Chapter 11
Eleven
W hy was Rodney telling Rita this? He hadn’t wanted to burden her. “So, yeah. There might be three children.” He paused. “Even if that kid is not mine, obviously it has a dad who doesn’t want it.”
“Obviously Stella is trying to get money out of you. And it sounds like you’re just going to let her.”
“What about the kid? He thinks his dad doesn’t want him. Whether he’s mine, or whether he’s someone else’s, can you imagine?”
“No. I can’t. I couldn’t imagine my children thinking I didn’t want them.
And I can’t imagine not knowing for sure that the people that I give them to would sacrifice everything they had for their happiness.
But I know you, and I know my sister, and I know both of you will move heaven and earth to do the right thing for my kids. That’s why I asked you. And her.”
Rita nodded her head, and she looked him right in the eye.
And in that moment, it confirmed that what he had done earlier in the day was the absolute right thing.
It might have been the end of his dreams of being a billionaire.
But he had plenty of money, plenty of investments to support himself in a lavish, if not extravagant, lifestyle for the rest of his life and to raise as many children as he felt like.
“I know you’re right about Becky. She’s fiercely loyal and stubbornly determined, and she’s got grit like no one else I’ve ever met. I pity the person who tries to do anything unkind to either one of your babies. She will fight to the death for them.”
“She’s a tigress, that’s for sure,” Rita said with tender affection. “She tried to raise me right, and I got a little stubborn on her, but if there’s anything good in me, it’s because of Jesus and Becky.”
“You said that in the right order anyway, and I have to agree.”
“I’m not under any illusions about who I owe.” Rita smiled.
“So tell me, what’s really going on with you?
What’s going to happen tomorrow? How long do you think Becky and I are truly going to have these children?
” It wasn’t that he minded, he just really wanted to know what was going on with Rita.
She had such a great attitude and a sense of humor that he admired, but that contrasted sharply with the color of her skin and how unhealthy she looked.
“All right. I’ll level with you. They found something four months ago, but I wouldn’t let them check it out any more, because I wasn’t going to do anything that would harm the babies.
They warned me that it could be a fast-growing cancer, because that was their suspicion, but I held firm.
You know the treatment for cancer is not good for a person.
Can you imagine what it would do to a baby?
” She shuddered. “So, when I was close enough to my due date that they could do a C-section safely, I allowed them to do a biopsy.” She forced a smile and tilted her head.
“It’s cancer. And I didn’t mention this when we talked on Sunday, but it’s the most aggressive kind. My prognosis is…poor.”
“Poor? What does that mean?” he asked, feeling his leg start to shake up and down underneath the table. This was not looking good. Becky was going to be devastated. Not that he was happy about it. Becky loved her sister more than life.
“It means that, tomorrow, after they take the babies, they’re going to try to operate on the tumor.
They are afraid, though, that they’re not going to be able to get it all, and they’ve given me a less than ten-percent chance, on a good day, when all the stars align and the planets do as well.
I’m pretty sure that’s a direct quote from the oncologist.” She grinned, like it was funny.
“Holy smokes. Ten percent? To get all the tumor? Or to survive?”
“Yeah. I think I have like a seventy-percent chance of surviving the operation. But the ten-percent chance is my six-month survival prognosis.” She looked at his shoulder.
“The oncologist keeps saying that if I would have terminated the pregnancy, I might have been able to survive. But they don’t understand, if I would have terminated the pregnancy, I wouldn’t have wanted to live with myself after that.
Who cares about the survival rates then?
If I’m willing to kill defenseless human beings so that I can live?
What kind of monster does that make me?” Her eyes were tortured at the thought.
“Especially when you consider that those human beings are my own flesh and blood. No way.”
Rodney sat and stared at Rita. He could see Becky so clearly in her. The grit, the determination, the absolute fortitude that it must have taken to make that decision in the face of all of her doctors pressuring her to do something different.
“I admire you. You…stood for something.” Especially considering that they just spent the earlier part of their meal discussing how he had fallen for something stupid.
“Well, I was raised by the best.” She grinned, giving a nod to her sister, Becky, that Rodney did not miss. He supposed Becky loomed large in Rita’s life. She was a pretty strong figure for sure.
The rest of the meal passed in casual conversation, with Rita telling him that at first, she was assuming that they would take the children home to her apartment, and then once they found out whether the doctors could get all the cancer, and whether or not she would even go home, they would make some decisions from there.
But everything was so up in the air that she really didn’t know and couldn’t make firm plans.
In the end, she said it was up to Becky and him as to what they wanted to do.
He couldn’t see Becky going against what Rita wanted, but it wasn’t firm, and maybe Becky would insist they separate the babies, and maybe each take one?
Or maybe they’d split them by weeks or months or something.
He could see Becky doing that. Although, from what Rita was saying, she was expecting them to raise them as a mom and dad, not as divorced parents who co-parented.
Still, unless Rita specifically said that, he was sure that Becky would take charge and make things work the way she wanted them to.
Of course, she was going to want the best for the babies, and maybe she would get it in her head that the best thing for the babies would be for the two of them to parent together. He could only hope so.
Rita looked at her watch. “I have to stop eating at eight o’clock, and… I have five minutes to go.” She looked at the last bite of cheesecake on her plate. “I just don’t think I can hold it.”
“I’d say I’d eat it for you, but I’m stuffed as well,” Rodney said honestly. He’d eaten far too much, and all of it was really good.
