“No. At least, she hasn’t said anything like that to my knowledge.” Mia’s throat tightened at the mere suggestion of terminating her pregnancy. “I think it’s really just about the marriage—about him not marrying me.” She exhaled slowly. “I think if he decided to just…pay me off? His mom would probably be okay with that.”
“But she hasn’t said she wants the baby?”
“Why would she want it? I’m a commoner.”
“You’re as royal as her son is, honey” Amie pointed out. Mia laughed in spite of herself.
“Yeah, but he’s got a name. I don’t.”
“You have a name! Mia Campbell is a name.” Amie cried.
“And I’m proud to have it,” Mia replied, with more than a little affection in her voice. “But it doesn’t mean a thing to Rami’s parents, even if it’s important to me.”
“What are you going to do if tries to just pay you off?”
Mia bit her bottom lip, for a moment unable to answer the question. “Curse his ever-loving soul, first of all,” she said, shifting on the couch against her aching back. “Then take the money and figure out a new career for myself, I suppose. If he wants to pay me off, he’s going to pay me way, way more than he would have for being his surrogate.” Mia pressed her lips together. “But right now I’d rather just believe that he wouldn’t make that choice in a million years.”
“You know him better than I do,” Amie said comfortingly. Mia agreed, but she wasn’t entirely sure how well she knew this new, more distant side of Rami. Rather than worry her mother about it, however, she changed the subject, insisting that she could—and would—go to the doctors’ appointments with her during the week. Eventually, worn down, Mia’s mother relented and agreed to let Mia pick her up.
THREE
The sound of Rami arriving home brought Mia jolting out of a deep sleep. She heard the metallic clatter of keys hitting the floor, followed by Rami cursing. Mia frowned and looked around the room until her gaze found the digital clock on the wall. It was three in the morning; was Rami only just getting home from his latest drive?
It had been three weeks since their meeting with Rami’s mother, and Mia had reminded herself, over and over again, that Rami loved her, and that she had to be patient with him. At first Rami would only be away from the house for an hour or two, and Mia had thought it was a good thing; the drives gave him the time to think about things, space away from her and her developing pregnancy to be a little more objective. But over the weeks since the ultimatum was spelled out for him, Rami’s “drives” had gotten longer and longer.
He had left that afternoon at four; unless he had come home at some point while Mia had been asleep, Rami had been away for almost twelve hours. That was not an absence that Mia could just brush aside. She heard the clatter of Rami’s keys hitting the floor again and nearly got up from the couch to go to unlock the door herself, rather than listen to him struggle with his keys for a moment longer.
It was obvious to Mia, even before she heard Rami finally get the key in the lock, that her lover—her fiancé—was drunk. Please God, tell me he didn’t drive home like that. Tell me he left his car parked somewhere, and he’s going to get someone to drive it back tomorrow morning. Mia heard the lock turn over and closed her eyes, pretending to still be at least sleeping lightly as the door opened.
Rami’s footsteps were heavy. Mia cringed as she listened to his unsteady, wavering progress from the front door and through the entryway and kitchen. He came into the living room and her pregnancy-sensitive nose caught the pungent, bitter-sharp smell of alcohol on him as he came near.
Mia swallowed, cuddling against one of the throw pillows, keeping her eyes closed. Rami’s hot, alcohol-reeking breath poured down on her face from above. His lips brushed her temple, and then in the next moment Mia heard her lover unsteadily making his way towards the bedroom. How many times does that make this week? Mia frowned, her stomach twisting into knots inside of her. She felt a flutter a little lower—but it was impossible to know if it was the baby kicking, or some other kind of movement that she just wasn’t used to.
Mia counted mentally. Monday he was sober—I think. Tuesday he came in…and he was acting normal, but when he kissed me, he tasted like whiskey. Wednesday he managed to get home before midnight… Thursday, he reeked of vodka. And now this. Mia sighed, burying her face against the couch cushions. She wanted to be patient; she wanted to give Rami the space he needed to come to terms with the situation with his parents. But she knew also that the solution to his upset was not in any kind of bottle. No amount of drinking was going to make the situation go away, and forgetting about it for a few hours wasn’t going to help the man Mia loved come to terms with it. “If Mom knew how he was acting right now, I don’t know that she’d approve any more than his mom approves of me,” Mia mused in a whisper to herself.
Mia didn’t know what to do. She wanted to get up, walk into the bedroom and give Rami a good shake, tell him to stop acting like a spoiled brat and start acting like a man who was going to be a father in a handful of months. She wanted to hold him tightly and tell him to cry it out, telling him that she would be there for him. She wanted to tell him that if he didn’t straighten up, she was going to leave. She wanted to beg him to stop with his self-destructive behavior.
Give him time. Just a little more time. Mia pulled the blanket tighter around her, grateful at least that Rami hadn’t tried to “awaken” her to cajole her into going to bed with him. The couch wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but at least she wouldn’t have to deal with drunken Rami there. With the deep aches in her bones, especially her back, Mia didn’t want to consider getting up until she absolutely had to. She had hoped that the morning sickness would be the worst thing she had to contend with during her pregnancy, but apparently she had been wrong.
The doctors said that everything was as it should be, which Mia supposed was the best she could do. But she couldn’t help feeling, at least a little bit, like Rami’s self-pitying descent into alcohol couldn’t have come at a worse time. It wasn’t fair; she needed him, and the baby did, too. Mia needed Rami to be the supportive presence he had been to her right up until they got engaged; to be the bolster and anchor that he had been before she’d become pregnant and his parents had rejected their engagement.
At the same time, Mia knew that she couldn’t rush the man she loved into giving up his binges. She clenched her teeth and tried to fall back into the sleep that Rami’s noisy entrance into the apartment had interrupted. Maybe, if she was lucky, he would be passed out in bed and she would be able to get another six or so hours. And then maybe the next morning she would feel like a human being once more; able to face another day of her fiancé’s issues, her exhausting pregnancy, and her mother’s uncertain health. And then maybe I’ll figure out how to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine, end famine around the world, and nobody will ever want to go to war again, Mia thought facetiously.
“He’ll get over it, he just needs more time,” Mia told herself in a whisper. She heard Rami moving around in the bedroom, and pictured him stripping off his clothes and throwing them carelessly across the room. They had a housekeeper, but Mia preferred to keep the bedroom as neat as possible, even if the woman came three times a week to clean it and everything else. Mia shifted on the couch again, torn between wanting to cuddle up to Rami in their bed together and not wanting to have to deal with him in his current state.