Unconditional Read online

  I sat alone on a Saturday morning, at the funeral of a woman I had never met, lurking in a car that felt more like a casket bearing my dead marriage. I turned the key in the ignition and the Beamer purred. I hated that sound. Hated that I hated it because, until a few weeks earlier, I had loved my shiny new car. Now I had nothing left to love. Thomas had taken it all from me.

  I thought of Audrey, waiting for me to go to lunch and then shopping. And I suddenly needed to be with her so her logic could draw me out of the emotional tidal wave that kept twisting me end over end.

  ~ * ~

  “Audrey, do you ever order anything other than French vanilla?” I stared at the two creamy white globs which tilted precariously atop a sugar cone in her right hand.

  She swept the dripping ice cream with her tongue. “I like French vanilla.”

  “But there are so many flavors to choose from.” I took a swipe at my green pistachio that perched on top of a scoop of chocolate raspberry.

  “French vanilla is a flavor. Are you going to pick on me some more?”

  I met her gaze. “No.” I dabbed my chin where a dribble of pistachio had escaped. “Talk to me about your work.”

  She lifted one eyebrow. “You hate it when I talk about my work. It bores you.”

  “I know. I need to get my mind off my own problems for a while.”

  She eyed me suspiciously, as if deciding whether or not to relieve me from my distress and bore me until I was numb. “Well, since you put it that way.” Then she launched into an account of her week. I’m sure my eyes glazed, and I blinked to disguise the fact that I wasn’t really listening.

  “Meg, your ice cream’s running down your arm.” Audrey reached out with her spotless napkin and wiped my wrist. She hadn’t spilled a drop of vanilla. Even while talking.

  My eyes stung, and I felt my lower lip being to quiver. I tossed the cone out the car window and asked, “Why couldn’t Thomas love me enough to be honest with me?”

  “He couldn’t be honest with you because he wasn’t honest with himself. And he was afraid of losing you. I’ll probably regret saying this, but I do believe Thomas loves you.”

  She may have been the better therapist at the moment. “Too late for that, and he’s got a strange way of showing it.”

  Audrey popped the last bite of her cone into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. “He couldn’t love you romantically, but it had nothing to do with you. If anything, his ending the marriage is a compliment.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re too much woman for him,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I stared at her for a moment, then began to giggle. Which escalated to a laughter. Which soon bordered on hysteria. “I’m ‘too much woman’? Here I was thinking I’m not man enough.” I snorted and gasped for breath.

  “Meg?”

  I wiped my eyes, and struggled for control. “Oh, God. That was priceless. Audrey, what would I do without you?”

  She looked hurt, like she hadn’t intended to make a joke. “I mean, he couldn’t love any woman—not as a wife. So, you can’t take it personally.”

  “Oh, but I do. It’s very personal when someone promises to love only you. Forever. When they make love to you. And then they turn around and fuck their secretary…their male secretary.”

  Had Thomas ever made love to me? How could he have, if he didn’t find me attractive, not in that way? We’d had sex. Good sex, I had thought. Maybe what I mistook for passion was really his working extra hard at having sex with me at all. Had he had to fantasize about Francisco or some other guy to get it up for me? Maybe I’m the one he fucked.“Audrey,” I gasped. “You have to drive.” I jumped out of the car and paced, one hand pressed to my forehead.

  Audrey eased from the passenger’s side and stared at me over the top of the car. “What? Why can’t you drive?”

  I slowed my pace, trying to regulate my breathing and stave off a full-blown panic attack. “We need to go to the hospital right away.”

  Chapter Six

  Waiting patients jammed the emergency room at Mercy Hospital. I stood, shivering, at the registration desk. Audrey pressed a hand to my back as she calmly explained to the admitting clerk that I needed to be tested for any and all STDs, including HIV. She spoke loudly enough for the displaced steelworkers in the corner bar down the street to hear her. Heads came up and faces turned my way. Heat flushed up my neck and into my face. “Audrey!”

  I was told that, unless I was a victim of rape or experiencing pain, I should make an appointment with my gynecologist. I responded by hyperventilating.

