The Truth Comes Out

Seth's fifth birthday was in the middle of June, and we had a party for him at the pizza place with the arcade. I invited Cara, his cousins Rachelle and Duncan, the Shikov children, and several others. Fortunately, Maxim and I were both able to get the day off, so we loaded the kids into the car and drove to the restaurant. Seth was so excited that he did a little dance in the parking lot before we went in.

Andy arrived with Jane. "I'm this many old now!" Seth told them, holding up five fingers.

"Wow, you're getting to be a big boy!" Jane exclaimed.

"I'm gonna be in kindergarten next year," Seth told her.

Roberta arrived looking slightly pale, with Cara in tow. "How are you?" I asked her.

"I'm having a little trouble with morning sickness, but other than that, I'm fine," she told me.

"I can sympathize," I replied. "I got a lot sicker with Morgan than I did with Seth, but I've always heard that you get sicker with girls than with boys."

"I think for me it's about the same as last time, so I must be having another girl," she said.

Penny came with Rachelle and Duncan. "They've both grown so much," she said when she saw Seth and Morgan. "Jason would have been so proud of them." I didn't say anything because I didn't want to spoil Seth's special day.

Our waitress, a teenage girl named Ashlynn, arrived then to take our order. She was just bringing our pizzas to the table when Erin hurriedly dashed in with Toni, Sonya, and Mason. "Sorry I'm late," she said. "Sonya couldn't decide what dress to wear, Yuri smashed his thumb with the hammer, and then I couldn't find my car keys. It was just one thing right after another for us this morning."

"That's all right," I told her. "I'm just glad you could make it."

Several minutes of mayhem followed as the kids grabbed for the kind of pizza they wanted. I knew that Morgan probably wouldn't eat much pizza, so I'd brought along some macaroni and cheese for her. We were about halfway through the meal when Sonya started crying.

"What is it, sweetie?" asked Erin.

"My tooth really hurts, Mommy!" Sonya wailed.

"Well..." Erin looked undecided.

"If you want to take Sonya to the dentist, I can take care of Toni and Mason until you get back," I offered.

"I'll see if Yuri's home," Erin decided. "If he is, could you please just keep an eye on them until he can get here?"

"Sure, no problem."

"Thanks so much!"

"Anytime," I replied.

She left with Sonya, and Yuri arrived about twenty minutes later. I noticed that his thumb was heavily bandaged. "Are the kids all right?" he asked me.

"They're both fine," I told him.

"Thanks so much for watching them," he said.

"It was no problem at all," I replied.

Yuri's eyes met Maxim's, and soon the two of them were busily chatting away in Russian. Ashlynn brought Seth's birthday cake with its five candles to the table. She lit them, and Seth blew them out and everybody sang 'Happy Birthday' to him.

After that Seth opened his presents, and then the party degenerated into a frenzy of eating cake and running around playing and making noise. Morgan got cranky and fell asleep in Maxim's arms. Eventually the excitement dwindled down and the children and their parents began to leave one by one.

"Thanks again for watching the kids," Yuri said as he left with Toni and Mason.

"Glad to do it," I told him.

Morgan was still fast asleep, and even Seth was getting cranky, so I gathered up all the presents and leftover food and we headed out to the car. When we got home, I hurriedly stripped both kids and put them into the tub and washed all the pizza sauce and cake icing off them. They were both asleep soon afterwards.

"Looks like its just you and me now." Maxim grinned at me. He made us a couple of white Russians and we drank them while watching an erotic movie. Soon we were making out very heavily. Maxim removed my shirt and bra and suckled my nipples until they were hard and aching.

"Do you want it?" He grinned mischievously at me.

"Oh God, yes!" I moaned.

"Then beg me for it," he ordered.

"Please, Daddy!" I felt tears come to my eyes.

"I never could resist you when you look at me that way," he murmured.

He pulled my pants and panties down, threw me over his lap, and began to spank the daylights out of me! Wham! Bang! Pow!

I looked up at him.

"Want some more?" he asked me.

"I don't think I can take anymore!" I cried.

