by Cranford, B.
Apparently, I’d been hiding some masochistic tendencies in the depths of my being. Jesus Christ.
My eyes flicked over to the clock that sat on the bedside table. The hotel I was staying at was about twenty minutes from Uluru and, though small, was comfortable in a way I might not have expected. Especially not after some of my hostel experiences. The clock blinked the time in red—it was just past six in the morning, which meant it was just after eight in the evening for Ashton. I knew I needed to talk to someone about Mason’s out of the blue email and I really didn’t want to talk to Lucas about it. Our conversation from the night before was still fresh in my mind—we’d hung up not long after he’d told me about his conversation with Rose—and after what felt like a step in the right direction, I didn’t want anything to rock the boat.
Especially not my ex-husband.
Grabbing my phone off the bed, I swiped the screen and—with a determined, steady finger—tapped on my messages. There was no way I was going to click on that stupid mail app and see Mason’s stupid name on the stupid email he’d stupidly sent me.
Bianca: Can you talk?
Simple, direct, and to the point. Smart, because if my best friend wasn’t available, I didn’t want her to worry. Although, given the amount of times my increasingly agitated brain was calling Mason stupid, she’d probably have good reason to worry.
Before I was able to think too much about it, my stomach pitched, a wave of nausea hitting me. I dropped the phone and hauled myself to the bathroom, making it just in time to dry-heave over the open toilet. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet—I’d woken early to get ready to hit Uluru before the heat of the day made walking around unbearable—so there was little in my stomach that could come up. I waited a couple more minutes, the sick feeling ebbing almost as fast as it hit, before I rinsed my mouth out and headed back into the main part of my room. My phone was still silent on the bed, so I decided to lie down for a few minutes, to wait and see if my best friend would reply.
The moment my head hit the pillow, tiredness kicked in. The day before had been long and I’d no doubt overdone it when it came to walking around the ancient rock at Australia’s center. It had been an amazing experience, seeing the dry, red dust, the native trees, and the birds—I’d only seen a few and had been told birdwatching was another activity best done in the early morning—but by the time I’d made it back to my room, I was borderline dehydrated and fully worn out. Which probably explained why, when my phone rang a little while later, I was startled out of a partial sleep.
“Hello?”
“B? Are you okay?” Ash’s voice was concerned, and I registered that my voice answering the phone sounded drugged. I was groggy from the short nap I’d taken—a quick glance at the clock told me it was now closer to seven than six in the morning—but Ashton wasn’t to know I’d fallen asleep in the time between my text and her call. “You sound sick. Are you sick? Is it malaria?”
“I fell asleep after I texted you. I’d maybe understand you assuming malaria if I was still in South Africa, but I don’t even know if you can get it here?”
“Tropical locations, right? Australia is tropical.”
“Parts of it are? But I don’t know that I’m really at risk of that here. Regardless, the answer is no, it’s not malaria.” Lifting a hand to rub my forehead, where a dull ache had started, I explained, “I had a long day yesterday and woke up early this morning to do it all over again. But I rested my head for a minute and fell asleep. I think.”
“So, you’re okay?” she clarified, adding, “Why’d you want to talk?”
“Mason emailed me.” No sense in sugar-coating it.
Ashton made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat but didn’t say anything right away. Thoughtful silence followed. Well, thoughtful at her end. I was still just resting my hand on my head and starting to second-guess my plan for the day.
Maybe I should take a day to rest and go again tomorrow?
“What did he want?” Ashton eventually asked, her voice deceptively calm. I’d expected her to be a little more angered about Mason’s unexpected (and unwelcome) contact but could only assume that’s why she’d fallen silent. She was reining in the urge to rage at and about him. “If you tell me he wants you back, I’m going to scream. Well, maybe not scream. But, like, get really angry and start coming up with ways to make sure he forgets even thinking he has the right to even contact you, let alone ask for forgiveness. And I swear, if you actually consider forgiving him—okay, not forgiving him, because I can see you needing to do that for you—but, you know, going back to him, I am going to fly wherever you are in the world and knock some sense into you. Or, not me. Because I’m pregnant and I feel like flying when pregnant might be super uncomfortable, but Odie. Odie would definitely do it for me and for you, and she’s a boxer so you know she can get the message across.”
“Ash,” I interrupted when she seemingly took a breath after her tirade, “I’m not sure Odie”—her younger brother, Austin’s girlfriend—“would agree to ‘knock some sense’ into me, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
She sighed. “No, you’re probably right. But she’d definitely throw some socks at you. And she’d definitely definitely punch Mason.”
“Throw some socks at me?” Brow pinching in confusion, I barreled on, not sure I wanted to know the reason that sock-throwing was a thing in the Andrews family. “I didn’t read Mason’s email. Yet. I don’t know if I will. I shouldn’t. Should I?”
“You sound conflicted.”
“Well, thank god you said that, I had no idea,” I retorted, laying the sarcasm on thick for her sake.
She half-laughed, half-snorted. “Sorry. I didn’t actually mean to make the most obvious statement of all time.”
