MU, jous, iviary, ana Joseph, Richard, is that all you think it takes to fix this? Marry me so the baby won't be a bastard, and it's all better?"

"I don't see anyone else offering marriage," he said.

"It's because they know I'll say no. Every other man in my life understands that this isn't about marriage. It's about the fact that we may have created a little person. And we need to do whatever is best for that person. How will marrying anyone make this work better?"

He looked at me, and there was such pain in his face, such struggle, as if I'd said something incomprehensible. "If you get a woman pregnant, you marry her, Anita. It's called taking responsibility for your actions."

"And if it's not your baby? Could you really raise someone else's baby? Could you really stay married to me, and play Daddy, as you watched the baby grow to look like someone else?"

He covered his face with his hands, and he screamed, "No!" He showed me a face ravaged by rage. The room was suddenly hot again, as if his power were raising the actual temperature. "No, I'd go crazy. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is it?"

"No," I said, "but you needed to hear it."

He frowned at me. "What?"

"I appreciate the offer, Richard. Really, I do, but if I was going to marry anyone, it would have to be someone who would be okay no matter who turned out to be the father."

"So, you'll marry Nathaniel, or Micah?" The heat bit along my skin.

"I am not going to marry anyone, don't you get that?"

"You just said—"

I cut him off. "No, that isn't what I said, or what I meant. It's what you heard."

"You're pregnant, Anita."

"Maybe I'm pregnant," I said.

"Don't you want a father for your baby?"

I stared at him, wondering what could I say that he'd actually hear and understand.

Jean-Claude stepped close to us, not between us, but as if the three of us were a shallow triangle. "I believe what ma petite is saying, Richard, is that marriage is not part of her plans, and that having a baby will not change that." His voice was his pleasantly neutral one, the one that he used when he was trying to persuade, or calm, and not make things worse.

"And if it's my baby, then I'm just supposed to be okay with Nathaniel and Micah raising it?"

I hung my head. What could I say to that?