Wednesday, February 26, 2004
Rose stepped from the car, pulling her coat more tightly around her against the early evening chill. She had finally taken Jack’s advice and seen a doctor. Now, she had to share what she had learned with him.
She wondered how he would react. This definitely wasn’t something they had expected to happen. Cal would have been furious, she knew. He hated being inconvenienced in any way, and most likely would have slapped her and shoved her around for disrupting his carefully laid plans. She shuddered inwardly at the thought.
Jack wouldn’t slap her or shove her around, of that she was certain, but she wasn’t sure he would be happy, either. Picking up her purse, she shut the car door and looked across the street. Jack’s car was there, so he was home, and he would undoubtedly want to know what had happened as soon as she walked through the door.
Rose hurried across the street, shivering in the February chill. It had been as warm as spring a few days earlier, but now winter was back with a vengeance. She wondered briefly if it was a bad omen, then shook her head at the thought. Jack wasn’t going to blow up at her, or hit her, or reject her, either.
She opened the front door, stepping into the warm, brightly-lit kitchen. Jack was standing at the counter, cutting up some carrots. She had forgotten that it was his week to cook.
He turned as soon as she walked in. "Hey, Rose."
"Hey." Rose hurried down the hall to put away her purse and coat, then returned to the kitchen. Sitting down at the table, she looked at Jack.
"How did things go?" he asked, setting the carrots aside and turning to face her. "You did go to the doctor today, didn’t you?"
"I did."
"Are you okay?" Jack’s concern was obvious.
"I...I...Jack, I have something to tell you."
"What? What is it?" He looked at her, worried.
"I...think you’d better sit down." Rose pulled out the chair beside her.
He sat down beside her, his face showing his concern. "Rose, what is it? Are you sick? Did you hurt yourself somehow? What’s wrong?"
Rose saw his concern and tried to ease it. "It’s nothing bad, really. I’m not sick, and I’m not hurt."
"Then...what is it?"
Rose looked at him, gauging his reaction. "I’m pregnant, Jack."
He stared at her for a moment, shock, surprise, and confusion on his face. "You’re what?"
"I’m pregnant."
"How did that happen?"
Rose gave him an annoyed look. "You know how it happened."
"Yes, I know that, but...I thought you were taking birth control pills."
"I am...I mean, I was."
"Was?" Jack’s voice was rising.
"I went off them when I began to suspect that I was pregnant, so that I wouldn’t hurt the baby, if there was one."
"And you didn’t tell me?"
"Why do you think I insisted we use condoms this past week?”
“I thought you wanted to try something new.”
Rose sighed, giving him an irritated look. “Actually, I decided that if I was pregnant, I didn’t want to jeopardize the baby’s health, but if I wasn’t, I didn’t want to get that way."
"And when did you start suspecting that you were pregnant?"
"Last week, like I told you." Rose’s voice was beginning to rise as well.
"So why didn’t you say something?"
"I wanted to wait until I was sure."
"And you weren’t sure until today?"
"I took a home pregnancy test last week, and it was positive, but sometimes those things are wrong, so I went to the doctor to be sure."
"When?"
"When what?"
"When did you get pregnant?"
"I think it was on New Year’s. Before that, I was too sick to make love with you, and after that, you caught strep throat. I didn’t understand how it could have happened when I was taking birth control pills, but the doctor told me that the antibiotic I took—amoxicillin—can reduce the effectiveness of birth control pills."
"So, why didn’t you tell me that the pills might not work back when you were taking the antibiotics? I would have taken care of it!"
"I didn’t know!" Rose threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. "I could barely understand a word the doctor said, let alone ask what side effects the antibiotics might have. I was feeling so awful, I didn’t really think about side effects, anyway."
There was a wail from down the hall. Helga stormed into the kitchen, furious.
"Would you two please shut up? I just got the baby to sleep, and now you’ve woken him up."
"Sorry, Helga." Jack lowered his voice, returning to his conversation with Rose. "Now what are we going to do? We weren’t planning on having a baby for at least another year."
"Well, sometimes the best-laid plans go awry, don’t they?" Rose responded, irritated. "I don’t know what you plan to do, but I’m having a baby. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to be having a baby, even though we didn’t plan it. The only way to be sure of not starting a baby is to be abstinent, and we weren’t that!"
