Giftchild

by Janci Patterson

  It's fine, I told myself. An uneasy peace was better than no peace at all.

  The day of my first doctor's appointment was two days before Christmas break. I felt better than I had in weeks. I ate toast and fruit for breakfast, without the slightest urge to gag. My body hadn't changed yet—I could still button my jeans with ease. The doctor finally wanted to see me, and now I could almost pretend that there was nothing I needed to be seen for.

  No, the point of the doctor's appointment was for Mom to hear the heartbeat. Once she saw that everything was fine—that I wasn't destroying her baby's life with my inability to eat a perfect diet—then she'd relax.

  Please, I thought in the car on the way there. Please let her relax.

  But she sat hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it with both hands. She even drove nervously. I could hardly blame her. I was digging my nails into the armrest myself.

  When we arrived, Mom went up to the receptionist to check in as if she was the one with the appointment. I didn't mind, though. It saved me from trying to stammer out my situation to the receptionist, when obviously all she wanted was the information Mom gave her: my name. Mom returned with a clipboard that asked for everything else.

  A woman with an enormous belly came into the office with a toddler trailing behind her. The girl looked like she was about two—probably the age Athena was when Mom was that pregnant with me.

  "Come on," the mom said. "Hurry up."

  Her little girl ran immediately over to the pile of magazines and pulled out a copy of High Five with a jack-o-lantern on the front. The mom leaned over, scooping the girl up and resting her on her hip. How the girl fit there with the Mom's belly being so big was beyond me.

  I sucked in my stomach. Would my body be able to do things like that, or did it come from having an older child already? One point I was clear on: I was not doing this again in the even remotely near future. Maybe when Rodney and I were much, much older.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. When was I going to stop envisioning my future only with him in it?

  "Are you okay?" Mom asked. She paused with her pen halfway down a medical history form. I glanced down at the little row of check marks she'd put in the "no" column next to depression, diabetes, heart disease, and headaches.

  "Yeah," I said. "Fine. Let me finish that."

  If I was old enough to see an obstetrician, I was old enough to fill out my own medical forms.

  But Mom shook her head. "I'm almost done. It's easy. You've always been healthy."

  But when she checked no next to "other mental illness," I had to wonder. There had to be something wrong with me, right? Otherwise, how the hell did we end up here?

  "Penelope?" a nurse called. She smiled at me, and then at Mom, who followed with the clipboard. "Would you like your mother to stay in the waiting room while we do your intake?" she asked. "I can call her back before we check for the heartbeat."

  I shook my head. "It's fine," I said. "She can be here for everything." I smiled at Mom, trying to let her know that I wasn't going to exclude her, and she smiled back, like she was trying to reassure me.

  Yes. There was definitely something wrong with the both of us.

  The nurse led me into an exam room that might have been at my regular doctor's office. I'd expected the walls to be covered in those development pictures where the babies look all squished and uncomfortable, like in the fetal anatomy section of my textbook. But instead we were led into a small room with an exam table and a computer desk. I perched on the table while Mom settled herself into one of the padded plastic chairs off to the side.

  The nurse pulled up my chart on the computer and typed in the information from Mom's clipboard.

  "How long have you been sexually active?" she asked me.

  My cheeks burned. That's why she wanted to start with me alone. I should have listened. "I got pregnant the first time."

  Mom resettled in her chair, but I refused to look at her. The nurse nodded and typed something into the computer. She didn't even look up at me as she asked the next question. "And were you using birth control?"

  I stole a side glance at Mom, but she busied herself by digging through her purse. "No," I said. I forced myself not to cringe. The nurse wasn't going to ask if I got pregnant on purpose, but it was obvious, wasn't it? If Mom wanted to know, she'd put two and two together in a heartbeat.

  The nurse typed something into the computer, and I forced a laugh, reaching for a distraction. "Do you have a button for stupid teenage girls who don't know their actions have consequences?"

  The nurse gave me a sad smile. "Fortunately," she said, "our software is non-judgmental."

