More than once, Amber had lost custody of her. By her 10th birthday, Lizzie had spent more than three years in foster care. Even though I was familiar with New York state law, it was completely lost on me why Lizzie was back with her mom now, when she was probably at her worst. Honestly, if I could figure out a way to get custody of her myself, I would. I felt an undeniable urge to protect her. I would do anything to make sure that she didn’t get stuck in the system. She would be the only child I’d ever have.
She was rambling on about some girl at school that had been copying her homework. I was only halfway listening even though I really did care. When it came to Lizzie, it was easy to get lost in the bigger picture and miss the little details even though those were just as important. As she reached for the basket of yarn under the coffee table, I became even more distracted. Her fingers skimmed across the buttery spools of yarn.
Even though there was no comparison, I was reminded of the way that Adam’s strong hands had so roughly manhandled my project. Remembering the sheer terror in his eyes, a smile spread across my face. To this day, I didn’t know what the half-finished baby blanket had represented to him. He could have just seen it as an indicator that I was yet another almost 30-year-old woman on a husband hunt. It was no secret that as a single woman neared 30, her soon-to-be-dried-up raisin of a womb became a ticking time bomb with a very short fuse. Or he could have been scared that the blanket represented an already existent burden that he would have to bear. Some day, if we made it and when he knew everything, I would ask him.
“What is this?” she asked.
My thoughts reluctantly left Adam behind and returned to Lizzie. “It’s a baby blanket I’m working on,” I said. “Knitting is a great stress reliever. I should teach you. Would you want to learn?” Knitting was an expensive hobby, but it could be really good for her, and I would be happy to provide a knitter’s scholarship.
Lizzie held up a single knitting needle. A rectangle of yellow basket weave hung from it. It was much larger now than it had been when Adam had waved it in my face. “Or you could just make one for me.”
My heart stopped in my chest, and any thought of Adam was erased from my mind. With everything in me, I hoped that she didn’t mean what I thought she meant.
“I’m going to be knitting for a while to make a blanket big enough for you.” I forced out a laugh. The hollowness of it hit me in the chest and sucked the air right out of me.
Lizzie gingerly placed my project back in the basket. Her eyes remained rooted on it as if she didn’t want to look at me. She couldn’t look at me. “It doesn’t need to be big enough for me,” she said in a hushed voice. “Smaller is okay.”
I’d been trained for this. What was happening right now wasn’t unusual. When you were dealing with underprivileged children who were basically raising themselves, this is what you got. As a Big Sister, I’d been forewarned, but it didn’t make it any easier.
“Lizzie, are you pregnant?” I asked. My voice was stronger than I thought possible. In my head, it was only a whisper.
“I think so,” she said. It came out as a barely audible breath.
I needed to know how ... why. We’d barely talked about boys. She hadn’t really acted interested. Was this another failure on my part?
I closed the space between us and grabbed her hand. “Tell me. Tell me everything.” If I could get her to talk, I wouldn’t have to.
“There isn’t much to tell. He’s just a boy from school. He lives in my building. We were messing around just to see what it was like.”
Thankfully, my well-timed cat chose that moment to return. She pulled her hands out of my grasp and gingerly picked him up. He walked in circles until he’d sufficiently nested a spot on her lap. She placed a hand on his head, and he nuzzled it. In that moment, I was glad of his acceptance of her. I wasn’t sure that I had enough in me.
“But you don’t know? You haven’t taken a test?” I asked.
“No,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders.
“How late are you?” I asked the question even though I really had no idea what kind of understanding she had of the birds and bees, and a woman’s anatomy. I was almost positive that she’d had a period, but I didn’t know how many. Why hadn’t I talked to her about sex?
I knew why. Because before you had “the talk” you were supposed to have nine months of pregnancy to prepare for your child’s arrival. Then you would have another 10 years or more to figure out how to talk to them about sex. I’d assumed that Amber would realize that this was her job. I should have known that if she couldn’t feed and clothe Lizzie, she would fail her in every other way as well.
