Page 57 of A Labor of Hate
I nodded so enthusiastically my head threatened to pop off.“That’s no problem at all.”
The masseuse turned her attention to Vivienne, who had already situated herself on the weirdest shaped pillow.“Great!You’re already undressed and ready.Looks like you’ve had a prenatal massage before, correct?”
I tuned out their small talk.So far, my best bet was still feigning food poisoning.I’d just wait until the technician arrived and attempt to look as sick as possible in the meantime.I would run out of the room holding my mouth in the universalclear the way, I’m gonna hurlsign.It wouldn’t be great, but it couldn’t be worse than being discovered, right?
I didn’t have time to solidify my plan of action before the door opened.Another sky-blue scrub-like uniform entered, and when I saw who wore it, the knot in my stomach immediately eased.
“Hello, miss.”Hattie smiled widely, her eyes twinkling behind her glasses.“My name is Hattie, and I’ll be taking care of you.”
I went through the motions of introducing myself, too, knowing full well she knew who I was.How was she here?Is this what her day job was?And if so, what were the odds?
Slim.
Tooslim.
As the other masseuse distracted Vivienne with a question, I whispered, “How are you here?”
She guided me into position, mirroring Vivienne’s position on the bed and pillow beside me.“You can thank your hubby for this.”She shook her head, her gray halo of hair swaying as she tsked.“I can’t believe you just showed up here without a plan.I’m good, but I’m not a miracle worker.Really, girl, aspa day?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” I grumbled, guilt sinking into every pore.“And Ididhave a plan.”
Not necessarily agoodone, but a plan, nonetheless.The best I thought I could come up with, given the circumstances.
Colt had saved my sorry butt with his obsessive planning and attention to detail.His incessant need to approach things from every conceivable angle.The same thing I’d ridiculed days ago because I thought I could handle things on my own.
I should’ve known better.Ididknow better.Just like all of his plans still involved an element of improvisation as long as there were real, living people involved, I couldn’t get everywhere on my half–hearted planning and improvisation alone.I needed planning more than I wanted to admit.Undercover work required both to succeed, and I’d let my pride and grudge against him blind me to that.If he hadn’t planned regardless of my protests, I could’ve ruined everything today.
Hattie seemed to sense that I was already beating myself up about it, since she didn’t comment further.Instead, she mirrored the other masseuse’s motions for the massage, starting with my scalp.She dug her fingers in with vigor, smiling when I flinched.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t suffering enough for her after all.
Vivienne let out a sigh of contentment.“Isn’t this nice?Growing another human can really wear on you.”
“Oh, yeah.”I assumed being pregnant would take a lot of energy.Toting around a baby-less stomach did, after all, and I wasn’t diverting any internal resources to it.“Do you think it’ll all be worth it?”
“Without a doubt.”
Probably the right answer to have, considering she actually had to give birth at the end of all this.But it still took me by surprise how she hadn’t thought twice before answering.
“I’m under no delusion that parenthood is all sunshine and roses,” she continued.“But it isn’t all storm clouds and rain, either.You need both sunshineandrain to grow roses.”
She hugged a pillow the masseuse gave her, and I soon did the same.
“Aren’t you sometimes worried about all the crying and poopy diapers and—” Dominick’s face flashed behind my eyes, so I squeezed them shut “—what it would do to you to lose your child?”
“Of course.But…” She trailed off, and when she spoke again, her voice was subdued yet heavy with conviction.Her stare was distant and glazed, and in that moment, her cheerful exterior faltered, and I glimpsed a weary woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders.“I want love to run my life.Not fear.No matter what might happen, nobody can take the memories I’ll have with my baby away.And if pain is the price of having my little boy in my life for whatever time I can, I’ll gladly pay it.”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.Memories of Dominick played behind my eyes.Would I trade all of them just to be free of the pain of losing him?To remove the memories—all the time we spent together—would be to remove him from my life completely.To make it so I’d never cared about him.If I hadn’t loved him, the loss wouldn’t have been alossat all.It wouldn’t have hurt.It wouldn’tstillhurt.But it did, because I cared.I still did.And I wouldn’t trade having known him to take that away.
Did Mom and Dad feel the same way?Dominick’s death had torn them and their relationship apart.Would they still do it all again if the alternative was to never have had him in the first place?I would.Every mind-numbing ache in my heart from losing him, every purposeless day spent going through the motions while I struggled to hold myself together—I’d do it all again if it meant having the memories.
Vivienne’s voice broke through my thoughts.“The way you’re talking, I almost wonder if your baby was a surprise?”
“Oh, definitely,” I snorted, snapping back to the present.It had been the surprise of the century, I’d say.“It’s not technically a honeymoon baby, but it’s pretty close.”
“That’s so romantic,” she sighed.“Charles and I have been trying for years.Tracking ovulation, special diets, fertility treatments—you name it.We’d even looked into surrogacy.”
My chest sank like my heart had fallen into quicksand.I’d been staunchly pushing away the guilt from pretending to be pregnant when so many people struggled with infertility.Outside of my former resolve not to have children, there wasn’t anything that would actually prevent me from getting pregnant, as far as I knew.And here I was, pretending I was having a baby just to further an agenda.
