"That is why you didn't drink last night!"
Helen thought: "Let's get it over with!"
"Yes, that is why I didn't!"
"So whose baby is it?" There was a distaste in the way he asked this.
"Steve, I'm sorry. I was lonely. It just happened once. I won't tell you who. Never ask me again! I am sorry for it. But I don't kill it. It's too late anyway. Please just accept it. Let it be our child! We have more children. Just forgive me! Give this baby a chance!"
Steve pivoted his head so violently that his neck made a crack sound.
"How dare you to talk to me like this? To take someone else's child, whom you strayed with, and making it my own! How dare you?"
Helen widened her eyes and exhaled a soft stream of agony.
"You think you're invincible! I say you're not. I 've killed enemies. I have wounds to prove it. You think I can't kill you, you w...!"
All she saw was the same and yet it was changed. There was a great gulf between today and yesterday. Yesterday everything was natural, simple, full of day light; and she was alone, even with the day light, it was darkness and fear, but alone. She was always afraid of loneliness but now she craved it.
"Okay Steve, kill me. But let me have the baby first. You can't kill my baby. I won't allow it. It's been with me for five months. It had fed of me. It has kept me company. Kill me after the baby comes. Divorce me now. Do whatever you want, but don't harm my baby!!"
Steve listened patiently to her plea; then he answered silently and indifferently:
"So you must have loved the guy, the father of this baby!"
"No, I didn't. I swear I didn't. It just happened. I love the baby! Are you telling me that you never strayed, you never were with a woman in Vietnam?"
Steve lapsed into a deep silence.
"What, you don't have an answer for me!" There was a mist before her eyes.
"That is different!"
"What? Why is it different? because you're a man?!"
"No, because I went with a prostitute not a girl friend!"
"It was the same for me. I got drunk. It was the first. It didn't mean anything! He doesn't even know I'm pregnant!" She didn't believe the lies she was saying to save her baby! The way she lied was more believable than when she was telling the truth!
~~**
At the end of May, she gave birth to a baby boy. That was all she knew. She was all drugged up. She had a very difficult delivery. When she came in, the baby was gone. He was taken by his adoptive mom and dad. That was Steve's condition to stay by her side and married. She had said yes to adoption. He did all the work!!!
To be Continued
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