Chapter Twenty-Two Portland, OR 2009
Chapter Twenty-Two
Portland, OR
Chrissie went with Scarlett to every single one of her prenatal appointments.
Not surprisingly, Chrissie was a huge hit with the medical staff, all of whom were way more emotionally invested in this baby than Scarlett understood.
Or, if she was being honest, appreciated.
Scarlett could be lying there in her uncomfortable paper gown for hours without eliciting anything so much as “And how are you feeling, dear?” but the moment the nurses and ultrasound techs caught sight of Chrissie sitting in a plastic chair with her annotated copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting in her lap, they went all googly-eyed.
“Aren’t you just the sweetest friend in the world?”
“Have you gotten to the chapter on mucus plugs yet? Never underestimate the horrors of the bloody show.”
“Can I get you anything, Chrissie? A pillow, maybe? Or a sandwich from the cafeteria? We’re gonna be another hour or so, and you’re looking a little pale.”
“I could use a sandwich,” Scarlett said, her hands clasped around the growing lump of her six-months-pregnant belly. That belly was too big for the doctor’s comfort, which was why they were here in the first place. “I’m starving to death.”
The nurse, a lithe, twentysomething man who seemed to have the energy of a dozen overfed hyenas, only laughed and wagged a finger at Scarlett.
“Now, now. You know the glucose test won’t give us accurate results unless you’re fasting.
Just sit tight a little bit longer, and we’ll make sure we get you a pudding cup for your troubles. ”
Scarlett waited until he walked out of the room before turning to Chrissie. “A pudding cup? I’m growing a whole freaking human being over here, and that’s the best he can offer? You should take him up on the sandwich offer and feed it to me in little bites. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
Chrissie laughed in the same way the nurse had, as if she knew down to her very bones that Scarlett wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the glucose test—and, by extension, her baby.
Scarlett wished she knew how they could all be so certain.
They had no idea how many times she fantasized about doing all the things she wasn’t supposed to.
Drinking and smoking and eating her body weight in sushi and soft cheeses.
Sitting in a sauna until she was so hot that her skin started to peel off or riding a horse across the country, her hair freshly bleached and trailing in the wind behind her.
You know, totally normal teenage activities.
“I know it sucks. I promise not to eat anything until they give you the all clear. That way we can suffer together.” Chrissie set the book aside and gave Scarlett her full attention.
“Wanna play tic-tac-toe to pass the time? Or we can fuck-marry-kill the medical staff again. There’s a new resident with really soft hands who might mix things up. ”
Scarlett relaxed and lay back against her paper pillow, her eyes closed. “You’re just saying that to cheer me up.”
“Well, yeah.” Scarlett felt a different soft hand—the one belonging to Chrissie—brush hair off her forehead. “We can also talk, if you want. I know how hard today is for you. We were supposed to be on our flight to Paris.”
Scarlett felt a familiar tightness seize hold of her belly.
The first time it had happened, she’d been so afraid she’d done something to hurt the baby that she’d had Chrissie run her to the emergency room.
The second time, a late-night call to her doctor had sufficed.
Now she recognized the sensation for what it was: plain old ordinary anxiety.
It was so strange. Her whole life, she’d lived on a precipice of sorts—straddling the line between life and death, her future not guaranteed so much as beckoning.
She’d never had much money, wasn’t particularly good at school, and rarely made the kind of choices a guidance counselor would approve of.
Yet she’d never felt any fears about what would be become of her.
For good or bad, better or worse, she was going to live her life, and that was enough.
It was only now that she had a bank account six figures in the black and the next eighteen years of her life mapped out that she felt a swirling, all-consuming worry so powerful that it took a physical form.
“Hey. Forget I said anything. It’s supposed to be one of the hottest summers on record over there anyway. We’re better off in the good ol’ marine west coast climate zone.”
Scarlett popped her eyes open again. As expected, Chrissie was looking down on her with a pucker of worry drawing the delicate arches of her brows together.
“I don’t deserve you,” Scarlett said suddenly. “I never have.”
The line down Chrissie’s forehead deepened. “Stop that. I thought we decided not to give the sperm donor any more real estate inside our heads. He’s definitely not thinking about us, so why should we bother with him?”
