Arrest (A Disarm Novel) by June Gray Page A

glanced at the clock as he lay back down. “Then why are you waking me up at four in the morning?” he asked with a croaky voice.
    “Because of this.” My fingers were trembling and my heart was pounding when I pressed the white stick with the pink cap into his hand.
    “What . . .” He stared at the object in his hand for long moments. I guess he’d never even seen one before. He rubbed his eyes then looked at it again. “Is this what I think it is?”
    My voice trembled when I said, “Yes.”
    He sat up and stared at that stick, as if he was trying to glare holes into it. His body revealed nothing about his reaction; his breathing was normal, his posture relaxed.
    “Henry?” I finally said when the silence became too much. “What are you thinking?”
    “Well,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I’m wondering if I’m holding the end of the stick that you peed on.”
    I let out a surprised laugh and smacked him on the arm. “Be serious.”
    His face split into a wide grin. “We’re going have a baby,” he said and pulled me on top of him. Kisses rained down my face, making me wonder if I was wired wrong. Shouldn’t I feel overjoyed too?
    I pulled away and sat up, straddling him. “Aren’t you even a little bit scared?”
    “Why?”
    “Because!” I threw my arms out to express how monumental it was. “A baby!”
    He sat up and wrapped his arms around my back. “I know, it’s huge. But right now, the only thing I’m feeling is incredibly lucky.”
    “But . . . what if I’m a bad mom?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “Not even possible.”
    “I like my career, and I sometimes have to work long hours when we have a big campaign. I don’t want to be like . . .” I looked up at him, afraid of giving voice to my fear: that I’d somehow become like his mother. Helen had worked hard and was a sought-after lawyer, but at the expense of her relationship with her son. I admired her work ethic but in no way did I want to be like her.
    “You won’t be like my mom,” he said with all certainty. “Just the fact that you’re worried about it means you’ll never be like her.”
    “What about you? Are you ready to be a dad?” I asked. “It’s a lot of hard work. It’s not like with Will, where you just hang out and have fun all the time. There are diapers to contend with, and crying, and puke, and interrupted sleep.”
    He took my face in his hands and gave me a solemn look. “We’re having a baby, Elsie. We made a human being together. I would do anything and everything for you and for that little miracle inside you,” he said, his hand sliding down to rest on my belly. “The rest we can deal with as it comes.”
    I had my doubts but I let him pull me down on top of him, still wishing I could share his enthusiasm.
    “Aren’t you the least bit excited about it?” he asked, running his fingers up and down my back.
    A guilty tear squeezed out the side of my eye. “I’m . . .” I stopped, searching for words. “I wasn’t expecting this yet.”
    “You might be in shock,” he offered. “Sometimes people in shock react in unexpected ways.”
    “‘Shock’ is the correct word for it.”
    Henry’s soft words reached me through the darkness: “You do want this baby, right?” he asked, the joy gone from his voice.
    I tried to think but my brain refused to cooperate. I wanted to give him a real answer, but the truth was that I didn’t have a choice whether I wanted the baby or not. The choice, for better or worse, had already been made. “I want to say yes.”
    Henry didn’t say anything else. He just wrapped himself around me, pressing his face into the side of my neck, weighing me down with his silent disappointment.
    —
    The next few days, I felt wretched both physically and emotionally. The nausea hit hard and fast, occurring at random times in the day so that all I could keep down was crackers and water.
    Then there was the emotional toll, the guilt