"Don't take the corners so fast!" Anna groans, and readjusts her grip on the thick indoor handle of the car door. Under her palm, the pebbled grey rubber is growing moist, and glancing at it, she can see tiny crescent indents from where her fingernails have dug in over the course of their drive.
Deep breath, deep breath, in through your nose –
The car slows perceptively as she fumbles for the window crank and twisting it frantically, sticks her head as far out as she can reach (which is surprisingly far; she should probably look into that sometime). In the dead heat of August, the rushing air is a cool blessing; it pulls her sweaty bangs from her forehead, whips past her ears, and cleans the smell of car and dog out of her nose. She sighs with relief.
Gonna make it for sure.
Another deep breath, and her headache is easing – the rolling sensation in her stomach begins to fade, and her throat unclenches. One more. Mmmm.
"Oh, I think I smell tacos! We should get some," she says, pulling her head and shoulders back inside and adjusting the slim seatbelt across her hips. From the open window, air circulates unevenly through the small sedan, rustling loose papers in the backseat, and filling the car with a lopsided whistle. "Yeah, tacos. That sounds good."
"You have got to be joking." Kristoff's voice is wry next to her, but he doesn't turn away from the road, just continues drumming out a beat against the steering wheel. "Five minutes ago you were looking for a barf bag."
Anna looks to her left and tries not to giggle. Kristoff does not, by any normal standards, fit in her car; his shoulders are wider that the seat, hair grazes the low roof (there's a semi-permanent smudge of hair gel there to prove it), and his long legs are folded up to his nose under the compact dash. She's seen him there a thousand times, has sat here with her feet sticking out the window, drinking 7-11 slurpies in the summer (oh, those sound good also and cold, yum) and banging on the heater in the winter, begging it to turn on…it's still amusing.
Currently the little car reeks of dog, and the air conditioning doesn't work properly; she's grateful that whatever gear controls the passenger side window is still functioning, because if she dwells too much on the musty, cloying aroma of lingering Sven…
She gulps, and pats Kristoff absently on the arm.
"Maybe not."
He rolls his eyes affectionately and nods, a smile twitching at his lips. Over the center console, his hand reaches for hers and finding it, weaves their fingers with a practiced gesture. A quiet settles, a heavy not-silence-silence of road and wheels and the wind – they don't talk, but sit together, hands held over plastic and Cheeto crumbs, Kristoff's thumb tracing a familiar pattern on her knuckles.
Anna loves summer (everything: how their apartment gets so warm they can have all the windows open and she's never cold ever, how the grass smells like toasted wheat, how the sound of music wafts around them in the evenings, where outdoor bands crowd the city's street corners with their brass and bucket drums) but man. This is hotter than usual, even for upstate. The sockets under the back of her knees are growing moist. Somehow Kristoff's hand around hers is maddeningly dry – if she were any younger, if they'd not sat here in this exact scene any fewer times, if they were any less married, for goodness sake – then maybe she'd be embarrassed that she's sweating like a pig.
Do pigs sweat? Probably not.
Oh well. It's a peaceful drive (even if it's because the radio is broken). Leaning her head back, she closes her eyes against the late afternoon sun and breathes deep.
They're probably going need a new car soon anyway. Something bigger.
Kristoff plies the brakes as they exit the highway, his right hand fiddling with her wedding band while the left steers them down the off-ramp through a suburban neighborhood shopping complex; they pass a whole foods grocers, and a craft store, two banks and a mattress outlet that Anna recalls from radio ads. A teenage boy wearing enormous headphones stands on a curb, twirling a sign for five dollar pizza and bouncing along to whatever music is pouring into his head, undeterred by the waves of heat rolling off the pavement.
Someone's lawn mower is running, the guttural motor sound refracts down the street and mingles with slow traffic and a pervasive pinging that she thinks comes from the crosswalk monitors.
Away from the hum of the freeway, the air threatens to grow stale again, but just when Anna is seriously considering asking Kristoff to stop the car and let her out to puke, they pull into a parking lot. The bottom of the car scrapes pavement a little as they trundle off the street (she winces; poor car) and they lurch to an abrupt stop in front of a dusty looking strip mall.
She heaves a little.
Damn carsickness.
"Sorry," Kristoff says, cringing. "Your brakes are touchy compared to mine."
"Then we should drive your car."
"You are not going anywhere in my car. Also, it's a truck. Especially not…the carsick…thing." He gestures at her, and they both blanch, sitting back heavily and turn to stare wide-eyed out the speckled windshield.
They're a couple blocks away from the shining, glittery grocery stores and the dancing pizza boy, one of four cars scattered throughout the lot. To their left is a Mexican restaurant: cantina music filters softly out the glass door, and a neon sign blinking on and off in the window broadcasts that happy hour is from four to six. To the right is an electronics shop, closed for the day already; it looks particularly vacant except for the model train making determined circles around a display of audio mixers in the front showcase.
