by Jewel E. Ann
“Claire.” Her name releases from my lungs like my last breath.
Her cold eyes and hard smile slice through me, but it’s her wet hair and naked body wrapped in a bath towel that sucks every ounce of life out of me.
“You’re too late … Samantha? Right?” She adjusts her towel, tucking it in tighter above her breasts.
If I could move, I’d physically remove that smug grin off her face. The conniving bitch knows my name, but I can’t tell her that. I can’t speak at all. The graham crackers I ate at the airport are on their way back up. Turning, I sprint down the stairs, fly out the door, and hurl in the bushes.
“Oh God!” I cry as my stomach continues to contract until I’m dry heaving.
The unforgiving concrete digs into my knees as I fall to the sidewalk—gasping, sobbing, broken.
“Why … why … why?” I weep, folded over hugging my stomach.
I can’t breathe; my lungs feel like their spasming out of control.
Coughing. Choking. Heaving.
“Are you okay, Miss?”
I lift my heavy head to the sympathy laden stare looking down on me. A young woman, maybe my age, is resting her hand on my shoulder.
“Yes,” I croak with a barely audible voice, stumbling to my feet. “Just … sick.”
“You sure?”
I swallow back my burning stomach acid. “Yep.” I nod.
“Okay …” She hesitates, but I give her a weak smile and she continues into the building, glancing back once more before the door shuts.
Fumbling through my purse, I find my phone and call Elizabeth.
“Bonjour!” She answers with high pitched enthusiasm.
“Elizabeth …” My voice is raw.
“Sydney? What’s wrong. Where are you?”
“Can you come get me?” The words feel like sandpaper.
“What? I’m mean yes … sweetie, where are you?”
“Lautner’s.” I squeeze my eyes and release a strangled sob.
“I’ll be right there.”
After pulling my bags to the curb, I sit and wait. It has to be eighty degrees, but chilling shivers wrack my body.
“Sydney.” Elizabeth’s soft voice calls.
She’s standing before me, but I didn’t hear her pull up. All my senses are dulled, shock has set in, and I’m stuck in a teeth-chattering daze.
Wrapping her arms around me, she helps me up and puts me in the car. I have a vague awareness of her loading my luggage and getting in next to me. Head pressed to the window, I watch the road blur by like my life—fast winding curves and unexpected bumps.
The minute we walk through the door, I bolt to the bathroom. My abs are sore, knees bruised, hair matted with sweat.
“How far along are you?” Elizabeth pulls my hair back away from my face with one hand and rubs my back with her other.
“Avery?” I have to assume Avery told her.
I sit back on my butt and lean against the wall opposite the toilet.
Elizabeth tucks her dark shoulder-length hair behind her ear, leans back against the vanity, and smiles. “Nope, just a hunch.”
Stretching my legs out on either side of the toilet, I sigh. “I don’t know yet. Maybe a month.”
“And Lautner? Are you ready to talk about—”
Holding my breath and biting my lips together, I shake my head and blink back the tears.
“Okay, when you’re ready, I’m here.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
August 1st, 2010
Hope. God, I need something … just a flicker of light to bring me from my darkness.
Elizabeth and Trevor have been making my meals, forcing me out back for fresh air and sunshine, and insisting I shower and brush my teeth every day. What they haven’t done is ask any more questions. I called my dad and told him I’m hanging out with Avery a few weeks before I head home. What he doesn’t know is Avery is on her way to be with me. Missing him, because I haven’t seen him since his surgery, is the easy part. Telling him I’m pregnant is going to be unimaginably difficult.
Avery knows no more than Elizabeth at this point. I’m sticking to my ten-year-old mentality that if I don’t say the words, if I don’t tell them what I encountered at Lautner’s, then maybe it’s not true. Denying that the man I love, the father of my unborn child, has moved on with a woman I despise won’t last forever.
