I suddenly felt terrified and I drew in a shaky breath.
Barbara/Beatrice smiled at me. “I’m going to be looking at some things to see that the baby seems healthy,” she continued, more kindly this time, and I decided she wasn’t so bad after all. “We’ll take some measurements, listen to the heartbeat, and then, if you’d like, we can tell you the baby’s sex. We’ll take a picture and you’ll be all set to go. Sound good?”
“Sure,” I whispered, my voice shaking. Annie immediately reached down and grabbed my hand. Barbara/Beatrice put the wand against my stomach, made some adjustments on the monitor, and suddenly the screen burst into life. It mostly looked like static to me, but in the middle was a round black blobby thing, and inside of that was a shape—
“There it is,” said Barbara/Beatrice softly. “There’s your baby. Everything looks really good so far. I’m going to take a few measurements, and if I just turn this up here…” she twisted a dial and the room was filled with a rapid, pulsating sound. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat,” she said, smiling over at me.
“Holy shit,” Annie whispered, eyes glued to the screen, obviously freaked out. I felt pretty freaked myself.
It was a weird combination of terror and something else…something like awe.
“I mean…holy shit, Ginny.”
“I know,” I replied, breathless. I squeezed her hand, feeling the need to anchor myself to something, almost like I was afraid the image on the monitor would overwhelm me.
“I can tell you the sex, if you’d like to know,” Barbara/Beatrice said. I tore my eyes from the monitor and met Annie’s, which were opened wide in the same expression of awe that I could feel in my own. She raised her eyebrows at me.
“Yeah. I mean, yes, please,” I said.
“It’s a boy. You’re having a baby boy.”
A feeling like I have never known crashed over me. It was joy, elation, excitement, fear…It was completely overwhelming and I burst into tears, hardly knowing why. Annie bent down and kissed my forehead, laying her cheek on top of mine, and I could feel her tears, hot on my cheek and mixing with my own. “We’re having a baby,” she whispered. “Oh my God, Ginny, we’re having a baby boy.”
* * *
One thing that I had always loved about Annie was her ability to get emotional, show people how she felt, and then immediately go right back to normal. With some people, sobbing uncontrollably over an ultrasound image would have made them feel awkward, uncomfortable. Not Annie.
“You know,” she said thoughtfully, as she helped me button my blouse after Barbara/Beatrice had left to develop the ultrasound picture. “Your tits are gonna get huge pretty soon.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “I think everything’s gonna get huge. I can already barely get my big, fat, swollen feet into my only pair of Jimmy Choos.”
Annie snorted. “Jimmy Choos, my ass. I know for a fact you bought those knockoff pieces of crap on the internet. They’re not even real leather.”
I reached out to pull her hair just as the technician came back into the room. She gave us another disapproving look; apparently the bonding moment with Barbara/Beatrice had ended with the ultrasound. She handed me an envelope with my pictures, instructed me to make an appointment for the following month, and nodded me out of the exam room.
“You keep making Barbara think I’m unfit to be a mother,” I mock-scolded Annie as we walked to the front desk.
“Who the hell is Barbara?” she asked. “I thought that chick’s name was Denise.”
It was my turn to snort as we stepped into line behind a shorter woman with a sleek blond bob. The woman turned slightly toward us and her eyes flicked vaguely in our direction, before she turned her attention back to the front—but then recognition seemed to dawn on her and she did a double take. My heart stopped.
It was Mrs. Stanley, Josh’s mother. She stared at me, clearly surprised to see me there, a polite smile forming on her face. And then, oh my God, her eyes flicked down over my body to my stomach, and she froze.
“Ginny?” she asked, staring at my prominent baby bump. “Is that…are you…?”
I felt like I might hyperventilate. Josh’s mom was here, at my gynecologist office, for God’s sake. And she knew! She knew about the baby! What if she told him? What was I going to tell her?
“Oh my God...” Annie said next to me, realization dawning on her.
“Um, I can…I can explain,” I stammered.
