CHAPTER 16

Don hated lying to Leanne, but felt he had no other choice.

“Going to stop in at the hospital, Leanne,” he told her with a hurried phone call. “Have to check on one of my patients. May not be home ‘til maybe seven or so. Go ahead, eat without me.”

He called the security desk in the lobby. “I’m expecting a patient around six. She used to work here as a nurse, Alisha Morton.”

“Very well, Dr. Matthews. I’ll ring you when she comes in and send her up.”

It’s not going to be very well, Don worried, pacing back and forth in his office from his desk to the office door and into his lavatory. God only knows what solace he could find there. Again to his desk to sit down, stare out of the window, but the view offered no comfort. His nerves were getting the best of him, palms were sweaty, he felt jumpy, and visions of impending doom clouded his mind.

If indeed Alisha is pregnant, she can sue me for child support. Oh, God, what a mess I’m in! Wasn’t supposed to end like this! What was I thinking? You weren’t!

He jumped when the telephone rang. “Ms. Morton is on her way up, Dr. Matthews.”

“Thanks.”

He went to his reception area to wait for Alisha’s arrival. Almost immediately, it seemed to him, he heard a light tap on the door. He opened it. “Come in, Alisha. Let’s move into my office.”

He followed her as she walked ahead of him. He saw no sign of a pregnancy. She looked the same to him, just as he had last seen her almost four months ago. She was wearing black slacks and a loose black and white printed blouse. He thought she looked well.

“You’re looking well, Alisha. How have you been?” He indicated a chair by his desk. She sat.

“I’m doing fine. You look very good yourself, Don.”

“Thank you, but let’s get on with this. Why is it so important for us to talk?”

He was standing beside his desk. She looked up at him.

“I think you should sit.” She motioned to his chair. “I have some news that I think you should hear.”

“News?”

“Well,” she began slowly, twisting the handles of her Vera Bradley quilted handbag. “Don, I know it’s been almost four months since we’ve been together, but I have to tell you that I am pregnant. You are going to be a father.”

At hearing her fateful words, Don lowered his head in both hands. He said nothing.

Worried by his reaction, Alisha asked him, “Did you hear what I said?”

He shook his head in disbelief.

“I heard you, but it can’t be true. I used protection.”

“Not the last time at the motel.”

He slapped his hand on his desk and glared at her, his voice rising in anger. “That damn motel! I should never have gone there! Damn! Are you sure?”

Wordlessly, she pulled up her blouse. He saw the tell-tale bump.

“See?” she said.

His face flushed, but his voice was as cold as ice. “Get rid of it.”

“I can’t. Not now.”

“Why not?”

“I’m in my second trimester.”

“You have to do something!”

“What? Why should I? This is your child! You knew I was a virgin. And I swear to God, I’ve never slept with any other man but you!”

She reached into her handbag for a tissue to wipe her tear-filled eyes.

“You have to marry me and do right by our child,” she demanded.

“Alisha, I’m already married with two adult children…”

“That’s your problem,” she interrupted, “not mine, or our child’s. He or she has a right to have a father.”

“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

“I can’t help it! I love you, Don. You’ve got to know that.” She starting to reach for him.

He pushed away in his chair, out of her reach. “Don’t…don’t touch me! You don’t know what love is.”

“Yes I do, I do! I truly love you, Don. You are the only man I’ve ever loved.”

Don shook his head in denial, distraught with guilt, remorse, and stunned when in the back of his mind Mr. Morton’s warning echoed, Don’t ever hurt my daughter, and his promise, made with all sincerity, never to do so. Now this.

“This is a shock to me, Alisha, and you’d better go. I need to think. Go, please. Just go!”

He knew very well that she did not want to leave without some type of commitment from him, but his medical training had taught him never to rush to judgment.

“I’ll get back to you.”

“I’m living in a new condo,” she told him. “Here’s my card. Call me soon,” and she added, “Please.”

“I’ve got to consider my options.”

“What do you mean, options?”

“Talk to my lawyer, for one thing. If this is truly my child…” His voice trailed off as the realization struck him.

“It is your child, and you know it!”

Again, tears welled up in her eyes, pleading for him to understand, to accept what she had told him. But denial was the truth he clung to. This situation could not be happening to him. God, at fifty I’m too old to be a new father.

* * *

Frank Jones greeted Don cordially when he appeared at the lawyer’s office.

