PART IV

September 13, 2010

"Daddy, can I go outside and play with Amanda?" May asks, her brown eyes
pleading with me. I've kept her in the house for two days now while I wait for
the phone to ring and she's getting restless. I look out the French doors at the
backyard and the rain storm that's about two seconds away.

"I'm sorry, Luv. I don't think today is a good day for playing outside. How
about you and I do something indoors."

The words are barely out of my mouth and I see the first band pour across the
yard before it pelts against the window panes, blurring my view with heavy
rivulets of rain. It flows down the window and puddles near the bottom of the
door. I hope it doesn't leak this time. I never bothered to fix it even when
Sarah complained . . .

Sarah is out there in this. He bloody well better take good care of her. I rest
my head against the glass and shut my eyes. I can hear thunder rumble in the
distance and May pulls on my hand.

"Daddy? Mommy is going to come home, right?" she asks, her voice so soft and
sweet that my heart wants to break.

"Yes, your mum will be coming home," I say, squeezing her small hand in mine.
But then what? What the hell are we going to do about this mess? I look at May's
fingers as they rest on my palm. They look like her mother's. Everything about
May looks just like her mother. I used to joke that I took no part in creating
our child. Just look at her. She's Sarah all over.

Those notes. There was only one more after that flurry that led up to August and
then they stopped for a long time. After years of trying, Sarah got pregnant
with our daughter that month . . .

The world starts spinning around me and I kneel down, pulling my little girl
into my arms and holding her tight. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't. She
looks at me with the startled confusion that only a six year old can posses and
I want to start crying but I hold all the tears back. This is my daughter. Mine
and Sarah's. The rest just doesn't matter. I love her more than anything on
earth and I want her mum to come home so she's happy.

Besides that, I want her home. Despite everything else, I want her to be alive
and well.

***************

October 21, 2003

I stand outside of Harm's office, waiting for him to get done with his phone
call. The woman in his office is listening intently and if he doesn't end this
phone call soon so I can ask him something, I'm never going to make it.

I've spent the last month trying to convince myself that this overwhelming
nausea is just my unsettled nerves. My stomach is a mess due to fear of being
caught. Fear of someone looking at us as we opposed each other in court and
figuring out what we did. I felt it had to be obvious. The way his mouth would
turn up at the corners in a guilty smile when one of his objections was
sustained. The way I struggled to not look at him when he did his closing
arguments but found myself watching everything he did with his hands. The way he
held his arms. The way he moved around slowly and deliberately, trying to put
everybody at ease. It didn't work on me. There was too much to be uneasy about.
He would turn to me and I would squirm in my seat.

He would never mention it in the workplace but I could see that thing in his
eyes. That same look I saw when I left him at his plane.

They couldn't all be that blind, could they? Everybody had to see it. Could Mic
tell? If he could, he never said a word.

I quelled that feeling sometime near the beginning of October. It wasn't written
all over our faces. No one had come and stitched a scarlet 'A' on the front of
my uniforms. That look in his eyes started to fade the longer we avoided
discussing what had happened and the longer we avoided it happening again.

I began to suspect that Harm met someone else in the last week or so. What in
the hell do I mean by 'else?' We aren't dating. We aren't married. Or at least
not to each other. He met someone. It's as simple as that. When we were alone
together in Cape May, I told him I couldn't expect him to remain committed to
this relationship now. Not when I was the one who was bound by marriage. My
heart hurt saying the words, but what could I do? I have a feeling I'm about to
meet her. I just didn't imagine this day would come so soon. I guess with Harm I
should have known better.

"Mac, come on in," Harm says with a smile when he hangs up the phone. This time,
his smile isn't directed at me. "Robin, this is Col. Sarah MacKenzie. Col.
MacKenzie, this is Det. Robin Farnell. She's with the DC Police Department and
she's helping out on the Dryer case."

The woman sitting in his office turns around in her chair and offers me her
hand.

"Robbie. Usually people call me Robbie," she says with a pleasant smile. Her
honey brown hair is done up in a tidy French braid and her blue eyes twinkle up
at me. "It's nice to finally meet you. Commander Rabb has told me so much about
you."

"Has he? Then I guess you better call me Mac," I say, staring Harm down. He
casts his eyes toward the surface of his desk and he opens and closes a file.
How much have you really told her, Harm? I'm sure you haven't told her
everything. I feel my stomach begin to churn again and I don't really know how
to make a polite exit so I can go puke.

"You okay, Mac?" Harm asks when he looks back up at me.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I just needed to talk to you about the Keller trial, but since
you're busy . . . " I say, waiting for him to tell me he's not busy. Waiting for
him to do something different than what he would have done before we went to
Cape May. Willing for him to put me first for a change.

