Melting for You

Chapter Eight

February

Ellis

Despite their purpose, hospitals have never made me feel safe and secure. From the bright white walls that shine a light on all the harsh realities of illness to the painfully uncomfortable chairs that punish you for needing them… it all creates an atmosphere that fills me with trepidation.

My body has been aching all day. The combination of chronic pain with the pains of early pregnancy is already prevalent without the added uncomfortable chairs. This wait is like a small torture on my body. It is a reminder of the things my body had to endure the last time I was pregnant, the things I’m going to have to face again.

Posters line the walls around me; I suppose to give the room some much needed colour. But instead they just add to the doomsday feeling that ruminates around waiting rooms. Back as a kid in England I would have taken the time to read all of the signs, but I’m not the naive young girl I once was. No more do I bother with filling my mind with the anxiety-inducing statements about cancer scares or take the time to remind myself that the hospital staff will not take abuse from patients. The posters in my current waiting room are slightly different, highlighting the joys of growing a child, not that I have to read them to know. I remember them from when I was carrying Jack. All those years ago I needed the medical jargon to lose myself in, to hide from the fact I was alone and scared and so lonely.

Realistically, I have been alone most of my life. My mother, or as she demands to be called by her daughter, Eleanor , was never a nurturing woman. She wanted to have a sophisticated, high-brow, young English lady. She seemingly forgot she lived in Reading in the early Nineties and not Victorian London. After my dad died of a heart attack she was even more highly strung, but she was the only parent I had. Dad died when I was so young that my memories of him are very lacking; when I think back on my childhood it is her I remember.

I wore what she told me and attended the best private schools, but all I learned was how to climb out of my bedroom window without detection. I also learned that men are pigs, even little teenage private school boys. Frankly, they were probably worse; because along with raging hormones and huge egos that must have been compensating for something , there was the added entitlement of being daddy’s little boy who is going to inherit millions of pounds without working a day in their life. Basically, they were insufferable future prime ministers who wanted women to kiss their feet without doing any of the groundwork. You would think with a (supposedly) high-value education I would have picked better boyfriends over the years, but I still managed to pick the worst of the crop multiple times.

If I were a different – maybe better – person, I could attribute all the good I have achieved for myself to Eleanor’s child-rearing, but I am not a liar. Me getting an education was not her priority, she wanted me to appear educated so that I would appeal to her peers as a possible future daughter-in-law. Everything was a storm, from running from my old life, to starting anew in Seattle. But then I met Liam in university, and I was found again.

Until that, too, had to inevitably come to a heart-breaking end. Life, as it always does, continued on. Since then, I ran a catalogue of heartbreaks – including Jack’s father. That loneliness was different. It was deeper, all-consuming. I was growing a baby, but I had not a soul to tell; no friends or acquaintances left.

Coming home to an empty flat day after day was the second worst time of my life. Living in dark rooms that were cold both figuratively and literally because I refused to use my gas to cut down my bills.

Then came the hospital appointments. Sitting in the prenatal waiting rooms with all the happy, expectant couples huddled over big bumps with smiles as blinding white as the walls. I know that in my soul they must have been having their own issues, but from where I was sat, I felt like a leper, cast off to the side of the room for being a single mum with nobody to hold my hand when I was listening for a heartbeat. There was no one to talk to about whether or not we were going to find out the biological sex of the baby: it was just me.

This time should be different. I told myself if I ever got pregnant again I wouldn’t be as alone, I would have a support system and be in a healthy relationship. But today it’s just me and Jack. Again.

I do have Liam, but he had to travel to an away game in Las Vegas. Though he has demanded that from the moment the nurses call my name I must FaceTime him so he can be in the room. I could see on his face when the first scan date was booked that it hurt him.

It’s a scary thought, to think how much he might miss because of his games. I don’t want to look at it is a bad omen – that the first scan lined up with him being away. But a small part of me worries this is a sign of things to come.

It’s an unfair thing to think, it’s just one scan. A scan that’s taking place earlier than usual, due to the medication I take. My ob-gyn wanted to make sure the baby is okay, given that I was still taking non-pregnancy-safe pain relief for weeks into this pregnancy. If the first scan was at the usual point, around twelve weeks, then Liam would have been here. He apologised and apologised relentlessly; so desperate to let me know he would love nothing more than to be holding my hand.

A month ago, babies would have been the last thing on his mind. And now his world is revolving around one. A part of me feels bad for forbidding him from telling his team about the baby yet, but I know it’s too soon. I just worry that by making him keep it a secret I am subjecting him to the same loneliness I felt. The Seattle Spears are his support system and he will want to lean on his team for support, especially being on the other side of the country.

