An Unusual Beginning Ch. 06

After returning home from her doctor's appointment Arlene sat down at her desk in her home office and powered up her computer. As she waited for the computer to power up, she looked down at the ultrasound pictures the doctor had taken of her womb and smiled.

She scanned the picture and saved it on her computer, preparing to send it to David, the father, her husband.

'This is stupid,' Arlene thought to herself. 'I don't have a husband. Not really. My husband would be here with me going to doctor visits with me, and I would be looking forward to telling him in person about my doctor visits instead of emailing him or over the phone.'

It had been a month since David's visit to Atlanta, and as he promised, he and Arlene stayed in touch through phone calls and emails. David was supportive as he could be given their situation, her being in Atlanta, and him being in L.A.

But the situation was beginning to wear on Arlene's nerves. She felt as if she was pretending to be married like things hadn't been settled between them, even though they both agreed not to have their marriage annulled.

Arlene was feeling alone. A feeling she shouldn't be feeling if she were actually married because her, husband would be there by her side.

'Things can't continue this way,' Arlene told herself.

She looked up at her computer screen at the image of the ultrasound and tried to imagine what David's reaction would be when he saw. A smile appeared on her face as she pictured one possible reaction.

'It shouldn't be this way,' she told herself deciding she and David needed to talk and make real decisions to see if this marriage was good for both before she gave birth.

Arlene composed the email she was going to send to David, added the three ultrasound images and sent it.

Then she turned off her computer and waited for David's phone call she was sure she would receive from David after he read her email and saw the ultrasound images.

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Diana sat home at her computer doing what had become a daily habit for her a Google search for information on Arlene. She was trying to do the search herself because she didn't want anyone else to know what she was doing.

With the help of books detailing how to do a successful online search, she was making great progress, but she wasn't liking the information she was finding.

Arlene Patterson was born in a state run hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, abandoned there by her mother and put into the foster care system. But Arlene wasn't what one expected of a child raised a state run system. She had none of the problems associated with being in the system from birth to eighteen years.

She didn't have a juvenile nor an adult criminal record, she didn't do drugs, nor did she drink. The more Diana learned about her, the more she hated Arlene's guts.

'No, one is that clean,' Diana said to herself. 'There must be something. She was raised without a mother or a father and shipped from one foster home to another, which must have had a negative effect on her in some way. Hell, I was raised with both my parents, and I have problems. There must be something.'

Deciding to take a break, Diana left the Google site and made her way over to Yahoo to check and see if David had received any more emails from Arlene.

She'd started checking David's emails when he gave her his password after they became engaged. It was his way of showing Diana that he had nothing to hide from her. Diana checked it every day to make sure he wasn't cheating on her. Now since they were no longer a couple or getting married, she checked his email to keep track of what was going on between him and Arlene.

She usually waited until David had read the emails Arlene sent him to keep him from knowing that she was reading his emails, but the word "SURPRISE!" typed in the subject section of this latest email made her decide to open and read Arlene's current email before David did.

As she read it Diana's anger grew as tears filled her eyes. She wrestled with the desire to grab the monitor and send it crashing to the floor.

"This has to end," she said out loud. "This has to end, and this bitch has to go. I want her and her little spawn out of mine and David's lives."

A smile spread across Diana's face as a plan began to formulate in her mind.

'Why didn't I think of this before?' she asked herself as she hit the reply button and began composing a reply to Arlene's email. "This will solve all my problems," she said as confidence filled her. 'After she reads this we won't ever hear from that bitch again.' Diana finished the email, hit the send button, then sat back and relaxed her smile growing bigger because her dreams had once again become possible.

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Arlene came back to her computer later that evening, wondering why she hadn't heard from David. She looked down at the watch on her wrist and saw that it was almost eight o'clock in the evening. Arlene moved the wireless mouse, clearing her screen saver, and revealing her desktop.

She clicked on her web browser connecting her to the Internet. She clicked on her email account, and she saw that she had one new email. She smiled when she saw that it was a reply from David to the email, she'd sent him earlier. She still found it strange that he hadn't called her and why she hadn't heard the Yahoo yodel she had been listening so intently for letting her know that she had a new email message.

She was smiling as she clicked on the message and waited for it to open thinking of what David might've written.

The smile slipped from her face as she read his reply.

Arlene,

Thank you for the report on your doctor's visit. However, I have decided that having our marriage annulled is the right thing to do. So, all future communications between us will be conducted through my attorney, Robert Thompson. It is not my desire to cause you pain with this decision, it is just how I think things should be done between us. After you give birth, financial arrangements will be made, but I wish to have no further contact with whatsoever. I ask that you please respect my decisions and only communicate with me through my attorney if the need should arrive.

Sincerely with regret,

David Fitzgerald.

Arlene pulled out her cell phone and dialed David's cell phone number.

David answered the phone on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Hi, David," Arlene replied, struggling to the tone of her voice neutral as she spoke to David.

"Hello, Arlene," David said, glad to hear Arlene's voice. "Is everything alright?" he asked when he remembered she had a doctor's appointment that day.

