by Rea Frey
Shirley rolled her eyes as she returned shortly after. “How many steps are there to confirm you’re pregnant?” She slid onto the examination table and kicked her legs nervously on the crinkly paper. Lee wondered, briefly, if this was the same paper they used to cover toilet seats.
After an eternity, Dr. Connors stepped inside the room, a crisply dressed man with a bushy mustache and kind eyes. Lee watched his mustache twitch as the words confirmed it: Shirley was pregnant.
Shirley let her head fall back and sighed. “What now?”
“I’d like to get an ultrasound, just to see how far along you are.”
They were ushered into another room. Shirley was told to undress and lay on more crinkly paper. Lee watched as Shirley shed her clothes. Her stomach was a little rounder than normal, but not much. Shirley hopped onto the table and waited for the technician. Lee wished she knew what to say, how exactly to comfort her in this situation. There should be a doting boyfriend standing in her place, someone to hold her hand, to begin a future together. Not her deadbeat dad, drinking himself to death across town. Not the stranger from the party. Not her.
Lee stood in the corner as the technician inserted a wand between Shirley’s legs, clicked an obscene number of buttons, and measured the very real-looking blob in the gray sac. Except it wasn’t a blob. There was a baby in there. A fully formed baby. With a head, arms, and legs.
“Oh my God,” Lee whispered.
The technician drew lines from different points around the baby, tapping her fingers on the keys. “As you can see, you’re pretty far along.”
“How far along?” Shirley sat up, the long, lubricated handle slipping out as she watched the butterfly wings of her child’s heartbeat flap on the screen.
“According to your measurements, I’d say—” she clicked a few more buttons and drew more digital lines across the screen—“approximately twenty-one weeks.”
“Twenty-one weeks?” they both exclaimed.
“Well, you’re not really showing yet.” The woman gripped the handle, urging Shirley to lie back. She shifted the wand, as though stuffing in a premature limb, and continued with the measurements as the truth sank in. Shirley had been pregnant for twenty-one weeks and hadn’t suspected anything? A flutter? A kick? Nausea? Lee thought of all the recent napping, the skipped meals, the constant late phone calls and persistent privacy. Had she known deep down that she was pregnant?
“Does it … does it look okay?” Lee asked.
“Just a moment,” the technician murmured, leaning in to check something. Lee licked her dry lips and felt her heart racing around her chest.
“The baby looks to be about on target. Placenta is intact. No abnormalities that I can see here, but I’ll have the doctor take another look.”
“And is it too late to…?” Lee asked.
“Terminate?” The woman pulled the handle free, set it on the paper-lined tray, and removed her latex gloves. “Yes, I’m sorry. It’s too late to terminate.”
Shirley moaned and covered her face with her hands.
“What’s the latest you can terminate?” Lee asked.
“Technically, nineteen weeks and six days.”
Shirley sat up again. “Nineteen weeks and six days? But I’m barely past that. You just said I’m twenty-one weeks.”
“Yes, ma’am, but that is the absolute latest, and many doctors will not abort that far into pregnancy. In your case, you are past any viable point to terminate. I’m sorry.”
A cold sweat drenched Lee’s entire body. Shirley didn’t want a baby. She wasn’t in the right mental state to bring a child into this world … was she? “Is there any way we could speak to the doctor again?” Lee asked.
The technician stood and urged Shirley to get dressed. “I’ll send Dr. Connors back in when you’re ready.”
Shirley was eerily calm as she hopped off the table. She grabbed a few stiff paper towels and wiped the goo from between her legs. “Well, this isn’t good.”
“There’s got to be something we can do,” Lee said. “We’ll figure it out.” She didn’t want to bring up the timing. If she was five months pregnant and the party was five months ago … She wanted to tell Dr. Connors with the mustache and kind eyes about the possible father of this baby, about her father, about the strange circumstances. The past drugs. The drinking. She wanted to tell him about all the men Shirley had been with before her father, and that despite it all, she’d never ended up pregnant.
“Do you…”
“Do I what?” Shirley shrugged on her clothes and turned.
“Do you want to get a paternity test? To be sure?”
She shrugged. “I guess we should, huh?”
Lee nodded. “I think so. Just so we know what’s what.” She couldn’t even question what would happen if the baby was from the guy at the party. What that would mean. How Shirley would handle a child created from that.
A few minutes later, the doctor knocked. Despite the recent tension, Lee gripped Shirley’s hand. She was here for her, regardless of what the doctor said.
Lee clasped her hand, and Shirley squeezed back.
“Come in,” Shirley finally said.
present
58
noah
Grace is coming around. Finally. The uncertainty about their future seems to be waning. He’s moving past the crushing disappointment of her refusal. But he’s not giving up.
Once they are in a better place, and Grace is well into her second or third trimester, he will try again. Maybe he will get the boys to help set the stage for another proposal. One way or another, he is spending his life with this woman, with these boys. He thinks about the baby and smiles. They’ve decided not to find out the sex. Though he loves Mason and Luca, he is praying for a little girl. He has always wanted a daughter.
