Things were better at school. She had mainly B’s in her classes, and the harassment had pretty much stopped, which given her spectacular belly was rather surprising. But then her pregnancy was so obvious now that anyone acting like it was an evil secret just seemed stupid. Everyone had moved on, most seeming to accept the story Natalia circulated that the father was a boyfriend from before Evangeline came to town.
A week back, though, things took a peculiar turn. Two girls in Sammy’s tribe went out of their way to sidle up to Evangeline in the restroom, tell her they thought she “was brave.” A few days later, it happened again with two other girls from the group. Then, only yesterday, she felt a tapping on her shoulder and turned to find herself face-to-face with their ringleader.
Sammy leaned in so close that Evangeline could smell blue cheese dressing on her breath. Something odd was going on with her mouth, a twisting bite of her lip. Was she embarrassed? About to apologize? Then Evangeline understood. She had been set up. The bathroom girls were part of a bigger plan. Sammy was biting her lip to keep from laughing.
When Sammy started up with, “I just wanted to say that I think you’re really—”
Evangeline interrupted, “Yeah, I know, brave. Okay, what’s the punch line? You’re here to deliver it, right? Just say it.”
“Punch line?”
And Evangeline had to give it to her, she did seem confused, but Evangeline wasn’t about to relinquish her premise. “You know, brave to be walking around looking like such a cow, or brave to be carrying Satan’s baby, or—”
Sammy’s face shifted as if with shocked understanding. “Is that what you think? That I’m here to mock you?”
Evangeline snorted. “Yeah, can’t imagine why I’d think such a thing.”
The two girls stood staring at each other. They were so close they couldn’t see much more than each other’s eyes, couldn’t get confused by swinging blond hair or a mammoth belly. It took only a second for Evangeline to realize she’d never seen this girl before.
And now, as Evangeline adjusted the pillow under her head waiting for the doctor, she thought maybe the Sammy she’d seen in the lunchroom and halls had planned to say something mean or maybe she hadn’t. Hard to be sure. All she knew is the Sammy she met yesterday had softened her eyes, her breath quickening a little, probably scared of being someone new, and said with true sorrow, “I’m sorry. I really am.”
And those heartfelt words turned Evangeline into a different girl too, because instead of going in for the kill after all those weeks of torment, she said, “I appreciate that.”
Evangeline was thinking maybe she’d taken this whole forgiving thing a little too far when Dr. Taylor walked in, scanning her chart.
“In for the twenty-eight-week check, right?”
“Something like that.”
“You empty your bladder?”
Dr. Taylor wasn’t one for small talk. Evangeline tried to picture her without the chart and the white coat, without her regal posture. She tried to imagine her having fun, but the only thing she could come up with was a serious, stiff-backed woman in casual clothes.
“Yup. All empty.”
“Good. Okay. Going to open up the gown now.”
The doctor started palpating her abdomen, mainly about her umbilicus. Evangeline liked using words like that in her head. “Just finding the fundus,” the doctor said.
Top of the uterus, Evangeline thought.
“You eating right? Getting moderate exercise?”
“Yup and yup. I almost like vegetables now, and I walk a lot. Walked here today.”
The doctor squeezed some cold gel onto her belly and slid the Doppler until they heard the baby’s heart beating away. It was always so fast, like it was running and running, but the doctor said that’s exactly what she wanted to hear.
“Good,” she said, wiping up the gel. “Now let’s get your fundal height.” She ran a measuring tape from Evangeline’s belly button to the top of her pubic bone. Checked it and ran it again. “Remind me. When’s your due date?”
“June ninth.”
The doctor flipped back through the chart. “The first time you came in, you seemed pretty certain of your last period. Can you tell me about it? What was it like?”
“Like?”
“Yes. Was it lighter than usual? Heavier? Anything like that?”
“It was light for me.”
“How light? A day or two of spotting?”
“Maybe a day. But there was definitely bleeding.”
“All right,” she said. “And before that? When was the last period before that?”
Evangeline shifted. She didn’t like being interrogated. “I don’t know. I’m not very regular. I just happened to remember that last one.”
“Okay. Let me check a few things,” the doctor said, scooting back. She stood and told Evangeline to get dressed, that she’d be back in a minute.
When Dr. Taylor returned, she said, “Everything sounds fine with you and the baby. But your fundal heights are off for the expected due date. They can vary by one to three centimeters, but yours have been consistently on the high side. Nothing to worry about, but at this point I’m pretty sure that what you thought was your last period was actually implantation bleeding, spotting that happens about a week or so after fertilization. That date would make a lot more sense for what we’re seeing here.”
“So how far off is the due date?”
“My best guess—around three weeks.”
“Three weeks? Like maybe I got pregnant three weeks earlier than I thought?”
“Yes. But as I said, let’s see how things go at the next visit. A number of variables can affect fundal height.”
* * *
—
WHEN EVANGELINE GOT HOME, she was shaking, cold to her bones. Dr. Taylor had to be wrong. Hadn’t the doctor admitted she wasn’t sure? Daniel was a big guy. Wouldn’t his kid be big too? Maybe her own dad had been a large guy and passed those genes on to her.
She longed to be with a friend, someone who would see that she was upset but not insist on knowing why. Someone who would let her talk, or not, up to her. Not Natalia. Evangeline loved her, but friendships at their age were about the disclosures, the proving of trust through intimacies. It was Lorrie she needed. Lorrie with her quiet acceptance of whatever was offered.
She thought about running next door, but she couldn’t. After the night they’d made stew, Lorrie had fallen off the face of the earth. Well, not quite. Her tired old Toyota came and went, and Evangeline sometimes saw Nells riding her bike on the road. In late February, when Lorrie had been missing only a few weeks, Evangeline headed over to her place. But halfway there, she turned back, too scared to risk it. And now it had been so long, how would she ever explain herself?
Evangeline tried to take a nap to forget things for a while, but she tossed and turned, the baby throwing some kind of fit. A new due date would ruin everything, not only with Lorrie but with Isaac. She knew he hoped the baby was Daniel’s, and she needed that possibility too. The baby had always made it right—this house, this home. Only now the baby had not the slightest tie to any of this.