Be My Baby Tonight (31 page)

“Sorry,” he said, pulling the key from the
ignition. “It’s just that... I mean...
twins?”

“Or I’m just fat,” she said, opening the door
and stepping out into the late November cold. She pulled her jacket
around her, but it didn’t quite reach, so she couldn’t zipper it.
She needed a new coat. Maybe a horse blanket, if she hoped to wear
it for the entire winter.

There had been a light, early snow two days
after Thanksgiving, and the cold temperatures had kept it from
melting, so she was glad when Tim took her arm as they walked
through the parking lot.

“You feel okay?”

“Tim, please, just stop asking that. If it’s
twins, it’s twins. There’s not a whole lot we can do about it
now.”

“I know, but I feel... responsible.”

She rolled her eyes, trying not to laugh.
“That’s because you are, dummo. You and your little swimmers.”

She loved doing that to him. Anything faintly
related to conception made him go all confused and flustered.

Except this time, he didn’t get flustered. “I
wonder, do you think they were doing the backstroke? Or did they do
a fifty-yard dash while your egg stood on the street corner, her
skirt hitched up, and a come-hither look in her eyes?”

“Tim!” Suzanna exclaimed, blushing. “Control
yourself.”

“Hey, if we can’t joke around at a time like
this, when can we, Suze? Or aren’t you as nervous as I am?”

“Oh, I’m nervous,” she said as they
approached the desk in the Ultrasound Department. “Suzanna Trehan,
here for a sonogram?”

“And Mr. Trehan,” Tim piped up
immediately.

“Okay,” the desk clerk said, smiling at both
of them. “Dr. Phillips is in the hospital and asked that we page
her when you showed up. If you’ll just sit down over there? We’ll
be with you as soon as possible.”

Suzanna looked at Tim, then took his hand.
“She’s here? She just got the report the first time. I don’t like
this, Tim.”

They sat quietly, still holding hands, until
a technician called their names, and they followed him into a
darkened room filled with several large pieces of medical
equipment.

Suzanna got up on the table, and there she
was again, bare belly sticking out with Tim standing right there to
see it all. How glamorous.

“Good morning, everybody,” Dr. Phillips
chirped happily as she came into the room in scrubs and a white lab
coat. “Just delivered Miss Elizabeth Anne, seven pounds, three
ounces. It’s a lovely day.”

Suzanna squeezed Tim’s hand, trying to relax.
After all, Dr. Phillips was smiling. “That’s nice, Doctor,” she
said. “Isn’t that nice, Tim? Elizabeth Anne. What a pretty
name.”

“You two have any names yet?” Dr. Phillips
asked, washing her hands at the sink, then taking the piece of
equipment the technician handed her.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Suzanna looked at Tim. “You’ve looked at
names?”

“Just a couple,” he told her, grinning.
“Hermione, Archibald. You know, the usual stuff.”

“Idiot,” she said, wanting to hug him. He was
being so sweet, and she was being such a bear.

But she was so scared.

Let it be one baby; let it be twins.
Quintuplets, she didn’t care. Just let them be healthy. And bless
Tim for understanding that this baby was all-consuming to her right
now, that even he had to at last take a backseat in her life.

As long as he came along for the ride.

* * *

“So, how did it go?” Jack asked, walking into
the pro shop at the golf course.

Tim was there, taking some inventory. The
course was closed, but the pro shop was still busy with Christmas
shoppers, although they would close soon after the holiday,
reopening when the course did.

“Okay,” he said, his back still turned to his
brother as he counted golf gloves. “The baby’s fine.”

“Just one baby? Keely told me—”

“Nope. Just one. Dr. Phillips spent a lot of
time, sure there were two, but she never found another one, or
another heartbeat. She says that happens sometimes. We get another
sonogram next month.”

“Bummer. So you still don’t know for
sure?”

“Nope,” Tim bit out, putting down the stack
of gloves. He’d lost count anyway. “Want a soda?”

“Sure,” Jack said, following him into the
snack bar, then sitting down on one of the stools as Tim went
behind the bar and pulled out two cans. “Hey, your head looks all
healed. That must have been something, fainting like that?”

Tim rubbed at the spot where a huge scab had
finally dried up and fallen off. He’d not only fainted like a jerk,
but he’d hit his head on one of the damn stirrups on the way down.
“It was embarrassing; that’s what it was. Damn nurse, leaning over
me, shoving that smelly thing under my nose.”

