by Liz Crowe
She paused, watching the two men as they sat at her small dining room table. Jack Gordon, tall, ruggedly handsome in his dark suit, staring at his smart phone, blue eyes glittering with concentration. Craig Robinson, his easy, loose-limbed body draped over a nearby chair, in khakis and a wrinkled button down, deep brown eyes staring right at her. She gave him a weak smile and stepped into the room.
"I'm pregnant."
They both stared at her. She sat, put her shaking hands on her knees, and stayed quiet. Saliva flooded her mouth, announcing an impending bout of puke, but she kept it at bay. Jack spoke first.
"Who is the father?" He glanced at Craig then back at her. "I assume we are both here so you can fill us in on that minor detail."
Craig leaned forward on his knees. "How are you feeling?"
She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. God these men were so predictable. She directed her first response to Jack, fighting back to urge to throw herself at him, to be enveloped in his arms, turn the whole thing over to him and let him take care of her. "I don't know which of you is the father." She turned to Craig, felt the sunny warmth of his concern, but kept her voice firm. "I feel like warmed over shit most days, thanks. On the other days, I want to die. Being pregnant sucks; so far anyway."
Jack stood, started pacing the room. She tried to keep the anger out of her voice. "Look, I don't want this either but..."
"You aren't doing anything... permanent about that are you?" He stared out the window as he spoke.
"If you are asking me if I'm considering an abortion Jack, the answer is no. Not anymore anyway." He stopped midway across her small living room and turned. His gaze held something she refused to acknowledge. It bordered on relief. She tore her eyes from his. "But the bottom line is, as you have likely sorted out by now, either of you could have... could be..." she gulped back a surge of nausea so strong she had to stand and rush from the room.
A few minutes later, she leaned on the doorjamb of her bathroom and tried to will away the creeping exhaustion that gripped her again. How in the hell did I get here? All those times without condoms? Fucking careless and stupid. Her self-flagellation ended when she heard him.
"Sara?" Craig peeked around the corner. She tried not to cry at the look on his face. "Oh honey, I'm, sorry I guess. Or whatever. I don't know." He shrugged but pulled her into his arms. She sucked in a breath of him – chlorine, cotton, a whiff of the clean linen of his cologne. Before she knew it she clung to him as he led her back towards the table.
"It's okay Sara. It will all be fine." He soothed, stroking her hair, her back. She tried to dry up the waterworks, sensed another presence in the room. She forced herself out of the comforting circle of Craig's arms, wiped her hand across her eyes. After taking a breath, she looked at them both.
"I'm doing this. On my own."
Craig stepped back. Jack crossed his arms. "And you mean what by that exactly?"
"I mean that I won't be getting a paternity test. I don't care who did this." she stopped and tried to sound less angry. "Which one of you knocked me up is irrelevant. It's my body, and my baby. I'm telling you both now, we can be friends, but that's it. I will handle this from here on out. Period."
She brushed past them, heading straight for the kitchen, suddenly thirsty. After gulping down a large glass of water, she turned to face them both. Her men. The light and dark. The yin and yang of her entire existence. Was she doing the right thing? Was it fair to them? Or, was she letting her family railroad her into taking this stand? She suddenly had no idea what she was doing anymore. But the words were out of her mouth now, and the two men continued to stare at her, a similar incredulity lining both of their faces.
"I'm sure you realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?" Jack stood, feet apart, arms crossed, the posture she remembered well from their brief and ill-fated foray into life as an engaged and living-together couple. His fighting stance. She tried not to rise to the bait. She looked at Craig, hoping he would defuse it, but he stayed silent. "Right?" Jack's voice dipped low, making her scalp tingle with remembered need to do as he said. She shook herself. This was not some sex game. This was her new fucking reality.
"Honestly, Sara, Jack may be right." Both she and the tall man in the suit stared at Craig. He ignored Jack and kept his gaze trained on her. "You can't pretend that we don't care. I mean, I know if it's me I would be…you know, take some responsibility."
"Yeah." Jack sputtered, his face getting red. Sara frowned. "I have, I mean, we, well, one of us has some rights here."
