The Baby Dilemma Read online

  “Let me get another cup from the kitchen so he can at least enjoy some tea with you while I’m out shopping.”

  When she returned to the living room, she found him on the phone. He broke off talking to flash her an annoyed glance.

  “I’m sorry to disturb. Do you know where my keys are?”

  “I imagine where you left them.”

  There had been a new change in his behavior since they’d arrived at the apartment. His anger was already a given, but he seemed to have grown bored of her presence. Though she’d tried to immure herself from the pain he inflicted, his uncharacteristic rudeness found her weak spot every time.

  She had no choice but to leave him to his own devices while she went to the master bedroom in search of her keys.

  They were still on the top of the dresser. As she recalled the hellish events of the night he’d had the accident, her hand squeezed them so tightly, the little silver pickax charm on the key ring drew blood. She hurried into the bathroom to wash everything off and apply a small plaster.

  When she’d left the Didier home to return to Washington with Claudine, Philippe had bought it for her so she wouldn’t forget him. To her joy he’d shown up at her home a week later. Within a month’s time they were married.

  While she stood there, memories of the intimacy they’d shared swamped her. But sharp, searing pain followed, causing her to put a hand over her heart as if to numb it.

  The irate male in the other room with the dark beard and moustache was a stranger to her. Where once her husband couldn’t stand for her to be out of his arms, this man could barely tolerate her existence.

  In an abrupt move, she turned away from the sink. If she hoped to make any headway with him, she had to move forward with her plan and stop reliving the past.

  Full of determination, she walked over to the bedside table and pulled the telephone directory from the drawer. She opened it to the B’s. It didn’t take her long to find the only entry for Boiteux. There was an initial A next to it. Analise? Number ten, rue de Guisan.

  Kellie turned to the front of the directory and studied the city map. It didn’t take much time for her to locate the rue de Guisan on the northern outskirts of Neuchâtel. She could find it easily enough in her car.

  On the way out of the apartment with her shopping bags, she noted that Philippe was drinking his tea while he talked on the phone. As long as he ate what she fixed him, he’d start to gain the weight he’d lost. She ought to be thankful he’d tolerate that much of her help.

  She was thankful. But now that she was back in their home, the task that lay ahead of her seemed more insurmountable and treacherous than climbing Mount Everest, the frozen, forbidding natural wonder Philippe had conquered with his friends.

  If he noticed her slip out of the apartment on her way to the underground car park, she couldn’t tell. Much as she would have liked to visit with Patrick, she knew better than to stay behind and incur her husband’s wrath.

  Her car had been sitting there for over a month. To her relief the engine turned over without problem. Kellie drove out to the main street and headed for a certain area in the center of town she loved to frequent.

  It smelled of freshly baked bread, roasted coffee and cocoa beans. No supermarkets here. Just a series of wonderful shops where she’d become acquainted with the proprietors who sold the freshest dairy products, meat and produce to be found.

  Knowing her husband’s penchant for a special hazelnut chocolate, she purchased several bars. With her bags filled to the brim, she put them in her car and headed to the north end of town.

  After a few wrong turns she finally found the street and ultimately the apartment in question. It was in a newer section where the rent wouldn’t be as high.

  Once she’d found a space along the main road to park, she locked the car and hurried inside the main entrance of the three-story building with a small bouquet of flowers. She scanned the list of names next to the buzzers of the various tenants, then picked up the wall phone receiver.

  Her finger shook as she pressed number four.

  It took close to a minute before a woman answered. “Oui?”

  “Madame Boiteux?”

  “Yes. Who is it?” she demanded tersely.

  “It’s Madame Didier, Philippe’s wife.”

  An ominous silence followed. Kellie feared the older woman would hang up on her.

  “We have to meet,” she rushed on in French. “You’ve lost your daughter. I’ve lost my husband.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tears filled Kellie’s eyes unbidden. “Please let me come in and I’ll explain. I know you’re in pain, but so am I. If we could talk, we might be able to help each other. I’m not here to cause trouble.”

  It seemed like an eternity before she heard, “You may come in for a minute. When you hear the bell, enter through the door on the left. My apartment is at the end of the hall.”

  “Bless you, madame.”

  She hung up the receiver and hurried over to the glass door in question. As soon as she’d gained entrance, she fairly raced down the corridor.

  Yvette’s mother had opened her door and stood waiting for Kellie. The sturdy Swiss woman with graying hair was probably in her sixties, but her grief-stricken face made her appear older.

  Evidently the baby was asleep because she put a finger to her lips as she motioned for Kellie to enter the small living room and sit down. The modestly furnished apartment looked immaculate. Except for an infant carryall in the tiny entrance hall, there were no other signs of the baby.

  Kellie studied several photographs of Yvette placed on the end table. Some of them showed her skiing. She’d been an attractive woman with short, dark brown hair, very chic and somewhat older in appearance than Kellie had imagined.

  “Thank you for seeing me, madame.” She cleared her throat. “First of all, let me tell you how sorry I am about your daughter. I can’t imagine anything worse than losing a child. Please accept these flowers as a token of my sympathy.”

