About the Baby

by Tracy Wolff

  She pushed to her knees and was starting to stand when another wave of nausea hit her, causing her stomach to cramp up and her whole body to shudder as she dry heaved. There was nothing left to come up, but that never seemed to matter. She’d been so sick for so long that she’d lost a good ten pounds in the past couple of months. The doctor in her was concerned, even as the scientist was desperate to hang on just a little longer.

  Climbing to her feet slowly—weeks of experience had taught her that she was usually okay after she dry heaved a second time—Kara went about gathering up the files she’d dropped when the nausea had hit her. When she was finished, she threw herself back into her to-do list for the day.

  They had finally managed to control the Ebola epidemic, though it had been touch and go there for a while. She’d done thousands of interviews and analyzed enough data to make her eyes cross. But she believed she’d found Patient Zero, as well as the conditions that had enabled the virus to mutate into this latest version of itself. Much like dengue fever, this new strain of Ebola could be transmitted via mosquito bite—which was both frightening and fascinating. As a result of her team’s findings, along with those of Pierre’s WHO team, the area had been flooded with insect repellant as well as other teams, each of whom took a city and got to work on educating the populace. Her team was still in Teseney, which was proving to be one of the most difficult places to get a handle on. It wasn’t as big as some of the other cities—the population here was only a little over a hundred thousand—but the city itself was in terrible shape.

  One of the major points of contention in the

  Eritrean War of Independence, Teseney had been repeatedly leveled by bombs in an effort to cut the rebels off from the Sudanese border where they received supplies and weapons. Add in the fact that Eritrea had been closed to outside organizations for so long. That there were various ethnic groups in the city, most of whom kept to themselves and spoke separate languages. As a result, it had been very difficult to launch a campaign to eradicate the new threat of a mosquito-born Ebola hybrid.

  But they were finally beginning to make progress, finally finding a way to reach through the barriers of fear and distrust that ruled this city. Not that she blamed the natives. They’d been to hell and back these past few years—was it any wonder they had issues with outsiders?

  With a sigh, she pulled up her email. She hadn’t checked it in the past few days as she was too busy trying to play catch-up with what was going on in the field to waste time on emails from home. But as she scanned through her in-box she realized she’d made a huge mistake. She’d been so sick for so long that she’d forgotten to contact Lucas and he was frantic.

  Reaching under her cot, she pulled out the Comsat phone she kept for important phone calls to the States. It was a hell of a lot clearer than trying to unscramble half a conversation on a regular cell phone and while it belonged to the CDC and she normally only used it for emergencies, she figured this definitely qualified.

  She dialed Lucas’s number with shaky fingers.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Kara.”

  “I just got your email,” she told him. “I’m fine.”

  For long seconds, there was silence on the other end of the line. Then, “That’s it? You put me through hell and all you have to say to me is that you’re fine?”

  “I’m sorry. Things have been crazy here.” It was a lame excuse and she knew it. Her palms were sweating so badly she could barely hold the phone.

  “You’re sorry?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re not sick? You didn’t contract Ebola?”

  She thought of the DHF, but he sounded so strung out she figured telling him about how sick she’d been was the last thing she should do. There’d be time to talk about it once she got back to the States. “I don’t have Ebola.”

  “Have you been out in the field?”

  “Not so much lately, no.”

  He paused and she could feel the anger and hurt crackling down the line at her. It made her feel like an even bigger heel. It wasn’t that she felt like she had to answer to him, but she’d made him a promise years ago and it was crappy of her not to keep it. Crappy of her not to think about calling the second she started to feel better.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him again. “Things here have been bad and I screwed up.”

  “Yeah, you did. But you’re okay? You swear?”

  “I’m fine. Just exhausted.”

  “The news here is reporting on renewed rebel activity in Eritrea—a result of the widespread deaths from Ebola. That hasn’t touched you?”

  She thought of Maia, her little leg blown off. Thought of the thousands of patients she’d treated since she’d come to this country. Thought of the pain that lived inside of her every second of every day, for all the patients she hadn’t been able to help and all those she hadn’t helped enough. Then said, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Everything’s fine here.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” She started to stand up but her stomach pitched and rocked wildly. She froze and took deep breaths as she waited for it to pass. She should have known better—she had a very specific routine to help keep the nausea at bay first thing in the morning.

  “Okay, then. I guess I’ll talk to you when you get back.”

  “Wait? That’s it? We haven’t talked in weeks and that’s all you have to say to me?”

