An Old Flame

by Raquel Belle

  “So, Christmas is in like … twelve days,” Mark said.

  “Yeah, …” I sighed. “Christmas trees.” I had a small, fake one that was perfect for the apartment. Joe and I always put the tree up almost right before Christmas and left it up well into February.

  “Exactly, do you guys want to come over again tomorrow? I’m buying a huge tree and putting it in the middle of my living room,” he said.

  I snorted, hoping he was joking. “Of course we’ll come. I have to stop you from making crazy décor decisions,” I said, which made him laugh. Mark kissed the top of my head and held me tighter around the waist. I felt his heart beating through my back and couldn’t help but to think, even for a second, that everything was perfect.

  ***

  Come morning, I woke up with the oddest sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. Mark wasn’t in bed with me. But I heard his voice, along with Joe’s, out in the kitchen. I got up slowly and checked my phone’s calendar. I had nothing to do. No plans. It was winter break, two and a half weeks of nothing to do since I was caught up on grading assignments. So, what was I missing?

  I put my phone down and walked to the bathroom to shower. When I turned on the water in the stall, I remembered. I hadn’t had my period yet and it came at the first of the month without fail. It was two weeks into the month, and I was never late. My birth control pills were to make sure I was regular since, since, after my miscarriage, my periods had gotten jacked up. A huge swell of anxiety rose in my stomach and chest, to the point where I thought I was going to throw up. I ran to the toilet.

  When nothing came up, I stood and forced myself to calm down by taking even breaths. Just because I was a couple weeks late on my period didn’t mean anything. Though, the last time that happened, I took a pregnancy test the next day and it was positive … then I lost it. I shook my head back and forth and made my mind go blank, so that I could shower.

  “It doesn’t mean anything … It doesn’t mean anything,” I mumbled to myself over and over. I couldn’t keep my eyes from the floor of the shower, and that night replayed against my will. I stepped out of the shower, shaking, and on the brink of freaking out. I was also perplexed, why was I reacting so strongly? There was literally less than half a percent chance that I could be pregnant. But I was triggered. After suppressing the miscarriage for so long and trying to forget it, the fact that I refused to deal with it was coming back to bite me.

  I wrapped my towel around my body and grabbed my phone from the sink counter to call Leena. The phone rang three times.

  “Saturday? It’s too early by my standards,” she grumped.

  “I …” my voice shook, and I looked at my left hand, which was still trembling.

  “Babe, what’s wrong? What happened?” Leena asked, the sleep fled from her voice as worry kicked in. I took a deep breath and tried not to seem like someone just died.

  “I missed a period,” I said, my voice was a lot calmer than I felt. Leena was silent for what felt like ten minutes.

  “When was the first time you had sex with Mark?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, a couple weeks ago?” I asked.

  “It’s too early to tell,” she said. “And aren’t you on birth control?”

  I turned on the sink’s faucet to wet my toothbrush. “Yes, I’ve had my period on the same day every month for three years straight, now,” I said. “And it isn’t the first time I’ve slipped up in making sure the guy wore protection either,” I said, though there had only been one incident before Mark came back into my life.

  “I don’t know, Steph. I want to say it’s paranoia mixed with bad memories, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. I’m sure Dr. Chen’s office is open on Saturdays,” she said.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna call her and hope she can fit me in somewhere,” I said and squeezed toothpaste onto the brush.

  “Okay, let me know if you want me to come or anything,” Leena said. I promised to keep her posted, and we ended the call. I finished getting ready for the day and called Dr. Chen. She was nice enough to fit me in on her lunch break. I had a couple of hours. When I finally stepped out of my bedroom, Joe was in the living room, flipping through channels on the TV.

  “Morning, Pop,” I said. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at me in greeting.

  “Hey,” he said, “Mark thought you were still asleep. He stepped out to run home and change.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said, distracted.

