un-expectations

“Janine, please stop. People are going to think I’m a monster.” I placed my hand gently on the back of her elbow. She was shaking. “We can figure this one out. There’s nothing to worry about.”
She brought her shining eyes up to meet mine. They were rimmed red and still infinitely beautiful. I felt my emotions catch in my own throat and I wondered if I really believed the words I was whispering to my girlfriend of 14 months. I wanted to believe it was the truth—that we could find a simple solution.
We were standing in front of a convenience store somewhere in Nebraska, en route to Janine’s parents’ house in Cleveland, Ohio. We were almost exactly 1,000 miles east of my family, and 1,000 miles west of hers. And wouldn’t you know it? Janine was going to be a mom. The news—only just acquired from a pregnancy test both purchased and used in the gas station—hadn’t quite sunk in for me. All I wanted to do was get back behind the wheel of my Jeep Compass and get on the road again. I was done with Nebraska only moments after we’d entered it. I hated the god-forsaken state, as nothing good ever happened in Nebraska.
“I can’t stop,” Janine managed. She then buried her mouth and nose in the soggy tissue she was clutching, and continued to weep. I sighed and cast my eyes to the horizon.
The sky was pale and expansive. I had known when I awoke that morning in our Salt Lake City hotel that it was going to be beautiful weather. I had known as soon as Janine exited the hotel bathroom with no color in her face and a sour scent on her breath that the weather would be the last pleasant thing in my life for a while. We had only put 30 miles between us and the hotel when Janine demanded we stop and buy a pregnancy test. And those are the events that brought us here: me gazing at the line where light meets land, Janine falling to pieces beside me. I wrapped one arm around her and kissed the crown of her head. “It’s all okay,” I assured us both. “Let’s get in the car and we’ll be to your mom’s house before you know it.”
With some effort, I coaxed Janine into the passenger seat and helped her fasten her seatbelt. I kissed her twice, asking if she was alright and getting nothing more than a sad shrug of her shoulders. Reluctantly, I closed her door and walked around to my side of the car. Before I even reached for the handle, I heard someone call me from the direction of the fuel pumps.
“Hey. Is she going to be alright? I couldn’t help noticing . . .” the man trailed off, making it sound like he was unsure what it was he had noticed. He was in the process of cleaning his windows, and he held the squeegee lifelessly in his left hand while he addressed me. I glanced at Janine through the window. She wasn’t looking at me, but I held one finger up anyway, to let her know I’d be a minute.
I crossed the parking lot to where the stranger stood beside his town car. The grill was smattered with bugs, but the windshield gleamed in the mid-morning light. “She’s pregnant,” I blurted without ado. “She’s freaking out.” I shot the stranger a helpless expression, hoping that somehow I could convince him I would be receptive to any advice he could offer me.
The man had close-set eyes and poufy grey hair. He was reminiscent of Will Farrell, add fifteen or twenty years. I hoped he was as good-natured as the comedian seemed in all his films, of which I’d always been a fan. The man smiled, his lips closed in an attempt to hide a snaggle-tooth in the top row. “We’ve all been there, my friend,” he said warmly. “My advice to you is to make an honest woman of her.” Before I could protest, or even offer a response to his suggestion, he added, “That’s what I did, and I have been a happy man all my life.”
He nodded towards the front of the convenience store, and I saw a beautiful middle-aged woman. She was holding hands with a boy who looked about seven years old. They were each licking at a freshly-made soft-serve ice cream cone and they were smiling and talking quietly. They looked both ways before crossing the parking area and arriving at the car where I stood with the missing piece of their perfect little family. I nodded at the woman, who smiled in return and proceeded to help fasten the child in the back seat, which was littered with toys and coloring books.
“Well, thank you for the advice, sir,” I offered the man my hand and he shook it. “You have a safe drive.”
The man smiled and gestured to my car across the way. “I trust you’ll do right by her,” the man offered with an encouraging nod before returning the squeegee to the bucket full of bug-ridden window washing fluid.
I strolled back to my Jeep, feeling just a little less burdened than I had before. I pulled open the driver’s door to find Janine had lowered the back of her seat and was dozing peacefully. Her head tilted to the right so I couldn’t see her features, only the pane of her cheek and the delicately exposed flesh behind her ear and the side of her neck. There was a pale, wiry vein curving behind her ear, punctured as it was with a vacant earring hole. I was so tempted to reach across the space between us and caress her sleeping form. I resisted, and slid silently behind the wheel. I turned the engine and Janine tipped her head the other way. The disturbance caused her to open her eyes. She looked at me with such depth and sincerity, my breath caught.
