Losing Gabriel Read online

  Get rid of it. Her words felt like a slap. Get rid of it as if it were a hangnail. No harm, no foul. Problem solved. “I…I don’t know, Sloan….I need time to think.”

  “Don’t you get it? I don’t want it inside me. I don’t want a baby! I have plans.”

  The words were venomous, but they hit him like cold, sharp stones. “Can we…well, you know, talk about it? Not right now,” he hastily added. “But later. Tomorrow or the next day. After I…I talk to Dad.”

  She sagged and tears filled her eyes. “I feel sick.”

  “It’s okay. You should rest.” All he wanted to do was bolt.

  She swiped her eyes, hunched over, then looked up into his face. Her blue eyes, red rimmed and raw from crying, pleaded for a solution. She turned into a scared little girl. “You won’t leave me alone?”

  “Course not.” In truth, he wanted to run and not look back. “You want to go someplace? Out to eat, or something?” He was treading water, trying not to drown.

  She shook her head. “I want to go to sleep. For maybe a year.”

  He led her to her room. The bed, almost wall to wall in the small space, was a pile of wadded sheets and blankets. Clothing was heaped on the floor in one corner, stuffed partly into a closet. The air smelled stale. He straightened the bedding a bit, helped her settle, pulled the bedsheet to her chin.

  She clung to his hand. “Stay. Until I fall asleep, okay?”

  He eased onto the bed and held her hand until he felt her fingers loosen. When he was certain she was asleep, he rose on cramped legs, shakily left the trailer, and got into his car. The sun was setting and the sky was blood-red. An omen? He sat until the red faded to pink, then pale indigo. He forced the key into the ignition and backed out of the weed-strewn space. He only had one place to go. One person to help them both.

  Dawson drove home aimlessly, taking back roads, killing time, holding off the inevitable for as long as he could. The March sky was ink black by the time he came home and parked in the garage next to Franklin’s car. Inside, the house was silent. Dawson walked to the back of the house, to the den, and found his father stretched out on the sofa sleeping, his glasses shoved on top of his forehead, a medical journal open across his chest, warm lamplight from the pole lamp above the sofa pooling on him. Dawson leaned against the doorjamb, staring at the peaceful picture, printing the image into his brain. The last picture from the world he used to know. Once he woke Franklin, once he talked to him, the old order would pass away. Not with tornado winds, but with words from his mouth.

  Dawson took deep breaths, as if readying his body for a marathon. He sat in the club chair at the arm of the sofa and gently shook his dad awake. Franklin came up quickly. Doctors could do that, wake instantly. When he saw Dawson, he grinned sheepishly, stretched. “Must have dozed off. Long day.”

  Dawson locked gazes with his father.

  “Hey,” Franklin said, sitting upright, reading the look and letting the journal slide to the floor, where it made a whap sound. “What’s up?”

  Dawson blew out a breath, forcing away the knot of emotion clogging his throat. “Dad. We have to talk.” He took a second to gather himself, knowing his next words could never be taken back, so he said them slowly, solemnly, so that Franklin would know it was the absolute truth. No jacking around. “Sloan’s pregnant.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Sloan couldn’t stop crying. She huddled beside Dawson on the sofa in the Berkes’ den, the shadows of the late afternoon leaking through the window like dark fingers. They were facing Franklin, who had dragged over a desk chair to sit directly in front of them, his face grim.

  Sloan’s heart hammered, the I-don’t-give-a-damn front she’d wanted to display completely vanquished. She was scared and trapped, a life out of her control. Dawson had talked her into this face to face, telling her over and over that his father would help them. So she’d come.

  “Sloan, I know you’re scared. I know you don’t know what to do. This is why we’re here…so we can figure this out together.” Franklin’s voice was calm and soothing.

  His doctor-to-panicked-patient voice, Dawson thought, a far cry from the fury Franklin had heaped on Dawson. Shock. Disbelief. Disgust. Disappointment—a parent’s great weapon turned on a child he once cherished. “How could this happen? We had ‘the talk’ when you were a kid. You knew about protection! If you decided to have sex, it was your responsibility to be safe. This didn’t have to happen. It shouldn’t have happened!”