Mrs. Stanley was still staring at my stomach and I had no idea what to say to her. I cleared my throat once, and then again, and finally she seemed to pull herself together. Not meeting my eyes she gestured toward the waiting room.
“Perhaps we’d better go talk,” she said shakily.
I followed her toward a far couch in an empty area of the room. Annie made as if to come with me but I stopped her with a shake of my head. She took a seat near the door, but I could feel her eyes on my back as I walked away from her, and I took some strength from knowing she was there, watching.
I sat down next to Josh’s mother, trying desperately to think of what to tell her. I was relieved when she started first. “You’re pregnant,” she said, more a statement than a question. I nodded my head. “Is it…is it Josh’s?”
“Yes,” I said quietly, and she closed her eyes swiftly, almost like she was flinching. I felt so bad for her then, so guilty. “I’m sorry.”
“Does he know?” she asked.
“No…not yet.” I thought I saw relief on her face, but it passed quickly enough that I thought I must have imagined it. “I called him, but his number’s changed.” The excuse felt flimsy in my ears. “I know I need to tell him, and I will, I just…I just didn’t know how.”
She nodded her head somewhat distractedly. “How far along are you?” she asked.
“Four months. He’s due in July.”
Her eyes snapped up, meeting mine for the first time. “He?” she asked sharply.
“Yeah, it’s a boy. I just found out, actually.”
She seemed, somehow, even more dazed than before.
“Are you going to tell Josh?” I asked.
“Do you want me to?”
“No…no, it should be me,” I answered, though the mere thought of telling him made me feel immediately cold all over. “I’ve been thinking I’d go up to Lansing, because he changed his number… He hasn’t called lately—I’d asked him not to actually…” I knew I was babbling and I made a conscious effort to stop talking, but it didn’t seem like Mrs. Stanley was really listening to me anyhow.
“He’s coming home this weekend,” she said slowly. “If you wanted to tell him in person, I could arrange it for you, tell him you need to see him.”
“Really?” I was surprised that she was willing to help me. To be honest, I was surprised she hadn’t yet started calling me a whore, or slapping me or something. Mrs. Stanley had never quite warmed to me—and that was all before she found out I was knocked up with her son’s illegitimate baby.
“What choice do I have?” she asked rather sharply, displaying some anger for the first time. “He should know, and like you said, you should be the one to tell him.” Abruptly she pulled out a pen and an envelope from her purse. She scribbled something on the envelope, tore off the piece she’d written on, and handed it to me. “I’ll make sure he’s at that café at that time. You can tell him then.” And before I had a chance to say another word, she got up and swept out of the room.
Chapter Fifteen
Annie called Jen as she drove us home, informing her we were going to need major reinforcements of pizza to get through the night. I was still feeling somewhat shell-shocked. First the ultrasound—the crashing realization that I was having this baby, for real—and then the run-in with Josh’s mom. It was a lot to take in for one afternoon.
Jen met us at the house, pizzas and pop in hand, and Annie immediately began filling her in on what had happened. Jen was appropriately shocked.
“Of all the coincidences in the world,” sh
e muttered. “Well, I guess now it at least solves that problem for you.”
“What problem?”
“Well, trying to figure out when, and how, to tell Josh. She took the choice away from you. Now you know.”
“Yeah, but I’m no closer to knowing how to tell him.” I sighed. This was what I had been avoiding for so long. Just thinking of seeing him again, under any circumstances, made my heart start to beat faster. How was I going to manage to also tell him that his life was going to change?
Annie reached for another slice of pizza. “Do what I do when I’m performing,” she advised. “Learn your lines really well so that when the time comes, and you’re nervous, you can just jump in without thinking about it. Just do it.”
“What are you, a fucking Nike commercial now?”
“Fine, make fun. I’m only trying to be fucking helpful.” She stuck her tongue out at me, in the process showing me a mouthful of chewed pizza.
“Oh my God, I’m going to be sick,” I moaned.
“Oops, sorry. Forgot I can’t do things like that around preggers over here.”
“You know what I think?” Jen said, interrupting us both. “I think the two of you swear way too much.”
