top of the two positive tests?
A child! A baby . . . What a crazy idea!
Shit, she was having Tim Parker’s baby – the man who had shown no interest in her whatsoever since those few nights of passion. After their goodbye in the fall she had neither seen him nor talked to him. It was over. History. A brief chapter, a summer fling. That was how he’d seen it. And now that the first frost had arrived, the result of that meaningless fling was growing inside of her.
What would he say?
Lauren spent a full hour shocked and paralyzed. The faucet was dripping water, and her little toe was already blue from her being so cold, but she found no answer to her question. What might he say? And . . . how should she tell him?
‘Hi, Tim, do you remember how you used to stick your penis into my vagina? And did you know that condoms don’t actually offer one hundred per cent protection from pregnancy?’
Maybe not.
Lauren massaged her scalp with her fingertips, and got up. What Tim would or wouldn’t say was not the most pressing issue right now.
With her legs heavy as if carrying lead weights, Lauren dragged herself over the heap of dirty laundry piling up in front of her bed, and fished an open bar of milk chocolate from the nightstand drawer. Then she crawled into bed, gloomily, pulled the comforter over herself and up to the tip of her nose, and took a bite of the chocolate. She barely noticed the snow falling outside her window. The murmuring of the heating system mingled with the roaring pain in her head. The chocolate in her mouth had no taste and did not make her feel better. Still, she ate the whole bar. It didn’t matter now – soon she’d be round and fat anyway, waddling around with her big pregnant belly.
Exhausted, Lauren closed her eyes. Today was a lost day. She would not be able to come to any sensible conclusions and felt incapable of talking her problems through with anyone. Besides, she’d still be pregnant tomorrow. There was no rush today.
A tear ran down her cheek and onto her pillow.
Lauren knew why she was crying. Not because she was pregnant. Not because a baby would mess with all of her non-existent plans. And not even because Tim was the father.
She cried because she was in love. In love with a guy named Tim who by now would have forgotten all about her. And because it was already hard enough trying to forget about him. It had hurt, a lot, but Lauren had resolutely removed this thorn in her side – only to now come to realize that the thorn had left a far deeper wound than expected.
It wouldn’t be easy to forget about Tim Parker if she had his child.
One tear turned into many, and the big knot in her stomach would not go away.
Why couldn’t there be someone around to make her a cup of tea? Why was she alone? Didn’t it take two to create a child? And why the hell had Tim not fallen in love with her? Was there something wrong with her? Why had he found it so easy to turn away?
She rubbed her feet together as they were numb from the cold, and let out a sigh of relief when they at least returned to life with a tingle. Accompanied by an odd feeling of foreignness inside her own body, she finally fell into an uneasy sleep.
Four days, three more tests, and a visit to the doctor’s, and there was no more doubt.
She was pregnant.
Her professor’s monotonous lecture echoed from the high walls of the lecture hall and created a soft, acoustic background to Lauren’s vaguely drifting thoughts. She had no idea what he was droning on about, even when she looked up and stared at the photo of the four presidents at Mount Rushmore. Apparently something about sculpting or stonemasonry.
Lauren pulled the end of her pencil out of her mouth, scrunching up her nose when she noticed the impressions her teeth had left on the soft wood. She stared at her watch, breathing out and feeling irritated. Another hour.
The other students were sitting in their seats, equally unenthusiastic, and all the oxygen seemed to have drained from the room ages ago.
Why was she even doing this to herself?
She was pregnant after all! Whatever was this supposed to mean for her future.
While the professor up front inadvertently picked one of the presidents’ noses with his pointer stick, Lauren went through the different possible scenarios in her mind.
She most liked the idea of being a chilled, relaxed mom, raising the child by herself and living off her art by the Maine coast. Except, this was quite a stretch, because even though she was studying art she didn’t have much talent for it. Not for painting or sculpture, anyway. With her degree she’d be allowed to teach art classes, however . . . which didn’t sound half as glamorous in her imagination as being a famous artist.
And back between her teeth the pencil went. She would stand there before a horde of students, just as bored as her professor. And then she pictured herself throwing all of her career plans overboard, devoting her time to her child and only her child. Not such a bad idea either but, at the bottom of her heart, playing such a passive role did not fit with her idea of living an independent life.
The only option she was able to rule out right away was terminating her pregnancy. Why? Lauren didn’t have a good enough answer for herself, but it was simply out of the question. Life was precious. Always. Every life. And with that, the most important decision had already been made – no matter what the rest would look like.
Deep in thought she started drawing circles in her notebook, filling them in with various shades of crosshatch patterns. She felt nauseous. Was that a side effect of her pregnancy, or the result of her decision-making?
She tied her hair up into a loose bun, and noticed how her hands were shaking. Shit, why did everything have to be so complicated?
For a while longer, she tried to follow her professor’s lecture. Then she got up, grabbed her papers, carelessly stuffed them all into her bag, and left the lecture hall.
When the heavy door closed behind her with a thud and her footsteps echoed through the empty hallway, she started feeling better. She closed the top few buttons on her winter coat and stepped outside into the drifting snow. The snowflakes floated down, thick as cotton wads. The entire campus descended into a soft white blanket of glittering snow crystals. Snow crunched beneath Lauren’s feet, and she made it a point to only step where the snow cover was virgin and untouched.
Even though more than a week remained until Christmas break, Lauren decided to return to Vermont right away. She had a few things to clear up. The presidents at Mount Rushmore would understand.
Her breath painted little clouds into the cold air, and she felt strangely relieved considering the fact that something was weighing so heavily on her mind. When she reached her car, snowflakes were sitting on her hair, and her cheeks were flushed. The freckles on her nose were glowing. She sat down behind the wheel, started the card and turned into the deserted campus road. The wheels found almost no grip on the slippery snow cover, but her dorm wasn’t far.
Getting there didn’t even take the time she needed to come up with what she would say to her parents and, most importantly, to Tim. She was afraid of the conversations but at the same time felt hope rise up inside of her, hope that Tim would maybe be happy.
‘Highly unlikely!’ she reminded herself.