  Mom finally gave up on whatever she was looking for in her purse. She looked up at me, biting her lip.

  Did she believe it?

  I shook myself. Jeez. Did it matter?

  I shifted on the exam table, paper cover crumpling beneath my legs. Yes, it did matter to me what my mother thought. That's why I still hadn't told her the truth.

  The nurse took my pulse and my blood pressure, and then stood to leave. "The doctor will be just a minute," she said. "We'll bring in a monitor and take a look. You'll have the big ultrasound in a few months, but he likes to get a look at this stage, just to make sure everything's normal."

  Mom's shoulders tensed. I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. That's what we were here for. To make sure everything was normal. And when it was, hopefully we'd both be able to relax.

  The nurse looked from me to Mom, then left, closing the door behind her.

  I wondered how many girls like me she saw in a week. Were all their mothers nervous wrecks?

  After a long silence, Mom said, "I talked to our adoption agency."

  I nodded. We needed to get things squared away. "What did they say?"

  Mom fiddled with the strap of her purse. "They said that with adoptions within a family, sometimes the process is easier. But we've already done all the background checks and home inspections, so either way, we're covered."

  That was good. Simple and easy. We all needed more of that. "So what do I need to do?"

  "You'll meet with one of their counselors, who will talk to you about your rights. Other than that, we don't do much until the baby is born. Then we sign an adoption agreement, and thirty days later, it becomes legal."

  We signed. That meant Mom and Dad and me. Not Rodney. "That's it?"

  Mom dug her fingernails into the strap so hard that the stitching began to give. "The counselor will probably ask you if you're under pressure to give up the baby."

  Ah. That's what she was worried about. "Oh," I said. "No problem there."

  Mom nodded, staring down at the floor. "And they want you to give a statement that the father hasn't demonstrated any commitment to you or the baby."

  My face flushed. To me or the baby. "That's what I have to say?" I asked. "That he's never demonstrated a commitment to me?"

  "Not since you've been pregnant," Mom said. She narrowed her eyes. "He hasn't, right?"

  "Um," I said. Mom sank back in her chair, and I searched wildly around the office, like one of the signs posted in here would tell me the right thing to say.

  Mom closed her eyes. "What happened?" she asked.

  Crap. I'd covered when the nurse nearly gave things away, but now here I was, telling Mom things that were even less of her business. But if I didn't tell her, and Rodney brought it up later . . . "He offered to marry me."

  Mom's eyes bugged out. "What? When?"

  I flailed my arms at her. "When I first told him. Way before you said we shouldn't talk to each other."

  Mom dropped her hands onto the chair's armrests with a united thud. "You can't get married," Mom said. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to make it as a married couple when you're just teenagers?"

  I glared at her. "I said no."

  Mom settled back into her chair, but she didn't look happy.

  And I had to admit, that feeling was mutual.

  Ther
e was a knock on the door, and then it swung open. The doctor stepped into the room, with his nurse trailing behind him.

  Doctor Kauffman had thick brown hair that grew past his shoulders, pulled back in a low ponytail. He smiled at Mom, and shook her hand. Then he turned to me.

  "You must be Penelope," he said.

  "Penny," I said.

  He took my hand as well. "Penny," he said. "Do you mind if your mom waits outside for a minute while I talk to you?"

  He directed the question at me, but he was clearly asking both of us.

  "That's fine," I said quickly. I'd learned that lesson from the nurse; if the medical professionals want to talk to you alone, let them.

  But he didn't ask me any more embarrassing questions about my sexual history. Instead he said, "Your blood pressure looks good. It looks like you haven't had a pap smear before—do you mind if we check your cervix today?"

  Oh. I had a painfully accurate idea of where my cervix was. "No problem," I said. "Whatever you need to do."

  Dr. Kauffman opened the exam room door, but he invited the nurse back in instead of my mother. I got that she was there for legal reasons, but the only thing worse than stirruping my heels and being prodded with a cold, hard tool was the awkwardness of being watched while it happened.

