Chapter 7: Surprises

Glenn's POV

"W-what?" I say. "You're not pregnant. We always use protection. It's impossible. "

"Is it?" She says condescendingly through the door. "Is it really?" She swings the door open and shoves a pregnancy test in my hand. "Does that look like bullshit to you?" She yells at me, her face red with tears of pain, rage, anger, and fear running all down her face. I look at it. It simply says "Pregnant" and say "5 weeks" in the corner of it of the digital screen. I wanna ask where she got the pregnancy test in the first place, but I tell myself it's not the time.

"Does this mean that you're five weeks along?" I ask quietly.

"Yes." Her voice cracks. She covers her face with her hands and I take her in my arms.

"It's gonna be okay." I say.

"I'm scared."

"Me, too." I can't even handle a fucking baby cow. Much less a human baby.

"No. You don't understand." She says. "You didn't see what happened to Lori. You didn't see what I had to do. That could happen to me just the same." She cries. "No doctors, no medical supplies. We don't have shit."

"Look at me."

"No."

"Look at me." She does.

"Everything will work itself out." I wipe the tears from her face. "And you need trust me on this." She takes a deep breath and nods. "It'll all be fine."

"Don't tell the girls. Not yet."

"What do you want me to tell them?"

"Don't tell them anything." She says. "If they ask, just tell them I'm sick. At least it's not a complete lie."

"Okay." I tuck her hair behind her ears. "Why don't you lie down."

"No, I don't need to..." She yawns and lets me put her to bed.

"Shh...Don't worry." I say, stroking her hair until she falls asleep. When I'm sure she's under, I pull up her shirt. I can see an ever so slight expansion of her trim waist, that I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't looking for it. I pull it back down and let out a sigh. Shit, this really is happening. I kiss her cheek and start back downstairs to the girls, hoping they didn't hear the yelling.

"What was all that about?" Lizzie asks. Oh shit, she heard us.

"It was nothing. Don't worry about it."

"No, it wasn't." She insisted. "What looks like bullshit?"

"You watch your mouth." I say.

"You two don't yell for nothing. You wouldn't risk the noise. What happened?"

"Listen here. If I think you need to know something, I'll tell you." I lecture harshly. I know that it's not her fault that I'm stressed out. "Don't badger me like that." She looks away with attitude. I feel like shit for taking out my frustration in her, but she's not making it easy. Meanwhile, Mika's face is scrunched up, in what looks like pain. "What happened to you?" I ask in a gentler tone.

"Nothing, nothing happened to me." She's not a good liar.

"I know you're lying. You might as well just tell me what happened." She looks me in the eye and quickly looks away. She pulls up her pant leg to reveal a hoof shaped bruise ironically placed on her calf. "One, you know you're not supposed to go outside alone. Two, I told you not to bother the cows."

"We're not babies." Lizzie interrupts.

"But guess what? You did exactly what I told you not to do, and she got hurt." She keeps staring me dead in the eye. "You two don't have restrictions because I enjoy being an asshole. I don't want you to get hurt." I continue. "You two and Maggie are all I have left. But I can't protect you if you won't let me. Does that make sense?" Lizzie looks away from me and gives a small, almost undetectable, nod of her head.

"I'm sorry!" Mika says guiltily. She hugs me.

"I know." I lift her up. "I'm gonna take you upstairs."

"Okay." She holds on to me. As I pass Lizzie, I touch her head as an apology of some sort. I can feel her watching me as I walk up the stairs.

I set Mika on the bed. "You find something quiet to do. I'm gonna make an ice pack for your leg. Okay?" She nods. I know she regrets disobeying. I go outside and fill a plastic bag with some snow. Lizzie is standing in front of the door, waiting for me. She doesn't say anything. She walks up to me and hugs me around my waist. I hold her close to me, more for my comfort than for hers.

"I'm sorry for being difficult." She she says. "I love you." She takes a pause. "Dad." She's never called me dad before. Always Glenn.

