Turkey Baster 21

It was deep fall, my favorite time of the year, and I felt a new kind of hope. And as much as I missed Edward, grieved him according to Angela, I had a growing sense of mission about life I'd never known before. One big factor was that I was making good progress on accepting my situation.

Angela had me draw up my circle of support. On it I'd written everyone who was there for me, everyone I could count on as I prepared myself for the arrival of my baby. I listed doctors and nurses and caregivers and friends, family and co-workers. It wasn't a huge list, but it was a good practical list. I had reasonable security, good health insurance, a decent apartment, resources for purchasing needed equipment and clothing, and company sponsored childcare in my building, and I'd scheduled my pregnancy leave.

Because the sperm had been free, the money I'd saved for the actual reality of baby sat untouched. I wasn't rich, but I was sound. I was good. And if I'd used artificial means and not the complications of a human being I would have been light years ahead and able to make this whole thing work as originally planned, but Edward Cullen in the flesh had essentially blown my plan out of the water and left me reeling. But I was coming down to earth.

And, I'd had no idea how the pregnancy itself would change me. I wanted my child. Boy did I.

It happened when the doctor let me hear the heartbeat. In that instant the mother in me breathed her first audible breath. And I grew more fiercely protective of my baby everyday. Hence the animosity about my baby's potential step mother. No, hell no, and hell, hell no.

Angela assured me that there were some wonderful, sacrificial step-parents out there. She gave me books. She pointed them out at church and tried to hook me up so they could tell me their stories.

But how to comfort myself when I remembered the hostility Tanya had directed toward me that day at Edward's bar. He had left her to come to me. She wasn't going to forget that or forgive it, especially once she found out I was pregnant. And if Edward married Tanya, that guaranteed her a place in my child's life, and after what I'd been through with Phil, I couldn't be hopeful.

All the more reason Edward couldn't find out about the baby. And I knew that was irrational.

Today on the high school track, on this beautiful brisk Saturday morning, I followed Angela's gold colored work out pants. Her feet made very little noise as they hit the rubber track. "I told him if I smelled alcohol on his breath one more time on a Sunday morning, he was suspended. I mean jeez-Louise…it's church, you know?"

She hadn't noticed I'd stopped. I had my hands on my knees. Two other joggers went breezing past me.

I was past the hurling phase. I hadn't hurled for a month. But I was out of breath.

Angela had jogged back to me. "Okay…I'm talking to myself." She kept her feet going.

"Yeah," I straightened, "I need to walk for a while."

So I walked, and she fake-jogged next to me.

"How many more times around?" I kind of whined. The track was busy, but not overly crowded.

"Two more times?" she said. "That would give us four miles. That should ease my guilt over that cherry pastry yesterday," she said. "So tell me again about getting your car worked on."

"You just want me to talk cause you're out of breath, too."

"No, really. I love it when you're bad-ass."

"Well…it was kind of bad-ass," I said proudly, thinking of how I refused to pay until they actually fixed the mysterious rattle.

"You what…like went in there..."

"And they were acting like I came in naked…I hate that place. You could feel them jacking off in the corners or something."

"Oh, we are so going in there with light sabers…."

"And….." Me.

"Bella!" I knew that voice. Instinctively my hands went to my stomach.

"Rose," Angela said. Her eyes darted to my stomach, too. I'd just started to show a bump, and being kind of skinny from all the throwing up, this bump was very pronounced. But it didn't show so much with my jacket tied around my waist so I hoped I was good.

"I thought that was your ass," Rose said laughing as she caught up. I didn't miss her eyes also darting to the place where my jacket was tied around my middle.

She knew.

"It's an ass of distinction," Angela said to me smiling.

"Aren't we all," I said to Rose. Only Rose would bring a Latte to her workout.

"I talked to Alice and she told me her good news," Rose said.

I missed a beat, and the worst terror speared me. When she'd said, 'good news,' I thought at first she was blurting it right out there, the news of my pregnancy. Then I calmed down and heard her. She meant Alice's news.

"Yeah, cancer free," I said. This was the best thing to come out of the Alice/Jasper camp in two years. The joy of it fueled the strength I felt now.

