Chapter 1
With a deep breath, I stepped out of the shower and wiped the mirror off with a towel. Slowly I studied my pale complexion, framed by my long dark hair, looking for even the slightest change. Something that would prove that what I suspected. After a few minutes of inspecting, I stared into my sad brown eyes. Surely something so life changing should be obvious, right? Was it my imagination, or did my freckles seem to stand out more? Maybe I’m just losing my mind. That's probably it, I was looking for anything that would signify a change even if it made absolutely no sense.
Even though my hair was dripping wet, the curls were still obvious. I ran a brush through my hair, wishing that my tangles could look this good when they dried. Unfortunately no amount of product could help with that. My hair was long enough to reach my waist when it was wet, but the curls made it look only about mid back when it dried. I always envied my friends with straight hair, even though my curls brought lots of attention.
My parents were both biracial, each had one parent that was black, and one that was white. I got the pale skin (freckles included) with curly dark hair while my twin, Amorette, got the darker complexion with lighter, straighter hair. We’ve always been opposites from our looks, to our styles, to our lifestyles. I’ve always found it ironic that our parents chose our names to match (Vivienne means life, while Amorette means love), yet nothing about us matched or were even similar. There’s a lot that I find ironic about our names.
The little pink cardboard box on the bathroom counter seems to be screaming for my attention. I realize I’ve been standing in front of the mirror, holding the brush for far too long and I’m starting to get cold. I stare at the box with a sense of dread until I start shivering. My stomach in knots, I walk to the adjoining bedroom and get dressed. I put on a white button up blouse, tuck it into a gray pencil skirt, and match it with darker gray heels.I know I look like a librarian, my fiance Travis reminds me all the time. All that’s missing is the glasses that I don’t need. I like my look though, and it works for my job as a paralegal. Simple and elegant has always been my style.
I twist my still wet hair into a long braid, put on some light make up, and stare at that damned pink box again. I reach out to pick it up like it’s going to bite me if I move too fast. Who knows, maybe it will. I can be the first person in history that dies from a pregnancy test box infection. I wish. Or maybe not, depending on what the little digital screen says after I pee on it. I throw the box in my purse promising myself I’ll take it sometime today. Yes I know that morning pee is best, but I’m procrastinating.
I bought it three days ago and I keep coming up with excuses not to take it. When I bought it I read the instructions and it said it is best to take it in the morning. So obviously I was going to wait until the next day, I wanted an accurate result. These things are expensive and I didn’t want to pay another $15 for a stick I’m literally going to pee on. The next morning I had forgotten until it was too late. So waiting another day wouldn’t hurt anything. Maybe make it more accurate. Well this morning I actually remembered, but today is the day that Travis gets back from his business trip. We’ve talked about having kids before he proposed earlier this year, but we both decided that kids weren’t for us. Neither of us ever want to be parents. So it wouldn’t be like it was some big happy surprise for him. If I am pregnant, I’ll need his support so it only makes sense to wait for him. Right? I keep telling myself it isn’t just another stalling tactic. I have legitimate reasons to wait. Or so I keep telling myself.
I get in my car and manage to stay focused enough to make it to the office. Ruth, our secretary and my best friend greets me with a huge smile when I walk through the door. She’s the only one that I’ve told about the possible baby and I had told her last night that I was taking the test this morning. I set my purse and lunch bag down on my desk that’s across from hers and try to make myself look busy so I don’t have to answer her questions or see the look of disappointment after I tell her that I didn’t take the test.
‘Soooo…..” she says as she sits down on the corner of my desk. “You can’t keep me waiting girl. I need to know.’
I sigh loudly and whisper, “Keep your voice down, I haven’t even told Trav yet. I don’t want him to find out through Bill, I want to be the one to tell him.” Bill, aka William Williamson, is our boss and the best family lawyer in the city. He also happens to be Trav’s dad. He goes by Bill, and with a name like William Williamson, I don’t blame him. Who would even do that to their kid?
Ruth laughs and lightly shoves my shoulder the way friends do when you're being silly. “I know that. He had an emergency custody hearing this morning, I’ve spent the last 30 minutes rescheduling his appointments. He won’t be in for at least another hour. Spill.” she gives me what I call her mom look, which she’s perfected. I don’t know how anyone could look at her face and not spill. This is why I don't think I could ever be a mom, I could never do the mom look even half as effective as she does.
