by Rie Warren
I showed it to Connie, and she did the same, hands covered in Hazmat approved rubber gloves.
The faintest plus mark signaled in faded blue.
I read the instructions again.
I peed again.
By the fifth time, I was jittery as hell, but I’d sworn off alcohol and smokes ten minutes ago. After the fourth faint-as-fuck positive.
Groping my way from the bathroom, I held the pregnancy strips in one hand, spread out like a lady’s fan. I tumbled onto my bed and looked at the phone.
Shutting my eyes and smiling so goddamn huge, I hugged myself and the smallest embryo inside my womb. I hope it’s true, I hope it lasts, I hope I have a baby, Reardon’s baby.
Reardon’s baby.
I curled over protectively, a roly-poly. My eyes popped open, my hand met my mouth. I hid the sticks under the bed. I hauled the blankets over my head.
I was worse than a clueless high schooler, courting pregnancy. I hadn’t had protected sex since Palmer and I began trying. After losing her, after Delilah, I hadn’t had sex at all until Reardon. And now I was bound to end up like Momma: Poster Child for Miscarriage.
I was pregnant!
I fist-pumped the air.
I wasn’t supposed to be pregnant.
I squirreled deeper into the bed.
There were people to call and appointments to make, but necessities could wait. Because I was late.
I was...pregnant.
* * * *
“You’re pregnant.” Doctor Cutey-pie did the double check when I went in for my confirmation appointment, definitely not the kind the Pope intended.
Grateful they’d fitted me in so fast, I held out my hand before lifting my skirts. “Doctor Nash, nice to meet you.”
He corrected, “It’s Nage.”
“Natch?”
“Nage,” he repeated, as if I was some hard-of-hearing biddy.
At his urging, I placed my feet in the stirrups. I’d tested them out earlier, deciding these were not the sort of restraints to invest in for the Boone boom-boom room.
Doc Natch-Gonna-Look-at-My-Snatch turned into a stuffed shirt soon as I giggled maniacally at the ultrasound wand.
“A state-of-the-art-dildo!”
The poodle-haired, pleasant-faced nurse hid her smile, preparing me for the intrusion.
The wand worked into me.
At least the lube was warm.
I breathed noisily through my mouth.
I prayed.
“The heartbeat, Mrs. Greer.” The OB pointed at the screen and there it was. A pump-pump-pump pulse in a dark sea.
I was hypnotized by the monitor ’til Nage cautioned, “You’ll be lucky to go full term.” He no longer appeared cute. He was a rat, and he had weasel’s eyes. “Were you trying?”
“You’ve seen my records, right?”
“You weren’t using protection then,” he scolded, earning himself a new nickname: PhDickhead.
“Not unless blindfolds and handcuffs count.” I stomped to my clothes. “I was told I was infertile.”
Flicking through a red-tabbed folder, he corrected, “You were informed you had a minute chance of conceiving and delivering a full-term infant, Mrs. Greer. There’s a world of difference.” He stuffed the file under his arm. “Is your husband here?”
“No.” My ringless fingers itched, and I hesitated. “The baby’s not his.”
He shot me a disapproving look. “Given your history, I’d treat the pregnancy with extreme caution.”
“You think I’ll lose it.”
“It’s highly likely.”
I pointed at the ultrasound, the screen frozen over the speck of my baby. “But the heartbeat’s right there!”
The thick file tapped heavily against his thigh. “And your previous fetus was half-term when it aborted.”
Lucky for him he left the room before I could pitch my shoe at his stupid face. I gave Nage the Vag doctor an F for fucking Fail in bedside manner.
In the bathroom that night, I found a smear of blood soiling the toilet paper.
Nononono. Not now, not so soon. Let me be pregnant for a little while.
Tiptoeing to the phone and back to the toilet so I wouldn’t dislodge the babe, I dialed and wiped and flushed and told myself I wasn’t gushing. It was okay, it was okay, it was okay. I rocked back and forth and waited. Cradling my belly, ignoring the tears running down my face, I told Doctor Nage I was spotting. More than spotting, but I wasn’t bleeding, I wasn’t gushing.
