Twelve
Harper
Nothing says “thriving single mother” quite like dry heaving into the downstairs toilet while your child screams from the second floor that he can’t find his shoe and he’s going to be late and also the world is ending.
The floor is freezing. I am on my knees in front of the toilet, my hair in a loose, defeated bun that started as a French twist but lost structural integrity somewhere between Leo’s toothpaste meltdown and my decision to drink last night’s coffee cold because the microwave was blocked by a box of unopened paperwork.
My entire torso pulses around each retch, ribs seizing so hard I feel every seam of the shirt clinging to my back.
If there is a mercy to the moment, it is that the puke is mostly stomach acid and the ghosts of stale Ritz crackers.
(I recommend the lemon ones for all your late-stage, post-breakup dietary needs.)
Leo yells, “Mum! I can’t find it! I looked everywhere! Can you look?” The box of crackers is silent on the counter beside me, taunting in its citrusy optimism.
I try to reply, but the only thing that emerges is a wet, breathless, “Ughhh.” Which, as far as my current level of parenting goes, is close enough to a response.
Here is a quick list of things I blame for this morning’s predicament:
1. Food poisoning. (Statistically likely; I eat more from the “reduced for quick sale” bin than is probably safe to do.)
2. Stress. (See: “reduced for quick sale” bin. See also: marriage shrapnel, lawyer letters, Leo’s teacher’s pointed emails about “emotional readiness.”)
3. The universe, for just generally being a petty bitch.
The nausea comes in pulses, and between them I rest my forehead on the tile, cold and comforting and probably crawling with so many types of bacteria that my immune system will emerge from this experience jacked and ready for hand-to-hand combat.
I try to let my brain go blank. I try to not think about what has to get done before eight a.m. I try to not think about the email from Rachel, or the fact that I still owe Clara signed forms, or that I have run out of both clean underwear and, now, the will to live.
I count to five. Push up from the floor. Wait for the wave of dizziness to pass.
“Mum?” Leo again, but quieter this time, like he’s not sure if yelling is safe in a house where his mother sounds like she’s losing her stomach contents.
“I’m coming,” I call back, which is a lie, because first I have to navigate my way to the sink, then clutch the edge of the counter while the world tilts and corrects itself.
The mirror above the sink is brutal: I look like a mugshot of a woman accused of poisoning her spouse for the insurance payout.
My skin is the colour of skim milk. Dark circles bloom under both eyes.
My hair is halfway between “single mother chic” and “electrocuted alpaca.” There is a fleck of something on my chin.
(Toothpaste? Puke? Hope it’s toothpaste.)
I splash water on my face, resisting the urge to lay my whole head in the basin. While patting my cheeks dry, I catch another look at myself. This is the part in my books where the heroine realizes she’s knocked up, does the math, freaks out, and has a revelation about her future.
In reality, it is not a revelation. It is a trickle of dread that pools at the base of my spine.
I have not had a period. Not this month.
Not last month, if I’m being honest. My brain tries to do the calendar math, the how many weeks ago, but I stop it before it can finish.
If I don’t complete the thought, it cannot hurt me.
I feel like this is Schrodinger’s Pregnancy.
I’m both fine and completely, irreversibly fucked, until proven otherwise.
Another wave of nausea. Great.
I swish my mouth with tap water and ignore the urge to lie back down on the bath mat and simply die.
Instead, I yell, “Leo! Give me thirty seconds!” and brace both hands on the counter until my knuckles go white.
I stare down my own reflection, waiting for it to offer answers.
It does not. It is just a woman, not thriving, not surviving, but absolutely refusing to be late for school.
I emerge from the bathroom to the sounds of Leo thumping down the stairs, his right shoe in hand, the left still a mythic object of quest. He is already dressed, shorts and a dinosaur tee, the sleeves smeared with some unidentifiable brown, and there is a streak of jam on his cheek, possibly from yesterday.
His hair sticks up in three separate directions. He looks, in other words, perfect.
He sees me and stops, mid-thump. “Are you okay?”
I say, “Of course.” (Lie number one.)