A crisp, clean and likely irrational fury made her vision blur. "Really. And what right would that be, Jack? The right to hold my hair while I puke my ever-loving guts out twenty-four seven? The right to help me waddle to the bathroom and back later? To learn how to Lamaze breathe with me? The right to change shitty diapers and do midnight feeding duty?" She sensed how unreasonable she sounded but had somehow lost the ability to be logical. Jack took a step towards her but she held out her hand, and he kept his distance. Her voice rose. "I am doing this on my own. Period. I'm just giving you notice so when I get huge in the coming weeks you don't panic. Or get territorial. This is my baby. The end." She turned from them, gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. "You can go now." In her head, she begged them to stay.
The sound of the slamming door made her wince.
****
As was typical of many winters, this one seemingly had no end. By the time Ann Arbor hit mid-March people were cautiously optimistic. But St. Patrick's Day dawned cold, grey and threatened snow. Sara sighed and sat on the side of her bed, marveling at the glorious lack of nausea she'd been experiencing for a few weeks. She ran her hand over the hard lump that had appeared under her shirt, tucked the whole mess in the back of her brain, and focused on the busy day ahead.
Jack was considering taking the job as General Manger of the Stewart Realty Company and had become distant, moody and difficult. That suited Sara fine and kept her from the temptation to let him back into her life. But that morning she had a meeting with him; one he'd called with a bunch of other agents. For the first time in weeks, she felt like she wanted to go work. Those crazed hormones roiling through her system had let go and were going to let her pretend she was normal again.
By the time she'd made it to her downtown office, snow had started falling. Pretty, but not in March. She stomped her feet at the back door, smiled when Craig poked his head out of his cubicle. "Hey."
"Hey yourself." He ambled over to her, his dark eyes taking her in from head to toe. "You look like a million bucks. Got a closing?" She brushed the dampness from her hair.
"No, a meeting at admin. But thanks. I feel pretty good for a change too. Amazing." She sighed and grabbed a coffee cup, remembered her vow to cut back on the caffeine and filled it with water instead. A strange energy surging around made her antsy, unable to settle at her desk. It was like she had reverted to her old self. The "before preggers" Sara she wished like hell she had back most days. How fucking clichéd could you get anyway? Knocked up. Jesus. How lame. It was the twenty-first century. She really had no excuse. She stood, then dropped back into her chair, her mouth hanging open.
"Oh my God." She gasped.
Craig barreled into her space. "What," he demanded, his voice low. "Are you okay?" His dark eyes flitted over her body a minute, then back up to her face. She gaped at him, not sure it had actually happened. Then it did it again. A bizarre, fluttery sensation in her stomach. Like an eyelash or something equally light, swiping against the inside of her skin. An impossible feeling to describe but one she immediately identified.
"Wow." She put her hand on the hard bump under her shirt. It seemed to have shifted a little, changed shape. She stared at Craig.
"Seriously Sara, you are freaking me the fuck out here. What is it?" He pulled a chair up to hers. "Do you need to throw up? What? Talk to me." The look of fear on his face made her giggle. Then as the laughter took hold she snorted, guffawed, did the proverbial laugh
out loud, so loud a few of their colleagues glanced over the short divider at them. Finally, she calmed, hiccupped, and took his hand, pressing it to her stomach. The butterfly fluttered again. Craig's eyes widened. "Wow." He stared at his hand, then at her. "I want to kiss you so much right now." His voice stayed soft and low.
She nodded. And he did. The relief that flooded through for a brief moment quickly got hijacked by remorse. She broke their contact, put a hand to his face. "I'm glad you got to share that with me." Then she stood and made her way out into the main office. If she stayed, she wasn't sure what she'd do. And that was not in her plan.
Not anymore.
Chapter Two
Two months later
"I'm a little worried about your blood pressure." The doctor frowned at her handheld computer screen. Sara sat on the hard, too-small examination table. Her legs felt heavy, had for the last several days. Her mouth was constantly dry and at times, after the slightest exertion, her heartbeat would pound in her ears, making her dizzy.
"I'm fine."
