by Lexie Ray
My world suddenly got very small.
Even though I didn’t have to pee, I grabbed the box and dashed to the bathroom, leaving the rest of the supplies still in their boxes. I ripped open the packaging as I yanked down my jeans and panties, nearly tripping in my rush to find out exactly what the future held for me.
I took a brief moment to glance at the instructions I’d torn in half in my haste to get the package open — “pee on stick” — and leaned forward so that I could see into the toilet bowl. I carefully held the applicator beneath me and concentrated.
The first thing I did was piss on my hand.
“Shit,” I muttered, and readjusted myself on the toilet seat. This time, the stream ran true, and I soaked the applicator probably far more than I needed to.
Another quick glance at the torn instructions — “wait two minutes” — and I wiped myself, flushed, and washed my hands.
Two whole minutes. It might as well have been two whole years.
I tried to wait patiently, tried to count to 120, as if it would help, but I finally left the applicator in the bathroom and forced myself to put away the rest of the things I’d ordered. It would be silly to let any of the meat defrost, especially if I was going to be eating for two.
There were a lot of things I would have to do differently if I were eating for two.
Once the food was put away, I patiently broke down the boxes. When those were outside the cottage, I knew it had been two minutes. I trotted back to the bathroom but froze outside the door, unable to go inside to check the symbol on the applicator.
What if I really was pregnant? What then? What would I do?
Then again, what if I wasn’t? I’d be more alone than I’d ever been in my life, I felt.
As I seesawed between wanting to be pregnant and not wanting to be pregnant, I finally edged in and grabbed the applicator. One more quick consultation with the instructions I’d ruined — “plus sign means pregnant” — and I knew.
There it was, in all its soggy blue glory: a plus sign.
I was pregnant.
I mean, I’d already pretty much expected to be pregnant. It made the most sense, for better or for worse. And I knew that whatever happened when Jonathan got back, I’d have this little creation with him for all time. Even if we decided to get divorced, there would still be this connection, this blending of our spirits. It felt both daunting and somehow comforting. Whether or not I had Jonathan in my life, I’d always have this little piece of him.
“Hello,” I said tentatively, patting my stomach. I felt stupid when I heard my voice ring out in the empty cottage, but this was something of a momentous occasion.
I was going to be a mother.
Jesus, I was going to be a mother.
I yanked the toilet cover down and sat heavily, breathing hard and feeling suddenly dizzy. This was as hard to believe as all the rest of the things that had been happening lately. I was going to be a mother — me. I didn’t even have my own life together. How was I going to expect to guide this little one through life, pointing out what was right and what was wrong?
Half the time, I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong anymore.
Dozens of thoughts spun through my head. How far along was the baby? Had I harmed it when I’d gone out drinking with Jane and Brock? I’d screwed up the rest of my life during that night — it would be only fitting if I’d screwed over my future child in the process. Was it going to be a boy or a girl? Which would I want more? Should I tell Jonathan? Would I even ever speak with Jonathan again? If I told Jonathan, would he even believe that it was his? Once I knew how far along I was, I knew that I could dispel any of those thoughts.
I’d have to go back to the city, eventually. I couldn’t live out here at the cottage for the duration of my pregnancy. There were tests and instructions and diets and vitamins that I had to follow.
I was going to get the best doctor in Chicago. My child deserved at least that much.
“You’re going to have the best of everything,” I promised my stomach out loud, then flushed. Thank God I really was alone out here and there wasn’t anyone to hear me being an idiot. The baby wouldn’t understand me at this point. Any talking out loud I was doing was for my own comfort.
Even when I’d lived alone out here for so long, I’d never talked to myself. That kind of thing was for crazy people.
But this new, most stunning revelation of my life was something different. I found myself wanting to know everything about motherhood and what to expect when I was expecting. I wanted to buy every book that had ever been written on the topic. I wanted to have the best possible diet to make my child grow strong and smart inside of my body.
God, I only wanted to give the baby a loving home. Would I be able to do that with Jonathan or the Whartons? I couldn’t imagine going back to the compound at this point. Between Jane’s drinking, Amelia’s malice, and Collier’s cigars, the place was an absolute death trap for the life I contained.
At the same time, though, I wouldn’t deny my child its father. Who would it look like more? Jonathan or me? Would Jonathan even care about it? The man who I had married would’ve, but I didn’t know the man who’d gone abroad. Everything had changed so much in such a short period of time that it made me reel.
Another, more desperate thought crossed my mind. Would this baby save my marriage? Did I even want it to?
I wanted nothing more than to be sharing this news with Jonathan, but something held me back. We’d been so angry at each other, each so hurt by things that we didn’t believe we’d done to each other that I found it hard to imagine his reaction. We’d said terrible things to each other, throwing what amounted to verbal acid right in each other’s faces.
