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“I’ve got you,” he whispers, holding me steady. And the thing is, I believe him. Which feels just as dangerous.
He nods and hands me my “goody” bag. It’s full of pamphlets and instructions for a follow-up appointment with an in-network OB-GYN, which is laughable because I don’t belong to any sort of healthcare network. But Derek was insistent on paying, so it must be his.
“Why don’t you give me your prescriptions and I’ll go get them before the store closes?” He runs a hand through his wavy hair, leaving it unkempt and messy.
I like the way it looks, as if he’s just gotten out of bed. But beneath that hair, his eyes are wide and his shoulders are tight. As if he can’t decide whether he wants to stay or run.
“They’re in the bag, I think?” he says, nodding at the bag that I’m gripping too tight.
“Oh, right,” I say. I leaf through the materials and find the two prescriptions. One for an anti-nausea medicine, and another for a prenatal vitamin without iron. Apparently iron can make you nauseous. But then, so can literally everything else in the world right now.
“Thanks for doing this,” I say as I hand them over.
“It’s the least I can do,” he says.
When I look up, his head is tilted, as if he’s trying to solve a puzzle. We stand awkwardly at the intersection of the sidewalk and our entry path, until I clear my throat.
“I should…”
“I could walk you in?” he asks, his eyebrows high arches. Almost hopeful. And yet, there’s something to his posture, the way he’s thumbing his car keys in his hand, the way he’s leaning on his hip in the direction of the car. He doesn’t want to come inside.
“No,” I say, looking away. “It’s fine.”
“I’ll be back soon,” he says with a final nod.
I nod back at him, and then he’s gone. And I’m alone, with a bag of pamphlets and ultrasound photos. The enormity of the moment comes crashing down as the wind picks up, blowing in the raw-earth scent of a June rainstorm.
I walk up the path and climb the steps to the porch. But my toe catches on the top step. I lose my balance and everything spins around me. I throw my hands out to catch me, realizing I have to protect myself more. I land on my knees and hands, recoiling at the sudden weight on my tender, wrapped wrist. The contents of my bag spill out over the porch as the rain starts to fall behind me.
“Damnit,” I hiss, pushing back to my knees, staring at the large sliver that has wedged itself into the fleshy skin on my palm.
It hurts, but that’s not what makes me cry. What makes me cry is when I see the thin manila folder with the ultrasound photos has somehow fallen down the steps and is getting rained on. I rush down the steps and grab it, getting drenched in the process, and then pull the prints out to make sure they’re not ruined. The ink on the top one is a little sticky from the water, but the two below it seem okay.
“What is the name of all that is good and holy are you doing, child?” I look up and see our upstairs neighbor, staring down at me with a mix of confusion and amusement.
“I tripped,” I say.
“Ah,” she says, dropping to a low squat with me.
I’m surprised at how easily she can drop to that low of a crouch given the fact that she looks at least sixty. As if she can sense the question, she gives me a knowing glance.
“I’ve practiced yoga since before it wasen vogue.” Then she leans in and winks. “I may have even been responsible for planting the idea of tantric yoga in the head of a certain aging rocker. But that’s a story for another time.”
I blink at her, wondering if it’s possible that the woman who lives upstairs actually knows Sting.
“Let me help you,” she says, picking up pamphlets and putting them inside the plastic bag.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice catching in my throat. She blinks up at me, her Hollywood-length eyelashes nearly brushing her microbladed eyebrows.
“Now the real question is what that handsome gentleman I spied you with only moments ago did to make you look like that,” she says softly. Then she pauses, her eyes glancing at my hands, then back up at my face. She reaches for the ultrasound photos and looks at them. Her lips tilt into a smile and she hands me the bag and stands.
“I was just making a pot of tea. Why don’t you come up?” She opens the door to her upstairs unit and waits, her linen culottes rustling in the breeze. “Come on, dearie. Nothing is so bad when you’ve had a hot cup of tea.”
I sniff and wipe my nose and rise, following her up the stairs. The stairs go straight into her apartment, a studio that takes up the entire top floor. It’s a moody, yet light-filled space. The dormers cut deep into three sides of the vaulted ceiling, spilling long columns of light, even during the rainstorm. The walls are painted deep jade, and gold frames displaying artwork and old photographs adorn the walls like jewels.
I find myself studying one on the side of an emerald-green kitchen cabinet of a young woman in an orange shift dress and large white sunglasses, her long legs stretched out on a sandy boardwalk as she sits on a stone wall, head thrown back, absorbing the sun. She looks glamorous and happy.
“That was taken in Antibes in nineteen-seventy-two,” she says with a nod. “I was too young to know I shouldn’t let a French man buy me clothing.”