He’s going to Grace’s next doctor’s appointment—his first, her third—and cannot wait to see the image on the screen. To hear the heartbeat. To see the shape of the baby. It will all start to feel real.
Despite all of the challenges they’ve had to endure, he is thankful. It’s what has made them stronger. It’s what will make them indestructible.
He pulls up to Grace’s a little early and stalls in the driveway. He doesn’t want to disrupt her morning routine, but he thought it would be nice to make her a pot of decaf and some breakfast. He grabs the grocery bag full of fresh whole bean coffee and bagels and finds her key on his ring.
He’s finally started therapy—something he’s always resisted—to move past the trauma of Wyatt’s suicide. Wyatt was his own person, who made his own decisions. Losing him was the biggest tragedy of Noah’s life, but it was not his fault. He knows that now.
He has his own life and his own well-being to worry about. He’s talked about the party, going over it in such detail, his therapist is now as familiar with that night as he is.
He still can’t work out the mystery of Lee and Shirley, and how all of that fits together, but he can’t worry about things out of his control. He has to stay in his lane. Grace has custody of Mason, and that’s what matters. He can’t imagine Mason having a more wonderful mother than her.
He unlocks the door and finds her busy slathering toast for both boys in the kitchen.
“Hi.” Her eyes are bright, and she wears that pregnant glow everyone talks about, even though she isn’t showing yet.
He lifts the bag. “I was going to make you coffee and breakfast, but I see you beat me to it.”
She waves her knife in the air. “Busy day, but that’s a sweet thought. Thank you.” She spreads some butter on the toast. “Are you still okay to pick up Luca from school?”
“Of course.”
She checks her watch and licks the knife. “I might need you to feed them too. I have a meeting that might run a bit long.”
“I’ve got it handled.” He sets the bag on the counter and shoves his hands in his jeans to keep from hugging her.
“Great.” She lowers the knife, washes
her hands, and takes a few steps toward him. She hesitates and then finally speaks. “I just want you to know I’m really trying. With us, I mean. That’s the best I can do for now, okay? I just need a bit more time.”
He nods as utter relief floods his adrenals. She’s skirted around saying as much but hasn’t directly told him anything concrete. That she wants him as much as he wants her. He resists the urge to pull her against his chest. “That’s more than enough.” He kisses her cheek. His lips linger. The smell of her hair is intoxicating. His entire body springs to life, but he maintains his space. He will not push her. He will let her come to him.
“I’ll see you later then?” She moves back and smiles up at him. A smile he wants to look at for the rest of his life.
“We’ll be here,” he says.
She nods and calls to Luca, then disappears down the hall to go about her day. He finds Mason reading a book.
“Hey, buddy.”
“Hey, yourself. Guess what I’m reading?” Mason cranes the textbook toward Noah.
He gets lost in Mason’s curiosity and scribbles something else in the lesson plan for today. Grace and Luca wave as they leave, and when she goes, his heart goes with her.
She belongs to him—he feels it.
He cannot wait to see her tonight.
mine [mahyn]
pronoun
1. something that belongs to me
what’s mine is mine.
and it’s about damn time I get it.
what’s mine is mine
what’s mine is mine
what’s mine is mine
what’s mine is mine
what’s mine is mine
what’s mine is mine
what’s mine is mine
what’s mine is mine
MINE
MINE
MINE
past
59
lee
Lee walked into the hospital after Shirley had texted three times. She’d gone into unexpected labor while out running errands and had driven herself to the hospital. Lee canceled her last few appointments to make it to the hospital in time. No one was in the waiting room with balloons and stuffed animals. No other friends. No family.
At check-in, she fished her ID from her wallet and handed it over. Lee received her visitor’s badge and stuck it to her chest. She shifted the overnight bag she’d brought as she walked down the sterile hall, smiling nervously at random nurses. When was the last time they’d had a sleepover, just the two of them? She never thought they would be thrown together for a reason like this.
She couldn’t wait to hold the baby. She couldn’t wait to see that bond between Shirley and her child. She was relieved how quickly Shirley had softened to the idea of motherhood after the paternity test confirmed the baby was her father’s.
In the room, Shirley was panting, her hair slicked against her skin. “Thank God you’re here.” She collapsed back against the pillow.
Lee moved to the edge of the hospital bed, taking in the IV taped to the back of her friend’s hand. Monitors beeped. She wanted to ask how she felt, but that seemed like a rhetorical question. Instead, she smoothed a hand over her hair, and Shirley, still a vulnerable girl in there somewhere, closed her eyes and leaned into her palm. “I think I packed everything you need. I can run home if I forgot anything.”
“Thank you.” She shifted and winced. “I can’t do this much longer. I need to get the baby out.”
“You’re doing great. Let me just…” She turned to find a doctor, to appease her best friend, even though she had no such ability to make anything happen faster than Shirley’s body would allow. She found a nurse.
“Are you Shirley’s sister?”
Lee nodded. She basically was. “Is she … close?”
“Last check, she was at nine centimeters. We’re issuing another check right now, and then, if she’s at ten, she should be able to start pushing.”
