Page 19 of Coyotes Ever After

I stare at myself in the mirror. I have crow’s-feet. I diligently pluck gray hairs out of my scalp more and more often. Women my age don’t have babies.

Just because I’m pregnant, that doesn’t mean I’m having a baby. But at this point, I do have to tell Dom.

Tess: I’m going home. Talk more later.

Cam: Are you sure you’re okay to drive?

Tess: I’m fine.

I’m not fine.By the time I walk in the door to my home almost an hour later carrying Chinese food, my eyes are red and swollen and my face is blotchy from ugly crying the entire way home.

The people at the Chinese restaurant were genuinely worried about me, seeing as I was practically sobbing in the pickup line.

“Hey, there’s my sexy wife,” Dom says merrily as he walks into the kitchen, his face falling as he looks at me. “Jesus, babe, what’s wrong?”

I take a deep breath, tears flooding my eyes. “I’m fucking pregnant, that’s what.”

His jaw drops and he just stares at me for a few seconds.

“Uh...wow. I don’t...are you sure?”

I walk over to the kitchen island and set the bag on it, opening it and digging for the sugar donuts.

“Two positive tests,” I say sharply. “So yeah. Pretty sure. I’m fucking forty and pregnant.”

I find the donuts and jerk the smaller bag out of the main one, glaring at him.

“Are you...mad at me?”

“Did you just take two pregnancy tests in a nasty gas station bathroom while people thought you were shitting your guts out? And then bawl in the pickup line at Hot Wok until people started asking if you were okay?”

“Uh...no. No, I did not.”

“Right.Ifucking did.” I open the bag and pull out a donut, biting off half of it.

“And you don’t have to get an abortion, either.” I cry as I chew. “I do.”

He exhales heavily. “Babe, I’m sorry.”

“You should be. It was your stupid dick that got me in this situation.”

“I am very sorry about my dick.”

“Don’t patronize me!”

I walk into the living room with my bag of donuts and sit down on the couch. Dom follows me.

“What do you need from me?” he asks from the doorway. “Do you want to talk about it? Yell at my dick some more?”

I glare daggers at him as I eat my donuts. “I don’t know what I need.”

“Quite a bit of sugar, apparently,” he says lightly.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

He puts his hands up in surrender. “Okay, I’m gonna go eat my dinner in the kitchen. Tell me when you’re ready to talk.”

“I don’t know!” I’m crying again. Fuck.

---