  He’d let his father rant and pace. Dawson had no defense, not even “I got caught up. One time. Just once.” He absorbed the angry words knowing he’d screwed up and deserved Franklin’s rage.

  Franklin’s final blow came when he’d spun and said, “What about your future? College? All those plans we’ve made? This changes everything, Dawson. Everything! And what about Sloan? What are the two of you going to do?”

  For two days their house had been a war zone, a hot war now turned cold, with Sloan and him facing a firing squad of indecision. Dawson sat with his fists clenched against his thighs, his jaw rigid. And now here all of them sat. Deciding.

  Franklin offered Sloan another tissue. “Have you told your mother?”

  Sloan shook her head.

  “She should know.”

  “Why? If I get rid of it, she doesn’t ever have to know.”

  “Is that what you and Dawson want to do?”

  Sloan sidled a glance at Dawson. “Well, I don’t want to have a baby. But…but the other thing…” The other thing…“It’s simple, isn’t it? It just gets sucked away, doesn’t it?”

  Dawson leaped to his feet, angry at her. “Listen to yourself, Sloan! You’re talking to my father about his grandchild!”

  Sloan drew back. Franklin’s grandchild. Until this moment, she hadn’t thought of the baby as a person. Nor had she thought that what was growing inside of her belonged to all of them. “I—I’m sorry…I didn’t mean—”

  Franklin took her hands in his but looked up at his son. “That’s enough, Daw. It’s a reasonable question.” Still holding her hands, he said to Sloan, “There are clinics for the procedure, but you do have other choices. That’s why we’re here exploring them.”

  She felt him squeeze her hands reassuringly. “I know…it’s just that…” She broke off, unable to put her turmoil into words.

  “Dawson told me you are unsure about getting married.”

  She refused to make eye contact with Dawson. “I…I…well, I mean, not really…I want…just want to leave Windemere. And to sing—” She felt like a cornered animal, desperate to say the right thing but unsure of what that was.

  “Dawson played that Christmas CD you made for him. I was impressed. You are a good singer.” He smiled to reassure her. Sloan calmed. Franklin motioned Dawson back onto the sofa with a glare and a nod. When Dawson sat, Franklin asked, “I’ve heard what Sloan is considering. So now tell me, son, what do you want to do? You’re the baby’s father. You have a say in this, you know. I want to hear from both of you.”

  Dawson felt hot and squirmy. Over the long days, he’d thought about little else. His head had filled with regret and resentment, but now the look of fear and expectation on Sloan’s face turned toward him blanketed his anger. This is my baby too. My baby. Mine. The den was warm and smelled of leather and old books, and the lamp, set on a timer, blinked on, spilling soft light across the Persian rug at their feet. He thought of their old house in Baltimore, so far away, and of his mother, her arms around him from her bedside, her whispered “I love you” in his ear. He took deep breaths, blew them out. “I…I don’t want the baby to die.”

  Sloan trembled, but Franklin’s hands felt firm and warm, grounding her.

  “Why?” Franklin asked, never taking his eyes off Dawson’s face.

  The clear answer came immediately, bringing a film of tears to his eyes, and it took a few moments to make his voice cooperate. “Because…because what if it’s a little girl? And what if she looks lik
e Mom?”

  Franklin shut his eyes as Dawson’s words spilled over him.

  Sloan glanced between them, knowing that her feelings, needs, and wants weren’t part of this equation. This baby wasn’t even about her at the moment. She’d known that Dawson’s mother had died of cancer, but she’d not fully grasped the gulf of emotion, the cord of family that bound these two men together. This baby was the main event. It was a link that bridged time, knotted together the past and the present. She heard a rush of blood to her ears, like a wind vibrating through her. She, Sloan Quentin, was the conduit to maintain the connection. They needed her, the girl no one had ever needed. “Please tell me what to do.”