The three of us started to walk then. Rose's hair was in a long ponytail, and she wore a pink workout jacket and black pants. "Since when do you jog?" I asked, waiting for the bomb to fall between us.

"No, no. I walk," she held up her coffee, "Em jogs." Right on cue, he started to pass us.

"Hey ladies," he said, a little wave. I hadn't seen him since I'd scoped his records and gone to Bella Italia that day. The day I ran into Edward, too. So seeing Emmett was attached to that memory. It hurt me and panicked me all in one.

He passed us and left us behind as we stared at him looking pretty awesome in his silver shorts. "He's in fine form," Angela said and we all laughed.

Rose said, "Ah yes. Fine, fine form." We laughed again. If a pack of guys did this to me, I'd be looking over my shoulder and running faster, but Emmett was too far to hear us, I hoped.

Rose was sipping. "Oh," she said, holding her hand out, fingers spread, diamond winking in the sunlight on her third finger.

"What?" Angela kind of screamed.

I wanted to be happy for her, even though things had flat-lined between us. I wanted to pretend this didn't mean there would be no escaping a connection to Edward through her now. I didn't want to feel my baby was somehow threatened by this, that Edward would find out now and hate me even more, and ultimately try to get custody or something. The scenarios in my head were endless. Who would have thought it would go this way, that my former best-friend would end up being my most threatening relationship?

"Bella?" Rose had been speaking to me, but I'd been lost in thoughts.

"What?"

"I said it will be a spring wedding. You know spring this year will be full of surprises. Just full, right?"

Angela's looked at me briefly. "Should we run?" Then to Rose, "Bella and I are timing ourselves. I'm training for a half marathon and she's my carrot," meaning she was the greyhound and I was her carrot. Actually it was the other way around, but since this was all bullshit, every bit of this conversation, what did it matter?

"Sure," Rose said rolling her eyes, "we haven't seen each other in months and I just told you I'm getting married, but go be a carrot, Bella."

"You know what Angela? Go on, I'll catch up." Me.

"Sure?"

"Yeah. Go on. I'm kind of tired anyway."

"Pregnancy will do that," Rose said, into her little cup-hole, her satanic microphone.

Angela had been running backwards before us, pumping her arms, and now she just stopped.

"Rose," she said, but nothing else.

"Don't you have a carrot to chase?" Rose.

"Angela, just go. Run. I've got this. But I might need a light saber, so…."

"It is a circular track Swan. I'll be back," she said, taking off with one or two glances over her shoulder.

"Your new bestie?" Rose said.

"I wouldn't say new," I replied.

Rose smirked. Emmett passed us again, pumping his guns for her.

"Were you going to tell me?" she asked.

I looked around the track, then noticed how blue the sky was. "No. I knew you'd find out eventually…like this…or Alice. But no, I didn't have any desire to tell you. I wasn't not telling you…I just wasn't telling you."

"That last statement is so Bella."

"Yeah. Well, just stop there. Don't really hear that I had no desire to share the most amazing event in my life this far," ignoring Edward, of course, "with you...just hear my unique…sentence structure or something."

She took another noisy sip of her coffee, then walked to the side of the track and pitched her cup in a barrel. I didn't stop to wait for her, so when someone jogged beside me, I just assumed it was her. But it wasn't. It was Emmett.

"Hey Miss Bella," he said, his eyes blue and clear. He was very handsome but also very open and approachable. I got why Rose had fallen. I got it.

"So…." I said.

Angela stopped then. "Light saber?" she asked.

"Ah, no," I said. "It's good."

"One more time around," she told me, and took off.

"It's not an accident that we're here," he said. "Do you really think Rose would come jogging on a beautiful Saturday morning when she could be sleeping in wearing that blue silk eye-mask thing?"

"How did you know I'd be here?"

"She knew. She said you'd be one of a couple of places, and you were here."

I nodded, not completely satisfied. I could feel all control, all illusion of control slipping away. I believed he was there ready to make me an offer I couldn't refuse. Because if Rose knew, he knew, and if he knew he had his boy's back. Edward knew.