The worst would be if he casually disregarded the news. That it wasn’t his child, or that he didn’t want it. That would be the worst.
I comforted myself with the fact that I had absolutely zero reception out here. I was insulated from the rest of the world, but isolated, too. That’s why I couldn’t stay. If something should go wrong with the baby, I needed to have access to a hospital.
With a warm thrill of love, I knew that I would do anything for my unborn child. I would change anything about myself, climb any mountain necessary to ensure it had the best life possible. I’d go vegan if it meant anything, eschew cars, beat up people who tried to light a cigarette in my presence.
I’d reconcile with Jonathan if that was what it took.
Should I simply admit to something I didn’t think I’d done? The thought gave me pause. If I confessed outright to sleeping with Brock and lying about it later, would Jonathan divorce me on the spot? Would we separate for a time, each licking our wounds? Or would he thank me for being honest and tell me we’d work on this to move forward?
I didn’t like the idea of living in that kind of lie, but if it brought my family back together, maybe I could live with it.
My only hang up was Violet. There were so many photos of them having intimate moments together. Did I really want my child to grow up with a father who couldn’t come clean about that? Could I try to look past it?
It had been so hurtful when Jane had shown me all the photos — physical evidence of Jonathan not being faithful to me. I knew that I had been at fault, too, having never told him about my drunken night with his sister and friend. But without any memories of that night, and the photo evidence to prove otherwise, I couldn’t honestly say what had happened.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” I mused to my baby. “You’re going to be born in a world of drama. I will be your drama mama.”
I laughed derisively at myself, shaking my head. Talking aloud when alone was for crazy people.
But then again, I wasn’t alone anymore. I had my child, growing inside of me, depending on me to make the right decisions for it and myself.
I was living for two now, and I couldn’t fuck it up. I just couldn’t.
“You know what?” I told my baby. “I’ll talk to yo
u whenever I want. I’m going to talk to you all the time. That way, you’ll know you aren’t alone. You’re never alone.”
Maybe I just imagined it, but my stomach settled a little bit, like something inside of it snuggled in. The baby couldn’t be that far along, could it?
“I’ll bet you’re hungry,” I said. “The thing is, you’ve been an awfully picky eater lately. I feel like I can’t have anything I want to eat without you booting it right back out.”
It was a silly thought. I knew that the baby resided in my womb, not my stomach, and had no responsibility as to what I could keep down and what I couldn’t keep down. I knew it probably wasn’t good to only feed my child string beans and coffee. That was going to be remedied immediately.
I examined my supplies and settled on a chicken soup. That should go down pretty easily and stay down, if we were lucky. Preparing the kitchen, turning on the stove, and boiling some water, I realized how much I’d missed taking care of myself, including doing my own cleaning and cooking. The thing I’d liked least about living in the Wharton compound — besides Amelia — was how idle I remained for most of the day. I’d never found my purpose, not even with the online courses, and always felt as if I were in the way or just a useless part to the well-oiled machine that was the Wharton family.
I soothed myself by humming tunelessly, just humming for the sound of it, and chopping vegetables. I added carrots and celery and onion to the boiling water, sniffing at the fragrant steam as it rolled off the surface of the pot.
“We wait until all the vegetables get tender,” I said for my baby’s benefit, “and then we add the chicken. That’s my secret. Lots of people do it the other way around, but I like it best this way.”
I waited for that special moment, then added the frozen chicken. It would thaw and cook simultaneously. It was the best I could do out here without any fresh meat. That was something I was going to have to remedy. I missed those damn chickens following me around everywhere, pecking for feed out in the field.
“You’ll like the chickens,” I said. “They’re fun to chase. You’ll like the eggs, too, and everything I can make with them. You’ll learn to make things. And you’ll learn your first lesson about death when we have a fried chicken dinner.”
Fried chicken was one of the things I couldn’t do with the frozen variety. It just didn’t taste the same.
After about an hour, the chicken I’d added to the rich broth was so tender it fell apart. I gave myself a modest portion, not sure what my stomach would be able to handle, and sat down to eat. I ate three bowls before I was satisfied, convinced that it was the best thing I’d eaten since I left the cottage to live in Chicago with Jonathan.
“And that’s how your mama cooks,” I told my baby, patting my full stomach with my hand. “Sorry about all that trash I’ve been feeding you. It’s going to be all natural from here on out, got it? And I hope you didn’t get used to the taste of alcohol. That’s not for us anymore.”
I cringed every time I realized that I’d exposed my unborn child to that poison. I only hoped that everything would be all right. That was why I knew I needed to settle on a doctor — so I could start making sure that I was healthy and the life within me was healthy, too.
I stowed what little was left from the soup in a dish in the refrigerator and cleaned up, feeling better than I had in days. The simple dish was just what I had needed, and I felt like I was slowly regaining my strength.
