Fourteen
Harper
By seven o'clock, I feel like I'm waiting for an execution. Not metaphorically either.
Like somewhere out there a man is sharpening an axe while I'm expected to just… fold laundry until he arrives.
It's been exactly six hours since Luca, Liv and Elsie collectively decided that procrastination was no longer a valid coping strategy. Apparently "I'll tell him eventually" isn't considered an acceptable life plan when there is another human growing inside you. Who knew? I certainly didn't.
"I can't just ring him and say, 'Hi, turns out we accidentally made a person,'" I'd argued.
"He said he wanted to see you," Liv had replied.
"You absolutely should," Elsie added.
Luca had simply looked at me over the rim of his coffee and said, "Babe."
One word. Somehow containing an entire lecture.
When I still hesitated… Elsie escalated.
She kidnapped my child. Not permanently.
Just until tomorrow morning. Apparently Leo was having an entirely spontaneous sleepover with the twins.
A completely unrelated sleepover. One that definitely had nothing to do with ensuring I couldn't use 'I can't, Leo's home' as an excuse.
Traitor. All of them. Even Leo. He'd packed his dinosaur pyjamas before I'd even finished protesting.
Now the house is silent. Too silent. I've spent the last hour pretending to clean.
The kitchen has never looked better. If Alexander arrives and decides not to speak to me again, at least he'll leave knowing my benchtops could pass a forensic inspection.
I've wiped them down three times. Alphabetised the spice rack.
Folded tea towels that weren't even dirty.
Then unfolded them because I wasn't convinced I'd folded them correctly the first time.
This is less cleaning and more what I imagine a nervous breakdown would look like if it had access to disinfectant wipes.
Every few minutes I check my phone. Not because I'm expecting a message. Because the photo is still there. Two bright pink lines. Still positive. Still ruining my day. I briefly consider Googling whether phone cameras add lines that aren’t really there.
Lens distortion. Lighting artifacts. Something.
Anything that isn’t what it obviously is.
My phone remains stubbornly committed to reality.
I drop onto a kitchen stool and stare at the clock.
He's due here in… Eight minutes. Not that I'm counting.
I have rehearsed this conversation so many times that I think the words have melded into my psyche.
Every version somehow ends with me either crying, vomiting, or accidentally asking whether he'd like a cup of tea before informing him he is somebody's father.
Strong opening. I should write greeting cards. My stomach flips violently. Maybe I'm going to throw up again. Maybe it's morning sickness. Maybe it's anxiety. Maybe my body has simply decided to express every emotion by trying to eject my internal organs. Honestly…
I wouldn’t blame it.
I look towards the front door. In less than ten minutes, I'm going to open it and tell a man I spent one night with that his entire life has changed. And mine has too. I let out a slow breath.
"Well…"
I mutter to the empty house.
"This is either going to be the best or worst conversation of my life."
It’s not the pregnancy itself. That’s… well, it’s a catastrophe, but at least it’s a familiar one.
I have been pregnant before. I have peed on enough sticks to know exactly how this ends.
No, what I’m dreading is the conversation.
The moment when I will have to look at him and say, “This is not a drill,” and watch the wheels spin in his brain, and then see his eyes when he realizes that I am asking him, in real time, to be tied to me for life.
Yay, It's almost enough to claim insanity and commit a person. Almost.
I’m in the middle of re-polishing the stovetop (for the fourth time, I hate myself) when the knock comes.
I wipe my hands on the dish towel, look at my reflection in the microwave door, and contemplate whether I should put on actual lipstick or if that’s the kind of thing that will make this whole exchange seem unhinged.
I settle for a swipe of tinted lip balm and the ceremonial removal of the hair tie that’s been holding my bun together since sunrise.
The hair springs loose, falls in a pattern I didn’t expect, and for one stupid second I think, “At least you’ll look good when the world detonates. ”
I open the door.
Alexander is standing on the stoop, hands in his jacket pockets, an expression of something almost like relief on his face.
His hair is slightly mussed, as if he just ran his hands through it ten times before walking up my drive, and the collar of his shirt is open, no tie, like he thought about dressing up and then decided not to.