"Okay. I'll come by in a while," he says, looking back to Det. Farnell.

"Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it myself," I say, backing up out of
his office slowly.

"Okay," he says, his eyes looking up at me again for just a second. Something
flickers through them. That look I wanted to drown in not too long ago. But
before I can even start to fall in, he tempers it with a blink and now stares at
me with expressionless eyes. Has he practiced this just for my benefit? "Are you
sure you're all right?"

"I'm . . . I'm okay. If you'll excuse me, um, nice to meet you Robbie," I say,
turning around on my heel as quickly as I can, hoping like hell I can make it to
the bathroom in time.

I fly into the women's room and slam the stall door behind me, fumbling with the
lock before I fall onto my knees before the toilet. Damn. This has got to be
more than just nerves. A lot more. Fuck.

This is bigger than just 'fuck.' There is no word befitting the situation I've
gotten myself into. I've known for a while. I've missed my period but blamed
that on nerves, too. I knew better. I just didn't want to recognize it because .
. . I just don't. Kneeling here on the cold floor in front of the toilet, I
still don't want to recognize this for what it is.

The smell of the whatever they scrub the floors with makes me even sicker and if
I don't get up, I'll just be here dry heaving for hours. I somehow make it to my
feet again, my stomach aching more now than it did before. I wash my face and
rinse out my mouth, the taste of the water almost enough to make me throw up
again. I have a toothbrush and toothpaste in my office. I'm going to need it
since I can't talk to anyone smelling like this. I have to be in court in less
than an hour. How am I ever going to make it?

I step back, looking at myself in the mirror. My eyes are still tearing and I
wipe at them with the back of my hand, smearing whatever make-up survived my
vomiting and the following rinse with water. I look like hell. I feel like hell.
Those few days were not worth all this. No one is worth this.

I look down at the tile floor because I don't want to face my reflection. I'm
lying to myself. I wouldn't trade those days for anything. Even if the guilt
kills me now, it was what I wanted for years. Now I have to live with the
consequences.

Walking out of the bathroom, I find Harm standing there outside the door. He's
leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. I can't tell if
he looks more worried or bothered. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this.


"You didn't have to follow me. I'm really okay," I say, standing far enough away
from him so he won't be able to smell the sickness on my breath.

"I wasn't following you. I walked Det. Farnell to the elevator and I noticed you
still hadn't come out of there," he says, the expression in eyes floating
somewhere between plain concern for a friend and something more. "Are you okay?"

Of course he didn't follow me. When has he ever followed me? He was just walking
the latest 'girlfriend' to the elevator. I wonder when he's ever going to tell
me? I wonder when I'm ever going to tell him? It's not one of those things you
can hide forever.

"I said I'm okay. Really, it's just a touch of the flu or something."

"Again?" he asks, remembering all too clearly our trip to the USS Harry Truman.
I looked as bad then as I do now. The only difference is it really was the touch
of the flu then.

"Yes, again," I say and he looks so damn relieved that I could punch him in the
gut so he could feel like I do right now.

"We need to talk," he says, his eyes looking away from me. I can't take this
anymore. I start to walk away from him.

"Make an appointment," is all I say.

**********************

October 22, 2003

"So, what do you do for fun, Commander Rabb?" Robin asks me as she breaks the
police tape sealing the door and escorts me to the crime scene. It seems like a
strange question to be asking considering we are entering the scene of a double
homicide.

"Call me Harm," I remind her again. She just smiles as I pass her and go into
the small apartment that used to be rented out by Master Chief Dryer. At least
it was until he came home on leave and allegedly killed his family and tried to
throw them out with the trash.

"Okay, Harm," she says, trying the light switch. It does nothing. They must have
turned the electricity off already. No wonder it's so cold in here. It was a
chilly autumn week here in DC and I've spent most of it out of JAG headquarters
investigating this case. The one time this week I met Robin out of uniform, she
had no problem calling me Harm. Put the uniform on and she's all official. I
wonder if her family was military?

"You didn't answer my question," she says as she opens the blinds, letting
sunlight cascade into this grim room. Everything is still covered in a fine
layer of powder from the crime scene technicians and the blood splatters against
the dining room wall are all mapped out.

"Should I not touch anything?" I ask before I take another step.

"Go ahead. The technicians have done their job and gathered all the prints they
could. Not much here," she says, leaning against the arm of the couch and
crossing her arms over her chest. She's still waiting for my answer to her
question. I try not to pay any attention to her eyes following me around the
room. She's a consummate investigator. I've had women guess most everything
about me in a matter of minutes in my past and she's no different. Except for
what I do for fun.

