Who's Your Daddy?

by Gallagher, Lauren

  Neither of us said another word.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Carmen

  As I dressed to go see my obstetrician, I didn’t even think twice before grabbing a snug pair of jeans out of the drawer. If there was one benefit to the stress of my divorce, it was the weight loss. I’d gained about twenty pounds in the last year before I left Paul and lost almost thirty since I walked out the door. Now some of the jeans that he and my mother kindly reminded me were “getting a bit tight, don’t you think?” finally fit comfortably again.

  I pulled them on and started to draw the zipper up. Tried to draw it up anyway. Cursing, I sucked in my stomach and managed to get my jeans zipped.

  Barely.

  When I tried to inhale, the denim bit into my skin. I couldn’t pull in a full, deep breath, and I could barely move.

  I turned sideways and looked in the mirror. It probably wasn’t all that noticeable to anyone else, and I wouldn’t have noticed at all had I not just forced myself into painted-on jeans, but holy crap, there was definitely a difference. Just a hint of a swell, probably enough to make my mother point and scowl.

  Already?

  “Are you effing kidding me?” I was barely out of my first damned trimester and already my clothes didn’t fit? Almost every non-sports bra I owned was already worthless, and now the massacre had begun on my jeans? Son of a bitch.

  After glaring at my reflection for a long moment, I finally gave up on telekinetically flattening my stomach. I unzipped my jeans, peeled them off and—swearing on my life I’d wear them again one day—tossed them on the bed. They were the tightest pants I owned, so chances were, anything else I had would still fit, but I wasn’t in the mood to find out.

  I found a skirt that did a reasonable job of covering that slight swell that was now painfully obvious to me. A sports bra wasn’t the greatest thing in the world to put under the matching blouse, but it would have to do. And apparently I would have to do some shopping soon.

  I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard my wallet whimpering inside my purse.

  Once I was presentable, I headed out.

  Rose was in the tiny living room, gathering her own purse and jacket. “Oh, hey,” she said. “On your way out?”

  I nodded. “Doctor’s appointment.”

  “How exciting,” she muttered, and we exchanged grimaces. “Have fun. Oh, and by the way, I’m back on nights next week, so I’ll be around during the day. I won’t be in your hair while you’re working, will I?”

  “You’ll be sleeping, won’t you?”

  “Well, part of the time.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I can write with a marching band going by.”

  She laughed. “I won’t make that much noise.” She glanced at her watch. “I’d better get going. Keep me updated after your appointment, will you?”

  “Will do. They’re doing an ultrasound today, so…” I trailed off.

  Rose smiled. “At least get a copy of the ultrasound. I want to see!” Her smile faded a little. “Are you sure you don’t want someone to go with you?”

  “I’ll be okay. The guys offered, but…” I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  “Okay,” she said with a slight nod. “But you know the offer still stands for any of your appointments.”

  “Noted. Thanks.”

  Rose left for work, and I left for my appointment. All the way there, my stomach turned and threatened to shift into reverse. The morning sickness hadn’t been bad lately; it was becoming clear that most of the nausea was related to nerves. I was a little queasy in the mornings and occasionally in the afternoon, and certain smells made me gag, but it was mostly when my nervousness about the pregnancy got the best of me that I truly got sick. Facing my parents, discussing it with Don or Isaac, trying to fit into my clothes.

  Or driving to the OB’s office.

  At the office in question, I paused outside the door just like I did every time, and I willed myself to relax. This was, after all, just another routine appointment. Save the nerves until delivery day.

  Delivery day. Oh, that thought helped.

  Finally, I convinced myself to walk in, and after I’d checked in with the receptionist, I took a seat near the back corner of the waiting room. The magazines on the table were horribly outdated and frighteningly covered with photos of babies and headlines about some must-have item, how to protect one’s child from this or that catastrophe, and the latest medical advances that would probably worry me into a panic attack.

  I dug through the stack and found a copy of Time magazine. At least that only had stories about the perilous state of the economy, horrible disasters from every corner of the globe, and something that caused cancer. Right now, that was less terrifying than “twenty ways your house is killing your child right now”. I shuddered and flipped open the copy of Time.

  Not that it really mattered what was in the magazine in my hand. The page held my gaze for only a moment or two anyway before I surreptitiously looked through my lashes at the woman sitting a few seats away from me. She was heavily pregnant, at least eight months or so, and struggled just to get comfortable in the chair, which was probably as obnoxiously hard and non-ergonomic as mine. At her feet, a toddler played with brightly colored plastic toys, and a child who must have been about five wandered back and forth to the toys provided by the doctor’s office. Just watching them made me tired. As if my own baby didn’t already zap my energy like nothing else.

  The woman glanced up and caught my eye. We exchanged smiles, and hers was so exhausted, a cool ripple of fear went through me.

  God, what have I gotten myself into?

  Eventually, a nurse called the woman back. Wincing, she got up, gathered her purse and kids, and they all disappeared through the door.

