Chapter 12
Ellary
It’s been two weeks.
Two weeks of grieving my failed marriage and learning how expensive a baby is, as I list all the things I need. My parents have said they’ll help out when I see them for dinner a couple of times a week. Not that I eat much with my nausea, but seeing my family always lifts my spirits.
I’m about eight weeks pregnant now, and my morning sickness is terrible. There have been times I’ve had to call in, and barely made it through the phone call without needing to ask my coworkers to hold for a second so I can throw up.
My nausea is the only reason I’ve not gone in for my ultrasound scan yet.
It would be my first prenatal scan, which would reveal how the baby is doing, and I can listen to its heartbeat.
I’m terrified. Of the scan, of going to do it on my own, and of something being wrong with the baby and not being able to cope.
Lila said she would take a day off work and come with me, but the restaurant is too busy for her to keep taking time off work for me. My parents have offered as well, but it still doesn’t feel right.
For years, I had a mental image of lying down on the examining table with the doctor rubbing cold gel over my belly. Of being nervous and afraid. Of Jackson smiling down at me as he takes my hand and squeezes it, reassuring me that everything will be fine.
This pregnancy isn’t going the way I expected.
My doctor said I need to have a scan between eight and twelve weeks then another at twenty weeks, and I’m clinging to the hope that I’ll be a little less sick so I won’t need to take a paper bag to throw up in the waiting room.
I still haven’t told Jackson that I’m pregnant.
It isn’t because I haven’t seen him. He comes into the coffee shop once a week to buy a latte before heading to his therapy appointment.
Other than asking me if I’m okay and if I need anything, he doesn’t push to talk or tell me he wants me back.
He’s still wearing his wedding ring, and I’m dying to know what he talks to his therapist about. Just him? Me? His affair?
What?
My attorney keeps mentioning that he’s filed the divorce papers.
I have six months to work out support and arrangements for the baby before the judge can make the divorce final.
To do that, I have to tell Jackson he’s going to be a father, and I’m so scared he’ll contest the divorce or say he wants full custody of the baby.
I know he deserves to know that he’s going to be a father.
And I know he has wanted this baby as much as I do.
A child should know their father, and my child will know Jackson.
The real reason I’m terrified to tell him that he’s going to be a father is that he will be so loving and sweet that I’ll fall back in love with him and stop the divorce.
He’s still paying all the bills that come into the house.
I buy groceries, fill up my gas, pay the doctor's bills that come in, and set aside a little for diapers, furniture, and other things I think the baby might need. But I haven’t bought anything for the baby yet, and I won’t until after the first scan, which will hopefully reassure me that everything is okay.
I spend my day off from work on the couch with a can of ginger ale close at hand, dry crackers, a banana, and a blanket wrapped around my knees.
The hospital parking lot is packed, which is nothing new.
My OB/GYN clinic shares a parking lot with the small hospital.
Both the hospital and the clinic are feet from each other, just in opposite directions.
Surprisingly, it’s easier to find a parking spot closer to the hospital than to the clinic, so seeing my doctor always involves more walking than I’d like.
But I can’t stop smiling as I step out of the clinic, gripping my purse and, within it, my ultrasound scan.
I heard my baby’s heartbeat. I saw his or her little head—the doctor said eight weeks is too early to know if it’s a boy or a girl—but everything was great. The baby looked healthy, and the next time I need to go back is for another scan at twenty weeks.
The sun floods the parking lot and me. Today felt as if it was meant to be. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t want to hurl my guts out. I could stand to eat something with flavor instead of continuing to live on bananas, dry toast, and crackers.
I hurry to my car so I can call my parents and reassure them that everything went well. They offered to come, but I need to learn to stand on my own two feet. Too focused on getting to my car as I fish my keys from my pocket, I slam into a hard object.
“Oof!”
Strong hands catch me, steadying me, and a friendly male voice says, “Sorry. Are you okay?”
I notice his eyes first. Big and brown, concerned as he sweeps them over me.
“Fine. I think that was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going,” I say.
His bright smile captures my attention next.
