indifferent to everything he said. “I want you to see him today,” he repeated.
“Fine. Can I go by myself, or will you have Dominique take me?” Her eyes spat fire into his.
“Never mind that. You’ll go today?”
“Count on it. And where are you going today, Athens or Rome?”
She walked past him into the bathroom and quietly closed the door. It was going to be a delightful eight months, Marc thought grimly. When the baby came a month later than Deanna expected, he was simply going to tell her it was overdue. That happened all the time, babies born three weeks late. He had thought about it all the way over on the plane.
He walked to the bathroom and spoke firmly at the closed door. “I’ll be at my office if you need me. And be sure you see the doctor. Today. Understood?”
“Yes. Perfectly.” She kept her voice steady so he wouldn’t know she was crying. She couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t live with it. It was too much. She had to leave him, to find her way back to Ben, with or without this damned child. But she had an idea. When she heard the front door slam, she emerged and went directly to the phone. The nurse told her he was busy but when she had the woman explain who was on the phone, he took the call.
“Deanna?” He sounded surprised. She rarely called anymore.
“Hi, Dr. Jones.” Her voice sagged with relief just to hear him. He would help her. He always had before. “I have a problem. A very large problem. Can I come see you?” He could hear the urgency in her voice.
“What did you have in mind, Deanna? Today?”
“Will you hate me if I say yes?”
“I won’t hate you, but I may tear out the little hair I’ve got left. Can it wait?”
“No. I’ll go crazy.”
“All right. Be here in an hour.”
She was, and he settled back in the huge red-leather chair that she always thought of when she thought of him. “So?”
“I’m pregnant.” His eyes didn’t waver. Nothing moved in his face.
“How do you feel about it?”
“Awful. It’s the wrong time… and everything about it is wrong.”
“Marc feels that way too?”
What did he have to do with it? What did it matter? But she had to be honest. “No. He’s pleased. But there are a thousand reasons why I think it’s wrong. For one thing, I’m too old.”
“Technically, you’re not. But do you feel too old to cope with a small child?”
“It’s not so much that, but… I’m just too old to go through it again. What if the baby dies, what if something like that happens again?”
“If that’s what you’re worrying about, you don’t have to, and you know it. You know as well as I that the two incidents were totally unrelated, they were just tragic accidents. It won’t happen again. But I think what you’re telling me, Deanna, is that you just don’t want this baby. Never mind the reasons. Or are there reasons you don’t want to tell me?”
“I… yes. I-I don’t want Marc’s child.”
For a moment the good doctor was stunned. “Any special reason, or is that a whim of the moment?”
“It’s not a whim. I’ve been thinking of leaving him all summer.”
“I see. Does he know?” he asked. She shook her head. “That does complicate things, doesn’t it? But the baby is his?” He would never have asked her that ten years before, but now things were apparently different, and he asked with such kindness that she didn’t mind.
“The baby is his.” She hesitated and then went on. “Because I’m two months pregnant. If I were less pregnant, it wouldn’t be his.”
“How do you know that you are two months pregnant?”
“They told me in France.”
“They could be wrong, but they probably aren’t. Why don’t you want the baby? Because it’s Marc’s?”
“Partially. And I don’t want to be tied to him any more than I am. If I have the baby, I can’t just get up and leave.”
“Not very easily, but you could. But then what would you do?”
“Well, I can hardly go back to the other man with Marc’s child.”
“You could.”
“No, Doctor. I couldn’t do that.”
“No, but you don’t have to stay with Marc because you’re having his child. You could get out on your own.”
“How?”
“You’d find a way if that was what you wanted.”
“It isn’t. I want… I want something else.”
And then he knew.
“Before you tell me, let me ask you how your daughter fits into all of this. How would she feel, one way or the other, if you had another child?” But Deanna was looking somberly into her lap.
At last she looked up at him. “That doesn’t matter anymore either. She died two weeks ago, in France.”
For a moment everything stopped, and then he leaned forward and took her hand. “My God, Deanna. I’m so sorry.”
“So are we.”
“And even given that, you don’t want another child?”
“Not like this. Not now. I just can’t. I want an abortion. That’s why I’m here.”
“Do you think you could live with it? Afterward, you know, there’s no getting it back. It’s almost always a situation that creates remorse, guilt, regret. You’ll feel it for a very long time.”
“In my body?”
“In your heart… in your mind. You have to want to get rid of it very badly, in order to feel comfortable about what you’ve done. What if there were a mistake in their diagnosis in France, and there was a chance that this were the other man’s child? Would you still want the abortion?”
“I can’t take the chance. I have to get rid of it in case it’s Marc’s. And there’s no reason to think they made a mistake.”
“People do. I sometimes do myself.” He smiled benevolently at her, then frowned as he had another thought. “Given what just happened to Pilar, do you feel able to cope with this now?”
“I have to. Will you do it?”
“If it’s what you want. But first I want to examine you and make sure I agree. Hell, maybe you’re not even pregnant.”
But she was. And he agreed, it was probably two months though it was always difficult to be precise so early in a pregnancy. It was just as well to do the operation quickly, Deanna seemed so determined on it.
“Tomorrow?” he asked her. “Come in at seven in the morning, and you can go home by five. Will you tell Marc?”
She shook her head. “I’ll tell him I lost it.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to work that out.”
“What if you decide to stay with Marc and have another child, but after this one you find you can no longer conceive? Then what, Deanna? Will you destroy yourself with guilt?”
“No. I can’t imagine that happening, but if it does, I’ll just have to live with it. And I will.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Totally.” She stood up, and he nodded and jotted down the address of the hospital where he wanted her to go. “Is it dangerous?” She hadn’t even thought to ask until then. She didn’t really care. She would just as soon die as be pregnant now with Marc’s child.
But Dr. Jones shook his head and patted her arm. “No, it’s not.”
“Where are you going at this hour?” Marc picked up his head and glanced at her as she slid out of bed, annoyed at herself for having awakened him.
