Read Online What Doesn't Kill You by Virginia DeBerry - Free Book Online Page B

problems. Each day I checked my date book, counted on fingers and toes, but it added up the same, which meant I was late—for a very important date, and for me, that was unheard of. It had been thirty-three years, and you could time a Cape Canaveral shuttle launch by my period, except when—I couldn’t even finish that thought. I cleaned behind my refrigerator, planted tulip bulbs, sorted my pantyhose drawer—anything to distract myself from what hadn’t happened yet. But hard as I tried, I kept coming back to Ron and our impromptu wedding celebration. I still couldn’t call up the teeniest flash of a kiss, the feel of his hands, nothing. I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to. But whether I remembered or not, it happened—I’d found the evidence and thought I was home free. I mean, I’d gotten through twelve years with Gerald without even a scare. Now I was expecting to be a grandmother, not to be expecting.
    As day twenty-nine of my permanent leave rolled into day thirty, my house was spotless, but I was a wreck. I dragged out of bed before dawn, made coffee—not that I exactly needed fresh brewed caffeine. I was already wired. The morning news, complete with grizzly headlines and flash-flood warnings, did nothing to distract me from the soap opera that played in my head all night. “Amber, honey, remember when you were little and you begged me for a baby sister or brother?” I couldn’t imagine forming my lips to say those words, or what she would answer when she found out who the daddy was. Then I had this horrifying thought that it could have been Gerald too, which made matters worse. That’s when I had to get out of my house and do something or I was going to peel my skin off. So I tucked my nightgown in my jeans, pulled on a baggy sweater, my raincoat and my favorite hide-everything hat, and walked out—
    â€”into a monsoon. It was so dark the streetlights were still on. The rain came down sideways and the wind was strong enough to rock my car. If I had good sense I’d have gone back inside, but crazy people don’t care about storms. I wasn’t sure I could drive the mile and a half to the drugstore—the one I don’t usually go to—without running off the road, but I also couldn’t sit home starting a list of girls’ and boys’ names.
    Who knew there were so many home pregnancy tests? When I had Amber, there were maybe three. Now there was a wall of pastel boxes. How many styles do you need? I made sure no one was looking and picked one up. “A plus sign means you are pregnant.” Not on this day—middle-aged, unmarried, unemployed and pregnant was definitely not a plus. I didn’t have the patience to stand there reading labels like I was comparing laundry detergents. So I snatched the only box that wasn’ta sweet baby color because I was not feeling pink or blue. It looked like medicine and I needed to go home and take mine like a grown-up.
    I seriously considered leaving a twenty on the shelf and shoving the test in my pocket, but I would have turned to stone if I walked out and the alarm went off. So I plowed up the aisle, filling my little red basket with tissues, chips, cough medicine, lightbulbs—whatever was within reach—to keep my secret safely hidden. And when I got to the register, I rifled through a plastic tub of nail clippers to avoid looking the white-haired clerk in the eye, although I swear I noticed a little twinkle when Mrs. Claus handed me the bag.
    I went in my door pulling off soggy clothes, down to my wrinkly nightgown, and headed straight for the bathroom, where I soon realized that no amount of squinting and holding the directions up to the light was going to help me read them. Then I had to dig around for the dollar-store glasses I only needed because they squeezed too many words on a piece of paper the size of a Post-it. “For best results test should be taken