7.

Lasagna is just spaghetti flavored cake.

Dice

C YDNEY

The insistent knocking on my door brought me out of my coma-like sleep, which was the only defense I seemed to have against the demon that had taken up residence in my stomach and was intent on starving me to death.

I laid there for a few minutes, hoping beyond hope that whoever was trying to invade would take the hint and go away, but when the knocking started again, followed closely by my phone’s insistent ringing, I knew there was no escape.

For at least the millionth time this year, I thought of how wonderful it would be to live far, far away - in a place where no one knew me and the odds of something getting up in my business at the ass crack of dawn were damn close to zero. A place where I could have just a little peace and quiet between visits home that always reminded me of why I loved my new distant home so freaking much.

One thing I had learned in the last few days was to move slowly and methodically and to always pay attention to the early warning signs if I was lucky enough to get them before I started heaving up my toenails.

I slowly sat up and put my feet on the floor. After a few deep breaths, I stood up, not quite ready to believe my stomach wasn’t prepared to revolt. I gave that position at least a minute, letting gravity and the position of the moon in its lunar cycle, or some bullshit just as unlikely to affect me, fall into place before I slowly started walking down the hall to my front door.

Whoever was knocking and calling me at the same time, probably my sister because the girl had no sense of self-preservation at all, was going to experience my wrath the second I opened the door.

Forgetting all about my stomach’s imminent revolt, I threw the lock and yanked the door open, ready to start yelling but then swallowed hard when I saw who was standing on my porch.

“Mom,” I said, trying to choke down my anger at the intrusion. “Aunt Izzy. What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Mom asked as she pushed past me into my house. “I called you umpteen times this morning and never got a response. I finally called your sister only to find out that you’ve been sick for a few days, which made me worry even more, and then when I got here to check on you and you didn’t answer the door, I thought the worst.”

“She told you I was sick?” I asked. Aunt Izzy gave me an irritated look as she walked past me into the house and I asked, “What else did she tell you?”

“She didn’t tell us any secrets, but I heard what she said to your mom and instantly knew what was going on, so I brought you some remedies.”

“I’m sure it’s just a . . .”

My mom spun around and glared at me before she said, “I pride myself on the relationship I developed with my children, you girls especially, and one of the things most important to me is the fact that we don’t ever lie to each other.”

“Fuck.”

“How far along are you?” Aunt Izzy asked.

“In my defense, I . . .”

“No judgment about how, why, who, or whatever, Squid. I just want to make sure you’re okay,” Mom insisted. “Come sit down at the table and talk to your aunt while I make you a cup of tea and get some coffee started for us.”

I burst into tears and sat down as I started blubbering, wondering what in the world I was thinking three minutes ago when I wanted to move far away. All of a sudden, I imagined how horrible life would be if I didn’t have my mom, aunts, cousins, and friends nearby, and I cried even harder.

I realized I was acting irrationally, crying over something that was never going to change and that I had been bitching about for half my life, and then cried even harder because I couldn’t seem to shut the flood gates.

“How far along are you, Squid?” Aunt Izzy asked as she handed me a paper towel.

“A month.”

“You’re still barely pregnant,” Izzy said in shock. “What’s wrong with you?” She looked over at my mom and asked, “What’s wrong with her?”

“There’s no such thing as barely pregnant, Iz. Squid has always kept her emotions bottled up, and now that there are some roller coaster hormones in play, it seems that they’ve escaped,” Mom said worriedly as she and Aunt Izzy looked at me as if I were a specimen in a petri dish.

“That’s what it feels like. That’s what all of this feels like! I’m sick and worried, but I’m a little excited and terrified too. I didn’t even know his last name, but then I saw him on TV, and then he just showed up and I puked all over him and before I passed out again. He was so sweet, but he looked terrified, too, and he doesn’t live here, so there’s nothing he can do. I still don't even have his phone number, and I’m not sure how long he’ll be here, so how am I going to call him if I want to and do I even want to and does he even want me to and . . . What does this mean? Am I gonna have a baby with no father?” I asked before I wailed through a fresh round of tears.

