Chapter 25

On the other side of town, the man Agatha was thinking about walked up the ramp to Erica’s house. He knocked. Something in her voice had told him to knock.

When she answered the door she looked pale, but otherwise normal. She stood back and he walked in. By the time he turned to look at her again, tense had been added to pale.

“I’m pregnant,” she said simply.

Erica had thought long and hard about whether she should face the man she’d made a baby with or not. She didn’t have to, as far as she was concerned. She could go on with her life and just leave him out of it. There had been no agreements and she hardly expected him - any man, really - to take any responsibility for his half of the problem. She was going to offer the baby up for adoption anyway. She hadn’t told Will about that yet. She couldn’t. He’d been so happy about having a nephew that she couldn’t crush him until it was absolutely necessary. He’d understand. She was a teacher, not a mother. The baby would have a much better life with two parents who wanted him ... her ... it. But something had told her she had to face the father. He’d warned her, after all. He hadn’t done this willy nilly. She was as much at fault as he was. She only hoped Bobby wouldn’t gloat.

“Let’s sit down,” he said.

She was taken by surprise. She’d expected, “Too bad,” or, “I warned you!” She’d even thought it was possible he’d just turn around and walk out. She followed him to the kitchen, wondering why he went there to sit instead of the living room, which was much closer.

She stood, while he went to the cupboard and got two glasses. Then he opened the fridge and poured milk. It wasn’t odd that he did those things. He’d been at her house enough times, and in such casual and intimate circumstances, that he was familiar with everything. What seemed odd was that he didn’t look nervous. He looked completely comfortable. She wondered if he was stalling, trying to think of something to say.

“Sit down,” he said, putting a glass of milk in front of the chair she was standing nearest. He didn’t take the chair across the table, like she’d thought he would. He took one ninety degrees from hers.

“How do you feel about this?” he asked, when she just stood there.

She certainly hadn’t been prepared for that. She sat ... somewhat heavily. She didn’t know what to say. A thousand things were running through her mind. It seemed like everything she had thought about since the doctor uttered those fateful words ... was going through her mind.

“Will is happy,” she said. She blinked. Where had that come from?

“But are you happy?” he asked.

She shot him a dark look.

“Of course I’m not happy!” she snapped.

“Oh.” She was amazed that he could put so much disappointment into a single word. She felt heat in her chest and couldn’t figure out if it was anger or something else. She opted for anger. Who was he to be disappointed that she didn’t want to be pregnant?

“Why in the world would you think I’d be happy?” she asked, again surprised that she said that instead of cursing at him.

“Some women want to have children,” he said.

Erica stared. He must be insane! She’d been impregnated by a man who belonged in an institution!

“Women who are married!” she barked. “Women who are in love ... whatever that means!” She took a breath. “Women who aren’t going to be ruined by being the laughing stock of the whole town ... who won’t lose their jobs!“

“Do you want me to marry you?” His head tilted, like he was interested in her answer. It stunned her.

“No, i do not want you to marry me!“ she yelled.

“Drink your milk,” he said calmly, his head straightening up.

“What?” She looked for some meaning in his comment, but couldn’t think of any.

“Drink your milk,” he repeated. “Since you’re not going to have an abortion, then you need the vitamins and calcium and all that stuff.”

Erica thought she might scream ... took in a deep breath to do just that, in fact ... and then held it, counting to ten in her mind. Something about his responses was completely wrong. She didn’t know what that was, but it was wrong and she felt the need to understand why. She let the breath out slowly.

“How do you know I’m not going to have an abortion?” she asked.

“Because if you were, you would have said ‘I’m going to have an abortion, ‘ instead of ‘I’m pregnant.’”

She was speechless again.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” he said, looking like he was interested in the possibility. “But I’m sure you would have at least told me by now, if that was what you’re planning. You’re too independent to keep something like that to yourself.”

Her mind twisted. His reasoning was sound, but it went against her own assessment of what independence meant. She would have felt more independent if she’d kept the fact that she was pregnant a secret from him.

“No abortion,” she said tightly.

“Good,” he said. “You never told me how you feel,” he reminded her. “I know you don’t want to be pregnant, but you are, so how do you feel about that?”

“I don’t understand you,” she said. It was something between a whine and a moan.

“Don’t feel bad. A lot of women don’t understand me. I’m not sure I understand myself.”

“How do you feel about it?” asked Erica. She was just vying for time. She needed time to think. This wasn’t going at all like she might have expected.

“That’s complicated,” he said immediately. “You have to understand that I would never make love to any woman if I didn’t want her to have my child.”

Her brain skewed sideways again.

“Did you just say you wanted to get me pregnant?” she croaked.

“No,” he said, a pained look on his face. “That’s not what I said, or at least I didn’t mean to say that. I can’t just ... have sex ... with a woman. I have to feel something for her. I have to like her. Sometimes I even think I love her. Like you said ... whatever that means. I guess I feel like sex is for making babies. It’s fun too, but it’s mostly for making babies. So I wouldn’t do that with any woman unless ... I don’t know ... unless I thought she’d make a good mother or something ... a mother I could love.”

That was a lot to chew on and Erica chewed for a while. Bobby sat there and sipped his milk. Seeing him do that made her take a sip of hers too.

“Are you saying that you love me?” she asked, her voice full of disbelief.

“I must love you,” he said. “At least on some level. I wouldn’t have gone to bed with you if I didn’t.” He frowned. “Like I said, sometimes I don’t understand myself very well.”

“No, no, no,” she disagreed. “You didn’t love me. Not that first night, when you took my virginity. We were fighting.”

“All I know is that you needed to be loved ... needed something I could give you. I wasn’t sure I could give you that, because I wasn’t sure you knew what you needed. But, when I thought I could, I wanted to help you.”

“You call taking my virginity and knocking me up helping?” she squealed.

“Were you happy when we were making love?” he asked. He sounded quite serious.

She thought about that. She took in another deep breath and counted to ten again as she realized she’d have to admit she was happy when he was making love to her. Actually, deliriously happy was closer to the truth. She didn’t want to admit that.

“I did need that,” she said, her voice low and soft. It was the most she could admit.

“And because you needed it, I needed to give it to you,” he said, an earnest look on his face. “Does that make sense to you?”

Erica thought of Will. She understood exactly what Bobby was talking about. She’d done that with Will. She blinked. She actually understood him! She nodded, still thinking about that, but was distracted when he went on.

“Okay, so I didn’t want to get you pregnant ... and I didn’t try to get you pregnant ... but the fact that we made something precious together ... it means a lot to me. I know having a baby changes things. It changes a lot of things. But I already love our baby, even if you don’t want to have anything to do with me any more ... even if you never let me see her ... I’ll still love her, because she was created while we were doing something we both loved and needed.”

He leaned back. “Does that make sense too?”

Erica’s mind only twisted a little bit this time. What popped to the surface, of all he had said, was that he already loved ... her. He had given a gender to the thing in her womb.

“You called the baby ‘her.’ Why did you say that?” she asked.

He blinked. “I don’t know.” He seemed to think. “I guess I couldn’t imagine you having anything but a girl.”

Erica’s mind shifted just enough that she felt like she was falling over inside. She landed with a thud, as if she’d mentally fallen out of her chair. Sometimes, in a situation like that, it seems funny. And sometimes laughter is an agent of catharsis.

Erica started by giggling as, in her mind, she imagined a group of women ... feminists ... carrying signs that said, “We will only have female children!” Then, suddenly, Bobby was in her mental image, also carrying a sign. It said, “I will only father girls!”