Giftchild

by Janci Patterson

  "Relax," the nurse said.

  Fat. Chance.

  I breathed deep. The pain in my back had subsided, for the moment at least. See, I thought. Nothing wrong. False alarm. I've terrified Mom for nothing. When she was done with my vitals, the nurse had me describe the problem. How long had I been bleeding? How much? Then she handed me a drape. "Undress from the waist down. Put this across your lap. The doctor will be just a minute."

  I held the drape in front of me. It was just a piece of soft fabric that looked like it had been washed many, many times. "Should I leave my underwear on?" I asked. "I'm wearing a pad."

  She reached into a drawer and handed me a thick pad of gauze. "Sit on this," she said.

  What if I soaked through? Did that mean the baby was going to die?

  Dr. Kauffman came in almost immediately after I sat down under the drape. It's just because they squeezed you in, I told myself. It's just because he's trying to get to his next patient on time.

  "Penny," he said, "I hear you're experiencing some bleeding."

  "Yeah," I said. "That's normal, right?"

  "Sometimes," he said. "Let's have a look."

  The nurse stood in the corner of the room while he stretched on a plastic glove and helped me lie back on the table. He poked at my abdomen first, then at the bleeding area. I chanted the anatomy in my head as he went over it. Uterus, ovaries, labia, vagina, cervix. I didn't need to learn those from a physiology book. I'd heard them in health lectures since I was ten.

  "All right," Dr. Kauffman said. "I'm going to send you over to the ultrasound room. That way we can get a better look at what's going on."

  A stabbing pain shot up my spine again, though I couldn't tell if it was cramping or panic. He was supposed to take one look and tell me it was fine. There wasn't supposed to be anything to look closer at. "You can't just use that cart thing again?" I asked.

  Dr. Kauffman actually had the nerve to smile. "I just want to make sure we don't miss anything," he said.

  They left me alone to dress. And before I knew it, the nurse was helping me into a wheel chair. I can walk! I wanted to shout. I'm fine!

  But with my shaking knees, I'd probably trip and fall and break open my head, and then Mom would show up to find me bleeding from both ends and she'd have an aneurysm and die.

  I sat quietly in the wheel chair as they rolled me down the hall.

  The nurse must have noticed my panic, because she bent down and spoke softly in my ear. "Did you bring anyone with you today?"

  Rodney. He was probably still here, wasn't he? Mom couldn't have gotten here that fast. "Yeah," I said. "A friend."

  The nurse's voice was kind. "Would you like me to ask her to come in with you?"

  She didn't tell me that everything was going to be okay. And if she saw that I was distressed and wanted to comfort me, she would have said that, if she could.

  Mom was probably driving straight from the grocery store. Maybe milk would spoil in the trunk. Maybe she'd left her groceries in the aisle. But when she arrived, Mom would come in with me, and grip the arms of chairs and bite her nails and generally look like she wanted to climb the walls.

  Just like me.

  And more than anything, I just wanted Rodney to sit next to me and not radiate fear. I wanted to be with someone who wouldn't fall to pieces on me.

  An ultrasound was just a stick on my belly. It wouldn't be too embarrassing, for me or for him. I wanted to let him be strong for me. I wanted to let him in.

  That's what he'd wanted all along, wasn't it?

  "Yes," I said. "Can you go get him?"

  The nurse hesitated, probably because she hadn't realized my friend was a guy. But as she wheeled me into the ultrasound room, she whispered, "Sure."

  By the time the soft knock came on the door, I was already on the ultrasound table, belly lubed, with the waistband of my jeans pushed down to my hip bones. The tech opened the door, and Rodney stood there, his hands jammed in his pockets.

  "Hey," I said, pointing to the chair next to me. "Sit with me for a minute?"

  The tech stepped aside and got her probe ready while Rodney shuffled into the room and lowered himself into the chair.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  No, I wanted to say. But if he meant physically, I didn't want to scare him. "They're checking to see," I said.

  Rodney took a deep breath and nodded. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and fiddled with it. As he sat down in the chair, the nurse poked her head back in.

