An Act of Persuasion

chapterR TWENTY



MARK STOPPED WHEN HE SAW BEN. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen Ben covered in the blood of a fallen comrade. But knowing whose blood it was made Mark tremble inside.

The call had been almost undecipherable. Mark had been jarred awake by the sound of a ringing phone. When he answered he was thinking that it might be Sophie on the other end. What if she was hurt? What if she needed him? He’d been unprepared for the hoarse, nearly raspy voice of Ben saying that Anna was in trouble.

Cautiously, Mark approached Ben who was currently bent over, his head in his hands as his elbows rested on his knees.

The closer Mark got the stronger the smell of Anna’s blood became.

“Ben.”

Ben startled as if he’d been unaware where he was. Or who he was. Or what had happened. He looked at Mark quizzically as if he didn’t remember calling him and didn’t remember that he’d asked Mark to come because he didn’t know who else to call and he needed someone with him. Someone who would understand.

Mark sat next to Ben and thought of a time when they’d lost three operatives and two special forces agents in what was supposed to have been a routine information gathering assignment across the border of Pakistan into Afghanistan. The party had been ambushed. All of them killed. Mark remembered the way Ben had looked then, as if the responsibility of the world sat on his shoulders...and he’d failed to uphold it. That expression was nothing compared to how he appeared now.

Now, in this moment, he looked as though he’d been ambushed. As though he’d been killed.

Mark thought of Anna and tried to contain the sick feeling in his stomach that something was horribly wrong. Ben hadn’t been coherent enough to explain the situation. Had only said that she was in danger. When Mark had checked at the admissions desk, they had told him she was still alive. They couldn’t give him any details of her condition, but they could give him a status.

Critical.

“Ben, what happened?”

Dazed, Ben leaned back in the chair. “Placenta abruption? I couldn’t understand everything they were saying. It was so fast. Her blood pressure was high, they said, and there was a partial separation. It caused her to bleed. She was bleeding so much. They did an emergency C-section.”

Mark swallowed. “The baby?”

Ben looked at him, his eyes unfocused. “I haven’t named her yet. I want Anna to do it. The doctor said she’s small at four and a half pounds, but her lungs are fully formed. She’s in the NICU unit now. But I don’t want to see her yet. Not until I can see her with Anna.”

He seemed defensive about that. The nurses had probably already asked him if he wanted to see his daughter and he’d felt guilty for refusing. Mark understood though. He knew that if Ben saw his daughter without Anna by his side, he would have to acknowledge she was still in danger.

“Okay.”

“She was hemorrhaging so much. They said the blood loss caused her to go into shock. But they’re replacing it now. Transfusion.” He laughed harshly and held out his blood stained arms. “They wouldn’t let me give blood. I couldn’t even do that.”

Mark took a deep breath. “Downstairs they said her status is critical.”

“She’s in a coma,” Ben said, sounding as if he had to push the word out of his mouth. “The shock was too much. She didn’t wake up after the general anesthesia wore off. They don’t know— They don’t know anything at this point.”

The sick feeling that had been in Mark’s stomach since he received Ben’s call turned to dread.

“She’ll wake up,” Mark said optimistically. She had to. Because he didn’t think Ben would survive if she didn’t. The man who had always been so calm under pressure, so cool under fire, was, simply put, unhinged. Like he’d lost his grip on the world. Yeah, he sat here, his jeans stiff with blood, but he wasn’t really part of the world around him.

“High blood pressure. We were fighting. I caused this. I can’t believe we were fighting this close to—”

Mark grabbed his arm. “Don’t. You can’t start playing the ‘what if’ game. This happened. The baby survived. Anna will wake up. You’ll get through this. You need to stay focused on what is and not on what might have been.”

Ben nodded, but Mark could tell his words weren’t penetrating.

They sat for a time and the nonaction was killing Mark. He should be doing something. Helping Ben in some way. Calling family...although he knew neither Ben nor Anna had any. Anna was Ben’s family. And Ben was hers. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to them.

“Did you find her parents?”

The question startled Mark out of his thoughts. He thought about the path he’d followed after Marge had told him about the other man who had come in inquiring about fake names on a birth certificate. Like Ben had, he was sure, Mark found the records of those who had been admitted for delivery without insurance on the day Anna was born.

A young girl, no more than eighteen years old, had experienced complications during delivery and had to have an emergency C-section. Because the child had been sent to the NICU and the mother needed additional care the father had been responsible for giving the hospital all the information needed for payment and, of course, the paperwork for the birth certificate.

