She couldn’t erase the nagging thought she might be seriously sick, but considering he seemed fine, it was unlikely she contracted anything from him. For a moment, she stopped worrying that he gave her a disease. She felt guilty even thinking it. Good thing she was going to the doctor. Speculation would drive her insane long before this stomach issue caused her serious harm.
They arrived ten minutes before nine but, despite the early arrival, they still had to wait nearly forty-five minutes to see the doctor.
Finally, a nurse called her name and she and Alex waited in Dr. Karen Lechter’s office. Leah’s legs were shaking. Alex placed his palm on her leg and squeezed gently, instantly easing the tension. She took a deep breath and the tremors subsided.
She hated the doctor’s office. That’s why she avoided going. The doctor was just the bringer of bad news, and the last thing she needed was more problems.
Avoidance would not resolve anything, though. She was still sick and it was starting to affect her at work. She was too tired and weak to concentrate most days. Although Marcus never complained, she knew the quality of her work had declined slightly. It may be acceptable to him, but not to her high standards. She needed to get back on track. Step one was facing her problem.
That task was much easier when an unexpectedly pleasant Dr. Lechter strode into the office with a seemingly genuine, kind smile illuminating her face. She looked like she was in her mid-thirties with short blond hair, cut in an adorable pixie style that suited her oval face perfectly. Her brown eyes were warm and soothing. Just what Leah needed to ease her panic.
“Good morning, Ms. Rhodes.” She smiled at Leah. She turned to Alex. “Are you Mr. Rhodes?”
“No,” Alex responded. “I’m Alex Briggs. I’m Leah’s fiancé.”
Leah reached to twirl her engagement ring and realized it was missing. She must have left it in the bathroom. She couldn’t have lost it. She started to panic. She tried to remember the last time she’d seen it, but her mind was blank. This wasn’t the time to have a panic attack over her ring. It had to be home. She couldn’t have lost it.
“Nice to meet you both,” Dr. Lechter greeted them.
One thing at a time, Leah reminded herself. There was nothing she could do about the ring now. She needed to get through this doctor’s appointment and find out if her health was in danger. If it were, the least of her problems would be a missing ring.
“Ms. Rhodes, I assume your fiancé’s presence here means you are comfortable discussing your medical issues with him.”
“Yes. I signed a paper stating that he was authorized to know what’s going on with me. Alex knows me better than anyone. We’ve been together forever. There are no secrets between us.” Well, she didn’t keep secrets from him. She couldn’t say the same for him, though. His life was shrouded in secrecy; at least it has been since drugs have dominated his life.
“Okay, then. So why don’t you tell me why you’re here.”
Leah looked over to Alex and he clutched her hand in his. “I’ve been feeling pretty lousy lately. My stomach is a mess. I am sick all the time. I’ve a lost a few pounds. I can’t keep food down. My head hurts and some mornings I can barely get out of bed. I was researching online at one of the medical sites and my symptoms were similar to an ulcer. I have been under some stress lately and that may have caused the ulcer. I was afraid that if it were an ulcer, it could rupture or something.”
“You seem pretty sure it’s an ulcer.”
“The symptoms fit. I’ve tried taking some over-the-counter treatment, but it’s not working. I figured I should come see you before the ulcer erupts. Then I started thinking it could be a tumor, but if I am losing weight, it wouldn’t likely be benign, it would be cancerous and that freaked me out.” Leah knew she was babbling, but that’s what happens when she faced a doctor—even a nice one. She was a nervous wreck and her only comfort was talking.
“Okay, Leah. Why don’t we let me diagnose you? That’s my job. Let me ask you a few questions and then I can examine you more closely.” Leah nodded and leaned into Alex. “When did your symptoms begin?”
“A few weeks ago, but it’s been worse the last week.”
“Are you on any medication regularly?”
“Birth control and I take allergy medication. I’m allergic to dust and pollen.”
“When was your last period?”
