by Claire Ashby
Unease settled over me. Ellie opened the door before I mashed the bell. Her face shifted to a look of absolute shock. Couldn’t pull anything past my girl.
“Meg,” she demanded. “How late were you with Theo?”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. “Busted. We spent the night together.”
Chapter Three
We managed to show up on time for our appointment. Not that it mattered; the waiting room was backed up with gestating women. If someone’s water had broken, we’d all have been hanging ten. Every so often a door swung open, exposing a hallway leading to the back. The nurse would shout out someone’s name, and a pregnant woman would rush back as if she’d been told to “come on down” on The Price Is Right.
Looking completely calm, Ellie sat next to me, her golden brown hair fanned out on her shoulders. She loved her appointments—loved to hear the baby’s heartbeat, loved getting measured and weighed, loved being told that everything was perfect and to come back in four weeks. I used to love hearing about her appointments, too.
Until I needed one of my own.
“Tell me the real deal between you and Theo.” Ellie didn’t look up from the baby magazine she was flipping through. She scanned article titles and brought the glossy pages close to her face to check out photos of baby gear, but I was not deceived. She was waiting for full disclosure. On the ride over, I’d filled her in on my night with Theo. I left out nothing except for the longing in my heart to climb onto his lap and kiss his eyelids, his cheeks, the tip of his nose. I left out my desire to put my mouth on his, to hold him and have him hold me.
“What do you mean?” I looked at my feet in order to avoid the glaring baby eyes in the overwhelming collection of brag photos on the wall. “I gave you the facts.” I thought that sure, I was attracted to Theo, a situation possibly made more intense by my pregnancy or his injuries. But that was a feeling, not a fact. And besides, wherever my feelings led, it would be a dead-end.
Ellie dropped the magazine against her belly and gave me a knowing look. “Come on. You spent the night with him.”
“It’s not the way you make it sound.” I fidgeted with the hem of my shirt. “Staying seemed like the right thing to do.”
She saw right through me. Between her sixth sense and the way she dissected everything, nobody could fool Ellie. She had a flair for taking any situation and seeing every possible outcome, obsessively analyzing the information from all angles until she was certain of the best choice. Once she’d made a decision, she would hold ironclad the belief that no other option was feasible.
But I didn’t work that way.
A nurse barged through the door with a file in her hand. “Meg Michaels,” she called.
Perfect timing. I jumped to my feet.
“Good luck.” Ellie smiled. “They’ll call me soon.”
My relief at getting out of the interrogation with Ellie was short lived, replaced by queasiness as I followed the nurse through the door. I’d always avoided doctors. No escaping it now.
The nurse, a heavyset, middle-aged woman wearing pink scrub bottoms with a pink-and-blue, baby-bottle-patterned top, trudged through the maze of the office. She stopped at the scale, and I stepped up, still in my flip-flops from the night before. The metal banging and sliding as she weighed me grated against my nerves. She pulled her hand away, and the number I saw burned into my eyes. Nine pounds? I’d gained nine pounds… fast!
“Have a seat.” She pointed to a white plastic chair as she fell into a metal swivel stool, skidding to a stop at her desk next to me. “I’m Jen.” She held up the ID badge that hung around her neck with her name printed under the photo of a friendlier version of the pinched-face lady in front of me. She gnawed on her lower lip while studying my intake forms.
“Based on what you wrote, the first day of your last cycle puts you at fifteen weeks pregnant.” Jen cocked an eyebrow.
“Yes.” I took a ragged breath. “That’s right.”
“And you haven’t seen a doctor?”
“No.” I knew my answer was wrong by the way she raised her lip.
“We like to see our moms start prenatal care as early as possible.” Jen over-enunciated each word, as if I was the dimmest bulb she’d ever encountered. “You should have come in when you first missed your period.” She took a slow, labored blink. “Did you miss your period?”
“Yes.” I nodded like an eager schoolgirl. “And I’ve been taking my prenatals every day. Even when I was sick.” That should earn me at least a few brownie points. I gave her a pleading look and wished she’d drop the condescending tone.
Jen measured my blood pressure, nodding in approval as she wrote the numbers on my chart. Then came the part I dreaded. She shoved her thick hands into a pair of green latex gloves that snapped sound against her wrists. She rolled over to me, boxing me in.
Grabbing my arm, she wrapped a rubber tourniquet above my elbow. “Pump your fist.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and did as I was told. The crackling of wrappers filled the air as she opened things I didn’t want to know about.
“This won’t hurt… this won’t hurt… this won’t hurt,” I chanted.
“Oh, yes it will—”
I opened my eyes just as the needle sank into my flesh, and I cried out.
“Oh, pull yourself together.” She scowled, and releasing the tourniquet, she pressed a tube onto the other end of the needle. My blood rushed into the vial, turning it crimson. She continued to fill up twelve vials in all.
Done torturing me for the moment, she removed the needle and pressed a Band-Aid too firmly on the bloody dot in the crook of my arm. A couple strolled hand in hand in the hallway.
Yay for me! I get to do this alone.
