THIEF: Part 6 (3 page)

              “Miss…St. James?”

              I fake a smile as the receptionist, who should know my name by now, but doesn’t, finds me in the crowded waiting room and waves me over.“You’re in Room #3.Dr. Day will be in with you shortly.”

              After a humbling weigh-in—during which the nurse reminds me, “Mamas-to-be
have
to gain weight, sugar, don’t worry about the numbers”—Dr. Day, a petite woman with silver hair and dream-catcher earrings, comes into the room and smiles.“You know the drill,” she says, and I lie down on the crinkly paper of the exam table.

              “Everything looks good.”Dr. Day finishes the exam, removes her gloves, and looks over her shoulder as she washes her hands.“Next month, you’ll be finding out the baby’s sex.If you want to.”

              I sit up.My mouth is dry; I’ve been putting off my question for too long, but this is my last chance.Alex will be at the next appointment.According to Fiona—and I can’t disagree—finding out if it’s a boy or girl is just going to get Alex even more excited, and dig me into an even deeper hole.

              “Um…I had a question,” I mutter, then speak up and try to act like it’s not a big deal to me.“Can I get a paternity test?”

              Dr. Day looks at me again, setting her clipboard on the sink ledge.“An in-utero test, or post-natal?”

              “Um…the first one.”

              To her credit, the woman doesn’t look disgusted, or with any kind of judgment, for that matter. She takes off her reading glasses, letting them hang from her neck by a thin golden chain.“It’s certainly possible, although we generally like to avoid that kind of test before the child’s born.It increases the risk of miscarriage.And, considering your low weight upon conception—”

              “That was only because I’d been sick,” I remind her, but she just nods more emphatically.

              “Exactly.Your body wasn’t at its strongest, and while your baby’s growing normally now, its weight is still at the very low end—as is yours, whether you want to believe it or not.And it isn’t exactly easy.You’ll have to get court approval to perform an in-utero test, and that’s difficult to get if the risk is high already.And if your pregnancy’s outcome doesn’t depend on it.”She raises her eyebrows, a question.

              “What does that mean?”

              “Depending on who the father is, would you terminate the pregnancy?”

              “What?”I hold my stomach instinctively, like she’s threatened me.“No!I mean…no, I would keep the baby no matter what.It’s just…I’m not sure who the dad is, and I’d like to know beforehand.”I can’t help the blush that rises to my cheeks, and once again, I’m glad Dr. Day doesn’t judge.I’m sure she’s heard all this and worse; she’s been in practice for over thirty years, after all.

              “It’s up to you, Erin.”She hesitates.“As your doctor, though, I feel I should give you my professional opinion: the risks aren’t worth it, in this case.You had a serious illness, and your body didn't have time to recover from the treatment.So if you can wait until the baby’s born, you should.”

              My heart feels like it’s filled with lead.I don’t try to hide it.“I understand.”

              Dr. Day gives me a sympathetic pat on the knee.“Stress isn’t good for the baby, either,” she reminds me, “so if not knowing is gonna drive you crazy, maybe the test is the right choice.Only you can decide.”

              I think her words—“It’s up to you,” “Only you can decide”—are supposed to comfort me, so I smile and thank her, even though all they do is make me want to cry.I manage to hold it in all the way through the waiting room and parking lot, but once I’m in my car, it becomes too much.

              “Are you okay?” Alex says when I call him.The sun hits my face through the windshield, and I feel the hot tears getting even hotter.

              “Yeah,” I sniff, both hands holding my phone.“Well…kind of.”

              “Oh, my God,” he says, “what’s wrong with the baby?Where are you, I’ll drive over—”

              “The baby’s fine,” I interrupt.I take a ragged breath and hold it, shutting my eyes.It doesn’t stop the tears.“I need to talk to you, though.Now.”

              “Okay,” he says, a little calmer, but hesitant.“I’ll take an early lunch break and meet you outside?”

              “I’ll text you when I get there.”

              “Okay,” he says again.He pauses.“I love you.”

              This makes the tears hit again.He may as well have said, “Remember: what you’re about to tell me might very well destroy me.”

              “I love you too, Alex,” I whisper.I hang up before he can hear the sob working its way up my throat.

Fittingly, it starts to rain when I pull into the parking lot of Alex’s office.The building of Gunderson Advertising is squat and sprawling, a brick afterthought just outside the city’s historical district.Alex is an entry-level employee, but still earns decent money.For all his globetrotting, I think he secretly likes having to wear a tie every day.

             
Here
, I text him, putting the car in neutral.I recline my seat a little and look up at the roof, deep-breathing.It doesn’t help.