“I love you,” she breathed before letting her eyes fall closed again. As I pushed the car into Drive, I couldn’t hide the smile that spread like wildfire across my tinted face. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I touched the horn to draw the attention of the grey-haired man. He looked up at me through his windshield and offered me a warm smile. I decided that whatever happened on the other end of our 1,000-mile journey, I would do right by Janine.
That day we drove for thirteen hours and stopped for the night in a tiny town just shy of the Indiana border. Once when I was a child, I had camped with my family somewhere in Montana at a Kampgrounds of America. It had been one of the best overnight activities of my youth, and ever since Janine and I embarked on our trip, I had been hoping to take her to a KOA. She was not in on the surprise, however. As we pulled off the highway her spidey senses began tingling. She sat taller in her chair and muttered something about not having seen a hotel sign.
“I have a surprise for you,” I said with the same unabashed excitement with which men had been using to present the line for hundreds of years. I braced myself for Janine’s less-than-enthusiastic response.
“Jake,” she breathed, the syllable dripping with disapproving discomfort. “I am not sleeping at a KOA. I am with child.”
I tried not to grind my teeth too hard. She noticed when my jaw was tense. “Pretend it is fourteen hours ago and you have no idea what’s going on inside your body.”
“I know what goes on in my body, Jake,” she said with weak defensiveness. “I knew what was going on,” she whispered while one hand slipped subconsciously across her stomach.
As much as I needed the scents of fresh air, campfire smoke, Off! Mosquito Repellant—I let the KOA issue drop. I told her it was only 20 miles to a Hilton and she relaxed against the leather back of the front seat. I watched her for a moment, studying the way she melted against the material. I wanted to be that plush car seat more in that moment than I ever thought possible. I wanted to be her reason to exhale. I wanted to be there when she landed.
It took all my effort, but we managed to drive through to the Hilton I had promised. Janine was so exhausted, she climbed in the bed fully clothed and was asleep before I’d finished bringing our bags up from the car. The trip was turning out nothing like I’d expected a few days before. I had envisioned us getting frisky and falling asleep in a sensuous, naked embrace every night between the fresh, white sheets. I sighed and turned out the lamp light, removing my clothes and carefully crawling into bed beside her. I took notice that she had two pillows under her head, and one pinned between her knees as she slept on her side. My spot was left bare. I considered lying down on my own arm, as I was pretty exhausted as well. But I managed to find the energy to call down to the front desk for an extra pillow. When it arrived, I propped it beneath my own head and slipped in behind my girlfriend. I wrapped my legs beneath hers and draped one arm over her small stomach. I fell asleep lost in visions of a grey-haired version of myself, my gorgeous wife Janine licking at a soft-serve ice cream cone.
Janine was already up and out of the bed when the light spilled through the hotel curtains, dragging me reluctantly out of my sleep. I rolled over and saw her elbow around the edge of the wall that separated the main room from the bathroom area. She was doing her hair, which was a good sign.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” I heard her sweet voice lilt. She sounded infinitely more positive than she had at any point the day before.
“Morning,” I managed, pulling my aching body from beneath the tangled sheets. As always, we had kicked the comforter to the ground during the night. I bent to pick it up, and let out a groan. Driving for long periods of time sometimes got my back to hurting, an ailment I had yet kept from Janine. There were plenty of other things she wasn’t aware of, but as I considered the tiny byproduct of our lust that was growing rapidly inside her, I decided there would be enough time to fill her in.
“You okay?” she asked, tilting at the hips so she could see around the wall. Her eyes were concerned, adorned in makeup as they were.
I waved one hand in a gesture that suggested she not worry about it, and walked the space of the room so I was standing beside her. Her features looked so strange and crooked in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. It caused my heart to jump, the sensation that the woman I had awoken to was someone different than the one I had laid down with the night before. I turned her to look at me, and the emotions I usually felt upon looking at her returned to normal. I kissed her on the mouth, savoring the taste of her toothpaste. Without a word, I ducked into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
The water cascaded through my hair, washing it over the back of my neck till it almost brushed my spine. I spat the droplets that had found their way into my mouth as I turned beneath the stream. I could see steam curling above the shower curtain, painting the mirror the color of clouds. The soap was harsh, hard as the water. It left my skin feeling dry and zapped. I missed my own shower, my Old Spice body wash. I turned the handle to the off position and stood within the confines of the porcelain until I was ready to brave the chill of the bathroom beyond the curtain. I pulled it back and was surprised to see Janine sitting on the toilet fully clothed; the lid down.
“Missed me?” I asked as I reached one dripping arm over her shoulder to the stack of towels the hotel staff had left us. I removed a towel, whipped it out, and wrapped it snugly about my slender waist.
“I don’t know how I got any sleep last night, but I did. So I’m well-rested. Is it okay if we start out with me driving today?”