Leah paused for a moment, trying to recall when she last got her period. She was always so irregular. One year when she was in high school she only had it four times. Her doctor told her that it would probably become more regular as she got older, but it hadn’t happened. She could still go months without it.
“I can’t recall, actually.” She looked to Alex and he shrugged.
“I don’t recall you getting it since I’ve been home.”
“It may have been a couple of months, but that’s normal for me. I’m very irregular.” Leah knew what her doctor might be speculating. She’d already dismissed that possibility. “I know I am not pregnant, if that’s what you’re thinking. I am anal retentive about my birth control. I don’t miss ever.”
“Well, we need to do some blood work anyhow so we can just add a pregnancy test to the mix. Actually, I may do a urine sample and I can test for that and rule it out immediately if it comes back negative.”
Leah wasn’t worried. It would come back negative. She knew she wasn’t pregnant, but that nagging concern about contracting something from Alex returned with a vengeance.
Panicked, she asked her doctor, “Could you also test for HIV or Hepatitis C?”
She realized her mistake as soon as she heard Alex groan. He let her hand drop as he fisted his hands in his lap. The tension in the room was stifling. No doubt Dr. Lechter felt it as well.
“Is there a reason you think you might be infected with one of these illnesses?” she asked, her eyes moving from Leah to Alex.
It was Alex who answered. “Yeah. She doesn’t trust me. You see, I’m a heroin addict. I’ve been clean for a couple of months but it doesn’t matter. Once a junkie always a junkie. There’s no redemption.”
“Alex…” Leah tried to interrupt, but Alex continued.
Tension radiated from him so deeply that Leah was afraid it would suffocate them both.
“I never shared needles. She doesn’t believe me so she thinks I’ve given her AIDS or some other dire disease.” Alex’s anger-filled eyes turned to Leah. “For the record, I am clean. I was tested when I went to rehab and I was negative. I may be a junkie, but I am not a diseased one. Unless you sought comfort in the arms of another, don’t look to blame me if you contracted an STD. This is the one problem in your life you can’t blame me for.” Alex stood up and walked out the office.
Leah chased after Alex. She grabbed his arm, forcing him to either stop or drag her with him back to the waiting room.
She wanted to talk to him in private, but there were several other nurses in the hall. She couldn’t let him walk out thinking the worst. There must be something she could say to explain.
“I’m sorry. I’m just afraid. I get so nervous with doctors that I start rambling on and I blurt out things I don’t mean. I didn’t mean to imply that you gave me a STD. I just don’t know what’s wrong with me and I started researching all this stuff and worrying about what it could be. I didn’t mean to make it sound like you gave me something.”
“Yes you did mean it. Own up to it. Admit it. I would respect you a hell of a lot more if you would for once say how you really feel instead of hiding it from me like I am too weak to handle it.” Alex ran his fingers through his hair. The resigned look in his eyes dealt a terrible blow to Leah’s heart. “I can’t blame you for doubting me. I haven’t given you much of a reason to trust me.”
“Alex, please…”
“Is everything okay?” Leah turned to see a concerned Dr. Lechter behind her.
“Everything is fine,” Alex responded. He spoke to Leah, but could not meet her eyes. “I will be i
n the waiting room.” He turned and walked away, leaving a despondent Leah with Dr. Lechter.
“Let’s go finish the exam,” the doctor offered. “I have a few more questions for you.”
Leah followed her to an exam room. She disrobed and put on the doctor’s gown as directed. She didn’t react when the doctor withdrew her blood. She peed in the cup as requested. She was on autopilot, following orders, but her mind and thoughts were on the man she just hurt.
She sat there on the exam table numb, wishing this were over so she could apologize to Alex. She thought of what she could say to him to make this better, but there were no words to undo the hurt in his eyes.
She was so lost in her reverie, she barely heard Dr. Lechter return to tell her that her pregnancy test was positive.
“W-what?” she stuttered as the shock transformed to understanding.
“You’re pregnant,” Dr. Lechter repeated.
