“What do you mean, what are we going to do? Have the baby, of course. Are you kidding? I’m not going to have an abortion at my age. We might never get another chance. Besides, this is our baby, our flesh and blood, the product of our love.” Pattie said it as though it were obvious and she expected him to agree with her.
“No, it’s not,” he said, sounding angry. “It’s a product of our being stupid and sloppy. I was careless, and so were you. That’s not love, Pattie, it’s lust.”
“Are you saying you don’t love me?” she said, clinging to him with tears in her eyes. “How can you say something like that to me? I’m carrying our child.”
“What about the morning-after pill?” he asked her. “I hear that really works.” He had heard about it from one of his roommates. He swore by it; he and his girlfriend had used it several times. You had to take it within seventy-two hours of unprotected sex. “How pregnant are you?” he asked.
“I’m three weeks late.” That meant she was five weeks pregnant.
“Why didn’t you say something before now?” He was beginning to think she had done it on purpose, and he felt trapped.
“I thought you’d be happy, Ted,” she said, bursting into tears. “We’d have wanted it sooner or later. What difference does it make if we do it now?”
“Are you kidding? I’m in law school. I have no money and no job. I live off what’s left of an insurance policy my parents left me, and it’s almost gone. My aunt helps me out. How do you think I’m going to support a child, or even take care of one? I’m years away from making a decent living, and you can hardly support the kids you have. What’s our life going to be like with a baby? What will your kids think? I can’t finish law school and support you and a kid. And we’re not even married. This is an accident. A mistake. This isn’t a baby. It’s a disaster. It’s a tragedy for both of us, and it would be for the kid. You have to have an abortion or give it up for adoption,” he said, his face right up against hers. “We have no other choice!”
“Those aren’t options,” she spat back at him. “We can get married. You can get a job. I’m not giving up our baby, and I’m warning you, if you try to make me, I’ll kill the baby and myself!”
“Stop threatening me!” he roared at her with the full measure of his fury and frustration. She was destroying his life. One stupid mistake was going to demolish everything he had struggled for and built. It wasn’t fair.
“I’m having this baby,” she said quietly, suddenly in total control. “You can do whatever you want, but I’m having our child.” He nodded at her. He had gotten the message loud and clear.
“I need to think,” he said just as quietly, and walked out. He slammed the door behind him and ran down the stairs into the cold air.
Upstairs, in the apartment, after he left, Pattie sat on the couch and smiled.
Chapter 16
Nobody heard from Ted for the next few days. He didn’t call Pattie or show up at her place. He didn’t take her calls or answer her texts. He never thanked Annie for dinner, which was unusual for him, and it worried her. She knew that he was in a delicate situation with an unstable woman, although she knew nothing of the pregnancy. But Annie didn’t want to hound him, so she waited to hear from him. And finally after three days of total silence, he called his sister Liz. She was surprised to hear his voice, and he sounded terrible. She knew instantly that something was seriously wrong.
“Can I see you for lunch?” he asked her in a hoarse croak. He had been hiding out in his apartment for three days and drinking too much.
“Sure,” Lizzie answered immediately.
He picked her up at her office at noon, and they went to a salad bar nearby. She picked at her lettuce without dressing, and Ted ate nothing at all. He told her about Pattie, that she was pregnant, and he didn’t know what to do.
“She won’t have an abortion, or give it up for adoption, and she says if I do anything other than congratulate her, she’ll kill herself and the baby. I don’t want a baby, Lizzie. I’m a child myself. Or I feel like one anyway. I’m not old enough to have kids. I was such a fucking fool,” he said, and his sister smiled ruefully.
“That seems to be the operative word. Can you reason with her at all?” He shook his head and looked dismal.
“She was threatening suicide even before she got pregnant. She said that if I ever leave her, she’d kill herself. Now she’ll kill herself and the baby.”
“She needs therapy. Badly. Teddy, she’s blackmailing you. That’s what this is. You can’t force her not to have the baby. And I guess you’d have to pay her some support for the baby. But she can’t force you to be with her and participate if that’s not what you want too.”
“I can’t just walk out on her. It’s my kid too. If she won’t get rid of it, then I have to be there and carry the load with her.”
“That’s not fair to you,” Liz said firmly. She hated what this woman was doing to her brother.
“I have a responsibility here. To both of them. Whether I like it or not.”
“Are you in love with her?” Liz was watching him closely, wondering what he’d say.
“I don’t know. She drives me insane. I get near her and my body goes nuts. She’s like a drug. I don’t know if that’s love.”
“It sounds like sex addiction to me. She probably did that to you on purpose to keep you hooked.”
“Well, I’m paying a hell of a price for it. A kid is forever. I can’t let her kill herself, Liz.”
“I don’t think she will. People who threaten usually don’t. She wants you to stick around.”
“I have no other choice.” He looked so innocent as he said it, and so sad.
“What are you going to tell Annie?” Lizzie wondered aloud.
“Nothing right now. She’d go crazy.”
“Maybe not. She has a cool head in a crisis. And she’ll figure it out sooner or later. You can’t hide a kid forever.”
“I’ll have to drop out of law school after this semester.” Liz hated to see him do that, and she knew how much it meant to him. It was his dream, and he had worked so hard for it till now.
“Don’t do anything yet. Besides, you never know, she could have a miscarriage. At her age, that’s a higher risk.”
“I hope I get that lucky.” He felt guilty as he said it, but he didn’t want a child. He was totally clear on that. “I haven’t talked to her since she told me.”
“She knows she’s got you by the throat.” It was an age-old way to catch a man, and she had. Lizzie hated her for it and wished there was something she could do to help her brother. But there was nothing anyone could do right now. Except give him moral support. The rest was in Pattie’s hands. And God’s.
Ted called Pattie that night. It was the first time he had spoken to her in three days. And all she did was sob when he called. He felt terrible and tried to comfort her on the phone, and she begged him to come over. He felt as though he had to, so he dressed and went over to her apartment. She was calm when he got there and very loving. She begged him to go to bed with her and just hold her, and then she started to arouse him. He didn’t want to make love to her, it seemed so wrong right now, given everything he was feeling. But as she held him and caressed him, she overcame his objections, and he wound up making love to her anyway. It was tender and sweet and passionate, and she clung to him afterward and talked about their baby. It made him want to cry.
They made love again, as they always did, and when Ted left the next morning, he felt beaten. Pattie had won. The baby had won. And he was the loser in all this. And that morning before he left, she asked him about getting married. He said he didn’t want to. She said it wasn’t fair to the baby to have it out of wedlock. She was a decent woman, and she’d been married when she had the others. All he could do was say he would think about it. He didn’t want her threatening suicide again. He didn’t have the strength to deal with it. And he was starting classes again that day. He could hardly think straight as he walked to the law school with his head down. He wanted a bolt of lightning to come down and kill him. It would have been so much simpler. The last thing he wanted was a baby. And Pattie called him incessantly between classes. She wanted constant reassurance. All he could think of, as he went to the library to work on his computer, was that it felt like someone had ripped his guts out and flushed his life down the toilet. She sent him an e-mail while he was at the library, and he promised to be there for dinner.