Find Me

by Laurelin Paige

  Laynie looked at me curiously as she crossed over to the couch. She sat down next to me. “Do you not want babies?”

  I hesitated with my answer, not sure if it was polite to tell a woman who was desperate to get pregnant that the idea made me want to vomit. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “Maybe. But probably not.”

  “If you don’t want them, that’s fine. Why do you sound like you feel guilty about it? If you’re concerned about me, don’t be. Not everyone wants kids. I get it.”

  “I was a little worried about you.” Then because I was tired and because she was my friend, I said the thing that had been nagging at me since I’d agreed to get married. “Mostly I’m worried about JC.”

  “He wants them?”

  “He says he wants what I want. But he’s always wanted kids.” JC hadn’t mentioned his desire for children since I’d said I didn’t want them, but we’d spent a lot of time with Adam and Mira recently, and I saw the way he lit up around their daughter, Arin. “I feel shitty taking parenthood away from him.” My throat tightened. “He’d be such a good dad.”

  “And you’d be a good mom. That doesn’t mean you have to be one.”

  I let out a heavy sigh. “But maybe I do want one. I don’t know. I can’t decide.” The image of a mini-JC pulled at me. A kid with his charm and my eyes—maybe that was something I could live with.

  Then again, I’d wanted a kitten once too until I had to change the litter box.

  “So don’t decide. Decide later. And if JC says he wants whatever you want, then why are you fretting about this at all? Don’t you believe him?”

  “I believe him. Just…what if he changes his mind?” From out of nowhere, tears were rolling down my face. “He says he can live without them now,” I blubbered, “but what if in five years he realizes he’s in his forties and his biological clock is ticking and he decides he really does want a baby and he regrets marrying me because I won’t give him one?” I wiped at my cheeks. “What if it’s not five years? What if it’s next month? What if he’s making the worst mistake he could ever make?”

  “Wow.” Laynie handed me the Kleenex box from the side table. “This is really bothering you.”

  I took a handful of tissues and dabbed at my eyes. “Yeah, I guess it is,” I said, a little surprised. I hadn’t realized how much it had been weighing on me because I’d been too busy to think about it.

  Now that I was thinking about it, all the doubt and worry that I’d pushed aside charged forward. “I bet Corinne wanted kids.”

  “Corinne’s dead. What she wanted is moot.”

  I stared at her with wide eyes, horrified by her crude reaction.

  “Well, she is. I’m not trying to speak ill of the dead, but she’s gone. You can’t compare yourself to her. JC chose you.”

  “Right. He chose me.” That didn’t mean he wouldn’t rather have Corinne if he had the choice. But that wasn’t a subject I wanted to delve into any further.

  “Here’s the thing.” She stretched an arm out on the back of the couch behind me and set her opposite hand on my knee. “And let me preface this by saying that I’m not very good at these things in general. I’m usually on the receiving end of wise advice, but I think I’ve got a good outlook on this one.”

  I smiled encouragingly, almost certain that she couldn’t say anything to make me feel better, but wanting her to try anyway.

  “Yes, he could change his mind in five years. But so could you. You could change your mind about a hundred different things that you think you want now. That’s what people do—they change. When you marry someone, you have to accept that you’re both going to change. You hope that you change together. But sometimes you don’t, and that’s something you have to work through. When it happens. Not now. You certainly can’t beat yourself up over what could maybe happen one distant day in the future. You can only worry about what’s going on today and today he loves you and you love him. What else matters?”

  “Nothing else matters.” My voice was weak, my throat thick with emotion. Because nothing else did matter. I did love him. More than I thought possible. I wasn’t willing to give him up over this, and at the moment, anyway, I wasn’t ready to give him what he wanted either. So what could we do but live for today?

  “Exactly.”

  Still, even though she had good points, it was easy to get caught up in doubt. “Would you…” I paused, wondering if my question was too insensitive. I decided I didn’t care. “Would you still be happy with Hudson if you couldn’t have kids?”

