Chapter 12

After that wonderful Christmas evening the next days and weeks were uneventful, snow kept falling and we made the ranch house a living cocoon; we had everything we needed to live our romance undisturbed, leaving the house the minimum required to breathe clean air and walk around. Surely, we made love, she didn't know it, but I was living a dream, a long time dream. The bed was the place where we spent most of the time, but the floor in front of the fire place on a blanket was our favorite place to make love late at night; soft, languid, unhurried sex, with many caresses, kisses and tenderness, everything I had wished for so long and making good use of the love lessons I had taken with Natalie, not so long ago.

The New Year came and went and our love affair was as the first day, our commitment grew and grew with the passing of the days, January gave way to February, and that is when by the end of the month our world seemed to blow into pieces, our romance shatter, and our idyll in ruins.

Natasha got up one morning nauseous and with an upset stomach, after the first symptoms had passed and when she felt better, we examined whether there were any food that might have gone bad and got her sick. It seemed impossible that two adult persons would not think of a possible pregnancy, especially when neither of the two had taken precautions against.

Natasha because she believed that her life cycle to become pregnant had passed, although she was still menstruating regularly; and I, well I, because I had no fucking idea about the mysteries of womanhood. I was going to learn quickly about those mysteries with tears of blood. After several days of morning nauseas and stomach cramps, we decided go to see the town doctor; we went to Troy, not Clark Fork, that for no other reason than Natasha didn't like Dr Fergusson, Clark Fork physician.

In Troy the resident physician, after hearing Natasha, sent us to buy a pregnant test, and oh heavens, the test was positive. Then all the hell fell upon my head. After the news Natasha in shock started giving me the silent treatment; I was the guilty one, we both had made love, but it was me who had the guilt of the pregnancy. The return to the ranch was hell; she became a statue of ice, cold, distant, no answering me when I spoke to her. All of a sudden I was reminded of her, my mother, thirteen years ago when I was a teenager, and the reasons for which I had fled my parents house and why had I not wanted to see her for so many years. Would history repeat again?

My heart broke in my chest like a fragile crystal vase.

Arriving to the ranch she got down the car, always silent, and did enter the house, I put the car in the carport and entered the house not knowing which would be my role from now on. Soon it was made clear to me,

"John, I need time alone to discern what I'm going to do about this ... this ... this pregnancy, will you please take your clothes and personal things from my bedroom and return to your former room". She told me not looking at me.

I was confounded, aghast, this was the woman I had adored all this years, the woman who had told me she loved me only a few days ago; I almost turned to leave the house and disappear forever. Common sense told me to cool my mood, make as she said and wait for a few days and see how events unfolded. After I took my things from the bedroom, she went inside, closed the door and didn't come out for several days; I heard her come out always at night, go to the kitchen, take some food and return to her room. I left her alone.

I don't have very clear how much time she confined herself, ¿It was a week, ten days?

I cannot say for sure; but when she came out of her room looking for me she told me she had already made a decision about her pregnancy,

She just said: "I'm going to abort before is too late"

I was stunned, speechless, mute, and deaf, with a bitter feeling in the mouth and my stomach decomposed; my head was spinning and I had to take a hold to steady myself and not fall down.

"Say something John, say you agree with me, say it, please" she said, almost begging.

I reacted of my near paralysis and numbly blurted in a whisper "I'm not John"

She looked at me not understanding, shook her head and said; "Never mind that, now, will you take me to the clinic?

I shook my head in despair and without another word I went to prepare the car for the trip. The journey was a repetition of the last one. She silent, adamant in her purpose, I, driving with a doom over my head, thinking of the return and about my future, I decided I would return east, to Boston, and forget, if possible, I have a mother.

We arrived in town at the last hours of the evening, almost night, and we had to wait until morning to see the gynecologist. The accommodation would be an awkward moment, since in the house we did not share the bedroom anymore, so I decided move to a different boarding house and meet her at the clinic first time in the morning. She didn't oppose the arrangement.

That night was a sleepless one and a journey of introspection of my life. With its lights and shadows, with which I did and what I could have done better. And reached several conclusions, if my mother got an abortion I would come out of her life forever, without remorse and trying to overcome the fascination she had exercised over me throughout my life, another of my conclusions was to repent for not having been closer to my father.

