The Perfect Solution-A Suspense of Choices (24 page)

"I can't believe I'm doing this." She slung her hand in the general direction of the bed in disgust and walked to the door. Never looking up, she put on her shoes. "I'm going into the living room."

She was pacing the room and smoothing down her hair when Austin entered and stopped when he started talking.

"Don't say anything, Austin." She held up her hand. "It's just something between us. Not a thing that can be fixed." She shrugged her shoulders in dismissal. "But nothing has changed. I still want the same things I have always wanted in life and more. I’ve made promises to God, to myself that I cannot go back on. I won’t let myself get into the same situation I was in before. I'm sure that nothing has changed with you. I see no ring on your finger. You're probably still running around and breaking hearts. I just can't deal with the physical and the personal emotions right now. I have Brhin to think about."

"I know that and I didn't come here to have a scene in the bedroom. I went in there to offer you comfort and, you know how it is between us.” He cleared his throat. “Let's change the subject. Is Monique your sister's child?" He asked, sitting in the nearest chair.

"Uhm, yes, one of them. She has three daughters. The eldest is eight, the youngest is ten months and then there's Monique." Catrine answered, gratefully taking the change. "She's six years old and frighteningly curious. That child is always trying something and then hurting herself."

"Is Brhin anything like that?"

"Yes, pretty much. So far he hasn't found anything he’s afraid of trying. As an only child, I have more control over him. Phae has two other children to deal with. I.... I only had the one."

Cat sat on the sofa and rested her elbows on her knees. Pressing her fingers to her eyes, she tried to use the pain that she was inflicting on herself to brush the thought of never seeing Brhin from her mind.

"Catrine…."

Moving to stand behind the sofa, Austin placed his hands on her shoulders and forced her to lean back and look up at him.

"Catrine," he repeated. "Try to believe that things will work out. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now, but if it’s half as devastated and angry as I’m feeling, we can lean on each other." Walking around the sofa, he closed his hand around the hand resting on her lap and pulled her up until her body was close enough to his to be encircled in his arms. "Don't take this the wrong way I just think you'll feel better in my arms."

"Conceited bastard," She said even as she put her arms around his waist and rested her face on his chest.

"Not. Everyone needs someone to hold on to when they’re going through hard times. I'm just self-assured. I wish I felt as confident about the condition of our child. I know I don't even know the little fellow, but I do feel his loss. I feel like a train wreck looks. My emotions are destroyed and scattered about like indescribable carnage and yet I feel detached because it feels as if this is happening to someone else. I don't know the child and yet I feel as if something has been taken away from me. When the detective told me I had a son, I denied it' but my heart knew. It was elated. I couldn't wait to get over here and see him, but in the same breath he took him back. Now I am at a lost."

"I know it doesn't help, but I am sorry. At first I let anger keep me from telling you about the baby, then it was selfishness because I didn't want to share him and before I knew it, it was fear because I didn't want you to take him away from me and now I can’t believe he.... he isn't here. I look around and he is all I can see. I feel really horrible knowing that the last thing Brhin will probably remember me doing is yelling at him. I yelled at him this morning for leaving his little cars scattered all around the bathroom floor. It was only because I was running in there because I felt sick, almost tripped over a couple of the little things and I yelled at him. What a stupid thing for me to scream at a child about." She began to cry. "I was just trying to teach him that he had to be responsible and to clean up after himself. I can't believe that this is happening. That he isn’t here. I’ve taught Brhin all I thought he would be able to understand about the dangers of strangers and how to avoid them and then this stupid little substitute of a teacher sends him off with someone he doesn't even know. I could have just killed her right there in that school, in front of the world and the police and thought nothing about it. How could she just give my baby away?"

"It’s so hard to believe that’s what happened?" He breathed in harshly. "They just gave him to someone he didn’t know. Someone just walked in, said 'I want that one' and walked away with someone else's child? What kind of center did you put him in?" He questioned accusingly. "I can't believe you would just dump my child," Pushing her back a bit so that he could look into her eyes. "What kind of security system do they have? Did you check into that? It's your job to know these things. Did you find out what kind of people worked there or did you just want to get rid of him?"

"What are you asking?” She looked into his face in horror. “You, who care nothing about anyone other than yourself, I know you're not standing there trying to blame this situation on me. I would do nothing to purposely endanger my child. I love him more than you could ever think."

Catrine tried to push out of his arms, but he refused to let her go. In frustration, she stilled and continued talking.

"I did everything I could to make sure that Brhin was in a safe environment." She pounded his chest in exasperation as she stated her point. "I can't believe you are even saying this to me. If you saw The Perfect Solution Daycare Center, you would think it was a place sent from heaven. The center has everything even you would want for your child. Each class has space, lots of toys, cleanliness, computers, and superior education, everything.

"Yeah, it has everything but security. Calm down." He ordered when she twisted angrily in his arms. "I wasn't blaming you."

"Right," She clicked her tongue irritably. "I know their security is the worst and it did bother me. I could see the potential for a problem almost every time I walked into the building. This worry about the system had given me the idea of writing out a proposal to show to the center's director. Let me get it so you can see what I was planning. I know this doesn't seem like the right time to be thinking about this, but I feel so guilty.

If I had followed my mind weeks ago, we probably would have avoided this awful situation we are in now. I am always telling Brhin to follow that inner voice because it could only be God talking to him and he could do no wrong by listening. And here I am as an adult, hearing the voice daily and putting it off as fear, paranoia or stupidity."

Reluctantly, Austin released his hold on Catrine and sat down. Catrine crossed the room to her desk, shuffled through some papers and came back with a single typed sheet and handed it to him.

