September 11, 2012
It was blustery and hot, and the piazza surrounding the Duomo was as overrun with tourists as ever. But the girls who had practically begged her to come here so they could sketch alongside the 'real artistes' only laughed as the wind attempted to make off with the pages of their sketchbooks. Their joy was infectious, and despite the case of nerves she was fighting, Victoria found herself laughing right along with them as the wind wildly whipped her hair into her face.
She only turned around to get her hair under control, but that's when she saw him. Billy. Standing in the middle of a crowd of strangers, thousands of miles from the home she had just called. It felt like a dream, and for a minute she truly believed she was imagining him, that the heat had gotten to her and she had simply conjured him from her daydreams or her intense longing to see him. Then he smiled, his eyes full of tears and love and relief, and she knew he was real. He was there. He had found her.
He went blurry for a second as her own eyes watered, and she blinked him clear again, forcing the wetness down her cheek. She wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around his neck with the intention of never letting go, but when she stepped forward, he took two steps back. He wasn't looking at her face anymore, his eyes instead fixed on her midsection and the baby she had actually forgotten about for the first time since learning of its existence.
"I can explain," Victoria pleaded, though the words came out in a whisper that had no chance of being heard over the chaotic scene. "Please, let me explain."
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. It wasn't how he was supposed to find out. She reached for him again, determined to pull him to her and make him hear her out, make him understand, but he retreated further away from her, his jaw clenched tight, his eyes still trained on her stomach. A pair of tourists wandered into the widening gap between them, oblivious to the scene they had drifted into. Victoria tried to get around them, to get to Billy, but he was moving still further away from her, allowing more and more people to come between them.
"Billy!" she shouted desperately over the crowd, but all she could do was watch helplessly as he turned his back to her and disappeared into the swarm of strangers just as quickly as he had emerged. She wanted to run after him, to push her way through these obtrusive people and make him listen to her. But she was in no condition to do that, and she couldn't leave the half dozen eleven-year-olds who were once again by her side, asking if she was okay, questioning who the man was.
Stunned, unsure once again if what had just happened was real, Victoria took a moment to collect herself and then turned to reassure the concerned faces that she was fine. But it was time to go, she told them. There was something important she had to do, a wrong she had to make right, but as she recalled the haunting look on Billy's face, she prayed it wasn't too late.
Billy didn't know where he was going, only that he couldn't stop because if he did, it would all be real, and it couldn't be real. He was literally seeing red, red dress blown tight against a roundness that meant only one impossible thing, as he moved through the twisting, turning streets of Florence, his strides full of purpose and force despite his lack of direction. He chose streets randomly, sometimes based on proximity, other times based on which ones were emptiest and thereby offered the fewest obstacles. They all looked the damn same anyway, cobbled and too narrow, lined with the same yellowish buildings with their green shutters and tiled roofs. For all he knew, he was choosing the same four streets over and over again, not that it mattered anyway.
He must have walked for hours because when the streets finally opened up revealing the Arno River like some merciful end to an ancient maze, it was dark out, and he was exhausted. Billy collapsed onto the concrete barrier that bordered either side of the river he had only seen on a map until now and surrendered to the aching of his muscles and the truth he had tried his best to escape.
She was pregnant. Victoria was pregnant.
He couldn't even begin to wrap his brain around the how and the why of that. All he could focus on was that she had lied to him. The hurt was suffocating, and he felt as though their whole life together had unraveled in that one moment in the piazza when he realized the truth behind why she had left, the enormous secret she had kept from him. And then worse than that, he had justified her actions and proven everyone right about him by running away again when the going got tough, callously throwing away the hours and days he had spent searching for her.
In the distance, across the river, a low rumble of thunder signaled the approach of the storm that Billy now realized had been in the making all day. Reluctantly, he stood and fished the map Mario had given him so long ago from his back pocket. He would need it, and a small miracle, to find his way back to the hotel. All he wanted was a hot shower and to sleep away this day. Maybe tomorrow he would be able to deal with what he had learned, to deal with her. That is if he could find her again.
The storm held off until Billy reached the hotel, but once inside his darkened room, a sharp intake of breath followed by a soft rustle of clothing alerted him to the fact that he wasn't alone. He didn't need to turn on a light to tell him who it was. He sensed her there, and the first flash of lightning, revealing Victoria curled up in one of the upholstered chairs by the windows, only confirmed what he already knew. Neither of them moved or spoke until the subsequent rumble of thunder faded and Billy finally flooded the room with light.
