A.J. looked nothing like me. With his dark hair, green eyes and dimples, he was all Jake. We used to joke that Jake just shit A.J. out and that I had nothing to do with our son’s creation. But of course, my c-section scar and the months of postpartum depression after he was born served as the evidence that I was definitely his mother. I was just the incubator.
A.J. was only going to be forty minutes away in Malden for the weekend, but for some reason, I was going to really miss him. It was rare that he spent the night away from home. At the same time, it would be refreshing for Jake and me to have some time alone. I was really looking forward to having my sexy man all to myself tonight.
The timing was perfect for it. We’d been under a lot of stress lately between my final nursing clinicals before graduation and the ongoing issues with trying for a baby. Just thinking about the past couple of months caused a fresh stream of tears to fall down my cheeks yet again. I needed Jake to come home and knock some sense into me, make me laugh, comfort me, make love to me.
It would be another couple of hours before he returned from work. To pass the time, I decided to take a walk down to the drug store on Harvard Street for some magazines and shampoo.
I stopped by the local café for a to-go coffee and window shopped in Coolidge Corner on my way. The sun was setting, and the streets were bustling with people heading home from work for the weekend.
We lived in the cutest neighborhood. There were lots of eclectic shops and family-owned businesses. Sometimes, I couldn’t believe how lucky we were. As I pondered that, my eyes once again filled with moisture. Everything was making me cry.
Snap out of it, Nina.
As I entered the sliding automatic doors at CVS, the bright fluorescent lights helped cool down my emotional state. I took my time browsing each aisle. It was a rarity to be here alone without A.J. begging for sour gummy worms or a cheap toy.
When I stopped in the magazine section, a smiling baby with a cherubic face stared back at me from the front page of a parenting periodical. When my eyes moistened again, a thought crossed my mind.
Could I be pregnant? Is that why my emotions are out of whack?
I hated to ponder it because that would set myself up for disappointment again. I knew better than to get my hopes up. Still, when I passed the reproductive health aisle, I couldn’t resist nonchalantly dumping a pregnancy test kit into my basket.
At the register, the attendant smiled at me when she rang up the pink box along with the smiling baby magazine. (I couldn’t resist.)
It was completely dark out by the time I ventured back outside. A harsh wind-driven chill in the air prompted me to adjust my scarf over my face. I remembered they were talking about a pretty bad storm that we’d be getting tonight. It made me relieved to know that A.J. was already where he needed to be.
Back at the apartment, I rubbed my hands together, but the friction did little to warm me up. Despite the coziness of our home, the intensity of the cold outside lingered long after I stepped inside. Without A.J. here, it was also eerily quiet.
I’d decided to head to the kitchen to make some tea. The steam from the piping hot water relaxed me as I steeped the tea bag and debated whether to take the test before or after Jake came home. I hated putting him through the excitement of waiting in vain. The only thing worse than how a negative test made me feel was always the disappointment in his eyes that he tried unsuccessfully to hide. It would be better if I did it alone and kept the negative result to myself.
Guilt often consumed me. Jake had wanted another baby for years, and I wouldn’t agree to it. By the time I came around, my body had apparently decided not to cooperate. If I’d given in and allowed myself to get pregnant six years ago, we might have had no problem. Sometimes, it felt like I was being punished for my own selfishness.
Jake was such an amazing father. He deserved to have another child—or two or three. Despite working long hours at his engineering job north of the city, he gave A.J. his full attention from the second he came home until bedtime and even cooked dinner for us much of the time.
We had a great life six out of the seven days of the week.
Except Saturdays.
Saturdays were the black holes of my life because those were the days he’d visit Ivy. He’d leave in the morning, and I’d count the hours until he returned. Sometimes, that would be late afternoon and often times, evening.
I usually cleaned the house or made plans with A.J. to pass the time on those days. We’d always told our son that “daddy goes to help a sick friend.” We left it at that.
I had a habit of internalizing my feelings about Jake’s relationship with Ivy because it wasn’t fair to add more stress to a situation that couldn’t be helped. From the moment I learned the truth all those years ago, it was clear that Ivy was like family to Jake. As unfair as it seemed, he’d inherited the responsibility of looking after her. I really did understand his dilemma. But that didn’t mean I had to like it or that I wasn’t going to get jealous.