"Everything is fine," Arlene assured him, finding the tone of his voice and the concern she heard in it strange. "Did you get the email I sent you earlier today?"

"I haven't checked my email today," David said. "I've been kind of busy."

"Would you check it for me now?" Arlene asked a sense of relief flowing over her from David's answer.

"I can do that," David said logging on to his email account. "Want to tell me what the doctor said?"

"No," Arlene replied. "I put everything in the email."

"You can give me a hint," David teased.

"Read the email, David," Arlene said.

"Okay, I'll read the email," David replied as he typed in the password for his Yahoo account.

David clicked on the email link and scanned down the list of emails he received looking for the one Arlene sent him.

"I don't see one from you," David said still checking the list.

"Click on the sent folder," Arlene suggested realizing that something wasn't right.

David didn't understand what was going on, but he did as Arlene said and clicked on his sent folder.

The first thing he saw when the folder opened was a reply email sent to Arlene supposedly from him. He opened the email and began reading it.

He could feel his blood pressure rise as he read the email.

"I didn't send this to you Arlene," David said his voice filled with fear because he didn't know if she would believe what he was saying.

He got no response.

"Arlene, I swear to you, I didn't send this email to you," David said beginning to panic as dread washed over him at Arlene's silence.

"I believe you, David," Arlene said. "I knew you didn't send it the moment you answered the phone. That's why I asked if you got my email instead of giving you a piece of my mind."

"I'm going to find out who sent this email to you," David said already knowing who sent it, "and I'm going to deal with that person."

"Okay, David," Arlene said before she hung up the phone.

David reread the email. He knew who sent it because only one other person besides himself had the password to his email account. Diana.

What he didn't understand was why she was reading his emails. Then understanding came to him. She was trying to come between him and Arlene.

David scrolled down the email to see what Arlene had written. He smiled when he saw the ultrasound images of his child. The pictures were kind of blurry, so the detail wasn't that great, but he appreciated Arlene sharing them with him.

He tried to imagine what a child that was a combination of his features and Arlene's features would look like.

He smiled when an image of a child, a little girl with Arlene's caramel colored skin, his dark wavy hair and Arlene's amber colored eyes, his classic nose formed in his mind. She was beautiful.

His attention turned back to the image on his computer screen. He couldn't believe that in seven months that little image would grow into a bouncing baby boy or girl that he would be holding in his arms. His son or daughter.

'Diana tried to take that from me,' he thought to himself becoming angry.

David changed his password, then he turned off his computer, stood and walked away from his desk heading out of his office to Diana's place. They needed to talk. She needed to understand that interfering in his life in any manner wouldn't be tolerated.

As he got into his car, he mashed the button in his cell phone that would connect him to Diana's cell phone. He wanted to make sure she was home.

"Hello?" Diana said answering the phone.

"Where are you?" David asked.

"My place," Diana replied.

"I'm on my way over," David said. "We need to talk."

"What could we possibly have to talk about?" Diana asked sarcastically. "I think we covered everything we needed to talk about the last time we spoke to each other. I mean we canceled the wedding, ending our relationship, because you're staying with Arlene, whose, pregnant with your child. So, I ask you again, what do we have to talk about?"

"You know why I want to see you," David said his voice letting Diana know that he was coming whether she liked it or not. "I'll be there in thirty minutes."

"I'll be waiting," Diana sing sung.

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David arrived at Diana's condo precisely thirty minutes later. He buzzed her condo and she let him in.

"What's wrong?" Diana asked innocently, noting the scowl on David's face as she stepped aside and let him into her home.

"You know what's wrong," David said, letting the anger he was feeling come through loud and clear in his voice. "Why did you send Arlene an email saying I wanted to have my marriage to her annulled and that I didn't want to have any further contact with her and no contact at all with our child once the child was born?"

"How do you know that I sent the email?" Diana asked

"You're the only other person besides myself that has the password to my email account," David said.

"I sent it because it was the way I think this thing between you and Arlene should be handled," Diana said, admitting what she'd done, "and if you weren't going to do it, I figured I would do it for you. I did it hoping you would come to your senses, and see that it was the right thing to do and we would be married as we planned."

"You sent that email today, Diana," David said. "I ended things between us a month ago. Why would you send an email to Arlene when we're no longer a couple?"

"I haven't given up on us, David," Diana said. "I was hoping by sending that to Arlene, she would think you had changed your mind about her and the baby, get angry enough never to want to speak to or see you again. Then you would turn to me for comfort, and I would comfort you and convince you that..."

"Never contacting Arlene again was the right thing to do, ending my relationship with her," David said, finishing what Diana was going to say.

"Yes," Diana said.

The sadness and pain David saw in Diana's eyes and heard in her tore at his heart. He understood how painful ending their relationship was for her, but he couldn't and wouldn't stand for her interfering with his relationship with Arlene and their child.

"You can't do this, Diana," David told her. "I've made my decision on this matter, and you have to accept it."

"Why, David?" Diana asked her eyes stinging and turning red from trying to keep her tears at bay. "Why is it so easy for you to accept things the way they are? How can you stop loving me so easily? Did I ever mean anything to you? Did you ever love me?"

