Cold River

"You got it, babe," he told her almost bruskly before ending the call.

Sutton's thoughts now turned to wondering whether she was carrying a boy or a girl and how this child's arrival would both change and enrich not only her life but her husband's as well. She was determined to follow every recommendation from her doctor to the letter, and this time, nothing was going to derail this pregnancy. Yes, she knew mother nature had a way of derailing many things in life, but if that happened, it wouldn't be due to her negligence, and she would try, try again until she was finally holding a beautiful baby in her arms.

Since moving to Cold River, Sutton's interest in sex had returned in full, and both she and her husband were enjoying that very important benefit of the move on a regular basis. And now that she was pregnant again, she was determined to keep her husband happy as much as she was looking forward to their lovemaking herself.

Nothing else mattered to her now. The past was the past and even the affair was behind them. In just eight short months, they would finally be parents and Sutton Davis couldn't wait!

"Rough day?" she asked during dinner when Scott seemed rather disinterested.

"Oh. Yeah. Really bad. The presentation bombed and I pretty much got my ass handed to me. That's the first and last time that's ever gonna happen," he told her.

Without looking up he said, "I may have to spend a lot more time at work from now on."

She thought about saying, "You mean even more time," but was so happy she just let it pass.

Sutton dismissed his mood as nothing more than the result of bitter disappointment and did her best to enjoy their less-than-romantic dinner celebration. She wasn't bothered in the least when Scott told her he was exhausted and too tired for sex. She was happy to lay there in bed, her hand on her tummy, thinking about the life that was growing inside of her.

What she didn't know, what she couldn't know, was that Scott's former assistant had paid him a visit at work early that morning. Her presence alone was enough to throw him off his game, but making matters worse, she'd gotten so loud it had attracted the attention of management and ended up in security being called to escort her out of the building.

"This isn't over, Scott!" she called back as they forcibly removed her. "I'm not going away. I told you you can move as many times as you like, but I will find you and I did. And I will have you all to myself!"

Sutton had no idea how close her husband came to being fired. Between the incident with Ashley and his awful presentation, he was very lucky to still have a job. And the most distressing part of it was how just seeing her again had stirred the fires he thought he'd long ago snuffed out.

As his wife lay there dreaming of their child, Scott couldn't shake the image of the younger, beautiful woman who really would quite literally do anything to be with him. Everything had been going so well for him and his wife, and now here she was not only stirring up trouble at work, but stirring up feelings he'd hoped had died.

"Feeling any better?" Sutton asked the next morning as she handed him a cup of coffee with a smile and a kiss.

"Um...yeah. I feel a lot better. Thanks," he said smiling weakly at her.

"I'm really sorry about your presentation yesterday," she told him. "I know there's nothing I can do, but if I can...you know...help you...relax...just let me know, okay?"

Sutton still enjoyed both giving and receiving oral, and she was letting him know she'd be happy to let her husband...release a little pressure...if it would help.

"Thanks, babe. Maybe tonight, okay?" he told her.

"Oh, sure. We can wait," she said happily.

She smiled at Scott then asked cheerfully, "Have you been giving any thought to names?"

"Names?" he asked curtly. "Oh. Sorry. Right. Um...no, not really. Have you come up with one you like yet?"

"No, not any one particular name, but I kind of have four or five for a boy and for a girl floating around in my mind. I thought maybe we could discuss them sometime."

"Yeah. Sure. That sounds great," he said almost absentmindedly before setting the cup down and heading to the bathroom to shower and get ready for work.

Scott not only didn't want to discuss names that evening, he eventually made it clear he was having a difficult time again with the thought of his wife carrying the child of another man.

"This sounds all-too familiar, Scott. I clearly remember asking you about how you felt with regard to this very thing before we moved to Cold River, and you assured me it didn't matter. But suddenly it does?" Sutton asked without anger. "How does that happen?"

"I don't know. It's just hard to accept that the child you're bringing into the world won't be mine," he said tersely.

"But it will be, Scott. It'll be yours and mine. The baby will be ours. No one else will ever know and I certainly don't care. You're my husband, and you will be the baby's father. Period," she said as supportively as she could.