Directly in front of them: a slim white door with a pelican painted on it, flanked by two windows, each with curtains drawn. A sticker on the glass lists the open hours and several emergency numbers, and a mail slot bears the address in faded gold stencil.
Anna pulls her purse off the floor and into her lap, sticks one hand in and fishes around for chapstick, but keeps bumping the cellophane baggie at the bottom. Her fingers close around the hard plastic inside; two EZ-Read pregnancy tests from this morning, bought late last night at the drugstore down the street from their apartment across town.
The attendant is the son the owner – he's a nice man who always wears a yellow t-shirt, and calls her Lovely Anna whenever she drops in for a carton of milk – the son is around 17, all hands and feet and nose, and he hums to himself as he rings up her collection of items.
King sized Snickers bar.
Pink lipstick.
Home & Garden magazine.
Aloe Vera socks that promise to turn your feet to butter overnight.
All are things she's randomly grabbed on the way to the counter; at the bottom of the pile is a two-for-one pack of pregnancy tests.
She really does have high hopes for those socks.
Kristoff hovers around her elbows while – Alex, his nametag says – tosses her items into a plastic bag and begins to count her change. Anna nibbles at one of her fingernails and watches the snickers bar drop onto the counter, then the lipstick – when he reaches the tests in their cheerful purple packaging, he spares the two of them a glance and chuckles.
She flushes all the way to her toes.
When they get home, the bag sits portentously on their glass coffee table, crumpled white and flimsy. Kristoff keeps looking at her, then at it, then at her, and standing up abruptly whenever she walks by it, smiling, smiling broadly for both of them.
They have fettuccini for dinner, white sauce and garlic bread on the wedding china she insists they use for everyday (why wouldn't you; it's a plate: who says you only have to use them at Christmas? That's no fun). Anna turns down her glass of wine.
In the corner, the white bag glares at her- which is ridiculous, this is something they want why can't she bring herself to just get it over with – one way or another, knowing is going to be better than checking every morning for a stain in her underwear…but she can't, can't be disappointed again. Not yet.
Her nerves jangle uncomfortably just looking at it, so she kisses Kristoff on the forehead and goes to bed early.
Cold morning sunlight peeks through their tiny bathroom window the next day – turns out she couldn't really sleep either, knowing their answer was laying with a pair of socks in the living room. (Actually, she's relieved to find it there, having forgotten to put it away, but Sven is knocked out on the couch – where he's totally not allowed, but…puppy toes – so it's still untouched.) Feet mincing on the icy tile floor, she watches the wall clock tick off every second of the two minutes prescribed on the back of the box.
Identical sets of pink lines appear, so she wakes Kristoff and they split the Snickers in bed, giggling like idiots at the strings of caramel trailing off their faces, kissing the chocolate smudges away, making love very very carefully.
After breakfast, Kristoff flips through a phonebook and makes an appointment for that afternoon.
It really does seem like lot longer ago, Anna thinks.
"Are you sure this is the right place?"
" I think so," Kristoff says, wiggling a piece of paper out of his back pocket, and unfolding it over the steering wheel. "Yeah – Pelican Pregnancy and Women's Resource Center."
"Pelican?"
"It's the only place open today that does blood tests, Anna."
"In all of Arendelle?" She can hear herself getting squeaky, which she hates, and swallows several times.
"On a Sunday afternoon, yes."
"I swear, small towns – " she mutters, fingering the seatbelt.
"We could drive to Corona," Kristoff offers, turning in his seat to face her. He raises a hand and smooths it over her hair, twists one of her braids between his fingers, then dusts her nose with the tip. Laughing at the tickle of short hair, she brushes him off, and he sits back again, face inscrutable as he eyes the white door. "It's a bit out of the way though."
"Yeah." Two hours of Sven-car (honestly, taking that dog to the river had been a poor idea) and no air conditioning? She shudders.
"Or," he continues hesitantly, tilting his head toward the door, "we could go in."
Instinctively Anna grabs his hand – is surprised to find it clammy, despite his calm expression – and gives it a squeeze.
"Race you."
Whoever runs Pelican Center has the air conditioning turned up so high that Anna instinctively shivers when Kristoff pushes open the door. The chill runs up her bare arms, which get goosebumps immediately; one of these days, she thinks, she will remember to stash a cardigan in the car. Inside, the air smells slightly chemical – the sterile scent of hospitals and clinics, scrubbed and sanitized and protected – but someone has hung the white walls with colorful posters (It's time for your annual appointment!) and a vase of artificial gerbera daisies brighten the reception desk.
