by Naomi Niles
I sat at the corner of the bar watching the boys drinking a few tables over and I could tell from their pathetic singing that they were all drunk. The beer was particularly strong here and what’s why I had championed this place. I wanted the strongest buzz in the fastest time. Ironically however, I had been sipping from the same beer for the last half hour, unable to down it like I had originally intended.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be drunk; it was just that the more I drank, the more my thoughts kept drifting back to Bastrop and Lizzie. I realized that when I was sober, it was easy not to think of her, but when I was drunk, I had no control over where my thoughts travelled. They went to their natural resting spot and that was always Lizzie.
I took another swig of beer and turned my focus on one of the waitresses. She had those sultry, exotic, Japanese features with straight, silky hair that flowed down her back. Her voice was slightly accented, which meant I could understand her perfectly and every time she passed by me, she gave me a little smile that hid a wink.
I nodded to her and she smiled back. “Can I get you anything, sir?” she asked.
“I’ll let you know when I need something,” I said.
She gave me another smile and disappeared with a tray in hand. I noticed that I wasn’t the only guy in the bar who was checking her out. I turned back to my beer and stared at it as my thoughts travelled back to Bastrop.
This last tour had really opened my eyes to the reality of what I wanted and instinctively I knew this would be my last deployment. I couldn’t do it anymore and it was starting to show. My heart just wasn’t as committed as it used to be. My head was always somewhere else and I knew that if I stayed on, then it would end up getting my killed, or even worse, getting someone else killed.
It was time to be a man, fess up, and admit that my time in the Navy was done. I was still playing around with the idea of opening up a rehabilitation center for war veterans and it was becoming less like a far off dream and more like an imminent reality. I could almost touch it; it was so close to being real. The amazing thing was that I felt good about it. I felt like the next logical step for me.
The only thing was I had no idea how to get it started. I had no idea what I needed to do in order to get this idea off the ground.
“Lizzie will help me,” I thought to myself and then I stalled.
It was unfair of me to expect her to be there for me whenever I called. I thought back over the last couple of months and I felt shitty all over again. I had written to her twice before the letters had dried up again, just like the last time. It wasn’t ever that I stopped thinking about her or stopped caring. In fact, I thought about her more than usual and I cared about her more intensely than before … but now I could see what was constraining me. It was fear.
I was scared to let her down; I was scared that I was going to ruin her life if I entered it again and I was scared off putting her through all the baggage I had been carrying around for the past decade. She was the kind of woman who deserved a life without complication. She didn’t need to see me freak out when I had a dream in the night or when the unpredictable bouts of PTSD hit.
She deserved someone who wasn’t broken, someone who still had hope, who still craved adventure. The only adventure I wanted anymore was a quieter, more subtle version; the version that included a piece of land that was mine, a partner to share my life with, and children whom we could bring up together.
It sounded so simple, so perfect when I imagined that life that for a moment, it didn’t seem possible that it could ever belong to me. I pictured a little house, I even pictured a couple of kids … but the woman who stood beside me was cloaked in shadow. I knew who I would like her to be, but I knew it was unfair of me to place that choice before her, especially when I had chosen an alternate life that didn’t include her. Especially when I needed more time and Lizzie was ready for all those things now. It wasn’t fair for me to ask her to wait.
I picked up the beer and downed it in one. I shook off the sting that shot down my throat and glanced up. I spotted the waitress I had seen earlier and walked over to her.
“Hi,” I said and she turned around immediately.
She blinked up at me and then smiled. “Hello, sir,” she said as her black hair shone under the dim lights of the bar. “What do you need?”
“I need an hour of your time tonight,” I said boldly. “After your shift is up.”
I thought for a second that she might turn me down, but then her eyes looked over my body and she nodded. “My shift finishes in ten minutes,” she said with that wink of hers.
I met her outside in ten minutes and we shared a cab back to her place. I barely paid attention to her untidy, box apartment in the middle of nowhere. All I was interested in was getting her naked as soon as possible. I wanted to drown my fears and doubts in her body; I wanted to lose myself in her so that I wasn’t forced to think about all the things that were important.
I remembered how long it had been since I’d slept with a woman who was a stranger to me. It felt odd, somehow, as though I wasn’t really in the room with her pulling off her clothes and squeezing her small, pointed breasts. It felt as though I wasn’t really there at all. It was the strangest feeling in the world. There was disconnection there and it was so large that I might as well have been sitting by the window staring out at the world, daydreaming. There was nothing tying me to this moment.
Even when I pushed myself inside her and she squealed like a little girl, I did not feel a thing. I went through the motions because my body was so well practiced in the art, but I felt nothing, not even pleasure. I could feel my erection beginning to die inside her and instinctively I shut my eyes and imagined Lizzie.
I imagined what it had felt like to touch her and kiss her and make love to her. I saw her face in my mind’s eye clear as day as she lay beneath me under the fading light of the setting sun. She was perfect, she was smiling, and I could count the freckles on the bridge of her nose. She was the girl I had grown up with; she was my best friend and my confidant. She was my lover and my counsellor.
