Chapter 17: The secret is out.

Ob appointments filled my spare time now as the weeks flew by faster than I thought that they would. Four months quickly turned into five. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to hide my expanding waist for too much longer. I had called David and told him that we needed to sit down and tell Doug. In the explosive fight that we had, had the night, we found out, it was assumed that I just had a bad case of the flu.

I was nervous to say the least. I was going to be telling someone that he was going to be a grandfather. It's not as if David and I were young, too young to be parents, it's just that Doug had a young family of his own. The twins were only eight and still handfuls at times, thinking of the girls, they were going to be 8-year-old aunts in a few months. That thought made it seem even more awkward to be telling him this. Maybe David could do all the talking and I could just sit there in silence and smile.

I think that I was most worried right now about him being upset with us. I know we were grown adults and we knew where what we were doing could lead us, I just honestly think that neither one of us expected this one. We both had other things on our minds at the time, fixing our relationship, David finding a job, my residency, the never ending cycle of day to day things that pile up on you when you aren't paying attention. The baby really did come to us as a surprise. The possibility was probably tucked into the back of my mind just more of something that was highly unlikely to happen, you know what they say expect the unexpected.

David came by the apartment around seven. At first, we were going just to have dinner with them but decided that we should just drop by kind of unexpectedly and somehow find a way to bring it into the conversation.

"Are you ready to do this, are you sure you want to do it?" He asked as we drove towards Doug's house.

"Stop asking me that." I say, "I'm nervous enough as it is."

"You're not the only one." He says as we turn off the highway heading into Wicker Park.

"We have to tell him, there's no getting out of this one David." I say, "he's not stupid the excuse I ate a basketball isn't going to work and I can't keep taking night shifts to avoid having to work with him to much longer, he'd figure it out. I think it's best if we just tell him, have him hear it from you rather than someone else."

"Hear it from me," he says. I can hear the shock in his voice. "Oh no you don't we are doing this one together."

"But he's your dad."

"Erica, he's your father-in-law. You have known him longer than I have."

"But he's your father you are his son, you have a blood relationship with him, that's more than I have."

You can feel that we are both nervous bantering back and forth like to teenagers who don't want to cough up for something that they did. It's humorous and somewhat breaking the tension in the car for us. Making the ride less nerve wracking than the silence would have been.

"That excuse doesn't work. You have a blood connection now too." He says reaching over and patting my stomach a little, "that's his grandson in there."

"Oh so now you can foresee the future and it's a boy. You think that we are having a boy do you."

"Have a told you how absolutely radiant you look tonight?"

"Oh nice try David Timothy," I say reaching over and jabbing at him while he is driving, "not going to work, I'm pregnant of course I am radiant it's the damn hormones."

He pats my leg now, smiling over at me, "you going to be able to keep those in check tonight?"

"Mighty demanding now aren't you? Considering half of the hormone problem is your fault there mister." I say resting my hand on his. We are still able to maintain a somewhat affectionate relationship with each other but have slowed everything else down several notches.

The night that we talked, we decided that it would be best if we both just backed off from trying to save the marriage and see what would come of us starting completely over again. Granted we stayed married, we didn't end the marriage, but rather David moved out and got his own place for now and we spent time together slowly dating and trying to reconnect with each other again. We had decided to do it for us, not for the baby. We knew that holding us together for the sake of a child was the wrong thing to do, that if we were going to make this work that we needed to do it for us, what we felt for each other.

"Have I ever been anything less?"

"That's a loaded question and I really don't think that you want me to answer it." I smile over at him playfully.

He just let out a small scoffing laugh before pulling the car into the driveway. "Okay let's just get this over with so that we are not hiding anything anymore. I will feel better when the secret is out."

"Oh trust me I will feel so much better when it's out too, but I have to wait a few more months before that happens." I say looking at him, my hand now resting on the handle to the car door, "this won't be so bad, I'm sure that he will take it quite well and that he will be happy for us, wont' he?"

"I'm sure that he will be." David slips out of the car and comes around opening the door before I actually had the chance too, "we'll be fine." He says taking my arm as we walk up to the front door of the house.

"Oh god I think I have to throw up." I say just before he reaches up to knock.

"Now would not be a good time to do that." He says softly, "just breathe its okay I'm right here. I meant it when I said that you are not doing this alone."

I take in a deep breath as I watch his hand knock on the door. "Yeah I know," I find that I am right now holding onto his arm for dear life. Not that I had ever been scared of Doug, far from it, it's just that what we were about to tell him was big news and the uncertainty of his reaction was weighing heavily on my mind right now.

