Baby's First Christmas

Now it looked as if he’d arrived too late. He stared unseeingly at a commemorative plaque on the wall behind the woman.

Well, it looks like you’ve really gone and done it this time, Derek. You finally made a mess that’s impossible for me to clean up.

The technician touched his arm hesitantly. “Are you all right? I mean, that is why you donated the sperm, isn’t it? So it could be used?”

Sullivan thought of saying that he hadn’t donated any part of himself to this high-tech, antiseptic recycling institute, that it was his brother who had done it and then, to add insult to injury, or perhaps to give vent to some macabre sense of humor, signed his name to the form.

But that would be making a stranger privy to his own inner turmoil and the tensions that existed within his family. That just wasn’t Sullivan’s style. He had always handled his brother’s transgressions with a minimum of fanfare.

Sullivan searched for patience. Somehow the situation had to be salvaged, no matter what sort of damage control he had to exercise. There had to be a way.

“That’s just it. I’ve changed my mind. I want to buy it back.” He paused significantly. Maybe she’d made a mistake and confused his file with someone else’s. “At any cost.”

The woman keyed in something on the computer. A moment later she shook her head, looking sincerely regretful. “According to my records, your…”

Raising her eyes to his, Martha blushed, then flustered, began again. “It was implanted March twenty-fifth.” Her fingers slipped from the keyboard. “I’m afraid that it really is too late.”

Yes, it certainly is.

Sullivan scrubbed his hand over his face, wondering how many paramedics it would take to revive his father once Oliver Travis learned the extent of his oldest son’s latest sin. Since he had suffered a stroke last year, his father had become a shadow of the man he had once been, bound to a wheelchair and the past. Sullivan sighed. Dead and gone, and Derek was still getting back at the family.

Nice work, Derek.

Sullivan looked at the technician, his expression softening. It wasn’t her fault that the Travis family had given birth to a black sheep. “All right, who was the recipient?”

The woman shook her head. “I’m afraid I really can’t tell you that. It’s against our confidentiality policy.”

He could appreciate her dilemma, but he had a larger one to consider. There was still such a thing as family honor, even in this day and age. And obligations. “I realize that there are rules and regulations—”

She looked at him apologetically. Her hands were tied. Sullivan took out his wallet, his eyes on hers.

“Very strict rules and regulations,” she breathed watching him absently sort through a large wad of bills.

He nodded. “But these are extenuating circumstances, and—”

Her eyes were glued to the hundred dollar bill Sullivan carefully laid out on her desk. She wavered, then looked around to see if anyone was within eyeshot. They were alone, but that didn’t seem to put her at ease.

She chewed on her lower lip. “It would mean my job if I showed you.”

He added a second hundred to the first, carefully flattening a curled edge. “I’m not asking you to show me the name,” he assured her. His eyes shifted to the computer. “You could, however, pull up the right screen, and then perhaps…”

He glanced around the room as if he were searching for the right word. He did it for effect. Words had never been a problem for Sullivan. He always knew exactly what he was going to say, exactly what he needed to do. His life had been mapped out for him at an early age by a father who had been filled with great dreams. Dreams that had flourished. The Travis Corporation was the leading land development company in the state. A fourth-generation family business, it had risen to the top of its field due largely to his father’s efforts in the early years. He ran it now. The mantle Sullivan wore had been intended for Derek’s shoulders, but Derek had refused even to try it on.

“Drop your pencil on the floor,” he finally suggested. “If it rolled under the desk, it might take you a few seconds to locate it.”

He discreetly moved the hundred dollar bills toward her, separating them from his fingers as if they had never been there at all.

The woman stared at the bills, tempted. Debating. The debate was summarily terminated when a third bill joined the first two.

She moved her swivel chair around and typed out a few words on the keyboard. The keys clicked quickly, accentuated by the sound of her agitated breathing.

On the monitor, screens blinked, scrolled and finally came to a halt at the right one. She glanced around once more. There was no one passing by her office. It was now or never. Eyes hooded, Martha leaned an elbow on her desk and sent a pen tumbling to the carpet.

This was one woman who would never qualify for high-tech espionage, Sullivan thought with a grim smile. He leaned forward, tucking the three bills under the corner of the woman’s blotter as he scanned the screen.

Within moments he had a name, an address and a telephone number, as well as a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Marlene Bailey, whoever she was, was now carrying his brother’s child. If the offspring turned out anything like its father, Sullivan could almost feel sorry for the faceless Marlene.

The feeling passed quickly, though, replaced by annoyance. Annoyance at his brother, at the burden now placed on him, and at Marlene Bailey. What kind of woman went to a sperm bank to get impregnated, anyway? It sounded so cold, so calculating. Like ordering a child from a menu.

Maybe that would make his job easier in the long run.

Marlene Bailey’s personality and peculiarities were not his concern, he reminded himself. The Travis name, and his father’s health, were. The sooner he got this cleared up, the better.

Martha, her runaway pen in her hand, sat up and nervously looked at Sullivan. With an almost imperceptible nod of his head, he rose.

“Thank you, Ms.—” Sullivan glanced down at the name-plate on the woman’s desk “—Riley. You’ve been a great help.”

Her sweaty palm curved over the bills, and she looked at him uncertainly. “You won’t tell…?”

“Tell what?” he asked, the soul of innocence. “As far as I’m concerned, you were the unshakable pinnacle of integrity.”

With that he walked out of the office. He heard her sigh of relief in the background.

Too many people could be bought, he thought, as he hurried out of the building. The fact saddened him even though it did make his life easier. At times it seemed as if there was no honor left in the world, no principles. But then, he supposed, that was a given.

What was also a given, he decided as he got into his car, was that he intended to have Ms. Marlene Bailey sign over custody of her unborn child.

There was no other option open to him. His brother’s death last month had hit his father very hard. It had sent the already infirm man into a spiraling depression. Having a grandchild, Derek’s child, around might help fill the gaping hole he was carrying around in his heart.

At least he could hope that it might, Sullivan thought. Besides, he’d been taught that family always came first. He only wished that Derek had remembered that once in a while.

No use dwelling on what was in the past, he told himself, pulling out of the lot. He needed to concentrate on the present. The child would be a Travis, entitled to everything that went with the name.

He wondered just how much Marlene Bailey would hold out for before caving in.

Sally clutched her chest, her spidery fingers spread over her heart. Her crepe soles squeaked as she took a step back on the gray-and-white glazed tile in the foyer. Squinting, she looked up at the person she had known for thirty years, acting as if she didn’t recognize her.

“My God, you’re home, and it’s not even dark out yet. Did the office burn down?” The biting sarcasm abated as her expression suddenly grew serious, making her withered cheeks sink in even further. “Or are you…?” Her eyes darted to the pronounced outline of Marlene’s abdomen.

“No, I am not.” Mimicking Sally, Marlene deliberately left the end of the sentence hanging. “I’m home because I’m meeting someone here.”

Sally closed the door and followed Marlene into the living room. She moved very quickly for a woman who only shuffled. “A man?”

Marlene ignored the incredulous yet hopeful note in her housekeeper’s voice. “Yes.”

Sally sniffed, as if to hide what Marlene knew was her secret wish that Marlene would find someone to settle down with, someone who could finally take care of her the way she deserved to be cared for. After all, she wasn’t getting any younger, as Sally frequently told her.

Sally stared at Marlene’s protruding silhouette. “Should have thought of that before—”