"Don't let your father see this," Janine counseled passing a book to Rose. It was after dinner on Saturday night, and Rose was in her bedroom ostensibly studying, but in reality hiding from her father and freaking out. Rose looked at the cover, 'Everywoman – a Gynaecological Guide for Life.'
"It has from getting your period through to menopause and everything in between. I bought it before I was married, but it's very comprehensive," Janine said giving Rose a quick hug. "I know it's all a lot to take in, so maybe just read the first couple of chapters in the pregnancy section, and then we can talk through it, and you can ask me any questions you might have?"
"There's a lot to learn, isn't there?"
"There is wee one, but you'll be fine. I'm here for you darling."
"Thanks, Mom," Rose said, giving her another hug before her mother slipped back downstairs to watch TV with Abe. Tucking the book under her pillow, Rose picked up her phone and texted Lissa. She was amazed Lissa had managed to get through the entire afternoon without messaging her about how it had gone telling her mother.
Told Mom. She was upset but supportive. Told D. He freaked but said we'd get through it together. Went to the Dr. for bloods but she said it was just to confirm. Going to do some homework and try to forget about it for a while – will call you tomorrow. R
Then pulling out the book, Rose started to read the section about early pregnancy.
"So what happened?" Lissa quizzed the next day. It was Sunday, and Rose was back from Church and upstairs lying on her bed after lunch.
"Mom was shocked but very practical. She said she'll tell Tata but not for a week or two yet. After I told her we went to Dimitri's place to tell him."
"How was he?"
"Surprised. Scared. We told his Mama and grandmother, too. He said he'd quit school and get a job, but Mom told him no one would be giving up school. He offered to go to the doctor with me, but there was no point since all she did is take my blood and give me some vitamins. She did talk about my options..."
"As in an abortion?"
"Yeah."
"And what do you think? Is that something you're considering?"
"I don't know, Liss," Rose moaned. "I can't imagine doing that, but then I can't imagine being a mother, either."
"What did Dimitri say about it?"
"Nothing, yet. I haven't spoken to him since yesterday when Mom and I told him."
"He didn't ring after your doctor's appointment?" Lissa asked sounding surprised.
"No."
"He's probably just processing," Lissa said reassuringly. Yet something in her voice made Rose feel doubtful.
"Do you think I should call him?" Rose asked.
"Maybe wait to see him at school tomorrow?" Lissa replied.
"He didn't say he loved me," Rose whispered.
"What?"
"When I told him... He said we'd get through it - that he'd stand by me. But he never said he loved me," Rose explained.
"Aww. I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it," Lissa soothed.
"Maybe..." Rose sighed. "I still can't believe this has happened."
Rose stood at her locker until the first bell, but Dimitri never came. They hadn't arranged to meet, but she had kind of expected after the news over the weekend he'd be there.
Giving Rose a look, Lissa grabbed her hand and pulled her to homeroom where Dimitri was sitting next to Christian in Lissa's usual spot. The two of them looked up when the girls walked in; Lissa leaning over to give Christian a quick kiss, Dimitri giving Rose an uncertain smile.
Rose returned his smile, trying to keep the hurt from her face. She sat in front of him, in the same spot she'd sat after they'd broken up. She kept trying to blink back tears, but she couldn't help it. He wouldn't even sit next to her now! Less than forty-eight hours after she'd told him, and already he was trying to distance himself from her. Jumping up with a sob, Rose grabbed her bag and raced out of homeroom, Lissa standing up to follow.
"What's wrong with Rose?" Christian asked in surprise.
"Why don't you ask the asshole sitting next to you!" Lissa snapped, shooting Dimitri a look of pure contempt before taking off after Rose.
Christian looked at his girlfriend's back in astonishment. "Guess they're both on their period," he muttered, surprised when Dimitri gave him an angry look.
As soon as homeroom was over Dimitri set off looking for Lissa and Rose. He couldn't see them in any of the classrooms, so once the rush to classes had finished and the corridors were empty, he checked the only place he could think of; the women's bathrooms. But other than copping a mouthful from a surprised Freshman, he was unsuccessful. His last two options were the school roof or the women's locker room, so he decided to rule out the former before trying the latter. And sure enough, when he climbed the stairs to the roof, the door was open and he could hear Rose crying and Lissa comforting her.
Stepping out onto the roof and around to where the girls sat leaning against the heating vent, Dimitri gave Lissa a friendly but firm look.
"Thanks for looking after her, Lissa, but Roza and I need to talk, now."
Lissa looked at Rose questioningly, picking up her bag and turning to leave when Rose gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Dimitri sat in the spot Lissa had vacated, folding his tall body with a quiet elegance that never failed to surprise Rose. "Roza? What's wrong?"
Rose looked at him incredulously. Really?! What's wrong?!
"Well let's see, Dimitri. I'm pregnant, and despite telling me he'd be there, the father is now avoiding me."