Not only had those names been fake, but so had the address he’d listed. The only thing he must not have realized is that when the pregnant girl had first been admitted, she had given her real name: Jennifer James.

From there, tracking down Jennifer hadn’t been difficult at all. The story Mark eventually found in the papers six years after Anna was born explained why Ben hadn’t wanted to tell Anna anything about her parents. Mark had planned to set up a meeting to confront Ben about it. They couldn’t hide the truth from Anna. It wasn’t fair.

“You should have told her when you found out. Why did you go looking anyway?”

Ben cupped his face in his hands as if trying to support the weight of his heavy head with something besides his neck. He sighed and then finally straightened. “I don’t know. We’d been working together for a few years. She never mentioned much of her past but I knew she’d been in foster homes. For some reason I wanted the information. You know me, when I get that idea in my head nothing can stop me. I told myself we were working with the government on several contracted projects and, security clearance issues aside, I should have more intelligence on my staff. It made sense.”

Mark shook his head, not believing someone so smart could be so obtuse. “Ben, you wanted to know more about her past because you wanted to know more about her. You had been falling for her for years, you just wouldn’t admit it to yourself.”

He made a harsh sound. “Falling for her. What a ridiculous phrase. Something so...powerful...to be described with a euphemism a teenager might use. I wasn’t falling for her. I was...in need of her. That was what I denied myself. That she was different than any other woman I had ever known and I needed her like I needed to breathe. I thought...I thought if I could give her her past it would change something between us. But the story— It was so awful. I didn’t want her to know. You saw?”

Mark nodded.

“Then when I got sick I thought if I could give her security, maybe after I was gone she might figure out the one thing I wouldn’t admit to myself while I was alive. It gave me a strange sense of peace.”

“Why can’t you say it?” Mark asked. “Even now, why can’t you just say it?”

Ben turned to him and Mark sucked in his breath. The agony pervading Ben’s being was tangible. As if it was so real Mark could smell it and hear it and taste it.

“I wasn’t supposed to have her or the baby. I wasn’t meant for this life. I’ve always known that. Always. If I say it now...she’ll die.”

That’s when Mark knew that his thoughts when he first entered the hospital were true. If Ben lost Anna, Ben himself was lost.

* * *

“YOU CAN STAY with her now if you would like.”

The nurse who had brought Ben to Anna’s room left quietly. He’d insisted on a private room and saw that there was a lounge chair that would recline next to the bed where, later, he might be able to sleep. A straight-backed chair was situated on the other side of the bed.

Behind her bed he saw the monitor beeping steadily and the tubes inserted into her arm were connected to pouches that would hydrate her. Earlier an orderly had shown him a staff bathroom equipped with showers. Ben was able to wash off and exchanged his blood-soaked clothes for a pair of blue scrubs.

Two floors above him, the nurses in the NICU reported that his daughter was resting comfortably after a good bottle feeding.

Anna had wanted to breast-feed. But that was impossible right now.

Sitting beside the bed he took her hand in his and thought how pale she looked. She didn’t like to sleep on her back. It made it uncomfortable with the pressure of the baby on her lower back and bladder.

Only the baby was gone. Out of her body. Strange, because the thin sheet covering her still showed a predominant bump where her stomach was. But he imagined that was partly from the bandages used to cover her incision.

And partly from the amount of ice cream she had consumed while pregnant.

He smiled as he thought it and imagined the scowl she would give him if he’d said that out loud.

Only she wasn’t scowling and her face was like he’d never seen it. Not even when she slept was it this...neutral. It was as though she wasn’t inside her body. That the light and the energy and the chaos that was her, was suddenly quiet.

Outside the room Ben could hear the buzz of a hospital. Gurneys being rolled down hallways, people having conversations, both work-related and social, trays of bad food being delivered to each room, the carts moving back and forth along linoleum floors.

But in this room with only the two of them and the sound of the beeping monitor above her head, it seemed so incredibly quiet.

He pressed his eyes shut and squeezed her hand, hoping he might feel a tug from her. But there was nothing. It wasn’t possible for him to believe that someone who had brought so much energy into his world, who was the reason he’d survived his battle with death, could be so still.

So utterly...lifeless.

“Anna, I’ve been told by the doctors I should speak to you. They indicate it’s possible you’ll be able to identify my voice and this will compel you to wake up. I hope you understand how completely foolish this makes me look as you are not, at present, conscious.”