Their voices were rising again. Helga stomped back into the kitchen, a squalling Daniel in her arms.
"If the two of you don’t shut up right now, I’m going to—"
"Maybe you should teach her how to take care of that baby," Jack interrupted, gesturing to Rose. "She’s going to need to know how soon."
"I’m going to need to know how? Excuse me? You’re going to need to know, too. You’re as responsible for this baby as I am." Rose was shouting now.
"What’s going on? What baby?" Helga asked, but they ignored her, too busy glowering at each other to respond.
"Oh, I’m responsible, am I?" Jack shouted back at Rose. "Are you sure?"
He immediately knew that it was the wrong thing to say. Rose’s face went red, then white with fury. He almost expected her to slap him, and knew that he would have deserved it, but Rose just pushed him away and stalked to the living room door.
"Rose...I’m sorry..." he began, but got no further.
"You filthy little gutter rat," she hissed, her voice low but distinct now. "Stay away from me. Don’t talk to me, don’t follow me, don’t come anywhere near me. Just stay away." She yanked open the door and stepped through it.
"Rose!" Jack started to follow her, but the door slammed in his face, cutting him off. "Dammit, Rose..."
Daniel's renewed wailing interrupted him. The infant screamed in fear at the angry voices, kicking his legs and squalling at the top of his lungs. Helga held her son against her shoulder, rubbing his back soothingly and glaring at Jack.
When she had calmed Daniel down, she sat down at the table, watching Jack angrily attacking the carrots with a paring knife. After staring at him for a moment, she spoke.
"So, Rose is pregnant, I take it?"
"She’s pregnant," Jack replied, tossing the carrots into a saucepan and adding water. He started to slam on the lid, but a quelling glare from Helga convinced him to put it on quietly.
"And you’re not happy about it," she went on, rocking her now sleeping infant.
"It’s not that. I wanted to have kids someday. I just didn’t expect it to happen now."
"I didn’t quite expect to have Daniel, but I’m sure glad I did." Helga stroked the baby’s head gently. "When did you two plan on having kids?"
"In a year or two."
"It’ll be the better part of a year before Rose has the baby. You’re both mature enough to take care of a baby—usually, anyway—and you have the resources to provide for it. What’s a year or two early, anyway? You’re both good with kids, and you wanted to have them someday, anyway."
"I wanted a chance for us to finish some of our college education before we had kids."
"I thought you were planning on being an art therapist."
"I am."
"It’ll take you more than a year or two—or three—to get through your schooling for that. If you’d had kids the way you planned, you would have been raising them while going to college anyhow."
Jack leaned against the counter, running a hand through his hair. "I know that. I just..."
"You just overreacted?"
"She started it!" His voice was rising again.
Helga gave him a warning look as Daniel stirred, stroking the baby’s back until he fell asleep again. Jack pressed his lips together, glaring at them.
Helga sighed. "It’s at moments like this that I question your ability to raise a child. You’re both acting like children yourselves."
"I’m perfectly capable of raising a child, and so is Rose."
"Then what are you arguing about?"
"Dammit..." Jack trailed off, trying to think of why they were fighting. "She surprised me, is all. I guess she didn’t like the way I reacted."
"So she yelled at you, and you yelled back. Very mature, that."
"Helga..."
"Don’t glare at me, Jack. I’m not the one you’re mad at. You have more important issues at hand now, anyway—like how you’re going to get Rose to forgive you for accusing her of cheating on you."
"I didn’t mean to say that."
"Does she know that?" Helga raised an eyebrow at him. "Knowing Rose, you’re going to have a hell of a time explaining that remark."
Tommy walked through the front door, letting in a gust of cold air. Shutting the door behind him, he looked at his two roommates staring each other down. Rose was nowhere to be seen.
"What’s going on?" he asked, looking from Jack to Helga and back again.
"I’ll let him explain it," Helga told Tommy, standing up and carrying the sleeping baby down the hall.
"Okay, what’s going on?" Tommy looked at Jack, who was still leaning against the counter. "Are you fighting with Helga, or with Rose, or are Rose and Helga fighting about something, or what?"
"I’m fighting with Rose, not Helga. She’s just mad because we woke the baby up."
"I’d be mad at you, too. That kid can scream."