  “Whose fault is it that we haven’t talked? It seems to me that you got down there and got wrapped up in what you were doing and forgot all about me. Which is fine. I understand that. But I’ve been going crazy thinking something happened to you. Thinking you’d been kidnapped or injured or—” His voice broke and for long seconds he didn’t say anything else. Neither did she.

  “Look,” he continued, “I know things changed between us when you were in Atlanta, but that doesn’t mean you have to shut me out like this. And it sure as hell doesn’t give you the right to ignore me until the mood suits you. I don’t deserve that.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” she started to say. But then she stopped. After all, hadn’t it been just like that? She could blame the DHF all she wanted, but she’d been bouncing back this past week and a half. She could have called Lucas any number of times, and if she’d been thinking clearly, she would have. But she’d been so busy running from the weird feelings she had for him that she’d totally blown him off. She’d hurt him and there was no excuse for that.

  “What was it like, then?” His voice cut like broken glass.

  “I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  He sighed and she could almost see him thrusting a hand through his hair in agitation. Long seconds passed before he finally said, “Yeah, okay. You’re sorry. I’m sorry, too, for jumping down your throat.”

  “It’s okay,” she told him.

  “Really? Everything’s okay?” He sounded sarcastic, but before she could call him on it, he said, “Look, thanks for calling. But I have to go. I’ve got to get to the clinic. I’m opening.”

  “Oh, right. Well, then, I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Yeah, later.”

  “Lucas—” she started, unsure what she wanted to say to him but knowing she didn’t want to leave it like this, with all this coldness between them. But he had already hung up and when she tried to call him back, the phone just rang and rang and rang.

  With a sigh, she hung up the phone and put it away. She’d call him later, apologize again
. He couldn’t stay mad at her forever. No matter how inconsiderate she’d been.

  And she had been inconsiderate. Sure, she’d spent two weeks totally out of it with DHF, but she’d been lucid for more than a week now and if she’d thought about Lucas in any context other than how to keep herself from getting hurt, she would have realized that he was probably frantic. And that she was hurting him. It was the last thing she’d wanted to do, but it was obvious from his voice that she had.

  And yet, how else was she supposed to protect herself from him? From this thing between them that mattered but didn’t? She’d been around long enough to know Lucas didn’t do commitment and yet here she was, mooning over him and waiting for him to say that he had feelings for her outside of friendship, even though she had no idea if he did or not. All she knew was that ever since they’d slept together, she’d been having weird feelings about him. Uncertainties. She didn’t know what she felt for him, only that something had shifted.

  And that wasn’t good.

  Why not? a little voice deep inside of her asked.

  Because she couldn’t handle the idea of being without Lucas. She’d lost her mother when she was eighteen, her father long before that when he’d walked out on the two of them. Lucas had been the one constant in her life for nearly two decades and the idea of losing him made her physically ill.

  Which meant she was going to have to get a handle on all the strange feelings that were floating around inside her. Otherwise, she was going to end up losing him. God knows, she’d already done a bang-up job of pushing him away when that was the last thing she wanted to do.

  Sighing heavily, she stood up and went back to her files. There was nothing she could do about the way things were now. She’d call him back later and if he didn’t answer, then she’d deal with him when she got back to America. Yes, she’d acted badly. But surely seventeen years of friendship counted for something.

  Besides, who knew what the future held. There was no use worrying about what was going to happen in a future she might not even have. After all, she’d survived dengue hemorrhagic fever, but there was no guarantee she’d survive everything else this country had to offer.

  Van and Julian found her attitude fatalistic, but she just considered it being realistic. There were a million things that could go wrong while she was on location like this, and she’d accepted long ago that her job might end up getting her killed. It was why she’d always insisted on living every moment to the fullest.

  Except with Lucas. But that was different, she told herself. Living life to the fullest included having him in that life and going down this path with him. But if they were involved romantically, one day he would move on from her the way he’d moved on from every other woman in his life and she had no idea how she would react to that.

  It probably wouldn’t be good, however.

  Her cell phone buzzed and, despite her best intentions, she grabbed it up, hoping it was a text message from Lucas. Some ridiculous little joke or tidbit that would make her laugh. But it wasn’t one of his regular messages. Instead, it was a question from Julian about a case he was working.

  As she brushed her teeth in the little sink in her cubbyhole of a bathroom, fatigue dragged at her. Weighed her down so that she wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed and pull the covers over her head for the next week or so. But there was work to be done—more work than she had a chance of doing in ten weeks, let alone the three she was guessing she had left in Eritrea—so, exhausted or not, she needed to get moving.

