“I was talking about what happened with the baby.”
The brunette glanced away. “I miscarried.”
That was what Dana assumed. “I’m so sorry.”
“I was happy about getting accidentally pregnant. But after I lost the baby, our marriage just didn’t work.”
Because her husband hadn’t loved her the way she’d loved him? Because without the baby, there was nothing keeping them tied together? To Dana, that seemed the obvious conclusion.
Candy said, “Why are we talking about me, when we should be concentrating on you taking that test?”
Dana fidgeted in her seat. Before she committed to going to the drug store, she got up to the check the expiration date on the condoms.
Sure enough, they were old. Really, really old. Her situation was beginning to mirror Candy’s.
Chance? Coincidence? Twisted fate?
Her anxiety accelerated. “If I am pregnant, Eric will never marry me.” He would probably offer child support or whatever, but he wouldn’t walk her down the aisle. “Not that I should marry him, anyway. We hardly even know each other.” She rocked forward. “But how can I raise a baby by myself after the way I was raised? After the promise I made to my family?”
Candy gently replied, “You can always terminate if that’s a better option for you.”
She touched her stomach and recalled that she’d written L-O-V-E across it on the night she and Eric had made love. “I don’t think I could do that.” But the reality of being a single parent was knocking her upside the head, too. She understood the hardships it entailed.
Candy went to the pharmacy with her, and they looked at every kit on the market, reading the backs of the boxes. Dana couldn’t decide which one to choose, so she let Candy decide for her. At this point, she couldn’t think straight.
After they returned, Dana opened the box and read the instructions. The test was a digital model and was described as ninety-nine percent accurate. Curious to know everything, she even read the clinical stuff and how pregnant women produced a hormone called hCG, which was what the test would be detecting in her urine if she was pregnant.
Leaving Candy on the couch, Dana went into the bathroom and examined the test stick. According to the pamphlet, the words Pregnant or Not Pregnant were supposed to appear in the optical reader that was encased in the stick.
Anxious, she took the test. Then she sat in the living room with Candy and waited for the results, which was supposed to take all of three minutes. Normally that would have seemed like nothing, the amount of time to listen to a song or cook a frozen pizza in the microwave. But in this case, three minutes felt like an eternity.
Finally, her time was up and she returned to the bathroom to check the display and saw “Pregnant” on the screen. Candy saw it, too. Dana wanted to sink to the floor and cry, but she forced herself to remain standing and keep her eyes dry. Still, she was trembling inside. How could she tell her mom and grandmother? How could she deal with any of this?
“Maybe it’s a false positive,” she said. “Surely that sort of thing happens.” She could hope, right? “I should probably see a doctor before I contact Eric.”
She called to make the appointment, but the soonest she could be seen was three days away.
* * *
The days dragged by, with Dana praying her period would start. She could barely concentrate at work. She even mixed up people’s orders, bringing them the wrong food.
She wasn’t faring any better at home. Mostly she just sat around, worrying and waiting, without the slightest sign of her period.
By now she doubted that the test had been a false positive, but she was still going to the doctor to be sure.
The day of her appointment, Candy drove her there, with Dana fidgeting in the passenger seat. She was glad her friend was with her. She didn’t know if she could have done this alone.
They arrived at the office and went inside. Dana signed in and they sat down and paged through outdated magazines.
Eventually Dana’s name was called and she saw the doctor. He ran a blood test, and within an hour she had the results.
Positive. She was pregnant. Unmarried and with child. The very thing she’d promised her family would never happen to her.
On the way home, Candy kept shooting Dana worried glances, as if she expected her to cry. It was all she could do to hold herself together.
But as soon as they walked in the door, she lost it and burst into tears. Candy reached for her and she put her head against the other woman’s shoulder and bawled her eyes out.
Candy kept saying, “It will be okay,” but Dana knew that was just something to say. How was it going to be okay? How was she going to survive this?
After her horrific crying jag, she dried her face and blew her nose. Somehow, someway, it was going to be okay. She would do whatever it took to get through it, even if she bordered on falling apart.
Struggling to stay strong, she mentally prepared herself to call Eric and arrange a meeting with him. Relaying her news over the phone didn’t seem right. She needed to tell him face-to-face that he was going to be a father.
Chapter Four
Eric couldn’t fathom why Dana had called and insisted that he come to her house to see her. She’d claimed it was extremely important. In fact, she sounded nervous, even a little frantic, not at all like the easy-breezy bohemian girl he knew her to be. Her tone of voice had worried him. But this whole thing worried him. He didn’t want to see her again. No, that wasn’t true. He’d been thinking a lot about her since their date, and he’d been tempted to go back to the diner. But how could he do that without wanting her again? And if they got together again, then a relationship might ensue that he wasn’t ready for. So he’d stayed away purposely, retreating to his cautious shell.
But now here he was, after work, parking his car in front of her house and hoping this wasn’t a ploy on her part. A ploy for what? To seduce him back into her bed? No, he doubted that was it. Dana wasn’t the game-playing type. Something was wrong, something she obviously felt the need to share with him.
He took the side gate to her place and found her sitting outside at her patio table, waiting for him. She looked pale and anxious. Fragile, he thought, his breath jerking from his lungs. She reminded him of Corrine when she’d first discovered that she was ill. Was Dana ill? Was that why she’d called him?
He wanted to turn and run, but he moved forward.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“Hi,” he replied, and noticed that she had a pitcher of ice water and two glasses on the table. Obviously she wasn’t inviting him inside. Whatever she was going to say would be spoken here.
He sat across from her, and she poured him a glass of water. She poured one for herself and sipped it. Eric didn’t reach for his. He wasn’t thirsty.
“Tell me what’s going on, Dana.”
“I...”
His fear and worry increased. “Tell me, please.”
She scooted in her chair, as if she were buying more time. “Okay, here goes.” A slight pause, then, “I’m pregnant, Eric.”
A haze of white flashed before his eyes. Was she suggesting that the baby was his? No. No way. They’d used protection. They’d been careful. It just wasn’t possible.
Was it?
God, he hoped not. He prayed that the baby belonged to someone else. But if it did,