Her hands shook as she sat in the stark white waiting room of a hospital a few towns over. She read magazines and people watched and stared blankly at a wall, unknowingly tapping her foot erratically. These walls that she had presumed would be a safe haven, were only making her feel trapped. The not knowing was killing her. Mattie wasn’t often considered a patient person and under these circumstances, her patience wore even thinner. She used to pride herself on being able to keep herself in check, but now she somewhat understood why mother always felt the need to rush restaurants. Of course her mother was impatient for medium rare steak, not medical information. She couldn’t wait, having a baby at seventeen wasn’t ideal, but once she got used to the idea she became attached. Still barely showing she hadn’t told anyone and when she felt sharp pains from her stomach region accompanied by blood running down her thigh she decided to continue that trend.
So here she was, in the middle of a waiting room with a fake ID, nervously twirling her fingers in her hair without even realizing she was doing it. No one knew, so she sat and stared at walls and pretended to read magazines to distract herself. But, no matter how much she tried to distract herself, she couldn’t seem to drag her mind away from the one thought that kept haunting her, she was utterly alone. The other people sitting in these uncomfortable chairs had hands rubbing their arms and comforting words whispered into their ears. She just sat there by herself, wondering how she ended up here. Perhaps, if she had told her parents she was pregnant they would’ve taken care of her, she’d be seeing a paid professional instead of dipping into her savings to pay for gas and go to a free clinic. But it was more likely, had they found out that they would’ve forced an abortion or better yet, thrown her out on the street to the mercy of a cruel world.
She didn’t want a child at first, just like the father, but then she imagined reading to a little girl with honey brown ringlets to match her own. She imagined graduating high school and going to college in New York and taking her little girl to Central Park. She imagined bright blue eyes like just like her father’s staring up at the skyscrapers in the city she’d call home. At first, she didn’t want a child at first, but somehow her mind manipulated her into wanting her more than air. Even if she wasn’t a little girl, though Mattie suspected she was (mother’s intuition and all), she’d still be happy and proud. Theo could teach him how to paint and she could hold him close if he had nightmares. The gender of the baby didn’t matter to her, she was still surprised that the baby managed to wiggle into her heart at all.
She wanted the baby, almost as much as she wanted to go to New York and she loved the baby maybe even more than she loved to write. And if she felt this strongly before she even got the baby, then how could her heart not burst when she would first hold them in her arms. For the first time since she met Theo, the small list of people she loved was growing. Sadly, life wasn’t so kind.
The doctors came out all pristine white lab coats and stoic facial expressions. The nurse who she’d first talked to looked on with a sympathetic expression. And she understood before they even told her. With trembling lips and weak knees and eyes glossy with unshed tears she allowed the doctors to pull her into their office, to tell her the news that would break her heart. She loved the baby, so she wasn’t surprised when her legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor. She wasn’t surprised when neither of her parents’ answered her calls. She wasn’t surprised that Theo picked up on the first ring. She wasn’t surprised that her voice trembled as she spoke to him. She couldn’t offer an explanation as to why he had to pick her up before she broke down into tears. She’d lost the baby, so no one could blame her if she went home and ripped up all the pieces she wrote about them or how she burned the list of names or threw everything she could get her hands on against the walls.