Jamie Sobrato - Baby Under The Mistletoe

“Since when is it okay for an air force officer to go around having babies out of wedlock? In my day, an officer didn’t do that kind of thing.”

“I know, Dad. But things happen. Soleil and I haven’t worked out how we’re going to handle things.”

“What the hell’s a So-lay?”

“Soleil is my girlfriend’s name. It’s a French word. It means sun.”

His father still looked perplexed, then, predictably, angry. “What is she, some kind of hippie?”

West ignored that. He glanced at his mom, whose expression was worried now. She turned her gaze from West to the omelet she was watching in the pan. She knew better than to jump into the middle of things.

“You mean to tell me, you got some girl pregnant, and you’re not even marrying her?” He slammed his fist on the table again, causing the salt and pepper shakers to jump this time. “What kind of man are you, anyway? You’re not a man I raised, that’s for damn sure.”

Before West could react, his father pushed himself to his feet and walked out of the room, down the hall to his study. It wouldn’t do any good to follow him, so West simply let out a ragged breath.

“Mom,” he said. “Why…”

He didn’t even have the energy to say the question out loud. But she knew what he wanted to know-why’d she have to go and tell the General?

“Better to get it out in the open now, rather than later. It would only get harder to explain.”

“You could have let me do it in my own time.”

She eased the omelet off the hot pan and onto a plate. “West, dear, I’m sorry. I think I saved you some trouble, though. If you’d tried to tell him on your own, he’d have been worse. With me here as a buffer-”

“Yeah, okay, you’re right.”

And she was. Since childhood, her presence had been the buffer between himself and his father. When she was near, the General was slightly less hostile, slightly more tolerable. Some things never changed, apparently.

As he watched his mother carry the plate to the study, he recognized he definitely didn’t belong here. He didn’t want to be in the middle of this family drama anymore.

Maybe his mother was crazy, too, showing up out of the blue, whipping up an omelet as if she’d never left the place-a mad Betty Crocker bent on reconciliation. Had loneliness finally gotten to her? Was this the first sign of her own mental decay?

He craved an escape from this place. He was tired of trying to please his father, and he wasn’t going to do it anymore.

What that would mean, though, he couldn’t say.

SOLEIL COULDN’T KEEP excluding West. She’d avoided the inevitable all weekend, taking long naps and wrapping up loose ends around the farm’s operation and finances before the end of the year. Today was going to be the first day she did things right.

She found his number in her cell-phone address book and hit the Call button. A moment later, his voice was on the other end of the line, sounding clear, as if he’d already been up for a while.

“West,” she said tentatively. “I know it’s early, but I’m calling because I have an ultrasound appointment today, and I thought you might like to join me for it.”

Silence.

“I mean, you know, because you’d get to see the baby on the ultrasound screen.”

“Oh, um…of course,” he finally said, sounding strange. “I’d love to go. What time?”

“It’s at noon in Santa Rosa. Sorry for the short notice.”

“So, an hour to get there…” A pause. “I’ll pick you up at ten-thirty, if that works for you.”

She blinked, stunned. “Uh, sure. That would be great.”

“I’ll see you in two hours then.”

She hung up. In two hours, she’d be driving to the city with West, just like a real couple on their way to see their real baby on an ultrasound screen.

Maybe he’d also want to join her for her Bradley childbirth classes at the community center. Of course he would, and he’d have some definite ideas about what to name the baby-something traditional like Elizabeth or Michael, or maybe even after his own parents…

She had always dreamed of having a normal name that people could spell, instead of the bizarre hippie name her mother had actually chosen. As a girl, she’d dreamed of being a Melissa or a Jennifer. Probably the kind of name West would like.

Okay, stop. You need to calm down and get a grip. Quit getting so far ahead of yourself.

The two hours zipped by as she got ready, answered a few phone calls and made a list of things she needed to buy. Most important, she needed to find a crib. Her father had sent her a check-his way of apologizing for being at a conference in Europe instead of anywhere accessible for the holidays-and intended to use that money to start outfitting the nursery.

When she finally heard West’s car in the gravel driveway outside, she was seized by a moment of terror. This wasn’t just any trip to the doctor they were embarking on. This was something huge. This was the thing Soleil had been avoiding ever since she’d first learned she was pregnant.