  Dawson realized an abortion seemed the simplest solution. It meant he could go to college as he’d planned. He could leave this town for good, shelve this chapter in his life and move on. But the what-ifs…haunted him. “I want to keep our baby,” Dawson said, his voice barely audible. “Please…”

  “What about me?” Sloan’s head was spinning as she grappled with being pregnant and giving birth. “How—”

  “We’ll take care of you,” Franklin said, interrupting her flights of panic. “You can live here with us if you want to. We’ll cover all your prenatal care, medical bills, and delivery costs. You can graduate in May. After the baby’s born, we’ll take total responsibility for her care. And we’ll take care of you too, until you decide what you want to do.” He threw Dawson a look that warned him to keep silent.

  Dawson sat stock-still with the enormity of his own words and of his father’s offer sinking in. He and Franklin both wanted the baby to be born, meaning he would be a father at eighteen. Franklin had known all along what Dawson would choose. Dawson wanted to resent how his dad had steered the direction of the choice, how he’d made up Sloan’s mind for her without her ever suspecting. But he couldn’t.

  To Sloan the offer felt like a lifeline. With Franklin and Dawson beside her, she could get through the next few months. Nine months to have a baby, close to four months already gone. She’d hidden it so far at school. Maybe she could hide it until graduation. Maybe not. What she understood was that she would be cared for, cared about. She’d be safe. And when it was over…? She couldn’t think about that part right now. “Will…will you go with me to talk to my mother?”

  “Absolutely,” Franklin said. “We’ll face this together. All of us. You won’t be alone, I promise.”

  Her mother was out on the Saturday afternoon Franklin and Dawson came to move Sloan into the Berkes’ house. At first LaDonna had thrown a fit, threatening a lawsuit because Sloan was only seventeen, but once Franklin told her he was going to cover expenses for the baby, plus give LaDonna “a little extra money each month until the baby was born to ease her separation experience,” she had accepted the plan as “the best thing.”

  Dawson had been surprised by LaDonna’s quick capitulation to give up a grandchild. On the drive home after that first meeting, Franklin’s only comment was, “That woman is a real piece of work.”

  Sloan couldn’t wait to leave the trailer. After years of LaDonna’s alcohol-fueled tantrums and spiteful tirades of how Sloan had ruined her life, she was glad to be moving. Once she turned eighteen, there would be no more social service perks for her mother anyway, so escaping now was all the more agreeable. Giving birth to the baby seemed a fair trade-off to her.

  She met Dawson and Franklin at the trailer’s door. “I’m packed.”

  Dawson reached for the lone roller suitcase and battered case that held her guitar. “Got it.”

  Franklin stared at the two pieces. “This is all?”

  “All I want to take,” she said with a shrug. “Can’t fit into any of my clothes anyway, so I’m just taking a few of my favorites for after the baby’s born.”

  “We’ll buy you new clothes,” Franklin told her. “Before and after,” he added quickly.

  She warmed to that offer quickly, but once they arrived at the house, Franklin put her stuff in the upstairs guest room. She had been given the status of a visitor, a girl just passing through, without a passport—no pressure over getting married. They ate supper from takeout cartons at the kitchen table, but it wasn’t like times she’d eaten there in the past. This meal was subdued and awkward with few words spoken and long stretches of silence. Sloan’s stomach was queasy and her mind numb. She was a stranger in a strange land, placed there by circumstance, not because she belonged. Before he went up to bed, Franklin said, “I’ll arrange an appointment with one of our ob-gyns tomorrow, get you on prenatal vitamins. If I get called out in the middle of the night, I’ll try not to wake you going down the hall.”

  Later that night when they were alone, Dawson asked, “Want to watch TV downstairs with me?”

  “No. I’m just going to bed.”

  He fidgeted, went to the refrigerator, and copped a soda. At the top of the basement stairs, he said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  The words sounded hollow to her, but she forced a smile. “Me too.”

  Later during the night, she woke, shaking all over from fear and loneliness. Quietly, she bundled up in the quilt from the bed and stole down the stairs and into Dawson’s basement room. As silently as possible, she got into bed beside him.

  He was awake and felt her body’s pressure on the mattress. He told himself he should say something to her. But he didn’t. So they lay beside one another in the dark, without speaking and without touching.

