Daddy Read Online Free PDF Page A

moment. She didn't want to tell him that Ollie had always wanted more children.
    “I haven't discussed it with him,”
    “Well, I think you should. Call me in a few days, Sarah. You have time to make the decision and still do things safely.”
    “Time isn't going to change anything.” She felt defiant and angry and let down as she left his office. He was the one who was supposed to solve the problem for her and now he wasn't.
    She went home and cried, and when Oliver came home at eleven o'clock that night, she was in bed, feigning another headache. The children were long since asleep, and she had left the TV on in the bedroom, droning at her as she waited for him to come home, but still sure she wouldn't tell him.
    “How'd it go today? You look tired.” She looked up at him sadly as he walked into the bedroom.
    “It went okay,” he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled at her and loosened his tie. The blond hair looked tousled by the wind, and he was tired, but he still looked unbearably handsome. How could he look like that? Life was so simple for him. All he had to do was go to an office every day and deal with real people in a real world. He got to have all the fun, while she spent every waking hour with women and children. There were things about life that weren't fair, and in her eyes, that was one of them. There were times when she wished she were a man, when she wished she had lived her life differently, when she wished she had gotten a job years before, instead of doing what she'd done. But this was so easy. She had taken the easy way out. She had had two kids, moved to the suburbs, and given up her dreams. And now she was having another baby … but she wasn't, she told herself rapidly … she was having an abortion. “What's wrong, Sarrie?” He looked worried as he bent to kiss her. He knew her too well, and he could see the anguish in her eyes, the anguish not born of guilt for what she wanted to do, but of anger at what had happened.
    “Nothing. I'm tired too.”
    “The kids give you a hard time today?”
    “No … they were fine.”
    “So what's wrong?” he persisted.
    “Nothing,” she lied.
    “Bullshit.” He took off his jacket, opened his shirt, and moved closer to her on the bed. “Don't try and kid me. You're worried sick about something.” And then a sudden wave of terror hit him. It had happened to a guy he knew at the office six months before. They discovered that his wife had cancer and four months later she was dead, leaving him devastated and alone with three children. Oliver knew he couldn't have lived through it if he lost Sarah. He had loved her for too long. She was everything to him. “Did the tests come back? Is there something I should know?”
    For an instant she thought of what the doctor had said … You should tell him, Sarah … he has a right to know … it's his baby too … But I don't want to! something inside her screamed. “The tests were fine.” And then, forced by the honesty they had always shared, she let herself be pressed into telling him something she knew she'd regret later. “More or less.”
    The pain of worry sliced through him like a knife as he gently took her hand in his own. “What does that mean?” He could barely speak and he never took his eyes from hers. “What did they tell you?”
    She realized instantly what he thought and knew she couldn't cause him any more worry. She didn't want any more of his children, but she loved him. “It's nothing like that. Don't look so scared.” She leaned over to kiss him, and as he held her she could feel him tremble.
    “Then what is it?”
    She spoke in a whisper, from an abyss of despair, then slowly raised her eyes to his again, still wanting not to tell him. “I'm pregnant.”
    For an instant, neither of them moved as her words sank in, and his whole body seemed to go slack from the tension that had seized him when she started speaking. “Oh my God … why in hell didn't you tell