CHAPTER FIVE - The Body Knows
975 Words
Three weeks later, Eva still had not told anyone about the nausea.
She had cataloged it quietly the way she cataloged most things that unsettled her privately, methodically, with the particular self-sufficiency of a woman who had learned not to make her discomfort anyone else's problem. Morning sickness, she told herself. Stress. A body acclimating to a new air, city, and everything. She remained silent, kept crackers on the bedside, and drank ginger tea.
It went well. She was okay.
She repeated this so strongly that she was on the verge of believing it.
April's flat was three blocks away from the pharmacy.
While April was at work on a Tuesday morning, Eva went with the brisk purposefulness of someone who has made a difficult decision and must complete it before the decision changes its mind, hooded up against the light rain. She picked up two tests from the shelf without really looking at them, paid without looking at anyone, and went home.
Despite being the only one in the flat, she completed both tests in the locked bathroom.
She waited while sitting on the chilly tile floor.
Two lines.
She looked at the result for a long time.
She stared at nothing but air while her mind was racing with lots of thoughts, with rain dropping heavily now tapping on the glass with cool air breezing in. She stopped to think for a second, to think clearly, this possibly isn't Myles, it can't be, then she concluded they hadn't been intimate in over a month, way before that night happened.
The timeline was impossible. This was not Myles.
The hotel room. The gold lamplight. The blue-eyed man who had regarded her as something to be wary of.
Lukas.
She didn't know the man's last name. A man who had apparently left after telling her he would leave the following morning. A man who existed now only as a memory and a consequence, sitting in her hand on two thin lines.
Eva closed her eyes and rested the back of her head on the restroom wall.
She spent a lot of time there. Long enough for it to stop raining. Enough time for the light from the window to change and become softer. Long enough for her to pass the panic and denial phase. When she eventually stood up, her legs and body were still shaking, but her thoughts were calm. At this point, she had already made up her mind, she had decided to keep the child even though she didn't know how, but she was going to go through it. Knowing how this was going to change her plans to begin a fresh start in New Ville and get a job, she now had to change that version that she was beginning.
She did not know any of it yet. But she knew that.
She washed her hands. Looked at herself in the mirror for a long moment.
"Okay," she said to her reflection. Quietly. Like a promise. "Okay."
She told April that evening.
She had intended to ease into it somehow to build toward it carefully, to find the right words. Instead, April came home, set her bag down, looked at Eva sitting at the kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a cup of tea she had not drunk, and said immediately, "What happened?"
Not a question. April had never needed questions.
Eva slid the test across the table.
April sat down. Picked it up. Set it down again. A series of expressions moved across her face in quick succession: shock, calculation, something that looked briefly like fear, and then something else. Something that settled slowly into a fierce and quiet determination that Eva recognized from years of knowing her.
"Okay," April said. "Whose is it?"
"The man from the club."
"The one from..." April stopped. "Eva."
"I know."
"Do you have his number, any way to contact..."
"No." Eva looked at her hands. "He said he was leaving the next morning. I have no idea what his last name is."
It was quite quiet in the kitchen. A warm circle of light was cast around them both by the bulb above the table, and the city continued to flow on without concern or awareness.
"What would you like to do?" April asked. Carefully. No pressure in it, no direction. Just the question, held open.
"I'm keeping it." Eva looked up. "I know that's... I know it's complicated, and I know the timing is..."
"I didn't inquire about the timing." Reaching across the table, April covered her hand. "I asked what you'd like."
Something loosened in Eva's chest. Something she hadn't even realized she was clinging to.
"I want to keep it," she repeated. Steadier this time. "I want to figure it out. I want..." She stopped. Shook her head a little. "I'm so over making choices based on fear. I want to stop doing it."
April gave her a long look. They both realized that nothing else was suitable for the situation, so she got up, went to the kitchen, and returned with two glasses of water.
She took a seat again and lifted her drink.
She responded simply, "Then we figure it out. Together."
Eva put her glass into April's.
Outside, the clouds that had been building throughout the evening eventually parted, and the rain returned, harsh, purifying, and uncaring. Sitting in the warm kitchen light across from the one person who had never once caused her to feel overwhelmed, Eva felt the tiniest, most obstinate ember of something that may one day become hope beneath the dread, uncertainty, and everything she did not yet know.
Her hand was flat against her belly. For a brief moment only.
I just wanted to let you know that I am aware of your presence. We'll be alright.
She almost believed it.
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