  “Yes. Very. We didn’t even discuss having them until our wedding. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be devastated if we can’t have kids, but Hudson is all I ever really needed.” She furrowed her brow. “Huh. I should tell him that sometime.”

  “You should.” I put my hand over hers. “And thank you. I needed this.” I stood up and crossed around her to get more Kleenex to blow my nose. After I’d tossed the tissue, I turned back to her, embarrassed now about my outburst. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m so emotional lately. Wedding jitters, I guess.”

  “Or you’re pregnant.”

  “God, you’re such a twunt.”

  Though Laynie’s pep talk had alleviated almost all of my anxiety about the possibility of children in the future, her teasing had made me paranoid about now. So later, in the bathroom, I found one of her pregnancy tests from under the sink. I followed the instructions, and then checked my watch to begin the three-minute countdown.

  The results came up in half that time—pregnant.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I didn’t say anything to Alayna about the pregnancy test. It didn’t seem fair to talk to her before JC, and as much as I was at a loss as to what I’d say, I was very eager to have that conversation. I was a mess with worry and panic, and the last time I’d felt that way—when Ben had tried to kill himself—it was JC who had calmed me.

  I needed that now. Needed him to center me in the way that only he could.

  When I got to the condo, I paused outside JC’s office door. I could see him through the French doors, on the phone, one leg bent to rest his foot on his desk. He was so much like a big kid himself, and now he was going to have one of his own.

  Yup, I felt sick. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the morning sickness variety of nausea, but it was still a symptom of my pregnancy.

  I took several deep breaths and then went in.

  JC looked up at me and smiled, but then went back to focusing on his computer screen and talking “delivery dates” and “production costs” on the phone. When I’d texted him that I was leaving Alayna’s, he’d told me to stop by his office when I got home to let him know I’d made it safely. He probably expected that was all I was doing now, and that I’d slip out again to unpack some more boxes.

  So when I stayed and took a seat on the office couch to wait for him, he could tell something was up.

  As soon as I sat, his eyes darted back to me and remained there. He sat up, putting his feet on the floor. “Uh huh,” he said on the phone a couple of times. Then, finally, “Hey, Hiroko, can I call you back? Something’s come up here.” He was standing up before he’d finished talking, coming over to me.

  When he reached me, he threw the phone on the couch and knelt in front of me, placing his hands on my knees. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head for several long seconds, my throat tight and my words missing. There wasn’t really anything that needed to be said, though, except, “I’m pregnant.”

  “What?”

  It was obvious he’d heard me and that his response was based in shock and not needing clarification. But I clarified anyway. “I took a test at Alayna’s, and it was positive. Pregnant.”

  I saw it—the flash of excitement before he put on an unreadable mask. He moved to sit next to me, and for the second time that night, someone wrapped an arm around my shoulder and laid a hand on my knee.

  “How do you feel about this?” His tone wasn’t nearly as t
entative as mine had been when I’d told him.

  “I don’t know.” I wanted to say more, but I’d seen that moment where he’d been happy, and it felt shitty to take it away.

  But I wasn’t taking it away, I realized. He was putting it away so that I would be honest with him, and so I owed that to him. “I thought I’d have longer to figure this out,” I said, tears brimming again. “It’s not that I hate the idea of children, you know? I like them well enough. I think. I haven’t been around them much. Just. I don’t even water plants. If I can’t keep a simple philodendron alive, how the hell am I going to take care of something that’s actually important?”

  JC pulled me into his shoulder and kissed my head. “Plants don’t talk.”

  “Neither do babies!” My words were muffled in his shirt but understandable.

  “They don’t use words, at first, but they tell you what they need in other ways. They cry.” He kissed my head again and rubbed his hand up and down my back. “And you won’t be raising this child alone. I’m going to be here for all of it, and if that’s not enough, we’ll hire nannies or nurses or whatever it is you need to make this something you feel like you can do.”

