“Sure,” I said, forcing a smile as I stood up and left her office.
Once the cool air outside hit my face, I took a deep breath and relaxed a little. I told myself it was highly, highly unlikely. Point-oh-one percent unlikely, to be exact. I was pretty sure that was even less likely than being struck by lightning. But still, when I went into the drugstore and bought the thing, I couldn’t stop my heart from jumping into my throat. I filled up my basket with random bags of candy, sunglasses, and nail polish, burying the test under a pile of junk, just in case. I didn’t think I could handle another pregnancy speculation article, especially now that it might be…
No, no, I couldn’t think like that yet. I didn’t know.
My stomach was fluttering the whole way home. Those few minutes, pacing the bathroom with the little stick balanced on the edge of the sink, were the longest of my life.
I’d gotten the fancy digital kind, so there would be no squinting at half-formed lines and trying to interpret them like hieroglyphs. But the little hourglass on the display screen seemed to be silently mocking me.
I forced myself to close my eyes for the last few seconds.
Looking won’t make it happen any sooner.
I waited a few extra seconds, just to be sure.
Pregnant.
***
“Home tests are usually quite accurate,” the nurse practitioner was saying. “More accurate than people think. But you did the right thing by coming in. We always confirm with a blood test to be absolutely sure.”
I nodded. There was a slight ringing in my ears. “Thank you for fitting me in at the last minute,” I heard myself say, for the fiftieth time.
The nurse smiled. “It’s no problem. We get a lot of cancellations and no-shows this time of year.”
“Well, that’s not very considerate of people,” I said, swallowing thickly.
“Hey, you know, folks are trying to get their kids off to school…they get busier than they expected, I get it,” the nurse said, reasonably. “You’re going to feel a little pinch.”
I barely noticed it.
“The results should be back in one to three days, depending on how busy the lab is. We’ll call you as soon as we know. Is it okay to leave a message with the results?”
“Yeah, sure.” I didn’t want to risk missing the call and having to wait a whole night - or, worse, a whole weekend. “Please do. I’d rather know.”
“Of course.” The nurse taped a tuft of cotton on the pinprick and patted my arm gently. “Okay, you’re all set. Just see the front desk to check out. Don’t forget to get your parking validated.”
***
I spent the rest of the day like a zombie, sitting on the sofa and staring at the TV without any sense of what I was watching. When Daniel came home, I forced a smile and went over to greet him. To this day, I still have no idea how I mustered it.
He kissed me, then pulled back in concern, no doubt seeing the tired, blank expression on my face no matter how I tried to hide it.
“Did you go to the doctor?”
I nodded. “Just waiting for some tests to come back.”
Seeming to sense that I didn’t want to go into any more details, he set down his briefcase and hung up his coat. “All right, well. I’m glad you went. I hope it wasn’t as bad as you thought it might be.”
I shrugged. “She didn’t have the greatest bedside manner, but she gave me some stuff to think about.”
“Well, good.” He smiled a smile that meant I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m going to be encouraging anyway. “I’m sure she’ll have you feeling better in no time.”
I could tell that he noticed the bandage on my arm. His eyes kept flicking towards it, but he wasn’t going to bring it up unless I did. I had absolutely no idea if there were any blood tests that would normally be indicated for panic attacks, but I’d never heard of such a thing. The same thoughts were probably running through his head, but he knew better than to push.
Aside from clearly being worried about me, though, I couldn’t really detect anything under the surface. If he was thinking about his father at all, he was hiding it exceedingly well. Despite what casual acquaintances might say, Daniel was simply not good at hiding his feelings. Not once you knew all his tells.
It was puzzling, for sure. I couldn’t imagine being in his situation and just being able to…push it aside, seemingly. To forget that his long-lost father was just out there somewhere, wanting to talk to him. Even if I felt vindictive towards him, even if I’d spent the last however many years of my life thinking I’d be happy to never see him again, I’d be too curious to ignore him. Why on earth would he fake his own death? Why would he hide?
For a moment, wondering about old Mr. Thorne almost made me forget that I might be…
Ugh.
The feelings of raw panic at the thought had subsided, and now I just felt…annoyed, more than anything. I had overdosed on information while John drove me home, scrolling through pages and pages of results for “false positive home pregnancy test” while he inched his way through the traffic. There wasn’t much good news to be had. False positives were rare, especially nowadays. Of course, I’d had to buy the most fancy, state-of-the-art test there was. If I’d gone for the discount rack, at least I could have told myself that there was more of a chance.
Somehow, I must have fried my brain’s worrying circuits, because the thoughts finally just stopped. There was no point in fretting about it until I knew for sure.
Then, after dinner, Daniel ruined everything.
He fixed me with a penetrating gaze - I’d been sort of avoiding direct eye contact all evening, but once I was pulled in, it was like a tractor beam. I couldn’t look away.
“Do you want to talk about what happened at the doctor’s?”
I immediately started crying.
The instant sense of shame only made it worse. He came over to me quickly, wrapping his arm around me and stroking my hair until I caught my breath and was able to answer him.
