Call Me Home

7

January 7, 1970

Robin turned to the sound of the soft tap on her open bedroom door.

"Hi, you feeling any better?" She looked at her best friend as she dropped onto her bed. "Clearly not."

"I just don't get it, I was sick, then I was fine for a couple weeks, now I'm back to square one."

"And you feel exactly the same way?"

"Well yeah, I mean I've not been throwing up as much as I was before but I still feel sick and I'm just so worn out. I fell asleep in cog psych today."

"Understandable."

"But listen, what I want is that the doctors office called. They said they got the blood test results back and they want me to go in. Will you come?"

"Well, yeah sure I'll come but I don't think it's anything you need to worry about."

"Robin. Are you listening? They want me to go in. Whatever they found is so horrible they can't even tell me on the phone."

"Well, maybe -" Robin tried to think of a possibility that might calm Stevie but she drew a blank. "When do they want you?"

"Right now."

"Right now?"

"That's what I said isn't it? Come on, get your shit, let's go. I may be dying here and you're worried about your dialect assignment."

"Have you even looked at the dialect asssignment?" Robin asked, gathering her coat and purse.

Stevie gave her a withering look. It had been a great idea at the time to major in the same class, at the same college, as her high school best friend. She only remembered at times like this that she loved her, but what a stick in the mud she could be.

They headed out the door.

♾

"Thank you for coming in, Miss Nicks." The Doctor glanced over his glasses from Stevie to Robin.

"Oh, this is Robin, she's my best friend."

"Here for moral support!" Robin chirped brightly.

The doctor smiled politely at her.

"Now, you say you were sick a few weeks ago, got better and are now experiencing the same symptoms?"

Stevie sighed. She'd been through all this last week with the first Doctor to see her.

"Yes. I had stomach flu, got better and it's come back. I asked a friend who's a nurse, she said you can get like, a secondary virus? Like it hangs round in your system longer?"

"Yes, it's possible, viruses do mutate in the system." He looked at his notes. "But that's not what's happening here."

"Oh?" The word came out as a croak and she gripped Robin's hand.

"No." He laid the papers down and looked directly at her. "You're pregnant."

♾

The silence was deafening. She wasn't sure how long she'd stared at him. Robin's mouth had dropped open. Eventually, Stevie came to her senses.

"No, I'm sorry. That's simply not possible. I take birth control. Religiously. I never miss a day. I haven't - I haven't even been...my, uh, partner has been away." She sensed Robin's head crane round to stare at her. She knew Bobby had been in New York. And that he'd only been with her a matter of hours over thanksgiving before she dumped him. So it couldn't be him.

Surely not. Surely fucking not that night. This was not possible, there was a mistake.

"Uh huh." The Doctor was looking at his notes again. "And were you taking the birth control during the week in which you were sick a few weeks ago?"

"Of course."

"And during that week, were you able to keep anything you ingested down?"

Her eyes widened at she stared at him. He looked back at her over his glasses.

"Hm. I don't think you need me to explain the science behind that?"

She shook her head dumbly.

"According to your hormone levels at the time the blood test was taken last week, your were estimated to be 6 weeks into the gestation. So that now puts you at 7 weeks."

She was rapidly counting backwards in her head. 3, 4, 5! She'd been with Lindsey 5 weeks ago! She opened her mouth to speak, but he got there first.

"Now we date pregnancies from the last day of your menstruation. In your case, based on the type of birth control you are prescribed, you should have still been menstruating, correct?" He didn't wait for an answer. "The medication you take - it doesn't stop the menstrual cycle from proceeding, it merely stops a potentially fertilised egg from attaching itself to the lining of your uterus. Now, what that means is the only way this medication would be ineffective is if it were not in your system during the time period of and immediately after fertilisation." He chuckled. "The odds are a million to one. You must have had unprotected sex immediately before falling ill, correct?"

Her cheeks burned. She could feel a huge sob stuck in her throat. It hurt.

♾

They sat in the parking lot, staring at nothing in front of them. Stevie would have been crying were she not in total shock. She glanced down at the fistful of pamphlets about pregnancy in her lap. What To Expect, The Joy of Childbirth, Nature's Way: Breastfeeding for the Modern Mother - Jesus Christ - Living With Haemorrhoids. She felt sick again.

Robin couldn't hold her thoughts any longer and finally broke the silence.

"Are you gonna keep it?"

"I don't know."

"What will you tell your mom?"

"I don't know."

"Are you gonna drop out of college?"

"JESUS FUCK, ROBIN! I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!"

They fell into silence again, and Stevie started the engine and pulled out of the lot. They had been driving for a while, and Stevie could feel the tension of Robin's most burning question filling the air. Who?

She hadn't told her about Lindsey. Not about that night, or any of the nights since she'd got an early flight back to San Francisco the day after thanksgiving and spent the next three days in bed with him. Not about their plans to drop out of college and move to LA to get a record deal. Not about how they were going to take over the world and nothing could stop them. As she thought about it all, and watched her dreams shatter in front of her, she finally felt the tears come and pulled to the side of the road.

"What am I gonna do?" She sobbed into Robin's shoulder. "What am I gonna do?"