“Sure,” Lizzie answered immediately.

He picked her up at her office at noon, and they went to a salad bar nearby. She picked at her lettuce without dressing, and Ted ate nothing at all. He told her about Pattie, that she was pregnant, and he didn’t know what to do.

“She won’t have an abortion, or give it up for adoption, and she says if I do anything other than congratulate her, she’ll kill herself and the baby. I don’t want a baby, Lizzie. I’m a child myself. Or I feel like one anyway. I’m not old enough to have kids. I was such a fucking fool,” he said, and his sister smiled ruefully.

“That seems to be the operative word. Can you reason with her at all?” He shook his head and looked dismal.

“She was threatening suicide even before she got pregnant. She said that if I ever leave her, she’d kill herself. Now she’ll kill herself and the baby.”

“She needs therapy. Badly. Teddy, she’s blackmailing you. That’s what this is. You can’t force her not to have the baby. And I guess you’d have to pay her some support for the baby. But she can’t force you to be with her and participate if that’s not what you want too.”

“I can’t just walk out on her. It’s my kid too. If she won’t get rid of it, then I have to be there and carry the load with her.”

“That’s not fair to you,” Liz said firmly. She hated what this woman was doing to her brother.

“I have a responsibility here. To both of them. Whether I like it or not.”

“Are you in love with her?” Liz was watching him closely, wondering what he’d say.

“I don’t know. She drives me insane. I get near her and my body goes nuts. She’s like a drug. I don’t know if that’s love.”

“It sounds like sex addiction to me. She probably did that to you on purpose to keep you hooked.”

“Well, I’m paying a hell of a price for it. A kid is forever. I can’t let her kill herself, Liz.”

“I don’t think she will. People who threaten usually don’t. She wants you to stick around.”

“I have no other choice.” He looked so innocent as he said it, and so sad.

“What are you going to tell Annie?” Lizzie wondered aloud.

“Nothing right now. She’d go crazy.”

“Maybe not. She has a cool head in a crisis. And she’ll figure it out sooner or later. You can’t hide a kid forever.”

“I’ll have to drop out of law school after this semester.” Liz hated to see him do that, and she knew how much it meant to him. It was his dream, and he had worked so hard for it till now.

“Don’t do anything yet. Besides, you never know, she could have a miscarriage. At her age, that’s a higher risk.”

“I hope I get that lucky.” He felt guilty as he said it, but he didn’t want a child. He was totally clear on that. “I haven’t talked to her since she told me.”

“She knows she’s got you by the throat.” It was an age-old way to catch a man, and she had. Lizzie hated her for it and wished there was something she could do to help her brother. But there was nothing anyone could do right now. Except give him moral support. The rest was in Pattie’s hands. And God’s.

Ted called Pattie that night. It was the first time he had spoken to her in three days. And all she did was sob when he called. He felt terrible and tried to comfort her on the phone, and she begged him to come over. He felt as though he had to, so he dressed and went over to her apartment. She was calm when he got there and very loving. She begged him to go to bed with her and just hold her, and then she started to arouse him. He didn’t want to make love to her, it seemed so wrong right now, given everything he was feeling. But as she held him and caressed him, she overcame his objections, and he wound up making love to her anyway. It was tender and sweet and passionate, and she clung to him afterward and talked about their baby. It made him want to cry.

They made love again, as they always did, and when Ted left the next morning, he felt beaten. Pattie had won. The baby had won. And he was the loser in all this. And that morning before he left, she asked him about getting married. He said he didn’t want to. She said it wasn’t fair to the baby to have it out of wedlock. She was a decent woman, and she’d been married when she had the others. All he could do was say he would think about it. He didn’t want her threatening suicide again. He didn’t have the strength to deal with it. And he was starting classes again that day. He could hardly think straight as he walked to the law school with his head down. He wanted a bolt of lightning to come down and kill him. It would have been so much simpler. The last thing he wanted was a baby. And Pattie called him incessantly between classes. She wanted constant reassurance. All he could think of, as he went to the library to work on his computer, was that it felt like someone had ripped his guts out and flushed his life down the toilet. She sent him an e-mail while he was at the library, and he promised to be there for dinner.


* * *

By the end of the week, Annie hadn’t heard from Ted or Tom Jefferson, either. Tom had promised to call her about dinner, and she never heard from him after his Sunday-night dinner with her family at the apartment. She wondered if it had unnerved him. His silence spoke volumes, and she didn’t want to pursue him.

