“Debra, are you okay?”

No, I wasn’t. Not really. I’d driven the four hours from Denver to Pagosa Springs despite promising Lucas I would take a flight. The driving was therapeutic and I liked being on the road with nothing and no one but my own thoughts for company. But it had gotten tedious and stopped being fun halfway there, though. I’d been so tired and my back ached. At one point, I had to pull over in a parking lot and take a nap. I hadn’t thought how being almost four months pregnant would affect me driving such a long distance.

It might have been the hormones, but as soon as my father met me in the hallway, I started tearing up. I did try to blink it away, but his question only made it worse and for the first time that I could remember since I was ten, my father pulled me into his arms and I cried. I was upset that I cried so easily these days and couldn’t stop.

“God, Debra, you look exhausted,” he commented putting me away from him. “Let me get your bag. You go right to bed and lie down. You are just about ready to drop.”

I smiled wanly at him. “Thanks, Dad.”

I did what he suggested and went straight to bed. I was knocked out as soon as my head touched the pillow.

When I woke, it was to discover it was a new day. I took a quick shower and went to the kitchen to make myself some breakfast. I felt as though I was starving, my body’s reminder I had slept through dinner the evening before.

“Good morning, Dad,” I greeted him, entering the kitchen. He was drinking a cup of coffee and had a plate of half-eaten breakfast in front of him while he went through the local paper.

“Good morning.”

Sensing the awkward silence that would reign between us, I struck up a conversation with him, asking about work while I whipped up breakfast for myself. When I sat before him with a mountain of pancakes, bacon and eggs, he gave me a weird look.

“Well, I didn’t have dinner,” I reminded him.

“Is that all?” he asked.

I chewed nervously on a piece of pancake. “What do you mean?”

“You came home crying yesterday, Debra, then slept all afternoon into this morning.”

“The ride was exhausting.”

“Are you fighting with that boy Lucas again?” he enquired. “That’s the last time I saw you looking this glum.”

I didn’t respond but continued eating my breakfast in silence. He returned to his newspaper and I cleaned my plate. If I continued eating like this, I would end up being a pig by the time I delivered this baby.

“Dad, there’s something I need to tell you.” I sighed when he drew back his chair to get up from the table.

“Hmm. I’ve been waiting for you to come out with it.”

“Out with what?”

“You’re pregnant.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to him about. I wanted to mention visiting my mother. How had he guessed, anyway? And if it was so obvious to him, why hadn’t Lucas been able to tell?

“I hoped you’d deny it,” he mentioned. “The minute you walked through that door, I could tell. You reminded me of your mother when she was pregnant with you.”

I groaned. “I was hoping I didn’t have to tell you yet. I didn’t know what to say to you. I figured you’d be disappointed, would probably tell me I’m ruining my life.”

“I can’t deny I am alarmed,” he admitted. “This is the last thing I expected when you left for Denver. But you’re grown now, Debra, and I can’t tell you what to do with your life, or whether or not you should have a kid. It’s up to you. And the father.”

“I haven’t told him.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell him? Lucas is the father, isn’t he?”

I nodded. “But he doesn’t want a baby. On several occasions, he’s commented that a baby would ruin his life.”

“It doesn’t matter what he said. The fact is, there is a baby and he has to deal with it as a consequence, just as you do.”

“I’ll deal with it in my own time.”

“I don’t agree with you, Debra.”

“You don’t have to,” I returned stubbornly. If there was one thing I wouldn’t back down on, this was it. “You just said I’m grown and the decision is mine to do what I want and right now, it’s best Lucas doesn’t know about the baby.”

“Fine.” He got up from the chair and brought his dish and teacup to the sink.

“But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said slowly. “I met mom.”

His back went rigid and his hands stilled while washing up the plates. Then he resumed the motion like nothing was amiss.

“Okay,” he commented.

I plunged ahead. “Don’t you want to know how it went?”

He spun around to face me, his effort to try and control his temper making his face strained with emotions.

“If you want a relationship with that woman, it’s up to you. I don’t want to hear about it.”

I ignored his warning. “She’s no longer married. She’s single.”

“Dammit, Debra. I don’t care to talk about your mother.”

“But she seems to regret leaving me. You too.”

Angrily, he stalked out of the kitchen, water dripping to the floor from his hands that he hadn’t bothered to wipe with the kitchen towel. I winced at the sound of the front door slamming. What had I intended to do by bringing up my mother’s marital status? I was twenty-one and too old for the Parent Trap mentality, but as long as they were both still single, why not? I continued talking with Claire almost every day and she was cool.

Having finished my breakfast, I stood and had to grab the table as a blinding headache pierced my skull and my vision darkened. It slowly cleared but the headache remained. Remembering my last frightening experience which had landed me in the hospital, I placed the dishes in the sink without washing up and went straight back to bed to lie down.

The phone rang and it was Lucas, but I ignored it. He didn’t fully get what I meant when I’d told him we needed a break. He still texted me or called me, or sent me voice notes and GIFs. I thought about him telling me he loved me often. I never expected that and would have responded if my mother hadn’t warned me about the Caine men and then him seeming to prove her right when he had another girl in his dorm though he claimed she had been uninvited.