I pretended to mull over the question, weighing the pros and cons of saying “yes” to her sweet, child-like inquiry. “Do you have a clean record?” I jested.
“As clean as your butt,” came her retort. She then stood and wrapped her arms around my exposed shoulders. She smiled up at me, and I took in every aspect of her beautiful face. Her light hair was beginning to frizz in the steam of the bathroom. I knew she hated it, but I thought the halo of fly-aways around her face was endearing. I brushed one out of the way before I kissed her.
“Okay, you can drive.”
Forty minutes later, with our bellies full of continental breakfast and an endless river of road stretching before us, we recommenced our journey. The car rules stated that whoever was driving got control of the stereo, so I sat patiently through several hours of Kate Nash, Regina Spektor, Alanis Morissette, and other female power singers. It was good to see Janine so animated, singing and belting the lyrics she knew so well. She was actually a good singer, and I was mildly surprised to find myself enjoying her vocal accompaniment to the music. For the first time, I found myself wondering about whether our child would be a good singer. The sensation that filled my stomach and limbs was so total and so foreign, I had to hold on to something. My sudden reach for the roll bar did not escape Janine’s notice.
“What is it?” she asked, gripping the steering wheel tighter with her left hand and turning the knob on the radio with her right. The music played quietly in the background while Janine glanced at me over and over, unwilling to take her eyes off the road for too long at a time.
I let my jaw open and close a couple times, unable to find words to capture what I was feeling. It was like the most powerful sensation of love I had ever felt, and I realized that no matter what happened between Janine and me, there would always be a part of our love for one another captured in the existence of the tiny child growing inside her. My mind darted back to the man at the gas station the day before, and I said the first thing that came to my cluttered mind.
“Pull into that rest stop.”
Without any further inquiry, Janine hit the right turn signal and maneuvered into the rest stop that had conveniently come up on our route. She parked the vehicle and turned her attention to me. “What’s wrong, Jake?”
I couldn’t bring my eyes to meet hers. I knew I’d get overwhelmed. “Can we get out of the car?”
At this point we’d made it to the western end of Ohio. The rest stop was situated beside a pleasant man-made lake. I exited the Jeep and walked to the nearest edge of the lake. I hardly noticed the family enjoying a picnic on the far side of the lake. I turned my full attention to Janine, who was standing uncomfortably on the edge of the water beside me. Without a word, I dropped to my knee and took Janine’s nimble hand in my own thick, clumsy ones. I looked up at her, grateful the sun was behind me, causing the light to hit Janine’s beautiful, bright eyes. She knew exactly what I was doing, but she said nothing.
“Janine,” I began, barely able to get through those first syllables. “I want to do right by you. But more importantly, I know that I want to spend my life with you; not only as the father of your child, but as the man who will stand beside you through everything.” I cleared my throat, a weak attempt at brushing away the emotions that were curling up through my stomach like smoke. “Will you be my wife?”
Janine was crying openly. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and cast her eyes to the small family on the other side of the water. I peeled my eyes away from her lovely face, and took in the same sights. The dad was holding a small girl on his lap. The little girl was shrieking with every bounce of her father’s knee. The mother was showing a little boy something very small. Their heads were leaning together conspiratorially. I knew Janine was trying to visualize us in the same roles. I hoped she liked what she saw.
“Thank you,” she said after a pause, “For not doing this in front of my family.” I looked up at her again, just in time to witness the beauty of her face as it split into a radiant smile. I knew her answer. “Of course I’ll marry you, Jake.”
She let me off the hook for not having a ring, and allowed me to purchase her a soda from the vending machine. She even gave me the keys and said her mind was too occupied to keep driving. I took this as a good sign and was grateful to have full control over the stereo. Truth be told, I was so appreciative of my new fiancé, I even left Regina Spektor playing.
We arrived at Janine’s parents’ house around eleven that night. We were both strung out from the road, and irritable to boot. To my great delight, Janine had the kind of parents who could read a person’s emotions. They let me go straight to the basement bedroom they had set up for me. Her dad assured me we’d have a nice, long, getting-to-know-you chat over breakfast. I was so tired, I didn’t even let this daunting bit of news bother me as I prepared for bed.
The house was small, and the bedroom took up half the basement. It was colder than I had prepared for, and I asked Janine if she could bring down an extra blanket. She said she’d have to sneak down past her father’s study door. When I reminded Janine she was twenty-four years old, she reminded me her father was the pastor of his congregation. It would be extremely unfitting for his daughter to spend the night with her boyfriend. Janine hadn’t agreed with her dad’s religious practices since middle school, however, and shortly after midnight I heard her on the stairs.
I watched her toes step delicately from one stair to the next, the shimmering silver toenail polish catching what little light was spilling from the main floor. Her slender ankles came next, and the curve and swell of her calves as they morphed into her flawless knees. She was wearing a tiny pair of shorts, and a form-fitting tank-top beneath a loose sweater. She looked like the epitome of comfort carrying a large quilt.