“Avery called last night and said she’d try and meet us there unless she hits heavy traffic or road construction.” Elizabeth gives me a quick glance.
Keeping my eyes focused out my window, I return a reflexive bob of my head. We’re heading to my OBGYN appointment Elizabeth scheduled for me the day after I returned from Paris. This isn’t how I imagined my first prenatal visit going. Not to sound old-fashioned, but I pictured being in my thirties, married, holding my husband’s hand, and … happy.
Arriving fifteen minutes early, I fill out my paperwork. I’m still under my dad’s insurance and I have no idea if it has maternity coverage. The moment they file this claim the clock starts. It will only be a matter of weeks until my dad receives notification in the mail regarding this claim. I think it might be best if he finds out from me first. Then again, maybe by messenger while I’m still halfway across the county would be a better idea, at least for me.
“Sydney Montgomery,” the nurse calls.
Elizabeth follows me back. We stop in the hall and the nurse gets my height, weight, blood pressure, and temperature. Avery hasn’t arrived, but I hope she does soon. I feel like I’m being prepped for execution instead of examined for a new life growing inside of me. The nurse escorts us to the room and asks me a few more questions that were not on the form I filled out. Then she instructs me to strip from the waist down, sit on the table, and cover with the blue disposable paper blanket. Just as she’s leaving, Avery walks in.
“Sydney.” She hugs me tightly to her.
Having played the role of mother and protector to her for years, it’s a humbling experience to have our roles reversed.
“I’m so glad you made it,” I whisper through a thick throat.
She sits next to Elizabeth while I get undressed and situated on the table.
“So, are you nervous?” Avery questions.
“About?” I tilt my head, eyes wide.
“The ultrasound.” She rolls her eyes.
“I’m nervous about telling Dad, finding work, dealing with this nasty morning sickness, and giving birth. The ultrasound is nothing.”
“Lautner?” Avery stares at me with a tight painful smile.
Elizabeth nudges her and gives her a barely detectable head shake.
There’s two quick knocks at the door.
“Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Wiggins.” The petite doctor with brunette hair pulled into a tight bun offers her hand.
“Sydney.” I gesture to the side. “My aunt Elizabeth, and my sister Avery.”
Dr. Wiggins shares a kind smile and nods as she sits on an adjustable rolling stool. She repeats all the same questions the nurse already asked me. I’m tempted to give her completely different answers just to see if she’s really listening or simply going through a routine spiel. The nurse recorded all my answers already; this seems unnecessarily redundant. It’s no wonder doctors are always running late.
“Well let’s take a look.”
Securing my feet in the stirrups, I take a deep breath and try to relax while she inserts a wand into me. There is a little pressure but it doesn’t hurt.
“There’s your baby.” She points to the screen. “Heart rate is perfect and…” making a slight adjustment, she continues to look at the screen “…measuring about six weeks.”
There it is … the rapid rhythmic beating of hope. Avery grabs my hand and squeezes it. I turn toward her and we share a few tears.
The nurse knocks and slips in the room. She types a few things into the computer before Dr. Wiggins removes the wand.
“I’ll ge
t you a prescription for prenatal vitamins and Eileen will print out your ultrasound pictures and get you some information about taking care of yourself and your baby since this is your first pregnancy. Do you have any more questions for me?”
I wipe my eyes and shake my head. There has to be a million questions to ask, but I can’t think of anything right now except the life inside me—a perfectly woven combination of me and Lautner.
*
The ride home is just as silent as the ride there. I can’t stop staring at the blob on the photos. Through the corner of my eye, I see Elizabeth sneak an occasional glance at me. My mother would have tied me to a chair and interrogated me by now, but Elizabeth has had saintly patience with me.
Trevor has left with Swarley to run some errands while Avery and Elizabeth make dinner. I haven’t said a thing to either one of them since we returned home. Elizabeth sets a bowl of trail mix on the table for me to munch on while dinner is being made. My computer is in front of me, but my eyes stay glued to the two blob photos next to it.