"Yeah, except that I won't. I'll never see my eyes or my chin or my...anything when I look at this kid," he told her without looking at her.

Sutton sat next to her husband then said, "Honey. I asked you for two assurances before agreeing to move here. Was the affair over and could you accept using so-called other options to get pregnant. You told me it was over and that you'd be okay with this method of getting pregnant. After all we've been through, after so many years of trying and the frustrations and hurt feelings...and the affair...how can you just do a 180 like this? Help me understand, okay?"

"You want the world to be black and white, Sutton. Everything has to fit into nice, neat little boxes. But that's not how life works. It's...messy. Things are complicated. Feelings and priorities change. Why is that so hard for you to understand?" he said with a heavy dose of annoyance.

"I understand all of that, and I agree with you except that when it comes to making commitments, people have to follow through in order for others to be able to trust them. Marriage is a commitment. It's a contract. We made vows, Scott. Vows. And you gave me your word on this. I'm sorry, but that means something to me, and I thought it did to you, too."

Sutton looked right at her husband then said, "Does it?"

She knew her words were resonating because he'd said very similar things himself many times over the years. The difference seemed to be that she believed them and tried to live by them, while they were little more than slogans for her husband.

When he didn't answer she asked another question.

"Can you tell me Ashley is out of your life? Completely out?"

In the past, her heart would have been pounding in a kind of sick anticipation of his answer, and she'd have nauseous as she dreaded hearing it. But this time, she only wanted to know. She'd had it with feeling depressed. The sulking, the self-pity, the sense that her life was meaningless and worst of all, that her happiness depended on what her husband thought or said. All of that was behind her now. So even if his affair wasn't, her days of worrying about Scott were.

"I don't want to talk about this right now," was his reply.

"Is that because there's something to talk about?" Sutton asked calmly but directly.

"What do you want me to say, Sutton? What is it you expect from me? I'm a man, for Christ's sake! A human being with needs. Someone who isn't perfect...like you," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Me? Scott, I'm anything but perfect. I'm very aware of all of my many flaws, and I'm willing to admit there are probably plenty more I'm not aware of. But I don't hide behind them to justify doing whatever I feel like doing. I've never broken our vows. I've never cheated on you. I've been honest about everything from what I want to how I feel about us. All I'm asking is for you to do the same. Is that too much?"

Still not looking at her, Scott said, "I can't do this anymore."

"This?" she said seeking clarification.

"Yeah. This. I can't sit her and pretend I'm okay with you being pregnant with another man's child. I can't pretend all is well with you and me when every time I see you I picture you giddy with happiness over having some other man's cum placed inside you. And I can't pretend I'm happier with a 36-year old woman than I am with one who's 22 and who isn't obsessed with babies and nurseries and getting pregnant, for Christ's sake!!!"

His voice rose with each sentence and by the time he finished speaking he was yelling as loudly as Sutton had ever heard.

"Then why are you still here with me?" she asked quietly. "I want this baby. I want this child. I'm finally happy and I know what I want. I thought you were happy, too. Clearly you're not. You're miserable and you're angry so why are you here, Scott?"

Her husband's head was hanging down, his forearms resting on his thighs as he looked at the hardwood floor.

"I don't know," he finally said.

He looked up and then at his wife and told her, "I really don't know. Habit maybe? Weakness? Fear? Some kind of character defect that causes me to say one thing and do another? Hell, I don't know."

"I'm not going to fall back into depression if you leave, Scott. It won't be easy, but I would much rather live alone than live with someone who resents me for doing what we agreed we would do. And it's very clear to me that you deeply resent me. It's also becoming clear that you don't even really love me. I have no idea whether you're in love with Ashley or not, but you don't love me. And I don't want to waste one more day living with a man who doesn't love me, let alone one who resents me," she said.

Sutton was amazed at how calm she felt and how easily she'd just said those words. They were honest and heartfelt and spoken without anger or malice.