  Rodney didn't need to worry about my nose labeling failures. I had absolutely no desire to go into medicine. For what I expected to be the first of many times in this pregnancy, I was just glad when the procedure was over.

  Dr. Kauffman excused the nurse, and my mother came back in, glancing nervously from me to him.

  My stomach tightened. I really hoped she was worried about the health of the baby, and not about the adoption itself. I was supposed to be the birth mom she didn't have to be nervous about.

  "Let's take a look at the baby," Dr. Kauffman said. The nurse wheeled in a monitor attached to a round stick that looked just like the back end of a turkey baster. "We'll do a big ultrasound at twenty weeks," Dr. Kauffman said. "But I like to take a look at your first visit, just to be sure everything's okay."

  I pulled my shirt around my ribs and Dr. Kauffman smeared my stomach with a warm gel. Mom watched, cheeks crinkling anxiously. Dr. Kauffman pressed the rounded stick to my stomach, pushing against my abdomen and rubbing it around. A steady pulse came from the speakers.

  "That's your heartbeat," he said. "The baby's will be much faster."

  He pushed against the space between my hip bone and the fleshy part of my belly. Gray shapes shifted on the monitor. As he slid the probe toward my belly button, another beat ticked from the speakers. The noise pulsed quickly, like a sonar sound effect from a submarine movie. As the doctor pushed the stick under my belly button, the noise grew softer, then louder, then softer again. "We've got movement in there," he said.

  My heartbeat quickened, and with it the slower thumping noise. "It's moving already?" I asked.

  The doctor nodded, and the beating became softer again, then faded away. I supposed that made sense—lots of living things were tiny. Ants moved. Mites. Bacteria. But a person that small, already able to squirm around—I couldn't picture it.

  It turned out I didn't need to. Dr. Kauffman ran the probe against my hip bone, drawing a line down toward my pubic bone, and the fast pulsing was back. He touched the monitor, pointing to a dark gray blur in the center. As he tapped the screen, a measurement appeared around it.

  "Looks like twelve weeks," he said. "Is that what we were expecting?"

  I nodded, my eyes glued to the screen. Dr. Kauffman angled the stick to the side, and the blur flitted away, disappearing again in the sea of gray fuzz.

  "Is it . . ." I squinted at the screen. "Is it reacting to you?"

  Dr. Kauffman nodded. "Maybe just the change in pressure. But at this age, they definitely squirm when you poke them."

  I held my breath, trying to feel that wiggling mass swimming around inside me. But all I felt was the pressure of the stick as Dr. Kauffman searched out the quick little heartbeat again, measuring it.

  "Everything looks good," he said.

  I heard Mom let out a breath of relief, but I still couldn't bear to look away from the screen. It looked good? There was a person in there. How could he talk about it as if it were ordinary?

  He pulled the stick away, and turned off the monitor. And only then did I look up at Mom and find her looking straight at me.

  Blood drained from my face. I was supposed to be watching her. This was her baby, not mine. And how must she feel, having to look at someone else's ultrasound, wishing she were the one who was pregnant? She must feel so stupid—her idiot daughter can get pregnant, but she can't.

  But as I looked into her eyes, I didn't see embarrassment, or sadness, or frustration. I saw something else—something infinitely more painful.

  I saw fear.

  A pit hardened in my stomach. The baby was fine. Things looked good. The freaking doctor thought so. Mom should be happy, shouldn't she?

  But when Mom looked back at the now-blank monitor, her face softened, like what she'd seen there was a comfort.

  It wasn't the information on the monitor that made her afraid. It was me.

  Did she think I wouldn't be able to part with the baby? That I'd make the choice Lily did, and the others before her, and keep it?

  I forced a smile. "Good, then," I said. "Everything's good."

  The doctor nodded. Mom nodded. But I was pretty sure that Dr. Kauffman was the only one who believed it.