Lee nodded. Would Shirley want her in the room? She’d never seen a woman’s body opening itself to life. She needed a drink. She still couldn’t reconcile this new person—the one who needed a drink to get through something—with the old her, who avoided booze like the plague. Despite going to a few AA meetings, she couldn’t stop drinking wine. She waited in the corner while they checked Shirley’s cervix, and then the nurse turned to her.
“Ma’am? It’s time for her to push. Are you going to stay?”
Lee blinked and glanced at Shirley, who was hoisting herself up onto her elbows in the hospital bed.
Lee walked closer to the bed and took Shirley’s hand. “Yes, I’m going to stay.”
The nurses helped Shirley scoot to the end of the bed and spread her knees as wide as they would go. Every time Shirley had a contraction, she pushed. Her face turned purple with every bit of effort. She pushed and pushed, until a head with dark brown hair emerged between her warm, slick thighs, and Lee watched, fascinated at all of the tricks and miracles a human body could produce.
The rest of the body slipped out after, and the doctor held the baby upside down and sucked fluids from its open mouth with a bulb syringe.
“It’s a boy,” he said, then snipped the cord and handed the baby off like a sack of flour. The nurse took the baby to a table and rubbed, wrapped, and wiped. The baby opened his mouth and began to wail. Lee felt life bleed into the room. With his cry, everything popped with color.
Tears bloomed on her cheeks at the absolute miracle of it all. She turned to Shirley, who was squirming uncomfortably as she delivered the placenta, which came out like a giant jellyfish, coated in blood. “You did it,” Lee said.
Shirley smiled and collapsed back against her pillow. “Holy shit, that hurt.”
The nurse brought the baby over to Shirley and deposited him into her arms. Shirley grabbed one of his little fingers. “I can’t believe we were ever this small.”
Lee nestled in beside her and smoothed a hand over his head. “He’s perfect.”
Shirley let go of his finger. “This doesn’t feel like I thought it would.”
She trailed a finger across the soft flesh of his cheek. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. He’s just…” Shirley looked at her and she saw worry flash across her eyes. “It’s like he’s a stranger or something.”
The confession cracked across her heart. “Well, I’m sure that’s perfectly normal. You literally just gave birth.” Lee studied his red face and perfectly pink lips. “But it’s incredible, isn’t it? Moments ago, he wasn’t here, and now…” Now he was here, in her arms.
The doctor stitched her up, while Shirley stared from the baby to the wall back to the baby. Shirley lifted him toward her. “Do you want to hold him?”
“Sure.” Lee scooped him into her arms and memorized all the soft parts of this brand-new person. She couldn’t believe she finally had a brother. “Hello, there,” she cooed. “I’m your sister. Yes, I am.” She lifted her head. “Did you decide on a name?”
“Your dad likes Harry. So that’s what it’ll be, I guess.”
Her father hated hospitals and had vowed never to set foot in another one after her mother died. And true to his word, he’d never been back. Not for a checkup. Not for an emergency. Not for her. Not for his son, here in her arms. Not for anyone.
“Hello, Harry. I’m your big sister, Lee.” The baby gurgled and gripped her finger tighter. “You’re so strong. Yes, you are.”
Lee laughed and looked at Shirley, whose eyes were closed. She was devastated that the magic of parenthood hadn’t taken hold, like all of those books said it would; that when the baby was born, she’d know just what to do. But there was still time.
The only thing she could think about right now was her brother in her arms. She’d have to quit drinking. Or at least be responsible about it: only a single glass at a time, only after the baby was asleep in case he needed her. She couldn’t have them all pass out with Harry crying in the other room.
Lee sat with hi
m for two hours while Shirley slept. She wondered if Shirley should try to feed him, but she didn’t want to disturb her. She snuggled his delicious body closer to hers, wishing she could feed him herself, bathe him, take him home, and protect him forever. Fear gutted the peace.
Lee and Shirley had tried everything to get the house ready: converting the office into a nursery, vacuuming, cleaning, getting diapers, formula, and onesies with her tip money. Her dad had done nothing to prepare. But the baby was here now.
Whether they were ready or not, life was about to be different.
60
lee
Lee slept at the hospital for two nights, watching Harry around the clock until it was time to take him home. Shirley seemed content with letting Lee take the lead. While Shirley and Harry slept, Lee reread an email. Parlour & Juke wanted to hire her. She’d asked her boss to write her a recommendation letter a few months back, before the baby, and he had. She’d have her own chair. They would pay her a salary. Apparently, the girls she’d styled at the last hair show had made an impression on their boss. He was recruiting, and he’d asked specifically if she was interested. She’d built a great book, and now someone wanted her skills. Her talent.
Lee thought of starting over, of getting her own little house in another part of town. No real memories. No ties. No mistakes.
Nothing had ever sounded better.
“What are you smiling at?”
Lee closed the email and set her phone down. “Just an email.”
“About?” Shirley groaned as she pulled herself to sitting.
Lee couldn’t contain the excitement. “Parlour & Juke just offered me a chair.”
Envy flashed through Shirley’s eyes and was instantly replaced. “Lee, that’s fantastic. That’s what you’ve been wanting.”
