Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Nonna handed Saskia a short, sharp knife. “Use this to cut into the flesh. It’s soft so you won’t need to push hard. Pull out the fibrous center… yes, just like that.”
Saskia followed Nonna’s instructions, turning her head as the pungent odour hit her.
They were preparing fermented cassava root, which had been soaking in a tub of water for a week.
Nonna had walked Saskia through every step of preserving the vegetable and now they were on the final one, but the smell was really getting to her.
Which was weird because normally she loved all things fermented. Sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha.
“I might need to take a break…” she said faintly, nausea rising fast. “Oh no. Shit, shit, shit!” She looked around desperately, but the sink was full of cassava waiting to be pressed and jarred.
Rushing to the door leading outside, she flung it open, stumbled outside, and fell to her knees. She heaved into a flower bed until her stomach was empty.
Belatedly, she realized Nonna was bending over her rubbing circles on Saskia’s upper back. “Sorry,” Saskia said shakily, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
She dimly registered Shola talking on her phone and realized she was about to be smothered by a giant, overbearing, well-meaning but not particularly delicate boyfriend.
“Damn it, Shola, you couldn’t give me a single minute to get myself together?” She waved her hand at the puddle of vomit. Who wanted their significant other seeing something like that?
“How are you feeling now?” Nonna asked gently.
“Better, thank you.” Saskia used Nonna’s proffered arm to stand. Her legs shook but she didn’t fall. “I don’t know what happened. One minute I was fine, and the next…” She glanced toward the vomit and, seeing it, the nausea began to rise. “Shit.” She turned away, trying to steady her breathing.
“You’ve been feeling alright otherwise?” Nonna asked.
“Yes, I’ve been better than ever. I’m sleeping well, eating well…” Wait, where was Nonna going with this? Something tickled at her brain, but her thought was interrupted by the thunder of heavy feet thudding toward them through the kitchen.
Saskia shot Shola a dirty look at which Shola shrugged, unconcerned.
“Muhammed, I’m totally fi– ” He swept her up in his arms before she could finish. As her world tilted, so did her stomach and she cried out.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, panic written all over his face.
Saskia took in a long breath through her nose, steadying herself before answering. “My giant of a boyfriend just jiggled my stomach right after I threw up and now I’m nauseous all over again.”
He looked blank, then shame-faced, though he didn’t put her down. “I’m sorry, I should’ve been more careful. I’ll take you to your room and then you can tell me what’s wrong.”
He rushed her back through the door and into the kitchen.
She held her breath as they went through, trying not to breathe in the cassava.
He was surprisingly gentle as he rushed her up the stairs to her bed. After laying her down on the mattress, he took her hand and sat next to her. “How are you feeling, my angel?”
The look of tragic heartbreak on his face was too much and she burst out laughing. “Muhammed, I just threw up. It’s nothing.” She tried pushing herself up on the bed.
“It’s not nothing,” he said sharply, pushing her back down. “Throwing up can be a symptom of many deadly things. Flu, poison, cancer, allergy. We must get you checked out immediately.”
“Muhammed, I’m fine!” And once she was feeling better, they were going to have a talk about his tendency toward overreaction.
He’d been sleeping in the saferoom for a week and if that wasn’t overreacting, she didn’t know what was.
Now this! She wished he would have even one normal response when it came to her.
“Regardless, Shola has been instructed to find the town doctor and bring him here.”
A soft knock from the doorway had them both looking up to find Nonna. Saskia was surprised. Nonna rarely came to the second floor. Her domain was the kitchen and garden.
“May I come in.”
“Of course,” Saskia said, overriding Radik’s fierce frown.
Saskia pushed his hand away and shoved herself up, leaning against the wall of pillows behind her.
Nonna smiled as she approached. “You’re looking much better. There’s colour in your cheeks again. Your stomach has settled, yes?”
Saskia thought about it and nodded. “Yes, much better. I’m just a bit tired now. I don’t usually spontaneously throw up from a strong smell. I guess the cassava must’ve been extra pungent or something.” Again, a thought tickled at her brain.
“Is it possible that you might be pregnant?” Nonna asked gently, keeping her eyes on Saskia.
The thought finally solidified. Pregnancy.
It was what her body had been trying to tell her.
Not just the sudden nausea, but she felt bloated, hungry a lot, but unable to find anything truly satisfying.
She was fatigued all the time, despite sleeping more than usual.
And her dreams had been weird lately too.
“Pregnant?” she whispered.
Radik froze, barely breathing, staring at Saskia like she’d spontaneously turned into a unicorn.
Nonna shrugged. “You won’t know until you take a test, but you have some signs.”
“I’ll… have to get tested.”
“Excuse me.” Radik stood abruptly, moving away from the bed stiffly. He stared at Saskia, then strode to the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked, bewildered. They just found out she could possibly be pregnant and he was leaving her?
“I need… I mean you need… that is, I must call Zander. He’s the only one I trust with something like this.”
Relief flooded her. Of course he wanted his own doctor here when they found out the truth. But it was ridiculous to wait for the man to fly in. “Muhammed, surely there’s a pregnancy test somewhere in Marifiya I can take? Do we really need to wait for Dr. Smith?”
It turned out she was wrong though, there wasn’t a single pregnancy test to be found in town and, as it would have taken just as long for someone to go find one as it would for Radik’s doctor to fly in, they waited for Dr. Smith.
It took about three hours for Dr. Smith to arrive from wherever he was.
During the wait, Radik slowly lost his mind, or so it seemed to Saskia.
He wanted to keep his eyes on her while also seeming to want to get away from her.
The two contradictory emotions led to him pacing through the open door of their two rooms. He was nearby if she needed him, but he didn’t have to look at her the entire time.