  The tech took her rounded stick and ran it over my belly button. When the doctor did that last time, my belly gave way, still soft. But this time the stick barely dug into the skin; my uterus was firm underneath.

  My hand fidgeted at the edge of the exam table, while Rodney played with the edge of his phone case. My fingers still trembled, and I wanted him to take my hand, but even as I thought that, I kicked myself. I was supposed to be his friend. And friends didn't hold hands.

  Except when one of them was in the hospital, I thought. Maybe they held hands then?

  But Rodney didn't. Instead, he glanced upward to the flat-screen mounted to the wall above us as the gray, blobby picture appeared.

  I held my breath. I waited for the tech to tell me that everything was fine. There was nothing to worry about. The doctor was just being cautious.

  But she didn't say that. She didn't say anything at all, just moved around her probe with one hand and clicked with her mouse with the other, taking still shots of whatever she was looking at. She ran the stick along the side of my belly, and that's when the image became clear.

  I'd seen ultrasound photos before, of course. We'd had a march of them across our refrigerator doors—babies that other girls had promised to Mom. This looked just like one of those pictures: the bulbous head, the undersized body. Much clearer than the little squirming blip I'd seen at my twelve-week appointment, here was a full profile shot of the baby's head. Its arms and legs curled together, the ultrasound showing the motion in quick little jerks.

  Moving. And until that second, I hadn't articulated what I'd really feared. That the baby was already dead. That there was no hope.

  But how bad could things be, if something that tiny was living inside me, and still moving?

  As if to reassure me, its body curled tighter, and I could swear that those tiny fingers started playing with its toes.

  My skin washed cold as I became aware of Rodney sitting next to me, also looking up at the screen. His mouth hung open just slightly, and I could swear he was holding his breath.

  Seeing the baby. Our baby.

  The one I was giving away.

  Rodney glanced down at my stomach, then over at me, and then quickly, instantly, down at the floor. He shoved his phone hard back into his pocket, and cleared his throat.

  A horrible, dark feeling came over me. Shame that I'd brought him in here. Guilt that I'd made him see that.

  Most of all, a terrible, painful regret that I'd dragged him into this at all.

  Rodney's face grew red as he jammed his hands deep in his pockets, as far from holding mine as they could get.

  A knock came at the door, and without a pause, it swung open. Mom stood in the doorway, peering into the room. The tech made to get up, but I held up a hand.

  Mom's eyes ran over me, as if checking for missing limbs. "Penny," Mom said. "Are you—"

  But before she could finish her question, Rodney was on his feet. He didn't spare a look for either of us, just strode to the door and twisted past her, walking into the hall.

  And that's when I knew: Athena was right. Rodney and I would never be just friends.

  And it was killing him every bit as much as it was killing me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Week Seventeen

  Mom apparently didn't want to make a scene in front of the ultrasound tech, because she saved her freak-out until we were sitting back in my exam room, waiting for the doctor.

  She paced the floor. "Why didn't
you call me immediately?"

  I covered my face with my hands. "I didn't want to freak you out for nothing."

  "The nurse said you were bleeding. Are you in pain?"

  I shrugged. "Not much." My back throbbed, accentuating the lie. But the baby was moving. The extra pain was probably from stress.

  Oh, jeez. Would stress make this even worse? I raised my head, trying to loosen my shoulders. "Really, Mom," I said. "It's nothing. Spotting is normal. The baby is moving. Everything's fine."

  Mom took a deep breath and glanced down at her phone. "I called your father. He's on his way."

  "Mom," I said. "You didn't have to do that."

  I expected her to argue with me, but instead she squinted at me, like she had when I was little and she was trying to decide if I was lying. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Did the doctor say it was okay?"

  "Yes," I said, even though he hadn't. "He just wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure."

  Mom's shoulders relaxed. She believed me. But then her eyes hardened. "Then what was Rodney doing here? Shouldn't he be in school?"

  I groaned. I should have told her I was dying. If she thought the baby was in danger, she'd have been distracted from him. "He gave me a ride, okay? We've decided to be friends." Even those words hurt to say, but Mom didn't notice. Her arms flailed about.

