Stretch Marks

by Kimberly Stuart

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “And that I’ll love this baby of yours probably to the point of being unhealthy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I just want that to be clear.” She paused and then added, “He has never deserved you. Just make sure you’re sticking with this out of love instead of out of shared history.”

  Mia could hear Frankie hold her breath and then exhale in a rush. “No one really understands a relationship until they’re in it,” Mia said. Her voice betrayed a bone-deep weariness. “But I know you say that stuff because you care about me.” A beep sounded in her ear and she pulled the phone away. “He’s calling. I have to go.”

  “Call me later and I’ll come over with the gifts.”

  “Right,” Mia said, her heart already racing to the other line. “Lars?”

  “Hey,” he said. She couldn’t be sure without the confirmation of visual cues, but he didn’t sound upset. In fact she thought he sounded rather relaxed.

  “How are you?” She would tread lightly, she thought, gather more information.

  “Great,” he said. Was that a woman’s voice in the background? “I’m feeling very centered.”

  “That’s good,” she said. She could feel her brow furrowing above her eyes and made a conscious effort to smooth her forehead. “Lars, I’m so sorry my mother butted into our business. I should have known our temporary truce was too good to last.”

  “No worries,” he said. “Hey, we should talk about this in person.”

  “Yes,” she said, letting her shoulders relax. “When can you come out here?”

  “What do you mean? I am here. I’m staying at the Palmer downtown since your mom didn’t exactly offer her place.” His laugh was easy. “We already ate but do you want to meet at Zuba’s for biscotti or something?”

  “Sure.” Did he say we? “I’ll be there in a half hour.”

  “Right on,” he said, before hanging up with a congenial farewell.

  She was in a cab and only blocks from Zuba’s Tea Shack before it occurred to her that their good-bye had felt like one between friends.

  Dusk had wrapped an indigo cloak around the city when Mia left the street outside and stepped into the ochres and greens of Zuba’s. An eclectic mix of copper light fixtures cast a warm glow over the counter and the small tables encircling it. She spotted Lars at a table near the back. His eyebrows lifted over a steaming cup of tea and he waved her over. She smiled and tugged her shirt over and under her belly, keeping her fingers at the seam to protect herself. En route to Lars, a woman emerging from the restroom caught her attention. Her first thought was that she hoped the long legs and swinging mane of shiny hair would sit at a table out of Lars’s view. The girl was not good for a pregnant woman’s self-image. She walked at a languorous pace toward Mia and it took a moment to realize the woman was smiling at her.

  “Mia?” she said when their paths met a few feet from Lars.

  “Hello.” Mia’s tone was cautious. Did she know this woman? Work? Her neighborhood? A quick mental inventory produced no connection.

  The woman pushed forward a tan, lean arm, which made Mia’s plump and dimpled arms jump out from her sides for what she hoped was an instant slimmer. “Kate Ashworth. I’ve heard so many great things about you.”

  Lars stood and hugged Mia with great care, as if she and her water might break on the spot. “Hey,” he said, pulling back from their embrace. He looked down at her belly and his eyes widened. “You’re almost ready to pop, aren’t you?”

  Mia’s hand returned to a protective stance at the hem of her shirt. She glanced at the woman beside her. “I’m sorry, but are you two here together?” The supreme effort it was requiring Mia to connect the pieces of this puzzle, after the day she’d endured, was close to doing her in.

  “Mia, this is Kate. Kate, this is Mia.” Lars pulled up an extra chair to the small table. “I’m sorry. I saw you talking and thought you’d met.”

  “Just did,” Kate said and slid into her chair, crossing long, brown legs.

  Mia eased down carefully and had to move her chair away from the table to make room for the belly. She folded her hands on the glass top and then let them drop to her lap, fearing her swollen digits would distract her, or worse, Lars.

  “Yeah, Mia, you know Kate. Remember? I told you about the insanely brilliant lawyer who lived in my building?”