"Hi," she said quickly as she sat up in the chair, drawing her legs out from under the skirt of her dress as she did. She had been there for hours, since it was light out, just waiting for him to come back and hoping that he would. The sound of the door opening had sent a tidal wave of relief over her, and though she couldn't be sure, she thought she saw a look of relief cross his face as well.
"I've been worried about you," she added when he said nothing. "I'm glad you're okay."
Billy wondered if she had meant to say 'upright' or 'sober' instead of 'okay,' and he knew she would have been justified based on past experiences if she had. He couldn't look her in the eye yet, but he took note of the nervousness in her voice, like she was afraid he would bolt again at the sight of her. So, he put away his room key and leaned his back against the door as a sign he wasn't leaving and also to take some of the pressure off his tired legs. The tension in her bare shoulders eased a bit in response, but the emotional tension between them remained.
"How'd you find me?" His voice was raw, but controlled, and the irony of his question didn't go unnoticed by either of them.
"Phyllis," she admitted quietly, turning her eyes down. She didn't need to see his face to know how he would react to that name, not after the hurried, desperate call she had made to the redhead as soon as she had returned the girls to the convent school. Phyllis had told Victoria how badly Billy had taken her leaving, how he had angrily confronted her just two days ago, and that Nicholas was barely speaking to her now. Though less certain now that she'd be able to pull it off, Victoria had assured Phyllis once again that she'd take care of it when she got home if she'd do her just one more favor.
"She traced your credit card," Victoria explained. "And I told the guy at the front desk I was your wife, and since I'm….well, since…he let me right in." She placed a hand on her stomach to indicate the persuasive argument she had used.
"So I take it that's not a tumor?"
"No," she whispered, shaking her head remorsefully.
"And you didn't just have a really big lunch today?"
He wasn't trying to be funny, she knew that. He was hurt, and she was the cause of it. Slowly, she stood, placed both hands on her stomach, highlighting it's roundness, and prepared to say the words she had said to him twice before, once as she ran excitedly down the stairs that first night in their new home and then again whispered in the dark the night before she left him.
"I'm pregnant."
He turned his eyes to the room's high ceiling and closed them momentarily as he expelled a shaky breath from his body. "And that's why you left? That's why you 'needed some time alone?'"
"I-it's a little more complicated than that, Billy…but yes, this is why I left."
"Is it not mine?"
His words stung her, and maybe the hurt part of him meant for them to. He knew her well enough to know he didn't need to ask that question, but the alternative, the only other reason he could come up with as to why she had kept the pregnancy from him was even harder to stomach. He finally looked her way and saw she was staring at him with steely blue eyes, and he put his hands up as a silent apology.
"Then why?" he asked and braced himself to hear that Victor had been right that night in his office. She had finally decided she was better off without him and without being tied to him by a child.
Victoria took a deep breath and walked around the chair to the window closest to her, putting more distance and obstacles between them. The size of the enormous casement made her seem smaller than she was, and Billy watched as the arms she normally wrapped protectively around herself in situations like these hugged her protruding belly instead.
"I always thought when this moment came," she started and then turned her gaze outside the window, "that I'd know exactly what to say."
"So talk."
But it wasn't that simple. She wasn't as good with words as he was, and all of the speeches she had practiced were no use now. She had planned to ease him into the truth, to reassure him of her love before dropping the bomb. Now, she didn't know what to say.
"I wanted to tell you," she said softly after a few minutes. "I wanted to tell you so bad, and I was going to, just as soon as the shock wore off."
A second flash of lightning illuminated the window, and Billy wished she would move away from it, but she didn't. "So why didn't you?"
"Connie called," she confessed. "Connie called and she told me you were at Newman to see my father. And then—"
"Then I hit the bastard and reminded you why you were better off without me," he finished for her. He thought if he said the words first, they would hurt less, but he was wrong.
"NO," she cried, a pained look of disbelief taking over her face as she spun around to face him. She made a move to go to him, but he put his hands up to warn her away. So she stayed where she was, wringing her hands as she battled to respect his wishes. "I never thought that, Billy. Never. I love you. I love you so much. And you have every right to hate my father. I hate him too, and I don't want anything to do with him ever again. It wasn't because you hit him, I swear. That's not why I didn't tell you."