  It was just a simple case of mind over matter, she told herself as she shook out her jeans, checking them for scorpions and other desert predators before slipping into them. Now if only her matter would catch up with her mind…

  She reached for her favorite tank top and shook it out much like she had her jeans before pulling it over her head. There were a lot of things she would miss about Africa when she went home. Having to worry about nasty little bugs crawling into her clothes or her bed was not going to be one of them.

  She moved in front of the small dresser mirror, pulled out the moisturizer and sunscreen that she applied religiously when in Africa or South America. And nearly gasped at her first glimpse in the makeshift mirror since getting dressed. Her tank top, which she had worn hundreds of times since she’d bought it a few years before, looked positively indecent. It had always been a little snug—she liked that because it was difficult for any creature to climb into it when she was in the wilds—but at the moment it fit her like a second skin.

  She wondered if she had shrunk it the last time she’d washed it? But it had been washed innumerable times and had always maintained its shape—something she’d always loved about it. Why would it have shrunk now, especially when she hadn’t treated it any differently than she had a million times before?

  She knew she hadn’t gained weight, not when her ribs were more prominent than ever. Turning to the side, she checked out her silhouette. Her stomach wasn’t any bigger. Neither was her butt. In fact, they both looked smaller, her stomach almost concave after all of the puking and not eating she’d been doing. But her breasts looked huge, almost twice their normal size.

  Which explained everything.

  She stripped off the tank top and reached for a baggy white one instead. Then pulled her suitcase out from under the bed and took out one of the three small bags of tampons that were there. Her period must be about to start.

  But something about seeing those three bags of tampons just sitting there made her think. Three bags of tampons were all she’d brought with her and she’d been down here three months without using even one of them? It didn’t make sense.

  A fleeting thought ran through her head and she froze, started counting back. Tried to figure out when her last period had been. Which, now that she thought about it, hadn’t been since she’d gotten to Eritrea. How had she missed that?

  She remembered skipping the first month, and putting it down to the new birth control pill she’d begun taking a few months before—the first couple of months she’d been on them her period had been superlight. But that didn’t mean it should actually stop completely, did it? Not even spotting?

  She thought back to what her gynecologist had told her when she’d started on the pill. It was a milder one than she was used to, the lowest level of hormones she could take to keep her cycle regular when she was out in the field. There’d been mention of a pill that could stop her period completely, but the doctor in her had been unhappy with the possible side effects of doing so. Which was why she’d chosen this one instead. And yet, here she was, three months later with no period. Unless there was another reason her period hadn’t come. Like the dengue hemorrhagic fever—which could very well be the case, she told herself. Her body had been under a lot of stress lately and that could definitely stop her cycle. Of course, she had been here close to two months when she’d contracted it, so that wouldn’t account for the missing two periods.

  Not liking the turn her thoughts were taking at all, Kara pressed a hand to her breast and probed a little, as if she was doing her monthly exam. And winced at the ache doing so engendered. Even worse, if she searched her memories beyond the twenty-hour days she’d been working for the past three months, she realized that this wasn’t the first time she’d noticed her breasts were sore. She’d simply put it down to her period coming and then gotten so busy that she’d forgotten all about it until the next time they’d bothered her.

  Unse
ttled and more than a little nervous—though she told herself there was no reason to be—she sank down on the edge of the bed and once again started the backward count in her head. And once again, the number she reached disturbed her. Wanting to be sure she wasn’t making a mistake, she pulled up her cell phone’s calendar and did the same thing with the actual dates in front of her.

  The answer was no less reassuring the third time around.

  The part of her that was purely female wanted to say it was impossible. She was on the pill and had always been religious about taking it on time. Plus, she’d been on no antibiotics anytime close to when she and Lucas had made love. She should be fine.

  But the doctor understood the loopholes, knew that the strength of the pill she was on should protect her from pregnancy. But there were no guarantees this early in the game. There hadn’t been time to test it, to see how well it worked with her body chemistry. She had assumed it would work because the other ones had…but assuming might very well have made a very big ass out of her.

  She counted backward one more time, just to be certain, but this time it was with a sense of inevitability and more than a little panic. Sure enough, the night she and Lucas had made love had been an optimum time for her to conceive. Maybe all that nausea she’d been blaming on dengue hemorrhagic fever had a different root entirely.

  Pregnancy.

  The word echoed in her thoughts, over and over again as all the implications of it slowly began crowding her mind. And still she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it.

  She was pregnant.

  Was she pregnant?

  Dear God. She was pregnant. With Lucas’s baby.