Slowly, I felt my erection come to life again. I kept my eyes closed and my mind focused on Lizzie as I rammed into the nameless, Japanese girl underneath me. I came with my eyes still closed and the intoxicating presence of Lizzie all around me.
Chapter Thirty
Elizabeth
I bent to place Elvis’s breakfast at his feet when I was overcome by a wave of dizziness. I straightened up quickly and felt light headed. I walked slowly to my sofa and sat down, waiting to see if the feeling would pass. Instead, the feeling grew worse and worse until I was running towards the bathroom, hoping I would reach the toilet bowl in time.
I threw up nosily, my stomach heaving forward as though it had a mind to jump right out of me. I could hear Elvis meowing with concern at the bathroom door, but I couldn’t even look up. I threw up until my insides felt hollow, then I flushed quickly and washed out my mouth. I stood in front of the mirror, leaning against the sink, breathing deeply and wondering what had just happened.
I felt better, but I was a little concerned as to what had just caused that. I walked back into the kitchen with Elvis at my heels and poured myself a glass of orange juice to further cleanse my tongue. I had taken only a few sips when another wave of nausea hit me and I had to run right back into the bathroom. By the time I was done, I felt weak and lifeless and the worry had turned into a full-blown panic.
I reached for my phone and dialed in my mother’s number. “Mom,” I said before she could even say hello.
“Elizabeth?” she said with concern. “Are you all right dear?”
“No. I threw up a couple of times and now I feel really weak, ma,” I said as I sat down.
“Sit there and wait for me,” mom replied quickly. “I’ll be over in a trice.”
Fifteen minutes later and she was knocking at my door. I walked over and opened it for her. She looked me up and down as she moved inside. She placed her
hand against my forehead as though she were studying me.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” I said. “I just feel weird.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
“Get your coat,” mom said immediately. “Let’s go to the hospital.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?” I asked.
“Yes,” mom replied in her no nonsense voice and I was forced to follow her out of the apartment with my coat and my bag in tow. She drove me to the hospital and we walked into one of the general waiting rooms while my mother filled out my details and we waited to be seen by one of the general practitioners.
“Mom, could you call Maddie and tell her where we are. It’s Saturday and we always have breakfast together. She’s going to wonder why I’m not there.”
“Of course, darling,” she nodded as I went in to see the doctor while mom stayed outside to make the call.
Doctor Towry was a middle aged, dark haired, and spectacled. She asked me a whole bunch of questions and took her time with me, which I appreciated.
“Let’s do a blood test,” she said at last. “Then we can really determine what’s wrong.”
“I work with kids,” I told her. “I probably caught something from one of them.”
“Hmm …” she said as though she didn’t think that was a possibility. “We’ll have to see.” Then she turned to me again just before she headed out of the room. “When was your last period?
“Two weeks ago,” I said.
She nodded and disappeared with my information. The moment she was gone, my mother appeared in the room. “I spoke to Maddie,” she said. “She’s on her way over here.”
“She didn’t need to come down.”
“I know, but she wanted to,” mom replied. “The diner’s close by in any case.”
Mom stood by my side as we waited for the doctor to return. She stroked my hair every now and then and it reminded me of when I was a child and we visited the pediatrician. I looked at my mother and saw the strong woman she was but I also realized that she had lived a lonely life after she had divorced my father.
“You never dated much, did you?” I asked abruptly making mom look at me in surprise.
“Why do you ask?”
“I was just thinking you never really had many boyfriends after dad,” I said.
“Once you left for college, I dated a little bit,” mom replied.
“But no one serious?”
“I realized that I liked being by myself,” mom replied surprisingly.
“Really?”
She laughed and grazed her fingers against my cheek. “Finding love is a wonderful feeling, but if it doesn’t come your way, why tie yourself to a man who you don’t love just because you’re scared to be alone? I was in my forties before I realized it, but at least I realized it.”
I smiled. “Good on you, ma.”
She returned the smile and then her phone started ringing. “It’s Maddie,” she told me before she answered the phone. Mom told Maddie what room we were in and a few moments later, the door opened and she walked in.
“Lizzie,” she said the moment she saw me. “Are you ok? What happened?”
“Honestly, I have no idea,” I replied. “I just started heaving my guts out this morning and then I felt kind of lifeless.”
“Did you catch something from school?” Maddie asked.
“That’s what I suspect too,” I said. “We’ll see. They’re running my blood work now.”
A minute later Doctor Towry walked through the door with a clipboard in hand. She smiled at all three of us and I instantly felt better. If it had been anything serious she wouldn’t have smiled I told myself.
“Did you find anything?” mom asked immediately.
“Something did turn up,” doctor Towry replied. “It’s as I suspected.”
“What is it?” I asked impatiently.
Doctor Towry looked up at me and smiled. “Congratulations are in order,” she said. “You’re pregnant.”