"What do you think I do for fun?" I ask, waiting for her response before I go
investigate other rooms.

"I think you are an escapist. Whatever you do takes you as far away from here as
you can get," she says. I look at her and focus on her blue eyes as she thinks
about more to say. Her eyes are alive as she tries to figure me out. No wonder
she's good at her job. She never stops thinking.

"Why would you say that?" I ask, moving into the tiny kitchen area. She gets up
and follows me.

"The wings mean something, don't they?" she says nodding her head at my uniform.


"They mean I'm a naval aviator," I say, opening the refrigerator and closing it
again quickly as the smell of rotting food escapes. We both leave the room and
the rank odor behind.

"But yet, you are a lawyer," she says, cocking her head to the side.

"It's a long story."

"Which you are going to tell me about when we go out on Saturday," she says. She
certainly isn't shy about anything. "You aren't doing anything on Saturday, are
you?"

"I don't know," I say, diverting my eyes from her questioning glance. Instead I
stare at the blood spatters on the wall, now dried to a gruesome color of
red-brown. Saturday is my birthday. There was only one person I wanted to spend
my birthday with. I just didn't expect to meet someone like Robin. I also wasn't
expecting the total lack of contact and communication I've had with Mac since
our weekend in Cape May. I never thought it would be a one time thing. I guess I
might have been wrong.

"I thought you didn't have a girlfriend," she says. She's standing beside me,
not bothered at all by what happened here. Naturally, she wouldn't be. She saw
it all when it was fresh and the bodies of Dryer's wife and her elderly mother
where still here, wrapped in Hefty bags. This is nothing compared to that.

"I don't," I say.

"But . . ."

"But what?" I ask, moving my cover from under one arm to the other nervously.

"You don't but . . . I know I heard a but in there somewhere," she says, moving
in front of me. She looks up at me and brushes back a strand of light brown hair
that escaped from the clip she has it all pulled back in.

"I don't," I say again. How could I call her my girlfriend when she's married to
someone else? When she tells me to make an appointment to see her? Lover?
Ex-lover? I don't even know. I let out a deep sigh that Robin doesn't miss.

"She broke your heart, didn't she?" Robin asks. She puffs into her hands before
shoving them into the pocket of her jacket and rocks back on her heels waiting
for my answer.

"No, I think it's the other way around," I say, moving away from her and looking
into the last room I have to check. This place is so tiny. One bedroom. One
bath. The mother-in-law slept on the couch. Dryer told the police he was used to
the open sea and this place was too small for his spirit. I've been on carriers
and the living quarters are a lot smaller than this. Thank God it isn't my job
to defend this guy. I'm good but hell, I can only do so much.

"So, if I call you on Saturday, you'll know if you're free?" she asks, not
letting it drop. I'm not sure I want her to drop it. I turn to look at her
again. There is no reason I shouldn't pursue this. I think. Fuck. I don't know
anything right now. She's attractive and available and interested. I'm so damn
tired of going home alone at night knowing Mac is going home to Mic.

"Call me Saturday morning. I'll know by then," I say and she gives me the
brightest smile I've seen from someone in months.

**************

October 23, 2003

Mic holds onto my hand tightly as we wait for the doctor to come back into the
examination room. I did two home pregnancy tests yesterday morning and they both
came out positive. I'm still in denial. Until the doctor says yes, I won't
believe some plastic sticks I bought at Walgreens. I won't believe my heart even
though it already knows the truth.

"I can't believe this, Sarah. After all this time it's finally happening," Mic
says, brushing a kiss on my cheek.

I just nod, still too stunned to say anything to him. "Wait for the doctor."

"Isn't this what you've always wanted?" he asks, tipping my face up to look at
him. Yes. This is what I've always wanted and possibly in more ways than he
could ever know. I fight back another wave of nausea at the thought of what
might be.

"I've always wanted a family," I say, meaning that in a broader sense than just
adding children to our marriage. I never had much of a family, always creating
one wherever I went. Uncle Matt. The Marine Corps. The people I work with at
JAG. More nausea surges forward.

He handed me another note yesterday as I was leaving for the day. Harm wants to
see me tomorrow evening. His birthday is Saturday and I remember him asking me
to spend that day with him. He doesn't honestly think I can get away with
leaving for the whole weekend so soon after the last time? I don't know if
that's his plan. Maybe he'll call and I'll be able to tell him no.

Someone knocks on the door and my doctor enters a few seconds later.

"Good news! It looks like we won't have to go the route with fertility drugs
like we discussed the last time. We're going to have a baby!" Dr. Lori Allen
says, sounding far more excited than I do. I put on a smile and listen as Mic
whoops out in joy.

