by a man who doesn’t feel the slightest bit equipped to cope with it himself, a man who just can’t be there in the way Jordana wants, can’t be the husband or partner she needs.
Tonight he didn’t see her as vulnerable, as being in need of a knight in shining armor, someone to rescue her and make it all better. Tonight he saw her as damaged. Insecure.
And perhaps just a little bit crazy.
“Michael? Is that you?”
He looks up, seeing Daff standing in the darkness, so beautiful in that dress, so fresh, and clean, and different from Jordana, and as he looks up, unsure what to say, he realizes that his shoulders are shaking, and that tears are streaming down his face.
“Sssh.” She glides over, puts her arms around him, strokes his back, kissing the top of his head and soothing him as she would a child. “It’s okay,” she whispers, rubbing wide circles on his back as he leans into her and cries. “It’s okay.”
Slowly the tears subside, and he is still in her arms, and she has stopped rubbing his back, and it’s not quite so comfortable. He pulls her down gently so she is on his lap, never taking his arms from her, nor hers from him, then he is kissing her, and oh my Lord, this is not what he should be doing when he has just discovered he is going to be a father, but this is Daff, this feels like a safety net in the most awful storm he has ever known. And more than that, as he kisses Daff and feels her arms wrapped around him, he feels, finally, right.
“What’s that?” Minutes later, a buzzing.
“Oh God.” Daff jumps up guiltily, embarrassed, and reaches into her handbag for her cell phone. “Who would be calling me this late?” She looks at the number and her heart stops. It’s Richard’s number. There is something wrong. Jess. She flips the phone open as terror flutters across her chest.
Jess sobbing down the phone. Like a little girl.
“Jess? What is it? Jess? What’s the matter?” Fear is making her shout, desperate to know that Jess is okay.
“I miss you, Mommy,” Jess says, gulping for air through the tears. “I need you, Mommy.”
Daff immediately goes into mother mode. “I miss you too, Jess. I love you. But tell me what’s wrong. What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
“Daddy’s going to call you,” she says, the sobs starting again. “But I want to come and live with you. I hate it here. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Jess?” Daff’s voice is firm, even though her heart is not. “What’s going on? Let me talk to your father.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Windermere is absolutely still at night, quiet and at peace, yet listen a little more carefully and you will hear the sounds of tossing and turning, of people struggling with dilemmas, of an inner turmoil that is anything but peaceful.
Michael is still numb with fear. A baby. Jordana is pregnant with his baby, just as he’s met a woman with whom he feels, for perhaps the first time, a real connection. There is no way in the world he can see this ending well.
He has never had strong feelings about abortion, has never had to think about it, other than knowing various women who have had one, has always felt that it is a woman’s right to choose.
But what about the man? Where is his choice? Michael can’t think straight, can’t think of anything worse than bringing a baby into the world under these circumstances. He has never thought of himself as a father in anything other than the abstract, but a parent with Jordana? He would laugh if it wasn’t so unthinkable as to be almost painful.
Terminate, he wants to shout. Get rid of it. But this is not his body, he cannot say anything, and now he is terrified he will pay for his mistake for the rest of his life.
Tomorrow he will go and see her. Talk to her about it. See if he can convince her. See if he can prove to Jordana that this won’t be good for anyone, that this isn’t, cannot possibly be, the right thing to do.
For Michael is ill-equipped to be a father, his own father having died when he was only six. He has no concept of what a father is, of the joy that comes from seeing your child, a life you created, being brought into the world.
And he has never thought of himself