by Nikki Steele
I also knew about the fight-or-flight response in animals. When we feel threatened by forces either tangible or intangible, our bodies still react the same way they did back when we were hunting woolly mammoths.
That’s why some small part of me wasn’t surprised to hear my heart suddenly thudding in my ears, or look down and find my palms sweating. A million thoughts hit me simultaneously.
We were about to have a baby. Dan couldn’t be fired.
How much did I have in savings? How long would it cover Dan’s unemployment?
How hard would he actually try to get a new job?
A new thought intruded. Should I kick him out? I couldn’t afford to support the both of us, and the baby. But I couldn’t, could I? He was the baby’s father.
My tongue tripped over itself before I managed a full sentence. “How did that happen?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice controlled, white knuckled fists held tightly in my lap.
“How does it usually happen?” Dan said flippantly. “My boss called me and told me not to come into the office tomorrow. I was at the airport just getting off the plane.” He threw himself against the back of the chair, the injured party.
“Why, though?” I asked—not angry, just genuinely confused. “I mean, he sent you on a trip. I thought that meant he liked you.” Fired. It was like the universe was laughing at me.
“I don’t know, something about the hotel bill. My boss freaked out. He didn’t even give me the chance to explain.”
“So what did happen? Explain it to me, because I’m really confused right now.”
He shot me a dirty look. I changed tack. “I mean, he can’t fire you for some stupid reason like that. What was he actually complaining about, and what were you going to say?”
He looked away. “It’s not important anymore. Just a few drinks, things like that. Liz can totally back me up—we did nothing wrong.”
“Your assistant?” I asked sweetly. “She was there, was she?”
He coughed, looking away again. “We had to work late, so we ordered room service.” He stood up, pushing his chair back. “Look, get off my back, okay? I’m the one that’s just lost his job.”
I closed my eyes, counting to 10. No matter what the reason, Dan couldn’t lose his job, not at a time like this. When I opened my eyes again, I was calm. “Well if that’s all there is to it, we’ll call him in the morning. I’m sure if we offer to pay off the bill, your boss will see the light. We really can’t afford to-”
“I also missed a meeting,” Dan said quickly.
“Oh, Dan...”
“The alarm clock was broken!” he protested, looking down. “What was I supposed to do?”
Set the alarm on your phone? Ask for a wake-up call? Have your assistant roll over and shake you awake? “I don’t know. That sucks.”
“I know, right?” He looked at me, his expression softer now. “I really thought you’d lose it when I told you. I didn’t expect you to be so cool about this.”
Cool? I was numb. I felt nothing. If I were to have any emotional reaction, it would be laughter. I would laugh at myself for being such a fool. I would laugh at the way life had a tendency to kick us while we’re down.
“So what are you going to do? I guess start looking for something else?”
“What? Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“Well, yeah,” Dan said, sitting down and leaning back, his hands behind his head. “I mean, do I have to get out there tomorrow? Can I take a little time to relax? You know how stressful that job was. Maybe this is for the best. I probably needed a break.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Relax? You need to relax?” The laughter bubbled up again; I was helpless to control it. It had started as a titter, but was now a full blown belly laugh as I lay back on the couch, tears streaming down my cheeks. It was the moodiness, or maybe just the only way I could cry, right now.
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” Dan said, scowling.
I wiped my eyes, quieting, then sat up to look him right in the eye. “It’s not funny, but I have to laugh, else I’d lose my mind. You, of all people, sitting here telling me you need to relax! I work my ass off—I pay all the bills. I clean this place. And I cook, and do the laundry, and take your shirts to the cleaners. And then you need to relax. What else can I do but laugh?”
He stood up, glaring down at me. “This is just like you! I come home, feeling vulnerable, and what do you do? You make me feel even worse. What’s gotten into you?”
I bit my tongue to stop blurting out the words: A baby. As angry as I was, the baby was not a weapon. Would never be a weapon. I wasn’t going to tell Dan the news like that.
I took a series of deep breaths. “Dan. I need you to understand this. I don’t have a lot in savings—enough to get us through a few months, tops. You have to get back out there right away and find something new.” I didn’t bother asking him how much he had saved up, since I knew the answer would be a big fat zero. One of the few good decisions I’d made over our relationship was insisting we stick to separate bank accounts.
“I will! God, what do you think I am? I just don’t see what the big deal is. Why do I have to rush? There must be plenty of jobs.”
Right. For a deadbeat like you, who just got fired after running up hotel bills during a business trip. You’ll get a glowing recommendation. “The job market’s tight. It’s not an overnight thing.”
“You’re so negative! I should have known you’d be negative,” he huffed, storming into the kitchen to slam his plate into the sink. He strode from there to the bedroom, pulling off his polo as he did. He’d put on weight. He had a pot belly.
I followed him. “Just be realistic. That’s all I’m asking. Don’t expect something to drop into your lap. You have to try hard to get something new, fast.”
