Читать книгу The Choices We Make - Karma Brown, Karma Brown - Страница 23

14

HANNAH

We’d been living together for three months, dating for six, when I realized I was late. The first few days I ignored it; then a few days later I double-checked the calendar to be sure I had counted properly. Then I looked through my pills, and in horror discovered I’d missed a day. I was so panicked I didn’t even tell Kate.

Ben knew something was up and kept asking if anything was wrong—clearly I wasn’t hiding my anxiety well. I said things were fine, just stress at work because I was up for a promotion, which I didn’t end up getting.

At the two-week mark I told Ben I had an off-site meeting so we couldn’t commute in together, kissed him goodbye, then called in sick the moment he left the apartment. After buying as many pregnancy tests I could fit in my hands at the pharmacy—five—I went back home, where I hoped to prove I wasn’t about to become a mother.

It was too soon. We hadn’t seriously talked about marriage, let alone kids. I hated my job at the newspaper, creating and testing recipes the guy with the byline took credit for, but knew it was a necessary stepping-stone. I was taking night classes to become a pastry chef and wasn’t ready to trade any of that for diapers or late-night feedings. And I’d started rowing again a few mornings a week, liking how taut my stomach had become as a result. I didn’t want a baby, didn’t see how a baby would fit into our lives—not yet.

Ben came home early—around three in the afternoon—and about one minute into the wait for test number five. A nearly empty two-liter bottle of soda was on the bathroom counter beside four used test sticks, all with two blue lines.

I was pregnant.

I heard the front door unlock. I froze, clenching test number five—which also turned out to have two blue lines—in my hand. “Hannah? Where are you?” Ben called down the hall.

“Bathroom!” I shouted. Our first apartment was so small you could literally get from one end to the other in mere seconds.

“You weren’t answering your phone, so I tried you at work. Rebecca said you called in sick?” His voice got louder as he came closer to the bathroom. “Why didn’t you call me?” We were still in that sweet spot of our relationship, when the sniffles that sent me back to bed warranted a call to my boyfriend, who would worry and fawn over me and make me his mom’s pepperpot soup and leave work early to pick up aspirin and cough drops. Not that Ben wasn’t caring now, because he was still concerned if I wasn’t feeling well, but we had moved past the soup and care package delivery and into the more realistic scenario of a “feel better” text and finishing out the workday.

Ben knocked on the bathroom door.

“Just getting out of the shower,” I said, eyeing the mess of test-stick packaging all over the floor. “Give me a second.”

I heard him retreat and quickly shoved the test sticks back into the boxes, then crumpled them all up into the plastic pharmacy bag, which I shoved to the bottom of the trash can. I dumped out the rest of the soda and stuck the empty bottle under the counter, reminding myself to throw it down the garbage chute later.

When I came out of the bathroom five minutes later, Ben jumped up from the couch and walked toward me. He had loosened his tie and held a paper bag in one hand. He looked me over, trying to figure out what was going on, and placed his palm against my forehead. His hand smelled like soap and felt cool against my skin.

“I’m fine.” My voice wavered, and I cleared my throat. “Just a touch of the flu I think.”

Ben looked at me strangely. “I thought you were in the shower?”

“I was. Why?”

He ran his fingers down my hair. “Your hair isn’t wet.”

I opened my mouth to explain—just say you wore a shower cap—and then closed it again, thinking maybe now was the time to tell him about the five positive pregnancy tests in the trash. “Right. The shower.”

“What’s going on, Hannah?”

“Nothing,” I said, too fast and too high-strung. He noticed and swallowed nervously. It occurred to me he thought maybe I really was fine, but that something was wrong between us. “I promise. Everything is okay. Aside from whatever virus has taken over my body. Speaking of which, what’s in the bag?” I asked, reaching for it and opening it up.

“Some throat lozenges, aspirin and those fizzy tablets for your stomach. Oh, and a Snickers bar,” he said with a smile. “I was trying to cover all the sickness bases. And the chocolate bar is for me because I missed lunch.”

“Thank you.” I kissed him, then apologized for probably getting him sick—he didn’t need to know that would be quite impossible. “You are the best boyfriend ever.”

“I know,” he said, winking. “Now get on the couch and let me take care of you.” I raised my eyebrows, and he laughed. “I was thinking some tea and aspirin, but I’m open to whatever might make you feel better.”

I dutifully drank my tea and took the two aspirin he gave me, then let him snuggle me on the couch under hot blankets while we watched too many hours of television. But while I lay there in his arms, laughing at the television as if I was actually paying attention, all I kept thinking was how badly I had messed everything up.

* * *

For a week I panicked about the pregnancy. I told no one, including Kate, because I wasn’t yet sure what I wanted to do. I’m embarrassed to admit I even flipped a coin—three to one for keeping the baby, though I was never any good at sticking to coin tosses. In truth I was terrified by both prospects: becoming a mother or choosing not to.

But luckily—or unfortunately, as I’d say now—it wasn’t my choice to make. My body chose for me, and two weeks after those five positive pregnancy tests, I miscarried. There was a disturbing amount of blood, and cramping intense enough to send me to bed early in the afternoon with a hot water bottle, which is where Ben found me after work.

“Are you not feeling well again?”

