by Nicole Casey
I clutched my purchase and staggered out of that brightly lit pharmacy with one thought playing in a loop in my head: Just make it to the curb before you vomit. Just make it to the curb.
Thankfully, I did make it to the curb. But despite feeling slightly better outside in the fresh air, I didn’t make it much farther than the curb before my breakfast came back up and demanded an exit—a demand I summarily granted, right onto the front tire of a convertible Mercedes.
I felt slightly better after that, and better still once I’d driven away from that pharmacy, away from that gossip rag that advertised on its cover a look into my personal affairs.
Dammit, Wendy! You picked a lousy time to ruin my life.
I drove to the hospital to see my mother. The day before, she’d been too weak and too sedated to talk. I could only hope that today would be different. By the doctors’ accounts, she wasn’t expected to make it to many more tomorrows.
Before entering the room my mother was in, I slipped into the bathroom to take the pregnancy test.
Positive.
I was not surprised.
Good job, Holly. And how do you plan to tell the father? Over the phone?
Oh, God. Wait. Who’s the father?
I washed my hands and washed my face. The nausea had subsided slightly, but now my heart was pounding in my chest.
I’m pregnant.
I splashed more water onto my face, then studied myself in the mirror and said, out loud, to the reflection, “You’re going to have a baby.”
I should have been filled with panic or dread, but to my surprise, I was overjoyed.
I’m going to have a baby!
My mother was asleep when I entered her room. The nurse said she hadn’t been given anything, that she was sleeping soundly on her own, but that I should let her, that she would wake up in her own time. Though, I knew, to an extent, that her waking up was wishful thinking.
My father sat in a chair at her bedside. He looked better than he had the day prior. The color had returned to his face, and his eyes, unlike mine, were neither red nor puffy.
“She’s been sleeping all morning,” he said to me, his voice barely audible.
I nodded. “The nurse told me.”
I stood beside the bed, on the other side, across from my father. “She looks so peaceful.” I looked at my father. “How long have you been here?”
He glanced at his watch. “Not long. A few hours.”
I put my hand next to my mother’s and slipped my index finger just under hers. “You know.” I cleared my throat. “If I’d known she was sick, I wouldn’t have gone on the hike.”
My father didn’t say anything till I cleared my throat again and looked at him. Then he averted my gaze, let out a breath, and nodded. “That’s why we didn’t tell you.”
“But then… but she didn’t want me to go.”
“She did.” He looked up at me. “Deep inside, she did. She knew it would be good for you. She was just.…” He wiped his eyes and got out of the chair. “I need to get some fresh air.”
I nodded.
On his way out, he stopped and put his hand on my arm. “The day after you left, do you know what she told me?”
I shook my head.
“She said to me, ‘We raised her right, you know. Imagine if I’d been able to talk her out of following her heart; I never would have forgiven myself.’”
I chuckled. I felt a tear coming on, so I wiped my eye with the back of my hand.
“I’m going to get some air,” he said, “maybe lie down for a while. You’ll call me if.…”
I cleared my throat. “I’ll call you.”
He patted me on the shoulder and left.
I stood there a long moment, not moving, just looking, just waiting. My mother lay on the bed, her head aimed at the ceiling, but her eyes were closed. I took a seat next to her on the mattress.
I sat there a long moment, just looking, waiting. My mother didn’t move. I laid my head down beside her, my legs dangling off the side of the bed.
“I followed my heart, Mom, like you always taught me.” I turned my head to better see her, to see if she had woken, but she lay perfectly still. I returned my gaze to the soft yellow ceiling.
“I met a boy. He’s handsome. You wouldn’t believe it: tall, broad-shouldered, dark eyes, dark hair. His name’s Ryker. You’d like him. He’s a doctor—well, a doctor in residency. But he’s going to be a doctor. And he’s going to be a good one.”
I felt a slight movement from my mother’s finger resting atop my index finger. And I wondered if I had caused it or if she was stirring from her sleep. I looked at her face again but didn’t register any sign of her awakening.
I looked down at her hand, resting next to mine. “I’m pregnant, Mom.” I paused, expecting that announcement to get a reaction.
It didn’t.
“The trouble is, I can’t be sure who the father is. Of course, it might be Ryker, but it could be his brother.”
Again, I looked at her face, but again, I failed to register even the slightest twitch.
“Actually, it could be any one of his brothers. He has nine. Nine brothers! Isn’t that incredible? They’re a tight family.” I shook my index finger nervously, causing her hand to move with mine.
“They share everything, girls included. Can you believe that, Mom? Did you ever get yourself mixed up in anything like that when you were my age? I’m sure you had your adventures. Well, I had mine.”
I stopped talking. I stopped shaking my hand, and I brought it to my chest with the other one. I had slipped into the past tense when talking about Ryker and his brothers. I was conscious of it only when I heard the words leave my lips.
“They’re great guys, every one of them.” I gripped my fingers to keep them from fidgeting. “One works at a gem mine. Another works at a lumber mill. Can you picture them: the kind of guys who work with their hands, the kind of guys who live off the land, you know?”
