BABY GIRL

Chapter 3

Annie Turner wasn't an easy person to love. She was impulsive and irresponsible, had no interest in setting the world right, loved thunderstorms and shied away from men who were good to her. So it came as no surprise when the father of her baby said he wasn't ready for that kind of commitment.

"I don't know, he said. Having a kid is not my thing. I'm not ready to be a father. You understand that don't you?"

She wasted no time thinking about why he stopped loving her. Falling out of love with her she understood, but how could a man not commit to his own child, the life growing inside her?

She packed her bags and moved upstate. The small clapboard cabin was miles away from everything. A perfect refuge. It was the only thing her father had ever given her, beside her crappy life. She remembered visiting the cabin when she was a little girl. Her mother made her sit in the car while she went in to collect the money her father was supposed to provide for her. They always argued. Her mother wasn't easy to love either.

Sometimes she hated her mother. She didn't understand why of all places Annie would move to her father's cabin. Annie hadn't seen or spoken to him in years before his death. Her mother pressured her to sell the old cabin and use the money to finish up her degree. Annie never finished anything. Her mother didn't approve most of her choices, including the baby. Why bring a baby into this mess of her life? How could a baby make it better?

After all, Annie wasn't one of these women who yearned for a baby and got all weak in the knees over strollers and baby clothes. She was unsentimental as she was selfish, something she and her mother shared. "You have your whole life in front of you. Don't turn away from me, Annie. I know what I'm talking about. This will change everything." Her mother was an angry woman and there were reasons for that. She knew her mother wished she hadn't had her all along and oddly she felt a certain sympathy for her.

Annie could have stopped it. What did she want from this baby, anyhow? Maybe it was selfish, greedy even; another bad choice in a mass of bad choices so wide she could wrap herself up in them like a quilt. But the moment she knew she was pregnant she felt something change in her. It was irrevocable and that was fine with her. The one sure thing she knew, she was keeping it. So she gassed up the van and headed upstate.

She was a city girl, she didn't like fresh air. She thought she would go nuts at first. It was odd living in a town where everyone knew you. Even stranger because everyone had known her father. Mrs. Teller who ran the ice cream parlor said she was the spitting image of him. Mrs. Teller and her dad went to high school together, she could tell she still had a soft spot for him. She never charged for Annie's ice cream sundaes, once she found out she was Jack Turner's daughter. He liked sundaes too.

"Jack Turner was a wild one. You look so much like him, the same black hair and green eyes. He liked living in the moment, the here and now. He had a nose for trouble that boy, liked the feel of his blood running hot."

"Why would he move back here?" Annie seemed puzzled.

"Oh that's easy. When he found out he was having a baby, he was a changed man. Said it was the only time he felt connected to anything. He moved back here and built that cabin with his own two hands the summer before you were born. It broke his heart when your mom kept you from him."

After that conversation Annie would sometime imagine she saw Jack Turner in the corners of the small rooms of the cabin, in the shadows watching over her. She looked in the mirror for traces of him in her green eyes and the mass of black hair she always hated didn't look so bad. She began taking classes online to complete her degree. This baby needed someone responsible, this baby needed her.

Daniel had been texting, seems he was having second thoughts about fatherhood. She wasn't heroic like those girls in the movies, she didn't want to be alone like her mother and she wanted her baby to have a father. She asked him to come up that weekend. Maybe things could be different and not written in stone this time around for the Turner women.

For the first time, she felt settled. She was enormous. Her due date was three weeks away. So when the first pain hit, it took her a moment to figure out what had happened, it was a contraction. She was breathing hard by the time she packed a bag and got behind the wheel of the van. It was already late, the sky was grey and hazy and the first flurries had begun to fall. She could tell a storm was coming.

Another spasm of pain shook her frame and she felt a warm sensation between her legs, her water must have broken. She reached down and her hand came back tinged with blood. "No, no. This can't be happening. Stay calm, stay sane," she told herself. She bit her lip and did her best to stay focused. It was dark already and two inches of fresh snow were on the road, when she saw the man step out of the woods as if he was sleepwalking. The headlights illuminated the red vest he wore. Her hands slipped on the wheel. Her fatigue and tension caused an overreaction, she yanked the wheel and the van began to skid. Snow dammed up under the front tires and it lost traction.

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His world was already half in a dream. He was lost. He didn't know how far he had come. The snow was falling harder and the temperature was dropping like a stone. He needed to turn back. Peter would be worried. Then he heard it, the engine and tires crushing over snow.

He glanced up just in time to see the oncoming headlights. For a moment it's as if the world is paralyzed. He couldn't even muster up a pathetic attempt to escape. He braced for the impact, but at the very last moment the car swerved and fish tailed into the ditch.

Blinking a little, with legs unsteady from the adrenaline rushing through his veins, Neal started toward the car. He jumped down into the ditch and fought through the snow to reach the van door. He could barely make out a lone figure slumped across the wheel. He climbed inside. The freezing air blew in with him on thick clouds of snow.

"I'm cold," the woman said. The shock of the accident still on her face as the snow flurries settled on her heavy coat.

"I'm sorry, sorry," he'd begun to tremble too as the shock passed over him. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm having a baby."

She tried to turn her body toward him. Her eyes were astonishingly green, wide and open like a frightened child's, but her voice was calm. I think my water broke, but I can't keep it from running out. I'm getting everything wet."

He looked at her pregnant belly and then at the blood stain rapidly spreading across the seat. It was bad, really bad. His heart was pounding.

"I need to get you to a hospital."

Her face changed as another contraction came, she closed her eyes and grimaced in pain. Annie breathed the way they had taught her in her class until it subsided. She looked up at the man whose hand she grabbed onto, and saw the desperation and fear in his eyes.

"What's your name?" she searched his face and smiled. "I'm Annie."

"I'm Neal," he said.

"We don't have time, Neal. The baby is coming."

"I can't…I can't do this. I can't help you."

"Yes you can," Annie would will all of her strength into him if she could. He was the only chance of the baby surviving now. "We need you."

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Author's Note

Thank you all for the reviews and kind comments. I know this is a melancholy piece, I wrote it when I was feeling a bit blue over the ending of WC, but it's not quite as bleak as it may seem. I'm actually pretty excited to see the last six episodes of White Collar. I hope you hang in there with me and Neal.