Maybe This Time (12 page)

“According to you, I’m not on any hook.”

“You’re not. But I know you and your sense of responsibility. How can I convince you that the baby and I don’t need you?” She covered her face with her hands. “I don’t mean that the way it sounded, ungrateful and harsh. But you don’t want another child. And I don’t want you to feel obligated in any way.”

“Emma, I know
you.
You have this need to prove you can be a supermum, able to do it all and then some. You think you have to be perfect. You don’t. Let me help. I can be like a...a silent partner.”

“I don’t want a silent partner. It’s all or nothing. And I know you can’t give me and the baby your all, so it has to be nothing.”

“Why? Why can’t I contribute so I know he or she is okay?”

“I love that you’re so responsible, but it’s not only about responsibility. It’s also about being present in my child’s life. What if one day you wake up and realize what you’re missing and decide you
do
want to be a father? Fine, I let you into our lives. But then maybe after a while you won’t be able to handle being a father anymore, or we can’t work out our problems, and then what? You don’t get to opt in and out when you feel like it. This is my child. I’m taking sole responsibility for it. I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m doing this because I want to protect my child’s emotional future.”

He stared at her.
My child.
How many times had she said those words in that little speech? Three, four? She was staking her claim. She hadn’t made the decision to raise the child by herself because he wasn’t stepping up. She was doing it because she really, truly wanted to raise the child without him.

The implications sank in. Even if he did want to be part of the baby’s life, she wouldn’t ever let him. He’d wanted it this way, so he had no right to feel hurt, or angry at her selfishness. But it was depressing, thinking she had to protect her child from him.

Grimly he nodded, acknowledging he had no choice but to accept her decree.

CHAPTER SIX

August, late winter

E
MMA STEPPED OUT
of her car in the hospital staff parking lot into the pouring rain. Damn. She’d forgotten her umbrella. Not only that, her shift started in five minutes and it took ten minutes to waddle to the back entrance and hike her swollen body up to Ward 5G North.

Head down, she set off between the rows of cars. She was always late these days. Late for class, late with her fifty-page term assignment and now late to work.

She was supposed to have gone on maternity leave a week ago but the geriatric ward was overflowing with an influx of pneumonia patients during these last days of winter. To top it off, Tracey was off work with a bad case of flu and another nurse was on annual leave, so Emma had volunteered to work a few extra days to cover the ward. The other nurses had made allowances for her through morning sickness and absences due to ultrasounds and other tests. She owed them.

But it had been hard getting up this morning. She’d spent a restless night, unable to get comfortable, plagued by Braxton Hicks contractions.

She tried to step over a puddle because it was too much trouble to go around it and missed. Cold water seeped into her shoe as she splashed down. Her stomach tightened so painfully she had to stop and pant through it. Damn Braxton Hicks. Three more weeks to her due date. The birth couldn’t come soon enough as far as she was concerned. She was a fat cow, and the baby had dropped and was pressing uncomfortably on her groin.

She’d barely started walking again when she had another contraction, sharper and tighter than before. She bent double, struggling to make sense of the spreading wet stain on her white stockings. Not blood. Rainwater? Oh, God. Amniotic fluid. This was it. It must be. Her water had just broken. Not Braxton Hicks but the real deal.

No!
She couldn’t have the baby now. She still had that paper to write. She was supposed to be on duty.

“Stop it, Ivy. Don’t do this to me.” A hot flush sent heat into her chest and face. She stood there trembling, her legs spread wide for support.

What was she going to do? The parking lot was deserted, the hospital entrance still three hundred yards away. Another contraction hit. She bent over again and clasped her arms over her belly. Rain streamed down the back of her neck. Well, wasn’t this just bloody inconvenient? She had to stop it right now. She didn’t want to have this damn baby, after all.

“Excuse me, madam, do you need some help?”

Emma glanced up. A dark-skinned man with square black glasses touched her elbow. She recognized him. He was a urologist. “What does it look like? I’m having a fricking baby. But it’s not due yet and I’m not ready for it. If you could help me inside, I’m sure the doctors can stop it for me.” Why was he looking at her so strangely? Slowly and clearly she enunciated, “I’m. Not. Ready. To. Have. The. Baby. I want to put it off for a week, preferably two.”