We did call his parents though, Tracy and Alek. To be specific, he called them while I listened in from beside him. I didn’t even want to be in the room. I begged for him to call them when I wasn’t around but he assured me they would be ecstatic about becoming grandparents. I was reasonably worried about what they would think about him, about me. Would they look down on me because I hurt him in the past? Would they admonish him for being foolish enough to sleep with an ex? I didn’t want to be by his side when they scolded him, pretending to be happy about the news.

They retired a few years ago to Florida in a home Liam bought for them with his first transfer bonus when he traded to Vancouver. They are proud of their son, but to them it could have looked like he was moving backwards instead of looking to the bright future parents want for their kid.

They were surprisingly supportive of the news. Understandably confused and shocked at first. But once it settled in, they began gushing about finally becoming grandparents and asking him if they could fly up to meet me and Jack before the baby is born. But Liam gave them a non-committal answer. I was grateful to not be put on the spot. It was strange to hear a mother so excited about her son’s one-night stand getting pregnant, but I guess it helped that I’m not a complete stranger to them.

We met a few times when Liam and I dated, so there was probably some relief that I’m not just around Liam for his athlete status. Still, I wonder if they called him after the fact to ask more questions. To interrogate him about me and my intentions. But I’ve had to remember that not all parents are like mine. Some are genuinely happy for and supportive of their children, no matter what. It’s refreshing to see, and now I know exactly where Liam gets it from. I saw it especially when Liam met Jack, and it somehow didn’t go horribly wrong. As I sat twiddling my thumbs in the waiting room, I run the event over in my mind.

“ Mum, come look at my train!” I can hear Jack yelling but my brain just can’t focus. So many thoughts are running through my head, I can’t keep still. I pace in front of the front door, my mind whirling a mile a minute.

“Mum!” Jack yells, clearly unimpressed by the lack of attention I’m giving him.

“Sorry, what’s up, bud?” I wander over to where he’s set up his newest train set on the living room rug. I sit on the couch but as soon as I do I bounce back up, unable to relax.

“Why do you keep walking around?” Jack quizzes me. I wish I had an answer, but how do you explain to a five-year-old that you are so anxious that your hands have started to sweat and your mouth feels so dry it is hard to talk?

“Just got a lot of energy to shake off, my friend is coming over remember?” I tell him. I explained before that Liam is an old friend from school who I haven’t seen in a long time. I don’t like lying to Jack – actually, I hate it. But I’m also not going to dump all of my history with Liam on his little shoulders. He is going to be in Jack’s life for a long time, and I need Jack to like him.

“I didn’t know that grown-ups had play dates. Is he fun?” There’s that childhood innocence again. He’s half right. It was a damn play date that got us all into this mess.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Here we go,” I mumble to myself, knowing it’s Liam behind the door. I take one last large breath as I swing it open. And there he is. Liam is wearing a pair of loose-fitting black jeans and a tight grey T-shirt, the perfect picture of muscle and smiles.

“Hey Sunshine, how you feeling?” he asks, eyes scanning me from head to toe, cataloguing all the small changes that have happened since the last time he saw me. I’m not showing really, but my boobs have definitely swollen. I wonder if he notices as his eyes pause there for a second longer than usual.

“I feel sick,” I tell him truthfully.

“Oh no, has morning sickness kicked in?” He comes forward placing a hand on my shoulder, digging his fingers into the tight muscles there.

“Yes, but also I’m just anxious about this.” I melt under his fingertips. He gives me a small smile continuing to massage me slightly. When I finally give him a smile in return, he drops his hand to pick up a bag from between his feet that I didn’t notice yet.

“I bought Jack something,” he tells me, straightening back up.

“Liam, you can’t bribe him,” I tell him, tired. I don’t know what I expected. Liam is using his money to get his way. I should have known he would try this but this can’t be how this goes. I need him to try and get to know my son, not buy him with building blocks.

“I know!” he interrupts me, jumping to his explanation. “That’s why I’m giving them to you and not him, if you want you can hide it and give it to him some other time, but I saw it and bought it without thinking.”

“Oh.” I’m not often lost for words, but that is really thoughtful.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” He laughs, his eyes darting into my flat. Only then do I remember we are still stood in my doorway.

“Sorry, come on in.” I finally step out of his way shutting the door behind him, it’s time to get this over with. “Jack! Come here, bud.”

Jack comes running from his train set, sliding to a stop at Liam’s feet.

“Do you like trains?” Jack asks bluntly, staring down at his feet.

