam something against the wall, preferably his own head. No, he didn’t understand, and he was furious with her and himself. He wasn’t trying to ‘pay her off’, only to express his gratitude and appreciation for all she’d done for him. And it had come out all wrong, as so often with him. Before a news camera he was at ease, the words pouring out in a golden flow. But with this one person he was tongue-tied and clumsy.

‘Then explain it to me,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘What I did, I did because I loved you. We were a team. Remember how we told ourselves that?’

‘Of course I remember. But it didn’t work out much of a deal for you, did it?’

‘I wasn’t making deals,’ she said quietly. ‘I was doing something for the man I loved. What I forgot-or was too young to know-was that two people who think they’re doing the same thing never really are. Not quite.’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said flatly. ‘I never could follow when you talked like that. I’m a plain man and I see things plainly. I don’t think that was ever enough for you.’

‘I only meant that you saw our marriage differently from me.’

‘I did you an injustice,’ he said, clinging to the one thing that was clear to him. ‘And I’m trying to put it right.’

‘But you can’t put the past right. You can’t make it something it wasn’t. It’s dead and gone.’