Cooked Goose

I remember exactly where I was sitting – the little space between the bathroom and the vanity in our one bedroom apartment, our first place wedged between Newport Beach and Industrial Costa Mesa – the larger half of the two bedroom crudely chopped into a one and a studio. I remember it was cold in the apartment. It was December. She’d gotten home from work with one of those home pregnancy tests.

She came out of the bathroom, and set that white, plastic stick on the vanity. She crouched next to me to wait out those nervous few minutes. Neither one of us wanted her to be pregnant. We had plans, you see. Good plans: Wait two, three years before starting a family; “Grow together as a couple,” we were told. Yeah, sounded right. Take a few little trips. Go camping. Sleep in on Saturdays. And then there was the money. I had followed my calling. And as it is with most callings, it paid dirt. She was making double my salary. The plan was to live tight, put away her checks and buy a place of our own. Good plans.

So, why were we both smiling? We were. I can see us. Didn’t want it. Scared. But the clearest things in my memory’s eye – looking down on those two sitting there, huddled next to each other – are those smiles. Those nervous smiles. Man, we were just kids.

“What do you think?”
“I don’t think you are.”
“No? … I think I am.”
“You do? Hmm…”

“That two lines?”
“I think it is.”
“Really? Why’s that second line so faint?”
“Did we wait too long?”
“I don’t know. Five minutes – is that what it says?”
“Should I do another one?”
“There’s another one?”
“Yes, they come in two-packs.”
“Yeah, think you’d better.”

She did. She was. And so it began.

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