Along each wall are the usual chairs with their worn mauve upholstery, end tables and dog-eared magazines. In the corner is a wooden chest filled with children's toys: oversized cardboard blocks, pieces of a plastic train set, several hardback books with cartoon animals on the covers. In the far corner, a half-door on a free hinge separates the waiting room from what Anna assumes are the exam rooms.
This isn't her first time in a clinic like this, but everything about the atmosphere is the same, down to the (totally unnecessary, oh my god why) freezing air.
"Ohhh, this is embarrassing, Kristoff, I can't do this." She hovers outside the clinic door, clutching her purse to her chest and hopping from foot to foot.
Kristoff rolls his eyes; it's usually an endearing gesture, but he's starting to look borderline annoyed, so she stops and tries to resist the urge to scuff her toes on the sidewalk.
"Do you want me to go in with you?"
"No?" She squeaks, trying to picture a scenario that involves Kristoff standing next to her while she talks to a nurse about what kind of birth control she needs that doesn't end in her dying of embarrassment – they've only been dating a couple months, god, she hasn't even burped in front of him yet – and fails.
He scrapes one hand over his face then crosses his arms, expression wavering somewhere between impatience and amusement. The muscles under his t-shirt are far too easy to see when he does that; her mouth goes dry, and remembering exactly the situation that brought them here, her resolve stiffens.
"I'll be back soon," she says, and ducks inside.
It's nothing like the polished private medical clinics she grew up visiting, and nerves don't quite squelch the inevitable pinch in her stomach; it's just one more reminder that her parents are gone, and along with them a seemingly endless conveyor belt of small luxuries she'd completely taken for granted: little things that leap out to bite her on days when she thinks, maybe, it'll all be okay somehow.
Get it together Anna; this isn't a big deal Anna.
A girl about her age perks up as she approaches the front desk, and slides a clipboard toward her with several yellow and white papers stuffed under the plastic clip.
You can do this Anna.
"Here yah go sweetie," the receptionist says, and pops her gum. "Fill these out and we'll make sure someone knows you're here." She smiles kindly at her, and relief (of what, she's not really sure) washes Anna over, warming fingers and toes.
As the door falls shut behind them, a bell dings from somewhere on the other side of the Formica reception desk and a short woman with cropped black hair, wide eyes, and neon green scrubs pops up from the floor.
"Sorry," she says, pushing stray hair out of her face and tugging at her shirt – it is eye searing – "I lost my pen down there. Do you have an appointment?"
"Yes," Kristoff says, leaning over the counter. "Bjorgman : b-j-o-r-g-m-a-n. For four thirty."
The woman nods, slides into a rolling chair and begins typing briskly at a computer.
"Ah ha, there you are." Opening a drawer beside her, she thumbs through a rack of papers, pulling out several and laying them neatly in front of Anna.
"Patient history, insurance information if you've got it, waiver here if you don't, contact and emergency info." She points to each sheaf in turn, punctuating with short jabs of a manicured finger.
Anna nods, scoops up the papers and after snagging a pen from a wire cup behind the fabric daisies, scuttles off to a chair in the corner.
Kristoff plops into the seat next to her, glancing around the room and, after a minute or two of returning to his typical nervous/bored habit of drumming his fingers on the nearest flat surface, finally picks up one of the magazines from the little side table and begins leafing through it.
"Are you going to become a lactation expert?" Anna giggles, keeping her voice low. They're alone, but it feels like they should be quiet.
Kristoff's cheeks pink, but he just waggles his eyebrows at her and turns the page with a snap.
"You don't know. Sounds like I should be."
Their eyes meet; Anna gulps, hand tightening around the ballpoint.
Please be true please be true.
"I hardly think that's your, uh, arena," she says loftily, and Kristoff snorts. Ducking her head over the papers again (Name: Anna Bjorgman. Address: 2013 NE Hidden Valley Rd. Unit 2, Arendelle NY 10007) she traces herhistory in blue ink.
The woman who pokes her arm is not neon-scrubs lady; she's taller, waifish, pink, with blonde hair that looks a lot like Elsa's. She says her name is Cindy.
Yellow haired Cindy, short for Cinderella, who needs a glass slipper to go to the ball.
Fairy tales. Happy endings.
Please please please.
"Alright then," she says, taping a wad of cotton to the puncture and hoisting Anna's elbow in the air. "Sit tight for just a few minutes."
"How long until we know?" Anna blurts. Her legs are dangling over the tall edge of the exam bed, feet hooked together tightly. The lighting in the room is florescent with a greenish cast to it – it makes the freckles on her knees stand out.
Cindy-the-nurse chuckles, and glances at the chart in her hands. "Well, from what you've told me: two positive at-home tests and no period for two months; I'd say you already know."
"Please," Anna whispers (oh, she is not going to cry, not here in this awful green room, no, also why). "We've been wrong before."