She tried not to feel hurt by his coolness, his shock over the possibility of her being pregnant, tried to understand things from his point of view.
He had a pretty fucked up childhood, had seen and done a lot of fucked up stuff.
There was a very good chance he’d never intended to bring children into the world.
It was maybe something they should have talked about before having unprotected sex.
Saskia had never thought seriously about having kids. She was young, she’d just started her career, she was on the birth control shot… oh. “I didn’t get my shot updated.” She’d planned on scheduling it once she got back to Prague, after Pretoria.
“I know,” Radik snapped on his way through the room.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she said, annoyed at his tone. “I didn’t ask for you to bring me here. Anyone would have forgotten under the circumstances.”
“I’m not blaming you, Saskia.” He paced back into his room, disappearing through the doorframe.
“You seem so thrilled though,” she muttered sarcastically. Louder, she said, “Good, because it takes two to make a baby and I don’t remember you ever mentioning protection.”
He paced back into the room. “I knew you were on the shot. I had no reason to worry about pregnancy.”
Saskia wasn’t surprised he knew she was on the shot, he seemed to know everything else about her. “If you know my medical history so well then you should have known I was due for another shot after Pretoria.”
“I was distracted,” he said, making it clear by the look he aimed at her who had been distracting him.
“I don’t know what the big deal is, Muhammed,” she replied, wrapping her arms around her middle. “Babies happen when people have sex and we’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I know our relationship is new, but this sort of thing happens all the time. We’ll figure it out.”
He stopped at the end of her bed and stared at her, but it wasn’t filled with love and admiration. He was looking at her like she was a stranger and it stung.
She wished Nonna were still there. Her presence was calm and comfortable, while Radik’s was ratcheting up the tension in the room.
“Look, I can tell you’re not happy, but we need to talk about what happens if I am pregnant.”
A sharp knock on the door interrupted their conversation and Saskia was grateful. Though she meant what she’d said, they really did need to discuss the next steps, she was relieved to push the conversation off. Honestly, she didn’t know what to do if he told her he didn’t want the baby.
Actually, she did know. She’d cry, she’d stab him, then she’d insist he fly her home. Then for good measure, she’d have Jozef shoot him in the dick.
Radik opened the door, greeting Zander Smith with a handshake. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
Dr. Smith gave Radik a crooked smile. “I was in the air before I discovered your emergency was not actually an emergency.” His gaze strayed to Saskia who stood awkwardly beside the bed. “Good to see you again, Ms. Koba. How are you feeling?”
“Very well, thank you,” she said politely, accepting his handshake.
“She threw up this morning and was nauseous for a while after,” Radik was quick to say.
“Yes, well that can happen in early pregnancy.” Dr. Smith opened his bag and pulled out a thin blue box, handing it to Saskia. “Have you taken one of these before?”
She shook her head.
“The instructions are on the box and I encourage you to read them. It’s pretty basic. You urinate on the stick and then wait about two minutes. One line means you’re not pregnant, two lines means…”
“Pregnant,” Saskia finished for him, taking the proffered test. “Got it.” She ignored Radik as she walked to the washroom. She had to or she’d cry.
Why was he acting this way? So cold? Up to this point it didn’t matter what was going on, he treated her with loving respect. It was like the thought of her being pregnant was turning him into a different man.
She closed the door to the bathroom harder than she meant to, but she didn’t care. Her confusion was turning to anger. How dare he bring her here to Marifiya, away from her job and her family, convince her to stay with him, then totally freak when something unexpected happened?
It wasn’t like she was ready to be a parent either.
Look at the example set for her! Her parents had been violent, territorial, elitist, privileged mobsters.
She knew from a young age that if she were to ever become a mother, she would find her own way.
She would never follow in the path of her parents.
What she hadn’t expected was getting pregnant so young.
But it was with the person she loved. If he stopped freaking out, then so could she and they could get on with figuring this out together.
“Enough!” she snapped at herself in the bathroom mirror. “You’re just thinking yourself in circles. Find out first, deal with the aftermath later.”
But she knew.
She lifted her shirt, revealing her slightly rounded stomach. She’d thought it was growing from all the good food she was eating. Soon it would get even rounder. She touched it gently, trying to imagine what it would feel like to grow bigger over the course of months. To feel her baby move.
She smiled. She liked the image. It made her feel soft, maternal maybe. A baby. Something created by her that belonged to her.
“Are you okay in there?” Radik demanded from the other side of the door, startling her. “Are you sick again?”
She pulled her shirt back down. “I’m fine. Just need a few minutes, okay?”
She turned the sink taps on so she couldn’t hear Radik and Dr. Smith on the other side of the door. Sitting on the toilet, she opened the box and read the instructions. Dr. Smith was right, it looked straightforward.
She did as the test instructed, then set it on the edge of the sink. She knew Radik expected her to show him right away, but she wasn’t going to. She wanted to be the first to know.
She sank to the floor and began counting in her head. While she counted, she pictured the baby. It would have light brown skin, dark hair, brown eyes, a mix of her and Radik. It would be perfect.
“Two minutes,” she breathed as she finished counting.
She snatched the test from the edge of the sink and looked at it. Relief shot through her and she had to laugh at herself for her reaction.
She pushed herself off the floor and took a deep breath, opening the door.
“Saskia.” Radik looked like he’d gone through hell while she was in the washroom. She almost felt sorry for him. She handed him the test.
He stared at it for several seconds, then passed it to Dr. Smith.
The doctor looked at Saskia closely as if measuring her reaction, then smiled. “Congratulations, Ms. Koba, you’re going to have a baby.”