“Why?” He turned to look at me. “You said you have enough to get us through a few months. Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Because... it’s scary, you know? I mean, what if we had to move because we couldn’t afford this place anymore?”
“Eh, it’s too big, anyway. We don’t need the second bedroom.”
Yes, we do. That second room was originally going to be Dan’s office, but soon it would be filled with baby furniture. My savings were dwindling right before my eyes. “Dan. I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. You need to get a job.”
“Why?” he asked petulantly.
I didn’t say anything, just looked at the floor, full of misery.
His eyes narrowed. “Why?” he asked again, moving toward me. “What are you hiding?” He grabbed me roughly by the arm, shaking me hard.
I pulled away. “Don’t do that Dan.”
“I’ll do whatever I want,” he growled, anger on his face, reaching for me again. “You’re my girlfriend.”
I backed up against the wall, eyes wide. “Dan,” I said, blurting the words out before I could help it. “I’m pregnant.”
Chapter 3
“You’re what?”
“I’m pregnant. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you this way.” I bit my lip, then said softly, “we’re going to have a baby, Dan.”
He reminded me of a fish, the glaring, glassy eyes adding a nice touch to the gaping mouth. But then he burst out laughing.
Now it was my turn to wonder at his reaction. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
I shook my head.
“Oh, come on! This is a joke. You’re not pregnant, you’re just trying to scare me into getting another job right away. That’s pathetic, even for you,” he said with distain. He turned away, the conversation over.
But it wasn’t. “I am pregnant, Dan. I found out this morning. Six weeks pregnant.”
“Stop it,” he growled, back still to me, shoulders stiff.
I shook my head, though he could
n’t see me do it. “I’ll go down to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy and buy a test to prove it, right now, if I have to.”
Now he turned. “You’re serious? You really mean it.”
“Yes.”
He stared into the distance for a moment, thinking. And then he shrugged. “Oh, well. It happens. We’ll go to the clinic tomorrow.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“I said we’ll go to the clinic. Those procedures are pretty common, right? They’ll have you in and out in a day.”
I reached around looking for something to hold as I began to wobble. In the end I just slumped down against the wall. Just when I thought he didn’t have a curveball left. “Why would you say that?” I asked, my voice quiet. I hadn’t even thought of termination. The concept was so new that I didn’t quite know what to even do with the idea—but he obviously did.
Dan moved to the bathroom, laying out a thick stripe of toothpaste on his toothbrush. “Why?” he asked, popping the brush in his mouth and talking around it. “Because a baby’s not good right now. You just said it yourself, pretty much. It’s not the time.” It was like we were talking about the weather, or what to have for lunch tomorrow.
“And I don’t have a say in this?”
He spat out his toothpaste, then looked up at me from the sink. “Why are you being such a pain? You know I’m right.”
“I don’t know that.”
He sighed heavily. “You really want to argue about this.”
This was not how I’d thought this conversation would pan out. Shock maybe. Perhaps even disbelief. But this? “Dan! You can’t expect me to just go and have a baby terminated without talking about it first! I won’t do it just because you want me to! Are you crazy?”
He saw the look in my eyes and laughed bitterly. “So you’re gonna be stubborn about it? Who cares? You know I always win in the end. It’s inevitable.”
Dan spoke with the confidence of past experience. But he’d forgotten one little thing. This wasn’t just me, anymore. I was fighting for someone else now, too, and that made me much, much stronger. “Listen to me very carefully,” I said, my voice quiet. My hands went protectively to my belly. “That’s not going to happen. I won’t have you making that decision for me. In fact, I won’t have you making any decisions for me, ever again. I’ve had enough of that over the years, and I’m sick of it. Either we’re fifty-fifty, or we’re nothing at all. Get it?”
Dan turned to me but stepped back when he saw the look in my eyes. I didn’t look away.
“But I don’t want to be a father,” he whined.
“That’s fine, because I don’t want you to be one.” The words had appeared before I could stop them, but as they left my mouth, all I could think was how much better a dad Chase would be—he wouldn’t want me to go to an abortion clinic. He wouldn’t whine and complain, even if he hadn’t wanted kids either. I found myself wishing, not for the first time, that things might have been different.
“I’m outta here,” Dan muttered. He grabbed a shirt, then stormed out to the living room where his suitcase still sat. He took it by the handle, shoving it out the door before following it and slamming the door behind him.
All the strength went out of me in one big gusty sigh, though I didn’t know if it was of relief, or disappointment. I’d hoped this news would make him want to stand up and be a better man. How wrong could I have been? Of course he wouldn’t want to change his life—he was too childish and too selfish to give up anything in the interests of another person.
My head rested against the wall. If only Chase was here, things would have been different. But he wasn’t, was he? And I was the one who had driven him away.
I was alone, now. My hands went to my belly. Well, not truly alone. Not truly alone ever again. But I was looking after the both of us.
Dan, the father who had walked out because he didn’t want a baby. Chase, the lover who was perfect, but didn’t want a baby either. Could I make it on my own?
