Dotted Middle
Line
At
first, the blood shocks me; it isn’t supposed to be there. They’d said I was
pregnant, so did this mean I’m not going to stay that way? And here I’d freaked
Joey out last night telling him he was going to be a father. The fact he told
me “to get it taken care of” made me want to keep it even more. Boyfriends,
girlfriends---they ditch you at the drop of a hat, but a kid is yours forever.
Just like Mom and Dad have each other and my friends have their siblings, I
finally have someone, too.
But
when the doctor asks me the name of my husband and my health insurance, I got
to admit I don’t have either. My admittance is made in a weakened croak. What
business do I have getting pregnant? Smart women don’t get pregnant like this.
“So,
you just turned twenty, did you?” The doctor smiles kindly, jotting things down
on a chart.
“Do
you like being around pregnant women all day long?” I ask.
She
laughs out loud, a big, easy laugh. Maybe being around them is better than
being one. I have twelve more days of swerving over the dotted middle line
before my chance to “get it taken care of” expires, but I am exhausted already
by the swerves. I want to stick to one lane or the other.
“Baby’s
fine!” She says brightly during the sonogram. “Bleeding is common the first
trimester while your uterus adjusts.”
It’s
adjusting. Like I am.
But
when I ride the subway home, the stopping and lurching loosens enough blood to
stain through my jeans.
I am
still a mama; I am not churns
into He loves me; he loves me not.
The
plug trailing from an unlatched socket where his laptop sat tells me not. The
sock drawer that’s lighter, the bare hangers, the drained Coors can half
crushed in the sink.
No
more swerving. But it’s not even up to me at all. It’s the baby that decides. I
curl into a tight ball in the middle of my bed, a pillow between my legs and
arms wrapped around my belly. I'll stay like this. Won’t move.
Tonight,
at least, I’ll have somebody with me.
Shoshauna
Shu
Shoshauna
Shy's flash fiction has recently appeared in the public arena courtesy of Flash
Boulevard, Black Coffee Review and Ink in Thirds. It has
also been published in Ariel Chart (Nov 2020, May
2024) and in the last several years, was long and shortlisted in two Bath
Flash Fiction Award anthologies.