20. Jonah
Jonah pulled into the Summer House driveway at a little past eight on Monday evening, after a mercifully short shift at Driftwood. The restaurant hadn’t sustained significant damage, but Destin was still in a storm mindset, and Mondays were slow in the best of circumstances.
Of course, she was here. She’d shown up at three for her job like nothing had happened between them. Knowing traffic would be nuts, he rushed out without much more than a baby hand-off and a quick food and diaper report.
Hopefully, Atlas was bathed and asleep, or close to it, and they’d have a chance to talk. One thing he’d learned after seeing this driveway full of EMTs who carried a near-dead woman out on a stretcher—life is short.
Not that he, of all people, needed a reminder of that. But he wasn’t going to wait for her to share her secret. Whatever it was, he wanted to know so they could get on with the business of falling in love.
It was inevitable. Didn’t she know that?
He sat in the Honda with his hands on the wheel.
A quick review of the other cars told him most of the house’s residents were gone, probably at the hospital.
Even the apartment above the garage was dark, so Grandma Maggie, the poor thing, was probably there, too, even though her too-loud and too-bright red T-bird hadn’t moved.
Inside, the house was eerily quiet, with the only real light coming from the kitchen. He rounded the entry wall to find Pepper in there, behind the island, with Atlas on her hip, peeling a banana one-handed with her teeth.
She looked up and instantly he knew she’d been crying. There was no real evidence, no tears or red-rimmed eyes or puffy lids. But he knew.
“Jo Ellen?” he asked, freezing in place in fear. Wouldn’t someone have texted him if…if the worst had happened?
“Oh, no. No news. Still in the coma but possibly coming out tomorrow or Wednesday.”
“That’s good.” He came around the island, reaching for the baby, who held out one arm to him in a half-hearted effort to say, “Hi, Dad. Glad you’re home but don’t take me off Team Pepper, please.”
But Pepper released him easily and Atlas accepted his fate, snuggling into the much scruffier and harder seat of Jonah’s chest.
“How’s my little man?” he asked both of them.
“He’s good. Can’t stop eating or trying to say a word.”
“And how are you, Pimento?”
She looked up, not smiling, even though his “food things that start with a P” nicknames usually were rewarded with one. “Also can’t stop eating.” She held up the banana. “Second one today.”
He wasn’t sure what to say, so he looked down at Atlas in his blue-striped footed pajamas, smelling of baby shampoo and that particular sweet powdery scent his little guy had after a bath.
“I see he’s cleaned and ready for bed.”
“As promised,” she said, stepping away with her banana. “He did have an extra snooze this afternoon, since it was so quiet around here with everyone at the hospital. Also, trying to talk is wearing him out. Like, how many times can you say buh when everyone else knows so many other words?”
Jonah chuckled and gave him a squeeze. “It’s Da, buddy. Da-da. Da-da.”
She smiled and slid the peeled banana into a plastic bag and reached for her giant Stanley water bottle. “He’ll get there and I…” She lifted the bottle like a toast. “Have got to get home. My bag is at the front, so…” She walked toward the doorway. “I’ll see you—”
“Pepper.”
“Mm?”
“Please don’t go.”
“I have to. I promised my dad I’d…” He could see her searching for a reason or excuse.
“And don’t lie,” he added.
She exhaled. “I need to go, Jonah. Goodbye, my little angel!” She blew a kiss to Atlas and rushed toward the front door.
Jonah didn’t hesitate, following her with Atlas securely in his arms. “Pepper.”
She froze halfway down the steps.
“You are not getting in that car without talking to me.”
She threw him a look. “There’s nothing to say.”
“There’s everything to say. A secret you’re holding in. Feelings you won’t acknowledge. Conversations that have to be had and I want…I need to have them. Now.”
Once again, she blew out a breath. “Now? Here? With Atlas?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“It’s…private,” she finally admitted. “Let’s figure out a time when we’ll be alone together.” With that, she darted down the last two steps and across the dimly lit driveway, so, of course, he followed, reaching her as she got to the driver’s side of her car.
“Pepper. Look at me.”
“I cannot do this in this driveway.”
“Then let’s get in the car.”
“I don’t have a car seat for Atlas.”
“I’ll hold him and we won’t go anywhere.” With his free hand, he reached for her, placing a light palm on her cheek. “Please talk to me.”
He could practically feel her melt. “’Kay. Get in.”
He climbed into the passenger seat of her SUV, not sure he’d ever been in this car before. Careful to hold Atlas and wishing he had a binky for him to chew, instead of Jonah’s hair, he waited until she stowed her bag in the back and slid behind the wheel.