  “There’s some pancakes and whatnot in the oven for you,” he added. I found the plate of food but had no appetite whatsoever. Instead, I stood in front of the coffee pot seriously debating having a cup. If I was pregnant, coffee was not a good idea, but if I wasn’t pregnant then why not have a cup?

  “You okay, Steph?” my dad asked. I nodded and decided to have a glass of orange juice instead.

  “I’m alright, just couldn’t remember if I left some assignments at school or not,” I lied. Suddenly, I had the strong urge to get outside. “Hey dad, I’m going for a walk,” I said and quickly put on boots, a coat, and grabbed my car keys for later then was out of the door before Joe could ask any questions. As soon as I left the building and stepped onto the sidewalk, the cold seeped in at all sides. It was freezing out, like late January cold though there was no snow on the ground.

  I hugged my coat closer around me and simply walked without seeing much but the pedestrian walk signs when I came to them. When it was time for me to head to the doctor’s office, I walked back to my building to get my car, and then drove stoically to the medical campus across the street from one of the larger hospitals in the city.

  After parking my car in the garage, I regretted not calling Leena to come with me. The medical campus loomed large and daunting in front of me as I walked towards the Women’s Health building. The lobby was pristine, and the receptionist was directing new patients to their respective doctors’ offices. I already knew to go to the third floor. Dr. Chen had a large office because she was an OBGYN, and she did a lot of ultrasounds and some lab testing on site.

  When I reached the cozy waiting room, I signed in at the front desk, and the nurse checking patients in told me she’d let the doctor know I was there. Since it was lunch time, the waiting room was empty. Just a bunch of cushioned chairs and tables intermittently placed with magazines about pregnancy, motherhood, and the female reproductive system. My heart was in my throat and while I waited for the doctor to come through the door, I fought back my anxious nausea.

  “Steph?” My head flew up when Dr. Chen said my name. She was a petite woman with warm brown eyes and an empathetic smile.

  “Hi, Dr. Chen. Thanks for doing this on such short notice,” I said, as I walked towards her.

  “Don’t worry about it. I just want to make sure we have nothing to worry about,” she said and patted me on the back, as I stepped through the door. She led me into an exam room, where I saw vials and a needle on the counter already set up for her to take my blood.

  “So tell me what happened. What led up to you coming here?” she asked. I sat on the exam table and put my coat down behind me. Dr. Chen pulled out a rolling stool from underneath the counter and quickly snapped on gloves.

  “I missed my period, basically. Which hasn’t happened in three years. And I had sex without a condom a couple of weeks ago, it could be a few days more than that, but I don’t know the exact timeline,” I said.

  Dr. Chen put a calming hand on my arm and smiled. “Alright, take a breath. We don’t know anything yet, so there’s no sense in driving yourself nuts over what could be nothing,” she said.

  She likely waited until the crazy left my eyes, before she turned around to get the stuff ready for drawing my blood. “Can you indulge my craziness for a second, though?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  She shook her head. “I don’t need you passing out on this table today, Steph, so just wait until I get your blood first.” she said with a good-natured chuckle. I sighed and gave her my arm, so
she could do her work. She was right, because the second she pricked me with the needle, a cold sweat broke out over my forehead. It wasn’t because I was a lightweight when it came to blood but because I couldn’t believe the situation I was in. I couldn’t believe I was at the doctor getting a pregnancy test.

  Dr. Chen glanced at me a few times, as she filled three small vials with my blood. “Take nice even breaths, okay?” she asked. I nodded and stared at the poster advertising a birth control shot. She withdrew the needle from my arm, finally. Pressed a cotton ball over the puncture and sealed a band-aid over it.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “I’m okay, I’m just … it’s much more emotional for me than anything else,” I said, not sure if I made any sense. She nodded, as if I’d made perfect sense and stood up to discard the used needle and her gloves.

