LIZ
Chrissy had left in the middle of the night because of an Anni-and-the-baby emergency and I was left alone to deal with my own thoughts and fears.
“What if I’m pregnant?” I asked myself, staring at the sealed pregnancy test.
I had bought it on my way back from yesterday’s brunch, and I could still remember the strange feeling I had as I reached for it in the store. It felt surreal to actually be in a position to buy a pregnancy test. I was so close to knowing whether my dream was coming true and yet, there was as strong a possibility my dream would so far away.
I sighed. “Why the Hell not?” I thought and went into the bathroom.
I read the instructions and followed them to the letter, afraid not to get it wrong and ruin the test somehow.
“OK, this is not weird at all,” I encouraged myself. After all, it wasn’t unheard of for a woman to wait on a pregnancy test in her cold bathroom, at four in the morning.
I couldn’t move from my spot either, not to miss the moment it all came to a conclusion. My hands were shaking and I kept nibbling at my lip, but remained glued to the toilet seat with my eyes on the white and pink stick.
Then, there were two lines. I needed to read the result again and again, to make sure my eyes weren’t just seeing things. Immediately after realizing that there was nothing wrong with my sight, I fell into some sort of lethargy. Like I was seeing someone else’s life, not mine. The news was just too big and it too time for them to hit me.
And then, there were tears. I didn’t know how to stop them and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. They gave me relief.
“I’m pregnant,” I forced myself to say aloud. “Oh, my God, I am pregnant!”
The joy was finally settling in. I didn’t care about being alone anymore. I started jumping and skipping and dancing around the house, yelping and crying at the same time. I called John right away, but his phone went straight to voicemail.
“What a shame,” I said. But that didn’t change the fact that I was finally carrying his child. “Oh, my God, oh, my God!”
I remembered that, years ago, I had bought myself a stuffed toy that looked like a baby clown. I had liked it because it was a baby, but I chose the clown instead so I won’t look weird to the clerk.
The reason I remembered it was that it had real baby that came off. I used to hold them in my hand and ask myself whether I really wanted a child or not.
Now, I had found the perfect use for them. Off the toy they came and prettily arranged on the table they went. I was trying to place them the perfect way so that, when John came through the front door, it’ll be the first thing he saw.
This little activity gave me so much joy, I couldn’t stop giggling. I didn’t even realize that morning had come and the Sun was up and shining until my phone rang. It was my dad’s nurse, again.
“Yes?”
“Good morning, Miss White. Are you planning on coming to our offices today?”
“I didn’t think it was that urgent. I have a situation to sort at home, but I will be there as soon as possible. Is it an emergency?”
“Not anymore, Miss. You can postpone the signing but I think you should come by your father’s house.”
“Why? What happened?” My heart sunk, as I expected to hear the worse.
“He’s had another heart attack and has been requesting to see you all night.”
“Oh, God! Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“I’m sorry, Miss. Will you…”
“I’m on my way,” I cut her off. “You make sure to take care of him, you hear me?”
I hung up and ran to the front door, but remembering the good news I haven’t yet given John stopped me. From this angle, I could see the footies on the table clearly. All they needed was a note, so I ran back into the living room, scribbled the good news and placed the note between the footies.
I glanced at them one more time. “Now, time to go.” And so I did.
To make everything run as roughly as possible, the old truck failed to start for at least a dozen attempts. And then, when I was finally on the road, two of John’s brothers blocked my way.
“Now, you know we can’t let you leave, Lizzy,” said one of them, smirking at me.
“I will run you over,” was my polite reply, then I kept true to my word and stepped on the gas pedal.
Seeing that I was serious, the guys were then more willing to negotiate. We reached a compromise: they will let me go see my father and I will let them ride along.
And off we went.
I drove as fast as I could, but the old thing still didn’t go as fast as I would’ve liked it to go. And being flanked by two motorcycles didn’t help either.
“Annoying little pricks,” I mumbled and took the last turn before passing the city limits.
We swayed on the open road and I was glad there were no other cars around. My truck wasn’t capable of much speed anyway, having no obstacles to overtake helped.
From time to time, I would grin stupidly, whenever I would remember I was pregnant. It felt amazing to hold such a beautiful secret and I couldn’t wait to come back home to see John’s face. “Will he lift me up and swirl me around?”
I saw the intersection ahead and prepared to change lanes when I noticed three other motorbikes approaching from the distance, on the road ahead.
“Great, they called for reinforcements,” I thought, not accounting for the fact that they were coming from the wrong direction, and sped up so I could make my turn before meeting them. I glanced to my right, to gauge the distance so I won’t hit my biker companion, when I noticed he was slowing down and feeling for his gun.
“Oh, no.” I squinted at the other three motorcycles. They were within reasonable distance now and I could see they bore the Red Eagle insignia. “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit,” I started mumbling, trying to remember whether I had a gun in the car or not.
I tried to speed up and reach under the passenger seat at the same time, which wasn’t the smartest move. I couldn’t see if the gun was there so I was forced to slow down to check again. I bent down and stretched my hand. For a second, I couldn't see the road and was afraid of crashing the car. Fortunately, I didn’t crash it, but that was mainly because two deafening explosions made me cringe and lift my foot off the gas pedal. The car stopped, but I didn’t want to see if what I thought had happened had, indeed, happened.
Then, the door on my side flew open and someone grabbed me.
“Come on, princess,” the man said with a chuckle. “You have a debt to repay.”
“Get off me, asswhole!” I screamed and tried to claw at his face. I managed just a scratch before he slapped me down. As I fell to the grown, I saw him going for a kick and instinctively balled up to protect John’s unborn baby. I didn’t care about the excruciating pain radiating from my shins, I was only happy he couldn’t touch my child.