by Bloom, Anna
“Because, b-because I think I might be pregnant.”
“Sunshine, that isn’t supposed to make you cry.” His expression of worry lifts into a slow smile.
“B-but.”
“Have you done the test?” How can he be so damn calm? Why isn’t he freaking out, panicking, maybe even crying like me?
“N-no, I waited for you.”
“Sunshine, stop crying. Bloody hell, Faith, I thought something awful had happened. I thought the police had dropped the case against Aiden.”
Why is his first thought always about Aiden and the case?
“Something awful has happened,” I snap. “We forgot to use condoms.” I wipe at my tears, my inbuilt fight and flight flickering to life. If I could, I would make it to the bathroom, so he’d stop looking at me like that, stop confusing me with that expression of relief on his face. It’s about fifteen paces away. I get ready to launch off the bed, but his hands find their way to my shoulders and press firmly down.
“No. Stay.”
I shake my head. “Why is everything so easy for you? Everything that comes your way, you just face it and deal like it’s nothing.”
He shakes his head, his eyes holding mine, fierce and determined. “That’s not true.”
“Eli, I could be pregnant. I’ve never even wanted a child; how could I be a mother after everything I’ve been through? I don’t even know how to be one, because I’ve never even had one myself. I wouldn’t know what to do or what to say. I’m not that kind of person.” My words gush out, running into one another.
“What?” He looks at me in surprise. “You don’t think you know how to be a mother? The woman who loves and helps every single person that she meets, who fights for everything and gives up at nothing.”
“Never gives up?” My voice rises. “I run away.”
“Not always.” Reaching forward, he plants a kiss on my cheek, his hands smoothing my hair. “What’s really worrying you?”
“What do you mean?” My eyes sting as I focus on him.
“That’s not everything. I know when you are not telling me everything. What’s really wrong?”
Fuck. Why can he always read me? I hate it. It’s not fair.
“I’m not ready.”
“And?” His eyes don’t leave my face.
“How can I have a baby? I saw what Abi went through, and that was with Adam.”
“And?”
“We’ve known each other three minutes, Eli. Three damn minutes.”
“So? We are getting married; we are committed to each other.”
“But what if this isn’t meant to be?” The words slip out my mouth before I can stop them.
“Is that what you think?” I watch as his eyes harden.
“No. I don’t know. This is all such a surprise. And your family… I don’t know if I can fight them for me and for someone who needs my protection.”
He waits. Waits for me to go there.
“I don’t even know if I can protect myself.”
A wave of a sob builds in my chest, higher and higher until I’m about to be swallowed by fear and uncertainty. I crumble, shuddering and shaking.
His arms hold me tight and he waits, waits for the storm within me to pass. When my sobbing eases, he smooths my hair with his big, broad palms and bends down to meet my gaze. “Then I will protect you. I will protect both of you and everything we have.”
His words calm the wind of destruction howling in my soul.
“I’m sorry,” I sniff. “I’m just so surprised.”
“Nothing surprises me about you, or us.”
“What do you mean?” I push back a little, exhausted but strangely calm. “Look who I was when we met. Miserable and alone, battered by my family demands. But then you came along, and you flipped it all, made me want more.”
I never thought that maybe I affected him as much as he did me.
“And I didn’t think I would ever feel anything. I was safe, but now I’m exposed to everything.”
“You will always be safe with me, but you have to share everything, even if you think I won’t like it.”
I nod but I can’t agree. Some darkness isn’t meant to be shared.
“Faith?” He tilts my chin and meets my gaze. “We could have had this blue box between us in three weeks, three months, even three years and it still would have been a surprise. It’s a surprise because neither of us have done it before.”
“I guess.” I try to dab at my sticky face, but I think it’s beyond repair.
He smiles and I scrutinise it, trying to see if he’s hiding any fear, but it’s just him, gorgeous and part dimple. “So how do you feel about peeing on a stick?”
“Like it’s something I never thought I would do.”
“Well, sunshine, I did say all your firsts were mine.”
He did. He did say that… I guess he wasn’t lying.
He picks up the box and opens the cellophane wrapper, all while my heart does some gymnastic routine in my chest. “Here, you hold this.” He passes me the white stick which feels much lighter than I expected impending doom to feel in my hand. He opens the instructions and scans over them. I’m glad he is reading them; to me they just a blur of blue writing. When he lowers them, he stares at me, his eyes shining. Why isn’t he crapping himself?
“Basically, they use a lot of words to say pee on the stick mid-stream and then put the cap back on and wait three minutes.”
“Okay.” I stare at it. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Do you need a pee right now, or shall we go down and guzzle water?”
I shake my head. “I’ve needed a pee since about five. I’ve been holding it.”
He chuckles and it makes my shoulders fall from where I am holding them so high.
“I can’t believe this.” My fingers shake around the stick.
“Me neither.” For a moment his confidence slips.
“We’ve got choices.” My words shake as I repeat what I said to Tabitha when she stood in Dan’s kitchen.
The blues settle on my face. “First choice, peeing on a stick.”
