Page 105 of Maybe in Another Life

In his e-mail, he said he’d be here by noon, but it’s early enough that I figure I’ve got some time to kill. I decide now is the time to call my parents and tell them the news. At this hour, I can probably grab them before they head out for dinner in London.

I dial their landline, prepared to tell them I’m pregnant the moment one of them picks up. I’m just going to blurt it out before I start to worry what they will say.

But the voice I hear on the other end of the line, the voice that says “Hello?” isn’t my mother or my father. It’s my sister.

“Sarah?” I ask. “What are you doing at Mom and Dad’s?”

“Hannah!” she says. “Hi! George and I are here for the weekend.” She pronounces it “wee-KEND.” I find myself rolling my eyes. I can hear my dad in the background, asking who is on the phone. I hear my sister’s voice turn away from the handset. “It’s Hannah, Dad. Chill out... Dad wants to talk to you,” she says.

“Oh, OK,” I say back, but she doesn’t give up the phone.

“I want to know when you’re coming to visit,” she says. “You didn’t come last Christmas like you normally do, so I think we’re owed.”

I know she’s joking. But it irritates me that she assumes I should always go there. Just once, I’d like to be important enough to be the visited instead of the visitor. Just once.

“Well, I’m in L.A. now,” I tell her. “So the flight is a bit longer. But I’ll get there. Eventually.”

“OK, OK,” she says to my dad. “Hannah, I have to go.” She’s gone before I can even say good-bye.

“Hannah Savannah,” my dad says. “How are you?”

“I’m good, Dad. I’m good. How are you?”

“How am I? How am I? That is the question.”

I laugh.

“No, I’m fine, sweetheart. I’m fine. Your mother and I are just sitting here discussing whether we want to order Italian or Thai takeaway for dinner. Your sister and George are trying to get us to go out someplace, but it’s pouring out, and I’m just not in the mood.”

My plan to blurt it out has failed.

Or has it?

“That’s nice. So, Dad, I’m pregnant.”

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I swear to God, it sounds as if the line has gone dead. “Dad?”

“I’m here,” he says, breathless. “I’m getting your mother.”

I hear another voice on the phone now. “Hi, Hannah,” my mom says.

“Can you repeat what you said, Hannah?” my dad says. “I’m afraid that if your mother hears it from me, she will think I am playing a joke on her.”

I have to blurt it out twice?

“I’m pregnant.”

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