Lies You Wanted to Hear by James Whitfield Thomson Page A

you’re the one who’s in control.”
    “You think I’m afraid of letting myself be vulnerable?”
    “Are you?”
    “Not with Griffin I wasn’t.”
    “But now…” she said.
    Now I’m fucking pregnant! It doesn’t get any more vulnerable than that. I found myself shutting down, not wanting to tell her my secret; I managed to mumble and dodge my way through the rest of the session without letting her draw it out of me.
    I walked home from Carla’s and got in my car and drove straight to Jill’s. She was on the couch in the great room off the kitchen, nursing TK. She touched her finger to her lips for me to be quiet. I took off my coat and sat in the big armchair.
    “Is he sleeping?” I said softly.
    Jill nodded. “Little bugger’s been cranky since he woke up this morning. This is the first time he’s been down all day.” She unhooked the baby from her breast and tucked him into the corner of the couch beside her.
    “I was in the neighborhood,” I said. I picked at my thumb.
    “This isn’t about your trip to New York with Matt tomorrow, is it?” Count on Jill to cut to the chase. “Please tell me you haven’t backed out.”
    I shook my head.
    “So, how bad is it?”
    I took a deep breath. “I’m pregnant.”
    “Okay.” Her expression was unreadable.
    “It’s not official. I get the test results tomorrow, but all the signs are there. Backache, tender boobs, morning sickness. My boss brought a cup of hazelnut coffee back from lunch yesterday, and I had to race out of the office to keep from puking at my desk.”
    “You’re going to tell Matt this weekend?” It sounded like a question, but it wasn’t.
    “Yes.”
    She leaned forward. “And keep the baby?”
    “Of course , Jilly.” It devastated me that she might think I wouldn’t.
    She let out a whoop and rushed over and hugged me. Seconds later we were all crying—her and me and the baby—then Terry walked in the door, and Jill and I started laughing, fat, happy tears streaming down our faces, and he looked at us like he’d wandered into a loony bin.
    “It’s a girl thing,” Jill said. She scooped up TK, who had decided to take his discontent to the next decibel, and handed him to Terry. “He’s been asking for you all day.”
    I grabbed my coat. “I have to go,” I said to Jill. “I’ll call you later.”
    I drove home feeling an enormous sense of relief. Now that I had said it— I’m pregnant —I couldn’t conceive of my life in any other way. This baby was a blessing. Matt would be euphoric when I told him, not like the last time when Griffin and I had such horrible fights. After the abortion, I had a recurring nightmare in which I kept finding the dead fetus in various places around my apartment. It was tiny as a pearl and perfectly whole. I would come across it in an ashtray, beneath my panties in the bureau drawer, caught in the strainer in the kitchen sink. Now, as I drove home, I had an unshakable feeling that I was carrying a girl, a daughter who would live and grow, giggle and sing and call me Mommy. Life didn’t have to be complicated; happiness was there for the taking. I had known that since my second date with Matt. How could I look into the eyes of our child and not love her father?
    ***
    I called the clinic Friday morning, and a nurse confirmed that my pregnancy test was positive. She calculated the due date as July 19. I sat at my desk, grinning like the Cheshire cat, doodling 7-19-78 on a notepad, trying to imagine the look on Matt’s face when I told him. Should I do it over dinner or matter-of-factly as we were strolling down the street? In bed after we’d finished making love? I wondered if the other women in the office could guess what I had been talking about when I was on the phone with the clinic, and almost wished that they could.
    When I got to my house after work, Mrs. Stansbury was in the front hall sorting through the mail. I said a cheerful hello, but she scowled and handed me a catalog and