Page 71 of Feared

“You sound like you resent the fact that you’re pregnant.”

“No I don’t,” Mary replied, reflexively. “Or maybe I do. I didn’t think I did, but I do when you tell me that I’m a bad person for doing what I need to do for myself and for everyone around me.”

“But not for the baby, honey. You’re not doing what’s best for the baby.”

“Yes I am!” Mary said, taken aback. “The doctor didn’t say I had to sit still all day long and stare out the window. And besides, what am I supposed to do? Anthony, you tell me. Did youseeMachiavelli on TV today? He called me amurderer. He’s telling the world that I killed John. I have clients calling me about it and I didn’t have a spare second to return one of those calls. I’m avoiding my email because it will be more of the same. So you tell me, what would the doctor say I’m supposed to do, a pregnant person accused of a colleague’s murder? Maligned in public, freaking out my parents? Really, these are extraordinary circumstances.”

Anthony sighed slowly, his breath shuddering from his lips, and Mary could even feel it on her face. Her nasal superpowers told her that he had his favorite late-night snack, a glass of red wine, roasted peppers, and black olives. Somehow the image of Anthony eating his snack by himself softened Mary’s heart.

“Look, Anthony, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pop off.”

“Babe, I’m sorry too. I wasn’t trying to criticize you.”

“But you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Mary knew she should let it go, but she couldn’t. “You told me I’m running around too much.”

“But you are,” Anthony shot back, without hesitation. Or rancor. “It’s just the truth. I have to be able to tell you the truth.”

Mary considered it. “You’re right, you do. But I have to be able to tell you the truth too, and I think I just laid a truth bomb on you.”

“You sure did.” Anthony chuckled slightly, and Mary’s anger began to ebb away.

“Maybe I just feel like I need more breathing room now. We’re obviously in a crisis at work.”

“O-kay,” Anthony said slowly. “But you’re also in a crisis here. Not with me, but with your home life. With the baby.”

“I would never do anything to hurt the baby, you know that.”

“But I’m worried what you’re doing could hurt the baby, or you.”

“And if I don’t do it, it hurts me.” Mary felt as if she were thinking clearly for the first time in seven months. “I’m doing everything I said. I cut back my cases. I’m going to stay home when the baby comes. But I just can’t ignore what’s happening around me. John, Judy, now William. Machiavelli.London Technologies.”

“So what do you do? What do we do?”

“Trust me to sort it out and handle it the way I see fit.” Mary thought hard, trying to wrestle with it in her own mind. “You don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant. It’s really, in someways, strange. My body is doing things I never thought it could do, it’s completely out of my control. It’s hijacked, in a way.”

“Hijacked?”

“Honestly, yes. I don’t own my own body anymore. It’s obeying its own rules and rhythms. The baby’s calling the tune.”

Anthony groaned. “That’s a negative view, honey.”

“Well, it’s true,” Mary told him, torn. “And I’m not negative about the pregnancy, not really. I’m excited about it, but these other things are also true, so it’s a mixed bag. And just now, with so much happening, I have to be able to deal. I want to come home and not get grief.”

“You’re not getting grief, you’re getting truth.”

“I’m getting both,” Mary said, though she knew that he was partly right. But so was she, which might have been why marriage wasn’t easy.

“All right,” Anthony said, his tone newly final. “I won’t give you grief or truth anymore. I’ll let you do what you’re doing, your own way.”

“Thank you.”

“But I want you to remember what I’m telling you tonight. Because you aren’t who you used to be. You’re pregnant now, and anything can happen.”

“Nothing is going to happen.”