by Holly Jacobs
“But—”
He patted her hand. “It’s going to be all right.”
Eli went into a type of brain-fogged automatic pilot. That was the only way to explain how she managed to dress and check in with the receptionist. She agreed to the first appointment that was offered without consulting her calendar, bundled into her jacket, and made her way to her car—her brand-new MINI Cooper. A more nonbaby car couldn’t be found. She drove a MINI, so there was no way she was pregnant.
The fog started to clear.
Dr. Benton, bless his heart, was wrong. That was the only explanation. She’d seen one of those news shows about doctors and their inaccurate tests. That’s what this was. The test was faulty.
Or, since Dr. Benton was getting on in age and probably needed reading glasses, he’d misread the results.
Either way, he was wrong. She was not pregnant.
With a newly found, albeit fuzzy, plan, Eli put her foot to the floor and hurried to her neighborhood pharmacy. While she waited for them to fill the prescription that she probably wouldn’t need, she grabbed a basket, then walked up and down the aisles until she found the pregnancy test section.
Six.
There were six different brands of pregnancy tests.
She read the boxes. Digital tests. Plus or minus tests. One box had three individual tests in it…for people who thought they were pregnant frequently? There was no way she would want to go through this sinking feeling more than once.
She studied the boxes. All claimed to be ninety-nine percent accurate.
She took the first box and threw it in her basket.
Just to be on the safe side, she grabbed a second brand and added it.
She started down the aisle. Surely, the tests would prove Dr. Benton was wrong.
But what if they were faulty as well?
She turned back and hurried to the display. She put one of each brand of test in her basket.
There. She’d take all of these and when all six told her she wasn’t pregnant, she’d call Dr. Benton and insist he either check the expiration dates on his tests at the office, or that he make an appointment for an eye exam.
Maybe both.
He was going to be embarrassed, she was sure. But she’d laugh it off, and make certain he understood she didn’t blame him.
Yes, tell him no harm, no foul.
By the time she got home she was feeling a surreal sense of calm. Everything would be fine once she peed on the six small wands. All of them promised results in three to five minutes.
She glanced at the clock. Dr. Benton would probably still be at his office. She’d call him right away so he could figure out what the problem was…faulty test or aging eyes.
She hurried into the bathroom and discovered peeing on sticks was infinitely easier than peeing in a cup.
She lined them all up on the counter and left, determined not to watch them. She didn’t need to. She knew what they were going to show—she wasn’t pregnant.
She stood outside the bathroom door, trying to decide what to do while she waited. Aimlessly, she went down the hall and thumbed through her mail that she’d set on the antique washstand she’d found last summer on her New England vacation with Arthur. They’d meandered with no real destination in mind, stopping in small towns and villages along the way.
She ran a finger over the stand, and couldn’t help it if her sleeve slipped up, exposing her watch. She didn’t mean to check the time and was disappointed to discover that only one minute had passed.
She walked through the house, feeling slightly removed—as if she were a visitor seeing it for the first time. She remembered every item, its history and any sentiment it carried.
Everything was orderly in her tiny, perfect-for-one-person, but not-for-a-baby house. There was her bedroom, with the froufrou pillows on the bed. Arthur hated them and felt that the few seconds she spent putting them in place every day were wasted time. It probably added up to an hour or more a year, he’d told her. Arthur was a big fan of time management, and try as she might, she couldn’t seem to convince him that time spent on aesthetics wasn’t wasted at all. She liked how the pillows looked on the bed, how the entire room’s decor came together. That was worth an hour of her year.
She peeked in her equally neat and appealing office. She’d spent three weekends stripping, then refinishing the oak floor. She’d used a high gloss on them and they truly shone. The deep red walls, the pulled back curtains…her office was an oasis.
This time she didn’t try to convince herself that glancing at her watch was an accident.
Two minutes to go.
She went to the kitchen, hoping she’d left a glass or plate in the sink, something she could rinse, but there was nothing.
Her house was too small, too settled for a baby.
She couldn’t be pregnant because she’d built a single person’s home.
She glanced at her watch again.
Finally knowing beyond any doubt just how Marie Antoinette had felt as she marched toward the chopping block, Eli opened the bathroom door, then one by one picked up the wands.
Pregnant.
Pregnant.
Pregnant.
Pregnant.
Pregnant.
Her hands trembled as she picked up the last one. One little stick of hope, which was the only branch she had left to hang on to.
Pregnant.
Shit.
Eli wasn’t sure how long she sat on the bathroom floor staring at that last stick. It was long enough for the realization to begin to penetrate, long enough that the ramifications of that stick, along with the other five, hit home.
She was pregnant.
Her feet were numb and tingling. One of the changes she’d noticed since hitting her forties was that she could only kneel for so long before all the blood stopped pumping into her legs.
She was well beyond her blood pumping limit.
And she was pregnant.
She wasn’t sure what to do. Who to turn to.
She wanted to cry, but had preached to her girls that news of a baby should never be greeted with tears. She’d had so many young moms in her office, crying their eyes out. She understood their feelings, but it struck her as a very sad way to welcome a child into existence, so she wasn’t going to cry.
