Handful of Dreams (24 page)

“Yes, Susan. And if I can help, call me.”

“You’ve already helped, Harley. You told me that I didn’t have a stomach virus.” She had tried to laugh. He hadn’t. And she waved, still smiling a bit like a lurching drunkard, then hurried to her car.

And so here she was, her head on the desk, severely recognizing the fact that when she made a mistake, she certainly did it all the way.

She opened her eyes. They fell on Peter’s pipe rack, and she felt a little hysterical all over again.

Oh, Peter! He wanted grandchildren so badly! Isn’t this just priceless? Of all the irony…

She pushed herself up from the desk, that thought running through her in icy rivulets. She hadn’t been able to think past the idea that she was in a serious situation. She had been able to think that she was pregnant; not that pregnant meant she was going to have a baby. An infant, flesh and blood. A human being made up of all kinds of genetic material.

She hadn’t thought of David at all—beyond the fact that her mistake had been far more severe than she had ever imagined it would be.

She hadn’t begun to make up her mind about what to do.

And now this thought that she didn’t really want to entertain was with her, haunting her. She was going to have Peter’s grandchild. How could she even entertain the thought of—

She closed her eyes again in silent anguish. This was her life—she couldn’t think that way! The whole thing could be so easy! All over in ah afternoon.

But it would leave scars for life. She couldn’t judge for other people. Like Harley, she didn’t make the laws and she didn’t judge others. She was just suddenly and very miserably aware that there were going to be no easy outs for her. She had better start thinking that being pregnant and having a baby were the same thing.

She picked up the pipe. So ironic. Peter’s grandchild…

David’s child. Yes, David Lane’s child. “Oh, please, please, don’t be born with those eyes!” she whispered a little frantically. And then, “Oh, God! What am I going to do?”

She’d never tell him, she thought. She could just imagine herself doing so, seeing the disdain on his face. Hearing his sigh—and the assumption that she was after more money.

No. No! She felt like crying again. Through everything she’d had her dreams. It was a liberal world, and she knew it. But in St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania, she’d grown up with old-fashioned ideals. A marriage with all the trimmings. Children, wanted and shared. And, oh, her grandparents might have been old when they raised her and Carl, but they’d surely had all the right stuff! So much love, so much caring.

She’d done everything so right herself—at first. She’d gone to college and she hadn’t fallen in love until her last year. Then she’d met Ben Turner, and they’d gotten engaged, and like the star-struck kids they’d been, they’d planned their future with all the glowing details. And then they’d made love. Bright kids, knowing they wanted to establish themselves before starting a family, they’d behaved just like mature, responsible, sophisticated adults.

Maybe she shouldn’t have then. Maybe, if she’d found out she was going to have a child then, she would have married Ben. They’d have a home near Philadelphia in a pleasant neighborhood, and she wouldn’t be alone, realizing that she really had no life.

But she hadn’t married Ben. First it had been Gramps to get ill, and then her grandmother. And then the horror that no one could accept: her twenty-seven-year-old brother. And Ben had been a nice guy, really in love with her, she was certain. It had just reached a point where she couldn’t leave—and he couldn’t stay any longer.

She didn’t really remember his face anymore. Too many years had gone by since then. And though she hadn’t blamed Ben, she had been bitter, determined not to become involved until sometime in the far, far future. She had been mature and responsible and everything else that she should have been. She hadn’t gotten involved with anyone!

Until David Lane. Of all the people in the world!

She did burst into tears, and she indulged herself in a long, sloppy crying jag. Slowly shadows crept into the room. It was turning dark outside.

But when at last the sobs and then the hollow gasps died, she felt better. She went into the kitchen and washed her face and then put tea on. And then reminded herself that she had to eat.

When she had eaten, Susan discovered that she was incredibly tired. She laid out on the sofa in the parlor and fell asleep immediately.

In the morning she pulled on a warm sweater and went for a walk along the water, picking up twigs to toss out to the surf, loving the feel of the cool autumn breeze against her face.

