Not Another Bad Date

They sat in the waiting room with other couples, the women in various stages of hugeness. While Adele filled out her medical information, Zach hung their coats on hooks by the door, then he took the seat beside her and kicked back with a golf magazine. Adele glanced up from the clipboard at the couple across from her. The man placed a hand on his wife’s rounded belly and leaned to whisper something into her ear. The woman smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. A couple in love, happy about having their baby.

Adele returned her attention to her clipboard, and her heart pinched. She looked at Zach out of the corners of her eyes. She would never have that. No loving touch or comforting whisper. No strong shoulder on which to lay her head. He lifted his gaze from his magazine. His eyes were void of any emotion.

After about half an hour, a nurse came and got Adele. When she stood, Zach rose also. She turned to him, and whispered, “Stay out here.”

He shook his head. “Not a chance.”

The thought of her feet in the stirrups in front of Zach heated her cheeks. “Things get a little personal in there.”

He lowered his face and said next to her ear, “I’ve had my face in your crotch. It doesn’t get any more personal than that.”

Her heated cheeks caught fire. “Fine, but if I am pregnant, you better not swear and start saying I tricked you again.”

He sat next to her right shoulder as Dr. Helen Rodriguez examined her. He didn’t say anything when the doctor confirmed the pregnancy, and Adele was reluctant to look at his face to see his reaction.

When it was over, the paper drape around Adele’s hip crinkled as she sat up. “Where did the IUD go? My doctor said it was there at my last exam back in June.”

Dr. Rodriguez stood and pulled off her latex gloves. “My guess is that it’s in your uterus, but I can’t be sure without an ultrasound.” She tossed the gloves in the garbage and picked up Adele’s chart. “Get dressed, and a nurse will take you down the hall, and we’ll look for it with the ultrasound.”

So many thoughts raced through Adele’s head, and none of them stuck. She was pregnant. It was real. She was going to have a baby. It wasn’t until the door closed behind the doctor that she thought to ask questions. Like, what did it mean if the IUD was in her uterus?

“You’re pregnant.” Zach frowned and handed over her panties and jeans.

She hopped down and reached for the table for support as she stepped into her panties. Zach wrapped a hand around her arm, and she wished things were different.

“Contrary to what you think, I’m not happy about this.” She felt sick to her stomach and sick at heart. She was scared, and she just wanted someone to tell her it was all going to be okay. “I’m not any happier about it than you are.”

“I doubt that.” He dropped his hand from her. “You’re the woman whose biological clock is tapping her on the shoulder.”

She looked up at him as she stepped into her jeans and buttoned them over her flat abdomen. “Don’t turn my words around on me. Wanting a family someday and an unplanned pregnancy are two different things.”

The arch of his brow spoke volumes. He was never going to believe that it was unplanned.

She and Zach followed the nurse to a second room, and fifteen minutes later, she lay on a table with clear goop on her stomach while the doctor ran the probe across her skin. “I don’t see the IUD anywhere,” she said. “If it was there, I’d see the copper.”

Adele glanced up at the doctor, then returned her gaze to the monitor screen. “It’s just disappeared?”

“It’s not anywhere in your pelvis.”

“That’s good. Right?” she asked.

“Very good. An IUD pregnancy is very high-risk. If it was there, we’d either have to dilate your cervix and chance a spontaneous miscarriage. Or leave it in, and at seven weeks gestation, there’s a 25 percent chance of a spontaneous miscarriage. The rate goes up to 50 percent by midterm.”

“How does an IUD just disappear?” Zach asked.

The doctor looked at him. “About 7 percent of IUDs are expelled by a woman’s body. Usually within the first year of insertion.” She returned her gaze to Adele. “Which makes this case unusual because you’ve had yours in for three years.” She pointed at the monitor and moved the probe. “Here’s a heartbeat.”

Adele squinted at the monitor, and Zach scooted forward in his chair for a better look. “That little white thing surrounded by black?” he asked.

“Yep. That’s a baby.”

It looked like a shrimp to Adele.

The doctor slid the probe a few inches. “And here’s the second.”

Adele scrunched up her eyes. The screen looked kind of like a television between channels except for two black circles with white images in the middles. “The heartbeat shows up in a second place?”

The doctor laughed. “Two babies.”

“What?”

“Shit.” Zach sat back in his chair.

“Two?” Adele heard a buzzing in her ears.

“Yes. You’re having twins,” the doctor assured her.

She closed her eyes. “Shit.”

A half hour later, Zach helped her on with her coat. Armed with prenatal vitamins, a card with her return visit on it, and a printout of the twins, Adele walked from the doctor’s office. She was numb from shock as she made her way to Zach’s Escalade. Her vision blurred, and she looked down at the picture. “These fuzzy white spots don’t look like babies to me.” Her voice sounded like it was coming from a distance. “I don’t want to have twins,” she said, and held up the photo. “You did this to me, Zach.”

“Yeah, me and my turbo swimmers.”

“That isn’t funny. What am I going to do with…” she held up two fingers, “two?”

He opened the passenger door of the Cadillac. “Twins. Jesus, are you on fertility drugs?”

She hit him on the shoulder through his coat. “You get me pregnant with twins, then act like you’re the wounded party.” She thought of how big Sherilyn had gotten with Harris, then doubled it in her head. “I’m going to be as big as a whale,” she wailed. “My hands and feet are going to swell up, and it’s all your fault!” Hot tears splashed down her cheeks as she climbed in the car. Zach closed the door, and she wiped her face with her hands. Twins! She hadn’t known what she was going to do with one baby, let alone two. How was she going to take care of twins? One baby would be hard enough, but two? She stared out the side window as Zach got into the vehicle. He started the engine and sat for several long moments, the sound of the heater filling the silence between them.

“Just once,” he finally spoke, “I’d like to attend my own wedding where the bride isn’t knocked up.”

Adele turned and looked at him across the SUV. “What? I’m not marrying you.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “You’re pregnant,” he said through a sigh. “With twins. You can’t take care of two babies by yourself.”

She’d been thinking the same thing but wasn’t about to admit it to him. “Which is no reason to get married.” She shook her head. “You don’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry you.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He put the Escalade into gear, and they rolled out of the parking lot. “Pick a date, and we’ll go to the courthouse and do it,” he said without the slightest hint of emotion.

“I’m pregnant, not stupid. I’m not going to make two mistakes.” It was all so horribly unromantic, so loveless, that it might have been funny if it weren’t so sad. “You don’t love me, and I don’t want a bad marriage on top of everything else. Admit it, you don’t want to marry me any more than you wanted to marry Devon.”

He glanced over at her, and he lifted his gaze to her hair. “It probably wouldn’t be that bad.”

She hadn’t realized until he’d spoken that she’d been holding her breath, waiting from him to tell her he wanted to marry her because he loved her. She’d fallen in love for the second time with the same man who didn’t love her. Only this time it was worse. Two times worse.

“You’re not Devon.” He looked into her eyes.

She laughed through the little sob that broke her throat. What irony. She and Devon had always loathed each other and yet they’d ended up impregnated by the same man, and he didn’t love either one of them. The only difference was that Adele hadn’t done it on purpose. And of course, Adele would demand a lot more from the man