Page 54 of Flirty Thirty

“We’ve been trying for four years.”

My brow furrows, my brain trying to process. Holland and I tell each other everything. How did I not know about this? “I thought you guys wanted to wait ten years to have kids.”

“I changed my mind.” She sighs and starts stroking Tom’s fur again. “When I told Warren I was thinking about starting earlier than planned, he was so happy. His eyes… seriously, Maya, I’ve never seen them sparkle like they did. Almost like he was just waiting for me to say it.”

I shift uncomfortably on the couch, gaze drifting down to her baby bump. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She snorts, the first slip of amusement—however hollow it is—she’s had since she walked through the door. “Yes, Miss Anti-Baby is going to be fully supportive of me changing my mind and becoming ‘one of them.’ I mean, I got enough grief over getting married so young.”

The joke has a jolting sting to it that I don’t expect, and it shocks straight into my heart and sends bolts of guilt through my stomach. Have I really been so anti-family that even my best friend feels like she can’t talk to me about what she wants? I guess I never saw it that way, always thinking about it defensively. I grew up with the idea that family, love, babies and marriage was the ideal to live up to. That was the life that meant you’d be fulfilled and happy. So when it didn’t happen for me, I built a life thatIcould be fulfilled and happy with. Any time someone asked “Are you seeing anyone?” “You think there’s a ring coming?” “How many kids do you want?” and when I’d answer honestly, saying that I don’t want kids, I don’t want a husband, I’d get the followups. “Why not?” “Aren’t you lonely?” “Kids are so different when they’re your own.” I grew tired of it. Every time someone brought up family or marriage I instinctively thought it was a way to get me to “see the light.” Maybe I was a bit too hasty to accuse and a bit too vocal about convincing everyone how happy I was that I didn’t realize just how rude and disparagingIwas tothemfor their choices.

I scoot across the couch, knocking Kat off my lap and wrapping my arms around my best friend again. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “Please don’t feel like you can’t come to me about anything. I’ll be happy if you want a hundred babies.”

Her hands come up around my waist and squeeze back. “Thanks, but… I don’t think I can move past this,” she says, her voice wet. “I feel like the man I fell in love with has been ripped away from me. How can I start a family with a stranger.”

I don’t have an answer for her, but Warren could be completely oblivious to how he’s making Holland feel. Men usually are.

“You have to talk to your husband,” I tell her, pulling back and looking into her eyes. “That man loves you.”

“What if he doesn’t?” And the look in her eyes tells me that she actually thinks that’s a possibility. “It’s getting bad, Maya. I’m not even sure if I…” Her hands circle her tummy, and she blows out a breath. “I’d hate to bring a child into a broken relationship.”

I want to tell her how her relationship isn’t broken… maybe a little bruised, but not irreparable. But whatever brought her here is too fresh in her mind that there is no way she can hear it. So instead, I pat her leg and offer her a can of frosting. It’s not until she laughs and races to the bathroom that I remember the pregnancy test upstairs.

22

Broken Woman

The paper under my butt crinkles as I shift and tap a message to Holland. She stayed at my place until Warren called in a panic, wondering where she was. I haven’t heard a word since, and I’m trying to be patient, but I’m worried about my friend and her husband.

I hit send, sleep the screen, then blow out a breath and look at the picture of a uterus hanging on the opposite wall. The first pregnancy test had one bright line, one very faded line. The second had one line, but then overnight it grew a twin. I figured I’d be safe and get a professional opinion.

“Okay,” I tell myself as the nerves ping and pop in my stomach. “If it’s negative, no harm no foul.” And I ask about birth control methods that I don’t run the risk of forgetting. My eyes swivel from the display IUD over to the take-apart pregnant, torso-only manikin. It has different sizes of a baby, like one of those Russian Matryoshka dolls, starting from peanut to watermelon. I rub my tummy mindlessly, the material of the hospital gown catching on my paper cut. If it’s positive… what do I do? What’s the next step? I think about the life I have and the life that it’d turn into and even though I pictured it the night that got me into this mess, it still terrifies me. I’m not a mother; I don’t have the patience, the know-how, the strength that I see in my sisters, in my friends. Motherhood suits them, just like I know fatherhood would suit Cooper.

Something warm crawls through my chest, and the corner of my mouth twitches as I look at that plastic baby. “If it’s positive, I tell Cooper.” And we deal with this together. That’s the next step.

A knock sounds at the door, and my spine straightens as the doc comes in. She’s young, maybe my age, and I wonder if she has a family. And if she does, how does she juggle them and this?

“Sorry for the wait, Maya,” she says, her smile friendly, but also like it’s taking a lot of effort for her to keep it there. I’d chalk it up to an occupational hazard if it wasn’t for that gut feeling that it’s most likely the news she has to deliver.

“It’s okay.” I let out an awkward giggle-snort that instead of calming me, just makes my cheeks warm. “So… what’s the verdict? Life sentence?”

My joke falls dead between us, even the doctor unable to muster up some laughter just to humor me. Her lips turn down, and she reaches behind her for the circular, rolling chair and wheels it toward the bed I’m perched up on. She gently takes a spot, her fingers delicate as they adjust her white coat. I brace myself for my life to change.

“You’re not pregnant,” she says.

There is a two second beat of shock, followed by a long, loud sigh of relief.Not pregnant, oh thank heavens. No harm, no foul, just like I said before. Next step is talking birth control, and then I’m going out for a strong drink.

I grin, the nerves in my stomach evaporating, and I start to relax, my body stiff and sore from the tense position I hadn’t realized I was sitting in for so long.

“Gah… don’t do that,” I playfully chastise her, and her brows pull in. “The look on your face made me think I was dying or something.”

Sympathy fills her eyes, and an uncomfortable itch invades my relief. “Maya, your bloodwork has me concerned.”

“AmI dying?” I ask, partly joking, mostly panicking.

She lets out a tiny laugh, and I wish she would just spit it out so that I could stop having these emotional mood swings.

“No. But, there are some more tests I’d like to run.”

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