"I'll find someplace to live first thing in the morning," he told her. "And I'll sleep on the couch tonight."

As he stood up, Sutton told him, "I should hate you, Scott, or at least be angry. But I'm not. In fact, I feel sorry for you. I also feel sorry for Ashley who's too young to see beyond your handsome exterior and that disarming smile of yours. She probably thinks you're this amazing guy who's going to be there for here for better or for worse. I guess we all have to learn the hard way, huh?"

And with that, she also stood up then headed upstairs to bed.

Sutton not only didn't cry, she slept soundly as her focus was on the child she was carrying, on making new friends in this new place, and on being the best mother she could possibly be. One day she might possibly find someone whom she could love and trust the way she'd always dreamed of. But for now, the man she'd once trusted and then forgiven had just let her know he no longer even loved her, so for now, she would live alone and learn to be strong for her and for her child.

Scott moved out the following morning barely saying two words to his wife beyond mumbling he was very sorry and that she should get an attorney of her own.

That afternoon, Sutton began looking for one, and by the end of the week felt very comfortable with a divorce lawyer from a very solid firm in Cold River. He was about her age, friendly, and aggressive. She let him know she didn't want anything she wasn't entitled to, but she wanted to make sure she wasn't taken advantage of and those were the 'marching orders' she gave him.

Six months later, Sutton Davis was a single woman and very pregnant although her weight gain was rather modest. She was not only taking her pre-natal vitamins and eating as healthy a diet as she possibly could, she was exercising five days a week and felt better than she had since before marrying Scott. Scott, who was already engaged to his beautiful new girlfriend with heavy emphasis on the word 'girl'.

Sutton no longer cared what her ex-husband did, but she found it hard to imagine marrying someone so much younger. She understood the physical attraction, but beyond that, and that would undoubtedly wear off, what did they have in common? What values did they share? What life experiences could they talk about that they'd both lived through?

Sutton concluded that was her ex-husband's problem. For her part, she still wasn't ready to even think about looking for another husband, but when she did, she hoped to find someone a lot like the lawyer who'd represented her so well. A well-educated professional who was not only handsome but smart, funny, and someone who cared about the same things she did. He certainly wasn't 'the one' as he was married to a very beautiful woman, but whenever she was ready to start looking again, that was the kind of man she hoped to find.

That said, money wasn't the issue when it came to finding someone. Having money made many things easier, but as she'd learned the hard way, having it most certainly did not bring happiness. So were she able to find someone who had the character and moral values she valued, there was no need for him to be wealthy or anything close to it.

In the meantime, she'd made friends with her attorney's wife who'd then introduced her to quite a few other women who were married to other lawyers in the firm. They were all smart, professional women and yet so many of them seemed...empty. It was as though they were going through the motions the way she had for so many years, and that was a very troubling thought as she was forced to ask herself if that's the way most marriages were.

She was mature enough to know marriage wasn't a 24/7 exercise in bliss-filled happiness. It was hard work and required constant management even in the best of cases. But it seemed like it shouldn't be that difficult, and yet her own experience and that of her new friends told her that perhaps it was. Perhaps she wasn't as smart of as mature as she thought. Perhaps all marriages began to stagnate after the honeymoon was over and settled down to be little more than daily routines and endless lists of things needing to be done.

And yet a part of her refused to believe that was the case. If both partners were committed to being the right kind of people, and if they both worked hard at staying in love, there had to be exceptions to the rule. If not, why would she ever consider entering into another marriage only to have it end up flatlining after a few short years of modest happiness on the front end?

For now, she was so close to her due date that she couldn't afford to spend time thinking negative thoughts. She chose instead to continue to focus on her baby, a little girl as she'd learned not too many weeks after her husband walked out, and Sutton couldn't wait to finally hold her in her arms.

The day her daughter was born was the happiest of Sutton's life. Her mother, Ida, had flown in to help her the last two weeks of her pregnancy, and that only added to her joy. Then again, having named her daughter Brianna Joy, it was only fitting that she experience some of her own.

The day after she came home from the hospital, Sutton and her mother were talking and her mom asked her, "Do you ever think about who Brianna's father is, honey?"

