Another Man's Baby (17 page)

Eric ran possibilities through his mind. Maybe Sergeant Ross had taken his car. But Eric knew that hadn’t happened. He thought of the people who’d been in his car in the last few weeks. Several women he’d given rides to but none as far as he knew had taken off their panties. There had been no reason to, and the condom, it had been used. He held Gabi tighter, wanting someone to believe in. “God, oh God, please,” he moaned as he felt Gabi’s sprit sliding farther and farther away from him. “If You are real, help me, please.”

When she woke, Eric tried to talk to her again but Gabi looked through him as though he didn’t exist. He watched as she packed a bag.

“Are you leaving me?” he asked, fear making his words harsh. She refused to look up. “Baby, please,” he said, dropping to his knees and putting his arms around her. “I swear I didn’t do it. I don’t know how those things got there. Don’t leave me.” She was shivering, and he held her, pulling her close, his head resting on her empty womb. “Don’t leave me, not now. You said we were a team, that we could get through anything together.”

“I said
we
, not
me
. There is no more we, not after you and some tramp…you screwed in our car. How could you, Eric? That was past nasty.”

She heaved and he could feel the little life that was in her seep out.

“If you love me even a little bit, just let me go. I don’t want to look at you. I can’t be around you. Just let me go. You’ve done enough to me, Eric. I can’t take any more.” The tears were a steady stream down her cheeks.

He raised up, tried to read her eyes, but they were dead, as dead as the eyes of the soldiers on the battlefield. He was scared. He didn’t want her driving in her condition. What if…

“Let me go.”

Eric moved back. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“Will you let me know when you get where you’re going? I’m worried about you. That’s all I want, to know you’re safe.”

“You should have been having some of this worry in the past months. Too little, too late. This never had to happen. I feel…”  She moaned and an agonized sound came from her throat as she allowed her gaze to linger on him. “I feel so betrayed. My very soul has died. I can’t tell you what I’m going to do because I don’t know. I only know that I can’t be in the same house with you.” She picked up her bag and left the house without once looking back.

***

Before the door could open to her frantic ringing, Gabi was pushing on it. The tears had returned and she couldn’t control them.

She almost fell when the door open. She looked up at Eric’s mother. “He had an affair. I found panties and a used condom in his car, our car. How could he do this to me?” she cried and fell into Ongela’s arms.

“Oh, God,” she moaned. “I feel like I’m going to die.” She heard Eric’s father coming from the den and sobbed even harder.

“Where’s Eric,” he asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Us. We’re wrong. We’re really getting a divorce.”

Gabi was aware of the looks Terry and Ongela were giving each other. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. I know that you’re Eric’s parents, but I feel you’ve been mine as well and I…I…I need you.” She broke off, sobbing, falling to the foot of the stairs and remaining there despite their attempts to move her.

“Let me call Eric. We need to get to the bottom of this.” Terry headed for the phone.

“No,” Gabi screamed through her sobs. “Don’t call him.”

“But he’ll be worried, honey. He probably has no idea where you are, does he?”

Her father-in-law’s soothing voice was not going to placate her. “I can understand if you don’t want me here,” Gabi sobbed. “After all, I’m only your daughter by marriage but if you call him or if he calls and you tell him I’m here, I’m leaving.”

“Gabi, you’re our daughter. We love you. Marriage or not, you’re always going to be our daughter. Now calm down and tell us what happened,” Ongela soothed.

“I already told you.”

“I know you two have been having a rough time of it since Eric returned home, but you seemed to be doing so much better the last time we came up to see you.” Ongela held Gabi’s face in her hands. “Honey, I just talked to you this morning. You seemed fine. Does this have anything to do with that phone call you made to us a month or so ago?”

Gabi returned to crying. “It has everything to do with it.” For a moment she wondered if she should tell his parents, though Eric hadn’t wanted them to know. “Since we learned that we might have a little more problem than we thought having a baby…I mean…since Eric can’t… We’ve come close to this point. I know a lot of this is from the assignment he’s on now and from the war but he won’t talk to me about any of it. It’s been rough but I was determined to hang in there.” She looked at Ongela accusingly. “I tried telling you what was happening.” She closed her eyes and scrunched up her face, then beat her closed fist on her chest. “God, oh, God,” she moaned, unable to continue. “I can’t talk right now. I just want to lie down.”

“Is there something I can get you, Gabi? Or maybe you can just talk to me?” Ongela had tears in her eyes.

“Not right now,” Gabi said and hugged the woman to her, wishing that she had a mother of her own, that she didn’t have to borrow Eric’s. But she didn’t have a mother and Ongela was the only real mother she’d ever had. “I’m sorry I came here. I didn’t have anyplace else to go.”

She started up the stairs. “Please don’t tell Eric,” Gabi pleaded and went into the bedroom where she’d shared so many passion-filled nights with her husband. As she dissolved into a puddle of pain and tears, she knew that she needed this. She would have to go through the torture of betrayal before she could ever work her way to being whole again.

***

Eric paced back and forth rubbing his hands together. He’d waited all day for Gabi to at least call. She would, he thought, because she was so considerate. All the things he’d valued, he’d thrown down the toilet in the last few months. If only he could go back.

