“That’s the problem, Cassie. Lately, I’m not eating normally. Look at today. I throw up and then suddenly get so hungry I could have had double what I had.”
“Symptomatic of a short-lived flu,” she said with confidence.
Maybe she’s right, I thought, and stopped talking about it, but the following morning, I was nauseated again, and again, I threw up. I had a more painful lower backache and was too tired to go down to breakfast. Again, Cassie brought me some tea and toast.
“I should go to the doctor,” I told her. When she didn’t say anything, I added, “You said what I had was short-lived.”
“We’ll see. Flu does that sometimes, comes and goes.”
“There’s something else,” I told her before she started out of my bedroom.
“What?”
“I should have had my period two days ago.”
She stood there thinking. “Sometimes, when you are sick with a flu or something, you lose your regularity. Let’s wait before we let our imaginations run wild.”
“What do you mean? How can mine run wild about my period?”
She squinted. “Let’s wait,” she said firmly. “And don’t say anything to Daddy. He’s having something of a crisis at the office.”
“What?”
“At one of our stores, one of our idiot salesmen left a rack sticking out too far, and an elderly woman tripped
and broke her hip. Her family is suing us.”
“He didn’t say anything about it last night at dinner.”
“Don’t you remember? He doesn’t like to talk about the business at dinner. Mother hated it, and I don’t like it, either,” she said.
“But I’ve heard you—”
“Semantha, please don’t be a problem for us right now. Just deal with your problems like a mature young woman, like a Heavenstone. Show some spine, some independence and strength. Dip into your heritage, your blood, and overcome your fears and weaknesses,” she lectured.
I tried to do as she said. I kept my headaches, my backaches, and my morning nausea to myself for the remainder of the week. The nausea subsided, but the backaches were always there. When two more weeks went by and I still hadn’t gotten my period, I began to panic. Something strange was happening to me, all right. Left alone, I thought again and again about the night Porter had come to dinner and I had drunk too much wine. Those dreams seemed like more than dreams. The images, and feelings were all still too vivid, too strong. Dreams tended to thin out and drift away like smoke, but these memories were actually becoming stronger, clearer.
I was spending more and more time alone now, too. Cassie said she had to visit the office more. There were other problems, and Daddy needed her. She still spent more time with me than she usually had, but I had longer periods during the day when I simply fell asleep or was too tired to do anywhere near what I used to do.
And then I began to notice other changes in my body. I was going to the bathroom more often, and when I took off my clothes and looked at myself in the mirror, I noticed there was a darkening around my nipples, a darkening I had never seen. My breasts were bigger, and I was sure I had a little pouch developing in my abdomen. I felt a hot flash through my neck and face and went to my computer. My fingers trembled as I searched for the information I dreaded to read, but it was there, and it took my breath away.
Late that afternoon, Cassie found me waiting for her in the living room, sitting in Daddy’s chair. I had done nothing about dinner, nor had I done any of my usual chores. I didn’t open a book, either. I had spent most of my time just sitting and thinking and shivering under the dreadful weight of what I now believed.
The moment she entered and saw me, she paused. “What are you doing? Why are you sitting there like that?”
“Cassie, I think … I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant.”
To my surprise, she didn’t laugh or start to ridicule me. “Oh, really?”
“I’ve read about it, and I have every symptom.”
“And how do you explain being pregnant, Semantha? Are you going to tell me it just happened, an immaculate conception?”
“No. Listen. Here’s what I think. That night … when Porter was here and you brought me up after I had drunk too much wine …”
“What about it, Semantha?”
“Was he out of your sight for a while? Did you leave him and go clean up after dinner?”