The stench of rubbing alcohol hit my nose as Nurse Jen swiped a saturated cotton ball across the tip of my finger and then slammed down a lancet. Click. I inhaled sharply.
“You’re cruel.” I no longer cared if she liked me or not; we weren’t going to be friends. I considered telling her that I’d lied about taking my prenatal vitamins on the days when the sickness knocked me on my ass.
She gave me a sinister smile. “If you’re this weak now, wait until that baby wants out.”
With a racing heart, I followed her back to the exam room, and she tossed a paper towel the size of a tablecloth on the exam table. “Take it all off,” she said on her way out and slammed the door shut.
I undressed under harsh lights in the frigid room and silently cursed my previous ob-gyn, Dr. Lucy Wilson, for retiring at sixty-seven the year before. She’d been my gynecologist since I was fourteen. For over twelve years, whenever I had to undress in a clinical setting, a chirpy little lady with a friendly expression and a soft touch was there to put me at ease. Plus, she had fabric gowns, which, although ugly, were much nicer than the oversized napkin I was presently hanging around in.
I hovered at the edge of the exam table, the protective paper sticking to the back of my thighs and the stupid body drape tucked under my armpits. Focusing on the door, I willed the doctor to come in. After close to a lifetime, a slight tapping came, and the door slowly swung open.
“Hello, Ms. Michaels.” A very young, handsome man in a white coat approached me. A lab technician, I thought. Why are they sending in a lab technician?
His well-manicured hand came at me for a handshake. “I’m Dr. Pruitt. How are you today?”
It was the most basic, widely used question, but I couldn’t stop myself from peering around him, hoping the real doctor would walk in. He looked like Mark Wahlberg. Not sophisticated, grown-man-actor Mark Wahlberg, but fresh-faced, Marky Mark of the Funky Bunch Mark Wahlberg. And I was going to give him a prolonged view of my hoo-ha.
“F-fine… I’m fine.” I shot my hand out to shake his, and my paper-towel cover slipped.
“Okay then,” Dr. Pruitt said with a measured tone. “Usually, we only listen to the heartbeat, but since this is your first visit we’ll take a quick peek so we can make sure everything looks good.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” My breath caught in my throat as I thought about all the days that had passed since I first peed on a magical stick.
“There’s nothing to worry about. This is routine. Lie back for me, please.” Dr. Pruitt took a seat between the ultrasound machine and me. He shook a bottle as though he held ketchup then squirted the warm gel low on my belly. I held still, feeling equal parts anticipation and fear. He pressed the probe against my stomach. With eyes fixed on the screen, I waited.
The doctor hummed the theme song from Star Wars as he worked the wand across my abdomen. Maybe he was trying to be soothing, or perhaps he wasn’t even aware of me. I studied the swirling black-and-white image, waiting for anything familiar to appear.
“There we go.” He spoke softly, but his tone was upbeat. “Look right there.” He made a little circle on the screen with his index finger.
And then I saw it. I saw what looked like a frail little bird flap its wings. “It’s a bird,” I said in wonder.
“Here’s the head.” He pointed. I saw the shadow of little eye sockets and a tiny jaw opening and closing. “And here is the spine.” He ran his finger along the curved dotted line. “The flickering spot is the heart beating. Everything looks normal.” He pushed a button that caused the screen to go blank.
He handed me a photo of the ultrasound. “Congratulations, Ms. Michaels. I need to do a pap, and then we’ll be done.” He did his business down there, and I hardly noticed. I didn’t care that I’d never had a male gynecologist; I didn’t care that he looked as if he was all of twenty-two; I didn’t even care that I wasn’t on the path I wanted my life to take. I was preoccupied with the most remarkable thing I’d ever seen: An image of the child inside me.
Chapter Four
As twins, Steve and I were born into intimacy, but our connection was more than that. While we shared a bond from our first moments of existence, we also had a greater bond that came from desertion by the same woman whose body had given us life. She left when we were barely eighteen months old, too young to remember the lines of her face or the sound of her voice.
And now, I carried a baby of my own. I couldn’t keep my secret from Steve any longer. If I didn’t tell him soon, he was going to figure it out on his own.
I stood at the front window of the bookstore, looking out at the endless Texas sky. A light wind ruffled the leaves of the Redbud trees that lined the street. The quiet times of the day were the most difficult, spent trying to come to terms with what I had to do.
Jake’s truck pulled up, and Ellie stepped out. The door to the extended cab swung open behind her. I placed my hands on the sun-warmed glass of the window. The crutches hit the ground first.
Theo.
After our night together, I’d anticipated hearing from him, but that had been wishful thinking. Finally seeing him again jolted my nerves into high gear. My heart surged. The tint from the bookstore windows prevented Theo from catching me watching him. He looked different. Stronger. His clean-shaven face made him even more striking: a perfect blend of clean-cut and rough-and-tumble.
Wait. Come say hello.
He climbed into the front seat that Ellie had vacated and shut the door. The truck backed out, turned around, and took off down the street.
I suppressed a stab of sorrow. What an idiot I was to think that we shared a connection.
Ellie stopped on her way to the café. “What’s wrong with you?” She touched my arm.
