Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [76]
Oh, I’d forgotten. I’d traded one torture for another.
“I really need you to sit up,” she said. “Look at me. This is important.”
I massaged my temples. If I could just unknot my brain, I’d feel better. I pushed myself up to a semi-reclining position.
“Okay, I’m sitting up. This better be good.” I scratched my bed-head hair.
She sat on the bed somewhere between my waist and feet. I’m so short, it's a small vicinity, but she's there somewhere. She wiped her palms on her uniform pants. She had my attention now because she was acting very un-Cathryn-like.
“First, I want you to know we all understand how much you’ve had to deal with, not just since you’ve been here, but in the past few days. And it's obvious to us how committed you are to your recovery and to staying here until you graduate.”
“You’re scaring me. What happened and to whom?” The brain knot relocated to my throat.
“Don’t be scared. Your family's fine.”
“Then what?”
“Usually one of the staff doctors handles medical issues with patients. But, since this is not a medical issue per se, I volunteered to talk to you.”
I leaned forward, reached for Cathryn's hand, and squeezed. Gently. “If you don’t get this out soon, I might have to squeeze until your fingernails pop off.”
“You’re pregnant.”
A fifty-pound sack of surprise slammed into my reality.
“I’m … say that again.”
“Pregnant.”
In some movies, women fainted when they were told this. I very much wished to be one of those women right now. “This can’t be. No. No. No. Oh, dear God. Why? Why now? How am I supposed to do this?” I mashed my pillow over my face. The pillow case smelled like lemons.
Cathryn tugged the pillow toward her. “What can we do to help you right now? Do you want to talk to Carl? I can call him for you.”
“No. No. Don’t tell Carl. It's early. It has to be. I can’t be that far along. My periods have been weird all my life, so I don’t usually panic when I’m late. But I know I just had one not so long ago. I remember because I’d run out of tampons. Carl had to buy them for me. He bought six boxes so he’d not have to buy them again for a long time. When was that? Did I write it down? Maybe I circled the date in my planner.” I jumped out of bed. “Where's my purse? Here, here. I found it.” I overturned it on the bed. “Planner, planner. I know it's here. Checkbooks. Wait. Aha.” I pushed the lipsticks, pens, paper clips, coupons, and assorted purse trash aside and sat on the bed. “March, April, May, June. Maybe I missed it. May, April, March.” I counted months on my fingers. “It might be January or December. I’m not sure.”
Cathryn watched me. Her head moved back and forth and up and down. She allowed my frenzy. “We can find out the due date. Are you sure you don’t want to tell Carl?”
“He’ll want me to leave. He won’t let me finish. I have to stay. I have to. If I don’t finish, I might drink again. I can’t drink again. Ever. Ever. Ever.”
She nodded. “Okay. No telling Carl. We want you to finish your program. And this baby wants you to finish too.”
Alyssa. My sweet precious baby girl. Mommy is so, so sorry. Mommy didn’t know. She didn’t know. And now I do, and it's too late. I love you so much. I loved you so much. But I was too late. And you needed me. And I wasn’t there. Alyssa, Mommy will never ever ever forget there's nothing worse than too late.
I smelled baby powder, felt the warm fuzzy softness of her round apple cheek pressed against mine, heard her cooing, and could not bear to take my eyes away from her when she nursed, and I would whisper, “I’m your mommy. And you are Alyssa. Jesus loved us so much he gave you to us. And Jesus loves Alyssa. I’m your mommy, and I will love you forever and ever.”
And then I did what the ladies in the movie did.
Fainted.
33
We decided, the hospital staff and I, not to tell anyone.
I asked to attend AA smoke-free meetings. I told the group the smoking made me sick. I stayed back from some smokers meetings, and the smokers had to tap their feet through some of the clean air ones. Doug