I felt a movement on the bed and jerked my head to see my mother. Her lips parted, and I saw a slight twitch in her jaw.
“Mom!”
Her lips moved again, more this time, and she fluttered her eyelids.
I stayed perfectly still, fearing any sudden movement would stop her from waking up, or worse, would startle her back to sleep.
“Mom,” I whispered, “can you hear me?”
She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. She opened her eyes and shut them again.
“Mom, I’m going to get up and call Dad, okay?”
I eased myself out of her bed as gently as I could. When I was again standing on my own two feet, she turned her head to me and reached out her hand.
I took her hand in mine. “Mom! You’re awake.”
“You followed,” she said, her voice coming out in breaths.
“Yes.”
“You followed your heart.”
I could feel her strength as she gripped my hand tighter. “Yes! Yes, I did.”
She breathed in loudly through her nose. I felt the grip of her hand loosen and feared I was losing her again.
“Mom.”
“You’ve got such a great mind, dear.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t let it get in your way.”
“Yes.” I smiled. Tears poured down my cheeks, but I wasn’t sad. “I won’t, Mom. I won’t.”
“What…” Her voice was soft and broken, and I leaned over and put my ear near her mouth. “What will you call the baby?”
I laughed, loudly, and without understanding why. “You could hear me?”
She didn’t answer, but she looked at me, awaiting a response.
I hadn’t thought about a name. I’d only known for sure that I was pregnant for a little over an hour or so. “Umm, I don’t know. If it’s a boy… I’ll call him Dennis. And if it’s a girl, Denise.”
She smiled. It was a faint smile, her lips barely moving, but the smile shone in her eyes, too. Immediately after that, I felt h
er hand slacken.
“Mom?”
Her mouth relaxed, the crease in her cheeks straightened, but a slight trace of the smile remained.
“Mom?”
Her hand was inert, stiff.
I, too, couldn’t move. I stood there, holding my mom’s hand a long moment, then slowly set it back to rest at her side.
“Mom, I’m going to follow my heart. You hear me? I’m going to follow my heart.”
The next day, I drove to my dental practice. I had to check in and say hello. More importantly, I needed Mrs. Freedman’s phone number, and I thought it would be insensitive or cold to simply ask for it over the phone. As I was driving to the practice, the thought occurred to me that I didn’t know which magazines we carried in the waiting room. Maybe the magazine Wendy wrote for was one of them. Maybe the receptionist had seen it as she was setting the magazines out, fanning them on the table so they could catch the patients’ eyes. Maybe the headline had caught her attention, and she’d opened the magazine and skimmed the article. Maybe I would walk in and see it lying there on the waiting room table with the patients sitting in a semi-circle around the table, looking down at the assortment of magazines, the one in the middle with its big, bold headline, “Appalachian Orgy,” on full display.
When the thought first flashed in my mind, my heart skipped a beat, and a wave of dread washed over me. I have seen that magazine in our waiting room before, haven’t I? That’s why I recognized the name when Wendy told me.
The receptionist has surely seen it. She’s read it, and she’s shared the article with everyone on staff. Look what Doctor Nestor has been up to! A charity mission! Well, she certainly has been in the giving spirit, wouldn’t you say?
The feeling of dread quickly passed, though, and once it had left, I found myself laughing. It had been several days since I had last laughed. And perhaps due to the tension and anxiety of the past couple of days, perhaps due to the hormonal change that comes along with pregnancy, for whatever reason, once I started laughing, I couldn’t stop.
I was laughing so hard and so uncontrollably that I had to get off the road. I had to pull into a shopping center and park before I found myself laughing right into an accident. And there’s nothing funny about that.
I laughed, imagining my patients sitting in the waiting room. One of them would spot the magazine on the table. What’s this? Appalachian Orgy? She would open it to the article. Hey, that’s Doctor Nestor! That’s my dentist!
And the other patients would gather around her—or him—and they would all read the article over her shoulder, exchanging comments. Oh my! She certainly has an unusual idea of “charity.”
When she said she was taking a six-month leave to hike the Appalachian trail, I thought that was peculiar, but I had no idea that she was planning this!
Reminds me of that politician in South Carolina who would visit his mistress in Argentina and claim he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail.” She’s taken “hiking the Appalachian trail” to a whole new level!
She used to be my dentist. I let her touch my mouth. Gross. I had no idea she was this kind of a woman. Can you believe it?
She used to say to me, “open wide.” Apparently, that’s her motto, and she’s been putting it into practice. And, oh, how so!
My laughing fit eventually subsided. I wiped tears from my eyes and managed to pull myself together. Let them talk. There’s nothing I can do about it now.
Either I own it, or I fight it. But fighting it would mean admitting I’d done something wrong, and I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.
I restarted the car and drove to my dental practice. I chuckled a few more times, but gone were the fear and the anxiety over what kind of welcome I would receive.
The practice had only one person waiting in the waiting room, and she was staring at her phone. Neither of the two girls at reception made any allusion to the article or to an Appalachian orgy. They were surprised to see me back so soon, of course. But when I explained what had brought me back and I updated them, they offered their condolences.
“Thank you,” I said. “The funeral will be on Tuesday, and I’ll be heading back to Appalachia shortly after.”
