The Knocked Up Plan(47)
I swallow past the dry, scratchy feeling in my throat, and let out a quiet whoop of excitement for my girl. I mean, for the woman I knocked up. She’s not my girl. She’s not my woman. She’s not mine.
I pick up the phone and call her. When she answers, she’s like a whole new woman. “It worked!” she shouts.
“So I gathered. That’s fucking awesome.”
“I am so unbelievably happy.”
“You are going to be one hot mama.”
She giggles. “And you are one sexy . . .” She stops herself from saying dad. “Sexy man. Do you want to come join us? I’m with my mom, and we’re having lunch.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
There’s a rustling sound, then another voice, older and confident. “Ryder, I hereby command you to meet us for lunch. I’m becoming a grandmother, and I must thank you in person.”
Her tone brooks no argument.
Fifteen minutes later, I walk into a nearby cafe and scan the tables for Nicole. Her back is to me, and she’s in a booth, seated across from a handsome older woman who looks like what I suspect Nicole will look like in twenty-five years.
I zoom in on Nicole’s mane of red hair—hair I’ve had my hands tangled in, hair I’ve pulled and yanked, hair I’ve stroked when comforting her.
That red hair is her signature. She could have a child with that hair color. Or, I think as I drag my hand through my own hair, with mine. The life in her belly, the size of a chickpea or a fingernail or however those things are measured, already has our DNA—my genes twisted with hers to create the blueprint for another human being.
It’s staggering.
It floors me.
I grab hold of the hostess desk. A young woman with a sleek ponytail asks how many in my party. I don’t answer. My world comes to a standstill. Everything’s a blur. I’m not sure how to speak. How to walk. How to talk. The enormity of what we’ve done slams into me, and this must be what shock feels like.
Like a vibration in your body.
Like your blood slows.
Nicole is going to have a baby, and I’m the father.
But I’m also not the father at all.
Not in the least.
Nicole’s mother spots me and says something to her daughter. The woman I’ve spent so many nights with jerks her gaze around. When she sees me, her eyes dance, even from all the way across the cafe.
She jumps up from the booth.
I snap out of my slow-motion haze as Nicole rushes across the cafe, weaving through the tables. When she reaches me, she ropes her arms around my neck.
“Thank you,” she says, breathlessly. “Thank you so much.”
I bring her closer, hug her tighter. I can feel the happiness radiating off her in waves. It’s a palpable thing. It has its own energy, its own temperature.
When she lets go, she takes my hand and guides me to the table.
“So, this is the man who’s making me a grandmother.” Her mother greets me as if I’m some kind of conquering hero.
I join them, and it’s like I’m me, but I’m also not me. I don’t know how I fit into this scenario. My part is over, like a character in a play who was killed off in the first act.
My role in the story of her life has ended.
Twenty-Five
Nicole
There’s a new member of my life.
I’ve gotten to know her quite well during the last five weeks. Her name is Grace, short for “saving grace.” I hug her, resting my cheek against the porcelain bowl.
We’re so tight these days that I just shared my dinner with her. Though, to be fair, dinner is a rather generous term to describe the meal I had tonight.
An apple and peanut butter.
By my rough estimate, there is about ten percent of it still left inside me. I wait for my Rosemary’s Baby to heave it out of me. I picture her or him down in my belly, having a conniption fit, tossing furniture, bureaus, whatever he or she can get her baby claws on.
When I saw my doctor earlier this week, she assured me this level of morning sickness is normal.
I told her we might have different definitions of the word “normal.”
She said it was perfectly reasonable to barely keep a thing down, and that my body was producing all the nutrients my Rosemary’s Baby needs, even if crackers and bread are the only food items my body will accept. She laughed when I used the name of the spawn-of-Satan baby from a famous horror flick for my unborn child. Obviously, my baby is truly an angel, but sometimes the behavior in my belly is devilish.
I asked my doctor how long morning sickness lasts.
“Till about the twelfth week,” Dr. Robinson told me with the cheery smile on her face that never seems to disappear. I surmised she’s never been a host for a parasite baby, but then she went on to inform me she had morning sickness for all four of her pregnancies.
“Four? You had three other ones after the first?”
She patted my hand. “Just wait till you get to labor, honey.”
She sent me on my merry way, and here I am, with three more weeks left of morning, noon, and night sickness. It’s the worst at night.
But even as Rosemary’s Baby mercifully holds on to the remaining ten percent of my dinner, I wouldn’t change a thing. Because the baby is healthy and that’s all that matters.