4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

April

The phone rang in my ear, and once again, went unanswered. That was my last attempt to reach Richard. Today was my ultrasound appointment and I would go in there to find out what I was having without anyone by my side.

My mother would have been there for me, but she took a tumble two days ago and was on bedrest with a home nurse to make sure she stayed that way because she sprained her ankle on her strong side. There was no way for her to walk unassisted without doing further damage to herself.

I glanced up at the building that housed the Obstetrician’s office and blew out a shaky breath. “You can do this!” It had become a mantra I chanted to myself in my worst moments of self-doubt. I could be both a mother and career-oriented woman. There was little choice in the matter, since I couldn’t even get in touch with Rich to tell him he was going to be a father.

My mom was pushing for me to take a trip out to see him, but what would that look like? Did I show up to the office and bring drama to the doorstep? No matter what, I worked for the same business, so that didn’t sit well for me. Not knowing his home address should have been a red flag for me early on. Who doesn’t share that information with their significant other if they’re not hiding something?

Lately, I had been worried that maybe he was hiding a whole other life, but then I’d laugh it off because how would that even be possible? My demands on his time were ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine Rich having the patience to juggle some hidden wife or family in the background. A queasy feeling disturbed my inner peace with that thought, so I shoved it to the back of my mind once more as I entered the doctor’s office and checked myself in.

There was one other pregnant woman in the room who was by her lonesome while two happy couples sat grinning at one another. Watching a man worship his woman’s heavily pregnant belly was torment. I quickly looked away and found a pair of sad eyes that met my own. She stood and made her way to me. The woman’s golden, pin-straight, shoulder-length hair shined under the fluorescent lights that usually dulled everyone else’s color.

Her blue eyes sparkled as she took the seat next to me and held tightly to my hand. “My name is Mel, and you look about as miserable as I feel,” she insisted. The woman was my complete opposite in looks. Where I was dark, she was light. We did seem to have one commonality, though. We were both pregnant and at the obstetrician’s office alone.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Well, I think kindred spirits speak to one another.”

“I’m Aviva,” I told her. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes and my hand immediately recoiled from hers as she flinched back a bit. “Does my name offend you?”

“I’m sorry,” she insisted quickly while taking my hand in hers once more. There was never a time where I welcomed a stranger touching me in any way, but for some reason, this woman’s presence didn’t bother me. “Your name is odd, and I could have sworn I heard it somewhere before.”

“It was my grandmother’s name that my mother bestowed upon me. I don’t mind it so much now, but as a child, I tried out every nickname known to man.”

“Do you think our children will hate what we pick for them as much?” She asked with a grin while patting her slightly protruding belly.

“I think, like me, they will have to suck it up and learn to love whatever we give them.”

“How far along are you?” She asked after a moment of silence between us.

“I am nineteen weeks today according to the doctors and the last measurements they took. You?”

“Sixteen weeks, though I’ve had two children before, so I look more like I’m thirty weeks at this point,” she lamented. It was true, her belly had definitely popped further than mine.

“The father?” I asked, seeing that she wore a gold wedding band on a necklace.

“My husband.” There was a sort of coldness to the way she said the word, as if she wished it weren’t true. “He’s…” she started, then sighed before shaking her head. After she got control of whatever emotion was out of whack, she looked me in the eye to tell me the rest. “He’s a lying bastard, who I believe cheated on me, and I don’t want him here for this.”

“I’m so sorry,” I comforted her by patting the hand that held on to my other hand. “Why must men be complete and total shits?” I asked.

She chuckled at that, but then asked the pressing question of my baby’s paternity. “The father?”

My shoulders slumped forward. “Also, a bastard.” I don’t know what possessed me to open up to a complete stranger. I sat there and poured my heart out to her as one of the loving couples was called back to see their own bundle of joy.

“I was dating a man from work. He became my everything without me even realizing that he managed to sneak so deeply into my heart. You know what I mean? The romance between us was effortless. He travels for work, so at first, I only saw him one week a month, then every other week.”

“So, what happened?” She asked, and I could hear the hitch in her voice as she did so, as if she could truly feel my pain.

“We were supposed to go to dinner with friends from work for his birthday. I had everything planned, including the perfect gift. When we pulled up to the restaurant, he got a call and sent me in ahead of him because it wasn’t something he could ignore. When he didn’t come back in right away, our friend Cliff went to check on him. When they came back into the restaurant, he said we had to go, that he was needed back home.”

“I stayed behind with Cliff and Bridgette instead. They drove me to their home, and I realized that it was so he could clean out his things from my condo. When I got back, everything was gone. The few things that remained behind in the bathroom – I got rid of. The bastard didn’t even do me the courtesy of leaving my keys behind, so I had to get the locks changed. He never said one word to me. The asshole left with some sort of emergent situation going on, and then I found out I was pregnant the very next day.”

“So, you’re hiding it from him?” She asked.

