The Price by Joan Johnston

Author:Joan Johnston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

Nicki had to spend the night before surgery in the hospital. The surgery she was having Thursday morning wasn’t quite as simple as she’d told Luke. She was having a lumpectomy, all right. But she might be having a great deal more.

Her doctor planned to do a biopsy while Nicki was under anesthesia and wait for results from the lab. Considering her family history, if the cancer had spread, Dr. Fredericks was going to remove the entire breast, as well as the lymph nodes.

Nicki didn’t take the sleeping pills the nurse had given her. She didn’t want to be drugged in the morning. Around 2:00A.M. , when she was still staring at the ceiling—and listening to the snores of the woman in the bed on the other side of the curtain in her room—she realized she’d made a mistake.

Fear was keeping her awake. And the dire nature of what she faced on the morrow was making her remember something she’d tried very hard over the past year to forget.

She saw herself the day ten months ago when she’d shown up at Dr. Fredericks’s office after taking a home pregnancy test—which had turned out positive. The nurse had smiled at her as she stepped onto the scale to be weighed and said, “Congratulations, Mrs. Maldonado.”

“I’m not keeping this baby,” she’d snapped back. “And it’sMs. Maldonado.”

The nurse’s smile had disappeared and she’d bustled away. Nicki had been appalled at how angry she’d sounded, but still felt resentful of the look of pity the nurse had given her. She felt trapped and unhappy with the only option she felt was open to her.I’m not keeping this baby. And she hadn’t meant she was giving it up for adoption.

Dr. Fredericks’s expression had been somber, her lips a flat line of disapproval in the examining room, as she listened to Nicki’s request for a D&C to terminate the pregnancy.

“I don’t like to see abortion used for birth control,” the doctor said.

Nicki felt the blood drain from her face and clenched her hands together to control their trembling at the use of the word she’d avoided even thinking, a word she wasn’t willing to say aloud. “I…It…We…”

“What about adoption?”

“I want to terminate the pregnancy,” Nicki said, hearing the defensive anger back in her voice. No one was going to change her mind. Especially not some judgmental female doctor. “I will be more careful,” she heard herself saying. Meaning,This won’t happen again. As though that made up for the fact that she’d gotten pregnant and needed to escape the consequences of her carelessness.

She’d been taking the pill during her relationship with Justin, taking responsibility for birth control because it would be disastrous for both of them if she got pregnant. Then she’d gone on a business trip and forgotten to bring her pills. It had only been two days. She’d figured it wouldn’t matter, but she’d suggested condoms to Justin. He hadn’t wanted to use them. And she hadn’t insisted.

This had been the result.

She hadn’t told Justin she was pregnant.

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