My mind goes to Thomas. There are so many unknowns between us. Will he hang around after the baby is born? I experience a moment of fleeting envy when I look at Fran. How nice it must be to be pregnant and secure in your relationship or marriage.
We hug and exchange pleasantries.
“Do you want a tour before we go?” I ask her.
“Yes, please,” Fran says enthusiastically.
I laugh at her energy. As I give her a tour, I tell her a bit about what led me to think of owning a gym. A lot of people are fascinated by that story, and Fran is no exception.
Afterward, she and I head to her car.
“I’m glad we’re doing this,” she says as she eases out of the parking. “We are all so excited that Thomas has found someone to love.”
I cringe as I imagine what Thomas’s reaction would be to the use of that word. He would probably run off.
“And a baby! Mom is beside herself with joy. We all are.”
“It must have been very tough for all of you when Tessa passed on,” I say tentatively.
“It was horrible. She was a wonderful woman, and she and Thomas were so in love. We used to make fun of them that when they grew old—” she stops talking and shoots me a nervous look. “There I go again, running off my mouth. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say cheerfully. “I know he loved Tessa as he should have. She was his wife after all.”
My heart constricts and burns with an emotion that I’m too ashamed to own. I’ve been kidding myself in the last few days that something special was happening between us. Thomas simply has no room to love another woman. When his wife passed on, she took his heart with her.
“Thomas is so lucky to have found you,” Fran says, her voice shaky with emotion.
“I’m lucky too.” I don’t feel lucky. I feel cursed when it comes to love. The only man I’ve ever fallen hard for turns out to be in love with his departed wife.
“I’m glad that he gets to be a dad. That’s the one thing he and Tessa wanted so badly and never got. They had fertility issues.”
And suddenly, everything makes sense. Thomas’s almost violent reaction three years ago when I’d suggested that we have a baby. The way he had cruelly cut me off from his life without an explanation. Then more recently, when I told him that I was pregnant. It must have been a nightmare for him to have impregnated another woman when he’d wanted a baby with his wife.
Bile rises up my throat. I feel sick, but for the next couple of hours, I have to act cheerful. Luckily, that is not difficult as Fran is chatty and super friendly. My enthusiasm for baby clothes shopping has faded, and I only pick a few items. Fran, on the other hand, gets almost a whole newborn wardrobe.
“I can’t help it!” she says. “Everything is so cute.”
I laugh and feel sad that I’m not into it. It’s tough to know that your lover and father of your unborn child wishes you were another woman. Thomas brings out my foolish side when it comes to love, but no more. I have to protect myself. If I don’t, he’s going to break my heart again. It’s not his fault that his heart belongs to someone else. It takes every ounce of my self-control not to burst into tears.
Fran and I pop into a café for coffee and sandwiches. She tells me about her job as a midwife and confides in me how difficult it was for her to tend to pregnant women when she wasn’t getting pregnant herself.
“That’s tough,” I tell her. It’s odd how we think that other people’s lives are perfect, not knowing that they, too, are going through their own painful struggles.
An hour later, we return to her car.
“Thanks for inviting me,” I tell her when I settle. “That was loads of fun.”
“For me too,” Fran says. “I feel like I have a sister now. I’ve always wanted one of those.”
I laugh. “Trust me; it’s not all fun and shopping unless you are friends.”
I find myself talking about Adeline and how different we are. Fran is fascinated by sister relationships. She stops for a red light, and then suddenly, there is a deafening noise—metal against metal sounds and the car lurches forward.
Chapter 14
Thomas
I love the quietness of Saturdays at work. We don’t work weekends at the clinic, but some days like today I come in to tie up loose ends. Besides, Cora and I have no solid plans today, but she was meeting Fran in the afternoon for some shopping. I’ll probably invite her for dinner at my place. I work steadily for a couple of hours, completely lost in my work. I update patient records and add notes where I hadn’t.