"That's great, isn't it, Sarah!" Mic says, pulling me into his arms.

"I know you said you missed a few periods and blamed it on your stressful work
situation. Do you remember the first day of you last menstrual cycle?" she asks,
sitting at a little desk and looking through my file.

"July 29th," I say. It was marked on the calendar that Mic and I had been
keeping.

"That long? And you didn't suspect something, Luv?" Mic asks, still holding on
to my hand.

"I, um . . . used to have irregular periods when work would get stressful. I
guess I just didn't believe this was possible," I say, looking down at my feet
dangling off the end of the examination table. It sounds like a weak excuse,
especially since I've been tracking this things methodically for months . . .
years even. But I can't tell him why I really ignored it.

Dr. Allen twists around a little calendar device, trying to figure out the due
date. "The probable date of conception was around August 12th, but you might
have had intercourse 24 to 48 hours earlier. I know some people trying to
conceive keep track of these things better than most."

And then there's people like me who knows exactly what happened that weekend. I
had sex with my husband on Friday and someone else all weekend. Shit. What a
mess. What a goddamn mess.

"And when is our baby due?" Mic asks, his eyes glowing with happiness. I try to
look as happy as he does, but it's a struggle. I'm happy about the baby. It's me
I'm unhappy with.

"Your baby is due May 5, 2004," the doctor says, filling that in on my chart.

"May. That's a beautiful month. And if our baby is a girl, I think it will be a
perfect name," Mic says, resting his hand on my presently flat stomach. I nearly
choke at his name suggestion.

"Mic, we have time to think about it. Don't make a decision here, okay?" I
implore even though I would love the name. He just will never know why.

I have to stop thinking that way. I'm pregnant with my husband's baby.

"Mic, Mac and May. I think it sounds great," he says, staring down at my
abdominal area as if he's imagining it round and full and pregnant. He looks so
happy. I haven't seen him look this happy since I finally accepted his marriage
proposal. Actually, I think he looks happier now. How could I possibly ruin
this? Oh, God, what have I done? It has to be his. It just has to be. She said
it could be. It has to be.

"What if you have a boy?" Dr. Allen asks, turning in her chair to look at us. I
know she has to do an exam yet and I'm dreading it. It will be the first of
many, many more and I've already been through a lot in our quest to get
pregnant.

"We'll name him Matt, after Sarah's uncle," Mic says and I try to smile at him.

Please, God, let it be a boy. One that looks just like Mic.

**************

October 24, 2003

Mac walks toward me, entering the hangar with her arms crossed over her chest.
She looks like hell and has a trench coat wrapped around her. She's still in
uniform and I know she got stuck in a meeting with the Admiral. I checked with
Tiner before I left.

She looks down at all the parts of my airplane lying on the floor of the hangar
and steps around them. She stands on one side of the wing while I stand on the
other, facing each other. It seems like that there's a million miles between us,
not just the span of one airplane wing.

"I guess this means you didn't really plan on going anywhere?" she asks,
sounding relieved.

"You've been sick. I assumed you wouldn't want to," I say, knowing there's more
to it than the flu she can't seem to shake. What am I supposed to say? I figured
we were through.

"And?" she asks.

"And what?" I ask, putting my hands down on the wing of the plane. She digs
something out of her pocket and sets it down near my hands.

"This note says 'Come fly with me' yet we aren't flying anywhere. What's the
matter, Harm?" she asks.

"I wrote that note over a month ago. I, um, couldn't think of anything else to
say in a new one," I say, taking the piece of paper from her. Our fingers brush
for just a second and the slight touch sends a warmth through my body but I
fight the feeling. Instead, I take the little scrap of paper and fold it neatly
into another plane for her. I never asked her what she does with them. Probably
throws them away to avoid discovery.

"She seems nice," Mac says without even attempting to disguise the sadness in
her voice. Does she want me to lie? To tell her I love the way things are
between us and I'll spend forever living with it just like this? We can't keep
waiting for each other forever.

"She is, but she's not you," I say. It's the truth. I like Robin. She's nice.
She's smart. She's not attached to anyone by way of a marriage license. Despite
all that, I feel guilty as hell for even thinking of getting involved with her
right now. After everything that happened with Mac this past August, I'm not
sure what I'm supposed to do. "What do I do, Mac? You tell me what I should do."

"I don't know," she says, her eyes staring at her shiny yellow reflection on the
wing. "It happened, Harm, and we either move forward or dwell on it forever."

"How do we go forward?" I ask, knowing the answer. She leaves this place and
goes back to Mic. I go get involved with a DC homicide detective and we act like
we were never lovers.

