“How’re you both doing today?” Dr. Jones asked.

I let Jack answer. “We’re fine, thanks.”

“Good, good. Let’s get right to it,” she said, reading from the folder in her hands. “We have your results: you are, in fact, pregnant.” She glanced up at us for some reaction.

“Wow.” Jack leaned into the examination table and ran his hand over his face. “Uh, okay. Wow. Do we know how far along?”

Dr. Jones’s finger moved over the page as she scanned it. “It says here about six weeks, but these things aren’t exact…”

Her voice faded out as I muttered to myself, “God help me.”

Jack’s mouth was moving, but all I could hear was a high-pitched ringing that perforated my head and left me breathless. It rang louder and louder and louder, burrowing its way through me.

I had already fucked everything up.

Chapter 53

There is a scientific explanation for panic attacks. The body enters a state known as fight-or-flight. It is an evolutionary response developed for life-threatening situations. A part of the brain called the hypothalamus activates two systems: the sympathetic nervous system, through our nerve pathways, and the adrenal-cortical system, through the bloodstream.

The sympathetic nervous system sends a message to the adrenal medulla to release adrenaline and noradrenaline into the bloodstream. The release of these stress hormones causes various changes in the body, such as increased heart rate, dilated pupils, elevated blood pressure, and tense muscles. All senses are heightened.

Meanwhile, the hypothalamus releases the corticotropin-releasing hormone into the pituitary gland, which activates the adrenal-cortical system. The pituitary gland secretes adrenocorticotropic, which then makes its way through the bloodstream to the adrenal cortex, where it releases roughly thirty other hormones that, together, prepare our body to deal with a threat.

This response was once meant to prepare us to either physically fight danger or flee from it. The amount of stimuli we now experience on a daily basis has confused our fight-or-flight response, but the instinct remains.

My body was attempting to warn me; it knew something that my mind had not yet realized.

Chapter 54

Jack’s paintings were selling. His work had become quite sought-after almost overnight, following a national interview that had run in the newspaper. It was something one of his dealers had arranged and I knew little about until the article ran.

He had stopped selling dope, and we decided I would drop all my classes at the university and continue to work part-time at the bookstore downtown until the baby came. I called in sick one day, consumed with morning sickness, unable to keep anything down. All I wanted was blueberries.

“Will you go to the store and get some blueberries?” I asked Jack as I stood in the kitchen doorway. He was sitting at the table, painting, surrounded by open tubes of paint and wooden-handled paintbrushes. He was using a plate as a palette. “I’m going back to bed.”

“Of course,” he replied without looking up.

The artificial cherry blossom smell of the dish soap, left open by the sink, was turning my stomach. I walked over and dramatically pressed the seal shut with the palm of my hand. I sighed loudly, staring at the back of Jack’s head. I wanted to smack him. “Can you keep the fucking lid closed on the dish soap? It’s making me crazy.”