"Shut up." Jack looked up to see Tommy scarfing down the carrots from the pan. He’d forgotten to turn the stove. "Get out of that." He took the pan away, splashing water on the floor. "I’m sick of cooking." He slammed the pan back down on the stove, splattering out more water, and turned the stove on.
"What are you and Rose fighting about? This morning, you were so worried about her you couldn’t think about anything else. Now, you’re fighting with her. What happened there?"
"She found out what the problem is."
"And you yelled at her for getting sick? Aren’t you acting a little like that ex-fiancé of hers?"
"She isn’t sick. She’s pregnant."
"So? I thought you liked kids."
"I do like kids. I just didn’t plan on being a father so soon. We were going to wait a year or two..."
"So what’s wrong with having a kid now? Besides the fact that there’ll be two of them screaming all night."
"Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it."
"So what are you so mad about?"
"She took me by surprise, since I didn’t expect this to happen right now. I guess she didn’t like my reaction, so she yelled at me. And I yelled back."
"And she...where is Rose, anyway?"
"Out back. She walked out on our fight." He’d heard the back door slam shortly after she’d slammed the living room door in his face.
Tommy shook his head. "What did you say to make her so mad?"
"I as much as accused her of sleeping with another man."
Tommy shook his head, looking at Jack with a mixture of disgust and sympathy. "Damn…you’re an idiot. She’s not gonna forgive you easily."
"I know. What in the hell am I gonna do? I didn’t mean to say it. It just slipped out."
"Did you mean it?"
"Of course not! I know she isn’t the sort to fool around." He knew that Rose was sensitive about the subject of sex. She was warm and willing in his arms, but her experience with Cal had made her touchy about the subject. He knew full well that she hadn’t been sleeping with anyone else, but he had been angry when he had said it, wanting to lash out and hurt her. He’d a done a good job, too. Now the question was, how was he going to get back on her good side?
Tommy clapped him on the shoulder, shaking him from his thoughts. "Nobody’s shocked that she’s pregnant, you know—or that you’re the father. You two get it on often enough."
Jack stared at him. "How do you know that we ‘get it on’ often enough?"
Tommy shrugged. "The walls are thin, and you’re not always quiet."
Jack turned bright red. "Sorry," he mumbled, running a hand over his flaming face.
"Don’t worry about it. I’d think there was something wrong between you two if you didn’t sometimes make that much noise."
"I did not want to hear that," Jack mumbled, his face still flaming. "I’m going to try to talk to her. Turn that off when it steams, will you?"
"Sure."
"And don’t eat it yourself," Jack added, heading for the living room door. He had to try to work things out with Rose.
*****
Rose leaned against a tree in the backyard, shaking with fury. The night air was cold, but she hardly noticed.
How dare he? she thought, remembering Jack’s words. How dare he accuse me of sleeping with someone else? I thought he knew me better than that. And his reaction to the baby—he likes other people’s kids well enough, but when it comes to one of our own, he blows his top. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he’s more like Cal than I ever suspected. I never thought he’d get this mad about it. Surprised, yes. Shocked, yes. Angry, no.
She slid down the tree trunk, sitting in the pile of leaves still left from fall. Crossing her arms over her chest, she set her jaw. He was in the wrong—she wasn’t going to sit here and cry about it. She was cold, but she wasn’t going to give up and come inside. They wouldn’t lock her out, anyway. Someone would eventually come and look for her, if only to tell her that dinner was ready.
Dinner. She grimaced at the thought. She didn’t have any appetite now, but she had to eat, to keep her baby healthy. Putting her hands on her stomach, she leaned back. Yes. Her baby. Jack might not want it, but she certainly did. If they were going to split up over this, so be it.
She opened her eyes when she heard the dry leaves crunch as someone walked across them. Jack stood over her.
Rose quickly stood up, glaring at him. She was in no mood to talk to him right now.
"Rose..." He ran a hand through his hair, trying to think of what to say. "About what I said..."
"Save it, Jack. I don’t want to hear it."
"I’m trying to—"
"I said I don’t want to hear it!" She stepped past him, heading toward the house, then stopped, whirling around to face him. "Oh, and for your information, I’ve only slept with two men in my life. You—and Cal. And since Cal is in prison in northern California, it should be pretty obvious who the father of this baby is."
And before Jack could say another word, she turned and stormed into the house.