The Family Man

Chapter 10

Jackie looked up cautiously. In ten years, Jack Kennedy had accomplished a pretty genius air of uptight stoicism. But that was all dashed to pieces now; he looked like he had just swallowed a ping pong ball.

"Pregnant," Jack repeated.

Her eyebrows rose delicately. "Yes, pregnant. That itty bitty thing when a woman's with child." Jackie watched him drag his hands through his hair while she added softly: "Or was, anyway. For five weeks. Then the miscarriage."

A strange collection of emotions threw themselves across his face. She watched confusion morph into shock. And then something that seemed very much like guilt. Blame.

"Jackie" his voice cracked.

She shook her head, "It was a long time ago, Jack. Some things just aren't meant to be."

"I—"

"Forget it," Jackie assured him, her hand against his cheek. "Look, at least you were with me. I don't know how I would have gotten through it otherwise."

In a different lifetime, these words probably would have comforted his conscience. But Jack's face was pale in the light coming from the kitchen. She opened her mouth to ask if he was okay, but John's cry filled the foyer and snaked into the room.

Jackie sighed, told him she would see him upstairs, and abandoned the room.

Jack stood there in dull silence for a full minute. Then he pressed his hands into his eyes. "Oh my God. Oh my God."

The gears suddenly chinked into place. That look on her face when he left her on the beach. That look. His stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. In an instant, he had to know.

The bathroom door was open upstairs and light spilled into the hallway. Jackie stood with John teetering on the counter; the boy's eyes were wet and puffy. As Jack reached the top of the steps, he watched Jackie murmur to John and hand him back a stuffed racecar. She wiped his nose with a tissue and smiled.

"What if I had gone?" Jack demanded.

Jackie turned her head. "What?"

If I had left you at the beach ten years ago. Would you have told me?"

"What does it matter? You came back."

"But what if I hadn't."

"But you did."

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. "If I had left to Europe," he explained slowly, "and this had happened to you, would you have told me?"

Jackie was quiet for a moment. She took the sleepy, sniffling John and disappeared into his bedroom where she lowered him into his crib. Jack waited the three minutes before she slipped out of the room, clicked the door shut and leaned against the frame with folded arms.

"Let me get this straight: you're asking me if, hypothetically, I would have told you what had happened even if you had left for that trip to Europe?"

"Yes."

She chewed on her lip and thought, "Probably. Maybe. I don't know."

His face crumbled.

"I mean," Jackie tried to amend, "look, if all this had happened and you were off in another part of the world building a new life for yourself, well... that would be pretty cruel to hold you back like that, wouldn't it? What would be the point? To give you a heart attack overseas?"

"Jesus Christ, Jacqueline—"

"God Jack, so much for hypothetical—"

"Nothing is hypothetical!"

They were silent for a few moments.

Jackie stared pensively. "I'd like to think I would have told you."

Jack looked up at her and couldn't help the guilt that constricted his throat.

You didn't.