Dimitri's thoughts stumbled when he heard those words. 'The Father.' Him. In a few months, he was going to be someone's parent. Dragging his thoughts from the problems of then to the problems of here and now, he considered Rose's words.
"What do you mean avoiding you, milaya?"
"You didn't call after my doctor's appointment or the next day. And then this morning you weren't at my locker. I walk into homeroom, and you're sitting next to Christian like you did when we weren't together, and you don't even say hello. Is that what you want? I need to know, Dimitri. I need to know if I am doing this alone because I can't deal with the stress of all of this," she said gesturing to her stomach, "all the while waiting for you to run."
"You think I'm going to run?" Dimitri asked in disbelief. "I spent the whole weekend checking out health care plans, jobs and rentals to try and figure out how we're going to manage this! I'm not running, Rose. I told you I'm going to be there and I meant it!" Dimitri snapped, unable to believe that the love of his life thought he was going to abandon her.
"Then why are you avoiding me?" Rose asked, her voice hard.
"Because you must hate me!" he wailed. "I did this to you," he muttered under his breath. "I love you so much, and now everything you've wanted is gone because of what I've done!"
"You love me?" Rose asked tentatively, not looking up from the spot on the roof she was absently kicking with her toe.
"Of course I love you," Dimitri replied, wondering why Rose was crying again.
"I don't hate you," Rose said, moving closer to him and climbing onto his lap when he opened his arms to her. "I don't hate you at all, Comrade. I love you so much, but I thought you'd stopped loving me."
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
"You didn't tell me. You said we'd get through it; that you'd stand by me. But you didn't say you still loved me."
Comprehension spread across Dimitri's face.
"Oh milaya, I love you. I'm scared about all this, but I haven't stopped loving you," he vowed, bringing his lips to hers. "I love you, and I know I'll love our baby."
The two of them sat cuddling; both reassured and calmed by the other's presence.
"If we're going to have a child together, we need to work on our communication," Dimitri said, nuzzling in Rose's long dark hair. "Neither of us can assume anything, ok? And we need to be honest about how we feel even if it's not good. Let's try this again."
"Ok," Rose said, taking a deep breath. "I'm really freaked out about being pregnant, and I am not sure I can do this. I need your support, and I thought you were avoiding me, and you didn't want me anymore."
"I love you, and I still want to be with you," Dimitri immediately reassured. "I was trying to give you space because I thought you must be angry about me doing this to you. I didn't mean to give you the idea I didn't love you or I intended to run away."
"I'm not angry. I did this to you as much as you did this to me," Rose reasoned. "We're equally at fault, here. And I'm sorry for assuming you were going to run."
Dimitri shrugged. He could appreciate her point, but he didn't see it that way. Still – it was a relief that she wasn't angry with him.
"That's better, isn't it," Dimitri murmured as they both relaxed a little. "So what happened at the doctor's?"
"Blood, vitamins and then she talked a little about the process if I didn't want to proceed with the pregnancy."
"You mean an abortion?" Dimitri asked in surprise. His family and Rose's being so religious, it wasn't something he thought she'd consider.
Rose shrugged. "She said that I am five weeks now, and up until nine weeks I just have to take some tablets, and it will be like a heavy period."
"Are you considering that?" Dimitri asked trying to keep his voice light.
"I don't know," Rose admitted, looking at his face. "It's not something I ever thought I'd do, but then I didn't think I'd ever be pregnant at seventeen, either. I haven't ruled it out... What do you think?"
"I honestly don't know," Dimitri muttered. In some ways, it would solve so many problems, but he wasn't sure he could do that. "But if that's what you decide, I won't stop you."
"But you're not sure if that's what you want to do?" she pressed.
"No. I'd really need to think about it."
"That's how I feel, too," Rose confessed. "Mom suggested we spend the week looking at all our options. She's going to ring the insurance to check I'm covered under their policy for this sort of thing."
"For a termination?"
"For whatever. If we have the baby, I need to deliver somewhere. I need to see if I'll be covered, and also in case something happens and the baby needs care."
"That makes sense," he nodded. "When are you going to tell your father?"
"I'm not sure. Mom said she wanted to get a bit of an idea of what we wanted to do first. She suggested maybe you, me and she could get together on Saturday and talk some things through?"
"What does she want you to do?"
"She hasn't said. At this stage, I think she's just focusing on all options and supporting us however she can. But she's dead set against either of us giving up school."
"I think she has a point there," Dimitri conceded. "There's still a chance one or both of us could go to college in the future, so we both need to keep our grades up so that can happen."
After Monday's discussion, Dimitri made a point of calling Rose every evening after dinner. Neither of them said much since they'd seen each other all day at school, but it did help reassure Rose that Dimitri cared. During Wednesday night's call, Dimitri mentioned his mother had suggested she and Janine might like to come to lunch on Saturday.
