Chapter Twenty-Two
ELLIE
18 years earlier
I got on an earlier flight, and I made it home, taking a taxi back to my house because Dad wasn’t expecting me this early. I borrowed the rearview mirror from the driver to check my face; it was hopeless, I had cried so many tears on the plane that I think my eyes are permanently red and puffy.
I paid the driver and thanked her, then took my house key out of my purse and walked in through the front door. Dad jumped up from his desk chair, surprised to see me, I knew he saw my face and I knew he had questions, so I walked over and hugged him, squeezing tight.
“Hi Daddy, I’m home early, I know. I have so much to tell you but I’m just exhausted and want to take a shower right now, is that okay?”
“Of course, it’s okay. Tell me all about it when you’re rested.”
He held me at arm’s length, looking me over and taking in my disheveled hair and wrinkled clothes. I saw the concern on his face and knew he saw how swollen my eyes were, but I ducked my head before nodding and walked upstairs.
“Ellie, where is your suitcase?”
he called after me.
“It’s still at Steff’s.”
I say.
“Maybe she can ship it, or she can keep it, I don’t really care.”
I stripped off the clothes that I wore the last time I saw Lee, the same clothes that I wore with … him. I tossed them in the bathroom trash can. I don’t want to remember those things the next time I pull them out of my closet. I would have burned them, but Dad would have smelled the fire for sure.
I took the longest shower I’ve ever taken, letting the scalding water turn cold before I turned the faucet off and stepped out. I stood on the bathmat, water dripping off my hair and down to the floor. It reminded me of Lee. How am I going to get through this if I can’t even shower without thinking of him?
In my comfy jammies, I laid on my bed, thankful that I put fresh sheets on it before leaving for my trip. I curled up into a ball and cried for the millionth time, not even sure how I had any tears left to cry.
I don’t know how long I slept when my eyes fluttered open at the sound of Dad knocking on my door.
“Dinner’s ready, Ellie.”
He said from the hallway.
“I’m not really hungry.”
I answered, not moving from my bed.
“Okay, I’ll put your plate in the fridge in case you want a midnight snack later.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
* * *
Later that night, I crept downstairs, not wanting to wake anyone in the house, I don’t even know what time it is, but my stomach is growling something insane, and I need some food. At the bottom of the stairs, I heard a voice talking low. It was Dad, he was on the phone with someone. I stood there, back to the wall, hiding in the corner of the staircase and listened as he talked to Steff. I could only hear his side of the conversation, but I got the gist of it well enough. Steff was telling him that something happened at the goodbye party, and I’m sure she mentioned that I ran off, somehow making it to the airport, but she and Lee didn’t get there in time to see me off because I got an early flight. She must have told him that the whole summer was great up until last night because he wasn’t angry after he asked if it was like that all summer. He nodded a few times and then said he would talk to me when I woke up in the morning and figure out what to do. I abandoned my need for food and ran back up the stairs, wanting to avoid that talk with Dad because if he saw me just now, he would want to talk about it. I wasn’t ready to talk about it.
Back in my room, I had fallen asleep again and woke up with my blankets thrown on the floor. I was sweating again, and Maggie’s words replayed in my head … you’re going to be a dad. My alarm clock on the nightstand glowed, reading 6:22am. I felt sick. Can four shots of liquor make you feel so sick twenty four hours later? I ran to the bathroom and, luckily, made it to the toilet in time before I vomited. Ugh, bile, my familiar friend. I brushed my teeth and went downstairs in search of something to eat.
Dad was already up, sitting on the couch with his coffee and paper when he saw me make my way to the kitchen.
“Morning sunshine.”
He said. Dad was always a morning person; it never bothered me until right now.
“Morning, Dad. Do we have any milk?”
I asked, opening the fridge. I answered my own question when I pulled it out and waved the jug at him in the pass-through from the kitchen to the living room. I grabbed myself a spoon and poured a bowl of cereal, taking it into the living room and sitting down next to him on the couch.