“Okay,” Aunt Izzy said before she cleared her throat and leaned back in her chair. “Let’s take some deep, calming breaths and break this down one emotion at a time.” I had been forced to meditate with either my mom or my aunt so many times over the years that, without even thinking about it, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in through my nose and held it to a count of three before I pursed my lips and gently exhaled. “Good, honey. Again.”

I hated to admit it, but it did help. Of course, it didn’t cure my problems, but at least it helped me get enough oxygen in my brain to make me realize I was losing my shit over nothing I could fix right this second.

Or this month.

Or maybe even in this pregnancy.

What if I could never make it better? What if . . .

“I’m losing you, Squid. Do it again,” Aunt Izzy ordered.

“She’s nearly in full meltdown mode,” I heard my mom say before she put a cold washcloth on the back of my neck and squatted down beside my chair. She gently grabbed my chin and turned my face toward hers before she started breathing with me. After a few minutes, she smiled and said, “There you are.”

“I think I’m okay,” I said with a sniff as Mom wiped the tears off my cheeks.

“You’re better than okay, Squid. You’re gonna be a mom! I’m gonna be a grandma! How crazy is that?”

“That is batshit. Totally freaking crazy, undeniably insane,” I whispered through a fresh round of tears.

“It takes a little time for the reality of it to sink in, but once it does, you’re gonna be just fine,” Mom assured me as she stood up and went back to her tasks.

Within just a few minutes, I had a fresh mug of tea steeping in front of me and Mom and Aunt Izzy were sipping their coffee.

Finally, I asked, “What’s in the bag?”

“Home remedies, supplements, and other things that might help,” Aunt Izzy said as she started pulling bottles and baggies out of the cloth bag she’d brought. “I’ve got some fresh ginger root, ginger candy, peppermint oil and candy, ginger tea and another blend that really helped when I was pregnant. I also dug around and found the bracelet that helped me with nausea and . . .”

“A bracelet?”

“For the P6 point in your wrist. It sounds crazy, but it’s an acupressure thing that really works, I swear.” Aunt Izzy pulled a few more items out and said, “Here are some meal prep containers because you’ll need to eat small, bland meals throughout the day, some bananas, instant rice, crackers, and single-serving applesauce in different flavors.”

“Wow. Thank you,” I said as I reached out and picked up a piece of the ginger root. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Ginger is helpful with nausea. We’ve got the root, some candy, tea, crystalized ginger . . .”

“Izzy was so sick with True that she tried everything,” Mom explained as Aunt Izzy’s voice trailed off while she sorted everything into groups. “She’s an expert on this, believe me.”

“You’re handling this much better than I thought you would.”

“Did you expect me to freak out or something?” Mom asked. “Why?”

“I’m going to be a single mom. I know how hard that was for you, so I thought you might . . .”

My mom burst out laughing, and so did Aunt Izzy. Mom laughed so hard that she snorted which sent Aunt Izzy into a fit of giggles which caused her to snort. They were like their own giddy carnival sideshow at this point, and I was over it. I sighed as I started to stand, but Mom reached out and grabbed my hand as she tried to catch her breath.

“I’m not sure why either of you thinks this situation is funny.”

“You’re about as single as my left pinky toe, Squid!”

“What does that even mean?” I asked my mom.

“When I say I was a single mom, I mean that if you were going to eat, I was going to be the one who had to buy, prepare, and serve the food. There was no help from anyone anywhere, including your biological father and the people who lived in my house with me. Your situation is so opposite of the one I was in that it may as well be in another universe.”

“As much as you like to be alone, you’ve still got people crawling all over you all the damn time, much to your irritation and dismay,” Aunt Izzy pointed out. “So while you may be a single woman raising a child, you’re gonna have a support system that some people only dream of.”

“You’re also educated and gainfully employed at a job that provides an excellent income, and you’re a member of the board of your company and have a share in the profits. I don’t think you’ll have to scrounge and save to figure out how to afford to feed you or your baby.”