"I can't tell you why I'm accepting things so easily," David said lying because he didn't want to cause her any further pain by telling her how he felt about Arlene. "The only thing I can tell you is that staying married to Arlene seems like the right thing for me to do. The only answers I can give you to the other questions you asked is that I do care about you, and you'll always matter to me. But I've had doubts about my feelings for you, but I chalked them up to nervous jitters about getting married and I dismissed them."

"Do you love Arlene?" Diana asked interrupting David.

"I'm not going to discuss my feelings for Arlene or our child with you," David said. "I didn't come here for that."

"Don't you mean you're not going to discuss your feelings for your children?" Diana said thinking that David had forgotten she had read the email.

"What?" David said not understanding what she was asking.

"Don't play dumb with me, David," Diana said. "I read the email, and I saw the ultrasound images attached to it. I know that Arlene is having triplets."

Between David's gasp and the stunned look on his face Diana could tell that he didn't know that Arlene was carrying more than one child.

"I'm going to be the father of triplets?" David asked his voice filled with awe and surprise at the possibility.

David tried to recall the details of the email and the ultrasound images that Arlene sent him.

He could recall nothing in the email or on the ultrasound images that indicated that there was more than one child.

"Triplets? I'm going to be the father of triplets," David said, his mind unable to comprehend such a thing.

"David, you need to think about what you're about to do," Diana said. "You should think about your future, Arlene's future, the future of her babies, and the consequences of you becoming more involved with her and those babies."

"I told you I'm not going to discuss Arlene, our children, or my relationships with them, with you," David said as he made his way to the front door of Diana's condo in a hurry to get back home. "I have to go, and I'm warning you to stay out of my life and my marriage since it's no longer your concern."

As David closed the front door of her condo, Diana went to her living room window and looked out, watching David as he got into his car and left.

She knew that he was rushing home to confirm what she'd told him about Arlene carrying triplets. She didn't miss the surprised look on his face when she revealed to him that she knew. A tear rolled down her cheek as she thought about the one hundred-eighty degree turn her life had taken.

Another tear fell slowly down her cheek as she thought about her situation and the people responsible.

Because of her brother, David's brother, his friends, and Arlene's friends, she had lost the man, she intended to spend the rest of her life with.

It would've been a month ago today that she and David stood before their families and two hundred guests declaring their love and commitment to each other. But it didn't happen because of people who were supposed to love them and strangers who didn't know anything about them, who wanted to play a joke on David and Arlene.

Diana's mind flashed back to the moment, the day her pain started, the day she walked out onto the Fitzgerald's patio, and she heard David announce that he and Arlene were married.

The shock of his words sent a wave of pain through her body and sucked all the air out of her lungs.

The first thought that ran through her mind was that he had to be lying; she had to have misunderstood what he said. Her next thought was, how could an engaged man go to Las Vegas to have a bachelor party and come back married?

Then she finds out that he not only wants to stay married to a woman that he doesn't know and only married because he was drunk but the woman was pregnant and about to make David a father. Now she finds out that the woman is pregnant with triplets.

Diana didn't want to kill Arlene because she understood that neither Arlene and David weren't responsible for how they became married nor how Arlene became pregnant, but she did want to punch her lights out.

Because without any effort on her part, Arlene had managed to pull the rug right from under her and turned her world upside down.

Diana knew that once David made up his mind about something, there was no changing it. She knew that his commitment to Arlene and his children was strong and unshakable unless something completely beyond his control came along and changed it for him, hence her situation.

She hoped with everything within her that David would get over whatever it was he was feeling for Arlene and come back to her. A smile graced her face at the thought that something tragic might happen to end Arlene's pregnancy. She knew that thinking such a thought made her a horrible person, but she could live with that. She knew if that happened, David might come back to her. It was a possibility that gave her hope and became her silver lining in her current situation. Even if she might have to help, it happen.

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David reached his home, parked his car, got out, and rushed into the house. When he stepped inside, he was greeted by Carter.

"Good evening, sir," Carter said.

"Good evening, Carter," David replied. "Is my father in his office?"

"I believe he is," Carter replied.

"Is my mother in her office?" David asked.

"Where else would she be, sir?" Carter said.

David chuckled. Cater was right, if his mother wasn't with his father when she was home, she could always be found in her home office working.

He asked Carter about his parents' whereabouts because he needed a computer so that he could check the email Arlene sent him to see if what Diana told him was true about him becoming the father of triplets.

Knowing that his father would be more likely to share his computer than his mother, David headed to his father's office. He knocked on the door.

"Come in," his father said looking up from his work to see who was coming to see him and smiling when he saw his eldest son. "Hello, son."

"Hi, dad," David replied closing the door behind him.

"Can I do something for you?" his father asked.

"Yes," David replied. "I need to use your computer for a moment if I can."

"Sure," his father said. "Just let me save what I'm working on."

"I'm going to call mom and ask her to join us," David said picking up his father's phone and dialing his mother's home office.

When his mother answered David asked her to come to his father's office because he had something he wanted her to see.

After she was assured, that what David had to show her was important Pamela agreed to go to her husband's office.