But if she wasn’t going to cry, that left her nothing to do with the huge lump that was sitting squarely in the center of her throat.
What to do?
Call Tucker.
She made her wobbly feet walk into the living room and dialed her friend’s number. “Could you come over? I need you.” She’d known that would be all it took.
Tucker didn’t ask any questions, didn’t hesitate. “On my way,” she replied. That was like her friend. Tucker never expected anything from anyone, but gave unhesitantly to everyone.
Angelina Tucker was Eli’s inspiration for starting the teen parenting program. Sixteen years ago, Tucker had been a senior and Eli had been a teacher in the home-ec department for five years. That’s what they’d called it then. Now, it was family and consumer sciences.
When Tucker had found out she was pregnant, she’d come to Eli for help, and Eli had discovered how very few options and avenues there were for the young girl. She’d fought for Tucker and had become her advocate. The following year she began to put together a program for the entire district.
Tucker had come into her first classes and talked about her experiences as a teen mother. Eli had used her as a peer role model for her girls.
As they worked together, something shifted, and Tucker had become a friend. A good friend. Eventually, a best friend.
Eli was even little Bart’s godmother.
Okay, Bart wasn’t all that little anymore. But Tucker was just the same, hard on the outside, a pushover on the inside.
Tucker would know what to do.
Eli went to the living room and just sat on the couch and waited. When Tucker came, everything would be fine. She clung to
that thought.
Tucker didn’t knock, but burst into the house fifteen minutes later. There was no prelude, no opening line. She just asked, “What happened?” Concerned lines were etched on her face and she ran her fingers through her short, curly brown hair, which made it look more wild than it usually did.
“I’m pregnant.”
Eli had never seen anything stop Tucker in her tracks, but this did.
Tucker plopped down next to Eli on the couch and was quiet a moment.
Then, as if some reserve energy source engaged, she turned to Eli and smiled. “Okay. If anyone can deal with this, it’s you. You know all your options. You’ve got your education, a good job, a nice house…good friends.” There was a firm certainty in Tucker’s voice that worked as a balm on some of the raging emotions that roiled through Eli.
“Oh, and you’ve got Arthur,” Tucker added as an afterthought.
“Yeah.” Eli realized that when the news had finally sank in her first thought was to call her friend, not Arthur. She didn’t want to analyze what that meant. There were too many other things she needed to concentrate on. “I’m a few months along. I thought it was menopause.”
Tucker smiled. “Surprise.”
Despite her worries, Eli managed a weak smile of her own. “Yeah.”
“I remember when I found out about Bart, I was sort of stunned. I went and talked to this very wise teacher and she asked, ‘What are you feeling’? She made me dig through all that junk and really pick the emotions apart. So, I’ll ask you, what are you feeling?”
Eli tried to sort through the swirling vortex of feelings that were overwhelming her. She grabbed at one. “Terrified. I mean, I’m forty-four. Once upon a time I wanted kids, but I never met the right man, it was never the right time. Years ago I decided that it wasn’t meant to be. I have hundreds of kids as in my students. That’s enough. I’ve organized my life in a childless sort of way. I can’t have a baby.”
“Well, then…” Tucker let the words hang there.
Eli shook her head, surprised at the fierceness of her reaction to Tucker’s unspoken suggestion. “No. That’s not an option for me. I mean, I just can’t.”
“Fine, then that’s progress. You’ve made a major decision…you’re having this baby. And you’re terrified, you didn’t expect to have a child. What else are you feeling?”
Eli waded through the mishmash of her emotions. “Foolish. I mean, I work with pregnant mothers for a living, and I didn’t realize I was pregnant? That’s sad. But in my defense, we used protection every time, and I’m old. Practically ready for menopause.”
“Terrified. Foolish. Old. What else?” Tuck pressed.
“Apprehensive. I have to tell my parents before they leave for their winter in Florida…and Arthur, of course.”
“I remember how much fun telling my dad was. But lucky for me, I had this great teacher go with me. Lucky for you, you have a friend who’s here if you need backup with your parents.”
Eli noticed that Tucker didn’t offer to come tell Arthur with her. She laughed. “What about when I tell Arthur?”
“I’d just antagonize him by—oh, I don’t know—breathing or something.”
“And he’d reciprocate. It’s fine. I’ll take that one on my own.” The fact that her boyfriend and her best friend didn’t get along made things difficult. Eli had learned to compartmentalize her life. Tucker and the rest of her friends, her school life, on one side, and Arthur on the other.
“What else?” Tucker asked.
Eli pulled her thoughts from Arthur and went back to the question at hand. What else was she feeling? She searched, and finally caught on a weak, almost whisper of a feeling. “Under all of that, there’s a bit of excitement. I mean, I never thought it would happen, that I’d have a baby. Truth of the matter is, I’m going to be a mother. Sure there’s a lot to figure out, and it’s not convenient, but then it was that way with Bart and look at how tight the two of you are.”
