I pull my hand away and grip the arm of the chair. Breathing loudly through my nose, I shake my head.
“You know what you want to do, Tamara. You just need someone to tell you it’s okay.”
Blinking back tears, again, I say, “What if I suck at it? What if I lose the baby again?”
“What if you’re a really good mother?” she counters with a soft smile. “You’ll come back here and I’ll help you through it. Besides, you have an incredible support team in place, don’t you?”
Tessammai, Vera, Krys, Millie, Varun, Vikram pop into my head and I whimper. They’d drop everything to help me, just like I would for them.
“What else are you afraid of?”
“Everything,” I whisper. I’m afraid to tell Patrick. Afraid to do this on my own. Terrified I won’t be good enough.
“You’re going to be incredible, Tamara. I’m not saying it to make you happy, but because I truly believe it. Look at how far you’ve come since we started working together. Your trauma and history might have raised you, but you’re so much more than that. You are a strong and capable woman. Trust in yourself.”
I wipe my tears with the box of tissues she always keeps beside the chair. Ever since my appointment yesterday, all I’ve thought about is what to do. I’m still uncertain and while the idea of being a mother does excite me, the nerves are far more overwhelming. Forcing a smile, I ball up the tissue and squeeze it in my hand.
“One day, I won’t cry in therapy.”
“Then I’m not doing my job right,” she replies.
“You good, Tam?” I blink at the deep voice as he adds, “You haven’t touched your food.”
I stare at the plate piled with all my favourite things and twist my mouth to the side. I spent all of yesterday weighing my options after therapy. I’m indecisive, but never to this extent, so it took me a really long time to settle on the direction I want to take—I’m keeping my baby. This means I not only have to tell my family, but also speak to Patrick.
The first one seemed easier when I showed up at the Thomas house for our weekly family lunch. Tessammai and Jakesappapen have been doing these lunches ever since all of us moved out of the house. It’s their way of checking in with us once a week and while I’m not as regular as everyone else, I try to show up. My job demands a lot of me in terms of travelling, so I miss these family meals. But I’ve taken a few extra days off and it’s a Sunday, so I could make it.
Varun, my older cousin, puts his hand on my back and I glance at him as tears spring to my eyes. I push my chair back and hurry away from the dining table before I start crying. I’m barely through the door of the bathroom when the first sob bursts out of me. I close the toilet seat and sit down, face pressed into my hands.
Minutes later I hear Vera’s soft voice. “We’ve got you.”
I’m not a crier and I hate the way it makes me feel. I force myself to breathe slowly and sit up, wincing when I notice that not only is Vera here, but so is Varun. His usually serious expression is replaced with concern.
“You both didn’t have to come.”
“My sister needed me,” Varun says softly and a fresh set of tears stream down my cheeks. He pulls me in for a hug and I bury my face in his shoulder.
After my parents died, Tessammai took me in and raised me along with her brood of children. It felt totally normal since my cousins and I were in each other’s lives from the minute we were born. Varun, three years older than me, took his job as the big brother very seriously. He looked out for Vera and me every day, he taught Vikram how to help us when he got older and when Viola was born, I got to watch him spoil the heck out of the youngest member of this family.
“What’s going on, Tam?”
I sniffle and lean back, my answer a jumble on my tongue. It takes me a few minutes to really formulate the sentence and I finally say, “I’m pregnant.”
“Who do I need to hurt?” Varun says, back to being serious and possibly a little dangerous.
“Nobody. I didn’t plan for this, but he was…it was consensual,” I reassure him and he narrows his eyes.
“Who…uh…” Vera trails off as her eyes widen. “Oh holy shit, Patrick?”
I wince and nod. She’s the only person who knows Patrick was my last sexual encounter.
“Who the fuck is Patrick?” Varun says as Vera asks, “Did you tell him?”
I look between the two of them and sigh. “Patrick is Elias’s older brother. The hockey player we’ve been cheering on?” Varun’s expression darkens. “I haven’t spoken to him. I don’t…”
My cousins watch me in confusion as I blow out a loud breath. It’s been two months of weird symptoms I thought were connected to my IBS. Now it’s been two days of knowing that I’m carrying a child thanks to a one night stand with my first love. It’s a lot.
“I’m going to call him tomorrow. Tonight’s the quarter finals, right?”