“I don’t know exactly,” Lizzie answered. “Maybe six weeks.”
“Six weeks?” I asked incredulously. Had I really been absent that long?
I lifted my head and stared at my hands which were now running nervously up and down my legs. Finally, I found my resolve, and I met her eyes. I needed to do a better job at this.
“The first thing we need to do is make sure. I’m going to Duane Reed. It’s half a block. There is no reason for us to sit here and wonder any longer. Maybe we are worrying for nothing.”
I stood up and walked to the door. I grabbed my purse off the table. Spinning around to face her, I asked, “Do you want to go with me?”
“No!” she said with conviction. “I’ll just hang here with Rubber Cat. Maybe we’ll find something to watch on TV.
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. I pointed a finger at her. “But don’t you dare go anywhere.”
“I won’t,” she assured me. As the door shut behind me and I trudged down the hall, I only half believed her.
Twenty minutes later, I was back, and Lizzie was right where she’d promised to be. The drugstore experience had been exactly what I’d expected. I’d tried to be as nonchalant as possible as I slid the box across the counter to the older lady at the register. Even though I was pushing 30, I’d felt like a 17-year-old girl, caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I’d felt like a billboard for the young and irresponsible. When she’d looked at me knowingly, I’d wanted to run out of there empty-handed. I was glad that Lizzie had been spared the humiliation.
I ripped open the box and skimmed the instructions. I gave her a brief lesson in pregnancy test taking 101. Then I handed her the test sticks. There were two of them, and I told her she needed to do them both. We needed verification ... and then more verification.
As much as I wanted to be here for her, the next part was on her. She was going to have to go into the bathroom by herself. I would be waiting, though, ready to handle whatever verdict the little white plastic sticks delivered.
It seemed like an hour passed while she was in my bathroom. In reality, it was probably less than two minutes. She was back before the little indicator windows showed any sign of life. We laid them flat like the instructions had said and waited.
The TV was on one of those women’s channels that shows romantic comedies and heartfelt tragedies on Sunday afternoons. At the moment, “Fools Rush In” was playing. The irony was not lost on me. I was sure that she’d chosen it on purpose. Lizzie was a funny and smart girl. No matter what life had thrown at her, she hadn’t lost her sense of humor. Not yet anyway.
We both kept our eyes rooted on the TV, refusing to glance at the sticks on the coffee table. We watched as Salma Hayek drove to the middle of the bridge and stopped in the rain to look for a coin to throw for good luck. We could use some good luck, too. Neither of us wanted to look too soon. When we finally got up the nerve, there needed to be an answer there. Finally ... and without moving my eyes from the TV, I asked her, “Are you ready?”
In my peripheral vision, I could see her head nod up and down. I reached over and grabbed her hand. “Okay. Together then. One, two, three.”
We both moved forward on the couch and leaned forward to peer at the sticks. I’d gone all out and bought the fancy tests that spelled it out for you. That way nothing was left for in
terpretation.
I sucked in a breath and uttered one word. “Shit.” A dozen others were hurtling through my head, but that was the only one that I let pass through the filter. Now, I was the one with Tourette’s. I generally made a real effort not to cuss in front of Lizzie. I wanted to be a good role model. Besides, I knew for a fact that if her mom hadn’t taught her anything else, she’d done a very decent job with vocabulary lessons ... especially words of the four-letter variety. But, at a time like this, only four-letter words were appropriate.
I counted out two deep breaths. I needed to say something in case she was about to freak out. “Don’t worry,” I said, squeezing her hand. “We will figure this out ... together.”
Even as I said it, I didn’t know if or how we would do it. My heart was shattering into a million pieces. But I knew that I couldn’t let it show. I was going to have to be her rock. It was in my job description, and no one else would.
“The first thing we have to do is go see a doctor. I will take care of everything,” I said.
