Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [43]
She rose unsteadily to her feet, hearing him call her name, which echoed in the shallow valley.
“Back here,” she answered.
“Sorry I’m so late.”
David kissed her upturned face, Ariel kissing the air as she half turned away.
“Sorry for the short notice,” she said. “You want a drink, something to eat?”
“I had dinner in the city before coming up, but some scotch would be good.”
He knew where the liquor cabinet was, knew where everything was in this house. He and Ariel had spent many days and nights here together, sometimes visiting her parents, often by themselves. As he poured his drink he hesitated, lingering a moment in the pantry to listen to the voluminous silence of the place, a stillness that always soothed and frightened him. How could the world tolerate such a quiet corner as this? Life prefers clamor. If only to prove it is living. Carrying his glass back to the porch, he dreaded whatever he was about to hear. Ariel had never phoned him out of the blue like this with such an adamant request.
“Is it something we could put off until the weekend?” he had asked. “I’ve got to be at work early tomorrow.”
“It’s nothing we should put off.”
She’d sounded grim. So he’d agreed, telling her he would cancel a morning meeting that, in any event, was not on his schedule. Now he sat beside her and, assuring himself there was nothing to worry about in the long run, took a breath of night air and a taste of his scotch.
Ariel wasted no time with preliminaries. “I’m pregnant.”
After a moment he said, “You’re joking, right?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“You look like you’ve been drinking.”
“I’m not joking. I’ve been drinking. I’m pregnant.”
It occurred to him that he had expected much worse, somehow, though he’d not construed the precise possibilities, or at least never anticipated this one. Without thinking, he said, “I’m really sorry.”
“What’s to be sorry about?”
How hateful the assumption that funded his automatic response, even though his instinct wasn’t so different from her own. When he continued, not missing a beat, saying, “Look, it’s my responsibility to pay,” she passingly wondered whether David hadn’t been through this before.
“Pay what?”
“You have to suffer through the procedure, so I should cover the cost.”
“That’s very generous of you, but who said I’m getting an abortion?”
Here, then, was that worse crisis he had forecast. “But Ariel, in all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never once expressed any interest in having children.”
She couldn’t contradict him.
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing with his scotch at the ledger cradled in her arms. “Is it what I think it is?”
Ariel nodded in the flickering light. Poor David—couldn’t blame him for wanting to change the subject.
“No wonder you’re so upset,” he tried, reaching over to take her hand, which was very cold, though she pressed his in return.
“There’s a letter from Kip Calder inside.”
“We can’t have a baby, Ariel. We’ve been struggling as it is.”
“You’re probably going to think I’m out of my mind, but I’ve decided that I made a mistake, a bad one, when I didn’t go out to New Mexico to find my father after I first learned about him.”
“I remember being an advocate of that idea when you told me.”
“You were. I should have listened to you.”
He resisted the easy comeback, that she should listen to him now regarding this new issue. Instead he stood, took the Calder ledger from Ariel’s other hand and set it on the wide arm of the chair, then drew her up from where she sat and gathered her unsteadily against him. How familiar she felt, her body banking into his, holding him close, her face burrowed into the crook of his shoulder. “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time,” he said, but she neither responded nor