"I love you, too." I say back. "And it's okay. We're all pretty stressed out. Just try and cut me some slack."

"Okay."

"I'm gonna take this to your sister." I say gesturing to the ice pack.

"Okay."

Over the next month or so, Lizzie calms down. She stops acting out and arguing with me. Now I know that she resented me for being her father figure because she was still sore that her real father is gone. She had trouble accepting it.

Maggie hasn't said much about her pregnancy. She's scared, I know that for sure. But I also think she might be a little bit excited, too. I catch her holding her belly, that has grown slightly more. It's somewhat obvious bare, but you can't see it through her clothes. She's sick a lot, and I think Lizzie and Mika are noticing. But she still hasn't mentioned anything to them. She's literally sick of eggs and I think I've fetched her over a dozen cans of Spam.

"You're sure you're okay?" I ask her, holding back her hair after she's vomited for what seems like the hundredth time. She sits down on the floor across from the closed door, leaning on the cabinets under the sink.

"Yeah. Just thirsty." She pants. I hand her a bottle of water and sit down next her. She downs the whole thing.

"A little better?" I ask. She leans her head on my shoulder and nods.

"Mmhmm." She moans.

"Mom! Dad! You in there?" Mika asks, rapping on the door.

"Mika! Leave them alone. They're probably doing adult things." Lizzie says.

"Whaaa...?" Mika trails off. I hear them leave the room and Mika begging her sister to tell her what "adult things" are.

"Oh, great." Maggie says. "Lizzie thinks we're having sex in here." I laugh.

"I wish." I say jokingly and she hits me playfully.

"Sex is the seventh to last thing on my mind."

"Seventh to last?" I laugh again. "And exactly how many things are on your mind?"

"Like eight." She laughs with me.

"What's the eighth to last thing?"

"Ohh, wouldn't you like to know." She teases.

"Go on. Let's hear it."

"No. You'll make fun of me."

"No, I won't." I say. "Promise."

"Pudding." She says. "Butterscotch pudding. Even though it's nasty. I want it so bad." She says smiling.

"Hey, butterscotch is alright." I say, pretending to be defensive.

"Shut your pretty little mouth and help me up." She says. I get myself up off the floor and bend over so she can wrap her arms around my neck for me to pull her up.

"So, you feel like doing anything today?" I ask.

"Ehh, no. Not really."

"Want me to get you anything?"

"Um, you can find me something to read. You know, if you feel like it."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you want." I really do want to do whatever she wants. I want to keep her happy. Especially since she's been so discouraged these past few weeks. I dig through some luggage in one of the rooms and find all kinds of books and magazines. I don't know who the hell brings magazines to a hotel with them, but whatever. "Okay, so I found all these." I put everything in a pile next to her bedside table. "Maggie?"

"Thanks, honey. I was just brushing my teeth." She says walking out of the bathroom. She kisses me on the lips. "I couldn't do that otherwise." She says smiling. I smile back.

"Do you need anything else?"

"No. I'm okay. Thank you." She kisses me again and sits on the bed. "Did you clean out the barn?"

"Yep. Everyone's cleaned, fed, and watered."

"The girls too?"

"You bet. And Mika found a new video game and Lizzie found a new book. So they're all set for a few hours."

"Oh, good. You gonna stay with me?" She says taking my hand.

"Yeah." I say, laying down with a groan. "Maybe take a nap. What time is it?"

"Four. You can take a nap and I'll wake you up for dinner later." She says brushing my hair back.

"Okay." I say through a yawn and everything slowly turns into a fog. Maggie wakes me a few hours later like she said. "What time is it?"

"It's a little after eight. Sorry it's so late."

"No, no. It's fine." I sit up. She rubs my back.

"Come downstairs for dinner." She says, comfortingly. I nod and follow her down to the kitchen where Lizzie and Mika are eating pasta. Maggie puts a bowl of it in front of me. "Pasta's fine, right?"