“Jack!” I chastise. “We introduce ourselves first.”

“Right. Sorry.” My son holds out his hand for Liam to shake, and I see Liam’s shoulders shake up and down with suppressed laughter. “Nice to meet you, I’m Jack. Do you like trains?” he repeats.

“Hi Jack, I’m Liam and yes, I love trains!” Liam gives Jack a magazine-worthy smile.

“Cool!” Jack nods taking Liam’s hand and dragging him into the front room before tugging him down to sit next to his train set.

The pair of them sit together for over an hour, and Liam listens to Jack tell him everything he knows about trains. Which is a lot. Liam tells Jack about the model train set his dad helped build as a kid. Jack’s eyes are full of awe looking up at Liam and my heart splutters. Seeing them getting along is everything I needed, but never expected. I thought it would be stilted, that they would feel awkward around each other, but I should have expected Liam to win him over. It’s clearly not just women he has a way with, we can add kids to that list too .

My mind still can’t be quiet. What does this all mean for us? Will Jack be jealous when the new baby arrives, and Liam isn’t just his play-date buddy – but his own sibling’s father? Is it going to confuse him? Or confuse me , even?

As I think over the first meeting between Liam and Jack, I’m reminded of how much I appreciated having Liam there when I first told Jack he was going to have a sibling. I think in some messed-up way, I wanted to prove to my son that I could pick a man who wanted to be around. That I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Realistically, I know Jack won’t really have noticed yet how much not having his dad around will affect him. He is still so young, but I think having Liam by my side for that chat was a way for me – for us – to show a united front. As Jack meets other kids, watches them get on their dad’s shoulders and play sports together, I know one day he’ll want the same. And again, I won’t be enough for him.

“Mummy what is a feet-us?” Jack’s little voice breaks me out of my head as he points at a poster on the wall next to him.

“It’s what the baby is called when it’s still in my belly, when they are still growing.” I made a foolish promise to my son while we were alone in that delivery room that I would always answer his questions with as much honesty as I could, and it has been one promise I have tried my hardest not to break. The problem with that is Jack sure knows how to ask questions that I don’t know how to answer. Where do stars live? What does yellow taste like? Why does Tom have two dads and I don’t have any? They should warn you about all the questions your kid is going to ask in those Parenting for Dummies books but they don’t – I checked.

“Oh, so where—” please don’t ask were babies come from please please please , “is Liam going to be when we call him?”

I gasp a sigh of relief. “I’m not sure, maybe in his hotel or at the rink getting ready. His game isn’t until tonight though, so he promised he would be waiting for us.” Jack hasn’t asked too many questions about Liam yet, but I know he’s mulling them over. I’d love to be inside his infant mind and see how he perceives this whole situation. I wonder if it’s any clearer than my own.

“Miss Ainsley?” A nurse in pink scrubs calls for me from down a corridor. I actively try to avoid looking at the other expecting mothers as I pass because I know I will find nothing but pity in their eyes: a woman having to bring her son to a baby scan because she has nobody to look after him for a few hours. Usually my neighbour Mrs Lewis would look after him, but she has gone to Montana to visit her sister. She has been someone I have connected with over the years, when I have to work of a weekend or if he has to stay off school because he doesn’t feel well. She is always happy to have the company. I feel the eyes around the room watching, so to distract my mind from the feeling of being watched so closely I pull out my phone and call Liam. He answers on the first ring.

“Hey, we going in already?” His voice is low and calming, through the phone I feel his support. It fills my bones all the way from Vegas but beneath the question I hear the tremor in his voice. I nod in response. He must be freaked out. He has been far too calm over the last two and a half weeks, an anchor to my spiral – pulling me back into the real world. But it’s new to him; becoming a dad isn’t easy, and it’s not like he planned for this, especially not with me.

I let Jack hold my phone, keeping Liam on the line, while a nurse takes my blood sample. I settle onto the bed where Jack hands me my phone back, and I get my first real look at Liam. His hair looks wet from a shower or a sweaty practice session, and I can see he is lying amongst the plethora of pillows in his hotel room bed, a complete opposite to the one I’m lying on.

“You okay, El?” he asks.

“Yeah. I just wish you were here,” I admit. Something about being in this hospital again with my still flat belly out must be making me more vulnerable than I anticipated, because I never planned on telling him that. Maybe it was reminiscing in the waiting room about being alone that tipped me over.

“El—” Liam starts, but is interrupted by my ob-gyn coming into the room. Dr Horne was my doctor when I had Jack and it was a no-brainer for me to come back to her this time around. She was a rock in the room when I needed that support and there is no other doctor I would want to help deliver this baby.

