Page 49 of A Really Bad Idea

“I have to get back to work.”

We’re on the curb as she hails a cab. “I’m gonna hit up Chelsea and see what I can find down there. I’m on the hunt for a ballet flat for all hems.”

“When you find it, let me know.” I wave her good-bye before making my way back to the office.

Now that I’ve told Beth about my and Christian’s plan, it feels a little more real. It’s no longer this idea but a reality. The other night, I told myself I would be so frazzled over the idea of me and Christian creating a baby that I wouldn’t stress over actually having a baby. I must have been doing it as a defense mechanism because, now, a warmth rushes through my belly at the possibility.

I’m going to be a mom.

If you get pregnant, Meadow.

Yes, I know. It might not happen, but at the same time … it could.

I pause at the children’s boutique. The store is lined with soft pinks and blues. The mannequins are dressed in layettes and bonnets. A swell of tears fills my eyes as I think of what it will be like to hold my baby for the first time.

Will it be a boy? Maybe a girl. Will it be as Angela and Beth predicted at my birthday dinner—green eyes and full lips with hair so dark that it’s almost black? Or perhaps it’ll have blue eyes, as Christian said. A tall child with wavy hair and his dimples.

Next door is a frozen yogurt shop. A group of preteens comes out with their school uniforms rolled up to show too much thigh for their age, and their faces are painted with more makeup than I was allowed to wear as a kid. One gives me a snarl, and I laugh, remembering myself at that age. I was kind of a dork and totally into books and theater, but I’m sure I gave my parents attitude for merely existing. We all think we know everything when we’re the most lost than we will be for the rest of our lives.

An overwhelming feeling takes over me.

I want that, too. I want the snarky teenager who thinks they’re better than me. A determined soul who I will butt heads with, only to allow them to come into their own. I want the sweet and the sour, the tantrums and the tears. I know it will be hard, but I’m ready.

I need to rein in my daydreams until it happens. So many things might change. Christian could change his mind. I might, which I highly doubt. And, like I’ve been saying to myself as a mantra, it might not happen because I can’t.

“Hey, Angela,” I say as I walk into Park Avenue Cardiology.

“Your mom’s in Dr. G’s office,” she states hurriedly as I walk past her desk.

“I didn’t know she was coming in today.”

“She wasn’t on the calendar. Apparently, she called him on his cell phone, and he told her to come in immediately.”

Nothing about that sentence sits right with me. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, but your next two patients are here early, and we’re backed up.”

“Get them into exam rooms six and nine. I’ll be there in a few to triage.” My feet are speeding down the hallway toward the exam rooms.

My mom is exiting one with Christian’s father behind her. He has her chart in his hand.

“What happened?” I ask, doing my own Gail Duvane–like evaluation of my mother, using my eyes and intuition.

Upon initial observation, she looks fine. Her skin color is good, as are the whites of her eyes. She doesn’t appear to be losing weight or look faint. Her hair is sprayed in a perfect style, and she’s wearing a maroon pantsuit with shoulder pads.

“Meadow, darling, what’s wrong?” she asks as if her being here for an emergency visit is nothing to be alarmed about.

“Angela said you came in for an emergency appointment.”

She dismissively waves me off with a smile. “It’s nothing. I was feeling flutters, so Thomas said to come in.”

I raise a brow and then move my know-it-all stare to Thomas. “From New Jersey?”

He’s standing behind my mother, looking like the spitting image of his son, only thirty years older and shy of about three inches. He knows he can’t keep my mother’s medical records a secret from me, no matter how many HIPAA laws there are in this world.

“Your mother is in atrial fibrillation.”

She already had open-heart surgery ten years ago to replace her leaking mitral valve. Knowing my mother has an aging replacement valve with a now-chaotic and irregularly beating heart does not sit well with me. Heart palpitations and shortness of breath when you have a replacement valve could be signs of its deterioration.