  God, he was wonderful. Never once did he suggest that he would support me if I didn’t go through with the pregnancy, and somehow that helped. Took away an option I didn’t want to think that I’d consider.

  He brushed the hair from my face. “What are you thinking? Talk to me.”

  “I didn’t want this.” I shifted so that I was in his arms, but my face was no longer buried in his clothes. “You know that. Especially not now when we’re just starting our lives together.” I remembered what Laynie had said about people changing. She’d been right, but what was it that made people change in the first place? Usually being confronted by something outside their comfort zone, I’d imagine. Wasn’t that exactly what me being pregnant was? An uncomfortable confrontation?

  And now that I was facing it head on, the anxiety of what if was replaced with what now, which was, in some ways, an easier anxiety to manage. Because I could do something concrete about it. It felt more productive than just worrying.

  JC wrapped me tighter into him. “I didn’t ever mean for this to happen now.”

  “But that’s how it’s always been with us. I didn’t mean to meet you. I didn’t want to be so attracted to you. I didn’t want to fall in love with you. I didn’t want to still love you, even when you left.”

  “Does thinking about it that way change how you feel about this?” This. He wouldn’t say “being pregnant” or “a baby,’ and I knew it was himself he was protecting with the avoidance of such tangible terms.

  How could he be this selfless? For me? To try to distance himself from something he really wanted for no other reason but to take care of me?

  Maybe that deserved some sacrifice on my part as well.

  I shifted again, facing him this time. “Tell me how you feel about it, JC. Not what you think I want to hear, but the brutal honest truth. I need to know.”

  He twirled a stray piece of my hair around his finger. “Well.” He paused a second longer before dropping his carefully masked expression, his lips morphing into a wide smile. “Honestly, I’m pretty fucking happy.”

  More tears came. At least I could blame hormones for being a crybaby. “If you’re really happy, JC, then I am too. Because all I need to be happy is you, and this…” He was scared to say it, but I wouldn’t let myself be. “This baby of ours, it’s half you. And how can I not love that?”

  He was cautious. “Are you saying that because it’s what you think I want to hear?”

  “Maybe. Partly. But I also think it’s true.” I let out a laugh—a silly half chortle that was just as much a sob as it was laughter. “I’m going to be terrible at mothering. I’m warning you now. I hate things that smell and make messes. I sleep like the dead. You’re going to have to really nudge me to wake up when the baby cries.”

  “Or I’ll just get the baby myself.” He reconsidered. “We’ll take turns.”

  I scooted into his lap. “And you’ll still love me when I’m fat?”

  “That much more of you to love.”

  “We might have to cut back on the sex.” I actually had no idea if that would be an issue, and the thought that it might be made my heart sink a little.

  “Oh, no,” he assured me. “We’ll still have plenty of sex.”

  I tried to laugh again, but it was shaky. “It’s really going to be okay?”

  He cupped my face in his hands. “It’s going to be much better than okay. It’s going to be everything.”

  “I love you so much. So much.” I would have said it again, explained my affection in more detail, told him how he was the best thing I’d never planned and how I believed it could be possible that I would one day feel the same way about our child.

  But I couldn’t say anything at all. Because he was kissing me, his lips wrapping around mine in ways that told me he already knew the things that I wanted to tell him. His tongue stroked against mine—softly, yet with confidence—and I was pretty sure I knew all the things he wanted to tell me too.

  ***

  JC got me in for an appointment with an obstetrician first thing the next morning. I’d suggested waiting until after the wedding, but he was too excited. His enthusiasm was adorable. A turn on, even. Who knew that expectant fathers were a hot button for me?

  He also insisted on coming with me to the check-up, which I’d been against at first, but was glad for when I realized that the visit would entail a lot more than an arm poke and a urine dip.