“It is Ellis, yes?” Dr Horne asks.

“Yes, hi,” I reply quietly.

“It’s good to see you again, so: are you ready to see how it’s going?” she asks with a smile. It takes her a second to notice Jack sat so patiently in the chair next to me, but when she does her smile doubles. “And this young man must be Jack,” she says as she glances at my notes. “You ready to be a big brother?” she asks in a faux serious tone that my son falls for straight away.

“Yes ma’am, I’m ready, I have to be gentle and kind when the baby comes but Mummy said if I am just myself then the baby will love me because I am easy to love,” Jack speaks with so much conviction you would think he was under oath. My eyes mist at the sight of my little baby boy looking so grown up and excited.

“You, young man, are going to do just fine. So, who do we have on FaceTime?” she quizzes, eyeing my phone a little sceptically as though she were worried about asking. But Jack must still think he is under the spotlight because he tells her.

“That’s Liam, he is the baby’s dad but he isn’t my dad… but that’s okay, because I have Mummy to be my dad.” I grit my teeth to swallow the lump in my throat as I turn the phone for Liam to introduce himself to Dr Horne. I hesitate for a second – she could recognise him as a star ice hockey player and let it overshadow the appointment, but it would be rude to not allow him so much as a hello.

Even if I want to keep him to myself for a little while, there is an ever-present fear that word will get out. People will find out that Liam Ruinsky has gotten me pregnant. As much as I wish we could keep it a secret forever, that wouldn’t be fair to either of us, nor realistic. I do see a spark of recognition in her eyes when she fully takes in my phone screen, but ever the professional she doesn’t ask. Instead she moves her eyes back up to me with a small nod before moving the ultrasound wand and the jelly to my awaiting stomach.

“You know the drill mom – I’m just going to talk it through for the boys. So, there won’t be a lot to see here so far because you are still so early on, we are estimating around seven weeks since conception. But with your medical history and fibromyalgia, we just want to be sure we have a viable pregnancy and detectable heartbeat, especially with the medication you are taking – it’s better to be safe and check now rather than later,” she explains delicately.

Viable pregnancy . The words ring in my ears, I barely hear the rest of her sentence as those words echo around my mind. It’s a clinical, terrifying question to pose. Is this cluster of cells going to become life, or will my body potentially fail me? Am I enough to host a baby? If anything is wrong, is it my fault? Will Liam grow to resent me and my body even more if I fail? These are the questions I’ve asked myself since seeing those two lines on the pregnancy test. The computer screen whooshes and warps around the room and the three of us all sit in silence waiting for her to talk again. I don’t know if Jack is waiting on tenterhooks like Liam and me but he is quiet as a mouse.

It takes the doctor a few minutes to find the right spot as she firmly pushes the ultrasound probe against my stomach. It’s uncomfortable against my bladder after I was told to drink as much as I could before the appointment.

“Okay, here we are.” Dr Horne spins the screen around to face me. I hold my phone up so that Liam will also see the little black blob that will be our child. “The baby looks to be the right size for seven weeks, around six millimetres, so still itsy-bitsy, but they are going to start growing faster and faster,” she explains. “Stay very still for me now, you’re still very early so it might not be as easy to find…” She seems to trail off as I follow her instructions.

She squeezes the probe tighter against my belly while she frowns at the screen. Liam is silent on the other end of the call, but I wonder if he’s thinking the same as me. Why is she frowning? Is everything okay? Why do I need to be still?

As I begin to spiral, Dr Horne looks at me with a reassuring smile. Behind her on the screen are waves flowing underneath the image of my uterus, dramatically large and rhythmic. She twists a dial near her lap, and suddenly the waves are connected to a thumping sound. Dun-dun, du-dun . “That’s the heartbeat there,” she tells us.

“That–that’s our baby?” Liam’s voice is quiet coming through the phone, but I hear him over everything else. I turn the phone around so we can see each other, but the sight that I find would knock me off my feet if I were standing. Liam has tears streaming down his reddened cheeks, his lip is quivering. There is so much hope and excitement on his face that he looks as though he was just handed a star plucked right from the sky. “Fuck, Sunshine, that’s our baby.” He says, wiping his hand down his face to clear the tears but just as quickly more fill his eyes.

“That’s our baby.” I am nodding like a bobble head. It’s the only part of my body I can seem to move. I wanted this time to be different, and despite being in that waiting room without him, it is.

On a fundamental level, something is very different; this baby is ours , not just mine. Liam wants this baby. He wants to be here.

Liam is more than making it different.

He’s making it better.