“And you’re more than ten years older than your mom was when she had you and won’t have to rely on the kindness of an elderly woman who probably shouldn’t be taking care of herself, let alone a toddler, for childcare.”

“Izzy is right, but that’s just icing on the cake, sweetheart. You’ve got the two of us, your sister, your bajillion cousins, aunts and uncles, good friends, and the women in your club to lean on.”

“By definition, you will be a single mother, yes, but that leads me to the next subject I’d like to bring up - who is the father?”

I felt my stomach start to roll, so I picked up a peppermint from the pile Aunt Izzy had created. As I unwrapped it, I tried to figure out the best way to tell them how I got pregnant and just decided to just throw it out there.

“The baby’s father is a man I had a one-night stand with in Vegas.”

I watched Mom and Aunt Izzy blink a few times as they processed that news and was glad that neither of them commented on it.

Mom broke the silence by asking, “You mentioned you saw him on television? Was it on the news?”

I burst out laughing and said, “He’s not a criminal, Mom! Well, at least I don’t think he is. Hold on. He’s friends with Tiny, and I heard him call him brother, so I guess he probably is a convicted criminal of some sort.”

“And Tiny is that big hunk of love who Amethyst is gaga over?” Aunt Izzy asked. When I nodded, she asked, “Does he look anything like Tiny? I mean physically.”

“He’s tall but not nearly as bulky. I mean, he’s very fit, but not like a gym rat. He’s more solid than anything, I guess. And his arms are just . . . They’re so . . . And with all that ink.” Even I could hear how dreamy and enamored my voice sounded, but I couldn’t help myself. To add to the effect, I used my hand to fan my face for a second while I got myself together before I said, “He’s gorgeous, tattooed, funny, and apparently very successful in his field.”

“And what is his field?”

“Hold on,” I said as I looked around for my phone. I remembered that I had left it in the bedroom, so I leaned back and grabbed my work satchel off the hook next to the back door. I logged into my laptop, and within just a few seconds, I had his biography and picture pulled up on the web page promoting the television show I had seen at the hospital the other night. I turned the laptop around so my mom and Aunt Izzy could see it and said, “This is Kenny.”

For the first time in my life, I saw my mom and aunt speechless. I wished I had it on video because no one who knew them would believe me if I tried to describe the moment.

They sat there staring at the screen in stunned silence for at least a minute before Aunt Izzy said, “Do me a favor, Squid.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Lie to me and tell me he has a thimble-sized dick, breath that can strip the paint off a car, and absolutely no idea what the word ‘foreplay’ means.”

I giggled, something that felt so foreign after the last few days, and then shook my head. “No to all of the above.”

The doorbell rang, and I glanced over to find the man we’d just been talking about standing outside the glass door looking in at me.

In what seemed like slow motion, a figure walked up behind him followed closely by another, and I realized that my life needed a soundtrack. The song playing a few minutes ago would have been dramatic but calming, and for the last few minutes, the tune would have been light and fun - something upbeat.

Right now, it would be dark and mysterious, building up to a crescendo that let whoever was watching know that something big was about to happen. Without thinking, I started humming the familiar tune that told the viewer Darth Vader was on his way, or, in this case, that Darth Vader and his trusty sidekick, Uncle Stoffer, had just walked onto the porch to assess the man there.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered as my stomach started to churn again. No amount of ginger or peppermint was going to help this time, so I jumped up and sprinted toward the bathroom, praying with all my might that I’d make it in time.

I had just hit my knees in the hall bathroom when I heard my dad greet my mom and cheerfully introduce her to the father of my child - the one that my dad didn’t even know about yet.

Somehow, that soundtrack I’d been imagining changed to a laugh track, and in the background was the sound of me losing not just the contents of my stomach but also the last shreds of my sanity.

Apparently, my life had just turned into a dark comedy, and all I wanted to do was go back to my regularly scheduled programming and a time when all I wished for was a little peace and quiet - because I was obviously never going to have that again.