I shook my head. It didn’t matter whether I could, or not. I was going to have to.
Chapter 4
Several days passed without word from Dan.
I hadn’t expected much else. I couldn’t imagine which friend he was staying with, the deadbeat, since most of his friends were exactly like him. Maybe one of them had a spare couch in their mother’s basement for him to sleep on.
I’d been to the doctor, who told me everything seemed fine thus far. And as much as I didn’t like to admit it, I had thought about Dan’s words after he’d left. There was still a window of time in which I could end the pregnancy, if I wanted to. It would make things easier, at least in the short run. But in the long... I wasn’t so sure. Already this baby owned my heart—I found myself just standing still, hands on my belly, lost in thought more times than I cared to admit; wondering what sort of person my child would be when they grew up, and marveling at the beautiful piece of art I was creating inside.
I was pregnant. End of story. And I realized, to me, that meant I was keeping the baby. Every day it seemed more tangible, like a real little person inside me, though I knew it was a long way from being fully formed at this stage of the pregnancy.
I even went to the bookstore and picked up a couple of baby books. What To Expect When You’re Expecting, that sort of thing. I told myself not to feel embarrassed when I took the books to the register and my left hand was glaringly empty of any rings. It was the twenty-first century. A woman didn’t need to be married or even engaged to have a baby.
I sat at home, flipping through one of the books I’d bought. In the past few days I’d fallen into the habit of talking to the baby when I was alone. The apartment was very quiet and empty. I had to fill the silence, somehow. And it was comforting, too.
“This book says you’re about the size of a blueberry right now. You’re my little blueberry. Isn’t that amazing? How can a little blueberry make me throw up every morning?” I rubbed my belly, no bigger than it ever was before. It seemed unfathomable that we all started out so small. I was learning so much already.
“Wow! Your little heart is already beating! Isn’t that cool? And you’ve decided if you’re a girl or a boy. I wonder what you chose to be?” I tried to imagine a daughter, and a son. Both images seemed so fuzzy, I couldn’t quite get them to solidify in my mind. Having a baby was still such a new concept, and there was still so far to go before the baby was born.
“Will you have Mommy’s red hair? I bet you’ll have a temper to go with it. I hope you don’t look too much like your Daddy. No, I shouldn’t say that—I’m sorry. You look however you want to look. It’s not your fault Mommy stayed with him so long. Besides, he gave me you, so I can’t hate him.”
I wanted my baby to feel loved from the first minute. I wanted the child to know how to love themselves in a way I had never understood. I would fill him or her with so much self-love and self-confidence, they would never know how it felt to be bullied and put down by a person who was supposed to care for them.
I never would have had the courage to stand up for what I wanted if it hadn’t been for Chase.
I looked at my phone, sitting on the coffee table, wishing I could call him. But how would that look, now? I’d dumped him on Monday. Now what? How would it look when I told him I was pregnant? What a rotten, gold-digging move that would be. He deserved better than that.
I missed him, though. I couldn’t deny it. He had become a very important person to me, in a very short amount of time. I would have given anything to be able to talk to him again. I wished I hadn’t called and told him we couldn’t be together. At least maybe we could still be friends if I had explained the truth behind the situation.
Then again, maybe not. He could just as easily have been hurt or insulted by the way I was sleeping with him while still technically another man’s girlfriend. I knew how it would look if I explained things to him now, that at first I’d thought I was single, and then I’d decided to leave Dan for him. It would
sound as though I was just making up stories to cover for my actions.
“Oh kiddo, what am I going to do with myself?” I got up from the sofa, walking to the room that would eventually belong to the baby. Without Dan’s help with the finances, I could still manage. In fact, I was better off. I’d always covered the rent anyway—it had been the idea of covering his cell phone and credit card bills, plus his bar tabs and the amount of food he went through, that had worried me. I could budget and live frugally and still have enough to keep the apartment and put money away for the baby. In fact, more now. Leaving was the best thing Dan could have done for me.
I sat on a box, looking around. Yes, the crib could go by the window. It got a decent amount of sunlight. Did I want to find out if it was a boy or a girl? Or would I paint the room a more neutral shade and let myself be surprised? No, I should find out—that way if people wanted to give me things, either new or hand-me-down, I would know what would work and what wouldn’t. I had the feeling I might need to rely on the kindness of friends and family, since thanks to my internet searching I knew babies grew out of clothing so quickly and went through diapers so fast. I was sure it would add up, no matter how much money I managed to put aside every month.
I sighed. It was a big job I was taking on. No—an adventure. Did I have the strength to do it, all by myself? I felt a little shaky, thinking of it all. Daycare, finding a school, braces, sports, after-school meetings, homework—what were kids even learning in school these days? Tantrums and time-outs and groundings, all by myself.
I put my hands over my belly. “I hope I don’t let you down,” I whispered. “I hope you never think you should have chosen another mommy.”
My chin started to quiver. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for it.