by S. L. Finlay
I was numb as I took that test, not feeling anything as I watched the lines, waiting for them to show up. First there was the line that told you the test was working, then I waited until it appeared, the second line. The tell-tale sign that the test was positive.
I was pregnant. And to a man that it appeared, was about to leave me for a female marine he was deployed with. All of my dreams of a future with my Daddy were dashed when I saw that result, not alive and well as I felt they should be. I couldn't have a child with this man, it just felt wrong.
I had the sense that I had to do something, that I had to act.
It didn't matter than I had another eight months to figure something out, I wanted out of Daddy's life as quickly as possible, and this house surrounded by the army community was not a place I wanted to stay in. I wanted no-one to know about my baby right from the start. Because, now it was mine. Now it was no longer ours. It might have been ours before I had seen those pictures. But that was before Daddy had started seeing someone else. A woman in fatigues.
I had grand plans in my own mind, but for right now, I would just eat the soup and contemplate what the best course of action was. I needed to do that much.
At least, I felt I needed to do something. Inaction wouldn't help me one little bit in this situation. I didn't have time on my side. Resting my hand on my belly, I felt like I was placing it atop a ticking clock. I would need to sort this out quickly if I was to do so at all. Right now was not a time for inaction.
CHAPTER FIVE
The images that Emily had shown me were on social media. The female marine - a woman called Constance of all things - was the one who uploaded the images in the first place and tagged my Daddy in them.
I couldn't stand to look at those images, so I deleted all social media from my phone, and vowed to start again if I ever had social media accounts in the future. The need to erase what I had seen was more powerful than the need to keep in touch with every person I'd ever met.
Then I began looking for other places to live.
Because I worked, I had plenty of money saved, money that a civilian would have used for a house deposit long ago, but that I had been squirreling away for a long time with no particular aim. Because I also had a job, I had my own insurance and my own income. So moving elsewhere wouldn't be a big deal financially.
But, I had made myself a member of the community here on base and leaving it would be difficult. I cried at the thought of leaving it, even as I cried at the thought of staying. When I left, I would have to leave no clue as to where I had gone. Not just so these people couldn't follow me, but also so Daddy couldn't track me down either.
I had his baby growing inside my body, and I couldn't have him know about it. I couldn't have him know that I was pregnant, or he would have a tie to me forever, and I didn't want any ties. I wanted Daddy gone from my life - from our lives.
The baby would happen, I would make sure of that. I know many other woman would terminate if things went this wayward in their lives, but I had wanted a baby when this one was conceived, so I told myself that I would stick to it now. I was stubborn, and when I wanted something, my mind couldn't be changed.
Having this baby meant a lot to me.
Resolute, I started making plans to leave.
I worked out what I would need in terms of money and possessions, where I would live that I could still be near to my work but where no-one would come looking for me. I worked out what I needed in the future and started moving backwards to get it.
While I was doing all of this, I was strongly avoiding Daddy. I didn't want to talk to him, I didn't want to have more to do with him, but I couldn't simply cut him off. I had to make it look like I was trying because while I lived in this place, if Daddy's friends spoke to their wives, I would have a whole community to deal with. A whole community chasing me and trying to get me to toe the line, to forgive him or whatever rather than one upset Daddy on the phone.
So, I searched the Internet for ways to make your Internet chat signals look distorted, and started doing that. I made my signals look distorted and when Daddy would try and talk to me on Internet chat, he couldn't see me through blackness, or the vision would be blurry or like a television trying to tune. Sad, Daddy watched as time and time again my call would look like it was being cut out.
While all of this was happening, I would rig up the computer so I couldn't see him. At most, he would hear me saying things like, 'can you hear me?' and 'are you there?' a couple times before the signal dropped.
I felt as though I was being immensely unfair to him when I did this, but at the same time, I also felt like it needed to be done. After what he'd done, it seemed only fair. For my sake and the baby's sake, it was a way of getting us both out of here without having to deal with the wrath of the community who didn't appreciate partners leaving when their boys were deployed. I also didn't want to upset Daddy as I told him what I had found out, and that I was leaving.
Pregnant with his child, I wasn't ready for that kind of confrontation. No, I would slink away in the night and never be seen again. That, I could deal with.
It took me some time to find a place, then by the time settlement had happened and I was ready to move into my new home, I was already showing, but only just.
No-one said anything about my growing belly in the community. Perhaps because I had withdrawn from that community slowly as well. I only really saw the other women incidentally, and as I was one of the few women who worked outside the home, my schedule was different to theirs. Most of the women would meet during the day for coffee or to go to the gym together. Socializing with one another was like a day job, and when they were done with that they would go home for the night, make some dinner, and climb into bed. For me who had a day job, things were different. I was just coming home, eating then going to bed.