I took a bite, and the milk immediately made me nauseous; I decided I wasn’t hungry after all, and I set the bowl down on the coffee table. Dad looked from the cereal to me and said, “Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
That was all I needed to break down and lay my head on his shoulder, crying.
“Oh Dad, it was horrible. No, it was amazing, magical, the best summer ever, until the last night.”
Through sobs and almost a whole box of tissues, I told him everything about my shattered summer romance, well just about everything, minus the sex details that no dad ever wanted to hear about his little girl.
He listened to it all, not saying a word until I told him that was it.
“I think you need to talk to him, sweetheart. You need to hear him out, maybe you got things mixed up.”
“NO! Dad, no, I didn’t get things mixed up, I heard what I heard, straight from her mouth. I can’t be the one that breaks up a family, whether he wanted it or not – that kid deserves to have both of its parents.”
“I understand, believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. And I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. But Ellie, I think you’re making a mistake. I can tell how much he means to you.”
He hugs me and reassures me that he’s here for me and he’s on my side.
I jumped off the couch and ran to the bathroom, throwing up again. Dad followed me and brought in a glass of ice water for me to rinse and spit. I wiped my mouth and looked up at him from the bathroom floor, “Dad, I don’t feel right. Something’s wrong.”
It was the last thing I remember before waking up in a hospital bed. I looked around, not seeing Dad anywhere in the room. I was hooked up to monitors and IVs and I had to pee really bad. I found the nurse button on the remote next to me and pressed it. Almost instantly, a nurse was in my room asking what I needed.
“I have to pee.”
I told her and she smiled, helping me wrap the IV tubes around the wheeled stand and walking me to the bathroom.
“Why am I here?”
I asked her when I had finished, and we walked back to the bed.
“You were brought in this morning. Your father said you fainted and blacked out after vomiting. He said you had been through an eventful day and had been extremely upset, is that right?”
“You could say that.”
I brought the blanket up to my chin, it was cold.
“Ms. Michaels, I need to go over some things with you and I need to ask you if you would like your father in here while I ask some questions. Some personal questions.”
She looked at me, sympathy leaking from her expression. I have no idea what kind of personal questions she has in mind but no, I didn’t want my dad in here when she asked them.
“First, can you tell me your full name?”
she had her clipboard and a pen.
“Ellie Michaels.”
“And your age?”
“Sixteen, almost seventeen.”
“Ellie, are you sexually active?”
My eyes shot up to her. Why does she need to know that?
“Yes?”
it came out as a question.
“It’s okay, Ellie, no one is here to judge you, I promise.”
She smiled and I relaxed a bit.
“When was the date of your last menstrual period, if you know.”
I thought about that for a minute, “My last regular period was May 15th.”
I told her.
“But I was on vacation and just assumed that things got thrown off because I changed my routine. I had some spotting last week and assumed that was my period coming late. I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Are you usually very regular?”
She asked.
“Yes, every month. But like I said, I was on vacation the whole summer, it just got messed up.”
“Mmmhmm.”
She wrote something down on her clipboard, then she pulled out a circle chart thing and wrote some more on her clipboard.
“I’ll just be right back, Ellie, give me a second.”
She walked into the bathroom and came back out holding a stick.
“Yes, that’s pretty positive, I’d say.”
She tossed the stick into the trash can and walked back over to me, placing her hand on mine.
“Ellie, I don’t want to alarm you, but I need to tell you something, okay?” she squeezed my hand.
“Okay.”
I said slowly, “What is it, what was positive?” I asked.
“That was a pregnancy test, Ellie. It was positive, you’re going to have a baby.”
“I’m … wait and I’m what?”
I shook my head.
“Are you sure that was my test?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“But. Oh my God.”
The realization just slapped me in the face that I slept with Lee and … him.
“If —if there were two people that I slept with, is there a way to know?”
I almost couldn’t get it out.
She was caught off guard with that question, I could tell.