The car was dark and warm and smelled vaguely of flour, as if she’d used it to cart warm bread to the old people at the nursing home where she volunteered. Knowing her, she probably had done exactly that this morning.
She leaned back against the headrest and looked up for one moment, gathering herself, and then she turned to him.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he replied, ready for absolutely anything.
“I have a medical thing,” she started, surprising him.
He had never considered that. For some reason, he figured her secret was romantic or dangerous or had something to do with her time in New York. Maybe some bad choices or a dark past or a run-in with the law. He never went…medical.
“What is it?”
“When I was sixteen, actually, almost seventeen, we discovered there was a very specific and rare reason I’d never had a period.”
Nope. Never went there. “And?”
“I have something called—brace yourself, it’s a mouthful—Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome.”
He had no idea what she just said. None. “Mayer…what?”
“Just call it MRKH. That’s what it’s referred to.”
“What is it?”
She swallowed, staring straight ahead, silent long enough that Atlas stopped hair chewing and moved to Jonah’s collar.
“I was born without a uterus.”
He was very still. Did she say…
“Oh,” he breathed. “How…how does that work?”
“Just fine,” she said. “I have ovaries that function and my hormones are normal. I went through puberty like every other girl. I look like a woman, I am a woman, I have all the parts you can see and most of the parts you can’t.
But the one organ necessary to grow a baby?
Didn’t get one. It happens at six weeks in utero to roughly around one in five thousand women and no one knows why.
It’s not unheard of or unhealthy or dangerous or anything like that. It’s just…no uterus.”
“Oh, wow, Pepper. That’s…” That’s the thing she was carrying. Except she wasn’t carrying anything, including a baby, ever, he presumed. “How does it affect you?”
“Sometimes, I forget about it. I live a perfectly normal life, as a dancer and a happy, healthy woman. But…” She gave a totally humorless smile. “I cannot get pregnant. I cannot carry a child. That part of being a woman is closed for me and will never change.”
He nodded. He couldn’t really do anything else but absorb this new information.
“I make eggs,” she added. “That’s my consolation prize. As far as anyone knows, I make normal eggs, but I never get a period because I don’t have a uterine lining to shed.”
He was way out of his league on this one, but having gone through pregnancy with Carly, he did understand exactly how that worked.
“Then you could freeze your eggs and have a baby.”
She slid him a look. “In theory, yes. But a surrogate would have to carry it.”
“So? Not impossible.”
Atlas gave a little coo, as if he agreed. As if he wanted…a sibling. Jonah buried the thought.
“Do you have any idea how much that costs?” she asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, I do, because Owen—that’s my ex—and I looked into it. In this country, surrogacy runs between a hundred and two hundred thousand dollars by the time you are done, and that’s if nothing goes wrong. That’s way more money than I have or had or may ever get my hands on.”
“Pepper. Look at me.” When she turned, he leaned closer and made a mental note to spoil Atlas rotten for being quiet when he needed him to the most. “I don’t care. I have a son. He is in my arms right now. I am already a father. I am telling you, I do not need another child. But I do need—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Jonah. Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Tell you the truth? I am not sitting here counting babies. You are the thing I want. I know it’s too soon and you work for me and your dad’s my professor and I live in my dad’s house and I know all the things. But I want to be with you.”
She looked at him, and even in the dim light he could see the abject fear in her dark eyes. “Jonah—”
“I do! I have from the moment I met you and I don’t care if that’s corny, but I walked into your dad’s office and you were sitting there with all that…charm and vibes and heart and eyelashes and, oh. Man. I was gone.”
She gave a soft laugh, which encouraged him.
“I mean it,” he said, happy to have the confession out. “I don’t care about the cost of some procedure or the fact that you’re missing an organ. Plenty of people don’t have much in the brains or heart department and they get happiness. Why not you? Why not us?”
He thought he had done it. He could feel his own chest unclench. He looked at her with proud relief, and for one second she let him have it, and then she gave him look that he didn’t recognize.
“Oh, Jonah.”
“What?”
“Owen said that. Word for word, almost.”
“Okay, I hate this guy. But he’s not here saying it now and I am.”
“Don’t hate him,” she said. “I loved him. I really did. Can I tell you about him?”
Now this he didn’t want to hear. The missing uterus? Okay, he wanted to support and encourage her. But Owen?
“Of course.” Because apparently this was part of her secret and he needed to hear her out.