He could only imagine how humorous she would find this. Putting him in any situation where she knew he was uncomfortable was a bonus for her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your parents. It was selfish, I know. I didn’t like that there was this part of your life I didn’t know about. Back then you seemed to have no desire to learn about it, either. So I took it upon myself and I found them. Your father wanted to give you up for adoption. That’s why the names were faked. I suspect he was thinking he would take your mother to the hospital and then just leave. But he screwed up because your mother gave her name to the admitting nurse, so that was on the paperwork. Her name was Jennifer James and she wanted to keep you. If your father had won that battle, there might have been only one family for you. One life.”

Although maybe he wouldn’t have met her. Maybe her options would have been different and their paths would have never crossed. That was unthinkable.

“They were addicts. You were right about that. I suppose your mother thought she could stay clean after you were born. And maybe she did for periods of time. But by the time you were six, she was using hard again. That’s when your father thought to try to give you up for adoption again. He cared about you, Anna. At least enough to know that you shouldn’t be raised the way they were doing it. He called social services himself. Sadly, at that point your mother wasn’t stable. She attacked him with a kitchen knife and severed an artery in his neck.”

Ben knew she couldn’t hear him but, still, the telling of it was difficult. He figured this would be good practice for when she woke up and he had to do this again.

“Anna, your mother didn’t leave you. That room you remember being left behind in was a police station. Social services came to get you after they took your mother away. She pled guilty to second degree murder and served eighteen years in prison. Your father’s name was Frank Kelly.”

He stopped then and thought about what those first six years of her life must have been like. Tumultuous certainly. Yet she had such great capacity for giving and loving. It seemed as though she’d never let any of the darkness infect her soul.

Or maybe that wasn’t entirely true. Because as much as he knew she loved him, she still didn’t trust deep down that he wouldn’t leave her.

Now he knew why she so desperately tried to protect herself with that ridiculous fight. This separation hurt. It was pain like nothing he’d ever known.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourself for putting me through this. You made this happen. You made it happen every day we were together and I didn’t even know it was happening. Now I want this, Anna. I want our life together with our baby and you won’t wake up! Wake the hell up!”

He stood then, too agitated to sit.

“I love you! Is that what you want to hear? I love you. There, I said it. It’s the damn truth and I almost hate it because it’s making me feel like I want to explode from the inside out because you’re lying there on that bed and you won’t wake up! Wake up, damn it!”

He was breathing heavily and no doubt he’d soon have the staff down around his head for shouting at a coma patient. But he needed to get through to her. She needed to hear him.

“Also, just so we’re clear. When you do wake up, if you think you can kick me out of your house because I didn’t tell you about your parents, think again. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know what the hell was going on in that crazy little head of yours, but we’ll work it out and we’re going to be together. Forever. Are you listening? I love you! I have always freaking loved you!”

Ben waited for her to stir. This was when it happened, right? In the movies this was always the moment. He’d confessed his heart and her eyes would flutter and she would wake up. Then she would realize how much he loved her. She would feel safe and happy. And she would get better and everything would be all right.

Happily ever after.

He must have seen it that way in the movies and television a million times.

Only her eyes didn’t flutter and her hand didn’t move. The monitor continued to beep behind the bed and he was still lost without her.

Sitting in the chair he took her hand in both of his and rested his head on the bed. For the first time in his life he wept openly.

This is why I avoided love for so long. This is true sadness.

IT FELT LIKE being underwater. Anna, however, couldn’t fathom why she would be underwater. Now certainly wasn’t the time to go swimming. Her doctor warned her about her cervix dilating and the chlorine not being good for the baby.

Swimming was out. Had she fallen in the bathtub? Is that why moving seemed like such a struggle?

Wake up, she told herself. She was having a bad dream and she needed to wake up. But it felt like one of those dreams where even when you woke up, somehow you were still in another dream. Eventually if she kept pushing, she would get there. There had to be an end to all this dreaming somewhere.

Forcing her eyes open, Anna blinked and looked at the room around her. She wasn’t in a bathtub. She wasn’t in her room, either. Her bedroom with the pretty mint-green duvet she and Ben had picked out together.

No, the duvet wasn’t pretty anymore. She knew that but couldn’t remember why.

The steady beep behind her was annoying. Was it the alarm clock going off? She tried to lift her hand so she could turn it off, but her arm had suddenly gained a hundred pounds overnight.

Her whole body felt heavy and dull.

Because she was pregnant, she reminded herself.

