Lynnia (26 page)

Lynnia

Lynnia woke up to find herself lying on a hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown. There were monitors beeping around her and a tube was coming out of her arm. A doctor … a quite familiar looking doctor was standing, talking to a nurse at the foot of her bed. They looked to be clearing something up. Something wasn’t right and the nurse looked to be correcting it as she took the tablet the doctor had in his hand.

“Dr. Evans?” she croaked out as she tried to move.

The older nurse with salt and pepper hair pinned up in a bun looked a little perturbed when she came to make sure that Lynnia remained lying down.

“You bumped your head, sweetheart. I’m Nurse Pritchett. Dr. Evans is going to talk to you about some things while I go order you something to eat. Nope. Doctor’s orders.”

She patted her hand and pushed a button to lift Lynnia’s head before walking over to Dr. Evans. They spoke for a moment or two more before she left the room. Dr. Evans piercing blue eyes took her in and smiled. Lynnia tried to smile back, but didn’t feel it. Something was wrong or something had happened and that smile of his was trying to cover it up. Her head was hurting and her stomach was growling. Yeah, she still hadn’t eaten anything. Someone should do something about that. Since she was hooked up to an IV, she assumed her ass was admitted which meant that they were responsible for making sure she ate. This was not how this day was supposed to go. The doctor started patting his pockets and pulled out a pager.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Norton. I’ll return as soon as I can.”

Lynnia looked aghast. She could see her reflection in the mirror. Here she’d sat, patiently waiting for him to finish whatever he’d been doing with the chart, and he suddenly has to leave without even a slight inclination as to what was going on.

“What the fuck?”

It had been a few hours and the doctor hadn’t returned. The nurse came in to check things out, but didn’t offer any information when she was asked. She only deferred to the doctor that was called into an emergency surgery. Lynnia had been sitting in her hospital bed repeatedly reading the lines of the poem on the back of the pamphlet that had been sitting on her tray.

The Fall

Life has shown me

Great possibility

Through the rain cloud

A call rings out loud

Calling all to surrender

To the rise of beauty and splendor

Feeling abound

Differences surround

Yet a storm is brewing

While I’m pursuing

Matters of the heart

I’m compelled to start

Renewal, rejuvenate

Storms abate

Change has come

The first note we strum

Deadened by the weight

The world brought to our gate

The dried time completed

While I remain seated

Alone at my window

The sight changes so

New colors symbolize

Rebirth in our eyes

Expressions in nature

As things mature

Willingness to see

The perfect harmony

The poem had her thinking about her sisters. The ones that were mothers would probably identify with the words because of their recollection of being pregnant with their beautiful children. All she could think about was the messed up non-relationship that she had going with Dario. The fact that the doctor hadn’t returned to put her mind at ease was making her imagination work overtime.

Her mind was reeling from the nurse’s somewhat cryptic statement to the doctor. He was getting ready to order some medicine for her and the nurse hurriedly brought something to the doctor’s attention. Something was in her tablet that apparently hadn’t been in his. Either way, she’d waited for him to finish all of his tapping and swiping only to have him leave her sitting on a raw nerve.

“Hello, Ms. Norton. Sorry for the confusion a little while ago. Everything has been cleared up and I’m finished with the other matters that were holding my attention. Congratulations are in order. I apologize. Your lab results read incorrectly initially and the nurse caught me before any others were run or medicines prescribed. I’d believed … it doesn’t matter.”

“Whoa there, doc! What do you mean congratulations are in order? There is nothing going on in my life that warrants a congratulations.”

His face took on a look of confusion before he looked at the chart on the tablet again.

“Oh, you didn’t know. I’m happy to be the one to tell you. You are going to join your sisters who share this title. You’re going to be a mother, Ms. Norton.”

Lynnia sat straight up and immediately felt lightheaded. Dr. Evans stood and helped her get back to a more comfortable position on the hospital bed.

She was pregnant. She was going to have a baby. Her hope of not being left out of that loop was coming true. She was going to be a mother and Dario was going to be a father. That’s when it hit her. Dario. Dario was the one person who could ruin this for her. Just thinking his name was dampening her initial response of happiness. Her happiness quickly dwindled down to tears. Lynnia was going to be the mother of this child, but Dario couldn’t know that he was going to be the father of this child. It wasn’t something she wanted to endure. She didn’t want him to choose her because of this child. It just couldn’t be the case.

The rest of the day was filled with her vacillating back and forth on whether or not she should tell him what was going on with her. Even when she was released from the hospital, she still hadn’t figured it out. She was so focused on that, she forgot that she was supposed to go back to Dario’s room. By the time she thought about it again, she was already home and dressed to lounge around the house. When she called to the hospital, they told her that he’d been released as well. It was probably for the best that he hadn’t been there and she hadn’t remembered to go back to his room. If she would’ve seen him that day, then she would’ve told him everything. As it were, now she had time to contemplate, weigh things out then make a decision.

Chapter 14