Ethically she supposed that David had a right to know. Damn ethics, she decided. He wouldn’t want her to have the child; he would be certain that she was out to bleed him for eighteen years and beyond. He would never understand her reasons for going through with it, the elusive thing that was her soul, which told her she could not take away life.

She felt calm. Very calm. Maybe planning had a great deal to do with it. It would be best if she moved out of the beach house, but she wouldn’t go until January. That way she could save everything and not pay rent or a mortgage.

By the end of January, though, she would leave. Out west seemed best. San Francisco had always enchanted her as a lovely place to live. For a while, at least, she would have to cut herself off from all her old friends.

And what then? she thought, taunting herself. What happens when this child grows up and starts asking questions?

She’d deal with it then! she thought firmly. For now she was going to get by day by day. Thank God she was a writer! She wouldn’t have to worry about survival. She could keep her job and no one would know about her personal life.

Susan tossed the last of her sticks into the sea and went back to the house to start to work.

Susan had one more bad night. A really bad night.

With the lights out and the house locked, her body weary, she discovered that she couldn’t sleep. She stared up at the ceiling for hours and hours and finally dozed fitfully.

Then she dreamed, not of the man she knew so well, the one who could taunt her incredibly, but the man she had glimpsed in rare moments. The man who had told her she was beautiful, the wonder who had touched her face with awe, as if he could not bear not to stroke her cheek….

The man who had concerned himself with her welfare, who had been gentle, who had carried her away from glass and bandaged her toe so gently…

The man who had made love to her. Passionate and exciting love, an oasis in a desert of need. He was so tall and powerful, a beautiful man, bringing her alive. Holding her and cherishing her, touching her and inflaming her, and convincing her in those moments that it was a unique magic that had brought them together.

David … holding her with strength, rugged and fine, all masculine. Her pride vanished in her dreams. She could long for him again, ache for him. Toss and turn with electric memory, groan softly with the inner knowledge that he had been special, that if he had smiled, if he had cared, she would have loved to have known him better, have allowed the attraction to soar…. Loved to have fallen in love and let the exploration last a lifetime.

She awoke, cursed herself soundly, but could not fall back to sleep. She went downstairs and made herself coffee, then tossed the pot out and made tea, distantly wondering if she should be avoiding coffee and even more distantly making a mental note that she was going to have to see a doctor because she didn’t want to do anything that could harm the child.

In another week she was surprisingly resigned to the situation—and even a little excited. The child was going to be someone to love, someone to give her a sense of meaning again.

And she thought that she was behaving rather well. Her life had taken on a normal routine. She spent the mornings typing, the afternoons cleaning up and taking care of herself. She had her hair done with Mindy on Thursdays—just washed and blow-dried, but it felt good, anyway—and every few nights she went out with the others. On Monday and Saturday nights she helped out at the hospital. She was busy and almost serene.

She hadn’t heard a word from David. He had promised softly that he wanted peace; he did intend it.

She had decided to go three cities inland for a doctor; her town was too small, and gossip traveled quickly. Harley would never betray her, but someone else might. She had a bottle of vitamins and a sheet of instructions. She didn’t feel ill anymore; in fact, she didn’t feel anything at all. The baby wasn’t due until August, so the doctor—a nice total stranger—had assured her that she was quite normal.

Susan would never forget the date: It was November fifteenth, a blustery and windswept day, when the little world of make-believe she had created fell apart with a crash.

She had been typing with great concentration when the phone rang. It was John Ketchem, and as soon as she heard his voice, she experienced a sense of foreboding.

“Hi, Susan, how are you doing?”

“Fine, John, thanks.”

“All caught up on everything?”

“I’m actually ahead of schedule,” she said cheerfully.

“Good. ’Cause guess what? You’re going on tour.”

“I’m what?”

“You’re going on tour.”

“John, I can’t possibly go on tour!”

He sighed. “Susan! What’s the matter with you? Tours sell books! They’re great publicity—”

“John, you don’t have to go on tour to sell a book.”