Her contrite voice made me laugh too, and for the first time since I’d seen Mason’s name in my email, I breathed a little easier. I knew calling Ashton was the right move. Even without actually helping me, she was helping me just by being herself. “It’s all good. But if you had some expert advice for me, I could really use it right now.” Cringing when I realized this wasn’t the first time since I’d landed in Australia all those weeks ago that I’d called on my best friend for help, I added, “Again.”
“B, I’m . . .” She trailed off. Probably figuring out what to do about her mess of a friend. “I don’t know that I have expert advice for this situation. What does your gut say?”
“About half an hour ago, my gut wanted to revisit breakfast, except I haven’t eaten yet, so it just kind of rebelled emptily.”
“That’s gross and also, are you sure you’re not sick?”
I outlined my trip at Uluru the previous day to her, making sure to let her know that I was thinking about skipping a day before heading back out there. Then, that done, I tried again to get her help. “Please, Ash. I need you to tell me what to do.” There was no doubt I sounded like I was begging her. I was begging her, because I didn’t want to have to make the decision: delete or read.
It was too hard and my head, which had been aching, was beginning to pound.
“Can you just decide what to do for me? Pretty please?”
She sighed and if a sigh could sound worried and stressed, then this one did. I suddenly felt bad for putting this onto my pregnant friend, especially since this trip was supposed to be about me learning how to be myself after Mason. That should probably start with making my own decisions about if and how I communicated with him. So, before she had a chance to reply, I said, “You know what, never mind. I’m going to be a big girl and put off thinking about his email for a few days.” I laughed, but it was a little bit hollow sounding. “I’m starting to feel really bad, and thinking about this and being tired are a toxic combination—”
“Toxic and Mason, however, are a match made in heaven. As in, the asshole is totally toxic.”
Despite the fact I wholeheartedly agreed with that assessment, I continued talking as if she’d never interrupted, “—so I’m going to fi
le this away until next week. I only planned to stay here for a couple of days anyway, so maybe when I’m back in a city, I’ll find a good place to sit down and face whatever it is he has to say.”
“Like a bakery?” Ashton asked, wistfulness in her voice. “I could really go for some baked goods right about now.”
“Make Andrew get you something,” I suggested, knowing that her husband would do whatever she needed or wanted, seeing as how he practically worshipped the ground she walked on. (That’s only a slight exaggeration.)
Naturally, that made me wonder about Mason. God, we’d spent so many years together, and I realized that although I was certain Ashton’s husband would do anything she wanted him to do if only she asked—and even if she didn’t—I couldn’t say with any kind of conviction that Mason would’ve done the same.
Maybe in the early years.
But toward the end, when things were starting to go sour, I wasn’t convinced he’d have put me out if I’d been on fire and he had a glass of water in his hand.
No, Bianca. No. That’s unfair. He might not have been the best husband, but he wasn’t a bad person. Was he?
God, I couldn’t even say with conviction that he wasn’t a bad person. Lindsey, the woman he’d cheated on me with, popped up in my memory, her heartbroken face streaked with tears, a look of total devastation on her face. Because he’d lied to her about me. While lying to me about her.
“The boss’s daughter is an idiot, you’ll be shocked to hear.” He snickered, turning to face me in one of the rare times he was home in time to have dinner with me. “A total ditz.”
“Really? I’m surprised you think so. She seemed okay the one time I met her.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to spend all day listening to her irritating voice.”
He’d sneered while talking about her, mocking her and questioning her intelligence. And yet, when they were together, he was probably telling her all the things he’d once told me.
“I love you. I love you.”
“I need you with me always.”
“There’ll never be anyone but you.”
The same sick feeling that had hit me earlier settled again in my stomach. “Ash?” I asked, wondering if I’d totally zoned out on her or if we’d gone through our goodbyes and I’d been on auto-pilot, lost in the memories.
“Sorry, I’m still here. I was doing what you suggested and making Andrew go on a dessert run for me.”
“I’m starting to feel pretty tired, and my heart—my head, I mean—hurts.” And I think I’m going to be sick. “I’m gonna grab some aspirin and go back to bed.”
“Please don’t die of malaria,” she implored. She was probably trying to make me feel better with a joke, but I could barely even muster a smile.
“I make no promises.”
“Where are you going to next, after Uluru?”
Closing my eyes and willing the nausea away, I mentally catalogued my tentative itinerary. I’d only ever made loose plans for each step of my trip, but even so, I knew that I was heading back to Darwin first, then planned to decide between heading to Perth or Adelaide. Knowing that Ash would want an answer, I made a judgment call. “Perth. Well, back to Darwin, but only so I can fly out to Perth from there.”
“Call me when you get back to Darwin, okay? We can do the email reading together if you need to. I can Google bakeries in Australia.”
“’Kay, sounds good.” Mumbling a goodbye, I swallowed deeply, hating the excess of saliva coating my mouth, and closed my eyes again.
* * *
The humidity in Darwin wasn’t exactly welcoming, and I was more than ready to move onto a new location. I had big plans for seeing more of Australia—I’d loved everything I’d seen to that point and couldn’t wait to see what came next. Except there were two problems.
One, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mason’s email and what he might have to say in it.