She’d been lying to herself all this time, convinced that somehow the pregnancy, and the baby, belonged to her alone. Now she had to face the truth-West was going to be a big part of her life from here on out, whether she liked it or not.

She heard the vehicle stop out front and a door shut. She barely had time to check herself in the mirror before hurrying out the door. West was a few feet from the SUV.

He smiled and said hello.

“I could drive if you want,” she said.

He patted the hood of the Toyota Highlander. “Great gas mileage. I’ll drive.”

He opened the passenger door for her. She climbed in, then dug a package of saltines out of her purse for emergency motion-sickness use.

“Cracker?” She offered the package to West as he got in the driver’s side.

“No, thanks. You still get morning sickness?”

“No, but I do get carsick sometimes. I probably won’t, but crackers seem to head it off at the pass.”

He drove toward the main road. “So have you seen an ultrasound of the baby before?”

“Once, at twelve weeks. It looked like a tiny alien with a heartbeat.”

“Do they give you a photo or anything to keep?”

“Sure,” she said. “I bet they’ll give a copy to each of us.”

Their baby now. Not hers alone, but theirs.

She watched him sideways, a little surprised how quickly he’d gone from shock and awe to asking for baby pictures.

“So…um, do we get to find out the sex of the baby?”

“If we want to.”

“Do we want to?”

We?

Do we want to?

She popped a cracker into her mouth and chewed furiously as her freak-out quotient shot through the roof of the vehicle.

“I’m not really sure what I want to do. I mean, a surprise is fun, I guess, but part of me is dying to know.”

“Okay, well, it’s up to you. I’ll go with whatever you want.”

Awfully diplomatic of him.

“Have you thought about names at all?” he asked.

Soleil recalled her earlier fear about his naming preferences and popped a second cracker in her mouth. Why hadn’t she thought to bring some seltzer water, too?

“I have a few ideas.”

He glanced over at her. “Care to share them?”

“Maybe later. I’m feeling a little carsick right now.”

“Should I pull over?”

“No, no, that’s okay. The crackers are helping.”

“If it’s a girl, I’ve always liked my mom’s name, Julia.”

Of course he did.

She tried not to visibly wince at how right her fears had been. West was doing exactly what she thought he’d do-barging right in and taking over the whole baby-preparation process as if gearing up for battle. Leaving no detail to chance.

Julia was a lovely name. And a lovely woman. But Soleil wasn’t exactly ready to have this kind of lovey-dovey-couple discussion with a man she didn’t love.

“Not that I’m saying we should use that name. I really haven’t ever thought about what I’d name a kid, frankly.”

“Okay,” she said with another stab of guilt over her lateness in telling him he was about to be a father.

“How about your mom? What’s her name?”

“My mom?”

Naming a baby girl after Soleil’s mother wouldn’t be so different from naming her after a barracuda.

“Anne,” she finally said. “Her name is Anne.”

“You know, you’ve never told me about your mother, or any of your family.”

Yeah, it hadn’t exactly come up when they were sweating and rolling around in bed together.

Ahead, the road curved through a valley between pale yellow hills that bulged like pregnant bellies against the horizon. The sky had mercifully turned blue again today, a clear crystalline blue that promised warm weather. So much easier to focus on than the circumstances of her life.

“Hello? Don’t want to talk about your family?”

“Not really,” she said, staring at a herd of cattle on a distant hillside.

“I understand. But it might be weird if I don’t know anything about my own kid’s grandparents.”

“Anne Bishop,” Soleil said. “That’s my mom. She’s a poet.”

“Wait, you mean like the Anne Bishop? The one I had to study in college?”

“That would be her.”

“Wow. I didn’t realize.”

“When I went to school at Berkeley, there was a whole class devoted to her work.”

“Did you take it?”

“Hell, no.”

“Are you close to her?”

“Close…isn’t exactly what I’d call us. I mean, we tend to butt heads a lot. We’re frighteningly similar people, both way too headstrong and stubborn.”

“You? Headstrong and stubborn? No way.” His wry smile betrayed his earnest tone, and Soleil chuckled.

“I know it’s hard to believe.”

“What about your father? Were your parents married?”