Day 17

Here I was, someone supposedly smart, trapped in the dumbest of all situations, an affair with a married man.

As I closed the door to my home I caught a glimpse of Jude out of the corner of my eye, outside innocently opening his mail box. For just a millisecond our eyes met and I could see he knew all. Never before had I felt such shame, except perhaps when I was a small child and my father could reduce me to tears by convincing me that Jesus would be sending me to hell for daring to answer my mother not in the proper respectful tone of voice.

I’d sinned terribly and Jude knew it. But the oddest thing was that I didn’t see scorn on his face. His eyes were filled with a terrible sadness and compassion. I shut the door quickly so he wouldn’t see I was almost on the edge of tears myself.

After that I tried to avoid Jude, I didn’t want his pity. But that was hard enough in our small condo development, we kept running into each other in the parking lot, at the mail boxes and over at the gym.

He’d even shown up during my daily walk in the sand. I’d taken to walking on the beach at sundown now, when it was a bit cooler.

The heat of the day in early summer in southern Mississippi was brutal but I felt it more keenly this year because of the multiple pregnancy.

At first I’d been afraid that Jude would be judgmental, but he never mentioned that he’d seen my lover sneaking away from my home. He treated me like he had that first afternoon we’d shared sunshine and iced tea, with kindness, consideration and friendship. After a few weeks of his companionship I relaxed again, just enjoying the company of a new friend.

Work was going smoothly too and I found myself being assigned women who were abused in their former relationships or used in some way. Sometimes it was difficult to sit there and hear a tale of a relationship ruined not too dissimilar to my own. I wanted to weep for these women and more than once I had to take a short break after a session to wipe my eyes. I managed not to openly cry but the much larger amounts of hormones surging through my body made me feel so mixed up and emotional.

John didn’t call and he didn’t stop by unexpectedly again. Later than month when I went in to see Dr Parley for my exam I got a call from Annie telling me that social commitments prevented them from taking me out for dinner after the exam.

Just as well because I had no desire to sit there and be polite. I don’t know what had happened in my heart in regards to the Collins. I didn’t think they were bad people, in fact, I saw when I was with them that they adored Emmie. They were excellent parents. But there was just something else about them now that I hadn’t seen before.

I couldn’t actually define what it was, it was more like the honeymoon was over. Contrasting now, Annie avoiding me and me not being invited for any more weekends to their home with when I first met the Collins and they were so accommodating, so charming, insisting I spend nearly every weekend in their beautiful home. Now they treated me with the same regard one might treat a farm animal. Just pop out the babies, be available for John anytime he wanted and stay away.

During my exam with Dr Parley he’d said even more disturbing things involving the Collins and then told me some facts about my pregnancy that I hadn’t thought to consider. I might be at fourteen weeks now but in six more weeks he was putting me on bed rest. This visit he spent warning me about the risks of a multiple pregnancy like this one, pressuring me to do a selective reduction. The dangers were worse than I ever dreamed, high risks of one child having a birth defect or abnormality, that I might go into premature labor and lose them all or develop any number of pregnancy related troubles that could take my life.

“But, Mr Collins agreed with me that there would be no reduction?” I told Dr Parley. He shrugged and said, “Well, I’m sure Annie pressured him into changing his mind. He’s run around on her for years, that gives her a great deal of leverage to force him to change his mind considering he’s run his political career on her father’s money.”

I’d run from the fertility clinic as fast as I could, in tears because the very last thing that the scheduling nurse tried to do was pencil me in for a selective reduction procedure at the local hospital. Again, I refused.

Everything had been intensified about this pregnancy, from my morning sickness to my emotions and as I drove home crying I felt a surge of protectiveness towards the babies in my belly. It was an emotion quite unlike anything I’d ever felt for Emmie. Dare I even say it felt maternal?

I knew one thing, I could not kill any one of them at the whim of the Collins. I drove with one hand and protectively hugged by stomach with the other hand. At fourteen weeks I was showing as much as a normal mom at six months. Several times I pulled off the road to cry and even started throwing up.

My feelings about the entire surrogacy, the Collins, the babies, the entire situation, changed in the blink of an eye. I felt horribly betrayed by John Collins, multiple philanderer and liar that wanted to murder at least one of his babies. I vowed to never let him touch me again, I would end the affair.

At this point I wasn’t sure I could get the babies up to this couple with too many secrets.

I got home much later than usual and I had barely kicked off my shoes and put up my aching feet before there was a rap on the door. Jude stood there bearing a covered tray, eyes twinkling “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten..”

He knew where I’d been and what I was doing but I hadn’t told Jude everything about the arrangement. I wasn’t even able to pretend to be polite or normal at that point. At Jude’s small kindness to me I melted down, sagged to the floor sobbing.

“Hey, hey, what is this?” Jude asked, taking care to set down the tray before kneeling next to me on the floor. He swept me into his arms, hugging me, rocking me as if I were a small child. He kept smoothing back my hair and whispering “Shhhh.”

We stayed on the carpeted hallway floor for a long time. I just wept and Jude held me. Eventually I felt calmer and he lifted me from the floor, guided me to the sofa. He disappeared for a moment only to return with his tray and a handful of tissues. “Sit. Eat. Blow your nose first.”

Without a word I gave myself over to Jude’s care, even though the late dinner he brought me, some sort of veggies, chicken and pasta, was cold. I didn’t feel like eating but I did it anyway because I knew I had to for the babies. When he whisked the tray away to wash the dishes in my kitchen I grabbed my favorite pillow, wrapped up in my soft sofa throw and curled into a ball of misery. Jude kept talking to me about normal things, the every day and mundane, like the weather while I found myself getting very sleepy. The last thing I remember is hearing Jude taking about some astrological phenomenon soon to occur.

When I awoke the sun shone into my home, lighting up every surface. I felt very confused, awakening on my sofa with dried drool and puffy eyes. I sat up and saw Jude slipping his shoes back on, sitting across from me in the recliner. “You stayed the entire night here?” I croaked, voice hoarse with sleep.

Jude smiled, his dark curls unkempt, he reminded me of a mischievous little boy. “I couldn’t leave you alone in the state you were in. I would have stayed awake worrying about you if I had gone home. It was safer to stay and be sure..”

Yawning and stretching I muttered out a quick, “Thank you.” even as I was thinking I really wanted to be alone to mourn the death of my illusions.

Jude stood and said, “Get a shower and I’ll be back in a short while. I want to take you to breakfast this morning and afterwards, we can talk... I think you need to talk about whatever happened with you yesterday.. I’m worried for you.”