24. Emma
CHAPTER 24
EMMA
“ A fter you,” I say, holding the door open for Phoebe, who shoots me a hard look as she crosses the threshold.
“There’s no point telling you that I’m just pregnant, not incompetent again, is there?”
“I don’t think you’re incompetent. I’m just being polite.”
“Come on, then,” grumbles Phoebe. “Or do you want to choose a table for us too?”
“You’re the worst.” I grin. I am winding her up on purpose now, and she knows it because she’s doing exactly the same to me.
She sticks her tongue out at me. “You love me really.”
There’s nothing that I can really add to that because it’s true.
We’re having our weekly outing to Phoebe’s favorite café, about ten minutes’ drive from her and Tom’s home. They do the best pastries in the city and have these amazing coffee blends that seem like they shouldn’t work, but they always do. We’ve been coming in here for years.
We make our way to a table and sit down with a sigh. “I’ll go and get some coffee,” she says. “What do you want?”
“Hot chocolate, extra sugar, extra cream, please.”
“Only you would want to drink a hot chocolate in the middle of summer.”
“Phoebe, it is literally September.”
“Yes, and the sun’s out, and it’s a glorious day.”
“And what are you getting?”
She shrugs. “I’ll decide when I get there.”
You always do is what I want to say, but then my stomach flips over, and bile rises in my throat. “I’ll be one second,” I say. “I just have to go to the restroom.”
Clutching my stomach, I run to the bathroom and vomit in the toilet, thankful that I managed to make it all the way. My eyes stream with tears, and my lungs heave as I try to regain some semblance of control. I hate throwing up, and even more, I hate throwing up in public.
Plus, I don’t want Phoebe to start worrying about me. She has enough of her own problems without me being sick too. I can’t be sick, not right now.
I have to be there for her. She’s going to give birth in a matter of weeks, maybe even days, if she’s early.
Tom is away again, so I’m the only one there for her.
She needs me.
Eventually, the nausea passes and I stumble to the basin to splash my face with water. My mouth tastes of bile and my eyes are streaming, and I stand and stare at myself in the mirror until I deem that my eyes have stopped being too red and my stomach has settled enough to cope.
I return quickly to Phoebe and sit down. I guess I must have been gone longer than I thought, because I’m met with a steaming hot chocolate.
“You didn’t have to get me one,” I say. “It was meant to be my treat.”
“You just threw up again, didn’t you?” she says like she didn’t even hear me.
I nod slowly. “I feel terrible, I’m not going to lie. I must be getting some sort of bug or something. Ugh! That’s so annoying. I don’t want to take time off work because someone gave me a bug. I’m sure I’ll get over it soon. It’s been a few days now.”
“Uh-huh,” says Phoebe, stirring her own iced tea with the straw.
“What does that mean?” I say, pressing my lips firmly together and staring at her.
If there’s one thing I know about Phoebe, it’s that that tone of voice means she has an opinion on something that she’s about to share. I’m about to get something revealed to me, and it’s anyone’s guess whether I’ll like what I hear or not.
“Your ankles have been swollen and sore too, haven’t they?”
“Yeah,” I say, narrowing my eyes and scooping cream into my mouth. “I stand up all the time as part of the job. It’s to be expected, isn’t it?”
“And you’ve been tired.”
“Work, you, Liam. Of course I’m tired.”
“Your back hurts.”
“Phoebe, where are you going with this? You’re just telling me things I already know.”
She forges ahead with her list as if I hadn’t asked a question. “You’ve been throwing up.”
“I think I’m getting sick. Please stop toying with me.”
“You’re not sleeping well,” she adds. “Your habits have changed. Be honest with me; if someone came into your hospital and told you that that was their list of symptoms, what would you tell them?”
The realization dawns on me with sickening clarity. I shake my head slowly, not wanting to think any harder about the implications of what she’s saying. “No,” I stammer. “I can’t… it can’t be… there’s no way…”
Phoebe shrugs, her stare piercing me to the core. “It could just be a bug, you’re right. But what’s the point of lying to yourself?”
“I can’t be. We were safe. I’m—” I drop my voice, not wanting anyone to overhear. “I’m on the pill.”
“I know, and for your sake I hope my hormones are making me dramatic. But it’s best to know, don’t you think?”
In shock, I say nothing. What words even are there to say to this? That it honestly hadn’t occurred to me? That it would shake my world upside down if it was true? I can’t even make myself think the word pregnant . It can’t be true.
Can it?
She raises her eyebrows as she leans closer to me. “I have some spare tests at home. After we’re finished here, let’s go find them. Maybe it’s all nothing. If it is, then we can just laugh about this and stop worrying. And if it’s not… well, we’ll worry about that then.”