  The older woman’s features didn’t change, but her gray eyes dimmed. After a slight hesitation, she took the bouquet from Kellie with a muttered thank-you.

  “In case you were wondering, my husband has no idea I’m here. I don’t even want to think how he’ll feel when he finds out, but I had to come. If you’ll bear with me, I’d like to start at the beginning. Then maybe you’ll understand why I’m here.”

  The woman’s silence seemed to indicate Kellie could continue. Without preamble she told Yvette’s mother about the horror of the night when she found out Philippe and Yvette had been in the accident.

  “Before we were married, I knew there’d been a few special women in his life. I didn’t know their names, but in the E.R. he told me about Yvette. He could have lied to me about her, but he didn’t because he’s an honorable man.

  “I’m sure your daughter was an honorable woman, too,” Kellie rushed to assure her. “They got caught in a situation that resulted in a child. I don’t blame her for turning to him. She was sick and afraid, and she loved him.”

  The older woman clasped her hands together. “My daughter met him on a ski trip to Chamonix. He was all she talked about after her return.”

  “I know. I heard the love in her voice while she begged the doctor to bring Philippe to her. It tore me apart because she was pleading for her baby as well as herself.”

  Madame Boiteux averted her eyes.

  “The trouble was, I loved him, too, and was faced with the greatest dilemma of my life deciding what I should do. You see, my father abandoned my mother and me before I was born. It was like reliving history. That’s when the answer came to me.

  “While Philippe was in X ray, I went back to our apartment and wrote him a letter. In it I told him his place was with Yvette because he’d known her first. For that reason I was filing for divorce so he could marry her and they could be a family. Then I left for Washington.”

  Her confession caused the other w
oman’s head to rear back. “You did that for my daughter?”

  “For the three of them. If a friend hadn’t informed me of Yvette’s passing, I would never have come back to Neuchâtel. Do you want to hear something ironic? Now that I’ve returned, my husband doesn’t want me. He doesn’t believe I ever loved him.” Her voice shook. “But he does want his son, if it is his son.

  “There’s no if, madame.”

  “I believe you,” Kellie asserted, “but you can understand why there might be a question in his mind. Yvette should have come to Philippe with the news the moment she suspected she was pregnant. Instead she waited until we’d been married for a month before she approached him. H-he’s going to ask for a DNA test to be done.”

  The other woman cringed.

  “If you knew Philippe, you’d realize he’s in terrible emotional turmoil because he had no idea of Yvette’s condition. Whether you realize it or not, he’s taken her death very hard. If the test is a match, then he’s prepared to do everything for his son.

  “I’m here today because I’m prepared to do anything to win back my husband’s love. If you could find it in your heart to let us spend some time with the baby, it will help Philippe to heal, and it might even soften his anger toward me.”

  Looking distraught, Yvette’s mother got up from the couch.

  “I want to be Philippe’s wife again. There’s nothing I’d love more than to help him raise the baby. That little boy is innocent and deserves the love of two parents and his grandmother.

  “Philippe has the means to support the child, but much more important than money, he loves children and will make the best father in the world.

  “At one time he cared something for Yvette or he would never have become intimate with her. She wanted him to help raise their child. That’s why she finally turned to him. He’s prepared to do it, but he can’t do it alone. He needs me, and he needs you.

  “If we all joined forces, Yvette’s little boy would be surrounded by love. Would you at least consider bringing the baby to our apartment so we could get acquainted with him?

  “Philippe would come here, but two days ago he hurt the knee that was operated on. The doctor has ordered him to rest his leg as much as possible until it’s better.”

  The older woman shook her head. “I can’t forgive him.”

  “You mean because he didn’t love Yvette enough to ask her to marry him?”

  “Yes!” she cried in pain.

  Kellie got to her feet. “Madame? I’ve found out the hard way you can’t order a person to feel a certain way about anything. I spent years hating my birth father for not marrying my mother and not being a dad to me. In the end it blinded me to reality and cost me my marriage.”

  “I’m sorry for you.” She sounded sincere.

  “No more than I am for you. When your grandson gets older, he’ll ask about his papa. If he should find out you tried to keep him from the man who begged to be a father to him, then heaven help you.

  “Just remember that revenge and anger won’t bring Yvette back. But love and forgiveness will help a little boy lead a normal life. Deep down inside, I know that’s what Yvette would want for him. I think you know it, too. If you ever got to know Philippe, you’d understand what a wonderful parent he would make.”

  Afraid she’d break down in front of the older woman she said, “Thank you for allowing me to talk to you. I’ll let myself out.”

  Kellie left the apartment and hurried across the street to her car. The second she got behind the wheel, tears gushed down her cheeks because she saw the same implacable blindness in Analise Boiteux that had crippled her own life.

  If Kellie had listened to Claudine, she wouldn’t have sent Philippe those awful divorce papers. She would have flown back to Switzerland to be at her husband’s side. They would have faced this crisis together. She would have told her husband they were going to have a baby. Now it was all too late…

  By the time she reached the apartment, she’d cried herself out and rode the lift dry-eyed with her bags of groceries. After letting herself inside the penthouse, she did a juggling act all the way to the kitchen.

