Here is the "mirror" assignment with Stacy at forty years old receiving a gift of sorts. The next two will pop up over the weekend/beginning of the week. Happy reading!!
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My blood pounds, fueling heat through my veins. I still feel cold—shocked, my fingers are numb, and the can of Lysol spray and sponge fall from their tips. This could not be happening. This can’t be here, not with my baby girl.
I can barley look at it. The plastic instrument sprouting up from among the empty toilet paper rolls, loose hair, and used q-tips. I could be over thinking this. It could be an applicator to a new brand of tampons. I almost allowed myself to believe it. The fumes from the disinfectant can I was using to scrub the shower allowed me to for a moment. My fingers shook as I reached out towards the nightmare that was in the wastebasket there was a roaring in my ears.
The front doors open, the screen one closing with a swish and click. I hear Rachel drop her bag down by the door with a thump; she was only a child—still going to high school, my hand stopped. Maggie’s nails click click click along the hardwood floor her tail thumping on the wall as she makes her way to great Rachel. I can hear Rachel mumble to the old Irish Retriever. “Mom, I’m going to Ben’s, just wanted to drop off my book bag and grab a snack.”
The screen door opens again as Rachel calls out to her ride outside, the front door closing with a whap while Maggie cries a little. She misses Rachel. She always does when Rachel is gone for too long. Maggie’s whimpers remind me that Rachel is growing up. My eyes shift back towards the waste basket. I have to know. To make sure she is still my little girl, still growing and not grown.
There’s the plus sign. Positive.
My heart jumps up to my throat, suffocating me, making me nauseas. I lean my head against the enamel, the coolness from the water fixated in the bowl doing nothing in easing the heat that’s rushing through my body, up my face. I’m having a hot flash.
“Rachel,” I call out. No...not her. “Rachel!” My voice is hysterical; I can't seem to calm down. I rush out of the bathroom that she shares with her little sister Kate.
“Mom? Are you ok?” Rachel calls out from the bottom of the stairs.
I rush down; the Pregnacy Test clinched in my fingers. Rachel is in the doorway to the kitchen, a bag of popped popcorn in her hands and Maggie circling around Rachel's feet trying to get a popped kernel or two.
She's so young, my little girl. “Rachel, is there something you should tell me?” I ask, looking pointedly at the bag of Act II Popcorn in my daughter's hands.
Rachel opens the bag, steam rising up and one last kernel popped. “Umm…well I got my history paper back. The one on the Crusades and stuff. Mrs. Tarantino gave me a—”
“Anything else?” How can she ignore the situation like this? “Anything that you have that’s been weighing you down?”
“Nooo…” Rachel chokes out through a mouthful of crunchy and soggy, buttery popcorn. “Not bat I can bink of.”
“Rachel, honey. Come with me please.” I say, it’s taking all of my calm to not rip into this situation. I thought we had raised her better then this. Smarter then this. What if it’s Bens? I stop short of sitting in the chair at the kitchen table. The light oak wood accents in the kitchen don’t warm me like they use to, like I had intended them to when dad had remodeled for me as a birthday gift three years ago.
She sits across from me, “Are you alright mom?” The snack now forgotten on the edge of the table, I move it as Maggie’s nose reaches up to try and take a sniff. She’s only fourteen and not done growing how can she house something inside of her that needs to sprout as well?
“I’m fine honey, are you?” I reach up and tug her caramel curls, they’re like baby curls.
“Mom. You’re starting to freak me out.” Rachel scoots her chair closer to mine. “Just say it. We can talk, I haven’t chang—”
I blurt it out. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
I watch Rachel closely, watching for any sudden changes or if she decides to bolt out to the car still waiting on her outside. Rachel’s tawny skin pales a little, the freckles along her nose and check bones jump out a bit. She opens her mouth, a look of confusion and hurt flash through her gray-green eyes. “I—I’m n-not!! I swear mom! It’s not mine.” Rachel says, sitting forward and looking me in the eyes. “I haven’t even, oh god! Mom you know I wouldn’t, I’m a virgin!”
My heartbeat returns to normal. Thank goodness I’m not going to be a grandmother yet. But then it catches again, “Who’s is it Rachel?”
Rachel’s back stiffens a smidge. Her voice is smaller but still as pleading, “I can’t tell you. Not right now. I promise I will when I can.”
“Rachel, this is serious. Whoever’s this is their parent needs to know.”
“I know—but I just can’t”
“Yes. You. Can. Rachel! I’m your mother and—”
A car horn shouts from outside. Rachel’s friends having a difficult time with waiting. “I can’t mom,” Rachel says in a rush, snatching the popcorn up and bolting out the door.
Maggie gets up from where she was laying down under the table to eat the spilled popcorn off the floor.
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