  Kate laughed and swung a rope of hair behind her shoulder, nailing an audition for a Pantene commercial. The blue in her v-neck sweater picked up flecks of the same color in her eyes. “Give me a break, Lars. As if you aren’t off-the-charts in your own field.” They eyed each other with playful scrutiny.

  Mia shoved back from the table and cleared her throat. “I think I’ll get some tea.”

  Lars stood. “No, let me. Do you still like mango?” He was already moving toward the counter.

  “Yes, please.” Mia breathed deeply in the moment of silence. He still knows me, she thought. He still knows the details.

  “How are you feeling?” Kate’s voice forced Mia’s eyes away from Lars’s retreating back.

  “Um, fine, thanks.” She sucked in the flesh under her chin, going for a definition she hadn’t exactly possessed since the fifth month of her pregnancy. “I’m tired, but I feel good.”

  Kate’s grin showcased a whiplash-worthy row of white teeth. “Lars was looking at the cutest fuzzy blankets in this shop in Seattle. He said you’re not finding out if it’s a boy or girl?”

  Mia shook her head. Her thoughts were stuck on an image of Lars standing in a Seattle baby boutique, holding up a blanket for another woman’s approval.

  “Mango tea, decaffeinated.” Lars set the mug in front of Mia. “Kate, are you still okay with your coffee?”

  “Absolutely,” she said and leaning over to Mia, whispered, “It’s my one indulgence. A girl can’t grow up in Seattle and not appreciate a good cup of Starbucks, no matter if it’s the chain that’s taken over the world.” She shrugged and took a slow sip.

  To Mia the action looked inappropriately sexual.

  “I’m working on her,” Lars said, shaking his head in disapproval. “At least I’ve gotten her to switch completely to organic, free-trade. And you use soy milk now instead of cream, right?”

  Kate nodded. “You’re such a purifying influence on me, Lars.”

  Mia closed her eyes and drifted into a sea of hot tea, hoping when she opened her eyes again, the world would be set aright, Kate would be surfing with someone else’s boyfriend in Maui, and Lars would be looking at her with the adoration of a puppy dog.

  “So how was the shower?”

  Mia opened her eyes to Lars’s voice and found she still sat in Zuba’s purgatory. “Not too great,” she said, a little snippy, she thought when the words were out. “I had a fight with my mother in front of everyone.”

  Lars looked sympathetic. “That’s horrible. Too bad we can’t choose our parents, right?” He shook his head and bit into a chocolate biscotti.

  “I think you’re so brave,” Kate said, focusing a sympathetic gaze on Mia. “To keep the baby when things with your mom are so difficult and you have no other family in town … I couldn’t do what you’re doing. I didn’t.” She shook her head. “When I was in high school, I had an unexpected pregnancy and had to abort. Thank God for modern medicine because I was not ready to be a mother.”

  Mia looked at the woman, feeling the muscles in her jaw and hands tighten to the point of burning. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she said and looked at Lars for some response.

  He swallowed some chocolate and washed it down with tea before speaking. “You are both very brave women,” he said, face shrouded in solemnity. “It’s a complicated era in which to be female.”

  Mia realized her mouth was open and she shut
it quickly. It wasn’t as if she’d never met a woman who’d had an abortion. In fact, much to the consternation of her mother, she did a project in high school on Roe v. Wade and came out firmly entrenched in the pro-choice vote. But on this day, in this space, in front of those two with a beach-ball belly among them, she felt a strange sense of betrayal. Or maybe it was unmerited provincialism, as if she had taken the less enlightened, less medicinal approach to unplanned pregnancy. She watched Kate swirl a tiny straw through her coffee and was frightened at the impulse to dunk her face into a vat of decaf with heavy cream.

  As if reading her mind, Kate’s eyes snapped up from her cup and she turned to Lars. “You know what, I’m an idiot. You two need time to talk and my history should not be the topic of conversation. I’ll head back to the hotel and give you your privacy.” She reached out to Mia and placed a hand on her arm. “It’s great to meet you, Mia. I hope everything goes really smoothly these last weeks.” Her fingers squeezed Mia’s arm gently and she left them.