  “Look at her. She can’t wait for an appointment. She can hardly breathe. This is an emergency, and my sister needs to see a doctor now,” Audrey demanded, and even I trembled. I wondered who this woman was and what she had done with my meek sister.

  The clerk placed a stack of papers on a clipboard, asked for my driver’s license and medical insurance card to photocopy, and instructed me to fill out the paperwork.

  My hands shook, so Audrey wrote down my whispered information, returned the clipboard to the clerk and sat down again. “It’s going to be a long wait. Do you want a soda? I saw a machine around the corner.”

  “No, thanks.”

  I couldn’t stop shivering, and she wrapped a motherly arm around my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Meg. Whatever happens, it’ll be okay.”

  “You don’t know that.” Nothing was okay. What if Thomas was having sex with men while we were together? He swore he wasn’t, but then he had sworn to be my husband ’til death us do part.

  She stopped trying to make me feel better, but her arm remained across my shoulder. I settled back, drawing strength from her.

  ~ * ~

  “Mrs. Flores, you can come back now.” A male nurse in blue scrubs stood at the open doors into the treatment area.

  I stood up, but Audrey remained seated. “Are you coming with me?” I asked.

  She looked bewildered. “Do you want me to?”

  “Please.”

  Audrey followed me and I followed the nurse to a curtained treatment room. “It says here you may have been exposed to HIV or other STDs. Were you raped?” the nurse asked.

  I paused and considered that question. I felt as though I’d been raped, or at the very least compromised. “No. I had sex with…someone who may not have been completely honest about…where he’d been.”

  After checking my temperature and blood pressure, he scribbled a note on my chart, then said, “You can put this on.” He set a folded gown on the gurney. “Dr. Timmons will be in shortly, and I’ll be back to assist.”

  The curtain scraped closed behind him, sounding like nails drawn across a blackboard.

  The antiseptic odor mingling with what I imagined was the rotting flesh of a previous patient in my cubicle assaulted my nose. I swallowed hard, but my mouth had gone dry. “I feel sick.” The pistachio and raspberry chocolate were becoming volcanic in my stomach.

  Audrey picked up a small plastic bowl from the side table as efficiently as if she worked in the ER. “Here.”

  I heaved, but nothing came up. I handed the empty bowl back to her. “I’d better change into this gown.” I removed my clothes and underwear, dropping them into a heap on the one empty chair. While I fussed with the ties on the gown, I questioned if I should have waited and called my gynecologist. But this was too important to wait. And I couldn’t hold my breath until Monday.

  I perched on the end of the gurney, feeling like a six-year-old, with my bare legs and feet dangling.

  Audrey folded my clothes, tucking my bra and panties between my jeans and sweater, settling my socks inside my sneakers. She would make some man a wonderful wife, or at least a great caretaker. Maybe I should think twice about moving out of her place.

  The curtain scraped open again, a middle-aged man in a white lab coat entered. “Mrs. Flores. I’m Dr. Timmons. I’ll do your exam, then Dwayne will take care of your blood work.” He looked at Audrey. “Would you
like to step outside?”

  I clutched her hand. I’d had pelvic exams every year since I was sixteen and had problems with cramping. But this was different. “This is my sister, and I want her to stay.”

  Audrey looked unsure of which way to turn.

  “Fine.” The doctor nodded. “Lay back and scoot down.” He guided my heels into cold metal stirrups, and Dwayne entered the cubicle just in time to get a shot of my wide-open vagina.I would have preferred a female doctor and nurse. I was sick of men. Sick of them taking advantage of my vulnerability. And at the moment, I was at my most vulnerable. My head pounded, and my mouth went desert dry. I stared at the ceiling. Until I heard Dr. Timmons make a sound like, ‘hmm.’ I raised my head and looked down at the face of the man with his gloved finger inside me.

  “Hmm? What?”

  “Mrs. Flores, when was your last period?”

