The Baby Plan

by Kate Rorick

  He was the kid that you always thought was asleep in class, his arms folded over his desk, his head disappeared underneath a mop top of hair. But then, when a question came up, he would always shock the teacher and the class by having not only the right answer, but an in-depth analysis of the question itself.

  It was annoying as hell. And this time was no different.

  “The poem is about how people automatically put up walls, and it keeps us from engaging with each other,” he said. “He put the line in the mouth of the antagonist, so the protagonist could argue against it.”

  “Precisely! Now, what are the arguments Frost makes against ‘good fences’?”

  Maisey let the classroom discussion fade into the background again. But first she sent Foz a dirty look—not that he could see it. He had gone back to sleep.

  Maybe life would have been better with a couple more walls, Maisey thought. Because damn if she didn’t regret the open-door bathroom policy she and her mother had always had.

  Maisey had seen the pregnancy test, and despite being seventeen years old, it took her a second to realize that it was not a thermometer, and instead the harbinger of impending doom.

  And even then, she didn’t quite believe it.

  “But, it can’t be,” she’d said when her mom told her it was positive. “You’re too old!”

  Mom had let out a short laugh. “I’m thirty-six, Maisey. I’m not quite menopausal yet.”

  “Ew, Mom.” She shut her eyes at the biological thoughts her mother was putting into her head. “Does Nana know?”

  “Not yet.” She looked from the pregnancy test to her shoes.

  “Great, Nana’s gonna be super pleased.”

  “Actually, Nana will be pleased.” Her head came up, defiant. “She loves babies.”

  “No, she loves her book club and her Zumba class and her monthly trips to the Golden Nugget. She won’t be pleased you’re dropping a baby into the middle of all that. Again.”

  “HEY,” her mom said, her tone swinging from kid-caught-out-after-curfew to full-time-parent. “It wasn’t like that with you. And it won’t be like that now. I’m different. And Sebastian is different.”

  Sebastian. At the thought of her mom’s boyfriend and apparent father of the fetus, Maisey nearly puked. How her mom—her (usually) smart, steady, cautious mom—had decided this was the guy to end her dry spell for, she had no idea.

  Seriously, there were a million guys who were after her mom! She’d always seen it, even when she was little. Store clerks were nicer to her, the guy who towed their car after it broke down the fourteenth time, her swimming coach. The ones on set—the grips and electrics and transpo guys—always treated her mom more gently than they did others. They stood up straighter, and spoke sweeter.

  She’d even conspired once with her friend Wendy in fifth grade to get her mom and Wendy’s divorced dad together. They’d seen The Parent Trap one too many times and thought if only they could get them on a date together, they’d automatically fall in love and Wendy’s dad would buy a house and she and Maisey would totally share a room.

  (It hadn’t worked, which was for the best. Because the minute they hit middle school, Wendy started hanging with the track team crowd and left Maisey in her social dust.)

  Her mom had always been the prettiest mom. And it wasn’t just her aptitude with makeup, or the fact that she was a decade younger than most moms (although she remembered her friend Jennifer’s mom making a snarky comment to that effect once). It was this light she gave off. This energy that said “isn’t the world a magnificent place to be?”

  But her mother always avoided men, and their entanglements. And when Maisey asked why, she’d said that she was right where she belonged, with Maisey.

  Until Sebastian.

  It’s not that Sebastian was a bad guy. He was just . . . not mom material. He was younger, like thirty—but not young enough that he could pull off relating to a high schooler, as much as he thought he did. He was also a musician, which as far as Maisey could tell, meant he wore really expensive weathered clothes and always looked like he was wet.

  She’d give him one thing—he was all about Sophia. He’d never once said anything leering to Maisey or given her a lecherous look. When he looked at her mom, it was like there was no one else in the room.

  Even when there was someone else in the room. Specifically, Maisey.

  The PDA was a little much to take.

  All in all, he was just . . . lame. No, he was worse than lame—he was lame and he didn’t know it. She’d have killed for her mom to date an actual lame person. A staid, boring accountant who told dad jokes and wore pleated pants and didn’t keep her mom out until dawn at the ALT 98.7 After Party.