"These are some great suggestions," he said after reading through the page. "You should give them to the director."

"I thought that my company might have been able to make The P. S. Center more secure." Accepting the paper back from Austin's outstretched hands, Catrine folded it in half slipped it in the back pocket of her jeans and reached for a Kleenex to wipe her nose. "I have been ill for the past two weeks and this morning I felt really rotten so I asked Phae if she would get Brhin from The P. S. Center.”

"Other than a cold, what's the matter with you? Are you pregnant?"

Catrine stared at Austin as if he had just lost his mind.

"Are you crazy?" She angrily put her hands on her hips. "How in God's name did your mind jump to that conclusion? Are you going through some kind of sick fetish for pregnant women or something? Do I look pregnant? Did I feel like I was pregnant when we were in the bedroom and you were running your hands all over my body?" In her anger Catrine had stepped so close to him that their bodies were almost touching. "And whom in God's name would I be pregnant for? Am I supposed to be sleeping around, now? Is that what you think of me? Am I supposed to have turned into some sort of a slut because I was no longer with you? Do you think that just because you didn't find me acceptable that I would have to search the universe for someone that would? You must be out of your mind. I know you don't think that raising one child on my own is such a joy that I would want to try it with two?"

Austin put his hands on her hips and looked at her slowly from head to feet and back into her eyes.

"As I'm sure you remember, Catrine you didn't look nor 'feel' pregnant when you threw me out of your life and yet you were. So let's not go there."

"I didn't know I was pregnant." She answered emphatically. "How many times do I have to tell you that? Do you honestly think I would have kept the fact from you if I had known then?"

"You can't deny that you did keep the fact from me.”

"No, I can't and I won't even try." She groaned loudly. "Look, I'm sorry. As much as I loved you and you know that I loved you so don't look at me like that. Do you think I would have wanted you living with me if I hadn't? Do you think I would have been willing to put up with you day in and day out if I wouldn't have loved you? No matter how great you think you are you are not the easiest person to deal with. And yet I still wanted you living with me. Think about it. Don't you think I would have used anything to get you to move in with me? If I had believed it would have softened you and had gotten you to change your mind about living with me I would have even lied about being pregnant, hell at the time and the way I fantasized about you living here, I would have even told you I was dying. You were always so thick headed." She jabbed her pointer finger in his chest. "I would have told you I was pregnant you idiot, but you walked out of my apartment and completely out of my life. I thought you had moved out of town.”

She paced the room, coming back to stand directly in front of him.

"I went to my gynecologist a mere two days after our last argument. Just for a checkup," she put in quickly when it looked as if he would interrupt. "And he told me I was pregnant. God, I was so excited. I hurried home and called you. For two weeks I called, I paged, I sent text messages and emailed you and never received an answer.

Did you hate me so much that you couldn't even return a message and belittle me for being such a fool and chasing you around? The people at your office and at the hospital said you had gone and they wouldn't tell me when you would return. Believing they were lying I even went to your office and received theses pitying looks from your secretary. It made me feel as if you had found someone else. What was I to think? I even grew balls and called your mother." Sitting down, she smiled at the complete surprise on his face.

"What, you talked to my mother? You're kidding. She never told me."

"I asked her not to. I was desperate. Here I was alone in town without my sister. Pregnant without the father of my child and I didn't even know if I wanted the child. If anyone was desperate for a mother it was me and the only mother I could think of was yours. The first time I called we talked for quite a while. I like her. She told me I had just missed you. I believe you had left to hang with your brothers. What are their name Dallas and Houston?" She chuckled. "I almost asked your mother if she had a thing for Texas."

"My dad believed there is no state in America that adds up to Texas. It's a family joke," he answered absently. "I can't believe you called there. Let's just talk about this conversation you had with my mother. Did you tell her you were pregnant?"

"Of course I did and she came and sat by my side while I was in labor," she answered sarcastically. "I would really do that, huh? Don't you think you would have known about it if I had? Do you believe your mother would have kept such a thing from you? Your mother doesn't seem to be the type of person to let something like that pass and not want to be involved. There is no way she would sit around knowing she had a grandchild and not want to be part of its life, right? Besides, I couldn't make the words pass my lips. I already felt stupid. Just like a typical idiot. Here I was, twenty years old, knocked up and alone."

"You wouldn't have been alone if you would have told me."

"I wanted to tell you, but you were never there. I called your mother twice more and gave it up. Your mother is really easy to talk with, but once I started crying on the phone whenever I talked to her, I just couldn't talk myself into calling her back. There were so many times I almost let it slip about the baby, but I knew she would tell you and that is not the way I wanted you back. Trapped and blaming me for making you a victimized part of my life. She told me that she would send you home to sort yourself out. I assumed you would probably call, but you never did. I figured you were trying to clear me from your system and I decided I would do the same."

"How did you expect to do that when you would be living with my child?" Austin pointed to a picture of Brhin. "I don't know if you have ever noticed but that boy looks just like me. You have practically been seeing me every day for the past three years. Don't show me that face. You know I'm telling the truth."

"Yes, I do know that. I never said it was easy."

"Then how could you go so long and not let me know? I can't take it in. You say you loved me. You couldn't have. I craved to see you for weeks, months damn near years. That was the most difficult time of my life. I really don't know how I survived. To tell you the truth there is still not a day that I don't think about you. A song, a movie, something happening in my life of importance and I will pick up the phone to tell you about it. Habits die hard. I was so used to sharing everything with you. Sometimes I would just shake my head at how stupid I was and hope that you were happy in whatever you had chosen to do with your life. How in the world did you do make it through the day? You must have thought about me constantly. And then to be pregnant?" He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders in wonder.