CHAPTER 5
Six Weeks Later
“Pregnant?”Iaskthroughhysterical laughter. Doctor Salim stares at me with increasing concern as I spiral further. “No way. Nope! No-no-no. Check again. Run back the tapes. Recount the votes. Something iswronghere.”
The doctor takes a deep breath in as she sits straighter, poised like the impressive woman she is. She at least pretends to look over the papers in her hand again—the folder she must have mistaken as mine. “Win, bloodwork does not lie. If your last period was October sixteenth, that’d make you about eight weeks along.”
“Winnifred McNulty,” I point to the top of the lab report, “is a more common name than you’d think.” I swallow nervously. “The labs probably switched my results with someone else.” That’s it. That has to be it.
We’re interrupted by the sound of a swift knock, followed by the arrival of a disembodied hand through the crack of the door—presumably attached to the nurse who made me pee in a cup. Another sheet of paper is handed over. Those arenotmy friends today.
“Your urine sample was also positive for pregnancy,” the doctor says, adding another paper to my ever-growing folder. “Win.” She sets the file on her desk and places one leg over the other before resting her tightly clasped hands above her knee. “I take it this is somewhat of a surprise?”
“I’m on the pill,” I say, my voice far off. Perhaps my voice is somewhere with my body. My non-pregnant body. The one I had only minutes ago.
“No contraceptive is 100 percent effective against pregnancy.”
“I also use condoms,” I add.
“Every time?”
Shit,right. “Well, one time… no.” Before Halloween, I had a perfect record.Then Bo. The guy I’ve tried to push out of my thoughts since.
“One time about five to six weeks ago?” Doctor Salim asks, her patience momentarily lapsing.
“About that, yes,” I reply, snarkier than intended. “Shit, sorry,” I whisper into my palms, covering my face. “I got knocked up by a pirate…” I say, my voice muffled by my hands.
“Sorry, what?” The doctor’s tone alerts me to the very unusual thing I just said.
I peek through my fingers at her. “It was Halloween. He was dressed as a pirate.”
“Oh.” She sighs. “Were you intimate with anyone else that same month or shortly thereafter?”
“No, just him.”
“The pirate?”
“Aye,” I whimper softly.
She gives me athis is not the timelook that I’ve only previously gotten from my mother. “Well, you have the good fortune of knowing exactly when conception was, which sets your due date at about…” She picks up a circular cardboard device from her desk and rotates between dates. “July twenty-fourth.”
“Okay.” I nod, my eyes finding a spot on the wall to steady me. A small piece of chipped paint becomes my focal point as the walls swell and tilt around me.
July twenty-fourth. That’s a fairly inconspicuous day. What do I normally do on July twenty-fourth?
My summers are usually spent lifeguarding on the beach at the local campsite, Westcliff Point. Last year, I worked extra shifts at the café to pay for a trip to visit Mom in Florida at the end of the summer. We ate dinner outside every night while I was there to the sounds of whistling through palm leaves and aggressively vocal frogs. Her skin looked like leather, and my concern for her sunbathing habits grew. But nothing significant happened. Nothing this significant haseverhappened.
I can’t be a lifeguard when I’m nine months pregnant.
I can’t visit my mom with a newborn.
Whatcansomeone do at nine months pregnant other than… wait?
“The good news is that at this stage of your pregnancy, you have every option available to you. We have some time to decide how to best move forward.”
“Okay” is the only word I seem to have available to me.
“Is there someone you could call to help you process this news? A friend? The, er, father, perhaps?”