“Well, hello,” I whispered into the darkness, anticipating her eyes lighting on mine.
Janine looked at me seductively, and my body responded. At that moment her father’s office chair squeaked upstairs and I silently pleaded with my body to cooperate. I managed to relax just as Janine reached the side of the bed. She unfolded the quilt and spread it over the queen-sized mattress on which I laid. Just as she turned to go back upstairs, I stopped her.
“He won’t know if you stay for a couple minutes,” I reasoned.
Janine looked worried, but said nothing. She slipped into the bed beside me, wrapping her legs around mine. She was so warm I thought there might be something wrong. I asked her about it. “My mom keeps it, like, 80 degrees upstairs,” was her casual response. I knew she was tired as I was, but it felt like something was off. I wondered if her parents had given her a talking-to already. Though this didn’t seem likely, I couldn’t get the notion to leave me long enough to sleep comfortably. I tossed and turned and lie awake staring at the ceiling for much of the night. I was so distracted by my thoughts, I didn’t even remember to wake Janine and send her back upstairs before sunrise.
I heard the first sounds of life around eight the following morning. It amazed me how thunderous the footsteps of a hungry teenage brother could sound from below, as he ran down the stairs to join his parents for breakfast. I heard his voice first. “Janine’s not in her room,” he said casually—not accusing, merely stating the fact. At the words, my heart stopped and I looked beside me, where Janine was sleeping as peacefully and gracefully as any of the angels her father preached about. Before I woke her, I heard the tell-tale scooting sound of her father pushing his chair away from the table. There were footsteps, and then, “Janine? Are you down there?”
I shook her shoulder hard, more intent on waking her quickly than doing it delicately. “Janine, get up,” I hissed, praying to a god I didn’t believe in to keep the pastor at the top of the stairs. “Your family is awake,” I tried.
Janine muttered something about time, ignoring my pleading. I knew she didn’t remember where she was, or she’d be as eager to join the living as I was. I shook her shoulder again, aggressively. “Your dad is talking to you.”
These seemed to be the magic words. Janine sat up, her eyes wild and confused. “Where is he?” she asked, at top volume.
“I’m up here, young lady,” came his dark, disturbing response. “You’ve got one minute.”
Janine shot me a horrible look that reminded me it had been my job to wake her, to send her back to her room. She threw off the blankets that had uncharacteristically lasted through the night, and was just about to storm up the stairs when I saw the scene that made my heart stand still. Janine’s shorts were stained, as were the sheets beneath them. The color was vicious and offensive, it reeked of metal. My stomach churned at the realization that it was blood. I leaned over my side of the bed and let out a sticky, putrid stream of vomit.
“What’s going on down there?” was her father’s response to my upheaval. My eyes were watering, my ears ringing, my stomach writhing in upset. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should turn and face my future father-in-law, or if I should recover, be a man, and see to the needs of my fiancé, who would, in a matter of seconds, notice what had happened inside her body during the night. God only knew what kind of response the discovery would merit from Janine.
The steps on the stairs told me the older man was slowly descending. I was through vomiting, having expelled what little matter had remained in my stomach through the night. I turned to Janine, my eyes wild and pleading, despite my best efforts to remain collected. She wasn’t looking at me anymore. Her eyes were glued to the mess all around her. Her mouth was open just a little, the complete horror of the situation not yet registering on her sleepy face. I could feel the tears breaking past the barrier of my eyelids. I felt weak and defenseless.
“What in the hell?” was her father’s enraged response to the scene when he reached the foot of the stairs. Neither one of us heard him as he began to rant. Janine scooted closer to me, and I had no choice but to wrap my arms around her and hold her as we both fell to pieces at the end of the whirlwind ride that made up the past couple of days.
Oblivious to the anger, the sadness, and above all the confusion that was trickling down the stairs and accumulating in the puddle of Janine’s family, I held her while she sobbed. Our shoulders shook with the pain and confusion of what had occurred in the course of three days. At some point we had created a child, learned of its existence, and devastatingly lost it all before we really knew what a miracle we had possessed. I took a deep, stabilizing breath and pulled back from Janine. I placed my clumsy hands on either side of her face, and steadied it. I bore into her eyes with mine, and I whispered with enough passion and intensity to move mountains, “I will always want you. This doesn’t change a thing.” Without a word, I tore the hem of her ruined shorts and fashioned from it a tiny ring. I said nothing as I slid the piece of fabric over her knuckle and let it rest between her middle and pinky fingers. We looked at the ring, and then at each other, and the look we shared solidified the knowledge that no matter what happened down the road, Janine and I would be ready.