Chapter 8 #2
“We have a program,” the nurse explained. “We give out free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds to low-income women under the age of thirty. I’m assuming you’re under thirty?”
“I am!” Sasha didn’t mean to raise her voice; she just couldn’t believe her luck. “And I’m definitely low-income. I’ll show you my pay stubs just to prove it.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” the nurse said. “But let me go talk to the doctor who runs the program. She’ll know more and hopefully we’ll be able to get something set up for you while you’re waiting.”
Sasha was no longer able to control herself; she reached out and hugged the woman as best she could with a full cup of coffee in her hand. “Thank you so much. You just saved me so much stress.”
“No problem,” the nurse said cheerfully. “I’m happy to help.”
*
It had been a week, and still Molly wasn’t able to leave the hospital.
Her infection seemed to be responding to antibiotics at first, but then the doctors suspected she had caught something else while there, and now she was almost as sick as when she arrived.
The only saving grace was that the medicine they had her on was alleviating her pain and keeping her fever in check, so she could have conversations with her daughter while they sat around for hours.
Though, Sasha would’ve called them spats rather than conversations.
“I just don’t understand how you let this happen,” her mom said. “You should’ve just gone into work. What good did it do, sitting around here while I was sleeping or whatever?”
Sasha scoffed. “Are you kidding me, mom? I had to be here! You’ve been basically on death’s door for the past week. I wasn’t going to bail on you just to save my job at the craft store.”
“But they fired you,” Molly said, as if her daughter didn’t already know that. “And you really liked working there.”
“I wouldn’t say I liked working there,” Sasha said. “It just wasn’t as bad as working in fast food. But it’s not the end of the world. Soon, they’re going to realize that they made a huge mistake letting me go. I’m the only one who isn’t afraid to clean the back room where all the spiders are.”
“I’m being serious, Sasha.”
“So am I!” Sasha doubled down. “I’m telling you, I’m invaluable and they’re gonna see that within a week.
Maybe sooner! Not to mention, they were short-staffed to begin with, and things always pick up going into summer.
If not then, during the fall they’ll need all hands on deck.
Really, I’m more worried about your job than anything else. ”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got it all figured out.”
“Alright, great. Then let’s stop talking about work. It’s just going to stress you out, which is the last thing you need.”
Molly shook her head but said nothing in response.
She was tired, Sasha could tell. And she hadn’t been eating enough.
She was allowed to eat solid foods at this point in her recovery, but she turned nearly every offer away.
After a week of nothing but IVs, ice chips, and some juice, she was starting to look very sallow.
“The doctors asked me if you had a favorite type of food or restaurant,” Sasha said. “They were thinking maybe I could bring you something that sounded appetizing. Can you think of anything?”
“Not really.”
“You need to regain your strength, mom. You’re never going to do that if you don’t eat something.”
“It’s not my fault nothing sounds good.” Molly sighed and let her head fall back into the pillows. She closed her eyes. “But I’ll try to think of something, okay?”
Sasha patted her mom’s hand. “That’s all I ask.”
They sat for a while in silence. There was a TV in the room, but Molly kept the volume muted.
She thought it was rude to watch it with the sound on when there was another person on the other side of a thin curtain.
Still, the subtitles were on, and they chuckled together every time one of the cast members of Cheers made a quippy remark.
After a while, Molly took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it.
“Sweetie, there’s something I need to talk to you about. ”
Sasha gulped.
She knows. Just like the nurse, she figured it out on her own. Oh god, she’s going to kill me.
“A–are you sure you want to talk about it right now?” Sasha said through a forced smile. “You seem like you could use some rest. Can’t it wait until we’re back home?”
Molly shook her head. “No, it can’t wait. I’ve waited long enough. And if this whole appendicitis debacle has shown me anything, it’s that life is short and you never have as much time as you think you do.”
“Mom, you’re kind of scaring me...”
“I’m not trying to scare you, honey, but just listen to me, okay? First, I want to say that I know you’re pregnant.”
Sasha drew back in shock. “You do?”
Molly laughed, then coughed, then laughed again.
“Yes, of course I do. We share a computer, remember? I logged in the other day, and you had left a page open about ‘early pregnancy symptoms.’ And then you were freaking out over getting a doctor’s appointment.
I may not have graduated high school, but I’m not an idiot.
I know how to put these sorts of things together. ”
“Right.” Sasha shifted in her seat a little. “So… are you going to kill me or what?”