  “Um…I guess last month.” I usually kept track, but I’d been a little distracted. I thought about the date—April twenty-second. My period always arrived around the fifth. Did I get my period this month? Or last? My breath caught. I’d gone off my birth control pills when I had the insane idea that a baby would improve my marriage. A fact I’d neglected to mention to Thomas.

  “Is there a possibility you could be pregnant?”

  I sat up, supported by my elbows and gaped at him. “What?!”

  “Dwayne, let’s do a beta hCG.” He removed his surgical gloves with a snap and tossed them into a bin marked Hazardous Waste.

  “A beta…what?” I was hyperventilating again.

  “I want to run a blood test to see if you’re pregnant. As far as I can tell, there’s no physical indication of an STD, but we’ll run blood tests for that, too, and I’ve taken a culture.” He slid back on his stool and lowered the drape over my exposed female parts. “I’ll send these to the lab and call you with your test results. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

  “Two days?” I shrieked.

  “You could take a home test in the meantime. But it takes at least a day to get our results from the lab.” He passed my chart to Nurse Dwayne and swept out the door.

  “You can sit up while I draw blood.” Dwayne replaced Audrey at my side.

  Want to bet? “Can you take it while I’m lying down? I’m feeling light-headed.”

  He looked concerned. “Any nausea or blurred vision?”

  I scooted my butt back and sat up. “No, I didn’t mean lightheaded in the physical sense. I’m…shocked. But I need to get this done now.” I stretched out my right arm and made a fist. I need to know these results.

  Chapter Seven

  I dragged my cement-block feet up the stairs to Audrey’s second-floor apartment. My sister rushed ahead of me to open the door, placing a caring hand between my shoulder blades. “You should sit down and put your feet up.”

  “I don’t have time to sit.” I clutched the bag from the pharmacy. “I have to know. Now.” I hurried down the hall to the bathroom and swung the door shut.

  Minutes later I emerged and did as she suggested, falling onto the sofa. I was in shock and didn’t know what else to do. I was pregnant by my soon-to-be-ex, gay husband. I kept saying it that way in my head, and it still didn’t make sense. “Positive.”

  Audrey stood before me, her hands clasped together, an indulgent smile on her face. “Can I get you anything?”

  I stared at her. “I’m pregnant.”

  “I know. Isn’t it wonderful? What a surprise, huh?”She was almost giddy. I’d never seen her like that. A surprise? Well, not totally. How would I explain this to Thomas? “It would have been wonderful a year ago. Now, it’s just…it’s… I’m going to throw up.” I rushed to the bathroom. As I bent over the toilet, I pressed a hand protectively over my abdomen. There’s a baby in there. Thomas’s baby. I slid to the floor and rested my cheek on the toilet seat, oblivious to how disgusting the action. My hand still covered the spot where I imagined this thimble-sized creature to reside. Suddenly I felt maternal, protective. “You’re going to be okay, baby. We’ll be okay.”

  Audrey tapped on the door. “Meg? Are you alright in there?”

  “Fine. I’ll be right out.” I pushed myself to my feet, splashed cool water on my face, and looked into my reflection. I wondered if this baby would have my blue eyes and narrow chin, or Thomas’s dark brown eyes and dimples. Would she or he have Thomas’s smooth olive complexion, or my fair skin and freckles? The baby became more real.

  Audrey was in the kitchen making tea. “I’m not sure about the herbs, so I’m brewing plain decaf for you. Is that okay?”

  “Thanks. So, a helluva day, huh?” I slouched into a chair at the small dinette table. “All I wanted to do was trade in my car. I come home with a baby on the way, and I still have the damned Beamer.”

  Audrey set a steaming cup of tea in front of me. “You want some soda crackers to settle your stomach? I hear that helps.”

  “I’m okay. I think the nausea is just excitement. I think it’s too early for morning sickness.” I stirred cream into the tea. “Did you ever feel like your life is out of sync? Like the timing is off just a…little…bit?” I emphasized by lifting my thumb and forefinger to show the tiniest open space.

  “Things happen in their own time.”

  I glared at her. If she quoted one more bumper sticker to me, I would have to kill her. “This is not the time. I’m getting a divorce. My practice is finally stabilized. Well, financially,” I added, noting the inadvertent joke.

