An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,53
nothing to do with her. It would be crazy to think otherwise. Not after all the years when she hadn’t meant anything to him other than being a competent employee.
A competent employee who looked decent in a pair of yoga pants apparently.
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT Anna rang the doorbell and braced herself. She was edgy. Once she’d made the decision not to cancel, she’d started feeling as if any minute she might snap at someone. Like suddenly all of her patience was gone, and she was this raw live nerve. She’d gone home after work and changed out of her uncomfortable pants, deliberately putting on a pair of stretchy pants that, while they were not the yoga pants, were pretty darn close.
Looking down at herself she could see the bump of her belly under the tank top she wore. That the thing making the noise in the doctor’s office was, in fact, growing inside of her body.
It was so utterly strange when she thought about it.
The door opened to Ben who wore a loose, short-sleeved shirt and jeans. He looked good. Better today than when she’d first seen him after his stretch of quarantine. And he would only continue to grow stronger and fill out even more. Back to the old Ben with the broad chest and the steely blue eyes that she could get lost in for hours when he spoke.
It dawned on her that this could be problematic. She’d been able to get away from Ben at half strength. Ben at full strength? It was hard to know.
“Come in. I’ve got the grill on out back. The humidity has died down so it’s not so bad out there.”
She followed him through the house for a stop in the kitchen where he offered her a variety of non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated drinks. In the end she went with club soda and lime. Following him outside, she picked a lounge chair on his deck and settled herself in to be wowed and amazed by the act of Ben cooking. For her.
No, for the baby. This was all about the baby. She needed to repeat it over and over again like a constant loop running in her brain so she wouldn’t think that he was doing any of this for her.
“How did the rest of your day go?”
“Fine,” she muttered.
“Any new interesting cases?”
“Nope.”
She watched him take out the tongs to turn the grilling meat, probably thinking up several more innocuous questions that might trigger a pleasant conversation.
“Mark told me he’s helping you find your birth parents.”
“Yes, so?”
He tensed then slowly shut the lid on the grill. “I would have helped you if you had asked.”
“I didn’t.”
“Why now?”
“You know.” She pointed to her belly. “The whole genetics thing. I mean, if I have relatives out there somewhere, I should probably know about it. If there are any medical conditions we need to know about, it’s important to have that information.”
“I’ve thought about that. I’ve been doing some reading and we can save the placenta after the birth. Freeze it and, in case there is ever a need, the baby will always have its own stem cells to use.”
That had her eyes widening. He was already worried about their kid getting cancer. It was thoughtful, but the thought of freezing her parts after they came out of her body... “Gross.”
“No, smart. As a precaution.”
“Fine. But I still think I should find my parents if I can. Or maybe even their parents. Obviously my mother had addiction problems. But we should see what else is out there.”
“Do you remember her?”
Anna shook her head. It was more accurate to say she didn’t want to remember her. If there were memories—and there were a few—she forced them out of her head until they were gone. Like the sound of her mother’s voice calling her name. Or a lullaby she knew had been sung to her. None of it needed to be remembered, because in the remembering there was only pain.
“Then how do you know? I mean, about the addiction.”
“The smell.” Sickly sweet and awful. It had filled the room where they lived and Anna had instinctively known it was a bad smell. Maybe melting crack or heroine. She remembered how it made her feel scared because after the smell came, her mother would be different. She couldn’t touch her or talk to her. Then all those very vague memories filled with a sense of wrongness.