Unexpected Gifts

There were six different brands of pregnancy tests.

She read the boxes. Digital tests. Plus or minus tests. One box had three individual tests in it…for people who thought they were pregnant frequently? There was no way she would want to go through this sinking feeling more than once.

She studied the boxes. All claimed to be ninety-nine percent accurate.

She took the first box and threw it in her basket.

Just to be on the safe side, she grabbed a second brand and added it.

She started down the aisle. Surely, the tests would prove Dr. Benton was wrong.

But what if they were faulty as well?

She turned back and hurried to the display. She put one of each brand of test in her basket.

There. She’d take all of these and when all six told her she wasn’t pregnant, she’d call Dr. Benton and insist he either check the expiration dates on his tests at the office, or that he make an appointment for an eye exam.

Maybe both.

He was going to be embarrassed, she was sure. But she’d laugh it off, and make certain he understood she didn’t blame him.

Yes, tell him no harm, no foul.

By the time she got home she was feeling a surreal sense of calm. Everything would be fine once she peed on the six small wands. All of them promised results in three to five minutes.

She glanced at the clock. Dr. Benton would probably still be at his office. She’d call him right away so he could figure out what the problem was…faulty test or aging eyes.

She hurried into the bathroom and discovered peeing on sticks was infinitely easier than peeing in a cup.

She lined them all up on the counter and left, determined not to watch them. She didn’t need to. She knew what they were going to show—she wasn’t pregnant.

She stood outside the bathroom door, trying to decide what to do while she waited. Aimlessly, she went down the hall and thumbed through her mail that she’d set on the antique washstand she’d found last summer on her New England vacation with Arthur. They’d meandered with no real destination in mind, stopping in small towns and villages along the way.

She ran a finger over the stand, and couldn’t help it if her sleeve slipped up, exposing her watch. She didn’t mean to check the time and was disappointed to discover that only one minute had passed.

She walked through the house, feeling slightly removed—as if she were a visitor seeing it for the first time. She remembered every item, its history and any sentiment it carried.

Everything was orderly in her tiny, perfect-for-one-person, but not-for-a-baby house. There was her bedroom, with the froufrou pillows on the bed. Arthur hated them and felt that the few seconds she spent putting them in place every day were wasted time. It probably added up to an hour or more a year, he’d told her. Arthur was a big fan of time management, and try as she might, she couldn’t seem to convince him that time spent on aesthetics wasn’t wasted at all. She liked how the pillows looked on the bed, how the entire room’s decor came together. That was worth an hour of her year.

She peeked in her equally neat and appealing office. She’d spent three weekends stripping, then refinishing the oak floor. She’d used a high gloss on them and they truly shone. The deep red walls, the pulled back curtains…her office was an oasis.

This time she didn’t try to convince herself that glancing at her watch was an accident.

Two minutes to go.

She went to the kitchen, hoping she’d left a glass or plate in the sink, something she could rinse, but there was nothing.

Her house was too small, too settled for a baby.

She couldn’t be pregnant because she’d built a single person’s home.

She glanced at her watch again.

Finally knowing beyond any doubt just how Marie Antoinette had felt as she marched toward the chopping block, Eli opened the bathroom door, then one by one picked up the wands.

Pregnant.

Pregnant.

Pregnant.

Pregnant.

Pregnant.

Her hands trembled as she picked up the last one. One little stick of hope, which was the only branch she had left to hang on to.

Pregnant.

Shit.

Eli wasn’t sure how long she sat on the bathroom floor staring at that last stick. It was long enough for the realization to begin to penetrate, long enough that the ramifications of that stick, along with the other five, hit home.

She was pregnant.

Her feet were numb and tingling. One of the changes she’d noticed since hitting her forties was that she could only kneel for so long before all the blood stopped pumping into her legs.

She was well beyond her blood pumping limit.

And she was pregnant.

She wasn’t sure what to do. Who to turn to.

She wanted to cry, but had preached to her girls that news of a baby should never be greeted with tears. She’d had so many young moms in her office, crying their eyes out. She understood their feelings, but it struck her as a very sad way to welcome a child into existence, so she wasn’t going to cry.

But if she wasn’t going to cry, that left her nothing to do with the huge lump that was sitting squarely in the center of her throat.

What to do?

Call Tucker.

She made her wobbly feet walk into the living room and dialed her friend’s number. “Could you come over? I need you.” She’d known that would be all it took.

Tucker didn’t ask any questions, didn’t hesitate. “On my way,” she replied. That was like her friend. Tucker never expected anything from anyone, but gave unhesitantly to everyone.

Angelina Tucker was Eli’s inspiration for starting the teen parenting program. Sixteen years ago, Tucker had been a senior and Eli had been a teacher in the home-ec department for five years. That’s what they’d called it then. Now, it was family and consumer sciences.

When Tucker had found out she was pregnant, she’d come to Eli for help, and Eli had discovered how very few options and avenues there were for the young girl. She’d fought for Tucker and had become her advocate. The following year she began to put together a program for the entire district.