She closes her eyes and her face turns ashen. "Excuse me," she manages to say
before she darts across the hangar to the bathroom, leaving me holding a small
paper airplane.

***********

I search the shelf in the bathroom hoping that there's at least a tube of
toothpaste here. I left the toothbrush and toothpaste I take with me everywhere
now out in my car. I thought I could keep what I now know is morning sickness
under control for a few minutes. Morning sickness. What a stupid name. I throw
up whenever my body feels like it.

There's a bottle of Listerine tucked behind a stack of unopened Lava soap boxes
and I settle for it. I swish the minty liquid around my mouth until the taste of
vomit is gone and spit it out in the dirty sink. Luckily, the mouthwash doesn't
make me throw up more.

I have to tell him. I have to tell him and then let him go. There is no other
way this can go. I can't even begin to fathom all the explanations I'll have to
offer if it went some other way. I walk out of here and tell him I'm going home
to Mic. I tell him he should go on with his life. That's the easiest thing to
do. The best thing to do.

I open the door and he's now working on the plane, trying to get it back
together. Maybe he's taking her somewhere tomorrow. It's his birthday. He wanted
to spend his birthday with me and I never made any promises. I just didn't know
then why I wouldn't be able to.

He looks up at me and smiles while I return to the other side of the wing, using
it as a buffer between us. I have no clue what would happen if we were to touch
beyond our fingers brushing together. Just because my head says no, my heart is
still dying to live it all over again. Good thing I feel, look and smell awful.
I'm sure he has moved onto other things.

"What are you doing for your birthday?" I ask, avoiding the inevitable for as
long as I possibly can.

"Robin wanted to do something but I'm not sure . . . I told her I'd let her
know," he says, looking down and away from me. I didn't know it would hurt this
much. I know I told him he couldn't wait around for me just as at one time I
couldn't wait around for him, but it still hurts like hell.

"She seems nice," I say again, not knowing what else I could possibly say.

"Nothing has happened yet, Mac. We haven't even gone out. All we've done is work
on that murder investigation," he says, looking back up to me. He wants me to
tell him what to do. I can't possibly be the only one trying to figure out what
we're supposed to do next. I can't even figure out what I'm supposed to do.

He picks up the little scrap of a paper plane that has been sitting on the wing
this whole time. I stare at his hands as he plays with it, modifying it again
and again to make it fly better. I'm not as interested in the paper as I am in
the hands that hold it. Do those hands want to hold a baby and change diapers?
I'm not even positive whose baby it is. Do I throw everything I have away on a
chance? There's only one way to find out.

"I'm pregnant," I say. The little plane flutters out of his hand and, in what
seems like slow motion, falls and falls until it hits the wing. It got so cold
in here suddenly I'm surprised it didn't shatter into a thousand frozen pieces
upon impact. He takes a step back and the look on his face certainly is nothing
like the look on Mic's face. Damn him to hell for making me decide the future
this way.

"What?" he asks even though I know he heard me. He shakes his head before I can
say anything else. "How long?"

I can sense the panic rising through his body. His face is tense and his eyes .
. . I can't even read his eyes right now. I pick up the tiny plane and hold on
to it, knowing it will probably be the last like it. One way or another, this is
going to end here and now. I look him in the eye and decide that I have to do
what's best for this baby. That's what it comes down to. And what's best is a
stable home with parents who love each other, forsaking all others. I can give
that to this child so easily. I just have to walk away from this.

This baby is all that matters. This baby will not pay for the mistakes of his or
her parents.

"I was already pregnant when we went to Cape May. I just didn't know it," I say
because it could be the truth and relief washes across his face. His shoulders
drop as all the tension vanishes from his body and then he closes his eyes.
Probably to say a silent prayer of thankfulness.

"Congratulations," he mumbles, not opening his eyes yet. "To both of you. Or all
three of you."

He slowly opens his eyes and concentrates on my abdominal region. I will him to
ask the right questions. To make the same speculations about how this could have
happened as I did. If he is, he's not saying anything. Maybe he just believes
me. Maybe he doesn't want it any other way. Maybe I don't either.

"I need to get home," I say, my fingers wrapped tightly around the little scrap
of paper. He just nods at me, his face still a mixture of shock and relief. I
want him to ask me to stay, to ask me how I knew I was pregnant when we were
last together. He does neither. "Have a happy birthday. Call her. Go on with
your life, Harm."

He still just nods. I can barely speak the words and he can't speak at all. "I,
uh, will. Thanks. Drive carefully, okay?" he instructs and I smile just a
little.

"Yeah, I will. Goodnight," I say, turning around and going back to the rest of
my life.

**************