Chapter Twenty Seven
Hannah
“Why don’t you go lie down, Hannah? I’ll make you some soup or something,” Chris tells me quietly, his hand on my back after he sets down the box of jams.
The veins in his arm ripples as he does, and I bite my lip involuntarily.
“Chris, I’m fine.” I roll my eyes. “Today was supposed to be fun. Let’s just have fun.”
I flop down onto his couch and cross my legs, taking up half the seating with my long legs.
Lucy rests her big head on my knee, and I push her off gently, whispering, “You’re making me look bad.”
“Hannah, that was really scary,” he tells me sincerely, his eyes trained on mine, unmoving.
He stands in the kitchen, his hand on an apron, considering. It’s sweet he’s worried, but I don’t want him to think too hard about it. I want today to remain a fun day if it can still be salvaged.
“Just come sit with me,” I sigh, “Seriously, I feel better now. I probably got too hot or something. It was cramped.”
Chris makes his way to me, a spatula in his hand, though he hadn’t started cooking yet.
He has a queer look on his face, the look of someone realizing something in real time. He hugs me standing up, burying my face into his stomach and running his hand down my hair.
“Hannah,” he mutters, clearing his throat as if moved to tears.
“What?!” I push him off me and lean back into the couch. “Why are you being so weird?”
He gives me a look filled with sincerity and brushes my hair off my face, cradling my cheeks. “Could you be pregnant?”
At first I laugh, a guffaw that coughs out of me.
But the genuine expression on his face catches me off guard.
My vision tunnels and my skin goes cold as I consider his question.
How long has it been since my period? Have I even had one at all since being with Chris? I don’t think I have.
Anxiety sneaks up on me as I notice the tears springing to his eyes, threatening to spill over. If I am, will he regret this?
“Chris, I don’t think so. I have an IUD and have had it since I was 18. When I went away to school I kind of thought it would be the responsible thing to do. I’ve never ended up needing it for birth control until recently, though. I guess I thought I had mentioned it.”
“Well, how long are they good for?”
“I don’t know…I think they said three to six years, but since I haven’t ever needed it until now, I didn’t even think about it.”
I realized that if I got it at 18 and was now 25 that there might indeed be a problem.
Chris instantly goes into solution mode, sitting beside me, the spatula still held out in his hand like a magic wand he might wave over the situation.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Let’s just get it checked, to be sure, okay? I bet it’s nothing, but we should check. For peace of mind. Right?”
His hand moves to move my hair behind my ear, but the motion brings to his awareness that he has the spatula in his hand. He scrunches his face at it and tosses it onto his coffee table, a magnificent oak thing with texture from the tree still in the wood.
A small smile eeks out of me at the moment, but I say nothing.
“Hannah, it will be okay no matter what. I am here for you.” He presses his forehead to mine and stares into my eyes before kissing my cheeks gently, one and then the other.
“Just like you were there for me and brought Noodle back to me.”
“Lucy,” I correct him in a quiet, joking tone.
“We’ll talk about it,” he whispers back in the same tone. “For now, you lie down while I make you some soup and make you an appointment with an OBGYN.”
I sigh as he moves off the couch, tucking me under a fluffy orange blanket. “How romantic,” I joke.
“Well, it’s not my thing, but I do what I can,” he says from the kitchen as he pulls out zucchini and begins to slice it.
“Hey, Chris?”
“Yes, baby?”
His eyes are on the knife, not looking at me as I watch him in profile, his curls bouncing with his movements, his mouth twisted into his cheek as he focuses.
He’s called me ‘baby’ a few times now, and every time it ignites a little thrill through my body.
I’ve never been called ‘baby’ by anyone except Tommy Marshalls in 2nd grade. And my mom.
To hear a man say it, a man who’s cooking for me, a man who I’m pretty sure loves me, is like being invited to a tea party that everyone else in class went to without me.
It”s scary to admit, too, but being secretly loved is something I like even more.
Will it be the same once Tyler knows? Could it actually stay this good forever?
“What? Tell me,” Chris says more urgently, snapping me out of my secret spiral. His knife is poised above the squash, and concern is etched in his face.
“Do you have any chicken noodle soup? I just want some chicken noodle soup. I don’t want anything fancy.”
I close my eyes as another bout of nausea washes over me at the smell of the garlic on the pan.
“Oh!” Chris sets down his knife and stands in the middle of the kitchen for a moment, his blue eyes pinging back and forth as he thinks.
“No, I don’t think I do. But, I can go get you some. Of course you want soup. That makes sense.”
“I have a very distinguished palate,” I tell him, and he laughs at me, already walking to grab his keys.
He smashes a kiss atop my forehead. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t you worry at all.” He smooths down my hair. “You just rest. See if you can’t fall asleep.”
The moment he leaves, I sit up and scramble for my phone. I wait until I hear his heavy footsteps disappear to call my mom.
“Hey, Lovebug,” she answers on the first ring, ever dependable.
I try to think of myself as a mom. What kind of mom would I be? Would I always be available to answer on the first ring, too?
I want to have at least enough money to provide for my kids. I sleep on a futon in my office. Panic swells in my throat. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“Mom,” I choke out. “I have to tell you something, but I’m scared.”
“Hannah, what’s wrong?” she repeats, her voice firm. “Tell me right now.”
I can see her now, standing up from wherever she is, slapping my dad’s forearm.
“I don’t know how it happened, but Chris and I…Tyler’s best friend…we, and I might be pregnant, I probably am!”
I’m wailing now, and I know I’m making no sense, but I can’t stop, spit pooling on my shirt as I sob openly.
“Baby girl, this doesn’t seem like something we should talk about over the phone. Right?”
“I don’t know,” I respond earnestly, wiping spit off my lips with the back of my hand.
“Maybe you should come over. It’ll be okay.”
“I can’t, I can’t.”
“Well, then, I’ll come to you.”
“No! I just had to get it out. Please don’t tell Tyler. Not yet.”
“Hannah…”
“Mom.”
“Is that it? You’re just going to drop that bomb and go? I can’t say anything and that’s that?”
“I’ll come over tomorrow, how about that?”
“Oh, Hannah. I don’t know what to do for you. And that’s the worst feeling a mom can have. Okay, baby, you be safe. I love you.”
I hang up, a weight lifted off my chest, though I know I just gave the weight to my mother instead.
And isn’t that what moms are for?
To help shoulder the weight when it gets too heavy?
Is that the kind of mom I would be? And once I am a mother, do I cease being a daughter? What do I owe to my mom?
I call her back, and she answers faster than the first ring, it seems, picking it up at the thought of me calling her.
“Hannah? Did you change your mind?”
I sigh, not sure if I’ll regret my next words.
“Yes. I’ll send you the address. And can you please bring some dog food for Lucy?”