Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Not that all that matters so much because I wouldn’t be having morning sickness just a couple days after anyway. I’m pretty sure it must have happened while we were still on the boat, but—”
“Wait,” Danny cuts in, “right. Morning sickness. Maybe you throwing up is something else?”
“Whaddayou mean?”
“I mean, it’s not morning, so…”
Jesus, he’s so adorably stupid right now I just wanna punch the shit out of him and eat his whole head. “Dude, it’s just called that because… I don’t know why. But it can happen any time. Also, it’s morning somewhere right now and I’m not sure my body knows what time zone it’s in anymore. It barely knows what planet we’re on.”
He takes this all in and then says, “Okay. So. Let’s get you a pregnancy test ASAP.”
“K. But I’m not sure how we do that at present. You may have noticed we’re here.” I gesture.
“Yeah, well,” Danny says, standing up, his beautiful, naked form rising above me, “what did Nigel say? Tending to the passengers’ every want, need, and desire is the something or other of their service?”
“I don’t think that means—” But before I can finish, he’s off into the other room and I hear him pick up the phone. “Hey, Nigel? Yeah… No, it’s good… Is it possible you have a, uh, pregnancy test lying around somewhere?”
There’s a pause and I try to imagine what’s being said on the other end of the line. After a moment, I hear Danny say, “Hold on, lemme ask.” He pokes his head back into the bathroom and says to me, “Preference on which kind?”
“Seriously?”
“He says they have blood and urine—Oh, wait.” He listens to whatever Nigel’s saying now, then pulls the receiver away from his mouth again. “Never mind,” he says, “since there’s not a doctor on board he says he wouldn’t feel comfortable administering a blood test. You okay with a urine one?”
I stare at him a little dumbfounded, then say, “Yeah,” in a half-cough, half-whisper sort of a way.
“Yeah, Nigel,” he echoes into the phone, “that’s fine. Okay. Thanks.” He hangs the phone up and steps back into the doorway. “He’ll be here in a minute.”
Danny looks at me. I look at him. And then I ask, because I have to, “Still think this whole thing isn’t all that insane?”
He waffles for a tick before answering, “I hear your point.”
Placing the test stick on the edge of the basin, I feel a wave of anxiety sweep over me. I’ve done this before. And we all know how that ended. I chew at my nails.
“It’s gonna be fine,” Danny says. He’s dressed again. He threw back on the same clothes we came here wearing. Nigel noticed when Danny opened the door. He asked if we wanted them laundered, but Danny just took the pregnancy test, said thanks, and shut the door in Nigel’s smiling face.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Whatever happens, it’s gonna be fine. If you’re pregnant, amazing. If you’re not, well, we’ll just have to keep trying until you are.” He searches my eyes. “Hey,” he says, taking my chin in his hand. “It’s gonna be fine.”
“No sense worrying about the future?”
“Exactly right,” he answers, still smiling. “Or dwelling on the past. Not helpful.”
I appreciate him trying to be encouraging, but he wasn’t there. He didn’t see how awful it was. Wasn’t by my side when the doctor said, “Incompetent cervix,” wasn’t there to stare at the baby room we had all ready to go that would never have a child to put in it, never…
He just wasn’t there.
I remember that, at the time, I felt as though the baby I lost was really Danny’s. I had crafted some kind of narrative for myself that the child I was carrying was really to be Danny’s child. And I think I did that because he was gone. Because I wanted him to be with us and I missed him so badly. I suppose, in my mind, I concocted this story that once Danny found out Alec and I had had a child, that would be the thing that would bring him back to us.
I’d tell him that I had had it, it would compel him to return to our life together, and we’d live happily ever after. And the more I entertained that fantasy, the more I focused on the life that was growing inside me being ours. Mine and his.
But when I lost it, that daydream disappeared and the nightmare reality settled in. And in the stark light of inescapable truth, it was most definitely Alec’s. The miscarriage was all on him.
It wasn’t, of course, although the way he dealt with it was, and in those weeks and months after, all I wanted was Danny there to help me through. And since he wasn’t, couldn’t be, that’s when I went insane. Justifiable or not, I most certainly lost my shit there for a while.