The Mother Beforehand Read online

  She remembered the experience. For Nicole, the thought of hospitals and clinics made her wince with remembered pain, conjuring images of dirty floors and dirtier knives, of men and women who were just as lost as the rest of them during the bad times but who’d been skilled enough to save patients.

  When the almost-doctor in the stained smock had taken her mother for what he swore was a routine but urgent procedure — removal of her inflamed appendix — he’d actually winked and said that everything would be okay.

  It hadn’t been.

  Nicole had always wondered what had happened behind those closed doors after she’d given the stranger her trust. She only knew that her mother never came out. That she’d believed in medicine once, and her mother had died in its hands.

  That and her own experience.

  They’d told Nicole she had a benign tumor. She hadn’t known what that meant, so they had to explain. They’d gone in and removed things, and miraculously, despite her growing sense of medical distrust, she’d survived.

  But had the men and women in that crumbling building in a burning city done what they’d said? Had they done it right? They swore that she’d never have children. She couldn’t. It was physically impossible. You simply don’t have the kangaroo’s pouch, one of them had told her as she sobbed in a failed attempt at cozy familiarity.

  She patted her stomach, proof of their error.

  Part of Nicole knew she was raising yet another mental wall.

  She should go to the Voyos clinic. But she knew that she wouldn’t.

  Not unless something went very wrong, and her situation grew dire.

  The Islanders had babies without any assistance, save possibly for a midwife. Humanity had survived for hundreds of thousands of years without the butchers in blue.

  And besides, Nicole had other problems.

  She hadn’t heard from Clive for weeks after his departure. That being expected was hideously depressing. She kept trying to bolster her mood, but it had continued to disintegrate like a sandcastle waiting for the waves.

  Part of her kept wanting to believe that their relationship was different and that Clive would miss her. He’d call, just to hear her voice and see her face, even if there were no sexual favors exchanged. But he hadn’t called, and his silence had cracked their relationship open like a blighted fruit.

  Nicole had finally admitted the truth she’d always known:

  She was an escort, hired for sex.

  When there was no sex, there was no need for the escort.

  Nicole’s hand returned to her stomach. She did the math.

  Based on when she and Clive had last had sex, nine months after that final bout would be late October.

  She breathed deeply, trying to accept it all. It was a lot to take all of a sudden … and all on her own.

  But she forced herself to focus.

  Halloween. The baby would arrive somewhere around Halloween. Clive would return before then, and he’d certainly be around for the Voyos Halloween celebration when Nicole was about to pop.

  Maybe he’d want to be part of the child’s life. He’d said he’d likely want kids some day when she’d whined about her supposedly kaput baby maker, and it was true that Clive had been with Nicole more than any other woman over the last half-decade.

  If he was ever going to have kids with someone, why not her?

  If Clive returned to Voyos, could she take him back? Tell him that he was going to be a father? Maybe it would bring them closer together. Maybe it would make their relationship deeper.

  She sighed in pathetic desire.

  Hers was a stupid, stupid desire.

  Nicole looked at her tablet. She didn’t want to call Clive and tell him the news. Nobody wants to learn if they’ll be bringing a baby into this fucked-up world, her mother once said. Before the doctors killed her. Before the same species of lowlifes had told her she’d never be a mom, then butchered her.

  For all Nicole knew, the tumor was still inside her.

  For all she knew, what she and the pregnancy test thought was a baby might be the tumor.

  A trip to the clinic would answer so many questions.

  As would a call to her unborn baby’s father.

  But, Nicole rationalized, both could wait for an indefinite later.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  July 8, 2039 — Voyos Island

  Clive’s voice came on the line, audio only.

  Even not being able to see him, Nicole could easily read his annoyance.

  “Nicole?”

  “Hi, Clive.”

  “How did you get this number?”

  “I needed to speak with you.”

  “That’s not the question. This is my private number. If someone at the spa gave it to you, that represents an incalculable breach of …”

  “I wrote it down,” she said, trying to make her voice innocent. “Off of your handheld. One time when you were here.”

  Less annoyed, but clearly put-off, he said, “Why?”

  Behind it she heard, How dare you?

  “In case of an emergency.”

  “Is there an emergency now?” The irked, almost antagonistic edge wouldn’t let go of his voice. He was keeping his true thoughts in check, but Nicole could hear them behind his words. He had a bevy of silent questions behind the one that he’d asked: What kind of emergency could there possibly be between them? And even if she had an emergency, how was it his problem?

  “How was the summit?”

  Clive paused. Nicole could imagine him biting his lip, possibly literally. Clive could be plenty sweet, but she’d always seen him in Nicole mode. But he was in business mode now, or maybe in fucking-another-woman-in-the-city mode. Nicole had broken a cardinal rule, blending worlds. She was supposed to remain boxed in wait for him, and her daring to call was the height of impudence.

  But she had waited for as long as she could bear — he’d been back in DZ for a week — and he still hadn’t called. Nicole couldn’t help herself. The baby was making her emotional; she was throwing up every morning; it was all so exhausting. Wasn’t the vomiting supposed to stop this late into a pregnancy?