I fidget with the buttons on my blouse for a distraction before I answer. “Well Trav comes home tonight, I have to pick him up from the airport at 6. I figu-”
“I knew you wouldn’t do it!” She interrupts me, then holds up her had when I open my mouth to try to defend myself. “Hon, there’s always an excuse when you don’t want to do something. I know you too well. You’re a beast when you go after something you want, but good lord, when it’s something you don’t want or don’t like, pulling teeth out of a lion would be easier than talking you into it.”
I close my mouth because she’s right. I know it is a bad habit of mine and I need to work on it. Maybe tomorrow. Or not. See? “Ruth, you’re right and I’m not even about to argue with you on that. But you’ll know tomorrow for sure, I’m taking it tonight with Trav.”
“You better not make me wait until tomorrow, I want a text as soon as it comes up. Preferably a picture text. Extra friend points if you send me a picture of Trav’s face.”
“You are horrible!” I pretend to be surprised at her requests. “It’s not like we don’t already know. I’m a week late, I can’t keep anything down, and my boobs feel like they’ve been mauled for the past two weeks. This is just confirming. So no surprise."
“You’re right, except it will seem more real to you. I’ve been through it three times, I know how easy it is to pretend that there’s nothing going on. Once you have the confirmation, it becomes more real, you start making plans. It’s a good thing your wedding is next weekend, otherwise you’d have to get a new dress.” Today was Monday, my wedding is in a little less than two weeks. I hadn’t even thought about fitting into my very expensive dress but she did make a great point.
At 24, she was only a year older than me physically, but it seemed like she took on the role of being a mother figure to me. We had both grown up faster than we should have, we both had our sob stories, but at the age of 16 she became responsible for another life when her oldest son was born while my only responsibility was myself.
She spent the better part of an hour telling me how much I was going to enjoy being a mom, made me promise that she would be the godmother, and told me all kinds of horror stories about the birthing process. Not something I’d ever look forward too.
“Speaking of, I know you said you really liked the doctor that delivered your daughter, can you write down her name and phone number for me?” I asked Ruth as she was shuffling through one of the stacks of papers on her desk.
She nodded and looked up the number and wrote it on a sticky note under the doctor’s name. She walked over to me and said, “I’d recommend Dr. Thomas to anyone. She was absolutely amazing when I had Oliva and-”
She stopped talking as the door abruptly opened, then quickly closed. Bill paused and gave me a brief questioning look before unlocking the door to his office. I could feel my face heating up, he had heard more than I wanted him to. He’s an incredibly smart man, and he could easily put two and two together. Fortunately he was also a professional and knew not to let on that he suspected anything in front of Ruth.
“Ruth, were you able to reschedule everyone?” he asked her. After she nodded, he turned to me and said, “I need to go over a few things with you about the Gomez case.” Without waiting for a reply he turned and went into his office leaving the door slightly open behind him.
Slowly I grabbed the Gomez file, entered his office, and sat down on a brown leather chair directly across from him which were usually for clients. I felt like a child in the principal’s office even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. I started fidgeting with my buttons again while I waited until he looked up from the paper he was reading.
“I don’t need the Gomez file, I just wanted to talk to you. Is there something you want to tell me?” He looked at me expectantly.
At this point, I knew my face was bright red. “No, nothing I want to tell you right now,” I whispered.
He sighed, “I should have known better than to say it like that. Is there something you should tell me?”
I nodded. “I didn’t want to say anything until I talked to Trav about it. I’m picking him up at the airport at 6 tonight.”
He was quiet while he did what I call the “thinking steeple” position, hands folded except his two pointer fingers straight up like a steeple on a church. Usually he puts them under his chin, unless he’s mad, then he puts them over his lips like it will keep him from saying something he regrets. Thankfully today was a steeple-under the chin position.
After a few minutes of silence he put his hands on his desk and said, “Well I guess It’s only fair that the father finds out before the grandfather.”
“Potential.” I interrupted.
“You would have made a great lawyer. It’s not too late you know. I wouldn’t mind having an heir to the family business.” he said looking at me expectantly.
“We’ve had this conversation before. My answer is still the same. It isn’t a no, it’s a not right now. I wanted to get this wedding thing taken care of before I accepted money from you for law school. I wouldn’t feel right otherwise.” I answered.
