self-loathing and despair. “I pushed it down, kept it secret, and life moved on.”
I look down at my belly and touch it. I imagine it growing, as it did with Alexa. I remember what it felt like, those stirrings of life. Amazing and crazy and frightening and humbling. “So here I am again. I get another chance. There’s no way I’m getting another abortion, that much I know. But it would be a lie to say I’m not scared, sir.”
“I understand, Smoky,” he says. “I really do. You’ve lost a lot. Fear’s natural.” He cracks a crooked grin. “What’s the old saying about paranoia?”
“You’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you?”
“Yeah.” He gets serious. “People are out to get us. Every day. Maybe they’re not actively pursuing us, but somewhere in this great nation of ours, at this very moment, someone is at the very least turning the idea over in their head. Pregnancy makes you vulnerable, that’s a fact. Then, a baby …” He shakes his head. “I envy those who are courageous enough to have children. At the same time, I’m relieved I don’t have to worry about my children, if I had any, being used as a weapon against me.”
“That’s part of it.”
“Have you discussed this with Tommy?” he asks, then catches himself. To my great surprise, he blushes a little and clears his throat. “Sorry, that’s an assumption on my part. Is Tommy the father?” My mouth drops open. “Sir!”
He looks embarrassed again. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Jeez. What kind of hussy do you think I am?”
“So?”
I sink back into my chair. I feel like a kid in the principal’s office. “He doesn’t know. I haven’t told him yet.”
He squints at this answer and scratches a forearm. “Well,” he says, “I guess it’s really your business. You’re not married, after all.”
In for a penny, I think. I blurt it out before I have time to stop myself.
“Actually, we are married, sir.”
Now his mouth does drop open, to be replaced soon after by a genuinely happy smile. “No shit?”
“Really and truly. Hawaii wasn’t just a vacation, it was a honeymoon.”
“Congratulations! Why didn’t you tell me?” Time to sink back into the chair again.
“Well, I haven’t told anyone, sir. You’re the first. To be honest, Tommy and I have been fighting about it a little.”
“He wants to spill the beans and you don’t?”
“Something like that.”
He seems about to say something but closes his mouth. “I can understand your reluctance, I guess. I kept my second marriage a secret for almost three months. I didn’t want to jinx it.”
“Exactly! You understand where I’m coming from.”
The quality of his next smile is full of affection but a little bit sad. “But that’s all bullshit, Smoky. That second marriage failed like the others, and it wasn’t because I did or didn’t tell anyone about it. Don’t get superstitious about it. Bottom line, I wasn’t willing to give my marriage the same priority I gave my work. You and Tommy are a good match in that regard.”
I feel the great reluctance again, the push and pull of trying to decide what to reveal.
“It’s not just that, sir,” I say, my voice quiet. “I’m afraid if I say it, if the world knows, that he’ll be taken away from me.”
“Maybe he will,” he replies without hesitation. “That part’s not up to you. I’m not talking about religion and higher powers, just truth. One of you will eventually die, and barring a plane crash or something similar, one will die before the other. That’s life, Smoky. We live and then we die, and the only uncertainty is how much time goes in between.”
I’ve heard these words before, of course. Inside my own head. I know the truth of them, and I can even feel it, a little. But my heart has its own legs, and it wants to run in the other direction.
Marriage is different. It’s a choice, a stand, an act of defiance against a life of loneliness. I took that stand once without fear, but the water of life has run far and deep since then.
“What can I say, sir? I’m terrified all the good stuff is going to come crashing down again. I took it for granted once. It was an invulnerable life. Alexa would grow up and make me a grandmother. Matt and I would watch each other’s hair turn white. That all changed in an instant.”
“You want my advice?”
“Kind of.”
He laughs at that, something just south of a chuckle. It pulls a reluctant smile to my own lips. “My advice is to go down fighting. Life kicked your ass once, and almost for good. You survived; now you have a husband again and not just one child but the possibility of another. So shout it out. Be proud of it. Challenge fate and flip a bird toward heaven. Hold what you got tight, and tell the world it’s yours. Whatever you decide, stop shying away. It’s just not your style, and it’s boring as shit.”
I grin at my mentor, at my quasi-friend. “Pretty good pep talk, sir.”
“I have my moments. Now, I’m sure you’re wondering how this will go over with the director.”
“A little, sure. I don’t think a big, fat pregnant agent is what he had in mind for the poster.”
“Probably not. My advice is not to tell him, for now. He’s going to be out there selling his idea to the President and various budget committees. He’s going to use you as a key selling point. Hopefully, by the time he finds out you’re pregnant, it’ll all be too far along for him to switch horses.”
“Pretty devious.”
“That’s the world at this level. Better get used to it. Anything else you need to talk about?”
“I don’t think so.”
He waves me away, his voice gruff again, impatient again, not as an insult to me but as a way of showing that nothing’s changed between us, that I revealed what I revealed and am regarded as I was before. “Then get going. Catch this loony.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure, Smoky. And that carries forward into the future, even when I’m not your boss anymore. Maybe especially then.”
I get on the elevator to head back to the office, feeling cleansed. The things inside me had built up pressure. I was unaware of just how much until I let fly with AD Jones, a lobbing of emotional hand grenades that he’d taken with assurance and aplomb.
Maybe we’ll be real friends when he’s not my boss.
I touch my belly. I like that idea.
I like it a lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Attention, everyone,” I say. “Before we go any further, I have an announcement to make.”
“Do tell,” Callie says.
Alan puts down his pen and waits. James gives me a sour glance and continues working.
“Tommy and I got married.”
Alan’s eyes widen. “God damn!” he says, laughing. “That’s great! When?”
“We did it in Hawaii.”
“And just how long were you going to keep this a secret?” Callie asks, her tone and expression severe. “Just