“No I’m not. I never miss taking my birth control. I am not pregnant. The test is wrong.”
“The test is not wrong, Leah.”
“It has to be wrong!” Leah yelled. Her anger gave way to tears. “It has to be wrong. I can’t be pregnant. Please. I can’t be pregnant.”
“Leah, you have to face this.” Dr. Lechter frowned and excused herself from the room for a minute.
A numb Leah just sat there on the table, repeating the words that she could not be pregnant. She hoped if she kept saying it, it would be true.
Dr. Lechter returned a moment later, pushing a machine into the room. A nurse had joined her and lifted Leah’s shirt over her stomach. They spoke to her; she could see their lips moving but could not hear them.
She just laid back and let them do what they wanted. They rubbed a gel on her stomach and firmly pressed a wand on her stomach. Dr. Lechter stared at the screen and then paused to turn the screen towards Leah.
“Leah, I want you to listen to me.” Leah watched as she pointed to a tiny little image on the screen that looked like kidney bean. “You see this right here. This is your baby.” She turned a knob on another machine and a loud, frequent rhythm blared through the room. “You hear that sound? That’s your baby’s heartbeat. Leah, you are definitely pregnant and based on the size of the fetus, I would estimate about ten weeks. I know this is a shock to you, but you need to accept this. If you don’t want to have this baby then you need to make a decision soon. If you plan to have it, then you need to start taking better care of yourself and your child.”
Leah stared at the image on the screen. It was hard to believe that little bean was actually a baby. A part of her and a part of Alex. Somehow they had created a life together. The reality of seeing this little image on screen and hearing its heartbeat snapped Leah back into reality.
“I’m having this baby. I will do whatever it takes to keep it safe.”
Dr. Lechter smiled. “Good. I am an OBGYN so I can be your doctor throughout the pregnancy and birth if that’s what you want.”
“Yes, definitely.”
“Okay then. I will write you some prescriptions for prenatal vitamins and an anti-nausea pill so that you can hopefully keep food down. You need to eat. You are eating for two now.” Dr. Lechter reached for Leah’s hand. “You will be okay. You both will be. We’ll make sure of it.”
Leah surprisingly felt reassured, although she was still afraid. Not only did she have to make amends to Alex for hurting him earlier, she now had to tell him he was going to be a father.
The timing was far from ideal, but there was nothing they could do about it now. They were having a baby. Nothing was more important than this child.
Dr. Lechter gave Leah a copy of the sonogram and she clutched it tightly in her hand. She couldn’t help but stare at the image of what was her baby. Alex’s baby.
Her tears were now gone as happiness erased the melancholy she felt earlier. She couldn’t wait to share this joy with Alex.
She quickly made another appointment for the following month and went to the waiting room to see Alex. He wasn’t there. She looked all around, but there was no sign of him.
She walked over to the receptionist to see if she knew where Alex went. He must have left word with someone. “Did you see the man I was with when I came in? He has shoulder-length blond hair and he was wearing an Old Navy sweatshirt…”
“Oh, I remember him,” the receptionist beamed. “He’s hard to forget with those looks. If I were twenty years younger, I might have to fight you for him,” she teased, but Leah was in no joking mood.
“Do you know where he went? He was supposed to be waiting here for me.”
“Oh. Well, he left about ten minutes ago. He was sitting here for a minute or two, and then he asked to use the restroom. A few minutes later, he just walked out. He didn’t say a word.”
He left her here. She knew he was upset but she expected he would wait for her. She reached for her cellphone but there were no texts, no messages. Alex had left and the only thing she could do was go home and wait for him to return.
II
Minutes turned into hours. Morning into afternoon and then evening, but no sign of Alex. Leah sat patiently waiting on the couch for him to return or for her phone to ring, but there was nothing but silence to greet her this day. She just sat on the couch holding the sonogram and trying to imagine this tiny little image as a baby.