“If you’re miscarrying, it can’t be stopped at this early stage. Come in Monday, and we’ll scan again.” More blunt than before, the moron didn’t reassure me one damn bit.
Monday? But it was only Friday night.
His advice filled me with fear for the whole weekend.
I barely moved.
I moved only to check between my legs.
Believing I’d wake the same way I had with Delilah–sticky blood swimming around me–I hardly slept.
I tried not to be short with Reardon when we spoke, but I had nothing to say to him. Nothing to say to anyone except my tiny bean. Please stay, please live, please keep growin’. Momma loves you.
By the time Monday dragged her lazy ass around, I’d made a fortress of my bed, surrounded by tissue boxes, phone, TV remote, enough junk food for a crowd of pot smokers, pillows, blankets, and books I couldn’t concentrate enough to read.
As soon as Doctor Nage showed me the monitor where my baby’s heart still beat, I started bawling.
He shuffled away from me like crying was as contagious as MRSA.
I expected him to pull on a mask to shield himself from the sobbing pregnant lady, but instead he said, “Your vaginal walls are very sensitive with the blood flowing towards your uterus. In all likelihood, the internal ultrasound last week abraded the tissue, causing you to bleed. It’s a common occurrence. You might experience more bleeding after today’s appointment. Try not to worry.”
“You under-aged, pimply-faced penis! You couldn’t have said that Friday night?”
He shrugged, adding a meaningless smile.
“Get out!”
I switched to another obstetrician in the practice–one who specialized in high-risk pregnancies–loud enough for Doctor Dickhead to overhear the exchange.
A good decision. The rest I wasn’t so sure about.
Constance didn’t wait long once I got the all-clear to pounce on me.
I wanted to celebrate; she wanted to talk.
Such a Debby Downer.
“What?”
She tapped her nonexistent foot impatiently.
“Oh, okay, conscience. You wanna do a little pro and con action?”
She mutely agreed.
“Fine.” I plopped on the sagging sofa, pulling the old, garish afghan over my legs. “You’ve seen how fragile my pregnancy is already. Hell, even Doctor Doogie Buttmunch-hauser thinks I got a snowball’s chance in hell of carrying full term.”
The heartbeat was strong this morning. He even told you why you–
“Schtup.” I cut her off. “This is friggin’ scary, okay? It’s scary how happy I am, but this baby ain’t hardly a sure thing, is it? We all know I inherited the can’t-keep-a-baby gene from Momma just like I got the messing-around one from Daddy. I’m terrified by how much I love Reardon. I don’t wanna hurt him, and damn it! You have any idea how he would’ve reacted when I started bleeding?”
Do you?
Groaning, I pulled a cushion over my head so I couldn’t hear the foul words I uttered. “I hemmed and hawed and made a heck of a mess with Palmer ’cause I couldn’t cut him loose.” I promised, “I’ll do for Reardon what I should have done for him.”
Constance waited.
I said the words through immoveable lips, “I’ll let him go.”
You’re going to take the decision away from him.
“I’m making sure he doesn’t get hurt! After Will, he forgot how to love, he couldn’t let himself feel. It wasn’
t so long ago I found him in his bedroom, rolled into a big ball of pain, sobbing over his son. For five years he was more money hungry machine than living breathing man. Least he knows he can still love.”
And you don’t mind stealing your love from him?
“Yes. No!” I just wanted to crawl back in my bed and be pregnant for a while. Get fat. Ignore reality.
Didn’t you say you two were going to get through the hardships?
“This isn’t a hardship. My pregnancy is a death sentence to our baby. He won’t recover from it. He barely came back from Will.”
He doesn’t need your protection. He’s a grown man.
Lumbering onto my side as if I was already nine months up the duff, I explained, “He was glad I was infertile. He said himself he couldn’t go through it again.”
He wanted most for you to be a mother, because it’s what you want.
