Chapter 27
Ian didn’t dare protest when I told him I was calling in sick today.
He just nodded and placed a glass of water on the nightstand.
That must’ve been three hours ago, at least. I made him close the linen blackout curtains that I hung to cover the apartment’s cheap mini blinds, so it’s hard to say how late it is now.
My phone slid off the mattress and underneath the bed at some point.
Getting up to search for it seemed asinine.
All that thing does is deliver bad news.
Or, in this case, no news, a far more sadistic form of torture.
And where will I be at the end of it? Probably still here, tangled in these sheets, my phone pinging from a dust-bunnied corner under the bed with a text from Derrick that I can’t bring myself to read because I know it’ll be the fatal blow: Sorry, guys, it wasn’t meant to be.
I let out a groan so loud and anguished that if the neighbors are home, they must think I’m either dying or having very weird sex, then I roll onto my stomach and let my face smush into the pillow.
I ponder how long it’ll take to run out of oxygen, but of course I chicken out at the first twinge of discomfort.
Now I’m shifting around, trying to relax, but a sharp pain feels like it’s literally piercing through one of my boobs.
What the hell? I jolt back upright and recline onto my back, cautiously groping around my chest in the dark.
When I press, even gently, both my breasts feel tender. Maybe I’m starting my period?
I squint in the harsh bathroom light. My reflection, once it comes into view, is alarming—sweaty black hair matted against pale skin, a bluish tint beneath my eyes, saliva crusted onto the corner of my mouth. Worst of all, I don’t even care.
I slump onto the toilet and inspect my underwear. No sign of blood. But I do have to pee, badly.
Before I go back to bed, I hunt around under the sink for the Listerine. I may not care that I look like death, but I definitely care that my mouth tastes like it. I push aside a spray can of Lysol and a bag of cotton balls before I see it, tucked behind the drainpipe: a pregnancy test.
My boobs are sore.
And I don’t have my period.
Crouched down, staring at the hot pink First Response box, I count back on my fingers, struggling to figure out whether I’m late. I’ve been so preoccupied I haven’t been paying attention. Maybe it should’ve come last week?
The last time I took one of these was a couple of months after I froze my eggs.
It was a Sunday and we’d gone to Le Dip for brunch.
I ordered my usual, but the garlicky Boursin cheese in the center of the omelet didn’t taste right.
It was mostly bland, with a hint of bitterness.
Before sending it back, I made Ian try it, and he had no idea what I was complaining about.
We were almost too afraid to say it aloud—we didn’t want to jinx it—but we both admitted we thought I might be pregnant.
We thought maybe the egg retrieval had taken enough of the pressure off that it had finally just happened.
On the walk home, we stopped at CVS and bought a box of three pregnancy tests.
We tried to play it cool, promised each other we’d keep our expectations low.
But after the first two came back negative, we were both close to tears.
It seemed cruel to put ourselves through the third one, so here it still is, long forgotten under the bathroom sink.
(Salt in the wound: I realized the next day that nothing tasted good because I had Covid.)
Now I chug the water that Ian left by the bed, then bring the glass to the kitchen for a refill.
A half-full French press still sits on the counter, so I down that, too.
The microwave clock, plus the particular shade of sunlight from the living room window, inform me that it’s nearly two in the afternoon.
Within fifteen minutes, I have to pee again. I’ve been through this routine too many other times—unwrapping the stick, holding it in place, feeling all the excitement and all the anxiety. But this time is different.
I am terrified.
When I’m done, I sink to the bathroom floor, the gray porcelain tile chilling my bare legs. I tuck my knees into my ratty, oversize Nats T-shirt—an old one of Ian’s—like I used to do as a kid. The blank stick is in my hand, but I already know the result. I feel it in every cell.
After three minutes, the two pink lines make it official.
No house. Shitty husband. A baby who’ll have to sleep in the closet.
The tears come fast and unrelenting. We are prisoners here. And now our baby will be, too. After all these months, she is right on time for her mother to completely fail her.
I wake up shivering, curled into a ball, still on the bathroom tile. The positive test lies next to me. As I drag myself up from the floor and into the kitchen, my stiffened joints pop and crack.
It’s after five now. I snag a cold piece of leftover pizza from the refrigerator and take it into the living room, not bothering with a plate or even a paper towel, because nothing fucking matters anymore.