In the morning I was haggard, gaunt but had decided of the steps to follow. I went looking for her and when she saw me took a step back and a quick cloud of uncertainty passed over her face; my only words were,

"Good morning, shall we go"

She had uncertainty written all over her face but answered civilly: "Good morning, you don't look well, are you OK".

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine" and again "Shall we go"

Without another word she got in the car and we went to her appointment in the clinic.

She explained to the gynecologist what was happening and what did she want; I had been invited by the doctor to be present in the office, he must had supposed I was her husband or ... something, and when she had finished he looked at me, I stood in silence giving no opinion, and after several seconds he asked Natasha to go up to the gurney to examine her.

I excused myself and went outside to the corridor to wait the news; after half an hour the doctor's office door opened and I was asked to get inside. Natasha's face expression was different, I could not read her thoughts, but she seemed at times joyful, at times worried, even preoccupied, but at no time indifferent.

"Well Mr. Sorensen, your wife can't have an abortion, with her age its very dangerous and even her life may be in danger"

I was astounded, Mr. Sorensen!! My wife!! What the hell was happening, but before I could open my mouth to say something, the good doctor followed:

"As I was saying no abortion for your wife, but she is very healthy and there is no reason not to carry the pregnancy to term and have a healthy child. So I wait you again in a month and congratulations", and with that he took my hand in a handshake, dismissing us. Now it was my turn to be silent.

The return trip to the ranch was like a story of another time, she began to speak making plans for the future and at the same time she looked at me with a radiant face; I, contrary to her, didn't respond her and was as silent as death. It was Kafkaesque, and I did not understand her reaction or new attitude; what shows I really know nothing of feminine psychology. When we were approaching the ranch she began to realize I was silent and hadn't said a word, she stopped talking.

When we reached the ranch, I parked in the path and left the car outside the garage, and then I headed straight to my room to prepare my luggage. Natasha followed me and when she saw what I was doing stopped short and couldn't react.

"Well, now that you are your own self again, is time for me to go and let you alone, as you wanted" I told her with a bleeding heart.

"John ... what ... what are you talking about; you can't leave me now" she said with a stricken face.

"Well, until this afternoon in the clinic, you didn't want anything to do with – your husband, dr. words--, you even let me go to another place to sleep last night; so I think I have nothing to do here"

"But that's not true, I mean ... Wait a minute, yesterday morning before going to the clinic you told me you were not John, if you are not him, who are you?"

That was a question that once, not so long ago, in my dreams I had wished her to make me, now I wasn't so sure, "I'm your son, I'm Pierce Bridgeport"

Her face went white as if she had seen a ghost; her hand to her mouth, her eyes popping out of its sockets she started murmuring, "Oh my god, oh my god, it can't be true, can't be true".

I was as petrified as her, my arms limp at my sides, the suitcases forgotten; I was waiting for her reaction.

She just stood there, with a numbed expression on her face; I had to say something to start the wheels of life turning again, so I told her, "Its true mother, I'm Pierce, the son that refused to see you year after year"

That seemed to take her out of her paralysis, "But you made love to me, we made love, you knew I'm your mother, and we are going to have a child together, that's incest..." Her voice was losing force and was gradually lost in the silence.

"Yes I did, I did make love to you, my mother, because I love you, I'm in love with you"

Suddenly she turned around and was going to get out of the room when she stopped, her back to me, and with a thin voice asked me to not go away, for me to stay. It was clear to me that her proud spirit was broken, and that inside her mind was taking place a fierce struggle.

"But we can't love... , you can't love me that way, it's a sin, it's against the law, you are my son" and sobbing heartbreakingly she went to her room and closed softly the door.

She didn't come out her bedroom for the next two days, not even for a drink of water, and really, I was getting more worried with each passing day; I called to her, I knocked her door every couple hours and asked her to talk to me, anything to get her out from that self-destructive state. Her only answer was "Please Pierce, let me be alone, but don't go away, we need to talk, I need to talk to you".

At last, very early in the morning of the third day, she resurrected, went to take a shower and when she had finished I had her breakfast on the table. Her countenance had improved in appearance; she was still pale and haggard but she had begun to come out of this cloud of misery sufficiently to talk.

"Pierce, I want you to know that I had always loved you, I have never stopped loving you"

"I know mother, now that I'm a mature man, I know you always loved me and I hope it isn't too late for us to bond again"