  She couldn’t bear facing the clinic, or even the medical Internet sites.

  “It was fine,” Clive answered. Terse. Down to business.

  “It was strange not to have you around for so long.”

  “Yes, well.” Said like a sentence. “What do you need, Nicole?”

  She put a hand on her belly. The bump was noticeable, and she’d already requested a transfer to the fetish tables. Sam would get a new partner and so would she. Apparently, he wasn’t into sticking his dick where a baby might see it. Nicole had plenty she needed (or wanted) from Clive, but telling this Clive their mutual news was asking for trouble.

  She’d thought he might need some warming up, which was why she was using audio-only. She didn’t want him to see the bump in her belly, right where he’d left it.

  “I just wanted to say hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  There was a long pause. And then Nicole, with a feeling of what the hell, said, “Not to be a nag, Clive, but you’re kind of being a dick.”

  It was a bold thing to say, especially since she was the one breaking so many rules: the spa’s, those governing normal courtesy, and a third, more ominous rule that hung above them all — the privilege of a powerful and secretive man.

  But five years with Clive had earned her the right to push him, and so she did. Nicole thought he might retort — bite back and explain that he was in the middle of something and that he’d get down there to fuck her when he felt like it — but instead she heard an almost sigh as he seemed to mentally adjust.

  “I’m sorry. You just caught me off guard.”

  “So: Hi.”

  “Hello, love.” But it sounded like lip service to Nicole. He was using “love” in his British way, not as a genuine expression of affection.

  “I missed your voice.”

  “It is a charming
voice.” She waited for him to volunteer that he’d missed her, but he didn’t. “And I just wanted to make sure you got back okay.”

  That was a laugh, because the death, injury, or unexplained absence of Clive Spooner would have been news that no one could miss.

  “I’m fine, Nic. And you?”

  “I got back fine to the place I never left, yes.”

  “And you’re keeping busy? Meeting a lot of interesting people?”

  Nicole wasn’t sure she liked his tone. It sounded like code for, have you been fucking other clients?

  Maybe a way of distancing her in order for Clive to distance himself.

  “Not really.”

  “Just Sam.”

  “Yes.” Until I get my new preggo-plowing partner, that is. “Strictly business.”

  Again, she felt the carrot dangle, waiting to see if he’d bite. Nicole had just told him that she’d been an escort’s version of faithful while her man had been away. This was his chance to say something kind in return.

  “Well, that’s splendid.”

  “And you? Did you meet lots of interesting people?”

  “Just boring summit folks. And Alexa. Alexa Mathis was here.”

  “And how is Alexa?”

  “She’s lovely.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Yes, ‘lovely.’ ‘Doing well.’ What the devil is on your mind, Nicole?”

  Nicole’s hand fell back to her stomach. She should just tell him — say it quick and get it over with. She was halfway through her pregnancy; he was halfway to being a father. She didn’t want Clive’s financial support, though he’d give it. She just wanted him to know. And right now, hearing his attitude, she almost wanted to wield her reveal like a weapon: to hit him hard so he’d stop being a distant asshole and give her his full attention.

  But another part of her — the Pretty Woman part — wanted to wait. She would only get one chance to tell him, and she wanted the time to be right. If she told him while his guard was up, they’d probably fight. The vulnerable little girl inside her hoped the child in her belly could be what Clive had always wanted — and what he might be willing to finally settle down for.

  With her.

  “I just miss you.”

  There. She’d said it. She’d been the first to emerge from the shells they were both holding around themselves.

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you miss me?”

  He sighed. “Yes, of course.”

  “You don’t sound like it.”

  Shit. She was making this worse. Digging herself a deeper hole to embarrass herself in.

  “Nicole …”

  “I thought you might book a trip to Voyos when you came back.”

  “I’ve only been back for a week. The loose ends around here …”

  “When do you think you’ll come visit?”

  Double shit.

  She was a cart careening down a hill with no brakes. The floodgates were open. The nature of their relationship would be decided now whether she liked it or not — and it didn’t seem like it’d be a happy one.

  Clive was acting cold; she was begging.

  After five years, they deserved a more dignified ending.

  “I don’t know, Nicole.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “How about next weekend?”

  “I don’t think so. I have a lot to catch up on.”

  “I’d really like to see you.”

  Ugh. This was one-sided. She wanted to hang up on herself, but her hand was on this man’s baby and she was getting the distinct impression he’d moved on and found someone else to play with.

  There was no way out.

  She could spring the baby on him like a snare and force him to deal with her, but she didn’t want her child’s life to be a trap, or revenge, or spite. And in a very real way, if Clive was going to be like this, she didn’t want his pity, support, or fatherhood. He wasn’t earning the right to know and didn’t realize the fate he was in the midst of deciding.

  “I don’t know that I can come anytime soon.”

  Nicole wanted to break down, but apparently she wasn’t broken just yet. She still had anger to get through. Through tight lips she said, “I see.”

