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“Yeah,” Anna said, agreeing with me as she picked up my pile of little silver tape balls and threw them into her garbage bag. “He does seem to be.”
“So maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have a kid with him,” I said, sitting down and tapping the arm against my knee absentmindedly.
“Maybe not,” she said.
“But then again,” I said, moving the arm so that I was whacking it on the tile floor with a bit more force than I should have. “Everything with us is still so new, and if he’s even a little unsure, wouldn’t this baby be better off with two parents who are fully committed andhappyto have it?” I was so emphatic by the end and was punctuating my words by hitting the mannequin arm on the floor so hard that, when I finished speaking, I’d broken the damn thing in half.
“Also a really good point,” she said, walking over and taking the pieces from me to throw them away. I glanced up at her as she looked at me like she was studying me, trying to figure out where I stood, but even I didn’t know where I stood at that point.
“You’re really not being very helpful,” I told her sarcastically. “Truly. I don’t know how I could ever make this decision without you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting down beside me. She took my hand and squeezed it, and the pressure was comforting. “I don’t have any answers for you because I can’t possibly understand how you’re feeling right now. If I had to make the choice you have to, I don’t know what I would do either.”
I sighed and put my head in my hands, no longer able to distract myself from my problems with a meaningless, tedious task.
“I just don’t know if I can do this, Anna. I’m so happy to have James in my life, but I don’t know if he’s ready for this level of commitment.” I buried my face in my hands. I was all cried out about this, but I was feeling defeated, even though I hadn’t even come up with a plan yet. It was just so overwhelming that I wasn’t sure what I could possibly do that would be the right choice.
“Well…” Anna said hesitantly, and I looked up at her.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Here’s what I’ll say, and you can just take it for what it’s worth,” she said.
“Please,” I begged her. “Please. Any advice would be helpful.”
Anna shrugged. “You’ve been through a lot in the last year, and you’re right to be cautious about people and their motives because you still have a lot of healing to do—emotionally and physically.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m aware,” I said sardonically. I had more than my fair share of trauma of various kinds that I was dealing with, and James’s outburst at me, which still weighed on me, was only the most recent item in a long list.
“So I think you need to decide what’s important to you,” she said. “James said he was sorry, right?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“And that he wanted to raise this baby with you?” she asked.
“Also yes,” I said. “But I don’t know if I want this baby at all, even if I’ve forgiven him. I mean, my whole future is in the balance, and I don’t know what the right thing to do is.”
“Look,” Anna said, standing up again and picking up the mannequin I’d failed to fix so she could take it outside. “I wish I had an answer for you, but no one can decide this but you. I can only give you the advice that I have, which is to really figure out what you want. Do you want this baby?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Then you need to figure out how you’re going to make that decision. And you should probably do it sooner rather than later.”
She walked out the back door to the alley so she could take out the mannequin and I picked up my phone, typing out a text message:
Hi. Do you have time to talk? I could really use some help.
I waited for a response, tapping my foot impatiently, staring at the screen. Anna was just walking back inside, wiping her hands on her jeans, when I got a reply.
Dr. Harzel:Yes. How about in five minutes?
I quickly typed out a reply accepting the time slot, grateful she could take me on such short notice, and ducked out to the alley to video chat with my therapist.
“Hi, Haley,” she said in her calming voice when I answered her call.
“Hi, Dr. Harzel,” I said, the words feeling like a sigh of relief. “Thanks for squeezing me in.”
“Of course,” she said. “I had the time. What can I do for you?”