“Okay, Mom,” I said childishly.
“That’s just my point: you’re going to be a mom. What mom do you know that says the eff-word twenty times a day?”
“The eff-word? What are we, twelve?” I laughed.
“You know, she does have a point,” Annie said. “You do have a pretty dirty mouth.”
“Me? Are you serious? You swear me under the table!”
“Yes, but I, unlike you, would be willing to curb my swearing for the benefit of little baby Dumbledore,” Annie said beatifically.
“I am not naming my baby Dumbledore,” I growled. “And I think we both know that I could stop swearing before you could.”
“Wanna bet?” Annie asked eagerly. “What do you say about a little wager?”
We decided that for every use of the four letter curses we would have to pay each other a dollar. Minor swear words would cost fifty cents. I smiled at Annie broadly. “I have a feeling you’re going to be paying for my baby’s college education with this bet.”
“Or you might be buying me a new Coach handbag,” she replied, grabbing the last slice of pizza from the box.
“So when did she arrange for you guys to meet?” Jen asked.
I groaned. “On Saturday morning.”
“Want us to come with you?”
“No, I think I should probably do it myself,” I sighed. “Thanks though.”
After that we decided to stick a movie on in the hopes that it would distract me from what was coming. It worked. Sort of.
* * *
I took time getting dressed and ready Saturday morning, choosing my outfit with care and spending far longer than usual blowing out my long brown hair silky straight. As I reapplied eye shadow for the third time—I couldn’t seem to get it to smudge in just the right way—I had to admit that I was being pretty silly. What was I expecting? Did I really think any amount of primping would soften the blow of what I was about to tell him? However, I had always felt that looking good was the best weapon (sometimes the only weapon) you had when the chips were down, and I wasn’t about to backtrack on that now.
I got to the coffee house early, figuring that if I saw Josh and then had to walk across the room to meet him, my legs just might give way first My palms were sweating like crazy before I even finished stirring my herbal tea. How was I going to get though this? I added a sugar packet and, in doing so, bumped my cup with my shaking hands. “Shit,” I muttered. There was a very noticeable yellow stain spreading across the thigh of my khakis. As I dabbed at it furiously with a napkin, I heard someone clear her throat.
I looked up, straight into the eyes of Mrs. Stanley. “What are you doing here?” I blurted out in surprise.
“Good morning, Ginny,” she said stiffly. Looking distinctly uncomfortable, she pulled out the chair across from me and sat down, staring determinedly at the table and not meeting my eyes. “Josh isn’t coming.”
“Why not?” I asked, feeling the beginnings of dread creeping up from my toes. “Did something happen?”
“He didn’t want to see you,” she answered, still not meeting my eyes. “I told him you had news for him, news he needed to hear, but he refused.”
I felt the room begin to spin. Could Josh really feel so apathetic towards me that he wouldn’t even see me?
“I felt I had no choice but to tell him about the baby,” she said flatly. “I’m sure you’ll agree there was nothing else I could have done.”
Oh crap. Crap! Josh knew! He knew about the baby! But if he knew then why…
“Why isn’t he here then? If you told him, why didn’t he come?” I asked in bewilderment.
She finally met my eyes then, and hers were full of pity. “He didn’t want to see you,” she repeated.
I stared at her, completely aghast. What was she saying?
“Josh does not wish to have anything to do with this situation,” she said, her voice shaking somewhat. “I’m sure that is hard for you to hear, and I apologize, but there’s no point in pretending otherwise.”
I couldn’t take it in. Was she seriously telling me that Josh wasn’t going to…to what? To see the baby? To acknowledge him at all? How could that be possible?
“Josh loved you once,” she said, looking down again and staring at her hands. “But things have changed. He just got an amazing job offer at a magazine in Seattle and he’ll be moving within the month. He doesn’t want anything to tie him down, to tie him here.”