  Audrey’s face remained blank. Then her eyes flashed wide. “You’re not considering an abortion.”

  The word zinged around in me like a pinball. I hadn’t thought of that, until she mentioned it. But I had made a promise while sitting in the bathroom with my face on the toilet seat. And, by damn, I intended to keep it. “No. Absolutely not. I’m going to have this baby.”

  “When do you plan to tell Thomas?”

  “I’ll have to, I suppose, but I need to figure some things out first. I don’t know that I want him to have a part in this baby’s life. He doesn’t deserve it.”

  Audrey bit her lip, something she always did when she wasn’t sure how the words about to come out of her mouth would be received. “Look, Thomas is not my favorite person right now, but he has a right to know, Meg. If for no other reason than he has a responsibility.”

  A right? A surge of anger flushed through me, but then I stopped to think. She’s right. This is his baby, too. At least biologically. I was not in a financial position to carry the burden alone, either. But I needed time to adjust before I spoke with Thomas. “I’m going to lie down for a while.” I picked up the mug of lukewarm tea. “Audrey.”

  “Yes?”

  I smiled. “You’re going to be an aunt. How’s that feel?”

  Her face stretched in a smile that lit up her eyes. “I like the idea.”

  “I do, too. You’ll be a wonderful aunt.”

  The soft bed in my sister’s guest room welcomed me. I curled onto my side, drawing my knees up. I slipped my hand between my knees and my abdomen and felt the warmth over my womb. I wondered if my baby knew I held him or her, sending in all the love I could muster. The image of my grandfather’s face, smiling at me with such deep love in his eyes, ushered me to sleep. And I knew that, no matter what, my child would see that look on my face.

  A light knock on the door wakened me. “Meg? Are you awake?” Audrey asked.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “I am now.”

  “You have a phone call. It’s…Thomas.”

  “I don’t want to talk with him,” I called out. But she opened the door and thrust the phone into my hand. I shot her a look that should have dropped her to her knees. Who had a land-line phone in their home anymore? I raised the phone to my ear. “Thomas.”

  “Meg, I was hoping we could talk for a bit about some kind of settlement on the house.”

  “What is there to talk about? You and your boyfriend seem to be pretty settled there already.”


  Silence. “He’s not living here yet. And you know what I mean. I want to be fair.”

  The ‘yet’ was not lost on me. “Oh, really? Now you want to be fair?” I drew in a deep breath. I tried to think like a therapist for a moment, not like a wounded wife. Not possible. “Can we discuss this later, with our attorneys?”

  “Can’t we settle this without the attorneys? I don’t know about yours, but mine is costing a fortune. The money could be better spent.”

  Yeah, like for diapers and a college fund. “Since there’s a mortgage and the house is in both of our names, I assumed we’d have to sell, pay off the loan, and split what’s left. If anything is left. Which I seriously doubt in this market.”

  “I want to keep the house. I’ll pay you a share of what we’ve paid on it while we were together. Then I’ll refinance the balance on my own.”

  I was stunned. Things were moving fast. “You want the house? Our house?”

  “Yes. I love the house.”

  “So do I.” An ache radiated between my breasts. I couldn’t live there again, but still, I loved that house.

  “Oh.” He paused. “Do…you want the house?”

  “No. That’s not the point. You shouldn’t want it, either. Thomas, it was our house. The place where we dreamed about our future together.” I fought the tears that came as I bit back the announcement that I…we…were expecting a child.

  He sighed. “Maybe you’re right. We should let our attorneys hash this out.” He paused. “I tried to call earlier, but your phone was turned off.”

  “I was at the hospital.”

  “Hospital? Are you okay?”

  “Probably, but no thanks to you. It occurred to me that you could have exposed me to…to all kinds of diseases.”

  “I would never do that.”

  “How was I supposed to know that?”

  Silence, again. Then he murmured. “I thought you at least knew me that well. I never did anything to put you at risk.”

  “Are you telling me you never had…relations with…with…him?”