“I – we can run paternity tests when the baby is born to confirm who the father is, yes. Unless you know the dates of when you slept with both of them?”
“I do. I do.”
I nodded my head quickly because I have to know if there’s any chance that Lee is the father of my baby.
“One of them was um multiple times between June and three nights ago. The other was just once, two nights ago.”
It felt like something was stuck in my throat and she offered me a cup of water. After I sipped it and handed the cup back to her, she smiled calmly and very reassuringly.
“I think we can safely say that the young man you slept with multiple times is indeed the father of your baby.”
I sucked in a breath.
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure, yes. We’ll do an ultrasound to get a better estimate but from the date of your last period, that makes you roughly twelve weeks along. A one-night stand from two nights ago would not have resulted in your current pregnancy.”
“Oh my God.”
I’m relieved and almost happy, but then that realization hits me again and I see Maggie’s face in my mind.
“I’m … and she’s … I think I need to throw up.”
She was quick to grab the trash can next to my bed and bring it over in time for me to throw up. Placing the clipboard down on my bed, she held my hair back with her free hand and talked me through this until I was able to calm down and breathe normally.
I asked the nurse if she would be okay with staying in the room with me while I told my dad the news.
“Absolutely.”
She patted the bed and told me she would be right back with my dad. It wasn’t that I was scared of him being angry with me, I was, but I thought maybe he would need her support more than I did. Being a single dad was tough on him, I know, but being a single dad who is about to be told his only daughter is now a teen pregnancy statistic?
Dad walked into my room, followed by the nurse and I just started crying. The nurse crossed over to the other side of my bed, laying her hand on my shoulder.
“It’s okay, emotions are high right now. Just take your time.”
“Dad.”
I breathed in slowly. I looked at him, trying to figure out how to say this. There really isn’t a good way to put this kind of news.
“You asked me to come home in one piece and I’m sorry that I think I came home broken.”
“No, Ellie.”
He took a step closer so that he was touching the bed now.
“Love is a hard thing, but I can tell you for certain, that your broken heart will heal with time.”
“It’s not that, Dad. Well, it is.”
I looked at the nurse who nodded for me to go on.
“I’m broken because there’s another part of me now. I’m sorry that I’m not your good little girl anymore. I’m sorry that I’m a disappointment. I’m sorry that …”
I lowered my voice to a whisper for the rest of my sentence, “I’m pregnant.”
Dad looked from me to the nurse and then back to me; tears began welling up in his eyes.
“Oh, Ellie, you’ll always be my little girl. You can never be a disappointment to me. We’ll figure this out. I promise. We’ll get through this.”
Crying
Crying
Crying
There were tears flooding the room from all three of us and it took several minutes for everyone to calm down long enough to realize that a doctor had entered the room. She introduced herself as the resident OB/GYN and said she was going to be doing an exam, followed by an ultrasound to date the pregnancy.
My dad took that time to excuse himself from the room.
“I’ll be in the waiting area, Ellie. Just have the nurse come get me when you’re ready.”
He closes the door without making a noise and the doctor proceeds with her exam. She tells me that everything appears to be right on track and explains how the ultrasound will work. Because I’m already about three months along, they will do an abdominal ultrasound, and she squeezed some cold goo on my belly before moving an instrument around in circles. She told me to look at the monitor next to me and pointed out what we were seeing; a baby measuring right on schedule at eleven weeks and three days with a strong heartbeat of 174bpm.
She looked at me sympathetically as she took her time cleaning off my stomach, before saying “This is all going to be okay, Ellie. You’re not the first sixteen-year-old girl to have a baby and I promise you; you won’t be the last. You have an entire support system that will help get you and your baby safely through this pregnancy. The first step will be to make a follow-up appointment with an OB/GYN office; it doesn’t have to be mine, but I would love to see you through this.”
She placed her business card on the table beside my bed and told me I could get dressed and she would send my dad in so we could go home.