The things she was saying to me weren’t making sense. I couldn’t imagine Josh ever, ever choosing to ignore me if he knew about the baby. And even if he did, surely he would have the balls to come and tell me himself. I opened my mouth to try and ask this question, but no sound came out. My throat was completely dry, my cheeks burning hot.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to respond, Mrs. Stanley pressed on. “I know this seems out of character to you, but you must understand. Josh has his entire future ahead of him. He’s worked so hard, for so long, and now he’s finally getting all the things he’s ever wished for.”
But that wasn’t right. In the list of things he had wished for, I had certainly been high up there at some point. Yes, we had broken up. But Josh had loved me. How could he do this? He would never do this.
“He wouldn’t do this,” I whispered. “I know he wouldn’t. I want to talk to him. Give me his new cell number.”
“He asked me not to,” she said.
I stared at her in disbelief. “You cannot tell me you agree with this. You can’t believe this is the right thing for him to do.”
“My son deserves the future he has worked for,” she said coldly. “I’m sorry you’ve gotten yourself into this situation, but you can hardly expect him to give up everything—”
“I got myself into this situation?” I asked incredulously. My shock was turning to anger. “I didn’t get myself pregnant, Mrs. Stanley. Josh figured prominently, I can assure you.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Ginny, Josh told us that you were unhappy about the break-up. ‘Desperate to get me back’ were his words, I think. Do you really expect me to believe that this was completely an accident?”
It was like she had slapped me. Had Josh really told her that?
“Listen, I’m sorry,” she said, breathing deeply as if she was trying to calm herself. “I know this isn’t easy. And I know that my son has a responsibility. That’s why his father and I are prepared to help you financially.”
I could only stare at her. Was she out of her mind?
“We want what’s best for our son. We also want to make sure his responsibilities are taken care of. We would like to give you child support, beginning now, in the amount of two thousand dollars per month.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said, my voice thick with bitter amus
ement. “You want to pay me to stay away from Josh? Do you actually think that I would agree to that?” I laughed bitterly. This lady was out of her mind. But why on earth was Josh going along with this?
Mrs. Stanley sighed. “Ginny, you don’t have very much choice. Josh doesn’t want to see you. He doesn’t want to know this baby. He’s moving across the country in a matter of weeks. It’s up to you whether you take the money or not, but nothing you can do will make Josh be a part of your life.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t. If Josh really feels this way he needs to tell me himself.”
“He thought that would be too hard for both of you.” She sighed and reached into her purse. She pulled out an envelope and what appeared to be a photograph, which she set face down on the table so I couldn’t see it. “He wrote you a letter.” She handed me the envelope. I stared down at it mutely. Written across the front, in painfully familiar handwriting, was my name.
“I’m sorry about all of this,” she said softly. “I really am. But Josh’s dad and I support his decision. You need to accept that this is what Josh wants.”
“No,” I whispered, still staring at the envelope. Josh’s handwriting. It couldn’t be true. “No. I trust Josh. He loved me. He wouldn’t do this.”
Slowly, very slowly, she turned over the photograph. It was Josh, his arms around another girl. She was short and had blonde pixie hair. Josh was laughing toward the camera, and she was smiling up at him. I realized with dread that I knew her.
“I didn’t want to show you this but...that’s Amy. They’ve been together a few months. It’s all happened so fast, falling in love and all that...” She met my eyes and spoke with a firm, emotionless voice. “She’s moving to Seattle with him. They’re engaged, Ginny.”
Chapter Sixteen
My life with Josh was perfect for a long time. I know people use the word perfect too lightly, but this really was. Yes, we were usually pretty broke, and sure, we fought sometimes, but there literally wasn’t a thing I would have changed about our relationship.
Early in our senior year of college, a few things happened. At the time, they didn’t seem like such a big deal. First of all, Josh was chosen to be the editor of StateInk, the creative writing magazine the two of us worked on. I was thrilled for him, and he was over the moon. The job required a lot of his time and soon he was home less and less. I missed him. I tried to stay busy, to keep my mind off his absences, but it was hard. I hated going out without him, trying to be social, trying to have fun on my own. Without Josh at my side, I was picking up some of my old habits—I was partying too much, staying out too late. It wasn’t long before I noticed my drinking was increasing, a lot.
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