The Five Year Plan
Life sometimes has a life of its own
I had a girlfriend over for a visit and opened up a bottle of red. On pouring a glass for each of us, the smell seemed off. I took a sip and grimaced. It tasted like vinegar. It was disgusting. My friend Heather took her glass and sipped. The wine tasted just fine to her, but I grabbed both glasses and poured them down the sink, quickly following with the bottle.
I grabbed another bottle. A different label this time. I poured the wine into the glasses, gave it a sniff, and took a sip. I made a face and announced that it, too, had gone sour. Heather quickly grabbed her glass and the bottle before I could pour them down the sink as well and made her way to the table.
“Fine,” I said, “I’m just going to have some milk!” “Um, Pamm…” She said, swirling the wine in the goblet before taking another swallow, “since when do you drink milk?”
I stopped mid-gulp and pondered this question. “Hmmm. I dunno. I just feel like milk right now. It’s getting rid of the taste of the bad wine.” I shrugged off her question and continued to drink the rest of the milk in one fell swoop. “Um, Pamm…” She said hesitantly, pouring another glass of the hideous wine, “when was your last period?”
My husband Rick and I had been married for eleven years. We had actually decided, on purpose, that raising children was not for us. We agreed, however, that every five years, we would re-evaluate our life choices, just in case one or both of us had changed our mind.
Having just gone through our second re-evaluation a few months earlier and deciding we would carry on with the current status quo, I found that apparently, my body did not agree with our decision.
I stood in the main bathroom staring at the pregnancy kit stick. It had to be wrong. Not certain how it would help, I made my way to the ensuite bathroom and proceeded to take the test with the second stick. This was obviously why they came in packs of two. Irregularities in the testing system. However, it had the same result.
I spent the next two hours pacing from the main bathroom to the ensuite to verify that the results had not changed. They hadn’t. The two blue lines stood steady within the circle window of the white plastic stick. My head whirled from the blood pounding heavily between my ears every time I picked up one of those damn tests.
Rick, would be home soon. He would be coming home completely unaware. No cell phones to give a heads up, no indication whatsoever of this moment occurring. I just kept panicking, finding myself hot and hormonal as I walked back and forth from one end of the house to the other. I saw nothing else around me. Our two Doberman/Shepherd crosses, Claudius and Socrates, lay on the floor in the kitchen, soaking in the remaining beam of sunlight from the large patio door, watching me pace.
The carpool van pulled up the drive, and I could hear Rick laughing and saying goodbye to his commuter-mates. Oh God, he won’t be laughing soon. My sweaty fists clenched, and the whites of my knuckles practically glowed in contrast to the protruding blues of the veins on the back of my hands. I was a mess!
He came in through the patio doors, displacing the dogs from their basking. His face fell when he saw me. I was cold and clammy, but my cheeks burned. He dropped his bag and approached me, asking what was wrong. I couldn’t answer. I grabbed his hand and led him into the bathroom. He was confused and possibly a little put-off by my clammy hands. I picked up the pregnancy testing stick, almost passing out as I did so. Was he going to leave? I had broken the agreement.
After almost twelve years of marriage, one would think one would know how their spouse would react to such a thing. I knew exactly how he would react when I quit my full-time, well-paying job in the city just before buying our first home. He knew what my response would be when he accepted a position in Arizona, leaving his secure career here in Canada. “Good for you.” “Good for Us” We were in this game together. But this? I was in uncharted waters. I didn’t know how he would respond. Not even a little.
I didn’t see his initial reaction. I couldn’t. My eyes remained fixed on the stick with the little blue lines that I presented to him with my shaking hand. I held my breath, waiting for him to speak. I once again tried to silence the sound of the blood pounding in my ears, so I could hear what he would say. I forced myself to look up. He had a smile on his face bigger than I had ever seen.
“Well then,” he said, eyes sparkling as he took me into his arms, “Looks like I have a designated driver for the next nine months!” I knew we’d be okay.
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