"No, actually, you aren't. I'm going to have to report this to your dad. You came in here spotting, remember?"
"Oh please, Lisa, don't." She stared at the woman who'd been such a great help to her so far. The woman had come with her father's professional blessing, but was not his first choice. One of the reasons Sara had chosen her. She sat up, too fast it seemed.
"Whoa." She blinked, as the room got bright, then dimmed. "Damn." Lisa eased her back onto the table.
"That's it. I'm admitting you. I'm not worried about the baby, really. Getting a strong heartbeat there. But you are spilling proteins in your urine and..."
Sara closed her eyes and tried to ignore how fast and loud her own heartbeat sounded. Nausea hovered on her horizon. "Ugh." Lisa patted her leg.
"I'm calling him now, under threat of death. I will not cross Dr. Matt Thornton, Sara, sorry. And I do not like the look of your BP, the edema in your legs, none of it. Who can you call to bring your stuff to the hospital?"
"You mean I can't go home first?" Panic hovered, but that made her face sweaty, which didn't help the whole pounding heartbeat thing. She took a breath.
"No. Ambulance is on its way."
"Ambulance! Isn't that a little much?" Sara tried to sit, but the room spun. "Okay, never mind."
"Who am I calling for you Sara? Blake?"
Sara tried to focus on the ceiling to keep from puking. Fear and a bit of anger gripped her chest. She refused to be some kind of invalid pregnant lady. She gritted her teeth. "No. Call Jack."
"Okay then." Lisa patted her leg and turned to the phone. A weird blanket of exhaustion seemed to want to smother her. "Don't go to sleep!" Her doctor demanded, pinching her toe.
"Ow, dammit! I thought pregnant ladies got to sleep a lot."
"Not until I get you over to the U of M. I want monitors on you first. So stay with me, okay?" Sara nodded, but keeping her eyes opened proved to be harder than she imagined.
By the time she awoke she was hooked up to an IV, and Jack stood at her bedside, giving the attending doc the third degree. His voice soothed her like no other, and she smiled, and drifted off. Content that he had it all in hand.
Her dreams were a random, crazy mess of images. She forced herself awake finally and came eyeball-to-eyeball with her father, Dr. Matthew Thornton; retired, former head of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Hospital. He glared at her, but her mother elbowed him in the ribs so he finally smiled, and put down the tablet computer he'd been staring at. "God, Mom how long was I out?" She stretched, and was more relieved than she cared to admit at the energetic fluttering under her hospital gown. Thank God she hadn't screwed up and lost the baby. She sighed at herself.
What a mess.
"So, young lady, looks like you get take a little vacation."
"Dad, being pregnant is not a vacation. I sincerely hope you never used that lame line with your patients." Her mother fussed around with her blankets, her lips twisting as she tried not to laugh.
"Well, um, anyway," he harrumphed some more, glared at what Sara assumed was her record on the small tablet computer screen. "You have to stay off your feet for another week. Completely off your feet. Do you comprehend what that means?"
"I think so yeah. You did pay for four years at U of M. I'm not an imbecile."
"Sara," her mother muttered, and patted her shoulders. Sara shrugged her off, suddenly so angry she could spit nails.
"When can I get out of here," She slumped back on the pillows, feeling like a pissy adolescent, which made her even madder. "I'm hungry." A nurse bustled in, followed by a trailing cloud of young doctors. They spent about twenty minutes being awestruck by her father's August presence, made suggestions about her condition and treatment and left. "Can I not be a guinea pig please?"
"This is a teaching hospital Sara. Deal with it." They glared at each other a minute before his phone buzzed. He turned away to answer it.
"I'll get some food for you. What are you hungry for?" Her mother hovered around.
"The hottest Mexican food on the planet." She bit back the urge to tell her mother to call Jack, have him bring it over. "Where did Jack go? He was here wasn't he?"
"Yes, he was. He was obviously uncomfortable though so I sent him home."
"Uncomfortable?" Sara let a small finger of irritation tickle the back of her brain. Who was really more uncomfortable?