“Hi, Doc!” He extended a firm handshake to his friend. “How’s it going?”

His observation of Don’s haggard, hollow-eyed appearance made him question, “Looks like you haven’t been sleeping well lately. What’s up?”

Wearily Don accepted the chair that the lawyer indicated, sighed deeply, wiping his wet forehead with a limp white handkerchief he pulled from his trouser pocket.

“Man, as a matter of fact, haven’t slept well for the past week.”

“How can I help?”

“That’s it, Frank. I don’t know. I’m in a hell of a mess!”

“You! What’s happened? Leanne? The kids?”

“No, no, they’re fine.”

“Well, what is it? A malpractice suit?”

“God, I wish to hell it was.”

Frank heard the angst on his friend’s voice and knew the man was in deep distress.

“Tell me, Don,” he urged in a quiet tone of voice. “Start at the beginning.”

Don found it impossible to look at his friend. With his right hand rubbing his forehead as if to mitigate his tale of woe, he spoke slowly.

“I…I met this girl…”

“No, Don, you didn’t!”

“I did. I…we, had a couple of dates. I knew it was wrong, but this girl…Frank, I’m happy in my marriage to Leanne, believe me. But this…well, she was a nurse in my office. She’s not a girl, she’s thirty. Frank, I swear I didn’t know it would come to this…”

“She’s pregnant,” Frank interrupted.

Don’s face flushed, shame written all over it as he nodded in acknowledgment.

“Now, what does she want from you?”

“Marriage. She wants me to divorce Leanne and marry her! Frank, I never expected this. The effect she had on me, the sex…I was so attracted, I felt like a young stud. I’ve never experienced anything like it!”

The lawyer leaned back in his chair, his hands formed in a steeple pattern before his face. For a few moments he made no comment.

Then, reaching into his desk drawer, he pulled out a legal pad and a pen.

“She knows that you are married?’

“Says it’s my problem.”

“Right, and she wants you to divorce Leanne and marry her?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to? Divorce Leanne?”

“No, no, no! My God, Frank, no!”

“How do you know it’s your child?”

“She was a virgin.”

Frank Jones said, “That’s what she told you and…you believed her?”

“Wasn’t thinking, Frank, just responding to the moment.”

“You know,” the lawyer said, “even if you don’t marry the girl, the bastardy law makes her able to demand child support for the child’s welfare. Case law,” he added, “that is to say common law, stipulates that.”

“God, Frank, I’m doomed.”

“Not yet. We’ll see what we can do. For one thing, if you do consider marriage, you might insist on a pre-nuptial agreement.”

“I’m not sure I want to marry her. How can a marriage be only about sex? So far, that’s all we share.”

“You forget the child.”

“I can hardly put my mind around having a child. My God, I’ll be an old man by the time he or she starts driving a car!”

“Another thing,” Frank said, “you’ve got to provide for your other children, too.”

“I know that. And Leanne as well.”

“Right. She may want alimony. After all, you are the offender in this situation.”

“Don’t I know that.”

“Then you have to consider your pension plan, any annuities, IRA—how those options are to be evaluated and considered.”

“And, Frank, my practice…”

“Well, that’s a valuable asset, too, that has to be considered. How much money you can expect to earn before retirement. Now,” Frank tore off the top sheet of the legal pad, “I would advise you to continue to pay for your children’s education.”

“Curtis graduates this year, and Jane will be in her third year.”

“Seeing that Curtis is over twenty-one, your legal responsibility for him has ended. Jane you may want to see finish school even though she is an adult, over eighteen.”

“Frank, I feel trapped, looking for a way out. I don’t love Alisha, but I feel that I owe her and the child. Especially the child. Don’t think it’s a good basis for marriage, but…I see no alternative. Leanne won’t want me when she finds out that I have been unfaithful, and…I can’t blame her.”

“So, when are you going to tell her?”

“Tonight. I’ve made arrangements to move into the residents’ quarters at the hospital until I can find an apartment.”

“It’s just as well that you tell her soon. She’ll need her own lawyer, so tell her that I will be happy to meet with her and her lawyer anytime that’s convenient. All together we’ll try to sort this out to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“Frank,” Don asked, “if Leanne agrees to the divorce, how long will it take? Alisha wants us to marry before the child…”

“That may be what she wants, but she may not be able to insist on it. The courts have their own calendars, but we’ll see.”