“But, Susan—for God’s sake, why not?”

Because I’m pregnant!
She wanted to scream.

He didn’t wait for her answer; he went on, telling her how it meant that the company was really behind the book. He told her the cities planned: New York, Washington, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, and Detroit. He told her how wonderful it would be and what an insane fool she was not to be thrilled by the opportunity. He reminded her that this particular book was her best shot at some good, good royalties and that its success could shape the rest of her career.

“When?” she heard herself whisper.

“January, of course. When the book is released.”

It would still be early enough in her pregnancy that no one would suspect.

“Susan, are you listening to me?”

“Uh—yes.”

“You crazy kid! It will be great. The company picks up the tab. They do the flights, they get the cars—the whole nine yards. All you have to do is sit back and be charming, which is something you’re adept at already! Someone from the company will escort you—”

“Someone from the company?” She was certain she had stopped breathing.

“Yes. Someone from sales or publicity …”

She gasped with relief, then exhaled. John was still talking about how important it could all be.

“All right, John!” She said at last.

“You’ll go?” It seemed as if he breathed a long sigh of relief too. Poor John! she thought. What headaches she must give him! He spent hours selling her work, and then he got to argue with her about trying to do it!

“Great, great!”

“What do I do now?”

“Nothing. You’ll speak with someone from the publicity department. They’ll send schedules and tickets and all that. Just sit back and get excited, kid, ’cause the world is about to be your oyster!”

“Oh, I’m excited,” she murmured dryly.

And after she hung up she decided that she was. She was financially independent, old enough to know her own mind, and she had always known she wanted children. Okay, so the circumstances weren’t great, but they weren’t that awful, either. Many women were single parents and they did very well. She loved the baby, even if she still couldn’t believe it really existed. That would be enough.

And the tour … well, she could buy some new clothes, have a good time traveling, and maybe discover a place where she would like to live. And maybe one day—far in the future—out of fairness to the child and David she would let him know; when enough time had passed for her to deal with things on a more mature and rational level.

Susan walked into the kitchen and took her vitamin.

She spent Thanksgiving with Harley and his family, having picked up Jud to bring him to his son’s house. It was a very nice day, a family day, and she was grateful to have been invited.

The children were mischievous, underfoot in the kitchen, but so cute as they solemnly said grace that Susan felt a very welcome and wonderful warmth seep through her. This was what it was going to be like! Times when discipline would be needed, times when she could look into a pair of beautiful and innocent eyes and get shivers all over with the delight that they belonged to her child. She watched Jud—a grin on his face that seemed just about to split it—make his grandson and granddaughter shriek with laughter as he gave them rides on his knees.

And when they left, she was happy again. Really happy. Face it—she had been halfway in love with David Lane. The child was his, and it was hers, and he or she was going to be very, very beautiful.

“You’re going to have the baby, huh?” Jud said suddenly, and she realized that he had been studying her from the passenger’s seat of her little Nissan.

“Harley told you!” she said angrily, staring at him, then remembering that she was driving and riveting her eyes back to the road. “Damn him! Of all the unprofessional—”

“Now don’t go getting on the boy!” Jud advised her gravely. “He didn’t tell me a thing.”

Her heart seemed to sink a little. “Then how—”

“Oh, don’t go getting panicky, neither. You look thinner than you ever did. I’m just an old man with an old man’s intuition.”

His “old man’s intuition” made her extremely nervous. The tour was coming up.

He was staring at her pointedly, waiting for an answer, she assumed. “Jud, if you whisper a word of this to anyone, I swear I’ll … I’ll see that your prune supply is cut off!”

Jud chuckled but then grew serious. “I. don’t tell others what they can’t see for themselves. I just wanted to know, ’cause it’s Pete’s grandchild, and I think I’d tie you to a chair if I thought you were gonna ‘take care of it,’ like some people do these days.”

Susan hesitated, then sighed. Jud was a lot like his old friend Peter. If he said he wasn’t going to tell anyone, he wasn’t.