Another contraction hit her. She moaned. “Maybe if I sit down, it’ll go away.”

The doctor whipped out his phone and punched in a number. “E.R.? Send an orderly out to the staff lot with a wheelchair immediately. I’m with a pregnant nurse who’s in labor. If I’m not mistaken, she’s already in transition.”

Emma sank to a crouch. A groan ripped out of her. “Tell them to hurry.”

* * *

T
WO HOURS LATER
Emma gazed into the dark unfocused eyes of her brand-new baby. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and temples with sweat, she felt as if she’d run a marathon and her peritoneum was so sore she couldn’t move.

None of that mattered. Her baby was here. Her beautiful baby. Her
boy.
He’d been checked over by the doctors, bathed by the nurses and swaddled tightly in a pale blue blanket.

“You’re not Ivy. But you’re perfect.” She tucked her little finger beneath his starfish hand. Her heart clutched as his tiny fingers curled around hers. “What am I going to call you? I wasn’t prepared for a boy. And I definitely wasn’t ready for you to come three weeks early.”

She wasn’t ready in any sense of the word. Not with regard to her university courses, with her work—even the nursery wasn’t finished. “I was waiting for a pram to go on sale next week. It’s a beauty, with big silver wheels.”

“How’s mum and bub?” Sasha bustled into the room, beaming. “I’m so glad I was on duty when you came in. We’re getting a bed ready for you in a semiprivate room. It won’t be long now.” She strapped the blood pressure cuff around Emma’s arm and pressed a switch to inflate it. “Have you called Alana yet?”

“I will soon. She’ll be sorry she missed the birth.” As soon as Emma spread the word, she would be inundated with family and friends. Which would be wonderful—she couldn’t wait to show off her baby—but first she wanted a few precious moments alone with him.

Sasha made a note of the blood pressure on Emma’s chart and stuck a thermometer under her tongue. “What are you going to call him?”

“Don’t know,” Emma mumbled around the thermometer. “Got any suggestions?”

“I always think using a family name is nice. What’s your dad’s name?”

“Percy.” She made a face. “I’ve always liked the name William. If Holly had been a boy that’s what Darcy and I were going to name her.”

“That’s a good name. Does it have any significance?”

“It’s Darcy’s middle name.”

Sasha’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll hunt up a baby name book at the nurses’ station.” She rolled a bedside table with Emma’s purse on it within reach then left the room.

Emma pushed back her gown and put her baby to her breast. His mouth opened and closed and his tiny fist hit out blindly. “Come on, little guy.” She guided her nipple but although he mouthed it, he didn’t latch on. “Don’t worry. Not every baby can do that right away. We’ll figure it out.”

She reached for her purse and found her phone. Darcy answered on the fourth ring. She felt suddenly nervous and couldn’t speak.

“Emma? Are you there? I can see your caller ID.”

“I—I just wanted to let you know I had the baby a couple of hours ago.”

He was silent for three long beats. She could hear the clink of glasses in the background. Maybe he wasn’t sure if he heard right. “I said—”

“Was there a problem? Is that why you delivered early? Are you all right? And...and the baby?”

“I’m fine. The baby’s fine, too. I don’t know why he came early. Sometimes they just do.”

Again, there was a brief silence.
“He?”

“Yes. I had a boy.” She paused. “I thought I would call him William. Not necessarily after you. I just like the name.” No response. She stroked her sleeping baby’s hair where it was stuck to his temple. The skin there was nearly transparent, traced with fine blue veins. “Darcy? Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you.” His voice was gruff.

“Labor was really quick.” Briefly she related events, not sure if he wanted to hear this. But he listened as she told him about the parking lot and the urologist and being whizzed into the delivery room with no time to call Alana, her birthing partner. “The main thing is the baby is healthy. He’s seven pounds, two and a quarter ounces. His hair is thick and dark. The first growth falls out but I think he’s going to take after you—”

“Thanks for calling, Em. Sorry, but I have to go now. A big group came through the door and I’m here on my own.”