No. Not pregnant anymore. A scene whipped through her memory. Ben holding her, screaming for someone to help. People in blue masks above her, running alongside the gurney she was on. Pushing her through doors, and then a clear mask descended on her face and everything after was a blur.

Until now.

Her baby. Where the hell was her baby? The beep behind her head was speeding up and Anna forced herself to move even though she felt a tight pain across her lower body. She needed help. She needed Ben. She’d lost her baby. He needed to help her find it.

Her mouth was dry and she tried to swallow. He would come. Ben wouldn’t leave her. Ben would never leave her. Even when she had thrown him out... Why had she done that?

Because she was scared. Too scared of what she felt for him.

But even when she’d done that he had come back. He wasn’t going to leave her. He’d said that, hadn’t he? He meant it. Ben always meant what he said.

“Ben.” It came out as a whisper. She needed to be louder. Her baby was missing and she had to get it. “Ben. Ben. Ben!”

The sound of something shifting along the floor had her turning her head. Ben was in the lounge chair. Sleeping. How could he be sleeping when their baby was missing?

“Ben!”

He was wearing scrubs but the sound of her voice jerked him awake.

She watched him bow his head. “Thank you, God. Thank you.”

Now he was praying? This wasn’t the time. She needed him and it was really starting to piss her off that he wasn’t paying attention. “Where is it? Where...”

Instantly he was by her side taking her hand. “Anna, calm down. You’re awake. You did it. I knew you would do it. Let me go get the doctor—”

“No! Where is it? Where is it?”

“It?” For a second, it was as if he couldn’t understand her. Was she making sense? Was she saying the right words? Then a smile broke out on his face and again she thought it was completely inappropriate to be smiling when their baby was missing. “Not it anymore. She. She is sleeping upstairs. She has already gained five ounces in two days. Apparently she has your appetite.”

She. Her baby girl. “Want her.”

“Yeah. I’ll make that happen. You rest and I’ll get the doctor. Then I’ll introduce you to your daughter. After that we’re going to name her. Finally. Baby girl just isn’t cutting it anymore.”

Weariness was pulling against her, but she fought it. She wouldn’t sleep until she saw her baby.

The delay was agonizing. First, the doctors came and flashed lights in her eyes. They pestered her with questions, which, fortunately, she seemed to have all the right answers to.

The words C-section and abruption and coma penetrated her brain, but she didn’t want to think about what they meant for her. She only wanted to see her baby. They told her she’d been asleep for two days. Two days! What kind of mother was she that she left her daughter alone for two days?

But she hadn’t been alone. She had Ben. Ben wouldn’t leave her or their daughter. Anna got that now. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

An hour later she was actually sitting up in bed, although her stitches burned across her middle. When she asked to pee the nurse helped her out of bed and told her to walk bent over until she felt more comfortable. The way Anna felt right now, that would be for life.

Slowly, cautiously, she made it back into the bed. After a few bites of gelatin and some sips of orange juice, she felt nearly human. Certainly ready to see her baby.

The door to the room swung open and the sight of the tiny bundle in Ben’s strong arms had her weeping immediately.

“Don’t be alarmed, baby girl. But you should know in advance your mother is a crier.”

Anna could only cry harder. Then Ben was placing her daughter in her arms and the world condensed to only Ben and her baby. “She’s so tiny.”

“A bit early on arrival, but making up ground. It means she’s scrappy.”

Anna pulled the blanket back and counted fingers and toes and touched lips and ears, taking in every inch of her little girl as she slept peacefully, only twitching her lips every so often as if she was dreaming about eating.

“So what’s it going to be? We need a name. Don’t tell me Gertrude because, even knowing what you went through, I still won’t cave on that.”

A name floated through her mind. Like coming from a dream she’d once had.

“Kelly. I think we should name her Kelly.”

“Kelly Summers-Tyler. I like it.”

“No,” Anna said, even as she brushed a finger against her delicate cheek. “Just Kelly Tyler.”

His silence spoke volumes. Anna tore her eyes away from her daughter and saw his deep blue eyes looking at her, wondering.

“Don’t ask me today. I’m not ready. I have to do something first. But I promise you, Ben, I’ll let you know when I am.”

“Okay.”

“But I was thinking...it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you moved in with us. I mean, I can already see you like her. You’ll probably be hanging around all the time anyway. As long as you agree to put your beige man couch in the basement.”

“My own man cave with my own man couch. Who could ask for anything more?”

Ben sat on the bed with her, careful not to jostle her or the baby. He put his lips to her shoulder and for a time they simply stared at the miracle they had made together.

Just like any family would.