              “Knock, knock.”I jump when Alex taps the glass.He slides into the passenger seat and hands me a paper cup of hot chocolate, which I sip once, out of politeness, before setting it in the cup holder.

              We’re quiet for a moment, listening to the rain.Alex clears his throat and fidgets with his tie clip.

              “Please tell me this isn’t a break-up,” he blurts suddenly, then laughs.The sound is shallow.

              I feel my sentences twisting up, getting caught in my chest.“Depends,” I say, letting out a breath.“You might hate me after I tell you this, and—and I wouldn’t blame you.It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done to anyone.Including pickpocketing.”

              “Pickpocketing?”

              I shut my eyes for a moment, taking another sharp breath.“Sorry, I thought I told you about that.It’s—Whatever, that’s not what this is about.”My teeth rake across my bottom lip.“Remember when you made me promise that…that if anything happened with me and my ex, I’d tell you?”

              Alex stares at me.I feel his eyes, but can’t see them, as they search my face.“Vaguely.”

              He knows.He’s figured it out already, but he’s going to make me follow through on this, just to watch me squirm.I deserve it.I deserve a lot worse.

              “It did.”I pause, tracing the logo in the middle of my steering wheel with my fingertips.“Just once, a few months ago.It…it was at Jane’s wedding.”

              Tears are sliding down my face, but I’m afraid to move and wipe them away.I’m grateful for the rain outside, the rumble of my idling engine, so that I don’t have to hear his breathing.

              “So…you slept with that guy at Jane’s wedding.”

              My neck feels like steel, but I get out a nod.

              “The same day you slept with me.”

              Again, I tell him yes without a word.

              Alex turns to his window, and I risk a glance.He’s staring at the sky, but not focusing on it, and his hands are flat on his thighs.His jaw tenses once, but other than that, he doesn’t look mad.I’m surprised at how frightened this makes me feel.

              “Is the baby mine, Erin?”

              His question has no inflection.He knows what my answer is already.

              “I don’t know.”

              Alex shifts his jaw again, molars grinding.His face is shadowed, brow slightly furrowed, as he blinks water from his eyes.

              “I want a paternity test,” he says, after a headache-inducing stretch of silence.Finally, he looks at me again.“Like, today.Now.”

              “It’s not that easy,” I mutter.The lingering taste of hot chocolate cramps my mouth.“I already asked the doctor, and she said if I did the test in-utero, I’d need a court order or something.And it increases my risk of miscarriage.And as much as I really, really hate not knowing if you’re the father yet…I don’t think I can do that.”

              Alex shuts his eyes, tilting his head back against the seat.“I can’t believe you would do this to me, Erin.”

              Unlike everything else up to this point, he says this without steeliness.His voice wavers, then cracks.My chest hurts so much, hearing it, that I start to cry again, full sobs.Alex cries too, but quietly.

              I can’t stop.Even when Alex’s lunch break ends and he says, “I’ve got to go.We’ll talk more about this later,” my eyes keep welling up and flushing themselves out.My face feels raw from saltwater.

              “I’m sorry,” I manage, as he steps out into the rain.I look up at him through his open door.“I’m so, so sorry, Alex.”

              He shuts it so hard, my hot chocolate splashes onto my feet, almost cold.

              “Are you sure you can’t get the test?I…I’ve got to know, Erin.It could change everything.”

              I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep gulp of air; I don’t want to hear this, though I’m not entirely surprised.“It’s too big of a risk to the baby. I can wait ‘til September. You’ll just have to wait, too.”

              “Think about it, though.If you find out now, I could…I could be there for you.Through all of it.”

              “Please…don’t do this.”I switch the phone to my other ear, rubbing my temple with my free hand.“It won’t work out.And you know that, Silas.”

              “Why not?”

              “Because you’re going to prison.”I say it sarcastically, even though it’s true, because saying it seriously would hurt both of us all the more.Unlike Alex, Silas hadn’t taken the news like a trumpet fanfare, although he hadn’t been devastated like I had, either.He was somewhere in between panic and euphoria: “crazed,” I'd decided.

              Reaching him was easier than I’d thought it would be, and all it took, surprisingly, was the truth: a voicemail on his receptionist’s machine—“Hi, Dr. Ramirez.This is Erin St. James and since I have no other way to reach him, please let Silas Marlowe know I’m pregnant and it might be his.Here’s my number, in case he’s forgotten it.”—and a call from Mexico rang out just an hour later.By comparison, Fiona’s carefully thought-out plan sounded crazy, even though my way was actually the crazy method, when I really thought about it.But at least it had worked.