“I was the one doing the hurrying. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No, I’m fine.” My eyes dip to take in the dark gray duffel on the ground. “You dropped your bag.”
It’s open, revealing a white coat. He bends to retrieve it. “It’s okay. There’s nothing breakable inside.”
“You’re a doctor at the hospital?” I ask.
He appears to be in his mid-thirties, about five-nine with brown hair and an open, friendly expression.
“Oncology. And you’re a patient,” he says with a smile.
I blink. “How’d you know?”
His grin widens. “The smile of relief. I’ve gotten used to seeing from my patients over the years. You just had good news. Unless you are a doctor or a nurse, and are gleefully sprinting from the building, excited to escape for the rest of the day.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Um, no. I’m no doctor or nurse. Just a barista. You were right about the good news. I just had my first ultrasound, and I was really worried.”
It hits me that I shouldn’t be announcing this to any old person on the street, but I’m so excited to share it with someone, I’d have told a trash collector if he so much as looked at me.
“That’s amazing news,” he says, beaming, his eyes dropping to my left hand and lingering there. “You and the father must be thrilled.”
My smile dims at the same time it hits me that he was checking to see if I was wearing a ring. “Um, it’s… it’s kind of complicated.”
His brow lifts.
“I’m in the middle of a divorce,” I explain. “That’s why I’m here alone.”
“Oh.” His smile is full of sympathy. “I’m sorry. That can’t be easy.”
“No,” I admit, and it feels so good to say it, “it really isn’t.”
He gives me a thoughtful look and offers me his hand. “Clayton Bass.”
I blush for no reason as I shake it. “Ellary. But almost everyone calls me Ellie.”
“Ellary is beautiful,” he says, keeping hold of my hand. “Unusual.”
A subtle change in his expression makes my cheeks heat, and I step back, pulling my hand from his. “I should go. I’m probably keeping you from your work.”
“It’s okay,” he says as I’m stepping around him. “Look, Ellary, I’m not usually in the habit of doing this, but do you maybe want to get a drink sometime?”
I stare at him.
“Not alcoholic,” he says, raking a hand through his hair in a way that’s bashful and sweet. “Just tea or maybe a smoothie.”
“Why me?”
“I’m rarely immediately attracted to someone like this,” he admits. “But something about you makes me want to get to know you better. See where things go.”
“I’m in the middle of divorcing my husband,” I remind him.
“I’m a doctor; I’m used to complicated.”
“And I’m pregnant,” I feel compelled to tell him, placing my hand on my still mostly flat belly.
“I’m an experienced doctor used to multitasking, and babies don’t scare me.”
I smile faintly at him, but I don’t know what to say.
He’s attractive. There’s something sweet and friendly about him that makes me want to get to know him better, but I’ve been with Jackson since I was sixteen.
The only dating I did was in middle school, when it was less dating and more hanging out with groups of my friends, which sometimes included boys that I was too awkward to talk to, and they were too awkward to talk to me.
“It’s okay,” Clayton says with an easy grin. “You probably have more than enough on your plate to want to date.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a white card. “Just in case you change your mind, drop me a call or a text. I’d love to get to know you better, Ellary.”
I take the card he offers me, and he leaves with another friendly smile. As he walks to the hospital entrance with his bag over his shoulder, he glances at his watch, then curses and takes off sprinting.
I’m smiling as my cell phone rings in my purse. I fish it out, still watching Dr. Clayton Bass charging toward the hospital entrance because it looks like I made him late for work. “Yeah?”
“How’d it go?” Lila asks breathlessly.
I told her and my parents that I would call them the second I left the clinic.
I turn away from the hospital entrance once I’ve lost sight of the handsome doctor. “It went great. A cute doctor just asked me out on a date.”
You would hear her scream for me to tell her everything from the moon.
Grinning, I head for my car and proceed to tell her every little thing that just happened.
Except for how I feel and whether I intend to accept Clayton’s offer to go out on a date.
I just know that today, for the first time in a long time, I feel like my life is full of hope and excitement instead of fear and anxiety.