  I let my gaze wander around the rest of the waiting room. Some of the other women could have been here for anything; there was nothing about their appearance that tipped me off if they were pregnant or not. Maybe I was just as incognito. I couldn’t ignore the hint of a belly that had kept me from wearing my favorite jeans, but anyone who didn’t know me probably wouldn’t notice.

  Some of the other patients were well past the point of “Is she? I can’t tell”. Some must have been weeks, if not days, from their due dates. I tried to imagine myself in their shoes. What would it be like? In a way, I envied them. They were probably well past the queasiness that still plagued me, though with less severity now than in the very beginning. They’d undoubtedly felt their babies move by now, and as nervous as I was about this whole thing, I was curious how that would feel. And kind of excited about it. Okay, really excited about it. I mean, how cool would it be to actually feel my baby move?

  On the other hand, those ladies who were well ahead of me in the pregnancy journey were also closer to the part I was dreading.

  No. Don’t think about that. Wait ’til the third trimester, then dwell on that part.

  The door opened, and another woman walked in. She was petite, maybe five foot five or so, and the only reason I knew she was pregnant was she looked like she’d swallowed a basketball. Her face didn’t show the slightest hint of swelling. Her wedding ring still fit. She wore a cute pair of sandals without any puffiness on her slender ankles. I’d heard that pregnancy could give a woman gorgeous skin and hair, but this chick had abused the privilege. She was absolutely stunning. And smiling too.

  Bitch.

  One of the nurses appeared in the doorway with a clipboard tucked under her arm. “Ms. James?”

  I rose.

  “Right this way.” As we started down the hall, she said, “How are we feeling today?”

  “Not too bad.”

  “Any more nausea today?” She glanced over her shoulder at me, furrowing her brow.

  “Oh, it hasn’t been so bad the last week or so,” I said. “Comes and goes.”

  “It’ll do that.” She stopped beside a scale. “Why don’t we have you step up here, and we’ll s
ee how your weight’s doing?”

  “Probably growing like everything else,” I muttered.

  “Yes, but that’s a good thing,” she said. “You’re not gaining weight, darlin’, you’re growing a baby.”

  Somehow that didn’t make me feel much better. I toed off my shoes and stepped onto the scale. I didn’t watch while she moved the slide into place to get my weight. It wasn’t out of self-consciousness this time, though scales were definitely not friends with my self-esteem. I just wasn’t ready for another confirmation that this whole thing was really happening.

  The nurse must have been used to girls like me who winced at all things weight-related, and she just wrote the number down without reading it aloud.

  “Okay, with that taken care of”—she nodded down the hall—“let’s get you into a gown and have Dr. Haynes come in and see you.”

  She left me to change, and I pulled on the flimsy gown. At least this thing fits.

  Dr. Haynes came, and she ran me through the same barrage of questions she had at my initial appointment. How was I eating? How was I feeling? Any symptoms she should know about? She subtly pressed for information about the baby’s father, and I just as subtly evaded her with vague answers and “he couldn’t make it today”.

  Once she’d questioned, poked, prodded and questioned me some more, she led me to another room down the hall. This room was full of all kinds of machinery I couldn’t identify. An ultrasound machine, of course, but I couldn’t tell one gadget from the next, so who knew what else they did in here. They could probably charge my insurance company a few hundred dollars just for having me in the same room with half this shit.

  I climbed onto the table, trying not to wonder how much more difficult that would be in a few months.

  “The ultrasound tech will be here shortly,” she said. “Then we’ll touch base again after the ultrasound, and we’ll let you go.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a forced smile.

  With that, she was gone, and I waited in the chilly room with all the alien machinery. As much as I’d insisted to the guys I didn’t need someone here with me, I had to admit I wished I wasn’t alone now. Don’s well-timed snark would have been welcome. As would Isaac’s calm reassurances and playful banter. Anything other than hollow silence with the whir of equipment in the background.

  Eventually, a woman with a long blonde ponytail, black-framed glasses and a white lab coat came in. “I’m Casey,” she said, extending her hand. “I’ll be doing your ultrasound.”

  “Carmen,” I said quietly as I shook her hand. At least her hands were warm. That was always a bonus with medical professionals.

  She had me lie back, and she pulled the flimsy gown open just enough to expose my stomach. Then she picked up a bottle of some sort of liquid.

  “We’ll be doing an external ultrasound today.” She uncapped the liquid. “Just to make sure everything looks all right.”

  Everything looks all right? Crap, that’s right, there could be problems. Problems like— Damn it, why did I have to Google this shit?

  I hoped she blamed my goose bumps on the cool air in the room rather than seeing right through me to that cache of websites I’d browsed over the last few weeks.

  If she caught on, she didn’t say anything. She squirted the liquid onto my stomach, and I flinched from the cold. Then she picked up the wide plastic probe and pressed it against me. She stared intently at the screen as she moved the probe around on my lower abdomen.

  A long moment went by, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. She kept moving the probe. Kept eyeing the screen.

  “Is anything wrong?” I asked.

  “What?” She glanced at me. “Oh, no, sometimes it just takes a minute to find—ah, there we are.” She laughed. “We were hiding, apparently.” After pressing a couple of buttons, she reached up and turned the monitor toward me.