“Nothing… Just spacing out.” My temples throbbed. “I’m not sleeping well.”
“I hate to break it to you, but that will only get worse.” Ellie hugged her belly as if to send a message of love to her baby. She waddled to the stone-pillar archway that led from The Book Stack to Café Stay, her share of the company. She’d built out the space adjacent to the bookstore shortly after we graduated from college. It was her long-term investment, funded with the money she’d inherited when her parents were killed in a car wreck. She had walked away from that accident without a scratch.
“Hey, come talk to me while I bake.” Ellie insisted on doing all the baking herself. We went back to the kitchen, and I propped myself on a barstool next to the stainless-steel table. Watching Ellie create pastries was strangely therapeutic—especially when she decorated cookies and cakes, spreading frosting smoothly from one side to the other. Ellie cast a sideways glance at me, lowered a white apron over her head, and tied it in the back.
“Meg…” She flashed me a grin. “I’m going to be up-front with you because I know it’s what you need.”
Uh-oh.
I waited as she reviewed a yellowed recipe card tacked to a corkboard. She wandered from the industrial refrigerator to the chrome open-wire shelving for dry goods, circling back to the stainless steel countertop.
She came to a stop in front of me with her hands on her hips. “People are beginning to comment on your weight gain,” she whispered. “I think it’s time to consider coming clean on your pregnancy before the gossip gets out of hand.”
I winced. “They’ll gossip anyway, once they know I’m pregnant.”
“Yes, but who cares?” she asked, her voice a little louder.
“I do!” I peered down at my body. “Do I look fat?” I couldn’t help it; I didn’t want to look fat. My figure was soft where it had once been firm, curved where once angular. Changing. I’d been fooling myself to think I had more time.
“No, not fat, but you keep wearing all those silly baggy outfits. You’re starting to get the attention that you’ve been trying so hard to avoid.” She scooped flour into the mixer with too much force, causing a puffy cloud to float up. “It should be your decision to open up.” She waved away the smoky plume. “I assumed you would’ve made that decision by now. Don’t you want to tell Steve? He needs to know you’re going through this.”
I closed my eyes. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll tell him.”
My nearest and dearest had been upset when I called off my wedding to Bradley—except my dad, who didn’t care one way or another. He’d given me his token phrase, “You know what’s best.” Nina, my stepmother, was disappointed because, let’s face it, Bradley would have looked good on the family résumé. I knew that some of my friends might tell me to get over my hang-ups or say I had cold feet when word of the breakup got out. However, what shocked me the most was that many of them were straight-up pissed.
Chelsea ran a trendy boutique around the corner from The Book Stack. Chelsea was cute and feisty—about five years older than me, but I swear she looked twenty-one. Chelsea wore her jet-black hair short, similar to Betty Boop—it really suited her—and always looked dazzling in her signature tight dresses. Everyone loved her, but for all the guys she dated, none stuck around, and Chelsea was eager to marry. Convinced that her other half was out there, somewhere, she wouldn’t be happy until she had sunk her pearly whites into him.
“You spoiled brat!” she screeched when I stopped by her shop to tell her I moved back to my condo.
“Be nice!” I resisted the urge to be hurt by her words. Chelsea tended to be dramatic.
“You have what we’re all looking for, and you walk away?” She rolled her eyes at me. “You don’t even know for sure there’s someone else.”
“But isn’t it enough that I don’t trust him when he’s gone?” I thought my question was reasonable and expected her to admit I had a point.
She turned her back to me and went back to stuffing a mannequin into a black leather dress.
I considered reminding her that there would be other men; I could still end up married one d
ay. But I didn’t. She’d think I was only being flippant.
“Come on, give me a break,” I pleaded. My friends would have liked a group discussion on whether I should leave Bradley. I wondered whose side they were really on.
Chelsea came over and gave me a hug. With Chelsea, every argument was really about her, so I couldn’t take it personally. Her truce came as predicted: She’d find a pair of guys we could double date. She had made her threat almost five months earlier; fortunately, I’d dodged that bullet.
Only two people had known I was planning to leave Bradley. Ellie had returned from her honeymoon a few months before my crisis, and she was still in the throes of newlywed bliss. She was as familiar with my past as her own, and because of that, she knew how sacred trust was for me. She knew I couldn’t live with doubts. So she did what Ellie always did—she got out the paper and made two columns. On one side she wrote Reasons To Marry Bradley and, on the other, Reasons To Break Up. Sure, her method seemed trivial, but filling out the columns reinforced what I was prepared to accept: I was ready to move on.
The other person I confided in was Steve. His first comment after learning I was about to halt my future with Bradley was similar to my father’s. “If that’s what you want, Meg. Are you sure you’re not panicking? You’re going to miss him.”
“He’s never home. And anyway, something’s not right.”
“So you’re not even going to try to work it out?”
“He had a girl in his hotel room in China. I’m not there and I can’t sit here and wonder what’s going on.”
My brother’s eyes softened. “I know. You deserve someone you can count on.” He wrapped his big arms around me. “I’ll miss him on the golf course though.” Steve and I both laughed.
