Neighbor Dearest

“Alright.”

I left the apartment in a hurry.

Once around the corner, I leaned against the side of the building and took a deep breath, taking out my cell phone and praying that Jade picked up. I’d told her about my late period earlier in the week.

When she answered, I said, “Oh, thank God.”

“Is everything okay?”

“I think I’m having a panic attack.”

“Okay, calm down. I’m here. Where are you?”

“I was sitting down watching TV with Damien, and I had to get out of the house. He’s starting to catch on that something is off with me.”

“Listen. You need to do a test. I know that you don’t want to know, but you need to grow some balls and do it. Not knowing is the problem right now.”

“Okay. I’m out now. I’ll buy a test and do it. I told Damien I was going to the grocery store.”

“I’ll stay on the phone with you. Can you use a public bathroom?”

“I’ll find something.”

After purchasing a pregnancy test at the drug store, I asked if I could use their employee bathroom in the back. I put Jade on speakerphone while I followed the directions and peed on the stick.

Placing my head between my legs on the toilet, I sighed. “Now we wait.”

After a few minutes of waiting in silence, Jade said, “Breathe, Sis. Breathe. If you are, then it’s a freak accident. He’s going to understand.”

“Damien spent enough years worrying about his health. I didn’t want him to have to worry anymore. This is going to be a nightmare for him, especially given that he’s not even fully recovered. I—”

“The time is up,” Jade interrupted. “I’ve been watching the clock. Time to check.”

When I reluctantly looked over at the stick sitting on the sink, the red symbol that met my eyes wasn’t really a surprise in the least. “It’s a plus sign.”

Jade blew a deep breath into the phone. “Okay. Okay. We’re gonna handle this. It’s going to be okay.”

I covered my mouth. “Oh, my God.”

“You need to tell him soon.”

“I need more time. He needs more strength before he can deal with this. I don’t think I’m gonna tell him for another couple of weeks at least. I can’t do this to him. I also need to confirm it with a doctor first.”

“Okay. Make an appointment this week, but promise me you won’t put off telling him for too long.”

“If I could, I would never tell him.”***“Congratulations, Mrs. Hennessey. We have the results of your blood test, and you’re definitely pregnant.”

I probably looked like she’d told me that someone died.

“Is this not good news for you?”

Holding onto the arms of my chair for balance, I shook my head. “It’s not, no.”

“This was unexpected?”

“My husband has an inherited heart condition. We’d made a firm decision not to have biological children to avoid passing it on. There’s a fifty percent chance of that, and he didn’t want to take the risk. I’m on the pill, and he was also planning to have a vasectomy soon. This is like my nightmare, and I don’t really understand how it happened.”

“I’m sorry to hear that this is not positive news for you.”

“The pill is supposed to be nearly one-hundred percent effective, and I never missed a single one. I’ve always been so diligent. How could this have happened?”

“Well, there are certain things that can counteract it. Were you taking other medications, for example?”

Suddenly, a light bulb went on.

Oh, no.

“I’d been experiencing a lot of depression and anxiety over my husband’s surgery. He’s been in recovery for about a month. I didn’t want to go on antidepressants, but my therapist recommended St. John’s Wort, so I started to take that.”

Dr. Anderson momentarily closed her eyes in understanding and nodded. “Yes. Unfortunately, that is well-known to interfere with the pill.”

“Well-known to everyone but me apparently. Fuck. I’m sorry for swearing, but…fuck.” I lowered my head into my hands.

“Your therapist should have known that before recommending it to you.”

“No. I should’ve checked myself. It’s my fault. How could I have been so stupid?”

“You’d be surprised how many people take things without reading the fine print or looking into the side effects.”

“I was trying to make things better by quietly handling my issues, and I ended up ruining everything.”

“You do still have the option to terminate.”

Even just hearing her allude to that felt painful. “No. I could never do that.” This was still Damien’s and my child, and as scared as I was, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was already hopelessly in love with it.

“Okay. Understood.”

“What’s next?”

“We’ll make an ultrasound appointment for you soon.”

“Okay.” I swallowed. This was getting far too real given the fact that Damien still had no clue. The clock was ticking.

I left the office in a daze. If I thought it was difficult accepting the pregnancy before, knowing that it was totally my fault made it completely unbearable.