"He was as pale as a ghost. Told me he had a 'thing' about hospitals. Nothing logical; like most phobias. But he did a lovely job handling things until Blake got here. We drove down from Traverse City as soon as we heard." She patted Sara's foot under the thin blanket. "Craig was here too, for a bit. Then he had to go."
"Hey!" Blake poked his head around the door. Sara's face brightened at the sight of him. "Look what I found on the way in." He held up a greasy bag. Sara's mouth watered.
"You read my mind brother."
"One of my many parlor tricks. Here, eat this crap before I toss it in the incinerator. My car smells like a taco truck. Disgusting."
Chapter Three
Three Months Later
"What do you mean you can't make it?" Sara struggled to heave herself out of the car and onto the hot asphalt. She glanced at her watch. Late for Lamaze again. She sighed, anticipating the long-suffering sighs of the hippy woman who led the class.
Her brother croaked into her ear. "I'm sick as a dog Sara. I gotta sleep. Doctor's put me in antibiotics for Strep. I can't do the Lamaze thing today. Sorry."
She repressed the need to yell at him. Don't be selfish Sara. The whole world does not revolve around your sorry pregnant ass. "Okay. Take care of yourself. Rob there?"
"He will be in about an hour."
She sighed, made more "take care of yourself" noises and hung up, leaning on the warm metal of her car, trying to catch her breath. Who would have thought she'd be one of those fragile pregnant ladies? She hated it. Every breathless, worrying, feet-up moment of it. Her phone buzzed.
Jack.
She smiled and answered it. "Where are you right now?"
"Headed home from a closing. Why? What do you need?"
Sara settled down on the floor, no mean feat, and smothered a grin when Jack appeared. He stuck out like a be-suited sore thumb, but she loved the sight of him. He was yammering into his phone as he walked, his deep laughter bouncing through the room drawing yet more attention to him. The class leader strode over and held out her hand. He stared at it. "I'll have to call you back." He said then ended his call. The woman kept her hand outstretched, a serene smile on her face. "Um, hello." He shook her hand. The class tittered.
"This is a device-free zone if you please. The radiation is a known carcinogen. Do you want your child subjected to that in the womb?" He frowned, looked at his phone.
"I'll keep it in my pocket." He saw Sara and started towards her.
The woman side stepped with him, crossed her arms and tapped her Birkenstocks on the soft,
yoga-matted floor. "No, actually, you won't. Give it to me. I keep them in another room entirely."
"But…" he stuttered. Sara gave him a look. He handed it over. By the time he made it to her side, his face had reddened significantly. "Hippies." He muttered. Glancing around, he smiled at a few people "I sold that guy his first house. But he wasn't with her then." He raised a hand to another couple. "That couple is breeding? God help the human race."
Sara elbowed him in the ribs. He sighed, shrugged out of his grey suit coat and expensive shoes and sat next to her. The next hour they giggled their way through the day's discussion. "Opening your vagina with your mind" was the topic.
"Hey, did you know that I can open vaginas with my..."
"Shut up!" Sara elbowed him and tried not to let the giggles overwhelm her. He leaned into her ear again as the class leader seemed to go into some weird, trance-like state, extolling the virtues of olive oil on one's "pudendum" during the "stretching" process.
"Yum." He bit her earlobe, making her shiver.
"Yeah, I'll feel like Jabba the Hut and smell like a plate of pasta."
He chuckled and stayed near her neck about a half-second too long. She turned and looked at him, flinching a little when he raised a hand, and tucked a strand of hair behind her eyes. "You are gorgeous, Jabba. Truly. I've missed you."
The teacher's voice broke the moment. "Now papas, please let the mamas settle in between your legs."
"What the…?" Jack looked away from her. Sara slapped his socked foot.
"Spread 'em." He grinned and she sat between his legs.
"Now, papas, touch your child." Sara winced. So many times she wished she could take back her words. Have the paternity test and let Jack claim the child in her belly. Because something in her knew it was his. Jack stayed leaning back on his hands. "Like this," the Lamaze lady walked over and grabbed his hands, put them on Sara's round stomach, moved them in circles. "Love mama's skin. Let your baby know you're there."