“Do I look like I’m in a position to do anything to you?” Molly joked. This made Sasha smile. She never actually thought her mom would do anything to hurt her, but sometimes a scolding from a disappointed parent felt eerily like a slap to the face.
“But you are mad at me… right? Just making sure they didn’t do something irreversible to your personality while you were under the knife.”
“I was mad at first,” Molly said. “But honestly, I don’t have the energy for an emotion like anger right now.”
Lucky me.
“But being in this hospital room for the past week, I’ve had a lot of time to think about my own life choices, and it’d be a little hypocritical of me to be mad at you for getting pregnant when I got pregnant with you unexpectedly twenty years ago.”
“That’s a very good point.” Sasha laughed under her breath. “One that I was actually going to bring up when I thought this conversation would surely turn into a fight.”
“Yes, well…” Her mom grew quiet, contemplative for a moment, staring out the single window in the room.
It allowed some sunlight in, which was nice, but the view left much to be desired.
All they could really see was the brick outside of the building next door and maybe the occasional pigeon.
“There are some things I’d like to know, questions I want you to answer, but mostly I just want to make sure that you’re okay. ”
Sasha didn’t answer right away. She knew if she opened her mouth right then, she’d definitely get choked up. Eventually, she nodded.
“Do you want to have this baby?”
Again, Sasha nodded.
“Alright. Then I support your decision,” Molly said. “Does the father know?”
“No,” Sasha said, finally finding her words. “It’s just some guy who was passing through town with a couple of my old friends from high school. Trust me, he’s not the type who would want to be informed.”
Molly sighed. “Are you sure about that? Because these things have a tendency to come back and bite you in the ass.”
“Really? I thought you would’ve had the opposite opinion.” Sasha frowned. “I mean, you told dad about me, and he bailed, right?”
Molly looked down at her hands. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“How so?” This was the first Sasha was hearing of mitigating circumstances. As far as her mother and grandmother had always told her, Sasha’s dad was just some cheating deadbeat who didn’t want anything to do with Sasha.
“It’s just… It was a messy situation that I found myself in with your dad, and I knew it would’ve completely blown up his life if I told him I was pregnant, so–I—”
“You what?” Sasha was now outright glaring at her mother, which was not something she did often, if ever. “You didn’t tell him?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if I did,” Molly argued. “He had a family of his own and he never would’ve accepted you as his child.”
“What—what are you talking about?” Sasha rubbed her face a few times as her vision blurred. “He had a family? Meaning he was already a dad? I could’ve grown up with siblings?”
Molly shook her head. “No, honey. You’re totally misunderstanding.
Your father was separated from his wife, but they weren’t even technically divorced, and they weren’t even sure what they were going to tell their children.
He and I had a fun, but brief summer fling, and that was all it was supposed to be.
We were never in love, and it would’ve been unfair of me to do anything that might affect his relationship with his other kids. ”
“Unfair to who? Him?” Sasha laughed bitterly. “And what about what was fair to me? I lived my entire life without a father, and you want to talk about what’s fair? Did he have money?”
Molly didn’t answer.
“Mom.”
“He worked a good job, yes,” she admitted without looking Sasha in the eye. “But again, Sasha, you’re missing the big picture! He wouldn’t have taken care of you in any way, financial or otherwise.”
“How can you be so sure? You didn’t even give him the chance to step up and be a dad, did you?’
“I did this to protect you,” she insisted.
“And to protect myself. I didn’t want to invite some guy into your life who might not stick around, or whose other family might force him to cut you out.
Like I said, the situation was messy, and he had no idea what to do about the whole separation thing, if it would lead to divorce or what! ”
“This—this is insane.” Her mom tried to reach for her, but Sasha stood and dodged her hand. “I can’t believe this. You lied to me for my entire life. And grandma too?”
“I’m telling you the truth now.”
“It’s a little late, don’t you think?” Sasha scoffed.
Molly shrugged sadly. “I just thought it was important for you to know in case… in case anything happened to me.”
As much as Sasha hated hearing her mom talk like that, she was still too angry to offer any comfort in that moment.
She took a few deep breaths near the door to the room, getting ready to leave.
She turned the knob, but before she stepped out into the hall, she looked back at her mother one last time.
“What’s his name?”
“Hm?”
“My dad. What’s his name?”
“Are you going to go looking for him?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Sasha admitted. “But I deserve to have the option to find him. So, tell me his name and where I should go looking for him if that’s what I decide.”
“David,” Molly said in a soft voice. “David Ward. He lives in Ferndale.”