She glances at the clock (4:55), at the little vial of blood in her palm, at Anna, who can't keep the energy and anticipation out of her limbs – she realizes she's practically vibrating, bites her lip, and sits on her hands.
"I don't think we have any other samples waiting – I'll see if we can't pop these in the centrifuge. Then we should have a result in…15 minutes or so."
"But," she continues, when Anna opens her mouth again, "I might not be able to get it today. Then we'd call you tomorrow. Just so you know." The door closes quietly behind her.
Anna nods, and chews on her lip (it's growing raw), turns to Kristoff, who is sitting wide-eyed and silent in a chair that is really way too small for him in the corner of the room.
There isn't more to do except wait, unless she wants to learn more about the digestive system, courtesy of a glossy infographic print hung over the sink. (She doesn't, but reads it anyway, kicking her heels rhythmically against the plastic lower panel of the bed.)
Paper crinkles whenever she moves.
Kristoff beats his fingers against denim, and stares at the door with such intensity that Anna wonders whether or not he's trying to see through it.
This is surely the longest fifteen minutes of her life.
According to a blinking electric clock on the counter, she counts twenty – is almost to twenty-one actually, forty alligator, forty-one alligator, forty-two alligator – when Cindy-the-nurse toggles the doorknob and re-enters the room.
"Are you ready?" She asks, holding up a bit of paper.
Anna's stomach takes a leap, dives to the floor and leaves the room.
Her throat catches – yes, no, wait – yes, please – when she opens her mouth; no sound comes out at all. Instead she flaps her hands (sore now from being sat on, very pink and each bearing a mark where the buttons on her back pocket dug in to the skin) at Kristoff, who bolts up, abruptly sits back down, then stands again so fast he almost trips.
"We're ready," he says, righting himself.
"It's just like you thought," Cindy says, voice tinged with amusement. She points to line on the paper in her hand. "You're going to have a baby."
Kristoff lets out a yelp – a sound she's never heard come out of him, never – then he's there in one stride, pulling her off the exam table, hoisting her up in the air, round and around, so that she can only cling on his shoulders, legs hooked around his waist and face pressed up against his neck, laughter bubbling up, up, and out so the sound hangs suspended in the air like bubbles.
Around them the small room disappears, and for a few moments they're alone: Kristoff's cheeks glowing and eyes alight, her twin braids flopping wildly around her shoulders, fists pumping the air as they dance a private, clumsy, wild merengue.
Yes yes yes yes yes.
He sets her down before she gets dizzy (and before they scare poor Cindy-the-nurse out of the room; she's backed into a corner and looks quite happy for them but also like she needs more space, oops), both of them out of breath and huffing and laughing a gallery of quiet hiccups.
"I'll go get you some more paperwork," says Cindy-the-nurse. "You'll want to start your prenatal care pretty soon – here or some other provider, it doesn't really matter – but anyway," she pauses, and gives them a small smile, "today you can just enjoy it."
Kristoff's arms are still wrapped around Anna, so she has to awkwardly twist to see the nurse leaves the room – they're alone now, just the two – three – of them. She's dreamily smiling about the thought (Anna and Kristoff and a wee one that's here because he loves her and she loves him and isn't that the happiest ending, to have so much that it overflows into a new person?) when Kristoff abruptly drops to his knees and twirls her hips to face him. Eyebrows quirked together, broad hands thumb at the hem of her shirt and push it up.
"Okay," he says. "When do I get to see you, hmm?"
Anna erupts in giggles, watches with delight and amusement as her belly shakes in laughter. "Your hands are cold!" Kristoff flashes her a large grin and stands back up, dusting off the knees of his jeans.
"Speaking of cold, I think this deserves ice cream, don't you?" She pulls her shirt back down, taking an extra second to run her hands over her stomach – still slim, there's nothing to show for it yet, he's right – that is going to be so weird.
"I thought you wanted tacos."
"Nope. I've changed my mind. The baby wants ice cream now."
He rolls his eyes, a half-grin crooked on his lips.
"The baby doesn't want ice-cream, you do."
"You don't know that."
"Oh my god, Anna." He wraps her up, tight into his chest so that she can still smell the remnants of his spicy cologne and their laundry detergent when he kisses her, lightly, mouth and nose and forehead.
"We could go to Oakens. See Elsa. Tell her the news." Her fingers walk up his spine, nose tucked in the crook of his arm.
They do.
Anna gets chocolate (why do they even bother with other flavors); Kristoff gets pistachio.
Elsa has vanilla but doesn't eat it, just sits across the tiny wooden table and beams at them, occasionally opening her mouth to say something, then shutting it again, smiling, smiling, and wringing her hands in her apron.
The afternoon heat is ebbing, giving way to another warm and comfortable summer night.
Sometimes you do get your happy ending.
But better, she thinks, watching Kristoff eat his ice cream with a miniature spoon, when you get a happy beginning too.