Free Where We Belong by Emily Giffin Page B

utter cluelessness.
    So instead, I check my phone, wishing there was someone I could talk to about the biggest news I’ve had since she was born. Without a much longer conversation, there is only one option—my mother. But I know she is asleep next to my father and the only way to call her would be to awaken both of them. My father would assume the worst—that there is terrible news. Which he would probably deem this to be—one of the reasons my mother and I chose to keep this secret from him in the first place. Besides, I really don’t want to talk to her about it, not yet anyway, remembering her advice to check a different box on that form. It is for the best if you cut all ties, forever. It was clear that’s what she wanted, and although I never knew if it were for her sake, mine, or both, the memory has often kept me from discussing it with her.
    I nervously scroll through my e-mail and texts, wondering if Peter is awake. I suddenly miss him, and desperately wish we hadn’t ended our evening the way we did. More important, I wish he knew my secret. I wish I had told him, suddenly regretting my decision not to tell him. I think of all the logical times I could have—every time a friend had a baby; when he told me Aidan’s birth story, how Robin’s water broke during an opera and how she nearly delivered in a taxi on Third Avenue; or when he confessed his own deepest secrets—that he plagiarized a paper at Dartmouth and once slept with a stripper at a bachelor party in Vegas. I didn’t judge him—and don’t believe he would have judged me. And yet, he might. He might decide that any woman who could give up a child isn’t fit to be a mother. At least not a mother of his child. He might have a problem, at the very least, with the fact that I kept the secret from my own father, from the baby’ s father. There were just too many risks involved, too much downside. It was easier to leave it alone. Cleaner. Simpler. Safer. Or so I thought until now.
    I switch off the light and close my eyes, but the desperate feeling of wanting to talk to him will not subside. So I send him a text, asking if he’s up. Seconds later, my phone vibrates. I grab it, eager for his words, the way I always am when he writes, but much more so tonight. I text as fast as I can, reassured with every exchange.
P ETER : Yup.
M ARIAN : Can’t sleep?
P ETER : Nope. Feel bad about earlier.
M ARIAN : It’s okay.
P ETER : No. It’s not. I’m sorry.
M ARIAN : I am too. Wish you were here.
P ETER : Do you want me to come over?
    Before I can reply no, the phone rings and I greedily answer it, still following my ingrained instinct to keep my secret, spinning fresh justifications, excuses.
    “You okay, sweetie?” he says, his voice sexy and scratchy. I hear ice in a glass and know that he is sipping scotch, his version of Ambien.
    I try to answer, but can’t.
    “Champ?” he says. “You there?”
    “I’m here,” I say, managing to make my voice sound even and normal.
    He asks again if I’m okay, a tinge of guilt in his voice—which, in turn, makes me feel guilty for being upset with him. How can I expect a man to commit to me forever when I’ve omitted such an important detail about my life?
    “Yes,” I say. “I’m here.”
    “Do you want me to come over?” he asks gently.
    I desperately want him to be beside me, but then think of Kirby in the next room and tell him no, it’s late, I’ll call him in the morning.
    But he’s already made his decision. “I’m coming over,” he says, then hangs up before I can protest again.
    *   *   *
    Twenty minutes later he is in my room, undressing down to his white Brooks Brothers boxers, the only kind he ever wears. The smell of his skin comforts me, as does the heat of his body next to mine.
    “Now,” he says. “That’s much better. Talk to me.”
    I glance toward the door, even though he’s whispering, worried that she’ll hear us.
    I swallow hard, wondering what to say, how to