"Yeah, of course." I say taking a big bite.

"Can we watch a movie tonight?" Mika asks Maggie.

"Yes, but you'll have to wait a few weeks before you watch another one." She says. "We have to conserve power. You know that." Mika nods and quickly finishes the her dinner and pressures her sister to do the same.

"Can we go?" She asks.

"Yeah." Maggie answers and lazily eats her food. She puts a hand to her forehead.

"Are you okay?" I touch her shoulder.

"Mm. Headache." She mumbles. She takes the last bite from her bowl and gets up quickly from the table. "I'm gonna lay down." I do the dishes and head on up after her.

"Maggie. Are you alright?" I say quietly. She curled up on the bed with her eyes shut tight and her palms pressed to her forehead.

"Shh." She huffs sternly. I push her hot, sweaty hands from her face and replace them with my cold ones. She lets out a sigh of relief. "Crack the window." She whispers. I do what she wants. "It's so hot." The temperature in the room drops in minutes and I wait until she's asleep to close the window. I poke my head in the girls' room and tell them that I'm turning in. I slowly lay on the bed, be careful not to disturb Maggie, and join her in sleep.

I wake up in the middle of the night and Maggie's not there. But there's a blood spot on the bottom sheet about the size of my hand. "Oh shit." I check on Lizzie and Mika and they're asleep. I wander around downstairs, quietly calling her name. After looking everywhere, I figure the last possible place she could be is outside. I pull on my coat and step out the back door. Sure enough, there she is sitting on the steps, with no coat, skin red from the cold, and a bottle of wine in her dried blood covered hands. I pull my coat off and put it over her shoulders. "What happened? And gimme that." I say, pulling the bottle from her, noticing how much of the wine is gone. "You can't drink when you're pregnant."

"When you're pregnant." She mutters.

"Maggie. Tell me. What happened?" I squat down in front of her and she looks at me with bloodshot eyes.

"I'm not pregnant anymore." She says. She looks at the ground. "I lost the baby." She takes the bottle from me a takes a swig.

"M-maybe you didn't. Maybe it was just bleeding." I ramble. That happens during pregnancy, right?

"Glenn." She stops me. "You saw all the blood. And I saw her." She says, the tears welling in her eyes for what I know is not the first time tonight. Her echoes in my head. Her. It was a girl. "I know." She brings the bottle to her lips and drinks again. She wipes her eyes with the cuff of my coat sleeve. I take the bottle back and take a swig of my own. "It's my fault. I did something wrong."

"Don't say that. It's not true."

"Yes it is."

"No." She doesn't say anything.

"Maybe it was for the best." She says. "I don't know how to take care of a baby." She sniffles. "And you wouldn't have wanted another girl."

"Shut up." I tilt her chin up so she's looking at me. "It just wasn't meant to be this time. And I would love any baby of ours. No matter what." She looks at me intently. "You're not a bad mother. This was not you're fault."

"This time." She echoes me. "Implying there's gonna be a next time. Will there be a next time?"

"Maybe."

"I wanna try again."

"What? Why?"

"After I stop bleeding like a freshly slaughtered pig, I wanna try again." She states. "I never knew how badly I wanted a baby until one was coming."

"We'll talk about it." I say. "Please. Come inside." Her lips are turning blue. She nods and lets me help her up. I bring her inside and wash her hands under the warm water. I take her upstairs and remember that the sheets are bloody. "Sit." I sit her down on the armchair in the corner of the room. I strip the bed and hand her the pillows. "Hold these." She takes them and holds them close to her. I throw the old sheets in the bathtub and put new ones on. "Come on." She falls into bed, putting one pillow under head and still clinging to another and tossing me the third. I pull off her boots and throw them aside and lay down next to her. "Are you gonna be okay?" I ask, cupping her cheek.

"Yes."

"I love you."

"I know."