He began to kiss me again, fondling my breasts as he did so. I was writhing and moaning impatiently by the time he finally parted my legs and began to lightly finger my slick folds, then applied his tongue and lips to my most intimate parts.

I came almost as soon as his tongue hit my most sensitive spot, and I arched my back as I bit down on my bottom lip to keep from crying out his name and awakening the kids.

I lay back on the sofa, and he entered me. "Maxim!" I protested.

"Oh, yeah." Suddenly remembering that he'd forgotten the condom, he dashed into the bedroom, and I followed. Within moments we were on the bed, making love vigorously.

Sometime before dawn, I returned to the living room and gathered up our discarded clothing before the kids could awaken and and find it.

On the fourth of July we went downtown to watch the fireworks. We were sitting on the curb watching people walk past when suddenly a stroller appeared and I saw that it was being pushed by Trina, and that Dora and her daughter were with her.

"Baby!" Morgan crowed at the sight of the sleeping infant, and before I could stop her, she'd ran up to the stroller and stood gazing at Trina's son.

"No! Morgan, come back!" I exclaimed, but before I could reach her, Maxim's long legs already had. Quickly he scooped her up and carried her back to where we were sitting.

"Baby?" Morgan primped up and looked as if she were about to cry.

"I know, sweetie, but it isn't our baby," I gently told her.

"Tell you what," said Maxim. "Tomorrow I'll take you shopping, and you can pick out whatever baby you want."

Morgan grinned, and I looked gratefully at my husband. I knew that she already had plenty of dolls, but if it would make her happy again, I was all for it.

The fireworks didn't end until late at night, and the traffic on the way home was terrible. After we finally got there, Maxim and I were too tired to do anything but tumble into bed and fall right to sleep.

Morgan's second birthday was a couple of weeks later. Since she was still so young, we just had a small party and invited a few close family members. I bought her a cake with Minnie Mouse decorations and got vanilla ice cream to go with it and, since it was a nice day, we all ate outside. I dressed Morgan up in her sailor dress with lacy white socks and red patent leather shoes, and Maxim took lots of photographs.

After the kids went to bed that night, Maxim chased me into our bedroom. I ran around the bed, but he ran around in the opposite direction and caught me.

"Come here, you naughty little girl," he growled.

"Are you gonna punish me?" I whimpered.

"You better believe it!" He tore down my pants and wore my behind out with his hand. I was howling for mercy by the time he was finished.

Several weeks after Morgan's birthday, I was fast asleep when I heard Maxim come into the bedroom and switched on the bedside lamp. One look at his face and I knew that something terrible had happened. "What happened?" I asked.

"I just worked a horrible accident." He sat on the side of the bed and began to take his shoes and socks off. "Head-on collision between a Toyota and a Dodge truck. Poor little car was crumpled up just like an accordion."

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. "Was the driver killed?"

"Life flight flew her to the hospital," he told me. "They doubt she'll make it."

I could see in his eyes that there was even more to the story. "And?"

"And..." He sighed heavily. "She's someone we know."

"Who is she?"

"Trina."

She was still alive and hooked up to life support when I went in to work the afternoon shift the next day. She lay in bed in a full body cast, pale and perfectly still. The only sound in the room was the beeping of the equipment.

"You should have seen her when they brought her in last night." I turned to see Misty standing beside me. "She was bleeding all over the place! We had to give her four units of O negative."

"Maxim worked the accident she was in," I told her. "He said the baby wasn't with her."

"Oh, she has a baby?" Misty sounded surprised.

"A little boy only a couple of months old," I replied.

"How sad!" Misty exclaimed. "They don't think she's gonna make it, you know. They're trying to get all her family together."

As I stood listening to the hiss of the ventilator and watching Trina's chest move up and down, memories of the previous fall came rushing back to me. I thought about the night I'd overheard Trina and Dora talking about what had happened to Maxim, how angry I'd felt, the fight I'd had with her, how badly I'd wished I had a weapon with me at the time. The idea of dashing into the room and unplugging all the life support equipment overwhelmed me, but just as quickly, I pushed it away. I knew that I'd never get away with it, and my children needed me with them, not rotting in some jail cell.