"Erica, David." I hear Doug say as the door finally opens, "come in you two, it's nice to see you again."

David and I cross into the house and we all go into the living room. I can feel my hands almost start to sweat and it feels uncomfortably warm in the house right now.

"Hi Dad," I hear David say to his father as we all sit down.

I'm off my feet that's a good thing, but my stomach is still turning over and over making me wish that we weren't doing this, that somehow right now I could back out of doing this and leave David there to tell his Dad by himself.

"Carol's upstairs with the girls." He says looking at both of us, "what bring you two by tonight."

I smile softly, nervously, the only thing that I knew to do right now.

"Erica and I have something that we've been meaning to tell you. Haven't we honey?"

Oh man, don't call me honey right now. I smile this, I'm going to kill you smile at David, "yes we do have something that we need to talk about with you Doug."

Did I just call him Doug after all this time, I had been calling him Dad when I had been around him with David and I just called him Doug? That was going to let him know that something was up. Great I couldn't have just called him Dad. Why am I sitting here arguing in my head with myself? Oh yeah it's so that I don't have to think about what we are about to tell him. I watch as Doug shifts his weight in the chair that he is sitting in and the nervous feeling in me explodes ten fold.

"What is it?" He says there's still a smile on his face, but I have this incredible feeling that isn't going to last long.

I look over at David hoping that he is just going to come out and say it, and find that he is sitting there looking at me. Neither of us is saying anything. I wish that one of us would just say something.

"Okay so what is it?" Doug says, "you two are killing me with the silence here?"

David and I are still just looking at each other, not saying anything still. I shrug my shoulders waiting for him to say anything and he pats my leg waiting for me to say something.

I find myself being the one to take the deep breath and try to say something, "uh Doug, uh Dad, I'm, well, David and I are." I'm not getting anywhere and it's frustrating in a way that something this simple is so hard to say. I look over at David; my eyes saying come on say something don't leave me hanging here.

"What Erica is trying to say," I hear him finally jump in, "is that we are, we well, we are."

Okay he's drowning just as fast as I did. It looks like it's going to be up to me to say it. I don't want to but the two of us are not getting anywhere and maybe if I just blurt it out it will come out a whole lot faster and easier. "I'm pregnant; David and I are having a baby."

Doug is silent and I can't take my eyes off him. I'm not sure what to make of his reaction to my sudden confessional of the pregnancy. The silence is killing me; maybe this was a bad idea.

"A baby," he finally says after what felt like an eternity but was only a couple of minutes.

"Yes." David says, "we wanted you to know before you heard it from someone else. Not that we have told anyone else, you are the only one who we have officially told."

There is silence again from Doug. I was hoping that it was shock; or rather, I was hoping that it was shock. How news like this could truly upset him? Well other than he was going to be a grandfather and David and I were separated, we were still married but living as if we were separated, each of us having our own apartments. It wasn't the traditional way to raise a family, but there were several single parent homes, and our baby would know both his or her parents, that was what David and I wanted.

"Doug." I say softly, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He said softly, his voice and tone quiet giving the room and even eerier feeling that what it had with the complete silence. I'm wishing now that maybe we had waited to tell him. We really didn't have the option cause the baby was going to be here in less than four months. "When are you due?"

"The baby is due the end of March." I say looking at him now. I realize that it's not that far away. It's December now and we had waited so long to tell anyone, but we had a lot to figure out ourselves. "I'm sorry that it took us so long to tell you. We had some stuff that we had to figure out before we wanted to tell anyone."

"I understand Erica." Doug said, "I'm happy for you two I am really am."

I just nod there's not much more that I can do than that. I find that I am holding onto David's hand now and I can feel my hands getting sweaty and my stomach revolting on me again. I try my best to will it to stop right now; it's not the time to get sick. I should have been past this.

We spent a couple of hours talking about what was going to happen and what David and I had talked about in regards to the baby. We didn't talk about exactly how we were going to raise the child, as David and I weren't totally certain as to how we were going to do this. We had decided that David was going to stay at my apartment once the baby was here to help me out the first few weeks that we were adjusting to parenthood.

But not the secret was out and we didn't have to worry about him finding out via second hand, maybe in the end of this, we would be one family and for the first time I might have the chance to see three generations together at once. Grandfather, father and son or daughter together and for the first time in the entire pregnancy I found myself wishing that David and I would have a little boy of our own.