For a subject that had created so much heartache for her, Sutton had to admit she did think it about fairly often.

"I know this is all very confidential, Sutton, but it just seems like it would be nice to have that information. You know, just in case."

As a new parent, Sutton knew all about 'just in case' stuff like wondering what she'd do if her daughter ever needed a kidney or a bone marrow transplant and the one person who might be able to save her life was the anonymous donor she couldn't contact.

"You know, Mom, I didn't care about that at all when I chose Brianna's donor...gee, that sounds so cold, doesn't it?" Sutton said cutting herself off.

"Anyway, the donor I chose elected to be non-anonymous. I suppose in the back of my mind I may have been thinking about some of the things I think about rather often now, but back then, there were so many other more important factors that that didn't matter very much to me."

"Wait. Are you saying not all donors are anonymous? I thought that was a requirement to donate," her mother said.

"No. It's voluntary. I don't know about all states, but here, a donor can select 'anonymous' or 'non-anonymous'. The election is permanent, though. Or at least that's what I was led to believe."

"Oh, my heavens! Have you given any thought to trying to maybe find out who he is?"

"Until just now, no. Not really, anyway. But now that you mention it, yes, I...I'm very interested in finding out."

"So...how does one go about finding out?" her mom asked as the two of them got very excited about possibly learning who Brianna's father is.

"I'm just concerned about interfering in his life, you know? What if he's engaged or married and this stirs up all kinds of problems for his wife or girlfriend?" Sutton offered.

"Good point, honey. I know how difficult this was for your ex-husband...that...lying, cheating, bastard," she said shaking her head as she spat out the words.

"Mom!" Sutton said, surprised by her mother's choice of words she'd never heard her use before.

"Well, he is," she said confidently. "He agreed to the procedure then acted like an immature little boy. As far as I'm concerned—good riddance!"

"I won't argue with you, there, Mom. It's just so sad, you know?"

"You're better off without him, Sutton."

Ida stopped talking, and Sutton knew she wanted to say something so she asked her to go ahead and say it.

"Well, what about you? Don't you want a father for your daughter? I know single mothers can and do raise children all the time and many do a great job. But it's so much easier and so much better for the child to have two loving parents."

She put her hand on Sutton's arm then asked, "Am I being too nosey?"

"No, of course not, Mom. You can ask me anything. I don't know. Eventually, maybe. I prefer being married to living alone, but if it has to be with someone like Scott then I'd rather stay single."

"I agree, sweetheart. I loved your father with all my heart and when he died, I thought I'd die, too. But I will never get remarried just to have someone around. I may be 62, but I still want love and romance and if that's not an option, I have a ton of friends, lots of hobbies, and a beautiful daughter who now has the most beautiful daughter of her own!"

"She is pretty amazing, isn't she?" Sutton gushed. "Let's go look in on her!"

"Oh, definitely!" her mom said hardly able to wait to just go watch her granddaughter sleep. And why wouldn't she? It was obvious Brianna was a very talented girl and could sleep better than any baby ever had. Except that she wasn't asleep. She was still wide awake and laying there happily looking up at the carousel hanging down.

As they looked at the tiny bundle of joy looking back up at them, Sutton's mom asked, "You have hazel-colored eyes, honey, and Scott's are brown. Brianna's are blue."

"Yes, they are, and I knew that about the don...her father...going in."

"Tell me about him, Sutton. What else do you know about him?"

"Well, let's see," Sutton said before sharing every detail she could remember with her mother.

"That's very young," he mom said.

"Yes, but I was hoping a younger man might somehow offer better genes or something, you know?"

Her mom smiled then said, "I honestly don't know how all that works. I only know you did great, sweetheart. I mean, just look at her! Isn't she the most beautiful baby ever?"

"Yes, she is," her daughter agreed as she stared into Brianna's beautiful, bright, blue eyes.

Nothing more was said about trying to learn the identity of Brianna's father while Sutton's mom was in town, but after she left two weeks later, it started becoming a bit of an obsession with her.