In front of the floor-to-ceiling window, still only in a raggedy T-shirt and underwear, I stuff the slice of pepperoni and black olives into my puffy face—an image sure to haunt the dreams of anyone unlucky enough to look up from the sidewalk below.
As the procession of after-work commuters begins to swell, I wonder if any of them are planning to bid on the house.
That guy with his earbuds in, talking with his hands, could be going over the details of an offer with his agent.
The couple waiting at the crosswalk, hunched over one of their phones, looking way too fucking happy, might be scrolling through the listing photos.
They look like the types who could win it easily.
Brooks Brothers. Weekends in St. Michaels.
Parents who taught them to ski. Maybe they’ll get hit by a car.
A speck of red coming down U Street catches my attention—Ian’s bike helmet.
I’ve always worried about him getting hurt, riding home during rush-hour traffic like this, but now I couldn’t care less.
In fact, an old-fashioned tumble over the handlebars, or maybe a meet-up with a carelessly opened car door, sounds like decent entertainment.
Alas, he reaches the corner unscathed, gliding up onto the sidewalk, swerving around pedestrians. As he gets closer to our building’s entrance, the rear, curbside door of a black sedan parked out front flies open. It has a Lyft sticker on the windshield.
A girl in a cutoff denim miniskirt, with messy, dark-brown hair, steps out. Ian sees her at the same moment that I do.
Alex.
He brakes hard, then climbs off his bike. He walks it briskly toward our building, extending a palm in her direction, shaking his head angrily, clearly telling her to stay away. But she ignores him.
She runs up and pulls on his sleeve, mascara streaking her face, throwing a tantrum like a child in the candy aisle. People walking past turn and stare. She’s a wreck.
Ian puts down his kickstand and grabs hold of Alex’s shoulders, keeping her at arm’s length while she sobs. He’s saying something—but not yelling, otherwise I would probably be able to hear at least some of it—his eyes darting around nervously.
When she takes a small step backward, he tries again to leave, but she’s too quick. She lurches forward, clinging to his shirt, her expression frantic. Ian closes his eyes and waits for her to finish talking. He only opens them again once her mouth finally stills.
Whatever he’s saying to her now appears to be calming her down.
She smiles.
She is fucking smiling.
When he’s done, she nods, then walks back to the Lyft. Ian glances around one more time, then pulls up his kickstand and disappears into our lobby.
Pain builds behind my eyes. What the fuck did I just witness? My pulse whooshes in my ears; then the ringing sound overtakes it, louder than ever, like an entire surround-sound speaker system melting down. I race to the bathroom before Ian can walk in.
I turn on the shower and lock the door. I snatch the positive pregnancy test up from the floor and shove it back into the First Response box, back behind the drainpipe under the sink.
“Margo?”
He’s calling me from the kitchen.
I freeze on the other side of the locked door.
I need to think, but the throbbing behind my eyes is all-consuming.
I strip off the old T-shirt and get into the shower, cranking up the temperature.
The hot water on my skin melds into the rage, pure and scalding, coursing just beneath it.
My vision is turning fuzzy, my balance is off.
An imaginary wave swells beneath me, sending me stumbling backward.
Groping along the tile to keep myself steady, I lower myself to the shower floor, squeezing my eyelids shut, then stretching them back open, in a lame attempt to reboot my vision.
I see only static, followed by light. White and blinding. Flooding everything. Impossible to tell if it’s inside of me or outside. As it burns brighter and brighter, it ratchets up the pain in my skull and the screeching in my ears. The noise grows so deafening that it drowns out the running water.
How long am I like this, crouched like a closed fist, the water pooling around me? Maybe only seconds. Maybe several minutes. And then—the light is just gone.
The patter of the shower returns gradually, as if someone’s turning up the volume. I blink open my eyes and see water beading on subway tile. The throbbing in my brain dissolves, like soapsuds swirling down a drain.
I feel warm all over—but not burning, not scalding—it’s pleasant. I place a hand over my belly, and a sensation that’s at first hard to recognize overcomes me. Peace.
As usual, I’ll have to be the one who figures it all out for us. But why would I have expected anything different? Whatever it takes to solve this, I’ll do it. Certainly not for Ian. But for my baby. And for me. For the life the two of us are owed.
Ian knocks on the bathroom door. “Margo? Everything okay in there?”
“Yep, fine,” I say, standing to shut off the water. “I’ll be out in just a sec.”