              Silas doesn’t respond to my prison comment at first.I wonder where he is: an old RV in a campsite, an extended-stay hotel.I wonder if the hospital would let him slum it in the waiting room all these months, or if he never leaves Emma’s side during her recoveries.I picture him hunched over in a cot, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, scruff all over his neck and chin.

              “I know I said I’d turn myself in,” he says, “but I think I’ve got a shot to get everything dropped on Abby’s part.Once she sees Emma, she can’t be angry at me, Erin.”I can hear him smiling, almost ear-to-ear.“Wait ‘til you see her, she looks so beautiful.I mean, I thought she looked beautiful before, anyway.But she—she looks normal now.”His voice catches on “normal.”

              “You still broke the law,” I remind him, despite the flare of happiness I have for Emma and, if I’m being honest with myself, him.Even Emma’s mom.Actually, especially Emma’s mom, in a weird way.I chalk it up to hormones.“It’s not just a matter of Abby dropping charges,” I add, “which I’m not so sure she’d do, surgery or not.”

              “Then I’ll go on the road again.New identity.You can come with me.”

              I laugh at this.“Right.”

              “I’m serious.Think about it, Erin: you, me, and our baby, just us on the road, going wherever we want.I can keep in touch with Emma secretly—I've been doing it for years, already.”

              He makes it sound so simple.His voice coats the words, the reality of what he’s saying, and turns it to gold.

              But I’ve been fooled by that before.And no matter what his reasons were, I won’t let myself be fooled again.

              “Silas,” I say, my tone sharp, “I’m not going on the road with you.What kind of life is that, always looking over your shoulder for the trouble you’re outrunning?That isn’t fair to the baby.”

              “Kids grow up traveling all the time, babe, look at the military—”

              “Don’t call me ‘babe,’ Silas,” I snap, “and this isn’t the military.It’s taking a child on the lam with you, and making them part of some…some terrible secret.I’ve been that child before, and I won’t turn mine into one.You want a normal kid, Silas?Normal kids don’t have to be law-dodgers from birth.”

              The line falls silent, but I can hear the hum of an AC in the background.I picture him in the driver’s seat of a car, maybe sitting just outside the hospital, on a disposable cell phone.His hair would be longer, the way I’d liked, and his skin even tanner than the summer we met.

              “So,” he says, “even if I am the dad…”

              “…I wouldn’t want to travel with you.You’d have to go to prison and accept whatever happens,” I finish for him.My words, while realistic, still feel a little harsh, so I add, “But I’d make sure you got to be a part of the baby’s life, no matter what.”

              Silas doesn’t answer.I hear him click his tongue.Finally, he asks, “When’s your due date?”

              “September 24th.”

              “Well…shit,” he says flatly.“I’ll be in prison by then, for damn sure.Emma’s last surgery is this week.Then, when she’s recovered, we’ll heading back, and I’m sure Abby will have me arrested right on the spot.Assuming she doesn’t shoot me first.”

              Silas’s ex is an alcoholic, and kind of crazy, although how much of that is her disease, I’m not sure.On our first date, Silas wound up with a deep cut in his neck when Abby saw us at a bar together and flipped out.I’m betting she’ll shoot him
and
have him arrested, but I bite my tongue.

              “We’ll figure it out,” I tell him.“You know…if you are the dad.It could still be Alex.”

              The line crackles a few times.I think I hear Silas’s voice, but it’s mostly rustling.

              “Silas?You still there?”

              “Yeah,” he says, “still…still, uh, here.”I realize the line isn’t crackling.Silas is crying.

              My hormones or sympathy or residual feelings kick in, and I start to cry, too.“Silas, don’t be upset, I just meant—”

              “I want it to be Alex’s.”He sniffs, clears his throat, and speaks more clearly, but I can tell he’s still upset.“I might hope that it’s mine, and God knows, everything in me wishes it is.But for the kid’s sake—and yours—I hope Alex is the father.”He pauses.“Maybe for my sake, too.To be honest, as much as I love the idea of having a baby with you…I hate the thought of being in prison for the first however many years of its life.”

              His honesty touches me, but I feel like agreeing will hurt him.“I guess I’ll talk to you in September, then?”

              “I want to see you before that, Erin.When I get into town—the end of July, I think.Maybe August.Emma’s been healing really well from her surgeries, so Dr. Ramirez says she’ll be done by then.”He pauses.“Could I see you?”

              “I…I don’t know.I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen with Alex.”

              “Right.”He starts to sigh, then checks himself.“I imagine he didn’t take the news well.”

              “Better than I thought, I have to admit.He didn’t ask for his grandmother’s ring back yet, so there’s that.”

              Silas is quiet a second, just long enough for me to realize what I’ve said.

              I try to back-pedal, but he interrupts.“You, uh…He proposed to you? When?”

