Just An Ordinary Day by Saskia Schiffer (ebook e reader TXT) 📖

I decided to calm down and go on in my life. I designed even more jewelry and over the next few weeks I got back to normal. I finally had found someone who promoted my shop and within no time, customers were going in and out frequently.
But then it happened. Those last couple of weeks I didn't feel so well, rather queasy, but I was sure it was just the stress I experienced while forgetting about what had happened in Cardiff and being responsible for an increasingly flourishing jewelry store.
On a morning in midmonth of September, I felt very bad and I had to throw up. I decided to take the day off. But the next day it was all the same and it always ended at noon. It dawned on me that I suffered from morning sickness. I must've had repressed the possibility of a pregnancy by taking the morning-after pill.
I was shocked after I had taken a pregnancy test. It was true. I was pregnant.
Later that day, I decided to see a gynecologist. When I was lying on his table I contemplated my life as a single mum. I was depressed that, once more, Murphy's Law had interfered with my fate. I felt miserable. But just until I saw this little heart beating very fast on the ultra sound monitor. I was in third month of pregnancy and the doctor said that the baby was looking very healthy. The little thing on the monitor made myself inexplicably happy. It compensated me for all those cloudy thoughts I had the last three months after the "incident" with Orlando. Right, Orlando... He would be a father in no time and I didn't know how to contact him - because I had run away from him. It was all my fault and again, I felt very bad. The gynecologist handed me out a snapshot of the ultra sound and before I left, he calculated the estimated due date. The baby would be due in mid February.
The next day, I told Helen to meet me at the coffee shop. When I arrived, she was already waiting for me, but she was sitting with her back to the entrance. I took out the snapshot of my baby and held it before her eyes, saying "This is my newest circumstance!"
At first, she was so surprised that she didn't realise what I wanted to let her know. "Is this...? Are you pregnant? I thought you've had taken a pregnancy test before and it was negative? I told you to take one!" "With all this stress, I must've forgotten..." "But I asked you about it and you said it was negative!"
"That must've been a misunderstanding!", I said with tears filling up in my eyes.
This afternoon we had a long talk about my future and Helen assured me that the two of us would take good care of the baby. But both of us knew somehow that Orlando would not be part of all that. Eventhough he lived in London like myself, he seemed unattainable for me. For him it was still only one unfortunate night, nothing to be worried about. That was how I thought he would think about "that night". But soon I should learn the truth.

Chapter 5

The next morning I decided to take my neighbour's puppy dog to Holland Park, which was only 5 minutes away from my house. At this time of day I seemed to be the only one taking a walk through this lovely little space of nature within one of the world's biggest capitals where you could listen to the bird's heartfelt songs, to the rustling of the leaves, where a swift breeze of fresh air carresses your hair and squirrels and rabbits hastily cross your paths on their way to the best feeding grounds. It was a place where you could contemplate in which direction you should make the next step that leads you to your future.
My thoughts were bitter this morning. I realised that Orlando didn't even know my last name. So how on earth could he find me? I didn't know his adress. Like so many other fans I never had the chance to find it out. So from this point, it was impossible for me to contact him and, when I was true to myself I didn't even really want him to know about this little "accident". Helen was right, our lives were far to different. I could never be the wife of a Hollywood Star, therefore I liked my privacy far too much.
I realised how stupid I was, when I let him into my hotel room. In this very moment I had risked to lose my anonymity forever... The wish to give my child a father was very strong in my heart, but the fear of doing so was much stronger in my mind. So I decided that day, should Orlando somehow, by any chance, walk back into my life, I would turn the other way round.

At eight o'clock I openend my shop and asked Lucille, my assistant, to cover the counter for me while I was working in the back of the shop, busy creating something new, something fabulous. For less I wouldn't settle, my ambition was widely known. At ten Lucille came in and asked me, if I could replace her at the counter, she had to run some errands. She was gone for three minutes, when I heard the door bell jingle. I exclaimed that I would assist that someone in a matter of seconds and got up from my work.
When I entered the shop it only took me two seconds to realise who the customer was, who stood there, admiring my work, exposing his back to my eyes. I immediately turned around, sneaking back into my chamber. I suspected that special customer had come shopping for me... I checked my looks in the small, antique mirror that I had placed on the olive painted wall and tried to cover my little bump with a hurriedly overthrown waistcoat, that always had hung there on an old hallstand.

Imprint

Text: Saskia Schiffer
Images: Saskia Schiffer
Publication Date: 07-09-2011

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