“Okay,” I say quietly, my stomach turning over for a different reason than the nausea.
There’s no way I could be pregnant. I can’t deal with that idea.
We take our time in the coffee shop, almost like Phoebe knows that I want to put off the inevitable. She’s so funny that I can very, very nearly forget the life-changing possibility that’s hovering over my head.
The second we get in the car to drive home, though, the imminency of what we’re about to do makes me mute from fear. Phoebe doesn’t say anything either. She just turns up the volume on the radio and drives.
I stare out of the window and wonder how a road so familiar can suddenly seem so alien and unknown. In just a second, everything I ever knew has changed. Plans I had been unprepared to make swirl through my head and terrify me. That’s the only thing I know for sure. I’m scared.
Scared for what this could mean, for my relationship, my career. My life.
As we pull up into the driveway, Phoebe holds my hand. “I’m here for you, honey,” she says. “Always and forever.”
“But I’m supposed to be here for you ,” I say despairingly. “I can’t be having a crisis when you’re about to have a baby.”
“These things don’t happen at convenient times,” she says with a faint smile. “Besides, if it’s true, we can look after each other. That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I say reluctantly.
“Come on, let’s get you inside.”
Phoebe is going to be a great mom. Not that I ever had any doubt about that.
Tom is going to be a great dad too. He’s promised to travel less once the baby is born, but even though he is away often, he still cares for his wife from afar. They talk on the phone every night, and he always leaves her food in the freezer for dinner. This time, he’s made chicken noodle soup, and Tom’s soups are always to die for.
Phoebe steers me to the bathroom and sits me on the stool by the bath. I pout at her as she rummages in the cupboard, sitting awkwardly so she can reach to the back and rejecting all the help I try to offer.
Eventually, she throws a box out. It lands on the floor by my feet, skating across the tiles. A test.
“You good to take it?” she asks. “Or will you need help?”
I try my best not to smile, but her dumb, mood-lightening joke does just that and I huff at her to show I’m not happy. “I think I can manage to pee by myself, thank you.”
She squeezes my shoulder and leaves me. With shaking hands, I open the box, read the instructions three times to put off the task, and then do the deed.
The second I’m done, I open the door and Phoebe comes back, gesturing for me to follow her to the kitchen where soup is waiting.
“Your husband is the best,” I say as I pick up my spoon.
“I agree.” Phoebe grins.
We eat quietly, waiting for the timer to go off, and when it does, Phoebe forces me to sit at the table so she can go and retrieve the results. She walks away and then walks back, her face completely neutral.
“Tell me,” I demand. “Stop being enigmatic.”
“You’re having a baby,” she says simply, and time itself stops.
“It’s positive?” I whisper.
She nods and shows me the unmistakable pair of lines on the test. “It’s positive.”
“I’m pregnant?” She nods again, and time snaps back into place, making my head spin. “What am I going to do?”
Phoebe comes closer and wraps her arms around my shoulders. “You do whatever you want to do. If you want to keep it, you know Tom and I will be family to you. You won’t be alone. And the same is true if you don’t.”
“Of course I want to keep it,” I blurt out. “I want my baby.”
“Then you will both be loved,” says Phoebe, squeezing me with a fire that makes it impossible to argue against. I will be loved. I can’t even start to mope about the fact that I won’t be.
But I can be furious with the father. “What am I going to tell Liam?”
Phoebe sighs. “I don’t know. Are you going to tell him?”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. Before this week, the answer would have been yes, a thousand times yes. But he’s been so flaky with me lately, and he hasn’t said a word since I decided I wouldn’t message him again.
Can I really trust someone like that to be reliable? To be a father?
He didn’t want commitment, and a baby is just about the biggest commitment you can have. How can I expect him to want this?
“I should,” I say at last. “Because despite everything, I think he has a right to know.”
“Does he?” Phoebe asks.
“Yes,” I say, the certainty growing in my mind. “I don’t know how or when, and I don’t know if he’ll care, but he deserves to know. I would feel awful if I didn’t at least give my baby a chance to know their father. If I tell him and he wants nothing to do with us, that’s on him, not me.”
“You are the strongest, bravest person I know,” says Phoebe, squeezing me so hard I can barely breathe. “You will get through this. We’ll do it together. And when you’re ready to tell him, we will. He’d be a fool to reject you. He already is.”
“I hope so,” I mumble into her belly. Her baby moves; I can feel their feet against my face.
At least my baby will have a friend to grow up with.
It just won’t be the same as having a father.