If someone could see my behavior from afar, they probably would have worked it out, but because Daddy was so far away and I was so adept at making it look like I was trying to communicate with him, he didn't reach out to anyone at the base to ask questions. The women left on the base also couldn't ask any questions, because they all just thought I was busy at work. I was still being friendly to all of them.
On moving day, I realized that it would be obvious what I was doing. It's not like I could subtly move all my stuff. I had a lot of stuff and this couldn't be done quickly, as much as I'd like it to. It would be obvious to any observers that I was leaving, so as I couldn't hide it, I decided I would just try and get everything in order to move everything out as quickly as I possibly could manage.
As much as I had been withdrawing myself, it still stung to be in this position where I was leaving. Even with Daddy having an affair with some female soldier while I carried his child, and having to do all the pre-natal stuff on my own, I couldn't help it. I knew I would cry when I left.
You can hate something, you can despise it. But it's still hard when it's over. It's still hard to leave. One cannot predict just how hard it will be until they're in that moment.
When it was time to leave, it was devastating, even with months of careful preparation. I had planned to help the movers with my stuff, but when they came with the truck, it was difficult to help. I couldn't do it. All I could do was watch as they loaded the truck. I watched, and I cried.
The other wives were out on the street, watching the truck get loaded. As I looked at their faces, sobbing uncontrollably as I was at the thought of leaving my Daddy for good, I could see something there I wouldn't have expected from a bunch of women who didn't know me very well and hardly saw me: betrayal. These women felt betrayed that I was leaving. I was sure the penny was dropping for some of them that this was why I hadn't gone to their events. They were realizing why I was always absent. Not because I was working or sick or tired, but because I had decided to leave.
They say when someone decides to leave you, they've already left. These women understood that as they watched me crying, watching the truck being loaded. Not one of them
came over to say anything, to comfort me or to ask me why. They simply stared at me. I was sure they would tell their husbands, who would then break the news to my Daddy.
Turning away from the women, I headed back into the house. I was taking some of the furniture (things that I had taken into the house, or things that I felt were mine) and leaving most of it for Daddy. I was taking my personal effects, books and trinkets and clothes, and having a bunch of other pieces of furniture delivered to the new place tomorrow.
But as the movers took things out to the truck, I gave myself this chance to say goodbye to the home I had lived in with my Daddy. I passed from room to room, looking at everything and making a mental note. It was time to move on, and I needed to do it. But I needed to do it my way.
One of the movers came back into the house to find me at my old kitchen bench, the same bench where Daddy had fed me bacon and eggs so many times for weekend breakfast, and the same bench where we had had a thousand meals before.
"We're ready to go." The mover told me in a gruff voice. With one quick nod I acknowledged him as he turned around and went back outside. I heard the truck start up and the sound of its diesel engine retreating.
Then I was alone with my thoughts, my thoughts of Daddy.
I found some paper near the phone and wrote Daddy a little note along with the SIM card to my phone, so no-one from this community could contact me when I left. When I left, I would be gone, and I had done everything I could to ensure that was the case.
The note I left my Daddy, sitting under the SIM card read:
Daddy, I am sorry.
Then I walked out the front door and got into my car, ignoring the women who were still around, still watching my house and me leaving it behind but not talking to me. There were fewer of them, I guessed some had already gone to tell their men. But I didn't care.
As I pulled away in my car, I refused to look at them, and I refused to look back. I was going to start a new life. A new life for me and my baby and it wouldn't have military Daddy or his community in it.
Our new life would be about us and what he wanted from it. My baby and I were going to make life happen, we were going to be happy.
And that was all there was to it.
CHAPTER SIX
The movers could move all my things into my new place easily, but they couldn't move me into this space. I had to do that.
For the first three days, I cried all day. I even cried as I was trying to unpack boxes and get my home in working order. My tears fell and I sobbed uncontrollably. I wouldn't eat and the only time I slept was when I cried so much that I simply ran out of energy and passed out wherever I was, which was normally on the couch for a few hours.
I was a crying mess, and the temptation to call him again, to feel his tenderness and familiarity, to be told it was all alright was intense. I wanted so badly for those pictures to be fake, or for my perception of them to be somehow wrong, but the anger of what had happened kept me going. That anger ensured that I didn't call. That anger was something I held onto to keep me safe, to stop me from getting hurt. I held onto that anger, and onto the thought that I wouldn't have left if it wasn't that bad. This thought was all I had to counter that little voice in my head that told me maybe I was wrong, maybe he hadn't really been having an affair. No, I would tell myself. He did have an affair. I wouldn't have left if he wasn't having an affair.
After three days of tears and no food, I was starving. I also knew the baby growing inside of me needed something to eat too. So I had a shower, threw on some clothes and went out into the world to pursue some sustenance.
Stopping at a diner in the main street of my new town, I walked inside and ordered a salad. I felt good ordering something as healthy as a salad for the baby. Everything I had to do going forward had to be for the baby. I wouldn't have any more crying fits, I wouldn't take any more time off work, I wouldn't skip meals. Now was not the time to focus on me and what I wanted, but the time to focus on my baby and what my baby needed.