As darkness fell his fear increased. It wasn’t like Gabi to allow him to worry. ‘
You hurt her
.’ He tried to reason with the voice. “I know I hurt her,” he groaned aloud. “I was trying to protect her. I thought she would be happier with someone else, someone who could give her babies.”

It finally hit him where Gabi was, with his parents. She had only two close friends, Tracie and Jamilla. At least they had been her friends. Jamilla was out of the running on that and maybe Tracie too. There was only one place Gabi would have gone in the state she was in.

As he dialed the number the knot of tension in his body eased. “Hello, Mom,” he said the second he heard his mother’s voice.

The phone was slammed so loud in his ear that Eric jerked it away. He no longer had to wonder. His wife was there in his parents’ care and as usual they had taken her side. Eric didn’t care; he only cared that she was alive and well.

He continued calling his parents. Sometimes the phone would just ring; other times his mother would pick it up, not answer, and slam it back down, making Eric wish he’d never bought them the caller ID for Christmas.

By the time he remembered his father’s cell number, more hours than he cared for had passed. Gabi was the one who kept up with things like phone numbers.

“Dad,” Eric said when his father answered. “Don’t hang up on me, please.”

“Don’t talk to him,” Eric heard his mother say in the background. “We promised.”

“He’s my son. Now stay out of this. You can go be with Gabi, but I’m talking to Eric.”

“Tell him what a disgrace he is,” Eric heard his mother shout in the background.

“I will,” his father agreed.

Eric waited. At least his father was willing to talk to him.

“Is it true?” his father attacked, the disgust in his voice coming through loud and clear. “Did that child find a woman’s panties in your car and a used condom? Couldn’t you find anywhere else to do your dirt? Did you have to disrespect your wife by doing it in her property?”

“Dad, don’t I even get a trial?”

“What kind of trial do you want? That poor girl is brokenhearted? I’ve never seen her like this. You’re wrong for what you’ve been doing to her.”

“I know that, Dad.” Eric slid to the floor and stretched out his legs in front of him. “Don’t you think I know how wrong I’ve been?”

“I warned you.”

“I know that too. But I didn’t do this. I swear I haven’t slept with anyone other than Gabi.”

“She said you’ve been going out, staying out to all hours, going dancing, drinking. Did she lie?”

“No.”

“She said you’ve come home stinking of other women. Did she lie?”

“No.”

“She also said her friend has been coming on to you, that she caught you with her in a club feeling her up. Did she lie?”

“No.”

“Then, Eric, you’re going to have to explain to me how you’re innocent in this. I don’t see that you deserve a trial. You’ve been cheating on your wife and you got caught. Now the best thing for you to do is just ’fess up to it. That’s going to be the only thing. Gabi isn’t stupid and neither are we. Tell the truth, then ask for forgiveness.”

“I have asked for her forgiveness, but, Dad, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t have an affair. Everything else Gabi said is true. Everything else she thinks I did, I did it, and it was stupid. But I didn’t have an affair.”

“Why did you do all of this? It seems calculated.”
For a second the breath went out of him and Eric could hear his father swearing.

“Eric, did you hurt this girl deliberately? When you talked to me you told me none of this. You said you were going to stop. True, we never discussed exactly what it was you were doing but it seems like you didn’t stop.”

Eric’s throat was tight. He could hear the shame in his father’s voice and it pained him. His father had always been so proud of him. He didn’t want to lose that but he couldn’t lie to his father to prevent it. He’d have to tell the truth and rebuild from there.

“It was deliberate in the beginning,” Eric said softly. “I was trying to protect her, Dad. I thought she would be happy with someone else, someone who could give her babies. She’s wanted them so badly and I couldn’t give them to her. I was trying to push her away, get her to leave me, to stop being so damn nice, to stop loving me so much.”

“It looks as if you’ve got your wish.”

“I know but I can’t stand the thought of her not loving me. I can’t live without her.” Eric’s voice broke. “When she caught me with Jamilla it knocked some sense into me. I had already decided not to go back to the club. That night I went with a friend who needed me. One last fling, that’s all it was going to be. But we were working things out after that. She was almost ready to forgive me, to believe me. I’d decided to stop pushing her away. I’d realized I would never be able to push her from my heart. We were on the right track.” Eric shook his head even though his father couldn’t see him. “I’m not guilty.”

“You’re guilty, Son, just maybe not of this particular crime.”

Relief washed over Eric. “Are you saying you believe me?”

“I’ve always known when you were lying and I know you’re not lying now.”

“What about Mom?”

“Your mother right now doesn’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say. You know how she feels about Gabi. You’ve been mistreating that girl and your mamma is not going to take that lightly. In fact neither of us will. She’s staying here with us for a while. She doesn’t want you here.”

“Dad?”

“No! She doesn’t want you here. She needs someone to look out for her.”

“What about me?”

“When Gabbie tried to get you to stop this nonsense, you told her you’re a man. It’s true. You’re a marine, an officer, a grown man, Eric. You’ll have to look out for yourself.”

When his father hung up, desperation slowly stole over Eric. His parents were disgusted with him. Gabi must be in pretty bad shape for his father to come down on him so hard. Still, he’d gotten the information he needed. Gabi was safe.