“He’s moved on.” My monotone announcement silences the kitchen.
Avery and Elizabeth stand frozen in place—one holding a knife, the other with a potato and peeler. It’s as if it’s the first time I’ve ever spoken. I can tell by their wide eyes and parted lips that they are afraid to say anything or even move a muscle. My gaze shifts from them to the pool out back. Visions of Lautner, sans shirt, running the skimmer through the pool play in my mind. I blink and all I see is Claire wrapped in a towel looking at me with condescending eyes and a you-should-have-stayed-away smirk.
“I knocked on his door and Claire, Dr. Brown, answered—wet and wrapped in only a towel.”
The chuckle that escapes me is sheer disbelief. “Not even a month and he moves on … with her.”
At the end of a deep sigh, I force a smile and look at the frozen statues by the kitchen island. “So I’m having this baby by myself and we’re going to be fine.” I exert as much conviction into those words as I can. Once again, if I say it then it’s true.
Avery sets her knife down on the chopping board and twists her lips, but her eyes remain down. “Don’t you think he has a right to know? That maybe he should assume some responsibility for what has happened. After all, he’s a freakin’ doctor. Hasn’t he heard of a condom?”
Condoms? Yeah, he has a whole box of condoms. Ten to be exact. The knife in my gut digs in a little deeper.
I fiddle with my hair and divert my eyes back out the window. “We did use them at first, but then I sort of told him … we didn’t need them because I had been taking my birth control pills.”
“Had you?” Elizabeth breaks her silence.
“Yes!” I respond with a defensive edge to my voice. “I mean … I hadn’t been taking them regularly but then the first time we almost…” I look at them and roll my eyes toward the ceiling “…you know, I started taking them every day. But it’s not like we had sex right away. I had my period for five days before I even saw Lautner again.”
Closing my eyes, I run my hands through my hair and shake my head. “What does it matter anyway? I’m pregnant. How, when, or why doesn’t change what is.”
“I still think you should tel—”
“Ugh! Ave, I’m not going to tell him. I thought I knew him. But the guy that made me believe I broke his heart when I left last month was not in that apartment the other day. That was someone else. There is no way in hell I’m going to tell him now.”
“Because you’re afraid he’ll choose her?” Elizabeth questions.
“No, because I’m afraid he’ll choose me.”
They both share the same blank expression.
“Lautner’s too much of a boy scout. He’ll choose me because I’m carrying his child. But I don’t want to be chosen because I’m some charity case … and even if he never said that, I would always think it.” I rub the back of my neck. “I won’t marry someone who would rather be with someone else, and I certainly won’t bring a child into that type of relationship.”
Avery resumes her slicing, shaking her head. “If he ever finds out, he’s going to hate you for not telling him.”
Picking up my computer and photos from the table, I shrug. “Yeah, well, I hate him right now.”
*
August 3rd, 2010
Avery went back to L.A. yesterday. She has a job, bills to pay, and for now, there’s nothing she can do for me. I’m nauseous half the time and fighting a severe case of anxiety. My intention was to go back to Illinois to tell my dad, but flying in my miserable condition is not an option right now.
“Can we talk?” Elizabeth hands me a glass of ginger-lime iced tea.
I’m soaking up some sun and fresh air by the pool and for the first time today my stomach feels settled.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I don’t know what your intentions are for your … future. But if you decide not to go back to Illinois to have the baby and stay with your dad, then I have a proposition for you.”
I push my sunglasses down on my nose and look at her over the rims. “A proposition?”
She sips her tea. “Trevor and I purchased a condo in San Diego, we’re moving next month—”
I sit up in my chair. “Oh jeez, you need me to leave. I can be out—”
“Sydney!” She shakes her head and smiles. “Let me finish. As I was saying … we haven’t put this house on the market yet, and Trevor won’t accept anything short of what he wants out of it, so it could sit here for a while. In the meantime, we’d like you to stay if you want, under one condition.”