  Lars watched her go. “She’s amazing,” he said with a look of admiration Mia thought more befitting to, say, Eleanor Roosevelt or Mahatma Gandhi. “I don’t know what I would have done without her these last few months.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” The words left Mia’s head and mouth at the same time.

  Lars looked genuinely perplexed. “What did you say?”

  She felt the heat of tears sting her eyes and cursed her recent readiness to weep. Blasted hormones. “Lars, are you dating her?”

  “What? No,” he said with a guarded surprise that told Mia he’d at least considered the possibility. “She just decided to tag along at the last minute, especially when she heard I couldn’t go anywhere near your mother or the shower.”

  “Right.” Anger had begun to pulse throughout Mia and she was grateful as she much preferred rage to tears. “So you aren’t with her yet is what you’re trying to say.”

  “Mia, you should lower your voice,” Lars said. His eyes darted around the room.

  “I really don’t think I should,” she said more loudly. “If our conversation is good enough to be heard by your brilliant, amazing lawyer friend, then why not the whole of Zuba’s Tea Shack?” She gestured wildly at the tables peppering the room. “Heck, why don’t we go retrieve Kate so she can see this firsthand too?”

  Lars pushed back his chair and glared at her. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

  Mia was panting, her nostrils flaring in anger. “No,” she said quietly. “I do not want to go for a walk. I’m exhausted, my feet are swollen, and it’s a lot of work carrying around a small human being in the front of your torso. Let’s just finish this here.”

  Lars sighed. “If you’ll promise to be reasonable. Mia,” he said, his eyes imploring. “I just don’t know what you expect from me.”

  She shook her head slowly. “And I don’t know how you can possibly be in need of a cheat sheet. You fathered a child, Lars. Typically a father raises his child alongside a mother. They become a family.”

  “Do you mean get married?” Lars asked. A mix of fear and disdain settled on his face. “I thought we were above all that.”

  “First of all, marriage is not always a cop-out. It’s lasted as a human tradition because there are good, valuable reasons for it.”

  “Whoa,” he said, holding up open palms in defense. “What happened to my Mia? The one who mocked her parents’ marriage as something they did out of convenience and societal pressure but not because of any higher purpose? Like love?”

  Mia tipped her head to one side, keeping his gaze. “I’m not saying I’d like to imitate my parents’ marriage, or any marriage for that matter. I would think we’d make our own way and figure out how to build a family on our own. But yes. I want to be married.”

  “Wow,” Lars said. “I did not see this conversation going in this direction.”

  “Where did you see it going?” She felt a lump form in her throat, suspecting she might very well need a thick skin for his answer.

  “I want to be a good dad.” Lars knitted his eyebrows together and spoke carefully. “I do. But I think I may have to do it long-distance for now.” He looked at her and seeing no change of expression, went on. “Things are finally good for my career. In fact I’m really pleased with how it’s all taking off. I’ve built a great community of friends in Seattle. And Kate …” He drifted off, his cheeks pink with sudden blush. “Listen, we haven’t even kissed. But I can’t lie to you. I feel things for her.”

  Mia pulled her arms around herself, resting them on her belly shelf. She shook her head slowly, back and forth, back and forth. The blood drained out of her cheeks and her breathing felt shallow, merely necessary for survival instead of the hot indulgence she’d felt minutes earlier in the flush of her anger.

  “She knew,” Mia said. She looked at his hands, not wanting to connect with his gaze. “She saw all the things I didn’t want to see.”

  “Who?”

  Mia looked up at Lars. She saw a pattern of freckles on his nose and cheeks she’d never noticed before. “I’m leaving now,” she said in the same voice she would have used to tell him she’d decided to change brands of deodorant. “Don’t call me.”

  He said nothing and she thought as she stepped out into the darkness of the street that he’d shown uncharacteristic wisdom in remaining silent.

  29

  Plan B

  She made it until four that morning before breaking. Both hands formed into white fists, she pounded on the door under a yellow hallway light.

  “Mom,” she called through the wood. “Mom, it’s me. Please. Mom.”

