Chapter 43

Rachel woke up feeling nauseous and sick to her stomach again.  Her father, mother, and sister were all out of the house by this time in the morning.  Rachel went into the living room to the old desk where the computer was.  She typed in to the website browser, “How soon do you get morning sickness after becoming pregnant?”  Rachel went to several different websites that had an answer to this question.  Most of the websites, and the comments that women wrote, said that you can get morning sickness within two to three weeks of becoming pregnant.  Morning sickness would normally follow the first time that you missed your period.

Not only had Rachel had morning sickness for the past week, she had missed her period too.  Somehow, even though Rob the United Express Delivery driver had worn a condom, she had gotten pregnant by Rob.  She was not about to tell Rob, she would never tell Rob.  Rachel realized that Rob was probably having sex with other women on his delivery route, that he was going home with women that he met in bars, and that he was doing all of this while he had a girlfriend too.  He would likely never change, he would always be like this.

Rachel decided to not let anyone know that she was pregnant, if she was.  She would buy a pregnancy test kit today to make sure.  Rachel decided that the best thing to do if she was pregnant, would be to marry Tracy Fisher.  She would have to work fast.  She would have to start dating him, have sex with him right away, and then blame him for her pregnancy.  Even if Tracy did not want to marry her, his family would pressure him into it, insisting that it was the right thing for him to do.  If he didn’t marry her, his family might even kick him out, and take his truck away.

If Tracy did marry her, his family would help them buy a nice house.  Tracy would always have a good income working for his family business TnT Oilfield Service.  Tracy’s family would always make sure that she and her child were always taken care of.  And if Tracy acted like an asshole, she could just divorce him after a couple of years, and everybody would feel sorry for her.  She would probably get to stay in the house, and Tracy would have to pay a high amount of child support.

Chapter 44

Rachel left Belfield for work in Dickinson about an hour earlier than usual so that she could buy a pregnancy test kit.  She went to the store where she would be least likely to be seen or recognized, and paid for the pregnancy test kit at the pharmacy counter.  She drove to the Prairie Hills Mall and went to the public bathrooms.  She used the pregnancy test, and it showed positive, she was pregnant.  Rachel walked out to her Jeep Wrangler in the parking lot.  She did not want to dwell on what being pregnant meant, or she might start crying.  Seeing her bright blue Jeep Wrangler that she had gotten after her junior year in high school, reminded her that she had only had two or three years of freedom in her life, and now it was over.

Rachel sat in her Jeep, and telephoned the Astoria Hotel.  She told the clerk that she and her family were attending the wedding reception of Amber and Cory at the end of the month at the Astoria Hotel, that she wanted to reserve two hotel rooms for that Saturday night, was there a discounted rate for the wedding guests?  O.K. then, she would like to reserve two double occupancy rooms.

Rachel would call Tamara Fisher later and tell her that she reserved a hotel room for her and her sister Christine.  Rachel would not tell anyone that she had reserved a hotel room for herself, because she would need that hotel room, to take Tracy back to.