As I went about my tasks, I pushed Trina to the back of my mind, and when I left the hospital that night, she was still clinging to life. Maxim was awake when I got home, sitting in the recliner with his arms behind his head, obviously deep in thought. "Is she still alive?" he asked me.

"Just barely."

"I've been thinking," he said. "If she dies, what will happen to her baby?"

"I'm sure one of her family members will take him in, or he'll go into foster care."

"But what about his father?"

I was puzzled. "What do you mean? He'll be school age by the time his father gets out of prison."

"If that guy's really his father."

I felt a cold chill creep up my spine. I knew exactly what he was talking about but didn't want to admit it. "But you told me you used a condom with her!"

"Condoms aren't one hundred percent effective," he reminded me. "There could have been a tiny rip or hole in it, and if so, that might have been enough to get her pregnant. If that baby's really mine, then I'm responsible for him."

I felt my heart sink as I slumped onto the sofa. A moment later, I felt Maxim's arms around me but angrily shrugged them away. "I'm so sorry, Lace," he said. "But you know as well as I do that it's only the right thing to do."

"But what will we tell the children?"

"We'll just tell them that they have a new baby brother and that he's coming to live with us."

"But we don't even have enough room for a third child!"

"Sure we do. We could put the crib in our bedroom for now, and then when he's older, we can move a toddler bed into Seth's room."

"Sounds like you can't wait to have him here." I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice.

"This is a really big if, Lacy. Chances are the DNA won't even be a match."

"You mean you're planning to have your DNA tested?"

"Of course! How else would I find out?"

Maxim went to the lab to have the testing done on his next day off. He wanted me to go with him, but I refused. In fact, we had a huge fight the night before.

"How can you expect me to just cheerfully agree to raising that woman's child as my own?" I spat.

"Am I not raising your two children as my own?" he retorted.

"That's different!"

"How is it different?"

"It just is, that's all!"

"I don't see any difference."

He left for the lab the next day without saying good-bye. We didn't say much to one another for a couple of days, and then on the third day, he came to me and put his arms around me, and this time, I didn't resist him. "Let's not be mad anymore, OK?"

"Yeah." I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder. "When we got back together after your affair with Trina, I knew this was a possibility. I just never imagined that it would happen this way."

"Yeah, me neither." He chuckled. "I'll admit that was probably the biggest mistake of my life. but that little baby is completely innocent. He deserves a real home with people who love him."

That statement made me think. Could I ever love Maxim's child by another woman? I remembered helping with the delivery, how I'd felt when I'd looked into the infant's smoky blue eyes. It had reminded me of how I'd looked into Seth's eyes the first time I'd seen him. I also thought about how good Maxim had always been to Seth and Morgan. He really had treated them as if they were his own.

I didn't have to think about it for very long.

The next day, I was setting the table for dinner when Maxim walked in. The expression on his face told me nothing at all. "The lab just called with the results of the DNA test," he told me.

"And?" I waited breathlessly for his response.

"It wasn't a match. I'm not the father."

"Oh." Waves of relief washed over me. So I wasn't going to be raising Trina's son, after all. At the same time, I felt a twinge of regret mingled with concern. I couldn't help but hope that the baby would end up being raised in a loving home.

"Are you disappointed?" I asked Maxim.

"To be honest, yeah, I am, just a little bit," he admitted. "Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't love Seth and Morgan; I do, with all my heart. It's just that..."

"You want a baby of your own."

"Well, yeah." He came to me and put his arms around me. "What do you say, Lace? I know we were talking about waiting a year or two..."

"Well, until Morgan's out of diapers, at least. Potty training's coming along, slowly but surely, but we've still got a ways to go."

"Yeah." He kissed me lightly on the forehead. "Well, just think about it, OK?"

Trina's condition remained unchanged. One day her nephew, Chad, came in to visit her, alone. "Where's Nancy?" I asked him.