The way he comforted me, telling me he’d give anything for me to have children, he’d give it all up...he’d give it all up, including me. The nugget of fear buried inside my heart when he said those words months ago flourished, providing a foundation for my resolve.
“He never wanted another child. He point blank told me so. I for damn sure didn’t misinterpret him.”
He wanted Will. He loved William Ransome with his whole heart.
“Oh, great. Now you’re doing the double-namin’-shamin’ thing too.”
Her invisible eyebrows lifted like Momma’s when I was in the wrong.
“He never wanted children with me. Even if he did, my chances of carrying full term are low, too low.” I shook my head. “I can’t give him hope and then take it away. He can’t see me cramped over a blood-spattered toilet in the first trimester or hysterical in the emergency room at five months gone. Reardon cannot bury another child! He won’t survive it a second time.”
He’ll survive you leaving?
I mocked our relationship, although I crossed my fingers behind my back. “Me? I’m nothin’ but a piece of fluff to him.”
You’re a disgrace.
“You suck.”
What are you? Twelve years old?
Ashamed to even admit it, I whispered, “What if he thinks I was taking him for a ride this whole time? Trying to get knocked up for his money.”
Constance was a persistent bitch. You really believe he’d think that?
“I need to focus on the baby.”
You’re a coward.
“I don’t care.”
You will.
“Pffft.”
You’ll regret this.
“Fine. This is it.” I’d let it all out. “What if I lose the baby like Delilah?” I blinked and blinked at the ceiling. I choked, “How would Reardon get over that? How will I? I don’t even know if I’ll be able to put myself back together, let alone him.”
Constance walked to the patio doors. She paced back and hunkered beside me. She was silent, her shoulders stooped.
“That’s right. You’re not as smart as you think, fuck you very much.”
All I got in return was a baleful glare.
I couldn’t congratulate myself–this victory was hollow.
* * * *
Reardon was eating a leisurely Tuesday morning breakfast at the bar, the underside of his arm smudged with newsprint from the stacks of dailies propping up his elbow. A cup of coffee steamed beside a plate piled with an assortment of fluffy eggs and fresh fruit.
The sight of food made me feel like puking, filling my throat with an acidic aftertaste. The sight of Reardon made my heart flip over.
Affecting normality, I asked, “How was your trip?”
An easy smile graced his lips as he pulled off his glasses. “Profitable.” He leaned on his hand, giving my figure a lusty perusal. “Next time you’ll have to come with me, do some sightseeing.”
My earlier, saucier self would have replied the only sight I wanted to check out was the ceiling over the bed in the hotel suite. This time I remained silent.
“How was your weekend, darlin’? You rushed out of here in such a hurry last Thursday I didn’t get a chance to give you a proper send-off. You get everything sorted out?”
I remained where I was, away from the overhead halogens illuminating the bar top so he couldn’t see my ravaged face.
“Yeah.” My voice was husky from disuse. “Orientation at work and I picked up my first shift.”
Reardon’s smile dissolved with his appetite, breakfast cooling in front of him. “Shay?”
That was my first lie. The easiest. Already, he wasn’t buying it. I hoped I was better at selling the biggest one.
I hadn’t begun my job at all, but the long weekend had sure as hell felt like work.
A hash of unraveling nerves churned my stomach. Inside I was battered. Outside, I was stoic. “Can we go to your–” I was gonna say office, but that was a bad choice. It had seen so much sex and sass. The bedroom was out, the crow’s nest too. Christ, was there any place in this palatial penthouse we hadn’t made love? “Can we talk outside?” At least on the balcony I wouldn’t feel like a wild animal cooped up in a cage.
Escorting me to the balcony, he took a defensive stance.
I tried like hell to forget the night we’d been out here dancing, followed by such fast and furious fucking we fell off the sun lounger. Children’s high-pitched squeals flew to us from the playground below the bridge. My fingers tingled, moving to cover my belly.
Heat emanated from his broad palms hovering above my shoulders.
I stepped away.
“Is this about Delilah?” His hand stretched out again, clasping my fingertips. “She would have been turning one about this time, wouldn’t she?” He spoke real gently, trying not to startle me.