He looks just as handsome as I remember.
The very definition of tall dark and handsome.
He says, “Hi,” and the sound of his voice, deep and warm, makes my chest twist.
I say, “Hi.”
He looks at me for a beat. Not at my body, not even at my face, but at my eyes, as if he’s trying to read what kind of emergency he’s about to walk into. The moment lingers just long enough to be awkward, or more so than it already was.
He steps inside, wipes his shoes on the mat, and closes the door quietly behind him.
He takes in the kitchen, the table wiped to a dull shine, the bowl of unripe bananas, the tea towel folded with almost hospital level corners on the handle of the oven, and his gaze lands on my hands, which are now gripping the hem of my cardigan like it’s the only thing keeping me anchored to the present.
He doesn’t ask if I want to sit down. He just says, “What happened?” and the way he says it startles me slightly. That maybe I called him here because I am not alright, and not for the infinitely more complicated reason burning a hole in my phone. I shake my head.
“Nothing bad,” I say, and then realize that’s an insane thing to claim about any situation requiring a secretive Thursday night meeting. I open my mouth to elaborate, but nothing comes out, I just can’t get the words “I’m pregnant” to leave my lips.
Alexander stands just inside the doorway, hands still in his pockets, and waits me out. Probably debating whether I am mentally stable. At this point, I wouldn’t be too sure either.
When it becomes clear I am not going to continue, he shifts his weight and says, “I have to be honest, I was surprised to hear from you.”
The words sting a little, but I know they’re fair. I haven’t seen him since I ran out of his apartment with my shoes in hand and left a note that said thank you and nothing else of importance. I am, by all standards, a garbage human.
I manage, “Oh?” and gesture awkwardly at the kitchen table, as if inviting him to take a seat in my haunted house of neuroses.
He follows my gesture and sits on the nearest bar stool, setting his phone down on the counter. He looks at me, then at the space beside me, then back at me. He’s uncomfortable. And I feel like shit all over again putting him through this.
He rubs the back of his neck, and for a split second, I see a younger version of him, maybe in a different kitchen, maybe preparing to explain something terrible to his own mother, or maybe just bracing for impact from a world that never lets anyone off easily.
He says, “Adrian kind of… filled me in on your situation.”
My throat tries to close up, because for a second, I think, Oh god, he knows, and I am not ready to deal with the fallout of Alexander finding out via office gossip that I am carrying his baby without so much as a phone call.
But then he says, “Nothing to be ashamed of. Your soon-to-be ex seems like an asshole to do that to you. And your son.”
I exhale, a shaky, ugly sound. My heart rate drops by at least ten beats per minute. For a minute, I can actually breathe.
“Yea, it was pretty awful,” I say, and the words are so inadequate for the situation that they feel odd coming out of my mouth.
“But it’s not why I asked you to come here.”
He waits again and cocks his head to the side slightly. The silence stretches until I want to jump out of my own skin.
I try to figure out how to tell him, what words will make this right, or at least not catastrophic. I could make tea. I could draw it out until he decides to leave out of sheer self-preservation.
Instead, I pick up my phone from the counter, unlock it with my thumb, and open the camera roll to the photo of the pregnancy test. I hold it out to him, the screen turned up, and my hand doesn’t even shake.
It’s like the decision is a switch, and once flipped, there’s nothing left to do but live with the result.
He looks at the phone. Looks at the photo. For a second, his face is unreadable.
I am a woman who specializes in writing about men who fail to react properly in times of crisis.
I have spent years inventing clever dialogue, dramatic reactions, cathartic moments where characters scream or sob or break something just to prove they’re still alive.
What I am not prepared for is the way Alexander absorbs the news.
Not with shock, or horror, or even relief, but with an almost eerie calmness.
He blinks once. He sets the phone down on the kitchen island then he looks at me again.
And he says, “Are you and the baby okay?” Not “is this real,” not “are you sure,” not “what the fuck” just the most mature reaction I have ever heard. Something that, if I’m being honest, I would have called out as bullshit if someone told me.
My mouth takes complete control, because of course I can’t be normal! And I say, “I genuinely don’t know.”