“Not really,” I said, sitting up and plopping the hot water bottle to the side.

“Maybe you should go to the doctor?” He looked worried. “It’s been over a week.”

My guilt kicked into overdrive. “I’m not sick. But I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.” Ben sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand up and down my bare shin, his forehead crinkled in anticipation of whatever I was about to say.

I took a deep breath. “I was pregnant.”

He stared at me for a moment, his mouth open in surprise, before asking, “Was?”

“I miscarried this morning.” I picked at some lint on my shirt, left there from the hot water bottle’s fleecy cover. I expected him to ask if I was okay, what happened, how I was feeling about it all, if I needed anything. Those were the questions I was ready for.

“You didn’t tell me.” It was a statement, wrapped in frustration.

“No, I’m... I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“How long?”

“What?”

“How far along were you?” Ben’s jaw was tight, his hands now on his lap instead of touching my leg. I knew the question he was really asking.

My voice quieted; my heart beat hard in my chest. “I found out two weeks ago.”

He looked up at the ceiling and exhaled loudly. “How could you not tell me, Hannah?”

I started to cry, the first tears I’d shed since finding out about the pregnancy. “Honestly? I didn’t know how I felt about it. And I wanted to figure that out first. But I guess none of that matters now.”

“Does Kate know?”

I shook my head. “No. I didn’t tell anyone.”

Ben nodded, and I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. At least he didn’t look as mad as before. He didn’t say anything for so long I started to get antsy, needing us to get to the part where he forgave me and we could move on.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked.

I lay back against the duvet and closed my eyes. “Yes,” I said. He shifted to lie beside me on the bed, then handed me my hot water bottle, which I pressed onto my painful abdomen.

I swallowed hard, my next words coming out in a whisper. “What if I’m a crap mother, Ben?” My own mother had done what I considered to be a satisfactory job, but she probably wouldn’t win any parenting awards. In fairness, she had raised my sister and me mostly alone, and we hadn’t made it easy on her. I had also spent enough time with Kate and young Ava—who had just yesterday flushed an entire roll of toilet paper down the powder room toilet, resulting in a very expensive plumber visit—to question if I was cut out for motherhood.

Ben laughed a little when I told him about Ava and the toilet paper, which for whatever reason made me cry harder. Probably because I knew then he wasn’t going to storm out of the bedroom and leave me to my cramps and tears and regret. “Everyone thinks they’d be a shitty parent, Hannah. That’s what helps keep you on guard to try and do the best job you can.” The tears came faster, hot and fresh. “If you think you’ll be stellar, you get cocky and miss things. People have been doing it forever. You’ll figure it out.” I almost believed him. “You’ll be a great mom, and I can’t wait to watch you in action one day.”

I blew my nose, honking into the tissues he handed me.

“I want you to promise me something.”

“What?” I blew my nose again.

“If you’re not okay, or freaked out about something, you have to tell me. I know you have Kate, and Claire in an emergency.” I snorted. Claire was pretty low on my who-to-call-in-an-emergency list. “But I’m not going anywhere. I love you. And for what it’s worth? I know having a baby right now wouldn’t have been ideal, but we would have made it work. So, promise me. Nothing but the messy truth from here on out, okay?”

“Okay.” I nodded. “Nothing but the messy truth.”

Except I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.

What I never told Ben, or even Kate when she hugged me later that day after I confessed to her as well, was that when I realized I was losing the baby I didn’t feel sadness, or despair, or even loss... I felt relief.

I was relieved I wasn’t going to be a mother.

And that’s the sort of messy truth you keep to yourself, because perhaps that one time when you whispered, “Please, I don’t want to be a mother...” to the universe, it thought you meant forever.

* * *

A few days after the Lyla and restaurant incidents, Ben and I were sitting in Dr. Horwarth’s office getting the news I knew was coming but was still not ready to hear. How do you prepare for the brutal reality of being told you will never carry your own child? You can’t, I realized, as his words washed over me along with the sensation of drowning—I was circling the same stupid drain I’d been circling since that first negative pregnancy test, all those years ago. Except this time there was no rescue mission planned, no life vest, nothing to keep me from sinking straight down to the bottom.

“Remember at the beginning of all this how I suggested you draw a line in the sand, deciding how far you’re willing to go and what you’re willing to put your body through to make it happen?” Dr. Horwarth clasped his hands on his desk, his face gentle with understanding.

But while he might have understood what we were feeling on an intellectual level, the pictures of his smiling family displayed on the corner of his desk suggested he really didn’t get it, couldn’t get it.

“I remember,” I said, my voice breaking. Ben held my hand, like I expected him to, like he knew he should and had so many times before. But it brought me no comfort today.

“I’m wondering how close we are to that line now. I’m willing to keep trying. We can do another round of IVF...but I’ll be honest,” Dr. Horwarth said, pausing for a moment. “I’m sorry to say I don’t expect to have different results than what we’ve had.”

I was so filled with anger—at my body, at Dr. Horwarth, at Ben for sticking through this with me when he should have left to find a wife who wasn’t barren, at the woman in the waiting room who was having a hushed but excited conversation on her phone while she stared at her ultrasound photo, a smile stretched wide across her face. And tickling the edges of that anger was such a deep pain I was afraid of what would happen to me if I let it take over.