Emerson was wiping her eyes and laughing now. “Listen,” I said. “Mark’s right. Let’s not get worked up about something we don’t even know yet. OK?” She nodded.
“Right,” Caroline said. “And in the meantime, just know that the two of us will do and give you anything you need, and we will make sure you get the best doctor in the world.”
Emerson nodded again. “I know.”
“Good,” I said, hugging her again. “Chin up, little one.”
“And, guys,” she said. “Just please don’t let anything slip out to Mom. I don’t want to worry her.”
I nodded in agreement, but I didn’t feel all that confident. When Mom found out we had kept this from her, I had a feeling our biggest concern would no longer be who was going to carry Emerson’s baby.
SIXTEEN
life
ansley
Idon’t think I’ve ever been as shocked as I was when my husband, Carter, came to me and said he thought we should start trying for another baby. Because I saw the way he watched Caroline, the way he studied her. I saw the way he hoped she would develop some feature or mannerism that would indicate she was really his. It had all been a bad dream, what he had asked me to do. I knew he wanted to believe that we had defied what the doctors told us, that we had created this beautiful miracle all on our own.
I had also known, from that very first rainy night I ventured back to Peachtree Bluff, back to Jack, back to try to get the one thing Carter and I wanted that we couldn’t have on our own, that it was a bad idea. Jack and I had loved each other. We had shared so many of our teenaged summers, stealing kisses on the boardwalk, spending lazy days holding hands in the sand, throwing footballs with our friends, sneaking beer at the pier at night. The only thing that had eventually torn us apart was his proclamation that he didn’t want children and my insistence that I would have them. Our life together had been so carefree, so much fun—except when the summers were over and we had to leave each other, of course. But, no matter how happy you are in your marriage—and, believe me, I was—marriage is real life and it’s real work. There are bills to pay, taxes to figure, laundry to be done, decisions to make. The love is real, but the stress is real, too. While I was deeply happy in my life with Carter, there was no doubt that my mind wandered every now and then to that simpler time.
I understand with every ounce of my being that this is why people have affairs; this is how they convince themselves that they are in love with someone else. It’s easy to resurrect that forgotten feeling when you have no responsibilities.
I knew this. Logically.
But it had taken me five months to get pregnant with Caroline. That was five sections of time carved out for Jack and me. Five stints of seventy-two hours that weren’t only about making this baby. They were about spending time together, reliving the past, and, in some ways, getting a glimpse into what might have been if I had never met Carter that summer before my senior year of college. If, instead, I had spent that summer with Jack.
I knew in my heart of hearts that what I had with Carter was a once-in-a-lifetime love. But it had been tainted by the day-to-day of marriage. What I had with Jack hadn’t. Even though my head knew this, my heart still felt that dangerous pitter-pat whenever I was in his presence, which is why I realized, after I became pregnant with Caroline, that I couldn’t see Jack anymore.
So, no, technically, I didn’t need to fly to Peachtree Bluff to tell Jack that I was pregnant. But, for heaven’s sake, I owed the man that much, didn’t I? He had been the one to create this child with me. Didn’t he have a right to know?
I was sitting in Jack’s living room when he walked in from work. His face lit up. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t have any physical contact with him. I was already pregnant. It had to go back to friendship. But I stood when he walked into the room, and he rushed to me, kissing me with that intensity I had come to know so well.
“Hi,” he said, a smile playing on his lips. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
I kissed him again. He was so close, so warm. I couldn’t help it. “Well,” I said, hearing a hint of sadness in my voice, “I think we’re going to.”
He pulled away from me, and his face fell. “Oh. Right.” His posture shifted from confident and happy to distraught. “So that’s it, then? I’ve done my duty, and now we’re over.”
“Jack,” I whispered.
He shook his head and ventured a smile. “I’m not angry,” he said. “I knew this was the deal. I knew you would get pregnant and you would be gone.”
I had planned to go back home to New York, tell Carter I was pregnant, and have the celebration to end all celebrations. We were going to have the life we had always dreamed of: strolling through Central Park with our baby, holding hands walking to preschool, Carter parading his son or daughter around his office.
“Maybe we have this one last weekend?” I whispered. “Maybe we can pretend we don’t know.”
“Know what?” he asked, winking at me.
My head was screaming that this was wrong. But, hell, the whole thing had been wrong, hadn’t it? Of course it had. I knew that. It’s amazing how convoluted your thoughts can become, how a seemingly reasonable mind can convince itself that the worst things are right, that, in between the very clearly black and white, there might be shades of gray.
But even I couldn’t convince myself there were shades of gray in what I was doing now. The baby was made. This was cheating on my husband. Yet, I couldn’t break away from Jack’s arms. Not yet.
As day turned to night, the light drifting away, slipping from the sky like this love from our fingers, the sadness started to creep in between us. Our banter shifted to serious conversation about what the future could hold. But I never expected Jack to say, “Stay.”
“What do you mean?”
I rolled over on my side, suddenly chilled, covering myself with a sheet, our faces inches from each other. “You know what I mean, Ansley. Leave Carter. Leave New York. Come home. We’ll get married and raise our baby together.”