  "You decided that? After you both agreed not to see each other?" Her voice grew higher and higher pitched. I was pretty sure they could hear her in the hall.

  "Look," I said. "If this is about the baby—"

  Mom snapped. "Of course it's about the baby! Rodney was sitting in an ultrasound with you. He could easily use that to prove that he was committed to—"

  "Mom!" I shouted. "He's not committed to me, okay?"

  I closed my eyes. I hoped Rodney had taken his car and gone back to school, because I'd shouted loud enough that if he was still in the waiting room, he'd have heard.

  Where was Dr. Kauffman, anyway? When I arrived, he was right in. Now that Mom and I were trapped in here together, waiting, he left us to torture each other.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I won't call him again, okay?" Ever, I told myself. Except to let him off the hook that I'd flayed him with.

  That's what the bleeding was. My wakeup call.

  Mom sank into a chair, deflated. "Why didn't you call me?" she asked. "My phone was on."

  "I know," I said. "But really, I just didn't want to worry you."

  Mom gave me an incredulous look.

  "I know, I know," I said. "I fail." I curled up on the exam table with my arms around my waist.

  Mom sank into a chair. "I'm glad you called the doctor right away," she said. Then she looked up at me. "You did, didn't you? This just started?"

  "Yes," I said. "Like an hour ago."

  Mom's voice grew quiet then. "Penny," she said. "If you can't go through with this, tell me now."

  I sat up straighter. In point of fact, I'd never been more sure that I had to. I couldn't even be a good girlfriend. There was no way I could be a good mother to a helpless little person. "I can," I said. "It's fine."

  Mom gave me a look. "What I saw in there with Rodney didn't look fine."

  I sucked my lips inward and clamped them closed with my teeth. "Neither of us is ready to be a parent."

  Mom nodded, and rolled her shoulders like she was trying to shrug off a burden. But she still hunched forward, bowing under their weight.

  As I looked at her, I wondered if she could go through this again. It was a horrible thing to ask about a woman with two almost-grown children, but was she ready to be a mother? She'd been ready to give up before I dragged us back into this, and maybe that would have been for the best. This baby was alive, but my back still ached. Were we going to be walking on eggshells through the rest of this pregnancy?

  Yes. We were. Mom would never relax. Not until she had her own baby at home in her arms, and maybe not even then.

  Nothing I could do would make her.

  Muscles cramped again in my tail bone, and I held my breath, blinking through the pain. I couldn't fix things with Rodney, and I couldn't make things okay for Mom.

  What was wrong with me that I couldn't make anything better?

  The door swung open, and Dr. Kauffman stepped in, holding a stack of papers. "Penny," he said. "How are you feeling?"

  "Lousy," I said. Mom looked at me in alarm, and I felt the familiar panic fluttering in my chest. I shouldn't have said that. Now she would worry.

  Except she'd worry anyway. If I couldn't stop it, why did I spend so much energy trying?

  Maybe because I didn't want to feel panicked. I looked up at Dr. Kauffman. "The baby's okay, though, right? I can go home?"

  Dr. Kauffman settled into his chair, studying the papers in front of him. "Are you in any pain?" he asked. "Cramps? Back pain?"

  I turned toward him so I wouldn't have to see Mom's face when she realized I'd lied to her. "Yeah," I said. "But that's normal, right? The book said—"

  "Have you suffered any physical trauma?" he asked. "Have you been in a car accident? Or fall?"

  My skin prickled. "No," I said. "Of course not."

  Dr. Kauffman laid one of the papers on his desk so I could see it. I could see the outline of the baby's foot in one corner of the image, but he pointed to another area of the scan, where one dark blob met another. I stared at it, as if this would tell me something.

  "This," Dr. Kauffman said, "is your placenta."

  Mom took in a sharp breath, like she'd somehow learned something from that, but I refused to look at her. Seeing her reaction would just make me feel worse.

