His eyes turned suspicious, his voice stern when he spoke, “Now I know there’s something wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never heard you curse before.”
Desperately trying to distract him, I stroked his chest and said in a provocative voice, “I’m going to show you how sorry I am.”
His expression softened. He smiled and placed a soft kiss on my nose and taking my hand, led me out of the room.
* * *
There it was, on a small monitor, blinking in black and white. Life. A baby. My baby. It was official. I felt really pregnant. What the hell was I going to do? I started crying of course, for the millionth time in the past two weeks, trying to make up for the last six years during which not a single tear was shed. Dr. Rossetti squinted at the monitor.
“You’re further along than I thought…around six weeks.” Six weeks. When Sebastian was shot. The meadow. You play Russian roulette often enough and someone always ends up getting hurt…or pregnant. “Have you considered terminating the pregnancy?” Her tone was super gentle.
I looked at her sharply and covered my belly in reflex. “I’m Catholic.” Dr. Rossetti drew her gaze away from the monitor and met mine, then nodded. “But even if I wasn’t, I couldn’t do it.” My eyes returned to the fuzzy image on the screen. “Not after seeing this,” I explained, a small smile threatening to grow.
A tiny flutter, barely visible to the naked eye, yet there it undeniably was. For someone as calloused to the basic functions of the human body as I am––cutting open human cadavers tends to do that––I still couldn’t help staring in wonder.
“Is the father involved? Do you have a good support system?”
“He doesn’t know yet. I’m not sure how he’ll take the news. He’s been rather stressed lately.”
Our eyes connected in unspoken understanding. A child was a huge responsibility. A child to an unwed mother, on her own, spelled the end of any aspirations I had of becoming a doctor. I pressed my thumb and index finger to my brow, trying to stave off the dull ache growing there.
She removed the wand from my abdomen and printed out the ultrasound. I pushed down the paper gown. Suddenly the sound of the buzzing air conditioner seemed louder, an annoying distraction in my ear. I locked my muscles as goose bumps crawled all over my body. I never understood why examination rooms had to be kept at sub-zero temperatures. I felt cold, exposed, and very much alone at the moment.
“Get dressed and we can talk in my office.”
I nodded and she stepped out of the room. Dressing slowly, I put on the white, cotton blouse and pleated, navy skirt we bought at Akris, slipped on my nude Lanvin flats, and grabbed my Chanel purse, hooking the chain across my body. The word fraud kept booming in my head like the distant sound of canon fire. I looked down at the sonogram hanging limply between my fingers. What the hell did I know about babies…absolutely nothing, except for their biology.
I dragged myself to Dr. Rossetti’s office, knocked, and entered. She sat behind a contemporary, pale wood desk with a wall of books behind her and a picture window to her left. She took off her wire rimmed reading glasses and motioned for me to sit in the armchair opposite her.
“From the look on your face, I can assume you’re less than thrilled about this turn of events?”
“I’m still in a state of shock. I’ll let you know if I ever come out of it. My menstrual cycle has always been irregular, sporadic at best. There were years when I didn’t get it at all. And with my family history, I just assumed…”
“You’ll learn this quickly when you start practicing medicine. Never make assumptions.” I looked up and met her sympathetic gaze.
“Practice medicine? It looks like my life long ambition disintegrated with a simple blood test.” I held up the sonogram.
“Not necessarily, but we can only deal with the present. And at present, I suggest you start taking your prenatal vitamins. I can also recommend an excellent obstetrician. She’s a classmate of mine. You’ll like her.”
She handed me some paperwork regarding diet and vitamins and other information that soon-to-be-mothers needed. Soon-to-be-mothers…I suddenly felt queasy. After taking the name of the OBGYN she recommended, I left her office. As I walked out, I couldn’t help staring at my stomach––my mind struggling to connect the dots because it was still deceptively flat.
When I hit the street, I looked up and around, confused. It must have been the shock because I felt dislocated, outside of myself, watching life zip by as if looking through binoculars. How did it all come to this? I knew I should be happy, overjoyed…but I wasn’t. I was lost.