“Sure, okay. I’ll let you go.” She clicked off and slowly lowered the phone. There was no reason to be disappointed at his reaction. What had she expected—that he would jump up and down in joy? He’d let her know from the beginning the baby meant nothing to him. And
she’d
made it clear he wasn’t welcome in her son’s life.

She softly stroked the baby’s dark hair, still streaked with traces of white wax. “I know you’re going to be a strong little man, William. You’ll need to be.”

She frowned. William sounded too formal for a baby. “Will?” Better, but still too grown up for a small boy. “I’ll call you Billy. Yes, that suits you.”

She trailed the back of her finger along his downy cheek. She wished Darcy were here. A father should see his son being born, and hold him in his first hours.

“It’s just you and me, Billy. Your father is a good man, but he won’t be around for you. Don’t worry—you’ve got grandfathers and uncles. We’ll be fine on our own.”

A lump formed in her throat. Huskily, she added, “I’ll be such a good mother it won’t matter that you don’t have a dad. I’ll do everything for you that a mother and a father would do. I’ll care for you and play with you....”

Work to pay the bills, and study to ensure their future. She would do it all because she wanted to and because she had to. Her baby was not going to miss out on a single thing simply because his father wasn’t around.

* * *

D
ARCY HUNG UP
the phone after saying goodbye to Emma. He’d lied about the large group coming in—although he was alone, the pub was empty. For reasons he couldn’t explain to himself, hearing her talk about giving birth had been too much.

He carried on with the task of replacing the soft drink canisters, his movements mechanical. The steel containers clanked against each other, the sound overloud in the empty pub.

He had a son named William. Of course Emma had named her baby after him. She wouldn’t do that by coincidence. She was big on family connections and most of the names on her side of the family were odd.

She hadn’t asked him to visit. That was good. He didn’t want any tugging on his heartstrings to sway him into making the mistake of thinking he could try to be a father, even supposing Emma would relent and let him. But she wouldn’t. And he didn’t want to risk it. He’d screwed up with Holly. He didn’t want to do the same with this baby.

Emma had sounded elated on the phone. Elated and tired and a bit wistful. Shame she hadn’t had anyone with her for moral and practical support. Giving birth was hard work. Of course she would be tired. And emotional.

Carrying an empty canister in each hand, he went out the rear door of the pub and stood them against the building where the delivery truck could pick them up. Across the empty parking lot, through a thin stand of trees, he could see a boy’s soccer team practicing on the public playing field. Parents, mostly fathers, stood on the sideline or in the bleachers, calling encouragement to their sons. He would never be one of those dads, supplying orange segments and lobbying the coach for more field time for his boy.

He would never hear his son’s first word or see him take his first steps. He would never know the feel of small arms circling his neck or a chubby cheek pressed against his. He would never watch his son graduate from high school or get married.

He would never do all those things with Holly, either. But here he had another chance and he wasn’t taking it. Wasn’t allowed to.

Suddenly he was filled with a sense of loss so overpowering he almost fell to his knees on the oil-stained pavement. Loss and shame that he couldn’t step up in any meaningful way for his son. What kind of a man didn’t acknowledge his child?

Emma wasn’t letting him in. And for good reason. He’d told her he didn’t want another child long before they’d hooked up on the cruise. Nothing had changed. They were still divorced and had no intention of getting back together. Making a lame attempt to be a husband and father again against his better judgment wouldn’t do Emma and the baby any good. He would only prolong the emotional fallout of his failed marriage. The baby was better off with her.

He dusted off his hands and went inside. Emma was still his friend. He could at least send her flowers. Or even better, take them to her in person.

Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, he locked up the pub and hung the closed sign on the door, something he hadn’t done since Holly’s funeral. At the local florist he picked out an arrangement of yellow roses and pink carnations and drove to the Frankston Hospital.

Holly had been born here. Stepping off the elevator onto the maternity ward he was hit by déjà vu so overwhelming and painful he wanted to turn right around and go back to the pub.