I don’t know how long I break, there against the wall of Logan’s chest. How long he holds me. How long it takes me to shatter completely, until there’s nothing left of me.
I have no recollection of being picked up, carried, and set down in our bed. But I come to awareness, eventually, and I’m there, in our bed. Logan is spooned behind me. I can tell by his breathing that he’s awake.
I lie silent a long, long time, letting my mind work. Letting my thoughts and emotions just flow, flicker, flit-stream.
How is it even possible? I am on birth control, and I have been for a very long time. You brought me to the same clinic in your office building, where I lived, where you live, where I had the chip removed. There was an examination, you watching like a hawk all the while. And then the doctor inserted somethinginto me. Birth control, the doctor explained. An IUD. The process was a little uncomfortable. There was some pain, some dizziness, nausea. Normal, I was told, considering my young age and that I had never given birth before; it will pass. And it did. I had regular checkups by your private doctor thereafter. Once a year, that same doctor would perform an overall examination. You even had the doctor replace the IUD a year ago, as it had reached the end of its efficacy term.
Perhaps it came out? I don’t know. I never thought to check. I should have, I was told to, but I never did.
Or, perhaps, it just didn’t work. Nothing is ever 100 percent effective, I remember the doctor saying as much.
I slip out of bed and go into the bathroom, check for the IUD; it’s still in place, which I assume means it failed.
In the end, though, it doesn’t matter how it happened. It did. It’s real. I’m pregnant. A human being is growing within me.
What do I do? The counselor at the clinic outlined three basic choices: abortion, adoption, or raising it myself. Which do I choose?
Abortion? Terminating the pregnancy?
I consider it. But something within me rebels against that idea. No. Not that.
So, adoption, or delivering the baby and raising it.
Adoption, delivering the baby to term, and giving it away for someone else to raise. Could I do that?
No. My heart rebels against that just as strongly. If I am going to carry the child for nine months, I could not then give it away. Giveher or himaway. Say, as Logan put it,Not my problem? I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
I’m scared. I’m terrified. I don’t know how to be a mother. I don’t know how to raise a child. I don’t even really know who I am, yet. Maybe I never will. How could I then raise a person, teach that child to be the best he or she could be? What could Iteach them? What do I know? How to be addicted to a man who doesn’t love me. Doesn’t care for me. Just wants to possess me.
Is that true, though?A sinister little voice whispers, deep inside me.What about the last time you were with him? He kissed you. He made LOVE to you. As Jakob. What if... ?
No.
No.
No.
Even if you COULD love me, if you did, it wouldn’t be enough to overcome all that I have endured at your hands. Even though you have given me a life, given me somewhere to live, even though you were there for me, caring for me when I was helpless and had no one. It isn’t enough. It can never be enough.
And nothing you could ever feel for me, nothing you could ever do or say could ever match what Logan feels for me. The way he makes me feel. The way I feel about him.
I am complete, with him.
I have an identity, a future, potential, with him. I amsomeone, with him.
With you... I will always only be Madame X.
A possession.
I have to tell you.
The life growing inside me could be yours. I don’t think there’s any way to know until I give birth. Will the baby have blue eyes and blond hair, like Logan? Dark eyes, dark hair, like you? Like me? What if the baby’s features aren’t distinctive enough to tell me who the father is? What then?
Does it matter?
If I told you—whenI tell you—what will you say? Will you want it? Want me? Would you insist I get an abortion? Try to force that on me? Manipulate me and twist me into it? If I had still been Madame X and this happened, I came up unexpectedly pregnant, what would you have done? Let me have the baby? Letme raise the baby on my own, alone, perhaps stopping by once in a while? I don’t know. I don’t know what you would have done. What you will say. What you will do.
I just don’t know.
