Chapter Seven

From her car, Abby phoned Mrs. Anderson and told her she’d be a little late. She followed Carter’s car to the nearest diner and tried to rehearse what she’d say to him. How she would tell him.

They sat for a moment in the booth staring at each other. The waitress came over and took their orders, two coffees.

She was staring so intently at his face, trying to memorize every detail, holding it up against the picture she’d been carrying around in her head, noticing the extra lines around his chocolate-colored eyes, the flecks of gray just around his temples. Only one or two hairs, but she noticed.

“Something wrong?”

She shook her head and smiled, “Just enjoying your face. I haven’t seen it for a while.”

He nodded slowly, then looked at her closely. She hadn’t changed all that much. Her hair was longer and pulled back into a ponytail. There were wisps escaping all over, framing her face.

Finally, she said, “Carter there’s something I have to tell you, and I’m not sure how, but it has to be said. It’s not the kind of thing I ever expected to be telling anyone, much less you. I don’t want you to hate me, though -” at his he snorted and gave a mirthless laugh. She stopped and said quietly, “Well, hate me more than you do already.”

She took a deep breath. “Carter, when you left two years ago I was four weeks pregnant.” There, it was out.

The expression on his face was pure disbelief. “What?” The word was barely audible.

“You were right about everything you said that last night. I was so wrong. I ruined what we had, and I’m sorry for that.” She continued quietly, “After you left, you might remember, it was the beginning of July. Almost two years ago, exactly. Well, I sat myself down that night and had a real good cry. All the self-pity I could handle and then some,” she smiled wryly. “I thought to myself that what I should really do is go out and get plastered. That’d show you. Then I started to think logically. I didn’t really want to fall off the wagon again. I didn’t want to screw up my life even worse that I’d already done. So instead, I thought about going out and getting some ice cream. I remember this as clearly as if it were yesterday. I thought: ice cream - yeah, who cares about calories, anyway. And fat grams, and lactose. And I don’t know if it was all the years as an OB nurse or what, but all of a sudden my brain when from lactose, to lactate, to oh my god I haven’t had a period in over a month.”

Carter stared at her, unable to speak. He was trying to understand what she was saying.

“I wrote to you about it. It sort of became a habit, I guess. Every week since then until now I’ve written you telling all about the baby and then after he was born the things he was doing, growing, things like that.”

“You wrote to me? He?”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes, John, he. He was born in the beginning of March last year. He’s about fifteen months now. And yes, I wrote to you. I went from bitter, to sad, to regretful, to resigned, to okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re okay. I tried to get in touch with you as soon as I could. I didn’t think it was fair to you, you know? You always seemed like the type who would want to have kids. It didn’t seem right to keep him from you.”

They’re coffee arrived and they each stared at it.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I know. I was pretty speechless myself when I first found out.”

“I can’t believe I left you.”

“Don’t. You had no idea. It wasn’t as if you knew and said to hell with us. Please don’t beat yourself up. You’re here now and you haven’t missed that much, I promise.”

He stared at her. God, she could still twist him into knots, and she was only being nice, kind.

She put a hand on his. “Please tell me you’re okay.

He nodded slowly. “I want to meet him. What’s his name? Where is he?”

She smiled. “His name is William. Will for short. I hope you don’t mind. I thought John Truman Carter the fourth was a bit long, and I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again. But I did give him ‘John’ for a middle name.”

His chest felt tight. “I don’t mind a bit. William John. I have a son named William John.” He said this to himself, almost as if trying to convince himself of it.

She smiled again. “He’s at home right now, with a babysitter.”

“Why are you doing this? This isn’t the Abby I used to know.”

She looked back down into her coffee. “Well, to be honest, I just got tired of being unhappy. When you left I thought I would die. I couldn’t tell you then, but I can tell you now that I was desperately in love with you. In fact, I have to admit, that I still am.”

His head snapped up from his coffee. “What?”

“Yes. I’m tired of telling myself it will pass, like a cold or something.” She smiled at him. “It’s one of the things I came to terms with in the process of writing those letters. You’ve ruined me for any other man. And it’s okay. If you don’t feel the same, it’s okay. I was the problem the last time. I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to see me again.” Her expression changed to hopefulness. “But there’s Will, and you seem excited about him. So, if you decide to be involved, then I’ll get to see you once in a while, as opposed to never. John whether you know it or not, you brought me back from the dead.”

Carter shook his head and tried to disagree with her. “Yes, you did. Listen, I never told you this before, but when I was married to Richard I got pregnant. I had an abortion because things were going so badly with us. It’s a long story. But when I got pregnant with Will, it was like I had a little piece of you to hold onto, to keep me strong, and sane, and intact. Just knowing you were close through him made me feel better. It made me want to try and after I started to try, I discovered that being happy was entirely up to me. You gave me that. You gave me Will when I needed him most. I can never thank you enough.”

He stared at her for a few seconds and then said, “I wish I had known. What does he look like?”

Abby grinned, “He’s you, all over again.”

“Really?” he asked a little shyly.

“Yeah, he got my nose, but everything else is you. Eyes, forehead, chin, ears, everything. He’s beautiful,” she finished softly. “Look,” she said uncertainly, “like I said, I don’t expect anything from you. I want you to be involved, yes, but romantically, I know that you’ve probably moved on and that’s fine. I don’t want you to feel like I’m dropping something in your lap that your not ready for. A ready-made family isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and like I said before: it was my fault that we ended it years ago. I’ve figured it out since then, but you might have moved on. Just having you around is enough, okay?”

He stared at her and rubbed his chin with his hand, scratching the stubble and noticing for the first time in days that it irritated him. He really needed a shave. She was in love with him. It was as simple as that! He could barely believe his ears. He closed his eyes and tried to make sense of it all. There was so much that he’d missed. So much that he wished he’d been there for. He felt like she was handing him the moon.

“What if I said that romantically I hadn’t moved on?”

Abby stared at him. “Carter it’s okay. You don’t have to do this. I don’t want to be the person who keeps you back. Like I said before, it’s enough that you’re gonna be around for a while. I’m not asking you for forever - to tell the truth, I don’t really think I deserve forever from you.” Her eyes clouded, but before she could say anymore, she said brightly, “Shall we go? I called Mrs. Anderson from my car to tell her I’d be late, but I don’t want to keep her.”

“Mrs. Anderson?”

“The baby-sitter.”

Carter broke out into his first grin since before Gamma had died and said, “Let’s go.”