“She started asking me all these questions about my birth control…I guess…” I stopped, but found myself unable to look up at him for a reaction. “I guess I was supposed to be taking monthly pregnancy tests to make sure…because I don’t…”
“Yes?” said Daniel, when I didn’t continue, his voice remarkably calm and steady. “Because you don’t menstruate every month. That makes sense.”
I found myself letting out a strange guffaw of laughter at his vocabulary choice. “Well, I haven’t been. I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do.”
“Yeah, except, I don’t.”
He seemed frozen for a moment. Then, he looked down at the bandage on my arm, and back up to my face. His eyes were like saucers.
The waterworks started again. I nodded, unable to muster any more words for the moment. “Yeah,” I managed, finally. “So I won’t know for sure until it comes back…but they say the home tests…false positives are pretty…”
He just kept staring at me. More tears gathered in my eyes, but I was able to finally hold them back a little.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know. I guess you have to take the pills at the exact same time every day, if you want to be one hundred percent sure. I haven’t been as careful as I could have been. I just didn’t realize. I thought I knew, but I didn’t.”
“Maddy,” he said, suddenly, sharply, his voice very loud. “Stop.”
I sniffled, and took a deep breath.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” he said, leaning down so that our faces were level. “Did you think I’d be upset?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Are you?”
“Of course not!” Despite his words, he looked slightly like a cornered animal, but I decided to take him at face value. “I’m just surprised. That’s all.”
“I was surprised too,” I said. “I know we didn’t…”
“Maddy,” he said, as my eyes started to drift away from his face. “Maddy. Look at me.”
I swallowed hard, and did.
“Do you want this?” he asked, with a flicker of some emotion in his eyes that I couldn’t read.
I bit my lip. I hadn’t even allowed myself to ask that question yet, but the answer was incredibly clear to me now, for the first time.
I nodded.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Of course I do.”
Of course.
He smiled, a little hesitantly. “You’re not just saying that?”
“Why would I? You don’t even want kids.”
“Maddy. Sweetheart. This isn’t just about me right now.”
“But it’s about you a little.” I sniffled. “A lot, actually.”
He thought for a moment, in silence, before responding. “I didn’t plan for this,” he said, finally.
I gave him a no shit look, and he smiled.
“I didn’t plan for this,” he repeated. “And I don’t think you did either. But it can be…we can do it. I’m sure we can.”
“We can be better than your parents, or mine,” I said. “I don’t have any doubts about that.”
“Of course,” he said, his smile growing a little more genuine. “To be honest, ever since that charity dinner…the idea’s been in my head, you know, I couldn’t shake it. But I didn’t want to say anything. Because I knew it was something you…and, I mean, at any rate, you’re the one who has to become a human incubator for nine months.” He paused, seeing the look of chagrin on my face. “Sorry. Not the best time to bring that up.”
“Your terminology could use a little work,” I replied, smiling and wiping my eyes. “But I’ll give you some credit for not referring to it as a ‘parasite.’”
“Thank God, that was my second choice.” He hesitated for a moment, then straightened up and pulled me against him, tightly. “I love you, Madeline.”
“I love you too,” I said, muffled against him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away.”
“For the love of God. Stop apologizing.” He laughed, pulling away. “Do you want to tell anyone?”
I shook my head. “Not right away. You’re supposed to wait. Right?”
“I suppose so,” he said, laughing a little. “I have no idea.”
Neither one of us knew what on earth we were doing. For some reason, that thought didn’t scare me as much as it ought to have.
Six
As expected, the blood test also came back positive. By that point I’d gotten myself so used to the idea that I hardly reacted. I just kept nodding into the phone, not realizing that I was failing to verbalize anything until the nurse said “Mrs. Thorne, are you there?”
She ended the phone call with “congratulations,” which sounded pretty heartfelt. I thanked her, and hung up. I’d already spent the better part of the last two days mainlining all the information I could possibly handle, and then some: what was normal to expect at each stage of pregnancy? Formula or breastfeeding? Cloth diapering or disposable? And of course, the most hotly debated topic of all: to circumcise, or not?
Me personally, I just hoped I’d never have a boy so I could avoid the issue entirely.
My head was already overflowing with the number of things that could go wrong - and the number of things that were going to be nearly unbearable, even if they went right. I knew Daniel was going to take care of me, but I still felt strangely frightened and alone.
But after a while, I just gave up worrying.
I don’t know if I’d just exhausted my brain, but after a while I just sort of fell into a calm acceptance. I gathered up wine bottles out of the cabinets and bagged them up. I could always save them for later, but between the nine-plus months of pregnancy and however long I wanted to breastfeed, if I decided to, it made just as much sense to pass them along to someone else who might appreciate them. I was sure Lindsey would take them, if she’d be in town anytime soon. She usually visited whenever she had a meeting in the city.
Of course I couldn’t really give them to her unless I’d already decided to tell her I was pregnant. It wasn’t like I would just give up wine of my own accord.
