Chapter 22 Rebecca
Rebecca had taken five pregnancy tests so far, all negative. That was okay, she kept telling herself. It was a numbers game.
For the first two tests, Tom stood in the bathroom with her, eyes glued to the little stick. When only one pink line appeared,
disappointment spiked his face. Rebecca shut her eyes.
“No big deal,” Tom said, hand on her shoulder like a coach strategizing after a narrow loss. “We’ll get it next time.”
Rebecca appreciated how invested he was. He made her feel like they were a team, a unit. Though she was the one having to
nourish her body with organic foods and supplements, taking notes on all the parenting podcasts, grimacing through planks
and leg lifts because one isolated study showed a loose potential link between Pilates and fertility. Tom, meanwhile, was
carrying on, business as usual. Wolfing down bacon for breakfast, talking taxes with his clients, playing rough-and-tumble
basketball with his colleagues. Rebecca didn’t fault him. It was just the reality. Before it even started, parenthood wasn’t
truly equal.
She was also the one who kept bleeding.
This time she decided to take the pregnancy test without Tom, before he got home from work.
It would give her time to compose herself once it came back negative.
She would do a fifteen-minute meditation, go for a walk with Sadie, and then be fine to tell Tom about it over dinner.
They would move on to discussing their upcoming Fourth of July visit to Mackinac and all the things Rebecca wanted to show him: the stone-skipping competition, the carnival at the Grand Hotel, the patriotic finery at the fort.
It was good, it was necessary, to have tangible things to look forward to.
On the toilet, Rebecca saturated the little stick. She drew long inhales to calm her nervous system, silently repeating a
mantra that one of the podcasts had recommended. I am not attached to the outcome. I am not attached to the outcome.
And there it was. Not one pink line but two.
Rebecca was pregnant.
Emotion gushed from her eyes, her nose, her hands. It became obvious how she had never, not for one millisecond, been detached
from this outcome. And thank God she hadn’t been.
The happiness was so big, so billowy, that she didn’t believe it. Trusting the bad had always been more natural for Rebecca
than trusting the good.
Maybe that started after her dad left, maybe before. She’d been so young that she didn’t recall if her behavior changed after
he left or if she’d always been the type to floss twice a day, check her answers three times before submitting a test, and
cover her nose and mouth to protect herself from secondhand smoke when Paula pulled out a cigarette. She avoided monkey bars
because she was sure she’d fall and break an arm like her classmate Hilary Porter had. And when Eloise left them with babysitters,
Rebecca never relaxed. Once Eloise said she’d be back from euchre by nine, and at 9:01 p.m., Rebecca was standing by the door,
face glued to the windowpane as she watched anxiously for the familiar orb of her mother’s flashlight. Eloise might have had
a heart attack or taken a fall on her way home. She might be lying there unconscious, stampeded by horses. This was how Rebecca’s
mind worked.
She wouldn’t tell Tom yet. She needed to be sure. Tomorrow she would go to the OB-GYN and take another test. Maybe two.
***
The doctor confirmed the pregnancy. Rebecca was only a couple weeks along but already had a due date: March 28. It was immediately
the most sacred square on the calendar.
“How was your day?” Tom asked when he came home that night, sweaty from his intramural basketball league.
Magical! she wanted to sing but couldn’t spoil the surprise.
“Good,” Rebecca said. She was snacking on carrot sticks, hummus, and cherry-bacon jam (a Traverse City specialty). It was
probably too soon for pregnancy cravings, but the placebo effect had kicked in.
“Everything okay?” Tom asked, setting down his bag. “You seem a little off.”
Rebecca liked that Tom knew her well enough to notice her mood shift. “It’s probably just the hormones,” she said, trying
to keep a straight face.
Tom’s face fell. “You got your period?”
“No,” Rebecca said, breaking into the biggest smile of her life. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
She showed him both test results. She had never seen him so excited, even when Michigan State beat Michigan on a last-second
interception returned for a touchdown. He punched his fists in the air, roared something primal and guttural. “Let’s go! Let’s
frickin’ go!”
Rebecca was more convinced than ever that she had married the right person. This was the kind of excitement that a father
should have for his child. Seeing them as a blessing, not a burden. A reason to step up, not step out.
“Should we call our parents?” Tom asked once the hooting had subsided.
Rebecca shook her head, though she, too, wanted to share the good news, shout it from the rooftops. Even the thought of calling
her dad brought her joy. Motherhood was already changing her.
“We’re not telling anyone until three months,” Rebecca said. “Miscarriage odds are too high.” She felt her cortisol spike
as she said it.
“Okay,” Tom said. He put a palm on Rebecca’s stomach and her breathing started to calm. “I think I felt something. A kick.”
“That’s just my stomach growling. The baby’s only as big as a peppercorn right now.”
But Rebecca put her hands on her stomach too, overlapping his. They stood there in the kitchen like that for a while, feeling
nothing, feeling everything.