“I’m a little disappointed though. I guess I can’t say it’s the best food I’ve ever had.
But it’s definitely the most interesting experience, luxury, you name it,” Rita said as she looked around the room.
Everything was black tie, serious, the food had been presented impeccably, and Rodney was so glad he could give her this experience.
It hadn’t even occurred to him that it might be something she would enjoy.
“I’m sorry you’re disappointed with the food, but I guess I could have told you that you could get better food at the diner in Blueberry Beach.”
“I agree,” she said, laughing. “But the swankiness is unbeatable.”
“Yes. You pay for the swankiness,” he said.
“Hang on a second,” she said as her phone buzzed. She looked at it, seemed to read a text, and then sent a quick reply back. “Becky’s at my apartment. She has the code, and I told her to go ahead on in. She wanted to talk to me tonight too.”
“You shouldn’t be hungry while you’re talking to her.”
“And if I am, I can’t eat. So, I’m glad you were agreeable to talking earlier.
” He couldn’t get over how happy, almost bubbly, she was, despite how terrible she looked and the ordeal she was facing tomorrow and the possibility that she might not even survive the operation, let alone be here next year this time.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked.
“I… I know that things aren’t great between you and Becky, and I just ask that you be patient with her.
She’s…well, you know, she’s been through a lot.
And she loves you. She always has. I don’t know what she’s saying now, but there is not any doubt that she loves you.
I know she’s with that jerk-face idiot who doesn’t deserve to lick her feet?—”
“Wait. What?” He blinked. Becky was with someone?
Rita snapped her mouth shut. And then she seemed confused. “Didn’t you know?”
“No. The first time I talked to her in years was earlier this week when I went to the farm to see her, because I didn’t have her number and I wanted to get together with her. She stood me up on Wednesday when we were supposed to meet at the Blueberry Beach diner, and I haven’t talked to her since.”
“She stood you up?” Rita’s brows furrowed.
“Yeah. I don’t want to go on about it, but we were supposed to meet, and she didn’t show.”
“Her truck probably wouldn’t start.” Rita seemed to be thoughtful. “Was it the day it was really cold?”
“It was really cold all week this week,” he said, but then after thinking about it, he agreed. “I do think Wednesday was the coldest day.”
“Yeah. Her stupid truck. I’ve told her over and over that she needs to get something newer, something that at least starts, but…she won’t listen. She keeps insisting that she needs it for the horses and that trucks are too expensive for her to buy anything newer.”
Becky was having trouble with money? He just assumed that she was fine. That Matt and Davis were taking care of her if there were any problems, but come to think about it, she was in Raspberry Ridge, and they both said they hadn’t talked to her in a while.
“She’s struggling?” he asked, wanting to jump up out of his chair and go help her immediately, which was ridiculous. First of all, she had stood him up earlier in the week, and second of all, he was going to see her the next day, when they met at the hospital for Rita’s surgery.
“I don’t think so. Although, I guess she must be a little bit, if she can’t afford to buy a new truck.
But you know how she gets attached to things,” Rita said.
“And when I asked her about the twins, she didn’t say a word about not being able to afford them.
You know she would have if she didn’t think she could do a very good job. The very best.”
“You’re right. It just must be that she got attached to that stupid old thing and can’t get rid of it when she knows she needs to.”
Nothing else made sense.
“But if you don’t mind, I called an Uber, and it’s waiting for me now,” Rita said as she looked back down at her phone.
“Sure.” He had already taken care of the bill, and he stood, grabbing her coat from the back of her chair and helping her into it.
It was the nastiest coat in the room, but it was on the body containing the most beautiful spirit there.
Rita was a true beauty, inside and out, and he felt blessed to know her.
She’d taken a life that wasn’t the best and had cultivated an attitude that made people forget that she was going through something that was harder than most people ever dreamed of.
And she did it with a smile and a laugh and questions about him and what he was going through, and she didn’t focus on herself or complain the entire time. It was admirable.
He walked her out, helped her in the Uber, and watched as she drove away.
His mind went back to Becky, and he realized that Rita and he had never talked about this person that she was with.
Was it serious? He supposed in five years it could have become that way.
But he just couldn’t believe that Becky would do that to him.
She was so loyal and dependable. But…Matt and Davis had warned him.
They had said that there was a downside to her loyalty, and that was the grudge that she carried.
He’d seen it himself, but he just didn’t ever think her love for him could flip into anything else.
He must have been wrong. This was going to complicate things. If Becky was with someone, it would complicate things as much as him having a child.
He couldn’t even blame her for being with someone, especially if he came with a child. How could he give her a hard time, when he obviously wasn’t faithful?
What a mess. He wanted to say that he couldn’t believe what a mess his life had become, but that wouldn’t have been true. This actually was very reminiscent of five years ago, when even then, he couldn’t believe what a mess his life had become.
Tomorrow might be interesting. Of course, that was only if Becky was talking to him.
In the meantime, he was going to go home, and he was going to pray as hard as he could for Rita and the babies and for Becky most of all.
That there was some kind of spark, some kind of feeling left for him in her heart, and that whoever she was with wasn’t someone she had feelings for.
That it was just…someone she was putting in time with.
Except, that wasn’t Becky. She did everything with her whole heart and soul.
When he looked at it, it seemed hopeless, but he knew that God had worked huge miracles in his life, and God could work this out too. He just had to have faith that it would happen.