I just stared at her for a second wondering if this was some strange doctor joke of hers. I could feel the shock wafting off of mom and Maddie. Their eyes were on me but I kept my eyes firmly on Doctor Towry. “Excuse me?” I asked slowly.
“You’re pregnant, Elizabeth,” she repeated again. “You’re almost eight weeks along at this point—”
“Wait,” I said abruptly cutting her off. “Hold on; how on earth can I be pregnant?”
“Does that mean you were on some form of contraception?” Doctor Towry asked calmly.
“Well … no,” I said shaking my head. “But like I told you, I got my period a few weeks ago.”
“Two weeks ago you said?”
“Yes.”
“How was the flow?” Doctor Towry asked. “Was it heavy or just spotting?”
“Well … it was closer to spotting, I suppose,” I said trying to remember. “But I never have a very heavy flow, in any case.”
“Well, pregnant women sometimes do get a small amount of blood,” Doctor Towry said patiently. “It doesn’t mean anything is wrong. It’s just a natural occurrence.”
“So you’re saying …?”
“You’re definitely pregnant Elizabeth,” Doctor Towry said gently. “There’s not even a little bit of doubt here.”
I just stared at her.
“Would you like a minute?” she asked thoughtfully glancing at the shock written on all our faces.
“Please,” I nodded and she left us to the room again. I glanced at my mother and Maddie and they were looking at me with a million questions in their eyes. Apart from the shock, however, I registered another emotion that I was surprised to see.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing dear, it’s just … who is the father?” mom asked tentatively.
I glanced between Maddie and mom and pulled my eyebrows together. “Who do you think the father is?” I demanded without understanding.
“Lizzie,” Maddie said carefully. “Please don’t tell me it’s Paul’s”
“What!” I gasped. “How on Earth could you think that?”
“I don’t know,” Maddie said quickly. “It’s just that, I know he’s been trying to reach out to you … I didn’t know whether—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said cutting her off. “This is not Paul’s baby.”
“Good,” mom said putting a hand on my shoulder to calm me down. “Then whose is it?”
And there it was: I was faced with the truth of my circumstances and I could barely believe it. I shook my head for a moment. This was the first time I had to think about the father of my child. “It’s Dylan’s,” I said, my voice shaking slightly. “It’s Dylan’s.”
“Oh my God,” Maddie breathed slowly and I felt myself shake.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I said.
“Shhh, darling,” mom said as she leaned in and hugged me. “It’s going to be all right.”
I knew she was telling me what I wanted to hear. I could feel it in her voice. She was as unsure and as shocked as I was, but she had to be the mother now because I needed her to be. I leaned in to her and allowed myself to be comforted even though fear was coursing through my body relentlessly.
I just lay there against my mother’s shoulder for a few minutes and then I straightened up, knowing I would have to face this new reality sooner rather than later. I looked towards Maddie and she gave me a small unsure smile.
“Are you ok Lizzie?” she asked with concern and I knew that all she wanted in that moment was to know if this news was happy news for me or not.
The moment I realized that I was forced with deciding on the answer. I didn’t think, I just let myself feel and the instinctive response my body had … was joy. I let that sit for a moment and then I nodded. “I’m ok,” I nodded slowly. “I think I’m doing all right, actually.”
“This wasn’t planned, was it?” mom asked tentatively.
“No, it wasn’t,” I sighed
.
“Did you use protection?” Maddie asked.
I thought back to the last time Dylan and I had had sex. He hadn’t had a condom on him and I had assured him it would be all right because I’d just had my period. I gave myself an internal kick and shook my head. “I … no we didn’t.”
“Oh, Lizzie,” mom said looking at me with surprise and I knew she couldn’t believe that I had been so childish about the whole thing. I felt like I was in high school all over again.
“What are you going to do?” Maddie asked.
I let the question whiz around in my head a while but I already had the answer. There was no doubt about what I would do. I knew I was keeping this baby. It might not have been what I planned or envisioned for myself, but it was the hand I had been dealt and I was going to take it as a blessing and nothing else.
“What I’m going to do at this moment is go home and rest,” I said, avoiding the bigger question. “I still feel tired.”
“Good idea,” mom said as she helped me off my seat and we left the room.
Doctor Towry was just outside the room and she turned to me. “Is everything ok, Elizabeth?” she asked with concern.
“I’m fine, doctor, thank you,” I said. “I think I’m going to head home now.”
“Of course,” Doctor Towry nodded. “I think it would be a good idea to set up an appointment a little later in the week, though. You might want to discuss a few things, plus there are some prenatal vitamins you’ll want to start taking.”
“That sounds good, doctor,” I said. “I’ll do that once I let this sink in a bit first.”
The doctor smiled with understanding and I left the hospital with mom and Maddie. They drove me to my apartment and I collapsed immediately onto the sofa. All my symptoms suddenly made sense and that made me feel instantly better, as though everything was manageable now that I knew the reason for them.
“Can I get you something, dear?” mom asked.
“Something to drink,” I suggested as Maddie propped my feet up onto a cushion.
