His phone was always ringing. Because he’d given his life to the outside world, rather than creating one in his own space. Another conscious decision.

He stood with droplets running down his body, a towel held to his front side, when he saw the name on his caller ID.

“Hello.”

He prepared himself for a cryptic message. Followed by a hang-up.

An important message. But one he could get from the voice mail she’d leave if he let the phone ring.

“How are you?”

Trembling, Brett almost dropped the phone. Almost fifteen years he’d waited.

And on a normal day, out of the blue...

I’m fine, Ma. How are you? The millions of words he wanted to say were there, but none of them came.

With the silence hanging on the line, he pulled on his robe. Avoiding looking at himself in the mirror as he left the bathroom part of his suite.

“Ella’s pregnant.” He finally said what mattered most and choked up.

He was ashamed. She’d told him to let Ella go.

“I know. You’re going to see the announcement in this morning’s High Risk report. She sent in a notice by email early this morning. She’ll be taking a leave from the team after the baby is born.”

His mother’s voice. Speaking a full sentence to him. He’d begun to think he’d never hear that sound again. Tears filled his eyes, and he felt like a fool.

“It’s mine.”

“I wondered.”

He stood at the French doors in his room, looking out at the artificially lit garden beyond his balcony. The sun had not yet risen. “It was one night,” he said, his hand squeezing the back of his neck. “Jeff is having anger issues. You know Chloe, the cook at the Stand. She’s his wife. She left him until he gets help.”

She’d have seen all the paperwork regarding Chloe. Approved everything on his behalf.

It was all so damned complicated.

“I didn’t believe Ella at first when she told me how Jeff had been treating Chloe. Ella asked me to look into it. We ended up spending a weekend at a cabin on the lake, all four of us. It seemed like Chloe and Jeff were going to be fine. I drank more than normal. Left the cabin. Was going to spend the night outside by myself. Then Ella came out.”

“You loved her once.”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“More than ever.”

“How does she feel?”

“I think she loves me. I’m afraid she’s never going to love anyone else. But she doesn’t want a relationship any more than I do. She’s been hurt too much. She knows my limitations.”

“What limitations? Have you done something, Brett?”

“No! Come on, Ma. You know every move I make. You know how I live, what food is in my fridge, what flight I’m on and probably what I order from room service since you do the expense accounts.”

“So what limitations?” She was his mother. And she wasn’t. She was something ethereal. Not real. Like talking to an angel in a dream.

“She calls it my inability to be all in. I call it being accountable to the dangers that lurk within me.”

“So you have them?”

“I’m sure I do.”

“Have you felt the burning rage?”

“I think so.” The night he’d thought Ella was being accosted. “I don’t let myself get that emotionally invested,” he said now. And then he told her about the tension that had built within him during his marriage. A tension that had had him snapping at Ella more often than not after they’d found out she was pregnant. The nightmares that had felt so real to him.

“Did you ever feel like hitting her?”

“No. Unlike Dad, I got out before it got to that point.”

“Burning rage doesn’t listen to reason.”

Which was what made it so frightening.

He had so much to tell her. To ask her. And was afraid that every sentence she uttered might be followed by a click.

“Can I see you?” If they could just sit down. Have a real talk. If he could give her a hug and tell her—

“No. Nothing’s changed, son.”

“You’re talking to me.”

“I just found out you’re going to be a father. I thought you might have issues with that.”

Okay. He got the parameters now. It was a start.

“I do.”

“Can I help?”

Yeah, come into my life. Meet the mother of my child. Be a grandmother.

Thinking of Ella reminded him of that horrible conversation when she’d asked him his true feelings about the first time she’d been pregnant. He’d told her about his father being a wonderful father all those years...

“Were there signs, Ma? Before Livia got sick? Every memory I have of Dad back then is good.”

“He was a good father, Brett.”

“And a good husband.”

“As good as he could be.”

“What does that mean? Are you telling me he hit you when I was little? How could I not have known that?”

“No, son. He didn’t. But he’d fly into rages. Say horrible things. Call me names. Threaten to leave me. He told me once that he understood his father’s need to hit something.”

“I never heard any of it.”

“Because I learned his triggers. Learned how to manage them.”

“Manage them?”

“I’d get you kids out of the house. Or I’d leave a room, and he’d follow me.”

“This was before Livia got sick? Why’d you stay with him, then?”

“A lot of reasons. I loved him, for one. I understood that he was only spewing what had been spewed at him. I knew he didn’t mean any of it. He’d scream obscenities, accusing me of all kinds of horrible things, and I’d hear the translation, you know, it would go something like, ‘Help, I’m feeling in over my head here. I’m afraid I’m not good enough for you. As smart as you. I’m bad and you’re going to leave me. I need to know you love me.’ He also acknowledged afterward that he’d been wrong. He’d beg me to forgive him and promised that he’d learn to keep his mouth closed when he started to feel like he was losing control.”

He’d never known. “How could a kid live in a house with that going on and not know?”

“It didn’t happen often.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“He was just as you remember. A great father. A good provider. And for the most part, my best friend.”

“So what are my chances?” Might as well just put the problem right out on the table.

“They are what you make them, Brett.”

“You told me to let her go.”

“Because you weren’t going to marry her.”

“Do you think I should?”

“Only you can know that.”

“What would make you proud of me?” What the hell? Where had that come from?

“Ah, Brett. You are above and beyond anything I could have ever hoped to produce. It goes way beyond pride, son. You make me a better person just by getting up in the morning and taking the next breath. I can’t tell you what to do because I don’t know the answer. But there’s one thing I do know.”

“What’s that?”

“Whatever choice you make, you’ll make it for the right reasons.”

“I love you, Ma.”

“I love you, too, son.”

“Will you call again?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

He’d known her answer before she gave it.

There were some things that would never change.

* * *

ELLA WAS AT work Monday, eating crackers for lunch, when her pager went off.

She’d had her first checkup with the obstetrician. Everything looked perfect. She could expect to give birth to a healthy son or daughter in thirty weeks.

Other than Ella’s medical history, the doctor didn’t know the circumstances of the baby’s conception.

Ella didn’t share them with her. There was no need.

Rounding the corner into the B pod, the area to which she’d been paged, she expected to see a nurse there waiting for her.

Instead, it was Jason. Standing with a charting tablet.

“How are you?” he asked, his glance more intimate than she’d have expected.

“Good.” She smiled. Because she was going to have a baby. She was being given a new life. One she desperately wanted.

“I’ve been...well, thinking...” He looked down at the tablet, dropped his hand, tablet dangling at his side, and said, “Did you speak to the baby’s father?”