"I'm not seeing her anymore," he told me. "That didn't last very long. To tell you the truth, I still have feelings for Lily. I'd love to be back in touch with her, but I just feel kind of awkward about calling her, since...you know."

"No, I don't know."

"Well, I could tell it really hurt her when I told her I thought we should see other people. I'm afraid she's still mad at me about that."

"No way to know unless you ask her." I personally knew that Lily was still seeing Ashton and was happy with him as far as I could tell, but I didn't want to discourage Chad.

"Could you call her for me, Lacy?"

"I'm sorry, Chad, but that's something you need to do on your own." I saw the crestfallen look in his eyes and changed the subject. "I wonder who's taking care of Luke now." I didn't say anything about Maxim and the DNA test.

"Trina's Mom is for now, but that's only temporary. She can't keep him long-term. Her health's too bad."

"What about your Dad? He's Tina's brother, after all, so he's Luke's uncle."

"He's still in California. I don't think he even knows about Luke yet."

I thought about Lily. Wouldn't it be nice if... I pushed the thought from my mind. That would never happen.

I finished my shift and went home. Maxim was sitting in the recliner, reading a book in Russian. He looked up when I walked in.

"Chad came to visit his aunt today," I told him. "He said Trina's Mom's taking care of Luke for now."

"Well, it's good that she's able to do that."

"She can't for much longer. Her health's too bad." I saw the longing in his eyes, and it gave me a very uncomfortable feeling.

A few days later, Misty and I were eating lunch together in the cafeteria when I felt someone's finger poke me in the back. "Freeze. You're under arrest." I turned around to look into my husband's laughing face. It was the first time I'd seen him inside the hospital in uniform.

"The pharmacy got broken into last night," he told me. "A couple of us came to dust for fingerprints. Thought I'd stop by to say hello before heading back to the station. Hi, Misty." "He nodded at my friend. "How's Ilya? Haven't talked to him in awhile."

"He's fine! We're planning to have dinner together at that new Asian place on our next day off. It would be great if you guys could join us!"

"Sounds great!" Maxim looked at me. "What about it, Trace?"

"I'm all for it," I replied. "I'll see if I'm off and if my folks can watch the kids."

As it turned out, luck was on my side, and several days later, Maxim and I sat across from Ilya and Misty at the new Asian restaurant. "It's been too long since we did this last," I said to Maxim. "We should do it more often."

"We really should." He squeezed my hand underneath the table.

Later, Misty winked at me and nudged her head in the direction of the lady's room. "Excuse me for just a minute," I told Maxim before following her there. As soon as we were inside, she grinned at me and grabbed my arm eagerly.

"Please tell Maxim that I don't know how to thank him for introducing me to Ilya," she said. "He's the most wonderful man I've ever known. I never imagined I'd be happy with just one man for the rest of my life, but he's made me see that I really am finally ready to settle down."

"Wow, I can't believe he's actually tamed you," I remarked. "Maxim will be glad. But wait, what about Ilya's wanting to be an Orthodox priest? Wouldn't getting married mess up his plans?"

"I asked him about that," she replied. "He said that as long as he gets married before he becomes a priest, it's fine. He just can't get married after he becomes a priest."

"So you two are engaged now?"

"Well, not exactly. We've talked about it, but we haven't set a date or anything."

By the time we returned to the table, the waitress had brought our food. Maxim and I played footsie underneath the table as we ate, and I could tell that Ilya and Misty were doing the same thing.

Lily called me the following day. "Would you like to go to the mall this evening?" she asked. "It's been ages since we've hung out together, and I'd love to touch base with you again."

Suddenly I had an idea. "Would it be OK if I invited my brother and his girlfriend along, too?"

"Sure, I don't see why not." She sounded a little taken aback, which didn't surprise me.

I called Mom and asked to speak to Andy, and she told me that he and Jane had gone to play goofy golf. Thinking quickly, I called Lily back and asked if we could do goofy golf instead of the mall.

"Well, sure, I guess so," she replied. "Why are you acting so strange, Lace?"

"It's too complicated to explain right now," I told her. "Just trust me. I know you won't be disappointed."

She laughed. "All right, my crazy friend."