2
Decisions
I don’t know for sure how long I sat huddled on the bathroom floor, pressed up against the clawfoot tub, shudders raking their way through my body. My heart pounded and pounded, and I kept hearing Margot Emory’s words echoing through my mind.
The wives of Jeremiah’s line would never live to see their children grow up.
No, I wasn’t a wife…I wasn’t anything to Connor, apparently. But it was his child I carried, and that meant I’d meet the same fate as all those other women, no matter what my marital status might be.
At last I pulled myself to my feet, sucked in a shaky breath, then turned the spigot and splashed some water on my face. It was icy cold, but I didn’t care. Actually, it was better that way. I needed the shock of the cold water against my skin to quell the panic within me, to bring me back to earth.
Get a grip, I told myself. It’s a baby. It’s not like it’s the monster from Alien and is going to burst through your chest at any moment and kill you on the spot.
True. But eventually I’d end up just as dead as any of the parade of actors and extras killed on-screen in those movies, albeit probably in a less gruesome fashion.
The thought tickled at the back of my mind, quiet, insidious.
Get rid of it. Connor threw you out…there’s no reason for you to keep it.
There was a Planned Parenthood in Prescott. I could make an appointment, drive over….
No. It was the same deep, quiet voice I had heard in my mind before, when I’d wondered if it might have been better for Damon to have bonded with me, just to avoid all the death and destruction he’d left in his wake after it turned out that Connor was my consort instead. And in that moment I knew I could never do such a thing. Not because I believed myself to be on any particular moral high ground — I’d always believed a woman should choose what was best for herself and her future — but because Connor and I had made this baby out of love, even if that love had later withered and died. I didn’t know why the contraceptive spell had failed, or what I should do next, but I couldn’t destroy something that had come from such beauty.
With a sigh, I wrapped the plastic stick with its ominous pink lines in more toilet paper and then dropped it in the trash can. It had told me what I needed to know, and I didn’t want to look at it anymore. I knew I should probably be calling Planned Parenthood to get a real test, for confirmation and to determine just how far along I was, but that could wait a day or two. My aunt and I saw a civilian GP down in Cottonwood when the need for something beyond over-the-counter medicine or folk cures was required, since our clan didn’t currently have a healer. I knew my doctor could probably do the same thing for me as the staff at Planned Parenthood. But she knew me; there would be questions, and I just didn’t know how to answer them.
I could hear my phone ringing from where I’d left it on the dresser in my bedroom. I almost let it roll over to voicemail, but then I realized it was probably Sydney calling, and she’d just keep calling back until I answered her. She’d made me promise to go to the Spirit Room with her, since Black Forest Society was playing, and although I’d tried to protest, had said I didn’t want to see a band Connor liked so much, she said it was important that I go.
“Kind of like shock therapy,” she told me. “You can’t hide from things forever. We saw them last summer and had a good time.”
All of that was true, I supposed. I couldn’t block out everything that might raise the specter of a memory I’d shared with Connor. Especially now, when I had something I really couldn’t hide from. Not for long, anyway.
As I went into the bedroom, I placed one hand on my stomach, which of course still felt completely flat. At least I hadn’t been throwing up or anything. From time to time I had felt a little tired, but I’d just figured that was because of everything that was going on and the general ennui that had surrounded me ever since I came back to Jerome after Connor threw me out. I’d had no reason to believe I might be pregnant. Or actually, I’d had several reasons, but my grief-fogged brain had skipped right over them.
I picked up the phone. “Hi, Sydney.”
She launched into a reply without even the semblance of a preamble. “So, Anthony got called in to work, which means I don’t think we’ll be able to make dinner, since he’s not off until seven-thirty. Can we just meet you at the Spirit Room at eight?”
In a way, that was a relief. That meant less time where I’d have to pretend to act normal around them. “Sure. I’ll get us some good seats.”