  Seriously, who does that past thirty?

  But her mom had just looked at her, standing in their tiny yellow bathroom, tears shining in her eyes.

  Tears of happiness.

  “Oh, baby doll,” she had said, wrapping her arms around her. And Maisey let it happen, this sweet folding that had become rarer and rarer as she’d gotten older. “This is not a scary thing. This . . . this is a wonderful thing. You were the most wonderful thing to happen to me, Maisey. And this little boy or girl, they’ll be the most wonderful thing to happen to us.” She pulled back, held her daughter by the shoulders and looked in her eyes. “We are going on an adventure. I’ll show you.”

  And as her mother had enveloped her in her arms again, she thought she could feel the stretch and push of the baby growing between them. And she could only think, that while her mother looked on this as a good thing, as an adventure . . . Maisey could only see the mess.

  “Yes. Lives are messy,” her English teacher said, snapping Maisey back to the present. “Lives intertwine. And we do ourselves an injustice when we fight against that.”

  Maisey audibly scoffed. But the scoff was heard by only one person—got-into-NYU-early-admission-Haley. For everyone else, it was covered by the shrill cry of the school bell, and the immediate commotion thereafter.

  Haley shot her a look of pity—practicing her New York attitude, no doubt—as she packed up her bag. That Foz kid disappeared into the crowd like a ghost. But Maisey didn’t care. She had bigger things to worry about than Haley Baumgarten or Foz Craley.

  “You were very quiet today,” her teacher said, as she walked past her desk. “I figured you knew Frost backward and forward.”

  “Sorry, Ms. Kneller,” Maisey said automatically. “I mean, I do know Frost. I did the reading. I just . . . I have a lot of other stuff—”

  “I can imagine,” Ms. Kneller said, as she reached into her desk and pulled out a package of crackers. “Still haven’t heard from Stanford?”

  Maisey’s stomach leaped at the mention of her top choice college. “No, not yet.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ms. Kneller said, her blue eyes twinkling. “It won’t be long now. I’m told California schools send out their early admission acceptance packets this week.”

  “Oh.” That in no way made Maisey feel better. “Thanks.”

  “Saltine?”

  “Oh.” She looked at the proffered cracker. “No thanks. I have lunch next.”

  “Well, enjoy your lunch, then.” Ms. Kneller smiled, and Maisey took that as her cue to head out the door, as the next class began to dribble in.

  Maisey glanced back at her English teacher before she left. And thought for a brief second that the flash of worry that crossed Ms. Kneller’s face matched her own.

  Whatever, she thought to herself. She had her own shit to worry about. And her mom’s reproductive system shouldn’t be anywhere on that list.

  Chapter 6

  NATHALIE CLOSED THE CAR DOOR AFTER ANOTHER long day on her feet. No one ever seemed to realize how much standing went into teaching. She knew one teacher in the math department that developed the habit of giving out weekly quizzes to his classes on staggered days, so he could guarantee he would get to sit for at least twenty minutes every day. Of course, he t
hen had to grade the quizzes, but there were trade-offs in everything.

  Today’s trade-off for Nathalie was, after a long day on her feet, to attend a disconcerting doctor’s appointment.

  Not that it was a bad appointment. But, as Nathalie was finding out, every step of this baby business had . . . bumps.

  It always felt soothing to walk into Dr. Duque’s world. It was clinical, clean, and straightforward. Like the logical part of the brain, but with pictures of happy, healthy babies on the walls. Nothing here was chaotic, or even in disarray. The admin nurse worked diligently and quietly behind the desk, and even the other patients were as docile as cows. Nothing to do but be patient.

  Because, as Dr. Duque often said, there’s no rushing a baby.

  Soon enough Nathalie was led back to the intake area. The nurse asked the usual questions: How are you feeling? Any odd symptoms? She was weighed (oof), her blood pressure taken (not too bad, considering her long day at school), and her urine collected.

  She was getting really good at peeing into a cup.

  But the soothing blues of the waiting room and the calming routine of the doctor’s office were overridden, when the doctor finally walked into the room.

