Even when he got wounded, all he said before was, “I’m gonna get roughed up a little. Should be fun!” He had that sixth sense.
We had been trying to get pregnant again after he got his promotion. We waited before that. But, he got wounded in a place that made it “impossible” for us to conceive.
Impossible until two weeks ago, the day he shipped out. That’s when I gave him the good news: that I was pregnant. He was ecstatic and said the baby was a sign. It was his safe ticket home. It was the universe telling him he had more to do at home seeing his new child.
He was back to being the Greg whose face I knew I would kiss again, safe and sound.
“What’s wrong, Mom.”
I shook my head. “Ronny, I don’t know what to do.” He reached across the table and took my hand.
“Mom.”
“I wanted to tell your father today, but couldn’t.”
“Tell him what?” He had concern and a little fear in his voice.
“Ronny, I’m not pregnant.”
“You … you lost the baby?”
“More like never had a baby. I’m sooo stupid!” Ronny didn’t say anything, and after a minute, I explained: “You know we’re tried to get pregnant again for a real long time. I won’t tell you all the details why.”
“Dad told me about how he got wounded and what happened. How you were the best for understanding and trying and everything.”
“I guess we both wanted to believe so bad we almost willed it to happen against all the doctors had told us. I was a little late—you know what that means, right?” I looked to Ronny and he gave an embarrassed nod. “So I used one of those tests and got a positive on it. I showed your father, and you remember that day.”
“Yeah, it was like the Fourth of July and Christmas all at once. Dad was bouncing off the walls.”
“He shipped out the next day, thinking … believing I was pregnant. Finally pregnant. Only the next day my body proved it wasn’t true. I went crazy! I tried to figure out what had happened.”
“Mom, I’m so sorry. What did happen?”
“After you take the pregnancy test by peeing on it, you wait a while and then look for a ‘plus’ sign to see if you’re pregnant. If it’s a ‘minus’ sign, you’re not. Well, after I left it there, my phone rang. It was your grandmother and we talked. When I came back, there was the ‘plus’ sign.
“I don’t see how a phone call can screw things up,” he said.
“I read up on all the ways the test can go wrong. One is if you wait too long. What was the ‘minus’ sign can sometimes turn into a ‘plus’ sign by adding what they called an ‘evaporation line.’ That happens if you leave it too long.”
“I don’t believe this!” Ronny said. “Dad—”
“I know, Ronny. That’s what’s killing me. I wanted to tell him today, but couldn’t.”
“If he finds out there’s no baby, he’ll go back to being sure he’s not going to make it. He’ll think that’s a sure sign.”
I nodded. Not only would he be disappointed he wasn’t going to be a dad for a second time, but he would start living a self-fulfilling prophecy about his own death.
“Mom, what can we do?”
I shook my head. I had been wrestling with this since my period two weeks before, and I had no answers. “It’s not like I can snap my fingers and be pregnant again, Ronny.”