She had always wanted children. Alex as well, until heroin became the only thing he wanted. They used to talk about having ten kids—she wanted five boys that looked like him and he hoped for five girls that looked like her. They would make their own little soccer or basketball team and have a huge house filled with laughter and parties and Christmases.
They both yearned for this family dream, but it seemed more of a pipe dream in recent years. Alex was too consumed with drugs, and Leah was too consumed with Alex to imagine herself as a parent. Yet they were about to have a child and the timing couldn’t be worse.
She was so new on her job and although things were going well, she doubted Marcus would be too appreciative of a maternity leave the first year on the job. Besides, even if he didn’t fire her, she was still facing significant financial problems. Babies were expensive and her entry-level reporting job would not be enough. Even if she increased her hours waiting tables, that wouldn’t be enough for a baby. Who would watch the baby when she worked?
Could she count on Alex to help support them? Would she ever get the chance to tell him? At this point she doubted if he would ever come home again. He’d been so angry and hurt. She should have stayed to talk to him rather than going into the exam room. She might have been able to defuse the situation, but she had hoped he would wait for her and she could fix things later.
Later had yet to come and the day was almost over. Before she knew it, evening turned to night and the day was officially over and Alex had never come home.
He didn’t come home on Sunday morning either. Leah called his cell repeatedly and even called the coffeehouse where he worked, but they said he hadn’t shown up for either of his shifts. It was clear he wasn’t welcome to show up again.
Leah tried his cell again and it immediately went to voicemail. This time, she left a message. “Alex, please call me. I know you’re angry and I get it, but shutting me out like this is not the way to deal with it. Come home and let’s work it out. Don’t do something that both of us will regret. Please Alex. Come home. I really need you to come home.”
A few moments later, Leah’s phone chirped and she raced to answer it nearly dropping it as she fumbled with the on switch. So anxious, she didn’t look at the caller ID before answering. “Alex! Alex is that you? Where are you?”
“Leah? It’s Marcus. Are you okay?”
Deflated and embarrassed, she tried to stifle her tears but they emerged in a frantic sob.
“Leah, what’s going on?”
She took a few deep breaths to ease her unsettled nerves. “I’m sorry. I…” She didn’t know what to say. Marcus was her boss and
she couldn’t tell him that she was pregnant just yet. She also couldn’t share with him that Alex had walked out and she hadn’t seen him in twenty-four hours. There was nothing she could say. She was pregnant and possibly abandoned by the one person she needed more than anything.
She had to keep it together in front of Marcus. If he knew her life had become such a dysfunctional mess he might fire her, assuming she couldn’t handle the strain of work. Losing her job was not an option. Not with a baby on the way and the likelihood of single parenthood facing her.
“You caught me at a really bad time. I apologize for my emotional outburst. It’s been a rough weekend. Everything is okay now. What can I do for you?”
“Leah, did something happen with Alex? Did he hurt you?”
Not physically, but emotionally he battered her heart so much it was breaking. “No, of course not. We got into a fight, but it was just a typical lovers’ quarrel. We’ll get over it.”
“Okay. Look, if it is a bad time we can talk later.”
“No. Now is fine. What’s going on?”
“Sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but I was invited to a dinner party at our boss’ house this evening. He asked me to invite you as well. He’s impressed with your blog. Well, he’s impressed with the amount of hits it’s getting. I doubt he has read a word, but he knows it’s successful and he wants to see the woman behind the success. I know it is last minute, but I just found out about it ten minutes ago. I understand if you can’t make it under the circumstances. No worries. I’m sure you will get another chance to meet him.”
To say this was bad timing was a gross understatement, but missing this opportunity was not an option. Grant Deverson was too important in the world of media. His papers had thrived when others were failing all around him. He was a financial genius who was equal parts eccentric and brilliant. Meeting him was an opportunity of a lifetime, especially for a newbie reporter. Leah refused to miss this chance. Her career depended on it, and now her baby’s future depended on her career success as well.
For the Love of Alex Page 10