“You had a shock,” Jack said, trying to hide
a smile, and not succeeding.

“I made a jackass out of myself, bro. Just
say it.”

“I don’t have to; you just did. How’s
Suzanna?”

“Fine, I guess. Relieved. Dr. Phillips says
the baby looks extremely healthy to her.”

“Good,” Jack said, turning the soda can in
his hands. “Hey, bro, would you do me a favor?”

Tim looked at his brother, wondering at his
serious tone. “Sure. An arm, a leg, a kidney. Name it.”

“Nothing that serious, thank you anyway,”
Jack said, grinning. “Keely and I want you and Suzanna to stand as
godparents to Johnny. Would you mind?”

“Mind?” Tim thought his grin might split his
face. “God, that’s great. What do we have to do?”

“Take godparent classes, for one thing. First
one is next Friday.”

“Friday, huh? That’s okay. We start parents
class on Thursday.”

Jack held out his hand to high five his
brother. “Way to go! She’s agreed to let you be her coach?”

“As long as I promise not to faint, yeah. Dr.
Phillips says I have to master that one, or nobody will let me in
the delivery room. Well, she’d let me in, but she warned me that if
I keel over, they’re just going to let me lie there and step over
me.”

Jack shook his head. “Big, bad Tim the Tiger
Trehan. Hitting the floor. I still don’t believe it.”

“It wasn’t my most shining hour,” Tim
admitted, downing the last of his soda. “Hey, did I tell you?
Suzanna’s resigning, effective the end of the year. She’s staying
home.”

“Fantastic. And you don’t leave for spring
training for a couple of months after that. Well, almost a couple
of months. This is good. You need time together. Maybe you can take
a trip, have that honeymoon.”

“Honeymoon? You mean Suzanna, me, and her
belly? I don’t think so. I’m still sleeping in the back bedroom.
The cats don’t even sleep with me.”

“Well, there is that,” Jack said, scratching,
at the side of his cheek. “No progress, huh?”

“Some. She talks to me. She cooks for
me.”

“That’s progress? Keely says Suzanna’s got a
long way to go before she should solo in the kitchen.”

“No, really, she’s getting pretty good. You
know Suzanna. When she puts her mind to something, it usually gets
done, and gets done right. Although I have remembered that she was
kept off high honors twice in our senior year because she got C’s
in home economics. Now I know why.”

They were both silent for a few minutes,
thinking their own thoughts, before Tim said, “Do you think she’d
do it?”

“Do what? I was just taking a moment to catch
up on my sleep. Johnny thinks we run an all-night diner.”

“Go away with me. After the first of the
year, I mean, once she isn’t working anymore?”

Jack shrugged. “I guess you’d have to ask
her, bro. Keely and I, and everyone else, have resigned from The
Help Tim Club, you know. Suzanna got pretty peeved when she finally
figured out that we all told you she was pregnant.”

“Joey’s still giving me advice,” Tim said as
they walked back to the pro shop.

“You’re kidding.”

“No, really. He sent me some psych books, and
a couple of letters. I don’t think they teach spelling in Bayonne.
Anyway, he’s coming up for Christmas, with Bruno. Suzanna invited
them. I think he thinks he’s Dear Abby or something.”

“He sure has changed, hasn’t he, now that
dear sister Cecily’s out of the picture.”

“And good riddance,” Tim said. “The last
thing Candy needs in her life is a visit from Cecily.”

“That won’t happen. Candy’s all legally ours
now, and Cecily hasn’t so much as sent a card since the day she
left. Joey told me he’d heard that she’s in South America, doing
God only knows what. She just sends home for money.”

“Senorita Cecily. Has a certain ring to it, I
suppose. Wonder if she’s starting a revolution—she could do that,
you know,” Tim said, locking up the pro shop and heading to the
parking lot, where only his and Jack’s cars waited. “Well, time to
go home to Little Mother. Wonder who she’s going to be
tonight.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, bro, that either I come home to a
house smelling of supper cooking, or I come home to a woman waiting
for me, coat over her arm, so we can go to Tony’s for dinner. Good
mommy day, dinner at home, where we actually talk to each other a
little, some television, early bed. Bad day? Well, the early to bed
stays the same.”