  CHAPTER 15

  Lani was one of the first to know about Sloan and Dawson. When she went into the ob-gyn clinic at the hospital to pick up vials of blood work for the lab, she saw them sitting in the waiting area, a chair width apart. Each was concentrating on their cell phones, and although she passed right in front of them, they never looked up, never noticed her. The receptionist buzzed her into the patient-doctor area. Lani hurried to the staff room where the samples waited and where she stood for a moment catching her breath, waiting for her heartbeat to slow and stomach to settle.

  One of the OB nurses, Patsy, breezed through the doorway of the all-white room. “Hey, Lani. Full house today. Rooms are packed with mamas-to-be. Whoa! You okay? You look pale as a ghost.”

  “Guess I didn’t eat enough breakfast this morning,” Lani lied, and forced a smile.

  “Low blood sugar will get you every time. Sit down. I’ll bring you some juice from our fridge in back.” The woman didn’t wait for an answer, just left.

  Lani eased into a straight-back chair and took deep breaths, trying to wrap her head around what she’d seen. And how much it hurt. She wanted to shrug it off, be indifferent, wanted to act as “a trained professional” in real-world lingo. She’d never had a chance with Dawson in the first place. He had belonged to Sloan Quentin for months. So why did seeing him in that waiting room hurt so much? Her answer—because now there was no more pretending, no more scripting of a kiss for herself that would never come. The door of wishful thinking slammed in her face.

  Patsy returned and handed her a juice box. “This will hike up your blood sugar quickly. Go to the cafeteria and grab some food, though. If you don’t, your glucose level will fall again.”

  Lani poked the little straw into the top of the box with trembling fingers. She took a swig. “Um…I saw someone sitting out in the waiting room. Looked like a guy from my high school.”

  Patsy glanced over her shoulder and leaned closer. “Dr. Berke’s son and his girlfriend. Sad story. They’re just kids. The girl’s several months along and hasn’t had any prenatal care. Doc Berke asked Dr. Ortiz to handle the pregnancy because teens are in the high-risk category and high risk is his specialty.” With every word, Lani felt her heart tumbling like rocks down a chute. “Ortiz likes the daddies to come to as many of the appointments as possible so he can hear exactly what’s going on during the pregnancy. It helps a father bond with the baby that’s coming.”

  “Makes sense.” Lani could hardly speak. The juice tasted sickly sweet.

  Patsy c
aught Lani’s eye. “You won’t say anything, will you? I mean, it’s important to respect their privacy.”

  Lani nodded. “I won’t say anything.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t.” Patsy flashed a big grin. “You feeling better yet?”

  Lani got to her feet. “Much,” she lied again. “Well, better get the blood samples over to the lab before they send out a hunting dog for me.” She picked up the sealed bag of vials. “Thanks for the juice.”

  “See you next time.”

  Lani went out to the waiting room, saw that Sloan and Dawson were gone, and surmised that they’d been called back and put into a small exam room. She hurried down the hall, remembering homecoming night and images of Sloan dressed in black leather, singing into a mike, looking like every guy’s wet dream. Good thing the band had broken up already because Sloan would be trading her guitar for a baby sling. Lani knew she wouldn’t say anything at school but also knew the news would get around. This kind of news always did.

  “Guess what?” In the middle of the next week, while Lani was standing at her locker, Kathy came alongside zinging like a buzz saw. Lani froze, knowing in her gut what was coming next. Kathy blurted, “Sloan’s pregnant. And Dawson’s the daddy!”

  Lani kept focus on her combination lock. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “It’s all over school. A few of the cheerleaders heard Sloan in the bathroom this morning in one of the stalls, and when she walked out, they could tell she’d been hanging facedown in the toilet.”

  “Maybe she has the flu.” Lani spun the dial and tugged, but the lock held; she’d missed a number and started over.

  “Nope. She’s moved into Dawson’s house. Marylyn saw them on Saturday going up on the porch with her suitcase. Anyway, today just confirms it. Moving in. Tossing her cookies this morning. No flu, Lani. Sloan’s all preggie. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving slut, eh?”