"You gotta tell him, Bella."

"You mean you haven't?"

"No. I don't want to touch this one," he said, all sad grins.

We were both walking now, and slowly.

"I want to tell him. Don't you think I do? But…he said he couldn't have a child out there…so how do I…?"

"Bella, he'll do the right thing for Tanya's kid. That's how he'll see it. It won't matter what's right for him. Trust me on this."

"Then why was he so careless?"

"That's his contradiction. Fact is, he's made two babies, and neither one is covered."

"By what? Health insurance?"

He laughed. "By him."

"What about Tanya's baby?"

"Bella, he'll marry her. She's using this to make sure he does. It's all about the money with her. That's all it's ever been."

"I'm not letting her be my child's step-mother. This is my baby. Mine. I had a step-parent who hated me, and she is not going to get the chance to take all of her hate for me out on my baby. I'll leave the country before I let that happen."

"Bella," he had his hand on my arm, "listen to me. You now why Edward was so good at baseball, really?"

"I don't know…he had talent," I snapped, not wanting to play this game.

"Yeah. He was good at a lot of things…still is. But baseball made sense to him. I really think that was it. Bella, it's all baseball for Edward. When he was on the field…life made sense to him. So level the playing field for him."

"Okay…my brain is too tired…."

"Tell him. There's no way you can not tell him. If he hears it from me, he'll see you on the other team. You've got Tanya who he doesn't love, but he's going to marry to give his baby a father. You've got you who he once adored and I believe still could and you're pregnant with his child, too. Tell him…and he'll know what to do."

"You're serious?"

"Yes. You can't withhold this from him. He'll go to her because of the child. But if you also have a child, his child, it'll change the game. Level the field."

"But it's not a game," I said.

"Bella. It's Edward. It's all baseball. He'll make a critical decision because he'll see everyone on the field. He needs the truth, and it has to come from you."

I stopped walking, and he took off jogging. Then he said over his shoulder, "His bar has its grand opening Monday night. He'll be there."

I saw Rose at the gate to the parking lot waiting for him. When she saw me looking, she waved. It didn't occur to me to wave back. Monday was only three days from now. Was he already in town?

Angela came beside me then.

"You set this up," I said, staring after Rose and Emmett. He had his arm around her. She would never cuddle into someone's armpit sweat like that, not even Royce's. She really loved this guy.

"Are you mad?" Angela asked.

We started to walk to the gate. "I feel nothing right now."

She held the gate for me and we went through. I untied my jacket and slid it up my shoulders.

"Rose came to see me yesterday and we had quite a talk. She was angry that she found out about the baby through Alice. She was also angry that I had been conspiring with you to shut her out…and more importantly Edward. She seems to think I'm your puppet master. I told her that I wasn't going to discuss your business with her unless the three of us agreed to meet and discuss the issues. She said the one who urgently needed to speak with you was Emmett. I said she should get in contact with you herself. Then she told me that Emmett was going to go to Edward, but she talked it over with him and they both decided it should come from you. Then Emmett knew exactly why and wanted to share that with you. I thought it over, and told her we'd be here this morning."

"Why did she have to tell Emmett?"

"I don't know the answer to that. But since he already knew, I figured you needed to hear him out. We both know you have to tell Edward eventually, so it's not like I made anything happen, really."

"I don't understand why Rose didn't just come to me."

"I think she was trying to do the right thing. In her own way. She had some emotions to work through finding out like she did. I think she realized how estranged you've become. But you need to ask her."

I shared with Angela what Emmett said. We were in her car now.

"What do you think? Are you going to tell him?"

"My motive isn't to trick him into choosing me." I looked at her. "You didn't hear him on the phone. He has nothing but contempt for me. I love him. But whatever happens between us…I'll be okay. I don't expect anything," I told her. "Then there's the step parent thing. I'll never let Tanya have my child. I'll fight them."

"Let's be real on this. Who will make the better step mother, you or her?"

"Me, of course. I would never treat a child unfairly, not after what I went through."

"Then let's cut the crap, Bella. Get in there and play."

"Curveball," I whispered. Could I do it?