And right now, baby needed to eat. Baby was going to have a salad.
So I did. I had a salad and crunching the leaves in my teeth, tried to keep my mind on all the things I had to do to settle into my new home. I would need to unpack some more boxes, organize the book case, organize the baby's room. I had a bunch of things on order that would arrive at the house soon enough. Babies change table, drawers, crib, stroller, one of those little backpack things that babies go in. I had some clothes already. The mental checklist seemed to be something I was doing fairly often now, as if I was going to forget this important stuff if I failed to continuously remind myself.
It was a shame that I was doing all of this on my own, because I would have liked to have a baby shower for the little one. I would have liked to make a big fuss about the new baby and spend some time with other women, chatting about our partners and our families, and our babies. I would have liked those things so much, but couldn't do them. I couldn't simply throw a shower after having walked away from the life I had built with my Daddy. Who would I invite, anyway? Anyone who I knew before I had just walked away from and anyone who I would meet between now and the birth was someone who was too fresh for me to really invite to something as intimate as a baby shower.
I didn't even have family who I could celebrate the pending arrival with as both of my parents were out of the picture. I had never felt so isolated in all my life, and it was difficult to cope with and made the whole thing so much worse. It didn't help me in my resolve to stay away from Daddy, to never contact him.
I had already told the people I worked with that I was planning to leave my boyfriend, but hadn't told them how under-handed I was in my withdrawing from Daddy and his community. When it was time to leave and I needed the time off my work was prepared and gave it to me no questions asked.
Of course, when I would return I wouldn't have the chance to rest as they wouldn't have lightened my work load just because they were giving me time away from the office. My work was stressful to the extreme and I would never be able to have a break from that. There weren't enough of us working here for anyone to take a proper break from work.
But I wasn't at work, I was eating my salad at the local diner, thinking about all the changes that were coming up in my life. Determined to reign my thoughts back in from the future, or at least the more distant future, I had a look around at everything that surrounded me. This was my new town.
I had chosen this place because it wasn't too far away from my work while still being in a part of town that no-one I knew lived in or visited. I could live where I liked, finish up at my work then have the baby. By the time Daddy got back, I would be off on maternity leave and looking for another job. If he went looking for me, he would of course try at my work, but by then, I wouldn't be there.
Having already spoken to my boss and everyone at my work, I had told them not to mention maternity leave or a baby. I would still maintain a couple of friendships after I left, and of course would still have a bit to do with the other journalists, but even if Daddy looked, he wouldn't find anyone willing to talk to him about my being a mother.
Then there it was. The thought of really being estranged from Daddy caused my eyes to fill with tears that stung. I wouldn't cry here though I told myself as I put my hand in the air and asked the waitress for the bill.
I would keep myself busy, and stop crying. I was sure it was as much the sadness of the situation as it was the fact that I was full of hormones from being pregnant.
After paying my bill and tipping the waitress, I wandered around the town for a while. There were plenty of stores here to check out. They were all small independently owned and run mom and pop stores. It was nice, this town. It felt quaint, even as it was still near enough to the city that I could get to work without any problems.
People were friendly here, and as I walked around, I had a few people smiling at me. It was a Tuesday, so most of the people wandering through the town were unemployed people, or studen
ts, or people who were retired, or had children. There were plenty of children everywhere.
Imagining raising my child here wasn't hard, there were so many people here with children. Looking around, I knew that my child would have no trouble making friends or finding other children to hang out with when they grew up a little bit.
This town was idyllic, and the prefect mixture of country lifestyle and city convenience. I could deal with this.
The sunshine beat down on my face as I crossed the road and went down a little side street. My home was a fifteen minute walk from the center of town, I could do that, and decided it would be better to walk when I was moving locally than to drive anyway.
There was a small park down this street and I found a bench to sit on and watched some of the people-traffic moving around. Unlike other places I had lived, it seemed people walked here a lot. There were so many people out, enjoying the sunshine, that it made me smile to see them all.
Smiling at everyone was fantastic, I could really get used to living like this, in this friendly atmosphere. Maybe it didn't matter that I was doing it all on my own, maybe I would be fine on my own. Perhaps, and I had a feeling this would be the case, I would even grow to enjoy living this life on my own with my beautiful baby.
Just then, I felt the baby kick for the first time and, smiling to myself, placed my hand on my belly to feel the baby moving around, it wouldn't be long now. As I sat there in that park, hand on my belly to feel my new babies movements, I knew I could do this on my own.
I would be alright on my own.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Months flew by and my baby was born. Birth is harder than they say it is, and harder than it is represented in movies, television, books, everywhere. There was nothing I had done in my life that was harder than this, even the break up that had taken so much of my emotional and mental energy and that I thought would take years to heal from hurt this badly. Nothing compares to childbirth.