  "We'll see you back here in a month. If you experience any bleeding, cramping, or severe pain, I want a call about it, okay?"

  I nodded, trying to look at him, but in my mind, all I could see was that little, shifting blur.

  A child. Mine and Rodney's.

  A living, moving, feeling person that, for the next several months, no one could care for but me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Weeks Fourteen through Seventeen

  A few weeks later, in January, I stood in the center of the street with my camera lens pointed at a lake-like puddle. Last winter, Rodney and I had taken tons of pictures of street puddles—always with one of us spotting cars for the other.

  Today, I was alone. Drizzles of rain misted down, and even though I was using a lens hood, I kept having to stop to clean drops off the glass.

  Still, the shot I was working on was going to be worth it. When the puddle stopped sloshing from a passing car, I framed the curb against the reflection of two street lights; a red arrow, and a green circle. As the sky sprinkled droplets onto the puddle, the light fractured in rippled patterns. I pressed my shutter down, snapping away.

  One of these pictures was going to be perfect. It was the sort of picture Rodney would think of—equal parts I can do this without you and don't you miss doing this with me?

  I checked my lens, and rolled my eyes, trudging to the curb to clean it. Again.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I stood safely on the curb, protecting my camera from the rain beneath my jacket, and checked it.

  The text was from Athena. We were supposed to meet up for lunch.

  On my way, she said.

  I'm out taking pictures, I texted back. Can you pick me up?

  Sure, she said. Where?

  I gave her directions to the park down the street, and walked down to the empty playground while I waited.

  Thick drops of water collected on the bar above the swing set, falling down onto the seats. I walked across the wet wood chips and snapped some pictures of the water collecting there. I knelt at the base of the swing set, taking shots of the dripping swings in the foreground, set against the backdrop of the bar, and the stormy sky beyond.

  When I was done, I pulled my jacket down over my butt and sat on the wet seat. I held my camera in my lap, protecting it from the rain with my body, and flipped through the pictures.

  I'd caught one of a particularly fat drop, stretching downward, top thinning against the seat, about to fall. Above it, the swing set loome
d, dark against the dim sky. Only the raindrop had any shine to it. It was the best picture I'd taken in months—maybe all year.

  "I win," I said. But of course there was no competition without Rodney around to care.

  I tucked my camera under my jacket, where it wouldn't get any wetter than it already had, and kicked out my legs. A shower of drops fell down on me as my swing shook the bar, and I turned my face up into them, letting them drench me.

  I put my hand on my stomach.

  I tried to imagine the person the baby would be, my brother or sister, the sibling my parents always meant for me to have. Maybe in a few years I'd push him or her on a swing just like this, the way Athena used to do for me when I was three and she was five.

  What would that baby think of me?

  I opened my eyes again; the sky remained drab.

  "I'll be the best sister ever," I said aloud. But that was wrong. If I was too good a sister, the child would wish that I were its mother. I'd be a good sister, but not as good a sister as Mom was a mother, so this baby would never have a reason to wish this had happened any other way.

  And Rodney. Oh, goodness, Rodney. Would he be the child's brother-in-law?

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Only if he forgave me. And that was a big, improbable if. I focused on breathing, in and out. In and out. I'd find a way to explain him, whatever we turned out to be.

  What would my baby look like? Some cross between me and Rodney?

  No, I thought. Not my baby. Mom's. Mom's. I had better not slip like that in front of her.

  Athena pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later and honked the horn.

  "What are you doing?" she shouted out the window at me. "You're soaked!"

  I was, and as I ran through the rain to reach the car, my shoes kicked up water from a pothole puddle, spraying my jeans even more.

  Athena turned the heater up full blast. "Mom will kill you if she sees you like that," she said. She eyed my camera as I pulled it out of my jacket. "Get anything good?"

  "The best," I said. "Totally worth it."

  Athena shrugged down inside her own fleece jacket. "Just make sure your hair's dry before you go home. Where do you want to eat?"