  “You know, I think your breasts do seem bigger,” he said, looking up from the pamphlet the doctor had handed him while we waited for the ultrasound technician.

  “You would know.” I fluffed the pillow behind me, trying to make myself comfortable on the exam table.

  He grinned even though he was already back to reading. “You really haven’t felt any morning sickness?”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe it’s too early.”

  “Or maybe I’m not the type who gets nauseated. I’m being optimistic.” I didn’t need to read a pamphlet to know that there was a lot about pregnancy that sucked ass. Swollen hands and feet? Varicose veins? Stretch marks? Ugh.

  “Oh.” He peered at me tentatively. “It says they may do the ultrasound transvaginally.”

  “Uh, what does that mean?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  “I’m pretty sure it means that they’ll stick something up your vagina.”

  And I was back to wishing he’d stayed home. “Stop saying vagina. It’s weird.”

  “Your pussy then. Is that better?” He gave me a naughty grin. Only JC could turn an impending violation into something sexual.

  “Not if they’re sticking something up it. I’d prefer anything that goes up there be connected to you.”

  “I prefer that as well. But you do realize that that’s where the baby will come out, right?”

  “They can’t just unzip the pouch at the bottom of my abdomen and take it out that way?”

  He laughed. “Maybe we can have them put one in for next time.”

  “Let’s just get through this one first, okay?” It wasn’t that I was still apprehensive about the pregnancy—though I was that too—but the doctor had warned that the rate of miscarriage was higher because of the IUD. Oddly, the idea of losing the baby was worse than the idea of having it. When Laynie had said people could change, I hadn’t expected it would be overnight.

  “We’re going to get through it fine,” JC said as his phone started ringing. “Sorry, I’ll reject it.” He glanced at the screen and his brow furrowed, but he pressed a button and put the phone back in his pocket.

  I was curious about his call, but too wrapped up in thinking about the creature in my belly. “I wonder if they’ll be able to tell if it’s a boy or a girl.”

  “Not until twenty weeks.” He held up the pamphlet. “According to this an
yway. Do you have a preference? Boy or girl?”

  “Right now I’m still trying to grapple with the idea that it’s an actual baby. Gender is going to be a while, I think.”

  His phone buzzed again, this time just once, alerting him to a text, I guessed. The crease in his forehead deepened as he read it.

  This time his reaction was too severe to ignore. “What is it?”

  Just then the door opened, and the tech walked in. “Good morning, Mrs. Anders. Mr. Anders.”

  “Nothing that can’t wait,” he said to me as he pocketed his phone again. “It’s Bruzzo. And soon to be Mrs. Bruzzo.” He took my hand, and I fleetingly wondered if that made him as giddy to say as it did for me to hear.

  Then I was just glad that he was holding my hand because I was suddenly very nervous. “Is this going to hurt?”

  “No, but if we end up going transvaginally, it might be slightly uncomfortable. Since you aren’t having periods, and we have no idea how far along you are, we’re going to see what we can find with a standard ultrasound. Please raise your gown to just under your breasts.” She handed me a blanket while she spoke. “You can use this to cover up below your belly.”

  As I adjusted my gown and the blanket, Dr. Wright, the doctor we’d seen earlier, returned.

  “I wanted to be in here to see the placement of the IUD,” she explained to the tech.

  “What is it that the ultrasound is looking for?” JC asked. She’d already told us, but I suspected that he wanted to hear it again because he was as nervous as I was.

  “We want to see how far along the pregnancy is, which we can figure out by measuring the embryo, and we’ll want to be sure that the baby is developing as it should for its age. We’ll also want to locate your IUD. Like I said before, we’ll try to remove that if we can.”

  JC tightened his grip on my hand. The IUD removal, she’d explained earlier, was often the cause of miscarriage, but the chances of a successful pregnancy were better with it out.

  Please, please, please, I prayed to a god I wasn’t sure was there, let the baby be okay. Let this baby that I didn’t even want be okay.