  She slumped forward, her forehead meeting the coolness of the door as she continued to pound. Silas opened his door across the way and moved toward Mia with the speed of someone a third his age.

  “Okay, honey. You’re okay,” he said pulling her arms down and tucking her head against his shoulder with gentleness. “We’ll get that mama of yours, okay? She’ll hear you.”

  Mia stood, wrapped in the surprisingly strong arms of Silas, when Babs threw open the door. Her face was smeared with a thick covering of white night cream. She took one look at the pair before her and her eyes bugged out of bare circles empty of the mask.

  “Oh, dear God, have mercy. She’s in labor.” Babs moved toward Mia and then backed into her apartment. “Silas, you call the ambulance. I’ll grab a hot water bottle and a basin. And a clean sheet. I’ve seen this a million times on General Hospital.”

  Silas shook his head slowly. “Barbara Jean, your daughter is not in labor. She would like to speak with you.” He kept Mia in a tight side embrace and returned Babs’s gaze.

  She screwed up her face in concentration. “Right now? At four o’clock in the morning?”

  “Yes, baby,” Silas said with the patience of a preschool teacher. “She would like to speak with you at four o’clock in the morning.” He jerked his head at Mia, who was still nestled in his shoulder, clinging to the sleeves of his striped pajamas.

  “Well, come in, for Pete’s sake,” Babs said, moving aside for Silas and Mia to shuffle into her apartment. “Why must people be so cryptic around here?” she muttered to herself as she shut the door.

  Silas led Mia to Babs’s couch and guided her carefully onto the cushions. He tucked a blanket around her lap, even though the apartment was none too cool in an evening of lingering September heat. Unfazed by the white goop all over her face, Silas looked at Babs and spoke with exaggerated consonants. “You two sit down now and work this thing out.” His eyes spilled forth caution that would have been best accompanied by a wagging finger. “This is no time for pride or selfish ambition, in the words of the apostle Paul.”

  “I get it, I get it.” Babs rolled her eyes and sat in a chair opposite the couch. “See you tomorrow, button.”

&nbs
p; Silas leaned over to kiss Mia on the top of her head. “You’re a sweet and smart girl, Miss Mia. And you’re going to be just fine.” On his way out he stopped to kiss Babs’s hand, avoiding a smearing of night cream on his lips. “You’re not always sweet but you are smart. And I’m smitten with your sassy self anyway.”

  She pretended to pout as he closed the door quietly behind him. The two women sat without speaking. Mia heard the air conditioner grind up into a reluctant cycle, as if irritated to be roused again so late in the season. After a moment Babs cleared her throat. Her voice was so quiet, Mia could barely make out the words above the air-conditioning racket.

  “All right. I’ll say it. Mia, I’m sorry for intruding. I never should have let my mouth run with Lars. This is your life and—”

  Mia’s shoulders shook in deep, hard sobs.

  “Oh, geez. I’m so sorry.” Babs scooted next to her daughter. “Dang it. I knew I should have listened to Silas and gone right up tonight to make amends. I just get a little testy sometimes when he uses the Bible against me, this time with that whole ‘Don’t let the sun go down on your anger’ thing.” She’d pulled Mia to her with one arm and rocked her gently as the girl wept.

  “He’s leaving me,” Mia said finally, blowing into a tissue with great force. “Or I guess I left him.” She shook her head. “We’re leaving each other.”

  “Oh, honey.” Babs’s eyes welled with tears, which splashed through her eyelashes and in muddy white streams down her cheeks. Mia stared, momentarily distracted by this rare show of emotion by her mother. The mime makeup made the image even more compelling. “I’m so, so sorry. I know how it feels to be rejected.”

  At the sound of the last word, Mia broke into fresh sobs. “And it’s not just me he’s rejecting,” she said through tears. “It’s his own child. His own flesh and blood! What kind of man does something like that?”

  Babs shook her head. “I’m not really one to cast stones, as they say. We all make mistakes, but some of us seem to be bent on making the biggest ones. I’d know.”