Page 61 of Love & Rockets

“My parents weren’t bad or abusive or even particularly strict with me, just controlling.” She chuckled, short and bitter. “My mother liked to approve my clothing. My dad decided I’d go to Samford University, because he went there. I wanted to go to Auburn. Join a sorority. Learn to play beer pong.” She trailed off at the last. “I probably could have used a little strictness. But other than making all my decisions for me, they were uninterested.”

He heard the quaver in her voice as she drew her next breath.

“I babysat for the family. They were friends with my parents. I was eighteen and hadn’t been anything near innocent for a while. And, I was feeling powerful.”

“Powerful?”

She cleared her throat and continued in a much more matter of fact tone. “I knew the guy was interested. I thought his wife was kind of a bitch, so I encouraged his interest. Figured it would be a kick the next time he and his wife came over for dinner.”

“Jesus, Darla.”

“I’m not particularly proud of my actions, Jake. I’m trying to be honest.” She blew out a breath as if she needed to expel the dregs of the memories from her lungs. “When I took the pregnancy test everything stopped.” Again, she laughed, but this time it was more rueful than bitter. “I wasn’t happy by any stretch of the imagination, but I was okay. I’d made the decisions that got me there. They weren’t great ones, but they were mine.”

“Right.” Heaving a sigh, he rolled back until he lay flat on the drop cloth staring up at the skylights. But a thin layer of cloud cover had rolled in. The thickening strata obscured the moon and the stars, and pressed down on him. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he screwed up his courage to ask one last question. “And when you found out you were pregnant, you decided he didn’t have a right to know?”

Her breathing hitched and he covered his eyes with his hand, wishing he could disappear. He’d managed a direct hit, but scoring the point didn’t feel good.

“I decided I didn’t have the right to tear a family apart because I wanted to prove I could seduce any man I wanted.”

His ear ached from having the phone pressed tight, but he couldn’t ease his grip. Not yet. He knew what was coming, and he had to be braced for the next logical question.

“What happened with your baby, Jake?”

He swallowed hard, forcing down the cold lump of bile lodged in his throat. He spoke softly, trying to keep his voice steady. Cool. Detached. Like Darla. “I was engaged. No one knew. Particularly not our parents.”

“Would they have disapproved?”

Her question caught him off guard. He and Courtney had conjured a multitude of reasons for not taking their relationship public, but approval, or disapproval, had never entered into the equation. They were both serious students with lofty ambitions. Both had their grad school admissions in hand. He’d be off to Cambridge to attend MIT, and she’d be staying in Tuscaloosa. They both had their sights set on doctoral programs. A wedding would be a good three to five years off, so there was no reason to get their families all stirred up.

“No, they wouldn’t have disapproved. It wasn’t the best time.” He cleared his throat. “The timing wasn’t good, so we decided not to tell them.”

We decided. The words bounced around in his brain as he searched his memory for any form of mutual agreement. All he came up with was a vague impression of Courtney carrying on about how she didn’t have time to look through bridal magazines and him nodding along in agreement. As usual. “She decided,” he amended.

“And you guys decided the timing wasn’t right for a baby, either?”

He heard the stiffness in Darla’s tone and the unspoken censure jolted him right out of his reflections. “No. No, we didn’t decide. We didn’t decide anything.”

“Then you have a kid?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

He heard the shock and caution in the word. Also, a passel of other questions piling up. And maybe a hint of judgment. All the anger he’d been tamping down for the past thirteen years detonated. Heat consumed him from the inside out. He pressed the tips of his fingers into his eye socket, trying to hold onto the last threads of his self-control.

“Yeah. Courtney said I had a right to know, but she also said it was her body and her decision.”

His throat clogged with emotion. His fingers curled so tight around the phone he wondered if maybe he could crack the case with the strength of his frustration. He forced air into his lungs, let his hand fall to his side, and opened his eyes wide.

The cloud cover was swift-moving and sparse. He thought maybe he caught a glimpse of the stars above. Or maybe only a seven-forty-seven cruising over.

“And now I’ve made my own decision, Darla. I don’t want this half-assed sort of relationship. I want more. A real relationship without limits or boundaries. Marriage. A family.”

He’d spoken his fondest wishes out loud, and they sounded good. Really good. And horrible, all at the same time. Still, he’d hit the ignition switch, and now there was no stopping.

“I want you. And Grace. And maybe a couple more one day.” He rushed on, hurtling into the unknown. “I want to take you to dinner at my parents’ house and listen to you razz Brian until he turns red as a beet. I want everything, Darla, and I want to have it with you.”

His pause stretched into a silence. A silence so drawn out it sliced him to shreds. Unable to take it a moment longer, he pushed on.

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