I shook my head. “I tried to call. I even broke down and called the office several times. His secretary is quite good at dodging my calls for him and telling me he’s out of the office. He has the right to know that he’s going to be a father. It’s something we talked about because I can’t use birth control. We weren’t very careful, and he said if it happened, it would make him the happiest man on the Earth to have a baby with me.” The sniffles started then. I glanced up to see they weren’t just mine, but hers, too.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered while giving a reassuring squeeze to my hand.

“What can anyone say? I’ve resigned myself to being a single mom, and doing it with a broken heart, and no clue why this happened. He wanted me to move where he lived, so we could be together. I guess that’s why. I told him that it couldn’t happen because my mother is here, she won’t move, and she needs me. We’re all the family we have, and after her stroke, she can’t be alone much.”

“You poor thing. You’ll be caring for your mother and a brand-new baby by yourself?”

“Well, we have a home health nurse who splits time with me when I have to work and go to appointments. Mom just had a fall a few days ago, so I haven’t even been able to go back home to my place since then.”

“Aviva, do you think your baby’s father was cheating on you, too?”

A tear fell from my eyes. “Why else does a man ghost you when you think you’re living your happily ever after?”

She tsked and then released my hand only to pull me into an awkward side-hug. Awkward only because both of our bellies smooshed into the arms of the chairs we occupied, which thankfully changed our tears to giggles.

“I think you’re better off, since he’s obviously a coward.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” I said and nodded my head in the direction of the last couple who was getting up to go back to their own appointment. “Seeing their happiness reminds me of what I’ll never have, though. It makes it difficult to remind myself that he broke my heart.”

“I know.”

The nurse called out then. “Melanie Thomlinson.”

My new friend, Mel, stood and offered a wan smile before following the nurse through the door to her own appointment. My heart skipped a beat at her last name. That had to be a coincidence, right? I knew for a fact that Rich didn’t live here. He lived 600 miles away. If he’d been hiding a wife – another family since she said they had two children already – then they would be there. In his town, not here. It was a coincidence.

The first happy couple left the office, and I was called back for my appointment. I never saw Mel again and laughed at myself when the thought of asking who her husband was struck me. And what if the odds weren’t in my favor? Would her kindness die away as she realized I would have been the other woman? Her husband had been cheating on her – or so she thought. Sickness startled me and I launched for a nearby trash can only to have a nurse toss a bedpan under my face instead.

“Good reflexes,” I commended as the heaving stopped.

She grinned. “Occupational hazard. You learn to catch things quickly or enjoy cleaning up the mess.” Then the nurse pointed at my belly. “You’ll see soon enough. Some days, being a mom isn’t so far off from being a nurse.”

“I think you’re underselling your job there just a bit.”

“Hmm, wait until you’re an expert in how much medicine to give for fevers while cleaning up vomit and hosing down a baby who has pooped all the way up their back into their hair,” she warned.

“Aren’t you supposed to be encouraging new moms-to-be?” I asked with a laugh.

“I encourage through tough love and a whole lot of reality. You’ll do fine. Now, let’s get your weight and get you settled in the room, so you can say hello to your little one.”

An hour later, I left the office with five black and white photos of my little girl. My daughter would never know a day without love. She might not have a daddy – unless I could somehow get in touch with the bastard – but she would have me and I vowed to be everything she needed.

Still, finding out that the baby was a girl somehow made everything feel more real than it had before. I listened to her heartbeat, watched her wiggle her tiny little fingers, and saw that she was missing the parts that would determine a different sex. Rich might not be answering my calls, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still send a message.

When I got home, before I went into see my mother, I sat down and wrote a letter to Rich explaining that we were expecting a daughter around September 12th, then I enclosed one of the ultrasound pictures and addressed the letter to his work address before placing a stamp on it and taking it out to the mailbox for pickup.

“Aviva?” My mother called out in the slurred way she now spoke.

“I’m home. Sorry, had to mail something.”

“That man deserves more than a letter,” she insisted. If I hadn’t been used to the way she spoke, I wouldn’t have understood.

“Momma, if that man hadn’t left and ghosted me, he would already know about his daughter.”

“Daughter?” She asked with a twinkle of something wonderful in her eyes. I nodded and moved forward, so that I could hug her. The beautiful woman threw her good arm around me and gave two quick squeezes that seemed to be lacking in strength too, which concerned me. Another thing to inquire about when she saw her doctor again.

“I’m having a little girl, Mom.” I kissed her cheek as I pulled away and showed her the images. “I’m thinking about Janine Marie.” Her eyes misted immediately. “Jane Marie Acker belongs to you. Since she’ll have our last name, I want her to have something of her own while also carrying a part of you with her.

“Janine is beautiful. You are beautiful.” While the words didn’t come out sounding perfect anymore, the sentiment sure did. I felt my mother’s love in every awkward syllable.