  Who was not Dr. Duque.

  Bump number one.

  “Hello, I’m Dr. Keen,” said the chipper woman who entered the office. Really, she was a girl—younger than Nathalie, younger than possibly Lyndi, with multiple earrings and the side-shaved head look that Nathalie saw on some of her cooler students and that she secretly envied. “Dr. Duque had a family emergency, so I’m covering for her today.”

  “You’re a doctor?” Nathalie blurted out.

  “Yup!” Dr. Keen grinned. Thank God she didn’t have braces. “Went to school and everything.”

  “When?”

  “ . . . Recently. So, Mrs. Kneller . . . Nathalie?”

  She pronounced the h in Nathalie, like “path” or “wrath” . . . and causing the usual twinge of annoyance that Nathalie had endured her entire life.

  “It’s Ms. Kneller,” she corrected. No need to get into the long debate about how she was really Mrs. Kneller-Chen and how fun that was to always explain. “And it’s Nathalie,” she said, pronouncing the hard t. “My mother’s French-Canadian, so the spelling . . .”

  She let the sentence drift off, as Dr. Keen nodded, and diligently marked it on her chart. In fact, she was marking everything down on her chart.

  “So, your blood pressure looks good. Your weight gain normal. How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, you know . . .” Nathalie shrugged, mildly amused by getting the banal question for the second time that visit. “Fine.”

  “Because if you have any odd symptoms, now’s the time.”

  “Well . . .” Nathalie said. “How would I know what’s odd? And what’s normal for pregnancy? This is my first, and everybody responds differently, right?”

  “True.” Dr. Keen nodded enthusiastically, her eyes wide. “For a basic, general rule—any ‘odd’ symptom would be ‘pain.’ Of any kind. But as for everybody being different, there’s a lot of evidence that pregnancy symptoms are often genetic.”

  “Genetic?”

  “Sure—your mother, grandmother. Your pregnancy is likely to have similarities to theirs.” When Nathalie didn’t say anything, Dr. Keen jumped in with a rush of words. “Morning sickness for instance, if your mother wasn’t much affected, you’re less likely to be, too. Water retention, even some food cravings are passed generation to generation. So if you’re curious about the ‘oddity’ of a symptom, you could ask your mother—”

  And another bump. And this was a big one.

  “No. I can’t,” Nathalie replied immediately. “She’s not with us anymore.”

  “Oh,” Dr. Keen said, blushing to her multipierced ears. Then she made another note on her clipboard. “Well, why don’t we run through some regular symptoms, you can tell me if you have them, and we’ll decide what’s odd?”

  Nathalie nodded, happy to move away from the topic of her mother.

  Dr. Keen then proceeded down a massive checklist of pregnancy symptoms that even Nathalie, in her extensive research and planning, had not encountered.

  “Spotting?”

  “No.”

  “Swelling of the ankles or legs?”

  “No.”

  “Flatulence?”

  “Not . . . more than normal.”

  “Moles or dark spots growing?”

  “They do that?”

  She would give this to the young doctor: she certainly was thorough.

  Once she was done, Dr. Keen looked up from her clipboard with a big bright smile. “Let’s see what’s going on in there!”

  This was Nathalie’s favorite part of these monthly appointments. She unbuttoned her pants, shrugged them down just enough to expose her lower stomach. Cold jelly was smeared, as Dr. Keen flicked on the ultrasound machine. Then, she gently ground the detector (wand? Is that what it was called?) into Nathalie’s belly, watching the screen patiently for an image.

  “There we are,” Dr. Keen said finally, and turned the monitor so Nathalie could see.

  And there it was. At fifteen weeks, the head of the baby was enormous compared to the rest of the body—but for the first time, it looked like a baby. Previously, it was far more peanut-shaped. She’d even taken to calling it “the Peanut” in her head. Guess that would have to change now, she thought, enjoying that sharp thrill of relief at seeing the image of her baby. Proof that something was really going on in there, and holiday pie wasn’t the only cause of her pants getting tighter.

  Proof that everything was okay, and that the baby was exactly where it was supposed to be.