“Viv, I’ve seen you as my daughter since before you started dating Trav. I know we didn’t have a great start, but you’ve proven yourself to be a wonderful, strong person and I’m proud of you. You are the daughter I never got, and I wish that didn’t make you so uncomfortable.”
He was right, we got off to a terrible start. I met Trav first, in an alley behind his favorite restaurant. I was almost 17 and he had just turned 20, still in business school. He caught me going through the trash trying to find something to eat. I wasn’t homeless like he initially thought, but I would have been better off if I had been. At the time I was living with my 16th foster family, and unfortunately this one was one of the bad ones. We were only allowed to eat at school, the food in their house was for their biological children. CPS and the foster system didn't believe me like usual and it was just more proof for them that I was a troublemaker. It was a Sunday, and I was starving so I snuck out to try to find something to eat.
Instead of looking at me with disgust, he brought me inside the restaurant and paid for the best meal I’d ever had. He spent a while listening to me talk about the soap opera of my life. Normally I don’t ever open up to a stranger like that, but there was something about him that immediately made me feel safe. Like I was home, something I hadn’t felt for over a decade.
Like most foster kids, I didn’t start out in a bad environment, that came a little later. My parents were both raised by hippies, and learned to enjoy recreational drugs from their parents. While my grandparents never did anything harder than weed, my parents weren’t satisfied with just that. By the time my sister and I were five, our mother had developed a nasty meth addiction, while our father’s poison was heroin. Neither of them could hold down a job for very long, they fought all the time, and left us alone for days. Both of our grandmothers had passed away at this point, and we didn’t see our grandfathers more than once a year.
When we were six, our parents got into a huge fight. My dad left with me, telling my mom that I was his favorite child, and she could have the twin that he didn’t want. For two weeks we hid out in drug dens, jumping from place to place so my mom couldn’t find us and take me back. I prayed for her to find us every day and night. My dad didn’t really love me more, the reason he took me was because his dealer liked me. At six years old my body was traded several times for heroin because my dad was broke but needed his fix.
After what seemed like the longest two weeks of my life, my dad overdosed. The “friend’ we were staying with at the time found him still alive but didn’t want to end up in jail. So he loaded my dad up in his car and dropped us both off at the closest emergency room. My dad was declared brain dead that night and died the next day. My happy reunion with my mom didn’t last very long.
That night I was still trying to process everything that had happened, tried to tell my mom about the man who hurt me, but she didn’t want to hear anything about it. She kept telling me how she hated Amee, and that I had stolen our dad away and killed him, so she hated me more. She got high and decided to come up with a brilliant plan. Somehow she thought if she sacrificed my sister and me, it would bring our dad back. I didn't understand it then and as an adult it is still just as confusing to me.
She decided to kill me first since she thought his death was my fault. My mom locked me in the bathroom with her and started filling the bathtub up with water. I was crying and begging her to stop as she forced me to bend over the side of the tub and held my face underwater. Amee heard me begging mom not to hurt me, so she went to the neighbor’s house for help. The neighbor came over and heard my mom screaming about how much she hated me after I had lost consciousness. He broke down the door and performed cpr, which saved me.
My mom was charged with child abuse instead of attempted murder and spent a few years in prison. When she was released she didn’t want anything to do with us, so my sister and I were raised in the foster system waiting to be adopted. We were lucky enough to be kept together until we were 10, then we were separated because of Amee’s continuous trouble with the law. Most foster homes were good, or even decent, but several of them were terrible. Amee has always felt guilt that I was the one targeted for abuse. Neither of us got the professional help we needed and Amee responded by breaking every rule and law she possibly could while I tried to keep her safe.
Trav listened to my horror story without saying much, only asking questions here and there. He knew that his father would know how to help, so he brought me home to talk to Bill. The last thing I expected was for Bill to call me a con artist trying to scheme money out of them. He really believed the worst about me until the foster parents I was living with were arrested for child abuse. He has spent years apologizing, but I forgave him a long time ago. I learned early on that the world is full of shitty people and you can't be too cautious.
Fortunately for me, Bill was able to petition the courts to get me emancipated at 17, and he’s been like a dad to me ever since. Trav started out as my best friend, but the night of his college graduation, we took our relationship to the next level when he kissed me. The rest is history as they say, and we’ve been dating ever since. On valentine’s day he proposed, of course I said yes and we set the wedding date for the eleventh of November. The wedding has consumed my life for the past 8 months, and at this point I just want it to be over so we can have our happily ever after. I wish it was that simple.