He narrows his eyes in the forensic way only children and emotionally manipulative television detectives can. “You sound weird.”
I brush past him, ruffle his hair, and say, “You look weird, but you don’t see me making a thing about it.”
He snorts, pleased with himself, and launches into a monologue about how he absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent left the other shoe right by the door last night and that if it’s not there, it must be the work of “the cat,” which is an especially creative theory given that we have never owned a cat.
While Leo spins conspiracies, I do what all great parents do: I multitask.
I make a sandwich, pack a lunch, sign a permission slip, and, at one point, try to pour milk into his thermos and instead put it in the pantry next to the tinned tomatoes.
I do not notice this until later. I leave my handbag in the fridge and, on autopilot, call “Ethan” into the hallway.
A beat of silence before I remember that he isn’t here.
Leo finally locates the missing shoe in the hallway closet, where, to be fair, he definitely did not leave it, and I hustle him into the car with a second piece of toast clamped between his teeth.
He asks again, “Mum, are you sick?” and I tell him, “No, just tired.” Which is, as lies go, less egregious than the last one.
At a crossing, he is telling me about dinosaurs, carnivores, herbivores, the possibility of omnivores, when he pauses mid-sentence and says, “Mum?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Third time. A new record. I smile, this time for him, and say, “I promise, Leo. Just thinking.”
He watches me the rest of the way to school. I want to reach over and squeeze his hand, but instead I keep my eyes forward, because crying on the morning school run is, apparently, not the right thing to do.
School drop-off is its own ballet of avoidance. I keep my sunglasses on, wave to the other parents, do not engage in small talk or sign up for the bake sale. (Never again.) Leo shoulders his bag, gives me a quick hug, then hesitates.
He looks at me, really looks, and says, “You don’t have to pretend to be okay for me.”
For a second I can’t breathe. Not because I feel sick, but because the world is unfair and children know everything.
I jokingly say back, “You have to be okay for me though. That’s the rule.”
He grins, jam still on his teeth, and runs inside. I watch him go until the doors swallow him up. For a second, I stand there, the silence so complete it makes my ears ring.
I do not finish the math. I do not go to the chemist, or call a friend, or do anything useful.
I just stand there, hands clenched at my sides, and think about how the universe only ever delivers you the plot twists you are least prepared to handle.
After a few minutes, I turn on my heels and almost sprint to my second home, also known as Page & Grounds to the other patrons.
Here is how you know you are no longer in control of your own life: you walk into a room, the room is full of people, and before your brain has time to intervene, your mouth opens and tells all of them the worst thing you know.
“I’M LATE!” I yell, bursting through the front door of Page & Grounds, bag swinging like a warning flag. The entire café pivots to stare at me. Every single one. Even the toddler at the corner table, fist-deep in banana bread, goes still, a wet crumb frozen in midair.
I open my mouth, then close it, and realize there is no “edit” button for the spoken word.
I try again: “Not late for work. Or… anything. Just…” My brain blanks. I am standing here, in this room full of people who think I am a functional human woman, and I have just told all of them, in all-caps, that my uterus is operating on a freelance schedule. I finish, weakly: “Just… late.”
No one moves. No one even tries to rescue me.
Instead, they all turn, in slow succession, to Elsie, who is frozen behind the counter, half a croissant in one hand and a toddler on the hip.
She does not blink for three full seconds, then, in a single, horrifying motion, the colour drains from her face.
She glances from me to Luca, who is arranging pastries in a display case, and then back to me, and then to Luca again, as if checking that he is seeing what she is seeing. He is. He looks like he just witnessed a minor car accident and isn’t sure whether to call for help or start directing traffic.
Elsie yells, “LUCA, SIT HER DOWN,” and bolts for the front door, toddler and all.
I watch her go, momentarily distracted by the astonishing speed at which she can leave a room. I turn to Liv, who is perched at a spot on the windowsill, knees pulled to her chest, mug balanced on her thigh. She regards me with the calm of someone observing a controlled demolition.
I croak, “Where is she going?”
Liv says, “I think… to the chemist.”
I stare at her. “She can’t…”
Liv raises an eyebrow. “You just made a public announcement.”