I nod. My heart thrums. On shaking legs, I get up from the bed where I’ve been frozen for hours. Clutching the stick in my hand, I walk towards our en-suite. “How many minutes does it take to work again?”
“Three.” His eyes don’t move from me. “Want me to come with you?”
I snort. “No thank you. Let’s not slip into the peeing in front of each other level quite yet.”
I pee on the stick and then trying very hard not to look at it, I push the lid back on, finish up and then walk back out to Eli who is watching the en-suite door with some sort of laser beam stare.
I think the beating of my heart against my ribs might actually make me sick. “Here.” I thrust it at him. “Three minutes, right?”
I’ve handed it to him face side down, but he turns it over and stares at the small windows. “I’d say however long it took for you to walk back.”
“What?” Hell, I know I’m in shock, but it didn’t take me three minutes to walk from the en-suite to the bed. He shows me the windows.
One says Pregnant. The other says six weeks.
“Fuck.” My knees fold, pulling me down onto the mattress. His hand grabs mine, squeezing hard like he’s stopping me from washing out to a sea of panic on a little dinghy unsuitable for rough conditions.
“Faith?”
I don’t want them to, but tears slip down my cheek. “I’m sorry, Eli. So sorry. I should have paid more attention.”
“Faith.” Shifting closer he slides his hands around my face, wiping my tears with his thumbs.
I’ve got a baby in my tummy.
Good God.
I’ve got a baby in my tummy.
“Don’t be sorry. This is us, we are two people. Maybe if I didn’t want you so much all the time, then I would be able to stop and think.”
“I can’t believe this.” Rising panic threatens to overwhelm me. My skin prickles
as sweat breaks out along its surface.
Turning his attention from me to the stick which is still screaming the word pregnant he stares at it. What is he thinking?
“Eli.” My throat tightens until it hurts to swallow, to talk, even to breathe. “We’ve known each other three months.” He nods, momentarily distracted, so I continue. “We’ve been apart in that time.” My brain can’t go to those awful days after Al died, when my heart was smashed into a million fragmented pieces.
“What are you saying?” His eyes finally lift back up from the stick.
“Look at us, Eli. We’ve just moved into a house in some power play by your family. Should we even consider bringing a child into it?”
His shoulders slump. “I don’t know.” His words slice me in half. I wanted him to tell me he loved me, that my fears were unfounded; that something we could create was worth fighting for. But then maybe I wanted him to agree with me.
I don’t know what I want. My brain can’t utilise any area apart from the one that produces extreme shock and panic.
His fingers tangle with mine loosely and he clears his throat. “But I do know that before you, I had nothing. Nothing of any value. My life was all straight edges and repressed dreams. Then you stormed in and you pushed those edges until they were curved and voluminous and could contain so much more than I ever expected. Could contain me and you and the crazy that we’ve survived. Could make me wake every day, desperate to see what that day will bring instead of dreading it. And now…” He pauses, stuttering over his words. “Now you’ve pushed the lines further, created more, given me more than I ever could have dreamed.”
A tear slips down my cheek and his hand falls to my tummy, lifting the hem of my sweater and running lightly over my skin. “In there is something that is just ours, untouched by anyone else. Something we created. Whether that was by accident or chance, or whether it was some act of fate that we will never understand, it’s still ours and no one can touch it.”
“What if we can’t protect it, like neither of us have been able to protect ourselves?” I whisper, my voice cracking with every word as my deepest fears rise to the surface.
“Then we will fight harder, give everything to make sure we do.”
“You want the baby?” I hold his gaze. I’m not breathing.
“I want you.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
His fingers press harder against my tummy. “I want all of you. I always have. I want everything you create.”
“I think you had a hand in this.”
A smile lifts the corner of his mouth and that adorable dimple flashes. “I’m an exceptional artist.”
“Eli.” I want to fight him, but his words turn my focus until I can only see inside me. When Abi told me she was pregnant and I wondered how it felt to have something inside you that you put there, something that wasn’t entirely yours, not an organ or blood, or cells necessary to make you work, but other things, essential to make someone else work.
There is something there that is part me and part him.
“Faith?”
“We haven’t even been on holiday together! We’ve lived together for a matter of weeks…”
“We’ve been to France.”
“You know what I mean. Remember what we thought of Tabitha and Lewis? How on earth had they managed to do that in such a short space of time?”
“Oh, that’s rubbish. They really had known each other three seconds.”
I smile, I just have to.
“Faith, you are going to be my wife. In my heart you already are.”
“I know.” I sigh and it exhausts me. “A baby?”
He shakes his head. “Us.”
Exhaustion waves over me. My body pulls with heaviness, my limbs aching. I can’t think anymore. “I’m tired.”
“I’ve got to work.” He’s hesitating; he doesn’t want to leave this conversation unfinished. My heart is heavy, neither of us are doing cartwheels around the room at our latest revelation. Is this just another blow meant to challenge us, meant to end us?
“Don’t leave me.” If he walks away now it will kill me. Will leave me to surrender to dark thoughts and secrets I don’t want to face. His face smooths into a smile.