I didn’t inform them that I had no intention of returning to San Diego, that I had no intention of returning to my job. That announcement, I decided, would best be done by letter.
“I do need to speak with Mrs. Freedman,” I said, “and I don’t have her contact information. Well, I have her email, but I need her phone number. I think it’d be best if I update her by phone.”
“Of course. I’ll get that for you right away.”
I called Mrs. Freedman from the dental practice. I hadn’t thought about what I’d say or even where to begin; my thoughts had been on other matters recently. Given the recent article and my pregnancy, I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea to continue with the thru-hike. I wasn’t sure she—or ‘Medicine on the Trail’ for that matter—would want me to. Would they want a spokesperson whose unorthodox sex life was on the cover of a national magazine?
“Hello, Mrs. Freedman. This is Holly, Doctor Nestor. I’m calling you from the dental practice.”
Our telephone conversation was short. She didn’t sound surprised to hear from me; perhaps pleased, but she also sounded harried as if I’d caught her in the middle of something important. She made no reference to the trail or the article, but she insisted we meet for lunch. I couldn’t tell if she was upset. I couldn’t get much out of her except a meeting time and a place: The Pier Grill, today at 2 pm.
I arrived ten minutes early. The prospect of facing Mrs. Freedman had me quite anxious. This was unchartered territory for me; I wasn’t used to breaking promises or failing on my commitments. Though I didn’t blame myself for the negative press, knowing I had disappointed her and potentially caused ‘Medicine on the Trail’ harm weighed heavily on my conscience.
The waiter sat me at the table reserved for Mrs. Freedman, a party of two. When he asked if I’d like a drink while I waited, I started to ask for a glass of white wine. Then I remembered I was pregnant and said I was fine with water.
Oh, my goodness. I’m pregnant!
I hadn’t had time to process that “development” yet. And while I waited for Mrs. Freedman, my soon-to-be-born child occupied all of my thoughts. I pictured me taking her—because, in my mind, the baby was a girl—on hikes in the mountains. When she was old enough, I’d take her into the isolated communities with me, and she could play with the other children while I performed check-ups and cleanings.
Of course, I’d also bring her to see her grandfather in San Diego. I could picture her on the beach, playing in the sand or running from the waves that would break on the shore and turn to foam as they nipped at her toes.
I put my hands over my belly, lowered my head, and whispered, “You’re going to have a good life. I’m sure of it. Just be patient. A few short months… a few short months, and then you’ll be out here with me. And it’s going to be great.”
Mrs. Freedman arrived one minute late and apologized profusely for the inconvenience. “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t expect there’d be so much traffic today. You’d think the president was in town. Maybe he is. Anyway, I do apologize.”
“There’s no need, really,” I said. “I’ve just arrived, myself.”
She waved the waiter over. Before he’d reached our table, she said to him, “Bring us two glasses of Chardonnay.”
“Oh, no wine for me, thanks.”
Mrs. Freedman frowned at me then addressed the waiter, “One glass of Chardonnay, then.”
Mrs. Freedman looked at me with a kind smile, and I was immediately put at ease. I started by telling her about my mother, the reason why I’d come back to San Diego so soon.
That news took her by surprise.
The article, however, she was well aware of.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I tried to get the reporter not to write it, but she couldn’t
be talked out of it.”
Mrs. Freedman shook her head. “Why, dear, are you apologizing?”
“I’ve ruined the blog,” I said. “With my reputation now, I couldn’t possibly continue with the charity. I’m so embarrassed.”
She leaned over the table and loudly whispered, “If I’d known how exciting the Appalachian trail was, I would have gone myself. Look.” She opened her mouth and tilted her head back.
“Oh, you got the bone graft,” I said. “It looks good. They did a good job.”
She smiled proudly. “And tomorrow, I’m having the implant put in.”
“Who’s doing the work?”
“Dr. Stevens. She’s very good.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Not as good as you, of course, but.…”
I smirked and swatted away her compliment.
“It’s all working out perfectly,” she said with excitement.
I furrowed my brow. How is my leaving the thru-hike early and embarrassing the charity “perfect”?
“No more toothache,” she said. “I’m ready to go.”
I stared at her wide-eyed.
“I’ll be leaving for the trail Wednesday.”
“Really? That’s great. And you’re going on behalf of ‘Medicine on the Trail?’”
She nodded. “And I know it wasn’t your intention, but the amount of publicity that article has brought them”—she frowned— “and it is a dreadful article”—she smiled again— “but the amount of publicity it’s generated for ‘Medicine on the Trail—’” She opened her eyes wide and mouthed “wow.”
“Negative publicity, I’m sure.”
She leaned over the table again. “Are you kidding me?” She leaned back and shook her head. “Let’s just say we couldn’t have dreamed of better results.”
I laughed. “Really? I’m surprised.”
She raised her brow. “Sex, if you’re not getting it, or even if you are, it’s always what grabs people’s attention.” She sighed. “I do say, though, ten brothers!”
“Yeah.”
“You have set the bar quite high. I don’t know if I’ll be able to meet our readers’ new expectations.”