“Do you think Lindsey would believe me if I told her I was giving up wine to lose weight?” I asked Daniel as he walked into the room.
He eyed me for a moment. “No,” he said, finally, heading for the fridge.
“I’m not sure if that’s meant to be ‘no, because you look beautiful just the way you are’ or ‘no, because you’re a raging alcoholic,’ so I won’t say thank you,” I replied. “But I really want to get this wine out of the house.”
“She’s going to assume you’re pregnant no matter what you say,” he pointed out, taking a swig from a bottle of water after he spoke. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “But, by all means, give her the wine next time she’s up. She’ll be thrilled. But there’s no way she’s going to believe for a second that you’re not pregnant.”
Thankfully, he seemed to know better than to try and suggest that I throw the wine away. What a mortifying idea. What a waste of perfectly good wine.
“Actually, we might be at the twelve-week mark by the time she’s back in town,” I said. “I’ll probably just tell her then.”
Daniel just shrugged.
It was odd, how well we’d seemed to settle into the idea of having a child. In a way I supposed it didn’t yet seem quite real, so we were able to dance around the idea lightly, taking each new challenge as it came. Although admittedly, so far the biggest challenge had been figuring out what to do with all the wine.
My phone started buzzing in my pocket. Suddenly, I realized just how much of a challenge it was going to be to talk to anyone for the next six weeks or so. “Hi, how are you? Oh, good, I’m just, you know, PREGNANT.”
I glanced at the number. It was Curtis, the gallery owner who’d first given me a chance on some of my drawings. I practically had to physically stop myself from leading with the exciting news.
“Hey, how are you?” he said, sounding tired.
“I’m fine,” I managed to say. “Haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“I know,” he said. He sounded like he was pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
I frowned. “Yeah? What’s going on?”
He let out a long, deep sigh. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the last couple shows didn’t really bring in much business.”
“I’m not going to lie,” I replied. “But, I figured that was just a result of my waning stardom.”
I could hear him smiling. “Well, maybe. It sure would be nice to have something to blame other than just pure inevitability. But that’s how it is. If you ask an economist they’ll tell you the recession is over, but it sure doesn’t look like that from my end of things.”
“Uh oh.” I sat down.
“Uh oh is right.” He cleared his throat. “I just got my lease renewal in the mail. I know this neighborhood’s been getting more and more industrial and business-oriented, and my landlord’s been wanting to be able to fill it up with something a little more lucrative - an anchor to bring in more traffic to the other buildings he owns on this block. The more business they do, the more rent he can get away with charging. He’s been jacking up my rent for ages, hoping I won’t be able to pay. But I’ve always found a way to. But this - he knows I can’t afford this.”
“Let me help you,” I said, almost without thinking. “I mean - a loan or a grant or something. Whatever people do in these situations.”
“You’re sweet,” said Curtis. “But I don’t want to put the gallery on life support. It just can’t keep itself going anymore. In a way, I guess my landlord’s almost being merciful by trying to cut things off quickly.” He laughed, a little bitterly. “Thing is, I can hardly argue with him. This place just isn’t a good fit for my gallery. It probably never was. But at the time, it was cheap; it seemed like the place to go. People liked it. But things have changed. It’s just not feasible anymore. I certainly don’t like it, but it’s time to
face up to reality.”
I felt a strange, sick sensation in the pit of my stomach. After all the shows I’d done, all the time I’d put into that gallery - now it was just going to shutter up? It had never occurred to me that something like this might happen.
“This is awful,” I said, finally, in a feeble attempt to verbalize what was running through my head.
“It is awful,” he said. “And inevitable. I’ve been ignoring it for as long as I could, but the fact of the matter is, the community of artists that used to support this place has moved on. They got their corporate jobs, or they found their success on their own - whatever pulled them away, it worked. They’re gone, and the buyers are gone…there’s just nothing that justifies keeping this place open, except my own unforgivable sentimentality.”
I had to smile. “That seems like a good enough reason to me.”
“I know, I know. I can’t blame you. But it’s really better this way.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I guess my point, besides just letting you know, is that you’re more than welcome to bring some pieces down that you want to sell. Closures are great for business. I’ll have some empty spots in no time, just as soon as word gets out.”
“Thanks for the heads up.” I could barely even think about my drawings right now. “I’ll come down if I think of anything. Don’t hesitate to call me if there’s anything I can do.”
“You’re a peach. I’ll talk to you soon.”
I laid my phone down on the counter, trying to absorb the news. It was strange; I knew galleries closed all the time, I had been noticing that not much had been selling at Starra lately. But it had never occurred to me that one day, it might just be…gone.
He was right, too, about the money just being a temporary solution. It was fruitless to keep a gallery open if no one was going to come.
Daniel was wandering back into the room.
“You look pensive,” he said. “You weren’t reading about birth defects again, were you?”
I shook my head. “Starra Gallery is closing.”
I Married a Billionaire: The Prodigal Son (Contemporary Romance) Page 6