Chapter Four
Ellis
This isn’t the first time I have sat on the blue tiled floor of my bathroom. It won’t be the last time either, but this time, my world is shifting. The many other times I’ve sat on this floor since I moved into this two-bedroom flat I haven’t taken the time to notice my surroundings; I am usually too busy overthinking and spiralling to notice the state of the room. I locked myself in a different bathroom before Jack was born, that’s how I found out I was going to be a mum for the first time.
I held that pregnancy test in my hand and the stark white of the freshly painted walls hurt more than the burning of tears of when I learned I was going to be a mum. Today, Jack’s tiny five-year-old fists are banging against the door, a constant little reminder of the bomb that is about to detonate.
When I don’t feel like I’m winning at life or at the single mum game, this little room has become my tiled sanctuary. Today I am definitely not winning. Reality is that I have to face the music at some point; being a single mum is hard, but a disabled single mum of two feels like a different story altogether.
The little white stick in the sink waits for me. I sit on the floor where my long legs can’t stretch out fully without hitting something. I’ve tried to distract myself but I can’t help but look at all the ways this room has aged since I moved here. It’s a lot less white now and the bathtub is rimmed with toys. Frankly, it could do with scrubbing in here, but there isn’t time left in my day.
The steady banging on the door synchronises with the hammering of my incoming headache as I finally reach for the pregnancy test. My heart skips a beat.
Those two lines can’t be denied: I’m pregnant. With Liam’s baby. Shit .
“Mummy, I need to gooooooo!” Jack’s little voice sings from under the door.
“Damn, you must really need to pee with all that banging,” I say with sarcasm that rolls right over his little dark brown waves, leaning to open the door.
“Yup, and I didn’t think you were gonna open the door. You need to be quicker, Mum,” he says as he hustles to use the toilet; I can see so much of myself in him. The way he rolls his eyes, the way his tongue sticks out when he is concentrating. My little shadow.
When Jack was first born and his hair started to grow darker, it hurt my soul a little bit. I was the parent that had carried him and the only parent that was going to be raising him, and yet he is the perfect carbon copy of his dad. How dare his absent parent get the honour to have my son look just like him.
I have approximately thirty seconds before he wants to wash his hands and sees the little problem I am hiding in the basin. I stuff it up the sleeve of my oversized hoodie and turn to get his stepping stool so he can reach the taps.
In the mirror above the sink, the woman looking back at me is distorted by smudges and water marks. My short blonde hair is flat and unwashed and the blue rings under my eyes look more akin to a Tim Burton cartoon than a real human. The closer I look, the more haggard I seem. The lines in my forehead seem more pronounced and my lips are cracked beyond belief. Just last month at the bar I had felt beautiful, but now I can’t remember if I actually looked it or just felt it under Liam’s gaze. He always had this knack for making me feel just more .
Prettier. Smarter. Stronger.
Unbeknownst to me, while I have been cataloguing my flaws, Jack has left me to my own devices and has gone back to his remaining moments of screen time before dinner. Dinner that I have yet to start cooking. Dinner that I don’t think I’m going to start cooking anytime soon. Pizza it is, I guess.
With dinner confirmed, my thoughts turn back to Liam. I know I have to tell him. But I can’t help but remember how this ordeal went last time.
In short, Jack’s dad Michael was a dick. He was always a dick. Frankly, I’m not sure why I thought he would act any less dick -ish when I told him I was pregnant. My young heart wanted to believe he would take me in his arms and spin me around like in the movies and shout the news from the rooftops. Instead it was a lot of yelling, swearing, and him demanding a paternity test even though we had been exclusively dating for a year and a half. Apparently when he said we were exclusive, to him that meant coming home to my bed every night but had no jurisdiction on what he did during the day. Or should I say who he did during the day.
In the end, he was unwilling to be in Jack’s life and I couldn’t argue that I wanted him there. Five years later and there has not been a dime of child support or a birthday card. I don’t even know where the man lives any more. Which is probably a good thing.
Still, I know I’m one of the lucky ones, getting my business degree and opening my own flower shop with what was left of my savings has not been a yellow brick road, but it was my road and I thank my stars every day that it has been enough to support Jack and I.
When I started renting my little shop front, I never could have thought that it would be able to support me and my son: but it turns out everyone needs flowers. A bouquet to say sorry. A bouquet to say I love you. A bouquet to throw to your bridesmaids. In a way, I get to be a small part of all those things, I get to see the smiles my flowers give to people and it makes each second of pain worth it.
That little shop was the reason I was out at all the night I bumped into Liam. A regular customer had been flirting for a while but he was not my type, seemed quite full of himself really, but after a few weeks of him coming in to ask about me and flowers, he asked me out again. Lyndsey said I had to go. That five years is enough time to be single and even if this man wasn’t my forever, I needed to get back on the horse. So I ignored his massive ego and I ignored the red flag of him wanting to go to a club for our date. What I couldn’t ignore though was twenty minutes after we got inside the club, he was making out with some girl outside the bathrooms.
I should have left but something in me wanted to stay, to show him I didn’t care. Then lo and behold Finn Jonas makes his way over and everything spiralled from there. If I had just gone home, who knows where I would be now.
It’s no use to think about what I could have done. Instead I think about what I can do moving forward: I could terminate. It would be easier on my body, better for my routine. But the thought of it flits out of my mind as quickly as it entered. A woman has all rights over her own body, and despite the hardships ahead – I don’t think I can make that decision.
Jack will be an amazing big brother. But if I really do this, I have to be ready to go back to the beginning. Midnight feeds, no matter how much pain I’m in. Every nappy change, no matter how big and smelly it might be. Constant crying; not just from the baby but from me too.
Having a baby is overwhelming, but from somewhere deep inside me, especially remembering holding Jack for the first time… I want to do this. Having a big family has been a dream since long before my diagnosis and I have already let it take so much from my life, I won’t let it take this too.
I touch my stomach gently as I retrace the missed calls history in my phone log.
“Hi Liam, it’s me,” I whisper.
“El… Well, look at that, I never thought you would call me back.” I can hear the smirk through the phone. It kills me to be the one to wipe it from his face, he might never offer it to me again.
“Yeah, it’s… look, we need to talk.”