Billy remained silent, but his face was breaking her heart. She never meant for him to think she didn't love him, didn't want to be with him. "I heard you," she whispered shakily as the tears began. "In the chapel after you got stitches. I heard what you said."
The memory of that day was clear in his mind, from the satisfaction he had felt when he first struck Victor to the tender way Victoria had taken care of him afterwards, but it took him a minute to remember what he had asked of God. 'No more babies,' the words finally echoed in his head. "I didn't mean it, Vick. Not like that."
"I know." She hugged herself tighter, feeling the storm inside her about to break loose. "You were hurting. We both were. After what happened with Chelsea…" She was struggling for words. There were so many things she wanted to say, others she was afraid of saying. She shook her head and sighed, "I just thought it would be better if I left."
"Better?" he asked harshly, snapping his head in her direction. His voice was angry and accusatory, and she could see his own storm raging. "You thought it would be better? Better for who? Because it wasn't better for me not knowing where you were. If you were okay or not. Wondering what I'd done to run you off or if I'd ever see you again. And it sure as hell wasn't better thinking you were with Sam. So who exactly was it better for, Victoria?"
"Me, okay," she shouted back. The tears were streaming now, and she didn't try to stop them. It was no use. "It was better for me. It was better for me to not watch you lose another child. This is my fifth pregnancy, Billy," she screamed, and the number startled them both. "Five. I'm used to it, and I just never wanted you to be."
Lightning flashed behind her, stronger and brighter than the previous flash, and barely even a second passed before a thunderous crack followed. Victoria doubled over in pain almost immediately, her hands low on her abdomen, at the same place she had held when she had the miscarriage. She grabbed the back of the chair in agony, and at the first sign of distress, Billy instinctively raced to her side.
"What it is? What's wrong?" he asked, panicked and sorry for yelling. One hand was on her back, the other rubbing the arm that gripped the chair as he waited, his heart racing, for her to answer him.
"He's a strong kicker," she said with a nervous laugh when the pain finally subsided and she could talk again. "And he doesn't like thunder I don't think."
There faces were so close together she could feel the breath he released hot on her cheek, and she was all too aware of his hand on the small of her back and the warm fingers that gripped her upper arm. They studied each other's faces shyly for the first time in three months. His eyes were red from exhaustion, and her face was stained with tears.
"He? It's a-it's a boy?"
"Oh. I, uh, actually…don't know. It's just a habit, I guess," she explained. "I didn't want to find out. Not without you."
He didn't react to her words, but they stayed that way, attached to each other, through another flash of lightning, neither one wanting to be the one to pull away.
"Do you want to feel?" Victoria eventually asked, overcome with emotion that she was able to ask him that question at last. She reached for his hand to move it to the spot where the baby was still kicking, but he pulled it away from her like he was afraid of being shocked. She stood with her hand frozen mid-air while he avoided the disappointment in her eyes.
"I think you should probably sit down or something," he said, deflecting from the awkwardness.
"Yeah, okay. But do you mind?" She gestured towards the antique bed in the center of the room and moved her hand to her back, near the spot where his hand had just been. "That chair's not as comfortable as it looks."
He nodded his approval and followed her to the bed, arranging pillows behind her once she'd crawled to the middle. He hovered over her a moment longer than was necessary and fought the urge to smooth a stray piece of hair off her face.
"Billy?" she said when he did leave her side. "I was coming back to you, I swear."
"Just rest, okay."
She nodded and settled into the pillows as Billy took up her old spot in front of the window. He heard her whispering behind him, obviously to the baby, and he was determined to not turn around. It was becoming too real, and he didn't know what to do or if he could handle it. He focused on the street below instead, where a few people were still rushing to get in out of the storm. So far, it had been all thunder and lightning, but as he stood there, trying not to hear the comforting words passed from mother to child, his child, the deluge began, pelting hard against the glass in front of him.
When he noticed she had been quiet for a while, Billy slid in front of the window until he could see the bed's reflection in the bottom corner. She had rolled onto her side, and her eyes were closed. He turned around and carefully walked closer to her, until the gentle rise and fall of her chest and stomach confirmed that she was asleep.