  It was after three. Philippe had to be hungry.

  She burrowed in the bags and came up with the ingredients for a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. He also loved crenshaw melon. She cut him a large slice, garnished it with lime juice and put everything on a tray.

  When she couldn’t find him in the living room, she headed for the bedroom. His door was closed. She knocked.

  “Philippe?”

  “What is it?”

  Evidently Patrick’s visit hadn’t improved his black mood.

  “I’ve made you something to eat. Is it all right if I come in?”

  “My brother brought lunch.”

  That was odd. She hadn’t seen any sign of the remains in the living room or the kitchen.

  “I have a fresh ice bag for you.”

  “Put it back in the freezer.”

  Something was wrong.

  Without asking permission, she opened the door and discovered him on top of the bed resting his back against the headboard. Her gaze wandered from the bottle of liquor on the table to the glass in his hand. He must have gotten it from the cabinet in the study.

  Philippe rarely drank anything stronger than the occasional beer. More importantly, he never drank alone. It alarmed her to see him this morose.

  She walked to the bed, lifted the whiskey bottle onto the tray and placed the whole thing back on the table. Without saying a word, she put the ice bag over his knee and left the room. More than anything in the world she wanted to slam the door, but she wouldn’t give him that much satisfaction.

  When she reached the kitchen, she had the shakes again and quickly fixed herself a sandwich and a glass of milk. It surprised her to be this hungry again because she’d eaten a huge breakfast at the chalet.

  At this rate she was going to put on weight like mad long before the baby was born. Philippe couldn’t stand her right now. She dreaded to think how much more she would disgust him when he discovered himself chained to a plump partridge.

  Though she was thankful the headaches hadn’t come back, she wasn’t thrilled about this new manifestation of her pregnancy. As she put all the groceries away, she determined that tomorrow she’d phone Dr. Cutler and find out if there was anything she could do to stem her appetite without hurting the baby.

  After she’d retrieved the other tray from the living room, she cleaned things up and started a quiche for dinner. While she was preparing the crust, she heard the phone ring.

  It could be anyone. Now that her husband had sent Patrick back to Paris, Marcel might be the one checking in with the boss. Sick at heart for her husband who was suffering, there was no telling what state he’d be in by tomorrow if he stayed in the bedroom and refused to eat.

  She finished the quiche and got busy on a special side dish of carrots and parsnips. When everything was ready, she put both casseroles into the oven, hoping the delicious smells would arouse his appetite.

  “Kellie?”

  Philippe’s deep voice was so unexpected, she spun around in surprise. He stood in the doorway leaning on his cane. Maybe he hadn’t had that much to drink after all. He seemed steady enough.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His dark eyes swept over her as if he were looking for something he couldn’t find.

  “That was Analise Boiteux on the phone.”

  Kellie’s heart began to thud mercilessly.

  “For some reason I can’t fathom, she has decided to let me see the baby. She said it was what Yvette would have wanted her to do.”

  “Oh, Philippe—”

  Analise was a good woman. A wonderful woman. Kellie loved her already, and appreciated the fact that Yvette’s mother had kept Kellie’s visit to her apartment a secret.

  “Apparently when she was at the hospital, she heard about the surgery on my knee. She said that if I’d send a taxi for her, she’d bring
him here at six this evening.”

  He looked and sounded stunned. Kellie could imagine what this moment meant to him. At long last he was going to hold his son.

  Her first instinct was to offer to pick up Analise and the baby in her car. But she held back out of fear it might be the wrong thing to say.

  She couldn’t afford to give Philippe any more ammunition to hate her. Not when Analise had risen above her pain to make this momentous gesture. Her phone call was something of a miracle.

  “W-would you prefer to be alone for this first meeting?” she stammered. “I can go out for a walk or a drive if yo—”

  Lines darkened his face. “So you’re running true to form and disappearing at the first sign of trouble? I might have known the valiant speech you made to me about loving an innocent child was nothing more than lip service,” he lashed out.

  “That’s not true!” she cried in anguish, but he’d turned away from her with a swiftness that caught her off guard.

  Kellie rushed after him. “I only said that in case there were things you wanted to discuss with her in private. Philippe—darling—I’ll do whatever you ask of me!”

  If he heard her, she couldn’t tell because he’d slammed the bedroom door in her face.

  Needing to do something constructive before she invaded his inner sanctum without permission and made things worse, she hurried into the dining room and set three places for dinner. For a centerpiece she used the other bouquet of flowers she’d bought in town.

  Maybe Analise wouldn’t want to eat, but Kellie felt it was important to be natural with the older woman so she could see how they lived, what kind of life they had to offer her grandchild.

  When everything was ready, she decided to change into a casual café-au-lait colored cotton dress with a rope belt and matching sandals. To her surprise, the zip didn’t go up as easily as the last time she’d worn it.

  Though no one would guess she was pregnant yet, Kellie was aware of the difference in her measurements. If Philippe ever bothered to really look at her, he would notice the subtle blossoming of her figure.