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“Can you eat anything?” Justin asked.
Carly shook her head.
“It might help. Some crackers, perhaps? I found an unopened box in the cabinet.”
She shook her head again.
“Oatmeal?”
“Justin, please. Just stop with the food talk, please?”
He was worried. She could see it in his eyes. Carly couldn’t look at him too long, or it made her all teary. Yesterday, when they were packing the jars into boxes, she had dropped and broken one of them and burst into sobs, as if her heart were breaking. She was embarrassed about it even as she wept, which made it worse.
They’d stayed for three days; after the second dose of pills, Carly started vomiting and couldn’t keep anything down, even water. She’d slept as much as possible and stayed in the bedroom, rather than inflict her miserable, grumpy, weepy presence on Justin, but he came in to be with her. The scent of peaches on his breath made her gag.
The poor man tried. Justin tried coaxing her to eat bland, mild foods to soothe her queasy stomach, and when that didn’t work, he tried to get her to drink one of the meal replacement shakes. She’d never noticed how horrible they smelled.
Emotionally, she blamed Justin for her predicament. Though her mind knew it wasn’t his fault, her emotions didn’t care what her brain thought. And so poor Justin bore the brunt of her outbursts. Carly had to give the man credit; he had incredible patience. He never once retorted with a sharp word or rolled his eyes when she burst into tears.
She’d helped him re-pack the wagon, using every inch of space as efficiently as possible. “It’s like Tetris,” Justin had said, and then he laughed when she asked what Tetris was. “Generation gap.” He’d chuckled, and then she’d cried because she thought he was bothered by how much younger she was.
“Just ignore me,” Carly said between sobs when he stopped and pulled her into a hug. “I’m being stupid, I know.”
“You can’t help it. All of those hormones are messing with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry, Carly.” He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face. “I still love you, you know?”
That made her cry again. I don’t deserve such a sweet man. The practical side of her said if he still loved her after seeing her at her worst, she was a lucky woman. She pressed a hand over her stomach. “How long... How long before we know?”
“A week.” Justin shoved another box into the wagon. “We’ll get a test and see if...”
“Justin, what if I am?” Carly’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Then we’ll deal with it.” He was staring off into space, his jaw set. She could tell he was trying to remain calm for her sake, but his posture was tense, and she could see the white-knuckled clench of his fist.
“What do you mean? Deal with it how?” It wasn’t like they had a lot of options.
He sighed and sat down on the end of the wagon bed. “Carly, listen, if it happens, we’ll have some decisions to make. You will have some decisions to make—it’s your body. And I’ll be here no matter what you decide. But let’s not borrow trouble, all right? Don’t worry now. We don’t know yet, and there’s no sense in fretting over the unknown.”
“But if I am, will the pills I took hurt it?” Michelle had told her it was dangerous for a pregnant woman to take even something as ordinary as aspirin. Her thoughts were a conflicting jumble. The idea of being pregnant scared her, but if she was, she didn’t want to harm the baby she carried.
Justin shook his head. “Please, Carly. Just don’t worry about it right now, okay? Let’s worry about getting as far south as we can before we have to hole up for the winter. We can’t change anything right now.”
How was she supposed to put it out of her mind? It was impossible not to worry about it. The thought occupied her mind as they set off on their bikes. She was still queasy, but a little better as the day wore on. Maybe the hormones were finally fading out of her system.
Carly forced herself to eat a small lunch when they stopped, a handful of saltine crackers smeared with peanut butter. Justin made them one by one and handed them to her until she could take no more. He was such a sweet man. She never would have imagined him like this when she was peering at him from her apartment window, back when he was the Biker Guy, and his size and tattoos frightened her.
But the nausea never fully left her. Four days later, Carly leapt off her bike and ran over to the ditch, where her breakfast abandoned ship.
Justin was behind her with a bottle of water. She rinsed her mouth and took a cautious sip. Back up it came, and she ended up retching helplessly, the dry heaves worse than vomiting.
“Should I still be so sick?” she asked him. Justin shook his head. His jaw was tight.
“Maybe I just have the stomach flu. Or maybe I ate something bad from one of those jars.” She knew she was grasping at straws, but she wasn’t ready to accept the other possibility.
“Maybe,” he said, but she could tell he didn’t believe it.