It was a bit of a relief that she had fallen asleep. He didn't have the strength to go on tonight, and obviously, neither did she. She looked cold lying there in only a thin sundress, so he pulled the bottom corner of the comforter over her and then walked to the door and turned out the light. Too exhausted to even think about the hot shower he had wanted earlier, Billy emptied the contents of his pockets onto the table by the chair and slipped his shoes off. His cell phone lit up when he dumped it, and he saw that he had missed at least a dozen texts from Kevin, all of them demanding he call him as soon as possible. Taking his phone with him, Billy dragged the chair closer to Victoria and sank into it.
"It's about time," Kevin said when he answered the phone. He was at the coffeehouse, and even though it was experiencing an afternoon lull, he went in search of a private corner to talk. "I have to tell you something about Victoria. And Dr. Lange. She's not sick, she's—"
"Pregnant," Billy interrupted in a whisper. "I know."
"You know? How? Did you find her?"
"Yeah, I found her," he replied, his eyes still studying the evidence of his discovery.
Kevin sighed loudly and rubbed absently at the back of his neck. "So, is she gonna be okay or what?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's just…Dr. Lange…" he hesitated, suddenly aware that Billy didn't have all the information he did. "He specializes in high-risk pregnancies, Billy."
Billy sat up in the chair that Victoria was right about. It wasn't as comfortable as it looked, but right now, nothing about his situation was comfortable. "'High risk,' what does that mean?"
"I don't know. It could-it could mean a lot of things I guess. It's probably nothing." The line went quiet for a while, and Kevin sensed Billy was worried about what he had told him, or rather the thing he couldn't tell him for certain. "You want me to break into her medical records?" he offered, this time genuinely.
"No," Billy breathed, and before he hung up the phone, he asked Kevin to keep the pregnancy and everything he had learned about it to himself. There were people like Nikki who deserved to hear it from Victoria and others like Victor who didn't need to hear it at all.
She was still sleeping peacefully, and he envied her. There were still so many things he hadn't asked her, and now Kevin had given him something new to lose sleep over. Billy leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and watched her face closely in the dim streetlight that shone through the window that continued to be pelted with raindrops. So many nights he had watched her sleep, and in spite of everything, he was grateful for one more chance.
As he sank back into the uncomfortable chair, his eyes drifted down her body, and Kevin's words about the mystery doctor rang in his head. "You better treat her right, kid," he muttered. "You better treat her right."
It started off as a whimper and then grew to the strangled, breathless cry of a newborn. It was her baby's cry, she knew that, felt it in the deepest part of herself, but she wasn't sure which baby it was. Maybe Reed, or Lucy, or one of the others. The room she was in was full of bassinettes, like the ones in a hospital's nursery, but each one she went to, each one that seemed to be the source of the crying turned up empty as she approached it. Victoria knew she was dreaming. She'd had this nightmare before, numerous times in the last three months, but usually she could wake herself from it. But not this time. This time she felt a growing sense of urgency as she ran frantically from empty crib to empty crib as the crying grew louder and louder. Something was fighting her, physically holding her back, but she fought harder, determined to find her child, determined to not let another one be taken away from her. But when she came to the last bassinette, her one last hope, it too was childless as a pair of hands carried the missing bundle away from her.
Billy had been watching her sleep for over an hour when she started to stir, his own mind still reeling too much for him to give in to the sleep he had been deprived of for days. It appeared she was having a nightmare, but he couldn't be sure since he'd never really seen her have one before. She was talking in her sleep and fighting some invisible monster, and the more agitated she became, the closer Billy inched towards her, unable to deny his instinct to protect her. By the time she bolted upright, releasing a blood-curdling 'noooooooo,' he was on the bed, his hands gripping her arms, begging her to wake up.
Her face was ashen, her eyes wild with a fear he had only seen when she had learned J.T. was taking Reed from her or all the times she'd lost Lucy. She studied his face hysterically as she tried to remember where she was and how he had gotten there, and then she turned her terror-filled eyes suddenly to her stomach, where her hands were searching frantically for something. She sat frozen with her mouth agape, and Billy realized she was waiting for the baby to move, for proof that it was still alive. Terror gripped him too until relief finally flooded her face.
"It's okay," he whispered gently, taking her into his arms. She was crying now, and her emotional release shook her whole body. "You're okay now," he said again. "You're both okay." He eased her back down onto the bed, his arm tight across her chest as he settled in behind her, and in a tangle of limbs and emotions, sleep finally claimed them both.