  Dr. Kauffman's full attention was on me. "It's supposed to separate from the uterine lining immediately after the baby's born. But sometimes the separation begins early. We call that placental abruption. Yours is small so far, but you can see it here." He pointed again, but to me, the image looked like a gray line next to another gray line.

  I leaned back. Understanding the picture wouldn't make it go away.

  "Okay," I said. "So how do we fix it?"

  I heard Mom stepping away. The chair behind me creaked as she sank into it again.

  "Unfortunately," Dr. Kauffman said, "we don't. But sometimes it fixes itself. You don't have any risk factors for this, so that's a good sign. But I want to admit you to the hospital for a few days, so we can monitor you and the baby."

  Blood drained from my face. The hospital? Days?

  "No way," I said. "I can rest at home. I'll be good. I'll stay off my feet. Bed rest is a thing, right? I can do that."

  Dr. Kauffman held my gaze. "Penny," he said. "You're bleeding internally. That puts both you and the baby at risk. We need to monitor your blood pressure and the baby's heart beat, because if this gets worse, your life could be in real danger."

  Bleeding? I looked down at my stomach, as if I'd suddenly be able to see myself covered in blood. But no. Internally. Where no one could see.

  Shouldn't I be able to feel that?

  I still refused to look at Mom. Listening to the shallow way she was breathing was already making my heart race.

  Would that make the bleeding worse?

  Mom's hand reached for mine, but I tucked it out of her reach. My eyes burned, but I wasn't going to cry in front of her. I wasn't going to let her see me scared. I wasn't.

  Why did I text her? If I hadn't, Rodney could be sitting here with me. He could be the one holding my hand.

  I gripped the edge of the exam table. Screw it. If I couldn't make Mom feel better, I was going to do what needed to be done. I'd find out exactly how bad this was, and not try to make excuses. If there was no hope, Mom should know, shouldn't she? She'd just asked me not to string her along. "Tell me the truth," I said. "Is the baby going to die?"

  To his credit, the doctor didn't look away. "You're at seventeen weeks," he said. "If I had to deliver today, the baby would have almost no chance of survival. But babies can survive as small as twenty-three, even twenty-two weeks sometimes.
Ideally, you'll heal and make it close to full term. But at minimum, we need to buy you more time."

  Mom's voice was quiet. "Penny," she said. "Is that what you want to do?"

  As opposed to what? Let the baby die? "Yeah," I said. "It's just five weeks. We can do that."

  I tried not to think of pictures I'd seen in my physiology book—images of premature babies so tiny they looked like they were only half-formed.

  Mom put a hand on my knee, and I held perfectly still. "I need to go call your dad," she said quietly.

  I bit down on my lower lip, hard. She got to talk to Dad. She got to seek comfort from someone she trusted. But I wasn't even supposed to call Rodney and tell him what was going on.

  "Do you want to know the gender?" Dr. Kauffman asked.

  I froze. The gender? They weren't supposed to check that for another few weeks. But I'd had an ultrasound. If he happened to see . . . .

  Mom stood, suspended. It took several heartbeats for me to realize she was waiting for me to answer. Did I want to know? I finally spared her one quick glance.

  Big mistake. Nothing Dr. Kauffman had said prepared me for the stricken look on her face or the tears gathering below her eyes.

  "Yes," I said.

  Dr. Kauffman spoke quietly. "You're having a boy."

  A boy. Not a replacement for Anna, or the other babies Mom lost, but a little boy, who'd be a person in his own right. A little boy who might die, even if I did everything in my power to help him get here safely.

  Oh, crap. Would he look like Rodney? Would he have his mannerisms? Would my own brother forever remind me of the guy whose heart I broke?

  Mom's eyes closed, and a tear welled out of the corner of her eye and hung there, like a little blister. When her eyes opened again, she half smiled at me. I knew it was all she could muster, but for the life of me, I couldn't paste one on in return.

  If I lost this baby, was I looking at what I would become? A deep well of sadness, unable to cope?

  And if I was, who would support me?

  Guilt settled in my stomach like bad eggs. That thought was beyond selfish. What was I doing, resenting her? She was the one I was supposed to help. "Call Dad," I said.