It was another week later when he called her from Hong Kong and apologized for not calling sooner.

“I’m so sorry. I had no phone service or e-mail. I’ve been in a southern province of China for ten days. I just got to Hong Kong. They sent me on a story. It’s been a wild-goose chase.” She was so relieved to hear from him that she sounded ebullient on the phone.

“I thought we’d scared you off.”

“Don’t be silly. They sent me off the next morning, and I didn’t have time to call you. Sometimes my life gets a little crazy.” It was what had cost him his marriage. His ex-wife had wanted a full-time husband at home, and he was never going to be that person. He wanted Annie to know that now, right from the beginning, or even before anything started.

“Don’t worry, my life gets pretty crazy too. Although I don’t wind up in China or Hong Kong. When are you coming back?”

“Hopefully tomorrow or the next day. How about dinner on Saturday night?”

“I’d love it.” She told him then that she hadn’t heard from Ted since that dinner either, and she was worried about him.

“Maybe he’s having love troubles.”

“I suspect you’re right. And I think he just started classes. I just worry about that woman he’s involved with.” It was comforting to share her concerns with Tom.

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Tom reminded her. “He has to work it out for himself.”

“I know. He’s such an innocent though. And I don’t trust that woman. She’s almost as old as I am.”

“It’ll be a good lesson for him,” Tom said calmly.

“If he survives it.”

“He will. We all do. We pay a price for our mistakes, and we learn the lessons. Sometimes at a high price. I knew I was marrying the wrong woman when I got married. I went through with it anyway, and it just got worse over time. At least you were spared that.”

“I’ve made my share of mistakes too,” Annie admitted. Maybe living like a nun was one of them. But she couldn’t have handled more than she had on her plate. Dealing with three kids at her age had been enough. And now she was comfortable with her monastic life.

“You look like you’ve done okay to me. That’s a great family you raised. Your sister would be proud of you.” It brought tears to her eyes when he said it.

He told her about China then, and the story he was covering. There was a new prime minister, and he had gone over to do an interview with him, about his foreign policies and a trade commission he was setting up. It struck her that Tom led a very grown-up life and was at the hub of world events. She was trying to get contractors to come in on time, and moving walls around to keep her clients happy. Her world was a lot smaller than his. But she loved what she did. It had given her great satisfaction for years. She had always secretly hoped that Kate would get interested in architecture too, and she could have formed a partnership with her in later years, but her artistic talents had found other avenues.

Tom promised to call her as soon as he got back to New York, and he confirmed their dinner date on Saturday night. He said he’d figure out where on the way home and make the reservation. She liked the way he took charge of things and made plans on his own. She didn’t have to do it for him. It was a relief not to be the one carrying the whole load. That was new for her.

Annie was in much better spirits after she heard from Tom. And she finally reached Ted. He said he was just busy with classes, but he sounded terrible and she didn’t believe him when he said he was fine. He didn’t sound it. She called Liz then, who insisted she knew nothing. She hated lying to Annie, but it was up to Ted to tell her that Pattie was pregnant, and he didn’t have the courage, and there was plenty of time. Pattie was barely more than a month pregnant. She had told him the baby was due in September. He didn’t even want to think about it now. And she was talking marriage now a lot of the time. He had never been so miserable in his life, except when he lost his parents.

Liz called him every day to see how he was, and she hated the way he sounded. He admitted to her that he was in despair and felt trapped. The fetus growing in Pattie’s belly had ruined his life, or was going to the instant it was born. It already had. And Pattie was on top of the world now. She was having his baby, and she owned him for life. All she did was thank him for making her so happy, and she wanted to have sex with him all the time. He no longer called it making love. It wasn’t. It was just raw sex, and Pattie got her way every time. He didn’t want to upset her, so he did whatever she asked. He tried to be gentle with her so as not to hurt the baby, but she insisted that everything they did was fine. He had begun to wish that he had never met her. And he was having very dark thoughts. He was drinking a lot, and he told Lizzie several times that he wished he were dead. She didn’t think that Pattie would ever kill herself, but she was worried about Ted. Liz had said nothing to Annie, but she was beginning to think she should. If he didn’t feel better soon, she would have no other choice.