Page 65 of Sinful in Scrubs

“That first year of menopause can be tricky. If you just think it’s menopause but aren’t certain, of course, you can get pregnant.”

That made sense to me. The patient, not realizing she wasn’t in menopause, probably hadn’t been as careful as she would have otherwise. As the two nurses discussed the nuances of unexpected, later-in-life pregnancies, I began wondering if there was any way my missed period wasn’t just from stress—but something more intense.

Such as my being unexpectedly pregnant.

This was not something I had planned for. This was not a surprise I would take kindly to. But considering how my life had been playing out recently, I could very well be pregnant.

The thought would not leave me alone all day. Being around all those pregnant women didn’t ease my mind at all and only convinced me more and more that I was knocked up. At the first opportunity, I went to a drugstore and picked up an at-home pregnancy test.

I stared at the pastel and white piece of plastic that looked like a magic marker, followed the instructions, and waited as the test developed.

A positive result.

I hummed a small sound of acceptance as the test confirmed what I already suspected. Of course I was pregnant. Nothing was easy these days.

This was definitely going to change a few things. The first being whether or not I was going to continue at this job. If I was pregnant, I wanted to be near my family. And that meant my grandmother in New York.

But if I was in New York, that also meant I had to figure out how to let Marcus know. ‘Surprise. You’re going to be a father, again.’ That was a conversation I didn’t look forward to.

The first step was to develop an exit strategy for L.A. I wasn’t sticking around. Not with this change in my life. Considering how the job I had at the hospital wasn’t the job I had agreed to, I didn’t think I would have any problems leaving—no breach of contract or anything along those lines. After all, if St. Cedar’s wanted to proceed along that line, they were the ones who went out of contractual bounds first.

Now, I just needed to figure out what my insurance company wanted to do about the car I no longer needed. I had never needed to own a car in New York before, and I wasn’t about to now. The only question left was where would I live?

Only, I realized my leasing agent hadn’t found a tenant yet. I still had my apartment.

I let out a sigh of relief. I had a place to live, and that seemed to make the rest of this not feel so overwhelming. And then I remembered James Collins had been disappointed that I quit. Maybe he would be willing to hire me back at Manhattan Memorial.

I wouldn’t know until I asked. I glanced at the time on my phone. It was too late to expect James to be in his office right now. I did quick time zone math and realized he would be back in his office before I left for work in the morning.

I set my alarm so that I could get up early and make a few calls. I needed to cancel Kathleen Jansen’s services and make contact with James at Manhattan Memorial.

30

MARCUS

The house was dark when I came home, lights were off, and I assumed the kids were already in bed. The constant patter of rain seemed to make the space at home seem more enclosed. I found a plate covered in Saran Wrap with the night’s dinner tucked into the refrigerator waiting for me. It was nights like this that I seemed to miss having somebody to come home to the most, somebody who would wait up for me and not tuck themselves into bed because they had school in the morning.

As my thoughts drifted to Emma and not Blair, I realized just how much I had really come to think of that woman. I wasn’t relying on the memories of Blair to keep me going day to day, but thoughts of Emma and what we could have had were propelling me forward.

She was in L.A., and I was here with a couple of teenagers. And I was only now cluing in that I was in love with her.

I did the routine things. I got my dinner out of the fridge. I microwaved it, set my place at the table, complete with folded a napkin and knife and fork. There was something about the ritual of eating dinner with a modicum of formality that helped me to wrap up my day. There was nothing to stop me from wolfing down my food while I hovered over the sink other than the struggle to maintain my own humanity. I contemplated whether the stressors of the day warranted a drink or not.

Returning to the kitchen, I stood in front of the open refrigerator and stared at the few bottles of beer I had tucked up in the back. How long had they been in there? I really hadn’t had a drink in quite a while. That had been a deliberate choice. I completely stopped consuming alcohol in the months after I lost Blair because that was a hole that was too easy to fall down into and extremely difficult to get out of.

I didn’t want to be that man. I couldn’t be that father.

I closed the refrigerator door on the beer and, pulling a glass out of the cupboard, I filled it with ice from the dispenser on the front of the refrigerator and then filled it with water. I was probably dehydrated, anyway.

After I finished my meal, I took care of the dishes and finished cleaning the kitchen. I needed to make sure I let Lily know her cooking skills were much appreciated and were definitely getting better.

I was relieved that she was no longer taking her anger out on me in the meals she made on the nights she was responsible for cooking. While a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was food, it didn’t feel much like a dinner.

I had an appointment next week with her therapist, so I would make sure that I mentioned this improvement in her attitude. One of my tasks for therapy was to point out when Lily did something right and to not focus on the problems or areas I thought she could improve on, but to focus on the good. She needed to see that I did still trust her, even though she had made a mistake, and she needed to see that I didn’t blame her for everything.

My child was hurting. It was my job to do the best I could to ease the pain of the world for her. So I had homework too.

With the dishwasher running and the house still quiet with everyone except me asleep, I began thinking about that drink again. It would be nice to just sit alone in the quiet with my thoughts and the sound of the rain. This kind of contemplative scenario was not one for beer but deserved something a little more refined.

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