Page 44 of Curveball: The Baby and the Grump

I clench my fists, take a breath, and walk with as much confidence as I can muster over to the baby-care aisle. The packages all scream at me in muted pinks and soft purples, claiming all sorts of things that I don’t really need to know. I don’t exactly need to take a DNA test to know who the father is.

I don’t get how this could have happened, though. It’s not like we weren’t careful. We always used protection. As I stand there, the prices wavering in front of my eyes, I’m racking my brains trying to figure out just when this could have happened. I guess protection isn’t perfect, or maybe there was one time where we didn’t use a condom even though we knew it was a bad idea. I mean, we’re both clean, so it’s not like it was that big of a mistake. Sort of.

I shake my head trying to expel all these thoughts. It’s not worth dwelling on now. Arbitrarily, I grab two of the mid-range tests and shove them in the basket that I picked up to hide them.

Then I hurry over to the cashier, wishing desperately that they had self-service in this place, and dump the basket on the counter with a thud.

“Hi, honey. How you doing today?” says the lady behind the desk. She looks down at the tests as she picks them up. “This could be exciting,” she grins.

“Yeah,” I say noncommittally.

“What are you hoping for?”

I shrug, trying not to let my discomfort show too much on my face. “I don’t know,” I tell her. And that’s actually true.

There are two paths here. One will bring the relief of not having to tell anyone that I ever did this. And the other might bring Jackson back to me.

These are thoughts I can’t contemplate now, though. I broke up with him. I can’t just go letting him back in because I’m pregnant.

Oh, my God — what if I’m pregnant?

“Well, I bet it’ll be exciting to tell the daddy,” says the cashier, blundering into a conversation she can’t see I don’t want to have. “When my husband and I got pregnant, we were taking tests all the time, and he’d sit in the bathroom with me holding my hand until the result came through. We were so delighted when it was positive.”

“I bet,” I mutter.

“So, your total is forty-two dollars, thirteen cents. Cash or credit?”

“Credit,” I say, whipping out my plastic card.

“Just go ahead and slide that in when you’re ready,” she says, then giggles at the dirty joke she just accidentally made. I don’t react. The machine seems to take an age, and the whole time I feel watched, like somebody I know is going to see me and question me and know exactly what’s going on.

Finally, my receipt starts printing out. “Well, good luck, honey. I bet you’ll be an amazing mom.”

“Thanks,” I say curtly. “Can I have a bag?”

She smiles sympathetically as she hands me a brown paper bag, and I snatch it away from her slightly too harshly. “Thank you,” I say, trying to make up for how rude I’m being. She just beams at me and gives me a little wink.

I hurry home and head straight into the bathroom. My hands shaking, I open both boxes and lay out all the contents on the bathroom counter. It’s not exactly a difficult process, but I still hesitate, not quite ready to face what either of these tests could reveal.

I just have to stop wavering. It’s best to just get it done, like a vaccine or removing a Band-Aid.

With as much dignity as I can muster — which when you’re peeing on a tiny stick is not a whole lot — I take both tests and set them back on the counter. I could sit and stare at them for five minutes, or I could do the sensible thing and set a timer and go and do something else.

I take the middle ground between both options, choosing to set a timer and then sit on the floor in terror.

If there’s a child inside me, what am I going do? It’s not that I don’t want kids. I’m just not ready for them. Between Matt and my job, all of my time is taken up, and by all accounts newborns are even more high-maintenance than teenagers, so how am I going to find the time to look after a baby and Matt?

He would be wonderful with a kid, even though he’s a kid himself. I could trust him with anything, so I’m not worried about that. It’s Jackson I’m having nervous palpitations over.

A vision of him teaching our kids to play baseball flashes through my mind, and I can’t help but laugh to myself. “Stop it,” I mutter quietly. “This is pointless.”

He’ll be upset if I don’t tell him, but I also don’t know how to. I don’t think I could bear it if he reacts badly. I don’t think I could cope with it if he didn’t want anything to do with me ever again. I mean, that’s pretty much how we are now. But breaking up is one thing; being an estranged father is another.

It was easier for me in a way, without my dad. I was old enough to remember him leaving, so I knew he didn’t care. And even though I still miss him, I know there’s no force on earth that could make him come back. He wasn’t ready to be a dad. As an adult, I can understand it.

Now, of all times, I think I can forgive it. As I sit here on my bathroom floor, three seconds away from bursting into tears, I can understand it all. The fear of the enormity of the rest of my life stretches out in front of me, and thinking about my dad makes me want to cry even more than I already do.

All of this is like a floodgate, like picking a scab on a wound that hasn’t healed and it’s gushing blood all over the floor. I don’t want that for my baby.

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