  “Well, I can’t say yet whether you’re pregnant or not,” she began, “but if you were to be pregnant, since you’re on birth control—which is to prevent you from getting pregnant—and had the previous miscarriage so early in term, you’d be a high-risk pregnancy,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to get you in here today so that we can have results by Monday and then go forward from there. It could just be a hormone shift, which we’ll also double-check,” she said. I took a deep breath and wondered how the hell I was going to get through the weekend without knowing.

  “What precautions should I take, just in case?” I asked.

  “For the time being, stop taking the birth control. Then it’s standard stuff, so no coffee, alcohol, light on the fish, nothing raw,” she said.

  I nodded. “Okay.” I was vaguely feeling as if I were going to vomit still. It wasn’t a great feeling to have longer than two minutes.

  “So, try to relax. Stay positive,” the doctor said cautiously, as if she knew I was made of glass and could break at any second and cry/vomit all over her floors.

  “Thank you, Dr. Chen,” I said in a quiet voice. She gave me a tight hug and walked me out to the waiting room where we set up a follow-up appointment for Tuesday, that I had the option of cancelling should the results be normal.

  I walked back to my car in a daze and had to sit and breathe until I felt okay enough to drive home. As I started the engine, I realized that I left my phone on the passenger seat. I had a missed call from Leena, two from my dad and two from Mark. I called Leena back first.

  “Hey, so what happened? Is everything okay?” she asked, sounding almost as anxious as I was.

  “Um … Well, she took my blood and said the results will be in by Monday,” I said robotically.

  “That’s it? She couldn’t give you any answers?”

  “What’s she gonna say? She won’t have anything to decipher until my blood results come in. At that point, if I’m pregnant, then she said I’ll likely be ‘high-risk’ because of the previous miscarriage, and the fact that I was on birth control,” I said.

  Leena sighed heavily. “Do you want to come over?” she asked.

  I frowned. I wanted to, but I knew that if I did, my dad and Mark would really worry.

  I sighed. “I can’t. Mark is going tree shopping and wants me and Joe to decorate with him and everything.”

  “Will you be able to keep it together?” Leena asked.

  I nodded, then remembered that she couldn’t see me. “Yes, I can. I’ll fake it until I make it.” Leena didn’t laugh, and I didn’t blame her. After I had the miscarriage so long ago, the weeks afterward were dark. I didn’t like revisiting it or bringing it up because it was hard for the both of us. Leena had to carry me through a lot of it.

  “Well, call me whenever you can to check in, okay?” she said.

  “Are you sure? You’re not doing anything today?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m hanging out with Boo,” she said. That actually made me smile. I was glad that she was giving Mr. Too-Perfect a chance.

  “Finally, yes! Please don’t use me as an excuse to keep yourself from spending time with him,” I said. Leena sighed, I could imagine her eyes rolling. “Anyway, I’m almost home now. I’ll talk to you later, or I’ll text you. I don’t want to interrupt anything,” I said.

  “Whatever, if you need me, call,” she insisted.

  We hung up after saying goodbyes, and I pulled into my parking spot in the building’s garage. Before I got out, I crafted a story as to where I’d been for like three hours and plastered a smile onto my face. When I got upstairs, the apartment was dark and empty. I walked to the kitchen to put my purse down and called Joe.

  “Hey, Steph, where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m at the apartment. I thought you guys would be here?” I flipped on the kitchen light and opened the fridge, my appetite was inching back. Someone had thankfully wrapped up the breakfast that I hadn’t eaten.

  “Well, Mark wanted to go ahead and pick out the tree, so he picked me up, and we’re at the lot now. Maybe you can swing by or meet us at his house?” he asked.

  “Okay, I’ll meet you guys there,” I said.

  “What happened to you, though?” Joe asked. I put my plate of pancakes and eggs into the microwave and tried to seem as nonchalant as possible, so that Joe wouldn’t suspect I was lying.

  “I can’t tell you because it may or may not have to do with a Christmas gift,” I said.