And two, I was still painfully unwell, extremely exhausted and in dire need of a doctor, some cool air, and maybe some Mommy cuddles.
“Excuse me?” I approached the front desk of my hotel, the same one I’d stayed at prior to my trip to Uluru.
The woman facing me smiled easily. “Can I help you, Ms. Evers?”
Surprised that she remembered my name but feeling a wash of welcome comfort from that note of familiarity, I nodded. “I’m wondering if you know of a doctor I can go to nearby?” I paused, adding, “I’m sorry, I should have Googled it or something, but I just—” Cutting myself off abruptly, because holy nausea, Batman, I made a helpless, please-forgive-and-help-me face.
“No worries, I can definitely help,” she replied with a reassuring smile. Within minutes, she had me booked for an appointment at a place that I could’ve walked to . . . if I had the energy to walk, and I was convinced that she was the best employee that had ever been employed anywhere. Perhaps a slight amount of hyperbole on my part but that’s just how dire my situation had become.
The clinic she sent me to was small but bright, and had a waiting area that wasn’t too crowded. Thank goodness. I wasn’t sure what I’d have done had there been twenty-five people waiting and no chairs. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. And actually, I was called back to the doctor’s office within twenty minutes of my appointment start time.
Doctor Kaur was a small woman with a big smile and slightly greying hair. Her brown skin and slight accent put me at ease for reasons I wasn’t exactly sure of, but I wasn’t about to complain. For days, I’d felt awful, terrible, deathly, and also completely fine, and I was eager to find out why. Until her first question.
After explaining why I was seeing her, she looked square at me and asked, “Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”
Pregnant? The word hit me like a ton of bricks, and I floundered.
“Ms. Evers?” Doctor Kaur reached out and rested a small hand on my forearm. Her palm was warm, and I immediately shook my head in a hopeless attempt to bring my mind back to the matter at hand.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Because I was back in the gazebo of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne. Completely lost in the moment and in Lucas, and uncaring of the fact that we didn’t have protection.
No. Not uncaring. Too caught up to realize we didn’t have it.
“I—um, there was”—I blinked a few times as the pieces flew into place, making a picture I was unwilling to see before Doctor Kaur made me see it—“What I mean is, we used protection except the one time, and I got the morning after pill. I did. I took it just like I was supposed to.”
Her smile was no less bright for my admission as she nodded her understanding. “Sometimes,” she said with a pat, pat, pat of my arm, “it doesn’t work, or it’s too late. We’ll take a test and see what the results say before we jump to any conclusions.”
Except it was too late.
I’d already jumped to the only conclusion—the one that made me a mother with a man that I cared about, liked a whole hell of a lot, and just barely knew. Weeks might’ve passed since we met on that flight, but what are weeks when you’re going to be a parent with someone?
Oh god.
“Try to take some long, deep breaths, Ms. Evers.” Doctor Kaur stood, moved in front of me, and crouched down. “Listen to me. Whatever the test says, you’re going to be okay. I will help you. Your partner, he will help? Maybe not.” Her lilting voice made her accent seem almost musical, and I grasped hard onto that small, odd thought. “But it is your body, your decision. So, breathe for me now, and then take the test, and we will plan together.”
Nodding in response, I made a point of slowing my breathing before it spiraled into a full panic attack—which was much closer to happening than not—and made eye contact with the doctor. She didn’t flinch away from my gaze or offer any more words; she seemed to realize that I needed another moment to process.
“Sit down, pretty girl. Hold that dress out of the way and take a seat.” Lucas’ voice in my head was just as dirty,
just as needy as it had been that day, the day that we maybe, possibly conceived a child and oh my fucking god, all I could think about was the fact that I might be having a baby and, if I was, it was made in a public place, during a hot and heavy hook-up with someone I didn’t know. Or hardly knew.
My breathing sped up again and I fought back against it. “You know him. You know him,” I told myself, repeating it aloud, completely uncaring of what the doctor might think of me. “You know him, it’s fine.”
It took another few minutes for me to be able to calm down enough to take the test, which came back with the inevitable result. Pregnant. But far from my initial response, when Doctor Kaur announced that the test was positive, a wave of pleasure-laced excitement washed over me. Sadly, it was mixed with a secondary wave of what I now knew was morning sickness, but still. I was . . . happy?
Yeah, happy. Because in my head, a little baby appeared with my skin and Lucas’ eyes and damn, that was a picture. A picture that I desperately wanted to hold onto for long enough to get back to the hotel, where I could sit and really think about what I was going to do.
And whether I was going to do it alone, or with Lucas.
* * *
February 11, 2019
From: Bianca Evers ([email protected])
To: Tamika Evers ([email protected])
Subject: Uluru
Hi Mom!
Keeping this one short because I just got back from a doctor’s appointment—nothing to worry about; just a little under the weather—and I’m maybe going to lie down for a bit. I’ll definitely give you a call later this week, and you can tell me what all’s been happening there. I miss everyone, but most of all you. Don’t tell Daddy I said that!
I’m attaching a TON of pics I took when I visited Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) last week. It was so beautiful, and definitely my favorite place I’ve been so far, but SO HOT.