“Tony’s, huh? That’s not so bad. I like their
desserts. Banana cream pie? Could do worse, right?”

“Right. Except that Suzanna always makes sure
she sits with her back to the dessert case, and then gives in and
orders something anyway. Then she glares at me, like it’s all my
fault.”

“Ah, pregnancy. Those were the days, Tim. I’m
not looking forward to the next time.”

“Next time? After what you and Keely went
through? Are you nuts?”

“No, Tim,” Jack said, as his tone went quite
serious. “We want more children, definitely. Dr. Phillips says the
odds are very high that this will never happen again. Life is life,
Tim, and we have to live it. For Keely, and for me, that includes
more children. If they come along, great; if they don’t, then we’ll
live with that. But we will live.”

Tim put his arm around his brother’s
shoulders, gave him a squeeze. “You’ve always been my hero, Jack,
do you know that?”

“And you’re mine, except when you swoon like
some Victorian lady. Now, let’s go home to our wives.”

Twenty minutes later, Tim walked into the
kitchen to see Suzanna frowning over something in a frying pan on
the stove.

“Problem?” he asked, leaving the door open
before the smoke alarm could go off, then making his way through
the haze, to the stove.

“Oh, Tim, I burnt the pork chops,” Suzanna
wailed, turning to him. “One minute they were fine, and the
next—”

He held his arms out to her, and she allowed
him to hold her, comfort her.

“It’s okay, babe, it’s okay. I wanted some
banana cream pie anyway, honest.” Then he kissed her hair, snuggled
her closer. He could swear he felt his heart growing larger,
warmer, inside his chest.

It was a start.

He slud into third.

— Dizzy Dean

“Excuse me, Father. We have to
what?”

Tim quickly took Suzanna’s hand in his, gave
it a squeeze. “Shhh, babe. Let’s just listen. This is for Keely and
Jack, remember?”

So they listened. And then they both nodded
their heads, and then they stood up, left the rectory, and drove
home. In silence.

“Married,” Suzanna said at last, once they
were both standing in the kitchen. “We
are
married.”

“But not in the eyes of the Church,” Tim
said. It had been a long ride home, and you would think he’d gotten
every last secret grin out of his system. Sadly, he had one left,
and he grinned it now.

“Don’t you smile, Timothy Patrick Trehan,”
Suzanna said, glaring at him.

“All, yes, that’s me, all right. I, Timothy
Patrick Trehan, do take thee, Suzanna—”

“Oh, stuff it,” she said, filling the teapot.
“I’m almost six months pregnant, Tim. What’s it going to look like?
Me? At the altar? Getting
married?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not like you’d be the
first one to put the cart before the horse.” Damn, but he was
enjoying himself.

She turned and glared at him. “Shut...
up.”

“Oh, come on, Suze. We can do this. Father
O’Mara said he’d cut all the red tape, just marry us real quick.
Nobody has to know.”

Her expression had been mulish. Now it turned
sad. “I... I wouldn’t mind if Keely and Jack were there. And... and
maybe Aunt Sadie and Mrs. B.?”

“And Joey, and Bruno, and Candy, and Johnny,”
Tim added, putting his arm around her.

She laid her head on his shoulder. “I can’t
wear white.”

“Because you’re not a virgin?”

“No, because I’d look like the iceberg that
took down the
Titanic,”
Suzanna said, wiping away a tear.
“Oh, I can’t believe we’re doing this. Las Vegas was one thing. But
this... This is so
final.”

“What God has joined together...” Tim said,
pressing a kiss against her hair.

She stepped away from him. “We’re doing this
so we can stand up for Johnny, Tim.”

“Right. Sure. Definitely. We’re handing each
other a life sentence, right? For the kid—and for our own kid. Hey,
count me in. Although I have to say that living-in-sin stuff did
have its benefits, at least for a while.”

“I can hate you sometimes,” she said,
narrowing her eyes.

“No, you don’t. We’re getting somewhere,
Suze, and this is just another step in the right direction.”

He watched as she walked into the den and
stood in front of the Christmas tree they had put up together a few
days earlier.

They had had fun doing it, too. They had
shopped together for the lights, the ornaments. They had picked out
a tree at a local tree farm, and Tim had cut it down himself with
the saw the owner provided.