“Which is?”
She grimaces. “Swarley stays too.”
I look over at Swarley stretched out on the chair beside me. He lifts his head, ears perked up.
“The condo association won’t allow large pets. We’re looking for a new home for him, but if you stay here it will buy us more time to find the right person. We’ll pay for the utilities and everything, you’ll just have to find a job to pay for your food, transportation, and other personal expenses. When it sells we promise to give you at least a month to find a place of your own.”
I pinch and tug at my lower lip. The past thirty days have been a train wreck for me. My life has taken it’s own course without informing my brain.
“You don’t have to decide right—”
“I’ll do it.”
I really have to stop being so agreeable. Looking back, it’s quite possible that’s how I ended up in this situation.
I flip my sunglasses up on my head. “I mean, it’s a generous offer and I’d be crazy not to take you up on it. The morning or all day sickness prevents me from going back to Illinois right now, and the thought of moving back in with my dad to have my out-of-wedlock baby is terrifying. So … I’ll do it. I’m sure I can find a job around here and it will give me some time to figure out what I am going to do or where I want to be when the baby comes.”
Elizabeth reaches out and grabs my hand. “It might not be a bad idea to stay in this area for a while.”
Standing, I adjust my top and walk to the edge of the pool. “It doesn’t matter if Lautner is five or five hundred miles away. We’re over,” I declare, diving into the pool.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
September 1st, 2010
Normalcy. Eleven weeks into my pregnancy and I finally feel normal again. The misery of feeling sick all day has faded. My tummy has expanded only enough for me to notice, and it’s only when I try to button my shorts or jeans. Skirts, sundresses, and yoga pants are my outfits of choice. I’ve had to buy larger bras, but I’m not complaining about that. In fact, I think I’ll breastfeed this child until they’re ten if I get to keep the perky boobs. Sadly, I’ve read that’s not the case. One mom blogger said her kids sucked the life out of her breasts. They went from grapefruits to silly putty.
Fabulous!
Elizabeth and Trevor left for San Diego yesterday. Lucky for me their condo is smaller so they left a fair amount of f
urnishings here. Trevor thought it would help the house show better.
My dad is leaving tomorrow to drive my car with the rest of my belongings out here. One of the worst moments of my life was making the call to my dad to tell him I’m pregnant. He’s been doing great since his surgery and I didn’t want to send him into cardiac arrest with my revelation. The agonizing silence on the line after I told him lasted for an eternity. Then one of the best moments of my life followed. He said, “I love you and I’m here for you.” That’s all he said. At the moment it was my heart that was in danger. He offered me unconditional love and I cried harder and longer than if he would have yelled at me and expressed his utter disappointment in me. Sometimes I think my mom’s soul bonded to his when she died because he speaks in his voice with her heart.
I’m not sure where I will go when this house sells, but I’m leaning toward moving down to L.A. to be closer to Avery. It would also put me closer to Elizabeth and Trevor. Swarley’s been on my mind lately too. They haven’t found the right home for him yet and my pregnancy hormone controlled brain thinks I should keep him. I’ve talked to him more in the past three months than anyone else. What can I say … he gets me.
Over the past month I’ve also managed to find some work as a freelance photographer thanks to Elizabeth’s connections. I’ve taken engagement pictures, baby pictures, family pictures, and I even was the photographer at a birthday party for a dog. Yes, some people have that much money.
*
Since Elizabeth and Trevor left, I don’t have transportation until my dad arrives in a couple days with my car. Swarley is the recipient of my newfound energy, and with no wheels our ventures have to stay within walking distance. We both finished dinner an hour ago and now we’re on our way to the park before it gets too dark.
“I’ll let you off your leash, but you have to show some manners. No humping, no pissing on anything man made, and keep the crotch greetings exclusive to your four-legged fury friends. Got it?”