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“Hey Mari.” Daniel came forward first, his eyes on her hands. “You’re home early.”
She opened her mouth, but it was like someone had a fist around her voice box. Nothing came out.
Daniel’s expression morphed from curious to worried. His sandy brows furrowed as his gaze swung from the box in her hands up to her face and back down again. “What’s going on?”
There was no sense lying. They could see the box with its bright pink lettering announcing to the world she was no longer living only for herself. God, what would they say?
“I…” Come on. Like a Band-Aid. Do it now. “I’m pregnant.”
Two hours later, the last Halsey brother turned up at the house. The lounge room was now full to the bursting point. Even Samuel, the brother she saw the least, had left work early to be here. Oddly, it made Marianna feel comforted rather than intimidated. Her brothers weren’t perfect, that was for damn sure. But when there was a problem, they rallied and weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Without fail. She was never ever made to feel alone in her problems.
“Come into the clinic tomorrow. I’ll get one of the other doctors to do a blood test.” Mark, the oldest sibling, was a doctor and ran a medical clinic with his best friend.
Felicity, Mark’s wife, sat by his side. Her brows furrowed, even though she’d been trying to act calm ever since she’d arrived. “No matter what happens, we’ll help you. You know that, right? This baby is going to be so loved.”
The sweet sentiment made her heart want to shatter. Felicity and Mark had been trying to get pregnant since they got married four years ago. Their first round of IVF hadn’t worked out, and they were contemplating a second round. Marianna couldn’t help but feel guilty that her problem was the very thing they wanted with all their hearts.
But neither Mark nor Felicity had treated her with jealousy or frustration. In fact, Felicity had hugged her so tight Marianna had struggled for breath. She’d even offered up her stash of baby clothes that they’d bought prior to undergoing IVF the first time as a gesture of hope.
“What about Nico?” Daniel asked, raking a hand through his wavy, light brown hair.
“I doubt he’ll want the baby,” Marianna said. “He made it clear he thought you sent me in as a kind of…manipulative power play. He wasn’t buying that it was a coincidence.”
“Then why the fuck did he sleep with you?” Daniel held up his hand. “I’m sorry, I just…I don’t understand why…why he did that with you, if he knew who you were. If it was such a problem, why go through with it?”
It. They kept referring to the fact that Marianna slept with him as “it.” Her mistake. Her screw-up. It was a disaster with lifelong consequences.
“I have to tell him,” she said. “Even if he doesn’t want anything to do with me or the baby.”
“You’re right,” Isaac said. He and his twin, Jonathan, sat on two dining chairs they’d dragged over from the table. Their identical faces reflected identical worried brown eyes. “It’s his kid, too.”
Truthfully, the thought of facing Nico again terrified her.
Yet you managed to fantasize about going back to him for the last two months without worry. What about all those times you daydreamed about seeing him again? Having him again?
But this was different. It wasn’t sex. It was life. Three lives.
“I know you’re probably scared out of your wits.” Isaac leaned over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “But we’ll make this work.”
“I know.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth, either. She would try…but nothing was certain.
“Why should he know? We never have to go back there,” Daniel argued.
“He doesn’t necessarily need to be involved. But we can’t not tell him,” Jonathan countered.
We. Because in her family, a problem for one was a problem for all.
“He won’t want to be involved, I can tell you that now.” Daniel looked like he was about to spit flames. “The way he treated me in the meeting… I can only imagine how he treated Mari.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Isaac shook his head, ever the moral compass of the family. “We all grew up without a mum and dad because we didn’t have a choice. Is it fair to do that to the baby?”
She pressed her hand to her stomach, which was stupid since her son or daughter was currently the size of a kidney bean, according to the baby website she’d consulted earlier. There was nothing to feel, yet some maternal instinct made the action feel natural. Comforting.
If her child asked her one day about their father, what would Marianna say? Sorry, I never told him about you. Avoiding Nico might be easier for her, but it wasn’t best for her baby. If Nico wasn’t part of their child’s life, it wouldn’t be because Marianna was too scared to own up to her responsibilities.
“Is a father who doesn’t want you better than no father at all?” Daniel argued.
“Guys, enough!” Every head in the room snapped in her direction at the unusual sound of her raised voice. “I appreciate the support, you know that. But this is my decision and I am going to tell him. I want this baby to have a family.”