Scarlett couldn’t help but smile at Chrissie’s use of the term they’d adopted whenever discussing Grimshaw Pemberly—ex-boyfriend, intercourse denier, and master in the art of disappearance.
In many ways, Scarlett had a lot to thank him for.
If he’d risen to the occasion and taken ownership of his actions, stepping up as the other responsible half in this debacle of biology and hormones, there was a good chance Chrissie would have walked out the door and out of Scarlett’s life forever.
To say that she’d been hurt by Scarlett’s confession would be an understatement.
But when Grimshaw coldly denied any part in what had happened the day of her grandmother’s funeral—even in the face of Mitchell’s confirmation of the facts—Chrissie had done all the rising for him. In the face of adversity, she would always, always have Scarlett’s back.
And even though Chrissie would never admit it out loud, an unexpected pregnancy in an eighteen-year-old body that everyone had proclaimed unable to support life was adversity. It was adversity as only Chrissie and Scarlett could understand.
“It’s not just him,” Scarlett said. “I mean, it is him, but—”
“Hey.” Chrissie covered Scarlett’s hand with her own. “Paris will still be there in a few years, and so will I. As long as we have each other, nothing else matters, remember?”
Scarlett nodded, but she also felt a well of frustration starting to bubble up in her throat.
Chrissie was and always would be the rock in her life.
She was the parent neither of them had ever had, the one constant she could count on no matter what.
But she was also happy about what the next few years held.
The baby blankets she’d crocheted and the bassinet they’d refurbished, the new apartment in Medford they were moving into together—all of it held charm for her, a chance to build a life perfectly suited to her tastes.
But Scarlett didn’t want to live in stupid Medford, where the good schools and low cost of living made life as a single unwed mother feasible. She didn’t want to raise a baby she’d never planned on having, a baby belonging to a man whose very name made her blood curdle with shame.
As if on cue, the staff social worker popped into the room, looking as bright and chipper as the earlier nurse. Scarlett tried to shoo the woman away, but for someone whose job it was to navigate tricky personal issues, she remained obstinately myopic.
“Good to see you again, Scarlett,” the woman said as she took a seat and pulled out a bag of carrot sticks.
Scarlett hadn’t eaten a carrot stick in years, and would have stared down anyone who suggested she might want to chomp down on a dirt-flavored piece of chalk, but the injustice of the midmorning snack only served to enrage her.
“Is this a good time to chat about that thing we were discussing on your last visit?”
“What thing?” Chrissie asked as she waved away the offer of a carrot stick. “Is there something I should know about?”
The social worker—Tammy Twaddle, according to the business card Scarlett was carrying around in her purse—blinked expectantly.
Scarlett wouldn’t have chosen this moment for disclosure and did, in fact, resent everything about it, but the conversation was going to have to happen one way or another.
Best to do it under the bright lights of the doctor’s office, where a full medical staff was on hand.
“Sure. Now is fine.”
Tammy snapped down on her carrot stick and opened the file in her lap.
“Excellent! I know this has been a difficult time for you, and that your mind isn’t made up yet, but I’m here to reassure you that you do have options.
At your age, it’s completely normal to feel like the whole world is crumbling around you, but that doesn’t have to be the case. ”
Scarlett snorted. It seemed as good a response as any.
“And I know you said that your upbringing—your grandmother’s faith—meant you weren’t interested in abortion, but that doesn’t leave you with nothing,” she continued as though Scarlett hadn’t made a sound.
“We work with several great adoption agencies, some of which are located here in Portland and others that—”
“I’m sorry. Adoption agencies?” Chrissie’s voice registered a full octave higher than usual. “Scarlett, what’s going on?”
Scarlett closed her eyes again, but she felt none of the earlier peace of the action. She didn’t have to see Chrissie to picture the expression of complete and utter betrayal she wore.
“Uh-oh. She didn’t tell you? Should I come back?”
“No, she didn’t tell me. Is this for real? Scarlett, are you seriously considering adoption?”
Even though it was the coward’s way out, Scarlett didn’t open her eyes. Better to let the social worker handle this. After all, that was her job, right? The reason she’d gotten into this career in the first place?
“It was just a conversation,” Scarlett murmured.