“Okay.” she said, looking relieved. She clearly had more faith in my ability to get us through this situation than I had. I smiled in an effort to reassure her.
How had we gone from laughing about falling asleep in pizza to this?
***
Somehow I’d gotten Lizzie home and made it back to my apartment. Not once this afternoon had I shed a tear. If you’d told me earlier that morning that I’d be dealing with an unwanted teenage pregnancy this afternoon, I would’ve never thought that I could handle it. I’d surprised myself.
But when I finally made it back home, the door had only barely clicked shut behind me before I collapsed on the floor. I slumped against the door with my head in my hands. I wrapped my arms around my waist in an effort to protect myself from the hurt that was inevitable. The despair that I successfully guarded against all afternoon washed over me, and the tears came.
I had to face the facts. Women had babies every day. It didn’t matter if they were unequipped to take care of them. It didn’t matter if they didn’t want them, if they’d never asked for them. It didn’t matter if they were still babies themselves.
And then there would always be women like me who it just would never happen for. It was a terrible injustice in life.
CHAPTER 14
Adam
It was Thursday. I should have been meeting Alexis at the gym, but she’d begged off, saying that she had to work late tonight. I don’t know why I didn’t believe her, but here I was sitting in my car, watching her building. We were back to square one.
She was cheating on me. I was sure of it. Though “cheating” probably wasn’t the right word since we’d never ironed out the parameters of our relationship. Alexis had never brought it up, and I wasn’t about to. However, the fact that she didn’t want to have the discussion was just further proof that she was seeing someone else. And it was probably that fuck stick from the coffee shop.
When she walked out of her building at just before 6:00, I was glad that I’d gotten here early. I’d been right to be suspicious. It was way too early for Alexis to be leaving the office.
She walked to the curb and hailed a cab. As the cab pulled away from the curb and merged into traffic, I did, too. I followed them as they headed up the east side of the park. The landscape transitioned from affluent to less affluent to an area that I wouldn’t want Alexis walking through after dark. She made two rights so that she was now headed back in the direction she’d come. A half block later, the cab pulled up in front of a rundown apartment building, and I jerked my car over to the curb, careful to keep some distance between us.
Alexis jumped out of the cab and ran into the building. I didn’t know what to do at this point. I couldn’t follow her into the building without her knowing and explaining why I was following her would be a little hard. Since the cab hadn’t left, the driver was either waiting for his next assignment or Alexis had asked him to wait. I was hoping it was the latter.
What kind of business could she have here? It seemed unlikely that this was a job-related mission. She worked on corporate litigation cases. No one in this building was involved in a multimillion dollar corporate lawsuit. And, if she was cheating on me, she wasn’t doing it here. Alexis had come a long way since high school, but she still wasn’t going to go slumming ... although if you asked her dad, he would probably consider me to be slumming it. Yes, heads were going to roll if he ever found out about me. No doubt, it would be my head that was going to be the one rolling.
After five minutes of nervously drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, she reemerged from the building, and she wasn’t alone. She had her arm wrapped protectively around the shoulders of her smaller companion. It was hard to tell much about her from half a block away, but the girl appeared to be no more than 13 or 14. Alexis held the back door of the cab open and gestured for her to get in first. Then she slid in behind her. The car pulled away from the curb, and I shadowed them as they headed back south into Alexis’ normal playground.
Alexis
As we pulled up outside the Planned Parenthood clinic, I could feel Lizzie shudder next to me. I knew that she was scared shitless. I didn’t blame her one little bit.
I couldn’t imagine facing what she was facing at her age. When I’d been 14, my biggest challenge had been convincing my mom to drop me off at the mall so that I could sneak into an R-rated movie at the AMC with my friends. I’d only let Thomas Daniels get to second base on the back row of that theater before I’d shut him down. It wasn’t until the end of my junior year that I’d finally let Thomas clear third, and we were well into our senior year before he hit a home run. Lizzie would be just a freshman in the fall, and already she had more life experience than I would ever have. I wanted to wring her neck for the bad decisions that she’d made, but I knew better than to blame her.