Of course he’d have figured out the very reason fate was such a frigging whore. Giving me a second shot at a time I really needed it, making me think I could have a baby and Reardon too. My heart quailed, but I showed no response. If I cracked, I’d rupture apart right in front of him.
His fingers scaled my arms to my shoulders. “Shay? Was it what I said the other night?”
I stared blankly.
“I only need you.” He reminded me of those wonderful words.
My heart did its pitter-patter, and my tummy did its flutter-thing. I beat them both down. Slowly, I nodded. I could use this. I didn’t have a plan. I hadn’t planned any of this.
A flash of sweat broke out across his forehead. “I’ll back off.”
“I don’t believe you,” I lied.
“You have my word.”
“No, I don’t believe you only need me.” My heart twisted and squeezed until it was wrung dry.
“But I love you.” Bewilderment was written all over his scrunched eyes and drawn lips.
“Not enough.” Lie.
His expression skated from shock to disbelief. His lips parted, his eyes widened. When his face contorted in loathing, I knew my words had sunk in.
A storm building inside him, he paced the deck. “Not enough? Not enough!” He muttered acidly, slammed the French door so hard the glass shuddered. He wheeled about. “The hell I don’t!”
Shoving his face to mine, he was ferocious. “You think I went through all this fucking agony coming to terms with Will’s death–that I fell in love with you–to let you walk out on me?”
The ice encrusting my chest wrapped around my voice. “It’s your M.O.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” His nostrils flared, his arms bunched, prepared to fight for what he wanted, to fight for me.
“You never really wanted a relationship, did you? You’ll always be a take ’em and leave ’em kind of guy.” Lies, lies, lies.
The desire to battle for me fled, leaving only the angular severity of his face. “You really believe that?”
I nodded.
“You’re right. You’re right, Shay.” His lips reduced to an ugly sneer. “You see? I warned you I didn’t know how to love. I’m never wrong. Not in
the boardroom, and for damn sure not in the bedroom.”
Witnessing his acceptance of my deceit put me back in the deadened state I’d lived in after Delilah, before him.
He stared past me like I no longer existed.
My heart plummeted, it broke. Pulp squeezed, feeling bleeding out. I swallowed in great gulps, on the verge of hyperventilating, and I knew... Oh God, I knew what he was gonna say next. I couldn’t, I couldn’t let him.
Flying at him, I slammed into his body. My face buried in his chest, I sobbed, “Don’t. Don’t say you hate me!”
His hands remained at his sides, his posture wooden.
“I lied!” Grabbing his face, I made him look at me. “I lied.” My voice lowered. “I’m pregnant.”
He flinched.
“I knew it! See? This is why I have to do it alone.” I turned to go.
Reardon blocked the door. “Jesus, give me a second here, Shay! You just told me you don’t love me–”
“I never said that.”
“You might not have said the words, but by God, you meant it. You told me you were leaving, and now you’re saying you’re pregnant?” His hands folded over the back of his neck where he rubbed and rubbed.
He appeared hopeful and scared and maybe like he wanted to throw up. I knew the feeling. A tide of emotions rushed over his face. It seemed he wanted to touch me, probably to shake some sense into me. “Is it mine?”
“Of course it is, you jackass.” I muttered, “I don’t know what the hell happened, if you got super-swimmers or somethin’…”
His lips jerked up once before flattening to a thin line. “I don’t understand. If it’s mine, why were you walking out on me?”
I made a grab for him.
He sidestepped me. “You don’t want my baby.”
“’Course I do! But you said straight up, straight out in the beginning you didn’t want any pregnancies.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn what I said back then. Fuck, Shay! You weren’t gonna tell me?” He leaned toward me, asking with stunned awe. “It’s really mine?”
“Yes.”
“You figured I wouldn’t want to be here for you? You decided you’d go it alone?” Shaking his head, he slid down against the railing. “What kind of a man do you think I am?”
“A good one.” I ignored the river of tears on my face.