She stopped a second and added, “I’ve never asked before, but do you regret it? I mean, I know you love him, but do you ever regret everything you had to go through?”
“There are parts that I wouldn’t want to relive, but he’s such an amazing kid, I can’t imagine what my life would be without him. I don’t regret a minute of it. Having him led me to where I am. I have a kid I adore, a job I love and a friend I might never have found if I hadn’t shown up in her classroom that day asking for help.”
Eli couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
Tucker didn’t seem to mind. After another silent moment passed, she asked, “You want me to call Bart and tell him that he’s on his own for dinner? We’ll order a pizza and pig out. You can do that guilt-free now that you’re eating for two.”
Eli laughed, which she knew had been Tucker’s intent. “No. I’m fine now. Well, not quite fine, but on my way to it. I need some time alone to sort it all out. Though it’s so good to know that you’re just a phone call away. You really helped settle me down.”
“I’m no expert. I mean, I just paint stuff for a living—”
Tucker always underplayed her talent, and Eli felt obliged to interrupt and correct her description of her job. “A graphic artist. What you do is art, Tuck.”
Tucker shrugged and stood. “Doesn’t matter what you call it, I’m a simple woman who has to say something before I leave. It’s something no one but you ever said to me. Congratulations, Eli. This baby will change your life. And though you don’t see it now, it will change your life for the better. I just know it.”
Tucker leaned down and, in an uncharacteristic display of affection, hugged Eli. “No matter what, you just remember that you’re not alone.”
She waved and hurried out.
Eli knew that Tucker was embarrassed at her actions. She wasn’t a hugger, wasn’t prone to inspirational speeches. However, this one hit the mark.
This baby was going to change Eli’s life.
She could only hope Tucker was right and that it was for the better.
Eli spent the rest of the evening wandering from one room of the house to another, thinking. What was Arthur going to say? Would he be excited? And her parents? Were they going to be disappointed in her?
She knew she was well past the age where she needed her parents’ approval, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying it. It didn’t stop the sting of imagining she’d let them down.
She went into the bathroom and cleared away the remnants of her momentary insanity. She was going to have a baby, and no amount of testing was going to change that.
Bathroom cleaned, she stood in the hall not sure what to do or where to go.
Finally, she went to her room, threw the decorative pillows onto the floor, rather than stacking them neatly on the chest, and climbed into bed fully clothed. She burrowed under the covers and willed sleep to come and take her away from all her worries.
When it didn’t, she tugged up on her shirt and exposed her stomach. Gently she ran her hands over it. Not it, her baby.
Her baby was there.
She was going to be a mother.
She just let the enormity of that thought sit there, blocking all her other considerations.
She had six sticks and a doctor’s test to prove that in a very short time she was going to be someone’s mom.
She was going to change diapers and breastfeed. She was going to get up in the middle of the night and deal with teething.
Somewhere down the line she’d have to cope with a first day of school, book reports and science fairs. Even first loves.
She was going to be a mother.
And someday in about eighteen years, this baby would graduate from school and go away to college. Maybe stay away, too, if the right job came along.
Her baby would someday leave her.
A new emotion swamped her. Loneliness. She’d miss this baby she’d only just found out about. Her child would eventually find their own way, build their own life, one that didn�
��t center around her. She’d be peripheral at best.
She rested her hand on her stomach and promised herself that when that day came she’d let go. Until then, she’d hold on tight and try to enjoy every minute.
Enjoy.
Yes, under the myriad emotions that had assaulted her since she got the news was excitement. Now joined by the promise of enjoyment. She was going to enjoy being a mother.
At least she thought she would.
Oh, there was still panic, terror, but she clung to the more positive emotions.
She was going to be a mother.
CHAPTER TWO
“Discovering you’re pregnant means things will change, but different isn’t always worse…”
—Pregnancy, Childbirth and Parenting for
Teens, by Mary Jeanne Lorei
“MS. CARTWRIGHT, ARE YOU OKAY?” Ariel asked the next day after class.
Eli had thought she was doing an admirable job hiding her sleepless night and inner turmoil, but obviously, she was wrong.
She redoubled her efforts and pasted her best I’m-okay smile on and nodded. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“I promised we’d finish our discussion. I wrote the note and will give it to Mrs. Brown this afternoon.”
“Good. That’s a great start.” At the word start, the girl’s smile faded.
“You said we’d talk about what else I need to do? I’ve been trying to think of what else could fix this, but other than taking an F on that test, I can’t think of anything.”
“Actually, Mrs. Brown and I talked about that. Rather than fail you, we’ve agreed that you’ll retake the test. And then she’ll deduct ten percent from whatever you get as a penalty.”
“Thank you. I assumed I’d get an F and that would drop my GPA.”
Eli smiled. Despite her own mind, she’d given Ariel’s situation some thought. To be honest, thinking about Ariel was so much easier than thinking about herself.
“I have an idea,” she told the girl. “After my meeting this afternoon, I’ll fill you in.”
Ariel looked nervous.
“It’s not bad,” Eli assured her. “As a matter of fact, I think this might work out to be a very, very good thing for you.”