that’s growing inside me. I feel disgust and despair, anger and bitterness, but never pleasure. Never happiness.
Not anymore.
Not until now.
Now when I look at my stomach, fluttering my fingers over the little bulge that has been there for at least five years, I feel an excited wonder about what else might be growing within me. What good thing I might be nurturing.
In a future that, just a day ago, had zero possibilities, I’ve managed to find one. And as it gives rise to purpose and optimism and energy, I can’t help wondering if this is what kept Daddy going.
Me.
His child.
Eight
Backdoor to Heaven
Lena
Ican’t relax for my massage or my facial. All I can think about is how long it will take for the concierge’s person to get back from the pharmacy and what the test will reveal when I take it.
What my spa time does achieve, however, is to give me enough time to think about my condition in conjunction with a pregnancy. An unthinkable combination, but I have to think about it.
Is it even possible to get pregnant? And if so, is it advisable? Will I, will my body and the disease I fight pose a risk to the baby? Will my condition impair me physically before I can deliver? And if so, will it affect a growing fetus?
All of those unanswered questions bring me back to the present. To the next step.
What will that be? What should that be?
Obviously, if the test is positive, I’ll have to see an obstetrician. And a whole slew of other specialists, I imagine. Or will it even come to that? Will this tiny life be nothing more than a blip on the radar of existence? A life rapidly extinguished by the monster I’ll have to carry alongside it?
If that was to be the case, how cruel would it be to involve Nate? To get his hopes up, to give him what we’ve always wanted and then take it away just as quickly?
By staying with me, he’s already signed up for heartbreak. Could I, in good conscience, risk giving him even more? Would I be better off waiting, waiting until I’m a little further along? When the odds might be better? Shouldn’t I wait until I get back to the States and talk to some doctors? Wouldn’t that be the best course of action?
I think it is. In my heart, I know it is. If I can spare Nate, I will. I must. But already the guilt of keeping something like that from him weighs heavily on me. Even the contemplation of such a thing makes me anxious. But I have to contemplate it. I have to consider my husband. He’s a good man. The best man. I might not be able to save him from the pain of my awful death, but I can certainly save him additional pain if that’s how it will end—in another loss. Another death.
To this day, I can still see his face—the hopelessness, the betrayal, the hurt and the sadness—when I told him about my diagnosis. I don’t want to see my amazing husband look that way ever again. I can’t see him look that way ever again. I just can’t.
My anxiety rises to fever pitch.
I need help. Guidance.
I need to talk to someone, but my “someone” is usually Nate. He’s my “someone” in every situation. But he can’t be my someone in this one, and the only other person I’m close to—Nissa—doesn’t even know I’m sick.
That leaves me with no one. Not really.
A face pops into my mind. It’s the face of a woman near my own age, one who looks strikingly similar to the reflection I see when I look in the mirror. I’ve heard all my life that I look just like her.
My mother.
She’s the only other person I can think of. But she’s unacceptable for a dozen or more reasons.
I was very young when I learned to hate being compared to my mother. I was young when I learned to hate her, too. Well, almost hate her. In any case, Patricia Holmes is not someone I’ve ever wanted to be like. Yet she’s the only other person I can think of that I could turn to.
But my mother isn’t really an option.
Not really.
The facial is over, and I’m no closer to finding an answer, a direction. It seems that taking the test is the only certain step forward that I can settle on. The result of that test will either bring to life or