Page 89 of My Favorite Lost Cause
My heart swells like a cartoon character’s. “You cooked?”
“Don’t give me too much credit. I added one cup of water to a can of Campbell’s and shoved it in the microwave. I doubt it’s getting a Michelin star. But stay put and I’ll go get it.”
I push off the covers. “Honestly, I think I’m fine. I can go to the house.”
He rests a hand on my shoulder. “Stay in bed. Just in case. I’ll be right back.”
He rises and turns toward the door, and my eyes fill. Why can’t he want the things I do? Why can’t he want marriage? Why can’t he want to fill that big house with children? He’d be so good at it, at all of it, and there’s no one alive I’d rather do it with.
Not everyone gets a happy ending, yet I can’t seem to stop wishing I’ll get mine.
By midday, despite Charlie’s insistence that I remain in bed, I get up and persuade him to go for a walk around the lake with me. That night, he doesn’t succumb to my repeated assurances that I’m perfectly fine until I’ve undressed and climbed into his lap.
Eventually, he agrees that it was probably the chicken.
In bed, as we start to doze off, I list the things I want to get done tomorrow. So many things, to make up for how little I’ve accomplished today.
I fall asleep dreaming about measuring for the kitchen counters and wake drenched in sweat and gagging. This time, I remain in bed, hoping the nausea will pass so that Charlie doesn’t rush off to play Mother Hen again—not that I minded.
It does pass after a moment. But what the hell? I was fine yesterday afternoon but ate very little last night just to be on the safe side, and now I’m back at square one.
I run through every catastrophic possibility first, andquietly climb out of bed and splash water on my face in the bathroom. I’m drawn and gray beneath my tan, with circles under my eyes. I open the cabinet, wondering if we have anything for nausea…and my gaze lands on the box of tampons I bought ages ago because my period was due.
It still isn’t opened.
What the fuck?
I’ve gone for so many years nowhopingfor a missed period, then didn’t even notice when it actually happened. I’m late. Three weeks late? Four weeks late?
I’m significantly late.
I reach up and cup my breasts. They’re tender. They’ve been tender for two weeks now, and I…I don’t even know what I thought that was. I suppose I assumed it was all the attention they’d been getting from Charlie.
Is it possible? After years and years of trying, have I wound up pregnant with the last man in the world who’d want me to be?
It doesn’t seem possible. How could it be? The fertility doctor ran a nearly infinite number of tests and told me point-blank it couldn’t happen on my own. Did he lie? Was he mistaken? Or is this some magic created by the house?
Maybe it’s one of those pregnancies women get where it’s all in their head. Except those happen to women who were actively thinking about pregnancy, whereas I’m someone who basically forgot about it for six weeks straight.
And there’s also this quiet joy inside me anyway—a joy that says by some miracle…it’s actually true this time.
There’s no way I’m going back to sleep. I grab my clothes and sneak out of the cottage, changing in the predawn light before I go out to the car.
The Stop-n-Shop is open already. Martha is almost always there, and I trust her. She’ll have plenty of opinions about this, but she won’t share them beyond the two of us.
I wave to her and go to the back of the store where the pregnancy tests are kept.
She smiles when I reach the register. “Well, this is an interesting turn of events.”
“It’s probably nothing,” I argue. Mostly because if she gets excited, then I’ll getmoreexcited, and it’ll hurt that much more when the second pink line never appears. I’ve lived it so many times over the past few years I don’t know how it’s even upsetting when it happens.
“It’s not nothing,” she says, squeezing my hand. “I’ve been wondering for weeks. I figured you were just keeping it a secret.”
I freeze. “How? How could you know?”
She shrugs. “You’ve just got that look. Definitely having a girl.”
She couldn’t possibly know any of this, but yeah…I think she’s right. I think I might be pregnant, and I sort of feel like it’s a girl too.
