I continued kissing her as she cried and cried and cried, until finally there were no more tears.
She looked up at me with puffy red eyes and said, “Really?”
“Really what?”
“You really want this?”
“Yes.” I brushed the hair out of her face. “I promise. It just took me a second to process it. I’m sorry I reacted that way. You know I want this with you, Mia.”
She nodded unconvincingly and then stood up and reached for her dress.
“No, here,” I said and handed her my black T-shirt. “We’ll clean this up tomorrow. Let’s get you to bed.”
We exchanged few words as we scurried, half naked, out of the studio and into the freezing air. The doorway into the loft stairwell was only a few feet away.
“I’m freezing. I want to take a bath,” she said as we ran up the steps.
Inside the loft, I immediately went in and drew a bath for her. “Are you allowed to takes baths?” I yelled from the bathroom as she tinkered around in the kitchen.
“Yes, it just can’t be too hot,” she said finally as she approached me from the hallway. She had a stack of books in her hand.
“What are those?”
“Some pregnancy and childbirth books Martha gave me.”
I immediately shut the water off and stood up from the side of the tub. “What?” I barked. There were so many things running through my mind in that moment.
“Calm down, Will.”
“You told Martha before you told me?” I was shocked.
She held her ground. “Hold on a minute—just listen. I went to the café to visit Martha that day you came by, remember?”
I nodded.
“I was complaining to her about… you know, girl stuff?”
“No, I don’t know. Martha is not a girl, she’s sixty-six. What were you telling her?”
“I told her my ni**les were sore, okay?” She blushed all the way to her toes and then stalked off to our bedroom.
“Wait, Mia, hold on. Aren’t you gonna take a bath?”
“Yes, but I don’t want you berating me in there.”
I huffed. “Just tell me the story.”
She sat on the edge of our bed with a pouty face and then she got all misty-eyed again.
“Don’t cry.”
“I’m not!” She punched the sides of the bed. “I’m just embarrassed.”
“Baby, you’re gonna have to get over that very soon. You can tell me when your ni**les hurt, for Christ’s sake.”
“Will,” she whined. “It’s not that, but even if I did tell you, you wouldn’t know what it meant.”
“That brings me to my next question. How does Martha know about any of this stuff? She doesn’t even have kids.”
“Martha’s a doula. I thought you knew that.”
“She’s a whata?”
Mia shook her head and exhaled, looking down at her hands in her lap. She brought her thumb up to her mouth.
“Oh, no. You are not chewing on that thumb.” I pulled her hand away.
“A doula is like a birth assistant. She’s there for pregnant women before, during and after childbirth.”
“So, what, like a nurse?”
“Doulas mostly assist natural or home births. I want to have this baby naturally, no drugs.”
“Are you kidding me? You love drugs.”
“God, Will, be serious for once.”
I slapped my hand to my bare chest. “I am. I’m as serious as a f**king heart attack, Mia. Why would you want to put yourself through that torture?”
“I just want to see if I can do it. I want to see what I’m made of.”
“It’s masochistic. One of my sisters had a baby naturally and she said she would never do it again. She said it was like being blown apart from inside out.”
“Thanks a lot for that visual.” She crossed her arms.
“Sorry, but it’s true. You need to know.”
“Listen, Martha has been present for hundreds of births and she says natural is way safer for the baby and me.”
“It’s safer?” That got my attention.
She held a book out to me titled The Birth That’s Right for You. “Yeah, it basically says that in here.”
“Well then, if it’s safer, by all means.” I took the book from her hands and flipped through it. “Oh, you’re not even gonna get a Tylenol, lady. It says every intervention you add increases your chance of having a C-section.” I waved my index finger at her. “No drugs for you.”
She laughed.
“And… and you are going to breast-feed that kid for at least five years. You know how much bad crap is in cow’s milk?” I was being silly at that point, but it looked like Mia was relieved and that’s all that mattered.
She smiled. “Let’s not go too far, buddy.”
“You still haven’t told me what happened, how Martha found out.” I sat down next to her on the bed.
She took my hand in hers. “That day at the café when I told Martha about my… you know…”
“Yes, your ni**les, Mia. Let’s stop being embarrassed. I get sore ni**les all the time.”
“Really?”
“No,” I said seriously.
She elbowed me. “She said I should go buy a pregnancy test and go up to Jenny’s and take it. I didn’t think Jenny was home. It was actually kind of awful. Right after I texted you, I used my key to get into her apartment where I found her crying on the couch. She said she saw me in the store, buying the test. She ran home and that’s where I found her.”