Lucas did go from one woman to another quickly. Before we got together as a couple, wasn’t that the impression I’d have of him, anyway? Why had I changed thinking it wouldn’t apply to me? Because I was the one dating him now?

I fell asleep wondering why I still felt so exhausted after the hours of sleep I had gotten before.

My dad and I walked on eggshells around each other since I brought up my mother. I barely saw him though we were in the same house. I slept in and he was gone most mornings when I woke up and got in very late. Sometimes, we shared dinner and other times, I couldn’t wait and ate before he got home, showered, and went to bed. Claire called me a few times and sometimes, I answered, but other times, I let it go to voicemail. Once, after walking into the living room and hearing my end of the conversation with her, Dad walked out. He’d come home that night drunk and I knew he wasn’t over her.

Having scheduled a visit at one of the local prenatal clinics the day before I was scheduled to leave for Denver, I drove the short distance to THRIVE, a free prenatal clinic for pregnant women in Pagosa Springs. I could have visited a private clinic but didn’t want to spend too much considering I didn’t have a job anymore. I was hoping the obstetrician I would see would give me good news that I was out the woods and would be able to start working again.

My other option would be to accept money from Lucas which he offered from time to time but which I turned down. Allowing him to pay for everything when we went out was different. Him buying a car for me was different, but accepting the cash itself felt weird. It also reminded me of the way he had thrown money at me to buy the contraceptive pills. I’d hated the way he made me feel then and didn’t want to feel that way ever again. Although he’d apologized for it, it wasn’t something that could easily be forgotten, being treated that way.

Because it was a free clinic, I had to wait as they queued us in by the time of arrival. Over twenty names were ahead of mine and I occupied my time reading some of the pamphlets a nurse handed out to us. Reading the information and seeing the various stages of pregnant women, everything started feeling real.

I am going to have a baby. I discovered so many things I didn’t know which made me question how prepared I was to have and keep this baby. I was four months pregnant and I hadn’t started thinking about buying the items the baby needed. How was I going to do all this without Lucas’ help? I wouldn’t be able to stay in the dorm with a baby. I couldn’t rent an apartment in the city, either. Where would I get the money? And even if I did work fulltime, I wouldn’t make enough to pay for child care, rent, utilities…the list went on.

I couldn’t do this without Lucas. But if I asked him for money for all the above that I needed, he would only believe the worst. His words came back to me. I’ll fight you every step of the way if a kid comes out of this and you try to get child’s support. Would his proclaimed love for me negate that threat?

“Debra Hoskins.”

From the way the nurse looked at me when I stood, I figured she had called my name several times before I had acknowledged her. She led me to a room where she had me complete a urine sample and checked my weight, height, and temperature, which she claimed were standard procedure.

I was then led to a small examination room where I was told to strip from the waist down and use the white sheet provided as a cover. A doctor would be with me shortly.

I had already been through this routine at the hospital when I almost miscarried, but this time felt different. Then, I had been too consumed with worry over losing my baby to give thought to undressing and the prodding and checking.

After a five-minute wait, a male doctor in his thirties entered the room.

“Miss Hoskins?” he asked, checking the chart he brought along with him.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“All right, why don’t you tell me how you’re doing? Everything okay with your pregnancy? Any cause for concern?”

He kept asking me questions as he did his check-up, a good source of distraction from what he was doing. The most moving part for me was the ultrasound and seeing my baby on the screen. I couldn’t stop staring. Lucas and I had created that. If he were with me, he had to feel the same love for this baby that I did. He had to.

“And will you look at that?” Dr. Tufton announced. “This little one is ready for mommy to know his sex.”

The fact he said ‘his’ sex, gave it away. I stared at him in disbelief.

“It’s a boy? How can you tell? Isn’t it too early?”

“It’s rare to find out the sex of a baby at sixteen weeks,” he stated. “But two factors are in your favor. It’s easier to tell when it’s a boy and the fetus is also in a very good position where we can see the formation of the genitalia clearly. Look.”

I nodded in awe although I couldn’t see what he did, but he sounded confident so I decided he must be right. He was the doctor. He should know. A boy! I could scarcely believe it when he walked to a desk in the room and advised me to get dressed. I moved in a lethargic state and winced at the feel of a headache building again. Maybe I should ask if it was normal to have these symptoms while pregnant. The headaches were acting up with more frequency.

“I’d like to take your blood pressure again,” he told me when I sat across him.

“Okay.”

He took down the readings before he looked up at me with a frown. “You’ve high blood pressure which we will have to monitor as you get closer to your twentieth week.”

“But I’ve never had a problem with my pressure.”

“Pregnant women sometimes develop what we call gestational high blood pressure,” he explained. “It occurs frequently for a woman’s blood pressure to show some abnormalities, whether its low or high, but this is monitored more vigorously if high blood pressure continues into your twentieth week. Then it becomes complicated as preeclampsia.”

As I listened to the doctor filling me on my high blood pressure, fear got a hold of me. He was trying to be light, but I noted his concerned expression. When he suggested I purchase a home blood pressure monitor, I felt the gravity of the situation.

Leaving the clinic was a bitter-sweet experience. I’d seen my baby for the first time, but now I was troubled that my pregnancy might be more complicated than I’d thought.