“I won’t leave. Come here.” Slowly he lifts my top and throws it onto the pale cream carpet. Then pushing me back onto the mattress he unbuttons my jeans and slides them down my thighs. His gaze sweeps over my tummy and ink like he’s searching out any sign of what’s within me. Pulling back the duvet, he motions me inside. “I’m assuming you don’t want my grandad pyjamas?”
I chuckle as he fits himself around me. My head is swimming with my thoughts.
I’m pregnant.
I’m pregnant, and again my life is floundering from one crisis to another.
I’m pregnant, and although I’m totally blocked, silently unable to create anything, I’ve still managed to create something. Although it’s nothing that I ever expected.
Twelve
When I wake in the morning, he is gone. During my restless sleep, I woke and found him missing, the space next to me empty, but the next time my tormenting dreams pulled me back around he was there, his arm tight around my waist, his breath on my neck.
I stare at the ceiling. Last night feels like a dream, hazy and distorted. Almost with a will of its own my hand slides down to my tummy. It’s probably even flatter than normal due to my lack of appetite. Is there really something in there?
I can’t lay here all day with my hand on my stomach. I’ve got to get up and do stuff. Something. Anything.
Sitting and pushing my hair out of my face, a piece of paper on Eli’s pillow catches my attention. My heart pitter patters. I have his baby in my tummy.
I grab the paper and unfold it. Inside is his beautiful sweeping handwriting scratched out with a fountain pen.
To my Faith.
Before you my days were grey. Clouds of repression hung close to my heart.
But then you came, filling the days with the gold of the sun and the heat of your love.
Anything we create can only be perfect.
Trust me.
Always.
E xx
He always knows what to say, the right thing to do. Refolding the paper, I slide it under my pillow. Keeping it somewhere safe where I can find it if I need to. Stretching, I get up from the bed. Walking to the mirror still in yesterday’s black underwear, I stand in front of the ornate frame on the French dresser. I’m still the same. There is no scary bulge stretching my ink. There is no swell or bloom, no little curve to be found. I’m still angles and ink. I turn to the side and press my hand to my tummy, watching my reflection closely.
This can’t be real. It just can’t be.
Heading into the dressing area, I rifle through Eli’s clothes until I find one of his soft t-shirts which I pull over my head followed by a navy hoodie I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen him wear yet.
How can we have a baby together when I haven’t even seen him wear all his clothes? It seems preposterous that it can even happen.
It can. Science doesn’t care about how many jumpers your boyfriend has worn, or how long you’ve been together, or whether you are suitable mother material.
Science is fucked-up.
Back in the bedroom I pick up my phone. It would be nice to have a mother to call in the circumstances, but that’s never been an option for me. In the space where there should be a mother you call when you are worried or scared, there has always just been an empty void. In the place of a mother there is nothing.
In a different life, possibly on a parallel universe, I could maybe ring Eli’s mum. She could make me tea and offer me biscuits as she tucks me into her motherly embrace. Yeah, right.
My screen tells me there’s a message from Eli, so I swipe and unlock it.
Eli Jones: How are you? I’ll be in court by the time you wake up, but know I’m thinking of you. Today my thoughts will be full of you and everyt
hing we are, and everything we could be.
I sigh and find my shoulders slumping. I didn’t even know I was holding them high.
Faith Hitchin: Don’t worry about me. Think about Melanie, she’s the one who matters today. We can talk more tonight.
My stomach twists into painful knots which feels like a three-year-old has tried to do shoelaces with it. I don’t know what I want to talk about or what I would even say. What if he hates me because my womb is extra susceptible to his sperm? What if he never wanted to bring a child into the Fairclough nightmare… regardless of what he said last night?
There’s a baby in my tummy, unexpected and unwarranted, and I have no idea what I want to feel or do about it.
On an impulse I ring Abi. There’s going to be screaming, I know it, but I’ve got to talk to someone. Of all the things I’ve faced alone this is the one that’s defeated me.
“This is early for you.” She answers on the second ring, no sign of sleepiness in her tone.
“Sorry it’s early, Abs.” My words choke off.
“Oh, God, what’s happened? Have you two rowed again? I warned him I’d kick him in the balls if he upset you one more time this year.”
“You warned him? How? When?” I can’t help but smile at my best friend's dramatics—there is definitely going to be screaming.
“Never you mind, Missy, I have my ways.”
I snort and settle myself on the bed, tucking my legs up under me. I should be getting ready for class, but five minutes with my best friend will do me a lot of good. I can feel it.
“How’s Adam and the kids?” It’s weird asking about her kids, knowing I have one of my own in my tummy. One of those things that lives and breathes, and cries, and then eventually answers back or laughs, and could giggle with bright eyes.
Oh shit.
“Faith, what’s wrong?”
My tears are silent, but Abi can sense them.
“I have news.”
“Have the police called about Aiden?” Why does everyone always think it’s something to do with that bastard?
“No. Worse. I’m pregnant.”
There’s a long stretch of silence followed by, “Holy shit.”