  Dr. Keen hit a couple buttons, and the ultrasound machine printed out a small photo. She handed it to Nathalie.

  “Thank goodness,” she breathed.

  “Thank goodness?”

  “Just . . . I had a bad experience with my previous pregnancy, thank goodness everything looks normal.”

  Dr. Keen’s youthful enthusiasm dropped, as her eyes fell to the clipboard. “Right, I see you had a tubal pregnancy. That must have been hard.”

  “Yes,” was Nathalie’s only throaty reply.

  “Your chances of miscarriage go down dramatically in the second trimester, but again, if you have concerns, or if there’s a family history of later miscarriage—”

  Nathalie just shook her head. And surprisingly wise beyond her years, Dr. Keen closed her mouth. She made a last few marks on her clipboard as Nathalie wiped away the jelly residue and buttoned up her pants.

  “Last thing—your blood test results from last time are back. The results for the baby are normal—you’ll still want to do the nuchal fold screening, I assume, just to be safe?” Nathalie nodded. A check went onto the chart. “Aaaand do you want to know the sex?”

  “Yes . . . wait, no!” Nathalie replied. “Um . . . can you put it in an envelope? So my husband and I can find out at the same time?”

  Dr. Keen nodded, her earrings jingling. “Well, then let’s get you a printout of the results, and something to put it in.”

  As Nathalie left the building, clutching the ultrasound photo in one hand, and the burning envelope that contained her baby’s sex in the other, her mind reeled with Dr. Keen’s litany of questions.

  She had all the books. All the information available in the world. But she still had questions. And apparently, she would never get answers to those questions, because they had left the world with her mother. Nathalie’s grandmother had passed a long time ago, and hadn’t had any children other than her mom. There were second cousins somewhere in the wilds of Montreal, but Nathalie had never met any of them. Finding them on Facebook and then asking personal questions about their pregnancies—if they’d had any—seemed a bit rude.

  Maybe her dad would remember, she thought. He went through the pregnancy, too—albeit slightly removed. Yes, Nathalie thought, as she pulled into her driveway. She’d ask Dad. If anyone w
ould know, it would be him.

  So, she had a smile on her face as she walked into the dark house. It always felt good to have a plan. She flipped on the light, and called out a “hello?” just as a matter of form. David obviously wasn’t there. He was working late again.

  Normally, Nathalie appreciated the quiet. She would curl up with a book, or start dinner, or she could pour a glass of wine (well, now ginger ale) and do some grading. But at that moment, the quiet loomed.

  But before she could combat the quiet by running straight ahead with her plan, the plan came to her, as her phone rang, her dad’s number popping up on the phone.

  “I was just thinking about you,” she said, all smiles as she answered.

  “You were?” Kathy’s voice answered back. “How sweet!”

  Nathalie’s smile froze. She hadn’t really spoken to Kathy since Thanksgiving, almost two weeks ago now. Not for lack of trying on Kathy’s part—seriously, Nathalie’s voice mail was maxed out by her stepmother’s high-pitched, fast-talking messages that she could barely discern, and gave up trying to do so after a couple seconds.

  She always intended to call Kathy back, but everything got so hectic in the stuffed few weeks between holidays.

  At least, that’s what she told herself.

  “Sorry I’m using your dad’s phone—mine’s getting checked out at the store. I swear I haven’t been getting any of my calls.”

  Yes. That was obviously exactly what was going on here.

  Kathy’s voice singsonged in her ear. “Sooo . . . how are you feeling?”

  “Oh. You know. Fine,” Nathalie replied. Kathy never asked after her health. Ever since she’d been a kid and was the only one to avoid the sixth-grade mono epidemic (mostly because she was diligent about hand washing and not because she hadn’t kissed a boy yet) her father and Kathy viewed her as indestructible.

  However, this was the third time today she’d been asked, and was beginning to suspect “how are you feeling?” was the new “hello.” At least for the foreseeable future.

  And as Kathy seemed to be waiting for more, Nathalie added, “I haven’t had any morning sickness in the past couple weeks, so . . . you know. Pretty good.”