It was the power of being home again. I’d been away from the cottage for far too long.
-----
As the weeks passed, I got more and more used to life back out in the woods. I took stock of the barn, bought some new chickens for fresh eggs, and got everything in order out there. I even got a goat — a funny and friendly little creature I named George. I figured a little fresh goat’s milk never hurt anyone and would probably be a little better than the powdered milk I usually fell back on out here.
Plus, if he ever pissed me off, I’d have an excellent fresh tikka masala or cabrito dish to try.
The garden had sprouted all on its own, but it had come in wild and unruly, full of weeds and uneven rows of vegetables. I straightened it out as best I could, apologizing for leaving it to fend for itself. The bird netting had seen better days, but it had still kept the majority of pests from feasting while I was away.
“This is how our garden grows,” I said. “We treat it with loving tender care, and it loves us in return. See all these ripe tomatoes? We can tell because they’re red, just a little bit soft, but still firm. Taste. There’s nothing better than a ripe tomato picked straight from the vine.”
I took a bite of the juicy tomato as if it were an apple, enjoying the flavor and the idea that I was giving my baby little bits and pieces of knowledge about how the world around us worked.
I reordered the netting and set to my repairs. I even patched the roof, keeping a running commentary to my baby the entire time.
“We’re not afraid of heights,” I told it, sitting on top of the roof with a nail sticking out of my mouth, going to town on a broken bit of shingle with the hammer. “The barn roof is even higher than this one, if you can believe it. Once, I climbed a tree so high out in the woods that I could see over the tops of all the other trees.”
Of course, coming back down had been another thing, and I’d decided that that was going to be my very last tree to climb. I’d nearly broken my neck.
I thrived in rediscovering my active lifestyle, always kept busy by my various chores. I used the goat as a sort of field control, moving its stake around each day I let him out of his little stall in the barn. That way, George always ate from a different part of the field, keeping the grass trimmed a little shorter than it usually stayed during the summer. I had to keep him away from the convertible, though, especially since he’d noticed his reflection in one of the gleaming panels and dealt a devastating blow with his hard little head against the hapless BMW.
“George!” I scolded as the goat staggered around in a daze. “This is why I can’t take you to nice places, George! You’re going to be such a bad influence on the baby. Come here. Let me look at you.”
The goat was just a little off kilter, and I supposed he’d eventually get back to normal. Until then, though, no cutting grass near the convertible. I wondered if Jonathan would laugh at the idea that the goat had thought the car was a rival.
I canned vegetables and started looking ahead toward winter, saving what produce I couldn’t use for the changing of the seasons. I took long walks in the woods, touching the tree bark like I used to, amazed at how everything looked the same even as I looked at it with different eyes.
“This is where your mama met your daddy,” I said, standing at the spot where I’d waded across the swollen, flooded creek and come upon Jonathan, unconscious and gravely injured. “He was lying right there, right at the base of that tree, and his head was bleeding very bad. I did the only thing I could think of. I picked him right up and carried him home, and that’s the story of you.”
As often as I wished that I’d never even met Jonathan, especially when I got blue thinking about how he’d betrayed me and turned his back on me, I wouldn’t have this spark growing inside of me otherwise. Everything happened for a reason, and if my time with Jonathan was coming to a close, at least my time with our child was just beginning.
Another day, I walked all the way to the pool, the last bit of the creek before it became the river.
“This is where you’re going to learn how to swim,” I said, taking off my clothes until I was naked as the day I was born. There was no one out here but me, and I loved knowing that. The water was cold and a shock to my system — perfect for the hot day. I swam out to the middle, where I could only just barely touch the mud at the bottom with my big toe, and reclined, letting the water cushion me as I floated.
“You’re not going to be afraid of the water like some brats,” I said, moving my arms and legs lazily through the pool, staring up at
the white puffy clouds drifting across the sky. “You’re going to take to the water like a fish. Swimming is going to be one of your favorite things to do. This is, incidentally, the first place your daddy ever saw my goods. We skinny dipped out here. I snuck a few peeks, too.”
It was bittersweet to talk about, but still somehow cathartic. Bit by bit, by telling my baby about different parts of my life, I was able to analyze them and move on.
“This is how we catch our own fish,” I said, tying a bright lure onto my hook another day at my favorite fishing hole. “Fish are delicious to eat, and I have so many recipes to show you. We could eat fish for an entire week and have a completely different dish every night.”
I cast my line out into the pool, satisfied when I heard the telltale plop of the lure on the surface of the water.
“We wait for as long as it takes, now,” I said. “But ever so often, we give the line a little jerk. We’re playing a game with the fish, you see? Fish are like little cats down there, waiting for something to play with. If we play well enough, they’ll take our bait and we’ll catch them.”