              “Um…February.”

              “So you already knew about the baby.”

              I nod, as though he can see me, and then softly answer, “Yes.”

              “Jesus, Erin.”

              “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do, Silas?I love Alex.I want to be with him.Not that it matters now; even if this baby does turn out to be his, I don’t think he wants to be with me.Not after I told him what we did.”

              “I’m sorry.It—it caught me off-guard, is all.”He sighs; I hear him drinking something.I wonder if it’s non-alcoholic, but it’s not as though he’d tell me the truth if it were.“I know it’s not my place.And as much as I hate the thought of someone else besides me marrying you…I want you to be happy more.”

              “Hate to break it to you, but I’m not.”I fight the tears, but a few come, anyway.It’s like every time I’ve held back in the past is being made up for during this pregnancy.“Everything’s ruined, and I’m the one who did it.I—I’ve just been a really shitty person, basically.So I deserve this.You know, karma.”

              I hear a half-hearted smile come into his voice.“Thought you didn’t believe in karma.”

              Try as I might, I can’t match his joking tone.“I don’t know what to believe anymore, Silas.I’m always wrong, in the end.”

I move into Aunt Jane’s guest room in June.The beautiful architecture, the Egyptian cotton bedding, hanging out with Fiona when she isn’t upstate staying with her boyfriend: it’s not a bad setup. But I miss my own place, too.More than anything, I miss Alex.

              He’d stayed, at first.I was surprised—I definitely didn’t deserve his company, much less his help—until I realized he was just doing it for the baby, in case it was his.Besides, he had nowhere else to go, unless he wanted to move back in with his parents.If it weren't for me, he'd be circumnavigating the globe right now.

              “Here’s my half,” he said last week, handing me his rent check.His voice was cold, even more impersonal than a roommate’s would’ve been, let alone a fiancé. Or former-fiancé, I guess. I still wasn’t sure exactly what we were, and I didn’t have the right or the guts to ask.

              “Thanks.”I took the check and put it in the envelope with mine.

              We stood in the kitchen a little longer, shuffling our feet, awkwardly looking everywhere but at each other.After a moment, I said, “Um…I just made some tea.Would you like some?”

              Alex looked like he wanted to say no, but something stopped him.Whether it was me, or the unappealing prospect of holing up in the guest room all evening—what he did nearly every night, even though I stayed in my room, too—I wasn’t sure.

              We sat down at the table with our mugs, and I tried to think of ways to be friendly without crossing boundaries.“So,” I said, “how’s work?”

              “It’s all right,” he shrugged, staring into his tea.“Actually, this new project I was helping out with just launched, and the client liked one of my concepts so much, they’ve requested me for Phase Two.In the fall.So I could be looking at a promotion.”

              “Already?That’s awesome, babe—um.”We glanced at each other, just a second, and I corrected myself.“That’s awesome, Alex.Congratulations.”

              “Thank you.”

              “So…what’s the, uh, ad campaign like?”

              Alex set his mug down, letting out a breath.“Can we…can we just stop this, please?”

              I shut up.My arms shrank back from the table, against my sides, like a kid who was just disciplined in public.

              “Pretending like this,” Alex went on, and set his elbow on the table, his head resting in his palm. “It’s getting to me so bad, Erin.We’re not just roommates.We’re not together.We’re not broken up.I can’t keep doing this—we’ve got to be one or the other and stop wavering around.Like…now.Because if I have to wait until September to even know what we are—” He cut himself off, putting his anger in check before his voice got too loud.“Look...we need to talk.”

              “Okay,” I said, timid.“Um…I—”I paused and combed my brain for what to say.“Well, I want to stay together.No matter what the test says.But I realize that’s unrealistic.And that I don’t deserve that.”He glanced away, not disagreeing.“So I guess…it’s up to you, which option we pick.”

              “The only realistic option there is,” he said, a little too quickly, and pushed his tea away as he stood.“I’ll move out.”

              I didn’t mean to reel, but I couldn’t help it.Part of me, however stupid, believed he might choose my option.That we still had a chance to fix this, somehow.

              “I, uh…I’ll start looking online for a place now, actually.”He turned his feet towards the doorway to the living room, but didn’t move.When I finally looked up at him, hoping he’d say something that would give me hope, he looked away.

              It hit me, all at once, and I tried not to cry and get sick as I slid the ring from my finger.I managed the latter, at least.Alex’s palm was slick when I put the ring there, holding his hand for just a second.He stared at the tile.

              “Thanks,” he said, and put the ring in his pocket.

              But not before placing it back into place in that little velvet box.I wondered how long he’d been carrying it with him. How long he’d known which option he'd pick.