  My breath lodged in my throat. I’d had an ultrasound shortly after I found out I was pregnant, just to make sure all was well, but hadn’t had one since. That one was nothing more than black, gray and white blobs that made no sense to me at all. Dr. Haynes had pointed out the baby, but I just had to take her word for it.

  This time…whoa.

  The gray dots formed a profile that made this all real. I was having a baby.

  I was suddenly acutely aware of the empty space beside me. No one’s hand to grab on to just to reassure me this was really happening and that it was okay that this was really happening. Was it okay? God, I didn’t know.

  All I knew was, there was my baby. Right there on the screen, in fuzzy monochrome, was my baby.

  “Do you want a printout?” Casey asked.

  I swept my tongue across my parched lips and numbly whispered, “Yeah. Please. In fact, could I get two or three copies?”

  “Of course.” She pressed a few buttons, and another machine whirred to life, but I couldn’t take my eyes off that tiny, grainy image. The features were still disproportionate to the point of cartoonish, but the shape was unmistakable.

  After the ultrasound, once Casey had given me the images in a small envelope, I went back to the room where I’d left my clothes. Dr. Haynes came in to tell me that everything on the ultrasound was normal, that my baby was growing just fine and as near as she could tell, we were still accurate in our calculations of the date of conception. As if there was any question there, but I kept that little tidbit to myself.

  I was numb as I changed out of the gown and back into my clothes. Even when I could ignore the little envelope sticking out of my purse, I couldn’t get the ultrasound image out of my mind.

  I’m having a baby. I’m really having a baby. I just saw. My. Baby.

  Renewed nausea turned my stomach, and I swore there was cold water beneath the skin on the back of my neck. My vision clouded, and I held on to the exam table, breathing slowly and deeply until the dizziness and queasiness passed.

  I can handle this. I’m not the first woman in the universe to have a baby under less than ideal circumstances, and I’ve got two men standing by me. I can do this. I will do this.

  When I was dressed and steady on my feet, I picked up my purse—which seemed heavier now with that tiny picture in it—and went back out to the waiting area. I paid my co-pay and scheduled my next appointment, all the while pretending not to notice the other pregnant women around me. The previews of what was coming in the next few months.

  A touch of nausea rushed through me, just enough to make my teeth clench and my blood turn cold. After a couple of deep breaths, I got it under control, and turned my attention back to the receptionist, who had her eyebrows up as if waiting for an answer from me.

  I coughed. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I asked if you need us to call and remind you,” she said. “About your appointment.”

  I gestured dismissively. “Oh no, that’s okay. I have the card.” I held up the card she’d handed me a moment ago, then slid it into my purse beside the envelope.

  “You’re all scheduled, then.” She smiled. “Have a good one, Mrs. James.”

  This time, the nausea almost got the best of me again. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t Mrs. anything anymore, but I let it go.

  Note to self: change back to maiden name as soon as possible.

  I just smiled and left the office. Out in the parking lot, I got into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine but didn’t move the car right away. I took out the envelope and withdrew the picture. Then I held the ultrasound photo in both hands and just stared at it.

  In my mind’s eye, I saw all the women who’d been in the waiting room with me. All those who, even if they hadn’t been sitting in an obstetrician’s office, were obviously pregnant.

  In a few months, maybe as little as a few weeks, that would be me. My wardrobe was already being culled one body-hugging article at a time. It was only a matter of time before I started “showing”, as everyone so gleefully put it. Showing. Right. Showing my face in maternity clothing store
s once I finally admitted to myself I really couldn’t fit into anything I already owned.

  Which meant one thing: I couldn’t keep this a secret much longer.

  And I was having dinner with my parents again next week.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Isaac

  After my two o’clock client had left, Angela handed me a stack of messages. I flipped through them on my way back to my office and stopped in my tracks when I realized one was from Carmen. Furrowing my brow at the scrap of paper in my hand, on which Angela had written “Carmen—plz call ASAP”, I wondered what she needed.

  Only one way to find out, of course.

  I returned to my office and dropped into my desk chair. I pulled out my cell phone, speed-dialed her and put it to my ear.

  “Hey,” she said after the first ring.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Have you had lunch yet?” she asked.

  “I have, but I have a break between appointments. Why? Is everything all right?”

  “It…yeah. I just need to talk. If you’re not busy.”

  “I’m not,” I said, ignoring my escalating heart rate. “Did you want to meet somewhere?”

  “If you have time,” she said. “Maybe we could meet for coffee?”

  “Sure, I can do that.” I paused. “Or if you want to come up to my office. It’s a little more private.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, that’ll work. I’ll be there in a few.”

  It wasn’t all that unusual for me to have non-paying visitors in my office. Donovan had spent almost as much time here as some of my clients, usually kicked back in my chair with his feet on my desk while we ate lunch. Ryan came by once in a while if he needed an ear or—more often than not—ten bucks to put gas in his dad’s car or get something to eat.

  This was only the second time Carmen had been up here, the first being when she gave me the shock of my life.

  And now here she was again.

  “You sure it wasn’t too much headache coming all the way down here?” I asked, closing the door behind us.