"I told Mama your mother wanted to get together and talk about options, and Mama thought she should be involved in those discussions, too," he explained apologetically. "Also because of Karolina, she's had a bit of recent experience about the services and things available for young mothers," he quickly added.
"That's fair enough," Rose agreed. "I mean it's your life we're talking about, too. She should have a say."
"I guess. But I'm not going to let anyone force us into decisions that aren't right for us," Dimitri said fiercely. "They're our lives, and these are our decisions. Everyone else can have an opinion and I'm happy to listen to their point of view – but the only opinion that really matters to me is yours."
"You're going shopping again?!" Abe grumbled on Friday night when Janine announced she and Rose would be out from mid-morning the following day. "You went shopping last week! I was hoping we could go to the Motorhome exhibition tomorrow."
"All the more reason to come shopping with me," Rose said in her first attempt at levity all week.
Abe had been trying to get Janine to go on a driving tour of America for years; missing no opportunity to go to RV exhibitions. Janine thought driving around in a motorhome meant doing all the same jobs but in more difficult conditions, so had been resisting the idea for as long as Abe had been suggesting it.
"Much as I'm tempted to go with you Abe," she said, not even attempting to disguise her sarcasm, "our daughter is a senior, and her prom dress is not going to buy itself."
"All this shopping for a prom dress?! How many stores do you need to go to?" Abe blustered.
"As many as it takes," Janine said with steely determination.
Janine and Rose climbed the stairs right on midday in a scene eerily reminiscent of the week before when they'd come to tell Dimitri about the baby. Janine had stopped at the bakery on the way and bought an enormous box of pastries to share. Rose knocked nervously, only to have the door opened by Dimitri standing there holding baby Paul.
"Come in," he said pleasantly, leaning to give Rose a sweet kiss and pointing to a pair of house slippers he'd bought just for her. "Mama? Roza and Janine are here," he called out, showing them through to the sitting room.
"Sonya and Viktoria are out for the day, but Karolina got called into work this morning, so we're on babysitting duty," Dimitri said, pulling faces at his nephew and making him giggle. "She'll be back any minute."
With Dimitri standing there holding a child, it was easy for Rose to imagine it was their child. She could almost see Dimitri being a Daddy. What she was finding it hard to picture was her being a mother. She had no experience with babies. None of their family friends had small kids. She'd never babysat, and other than Dimitri, none of her friends had significantly younger siblings. Christian had heaps of young cousins, but she'd never even met them, so that didn't count.
"You look like you've had some experience with that," Janine said with an indulgent smile, watching Dimitri playing with his nephew. "You're a natural!"
Dimitri laughed. "We all get our fair share of time with the little guy. Come on Roza; Karolina is taking him out when she gets back. You can help me get him ready."
Rose reluctantly followed Dimitri to the room Karolina shared with Paul. Assembling all the nappy changing equipment, Dimitri prepared to show Rose how to change a diaper.
"This one is wet, not dirty, so it's not so gagworthy," he said. "But you need to be fast. At the moment he likes peeing on whoever's changing him."
Opening the sleepsuit between the legs, Dimitri deftly got the tot's feet out, nappy undone but held in place, then switched the dirty diaper with the clean, doing the new nappy up before Paul had a chance to pee. Although Paul was squirming the whole time, and Rose had her heart in her mouth thinking the baby would fall from the change table, Dimitri managed it effortlessly.
"There we go! See how easy that was?" Dimitri said, missing Rose's panicked expression. If the goal had been to increase Rose's confidence, the experiment had failed.
"You're so good at it! I'm never going to be able to do that," Rose moaned.
"It's just practice, milaya," he promised. "Why don't you start by holding him while I choose a fresh outfit?"
Before she had a chance to object, Dimitri passed the squirming bundle to her. Thankfully a good-natured child, Paul was happy enough being held by Rose. In fact, he was fascinated with her long dark hair, which he immediately reached out and yanked. Hard!
"Oh!" Rose yelped loudly, frightening Paul who promptly started to wail. Rose started to tear up, handing the crying baby back to Dimitri who soothed him.
"See! He hates me! I have no idea what I'm doing! I can't do this," Rose said, racing out of the room.
Dimitri followed to where Rose had retreated to the sitting room with her mother and his grandmother. "Milaya. It's just practice. The first time Karolina left Paul with me I put the nappy on back to front."
"Really?" Rose asked tearfully from the sofa, the side of her mouth twitching despite herself.
"Really," he confirmed. "Mama, Babushka, and Karo were nearly killing themselves laughing when they saw it," he said with an easy smile.
Karolina arrived not long afterward, saying hello to everyone and giving Rose a long hug.
"I know we've only just met, but my brother loves you, so that's good enough for me. I know it's scary, but it's worth it, and if you have any questions you can ask me."
"Thanks, Karolina. We're still trying to figure everything out, but I'll keep that in mind."
"No worries. You've got my little niece or nephew on board. I'll help any way I can."