  “Really? You’ve got us worried here, and all this time you were out shopping?” Joe promptly hung up. I chuckled, but the laugh fell flat, as did my brief smile. I ate slowly, trying to train my expression not to be serious, or upset looking. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about what was wrong, other than Leena. I rubbed the center of my chest and tried not to think about what the results of the test would be. There was such a low chance that I was actually pregnant, that I shouldn’t worry about it. But my mind wanted to go down the path of obsessiveness and mull over the slightest possibility that I was pregnant, and that I could miscarry again. Because, that was what high-risk meant, right? That I could lose the baby … if there was one?

  I sighed harshly and glanced at my plate, half of the food was still there. I threw it out and washed my plate then left for Mark’s house. I tried to trick myself into smiling on the way there, but I was sure I looked like a scarecrow.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mark

  Joe and I pushed the fir tree into the living room and debated where to center it. He was for the back left corner, and I was for beside the fireplace, to the right.

  “Mark, you don’t want the thing catching fire,” Joe insisted.

  I laughed. “It’s not gonna catch fire, Joe.”

  “If you put tinsel anywhere, it can smolder into a fire, and the whole tree will go up,” he said, deadpan. I couldn’t hold back my guffaws. “Alright, alright, laugh at the old man,” he said.

  He helped me put the tree to the right of the fire place. It was three-feet clear of the surround, which was about two-feet around anyway. So the tree was actually five-feet away from the actual vicinity of a fire. Once it was in place in the base, I put the red tree skirt around the bottom and stepped back.

  “I think it looks good, Joe,” I said. He sat down on the couch and tilted his head at the tree.

  “I guess so,” he mumbled.

  “Come on, old man, you just don’t want to admit it,” I teased. Joe chuckled and waved his hand dismissively. My phone rang, and I checked it and saw Steph’s name. Before I answered, I opened the gate app on my phone and let her in. I started walking towards the foyer. “Hey, gorgeous,” I said. “Heard you were Christmas shopping, so what’d you get me?”

  “Um, who says I was shopping for you?” she asked. She chuckled, but I knew her well enough to tell that something was off in her tone, and that she was trying to hide it.

  “Babe, you okay?” I asked. I reached the foyer and opened the front door. Steph had just parked in the driveway. She hung up without answering, so I walked into the freezing cold to meet her at the car. “Hey,” I said and tried to search her face,
but her eyes were bright, and she had a small smile on her lips. She seemed fine, her hair was down in loose waves, and she wore a turtleneck under her trench coat and jeans with knee high boots.

  “I like that sweater on you. It matches your eyes,” Steph said and kissed me on the cheek. “Come on, before you get pneumonia.” She took my hand, and we hurried into the house.

  “Your dad thinks the tree will catch fire,” I said. Steph looked at me, confused as she took off her coat. I hung it up in the closet and led her to the living room.

  “Hey, Pops,” Steph said. She glanced sideways at the tree. Thankfully, it wasn’t too huge. Only a seven-footer, and there was room for a much taller one with the vaulted ceiling.

  “Back from your mysterious shopping trip?” he asked. She rolled her eyes at him and stood in front of the tree to inhale its scent.

  “How would the tree catch fire?” she asked, perplexed. I had to force myself not to shoot a smug look in Joe’s direction.

  “Never mind that,” Joe said. “Where are the decorations?”

  “Do you have any, Mark?” Steph asked, she looked at me, as if she knew the answer already.

  “I have a star and a garland,” I said.

  “That’s it?” Joe exclaimed. All Stephanie did was laugh. She knew me. Back in college the decorating of our apartment, the holiday decorations, all that stuff was in her purview. If it was up to me—like it has been for so long now—my Christmas decorations would only be a string of lights, a garland, and a star. I shrugged sheepishly.

  “So we have to go back out to get ornaments, don’t we?” Steph said.

  “Why can’t we just slap a—”

  Steph held her hand up “Don’t you even finish that sentence. Come on …, we’re going,” she said.

  Joe laughed at me, as we followed her to the foyer.