This wasn’t her fault. She’d been continually let down by everyone who should have had her back: her father; her mother; the foster system; and now, me. I would shoulder my share of the blame for this. It was my own hang-ups that had prevented me from talking about sex and babies with Lizzie.
Now we were going to go into this building and be talked to death. There was going to be paperwork to fill out, a physical examination, and a whole lot of talking about Lizzie’s now limited options.
I’d really wanted to take her to my gynecologist, but Lizzie had refused. I figured that it was about the money. Doctors are expensive when you don’t have insurance, and Lizzie didn’t like taking charity. She’d insisted that we do this her way, and I’d relented. I didn’t like the thought of taking her into the sterile community clinic, but I considered it a major coup that I was getting her into a doctor at all. We’d lucked out that the clinic was open late on Thursdays. She didn’t want me missing work, but my coming with her was something that she hadn’t argued with at all. She didn’t want to do it alone, and she knew I wouldn’t have let her anyway.
“Lady, we’re here,” the cab driver said, interrupting my thoughts. The impatience in his voice let me know that he’d probably said it more than once.
I glared at him and tossed him $20. As I waited for my change, I told myself to get a grip. He certainly didn’t deserve my attitude and neither would any of the unsuspecting people working in the clinic. I steeled myself. Nothing about this was personal to me, specifically. I needed to keep reminding myself that this was about Lizzie.
When he handed me my change, I smiled and thanked him. Then Lizzie and I climbed out of the cab. She stared at the building in front of us. She threw a glance my direction, and fear was written all over her face. I turned her toward me and placed both hands on her shoulders. I gave her the little pep talk that we both needed to hear. Finally, she nodded at me. I clasped her hand in mine and pulled her toward the door. We would face the music together. She was not alone.
We walked into the reception area, and I led her to the front desk. The lady behind the desk smiled warmly at us and then
launched into a speech that rolled off her tongue with a rote familiarity that I found disheartening. As she gave us a rundown on what we could expect during this evening’s visit, it was painfully clear to me that she delivered this same speech over and over again, every single day.
The visit played out exactly like she’d said. We filled out the necessary paperwork first. They gave Lizzie a plastic cup to pee in and sent her into a bathroom. Then she was weighed to get a baseline from which her future weight gain would be measured. After that, we were ushered into a medical examination room. The doctor was an older man with kind eyes. He pulled out a wand-looking thing and explained to us that because the baby was still just a tiny thing smaller than a pea, the sonogram would have to be performed internally. I didn’t want Lizzie to be any more embarrassed than she had to be so I offered to leave the room, but she gripped my hand tighter and shook her head forcefully.
I kept my eyes on hers as the doctor began the examination. Finally, he said, “Look at the screen, ladies.” The nurse pointed to a blurry little speck that was whiter than the grey static around it. “There’s your baby, dear.”
My heart dropped into my stomach as I looked at the smudge on the small monitor. That little blip was a baby. Lizzie’s baby. Again, I told myself not to personalize anything about what was happening. It wouldn’t do either of us any good if I made this about my own dysfunctions. Still, a tiny voice inside me wondered what it would be like to look at that little fuzz and know that it was a part of me. And what if it was a part of Adam? I shook the thoughts of what could never be from my head. If I kept this up, I’d fall down a hole that I’d never be able to crawl out of.
I squeezed Lizzie’s hand again, not because she needed it, but because I did, and I became painfully aware that she wasn’t looking at the pulsing speck on the screen at all. Her eyes were trained on something to the right of the monitor. It was as if she didn’t even want to see it. I cringed. This situation would have been awful if she were 18, but she wasn’t even that. She was still four years from being through with high school. Hell, she hadn’t even started high school. There was no way that I could let her keep this baby. I supposed it was a good thing that, at the moment, that seemed like the furthest thing from her mind.
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