  Clive, oblivious of her tone, tried a compromise: “Let me get back to you when things are more settled.”

  Nicole felt her face beginning to redden.

  “Am I an appointment on your docket? Is that how you deal with me? ‘Let me get back to you’?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Tell me you’ll give me some respect.”

  “Respect?”

  “Yes, Clive, respect! You’ve been gone for five months — five long goddamn months! — and not once did you think to contact me.”

  “Where do you think I was? It was a bloody international summit, not a fraternity party!”

  “And then when you come back, you don’t even try to call, don’t check in, don’t peek in to see how I’m doing — don’t even send me a message! For a full week, you just sit there in District Zero while I’m here, supposedly with no way to contact you, and I’m supposed to sit here and wait for you to—”

  “That’s goddamn right, you are!”

  Nicole stopped, her mouth hanging open.

  “I pay you! I pay your employer! I am the customer and you are the provider! I owe you nothing, be it to check in or send you postcards or anything else! It is out of place for you to contact me, and out of place for you to insist that I renew something voluntary that I have, thus far, been a faithful patron of!”

  Nicole had nothing to say.

  That was it.

  This was how it ended.

  Or rather this was how, despite her girlish dreams, it always had been.

  “I see,” she said, summoning her strength for the final volley as her eyes started to water. “Well, then I am sorry to have bothered you.” She paused, then added, “Sir.”

  There was a shuffling on the other end as Clive heard the ice in her voice, possibly realizing he’d gone too far.

  “Wait … Nicole, I didn’t mean that. It’s just … you can’t possibly know what was waiting for me here in the States. I just meant that—”

  She killed the connection. Then, suddenly sure he might call back to set her even straighter than he’d so painfully done, Nicole set her line to Do Not Disturb.

  Then she crawled to her couch, curled up on her side with her knees to her growing stomach, and sobbed.

  It was over.

  Because between her and Clive, apparently, it had never even started.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  October 31, 2039 — Voyos Island

  Halloween. A party raged on Voyos while Nicole’s self-assigned due date came and went.

  She hadn’t realized just how deeply Clive had wormed his way under her skin. She’d become used to him being around — not necessarily as a physical presence, but as a looming part of her life that she could always count on being there. She’d worked for the spa longer as his client than before she’d met him, and the sheer weight of his tenure in her bed had skewed her perception of what it was to be in her line of work.

  Nicole had been deep in the grips of the Pretty Woman story without realizing it. She was supposed to draw a firm line between work and home life, but she’d blurred that line. It was her own damn fault. She knew better. There was a reason she wasn’t an official escort, and this was part of why. Nicole was great at sex, but not enough at compartmentalizing. Her job was to please men. She’d made the mistake of losing that simple directive.

  The truth was drawn in hearts’ blood on the wall, now obvious to Nicole as the warning it should always have been: Clive had never loved her.

  He’d cared for her in the way a person cares for a pet or a favorite sweater. Nicole was comfortable and familiar. She knew how Clive liked his routines. Even when they went off-island and into the city, they’d gone to the same set of restaurants at the same
basic times, then back to the same hotel. Only their sex was varied, and ironically that was the one thing she’d turned her back on before he’d had the chance to turn his back on her.

  She sat in a soft chair on her small porch, hands meandering across her belly. It was large, but not as big as she’d expected. She wasn’t yet full-term. All along, Nicole had been certain that being pregnant while Clive was gone meant he’d gotten her pregnant at the end of January — but if that were the case, she’d be larger by now. She’d probably have already delivered. But growing up an escort in the days of the fall had left her ignorant of the mechanics of pregnancy. Even now, she didn’t really want to know. Her friends told her to visit the clinic. Instead, she hired a midwife and asked no unusual questions.

  And yet there were plenty of unusual questions, had Nicole allowed herself to ask them.

  It was Clive’s baby. There was no other way. It couldn’t be Sam’s; he was shooting more blanks than Hollywood cowboys. Clive’s baby was conceived in January. She would have this baby any minute.

  But at the same time, she wasn’t due at all; her body had figured out that much. And if Nicole had to guess — which was all she could do because she sure as hell wasn’t talking to the butchers and popping her illusion about Clive — she’d have realized she had another full month of pregnancy left, maybe two.

  But Nicole didn’t guess. Or ask questions.

  She needed to believe it was Clive’s baby … and any baby of Clive’s should have already arrived.

  After their disastrous exchange, she’d expected Clive to call back, or maybe book a trip and apologize. He’d tell her how he’d been stressed and hadn’t meant it, that he loved her. He’d embrace her belly, smile with delight, and announce his intention to settle down and raise their baby together.

  But Clive hadn’t booked a trip. He hadn’t called. It was over.

  Nicole slid deeper into her emptiness, depression like a weight above her. She moped. And cried. She did a different version of her old job with a new partner, pressing her pregnant stomach to the glass instead of pressing a flat one, keeping her head up so watchers wouldn’t see how she rode orgasms reluctantly, like a grudge.