Chapter 1 #10
“Correct. The facility needed immediate help getting residents out the door and safe. They needed to know if they could go back to the building after the fire was out. When they couldn’t, they needed to know where to send residents, and how to get them there.
I called three people on my team and told them what was happening.
We sent out a notification to every nursing home and assisted living facility in the state, gathered the space availability, and called all the places close to the facility that had the fire—-we built a plan with three of us—-and then I called my director.
If I had notified everyone at once, Dr. Griswald, it wouldn’t have helped.
It would have made the chaos of an emergency even more chaotic.
” I finish, and then add, “With all due respect.”
The CDC director narrows her eyes at me. “I believe that’s all I need to know,” she says, and she and her team leave the room.
As soon as she’s out of sight, I groan and fall forward until my forehead hits the table.
“Jesus, Molly,” Miguel says. “You have a death wish?” Toby pats me on the shoulder as they both head out of the conference room.
Just then, my phone buzzes. I am expecting an all--caps text from my boss, potentially sacking me, but instead it’s a different colleague—-Alysia Chen, a physician who is our liaison to all the hospitals in the state.
She was also who I called yesterday when Jesse insisted I get tested for anemia, because of my little swoon the night of the plane crash. I had told him I was just tired. But when Jesse refused to back down, Alysia had helped me out by running some quick tests.
Now, I glance down at her text. Meet for lunch?
Like me, she eats most lunches at her desk or inhales a fun--size Snickers bar and pretends that nuts are a food group.
My fingers fly over the keyboard. Tell me if I’m dying, I joke.
Three dots . . . and then nothing.
Just kidding, I type.
She leaves me on read.
Oh, fuck.
I don’t normally visit Jesse at work, because I don’t want to draw attention to the way our jobs sometimes intersect.
So when I approach the desk sergeant and ask for my husband to be called, I’m not surprised at the officer’s gentle ribbing.
“The wife’s here,” he says into the receiver of his phone, grinning at me.
“You must have done something really bad if she showed up in person . . .”
I force a smile, but I am still shaky. A minute later, Jesse appears, buzzing me through the secure door. “Hey!” he says. “Was I supposed to be expecting you?”
“No,” I force out, and then his eyes narrow on my face.
“What’s the matter?” Jesse’s voice is a blade.
The tears I’ve managed to not cry spill over. Jesse swears under his breath and tugs me down the hallway to the room where he does polygraphs. The machine sits dormant beside the blank, blind eye of a computer screen.
“I’m not anemic,” I blurt out. “I’m pregnant.”
Jesse’s features shift—-from disbelief, to awe, to a smile that feels like looking directly into the face of the sun. “What?” He picks me up and swings me around. “This is incredible!”
I push away from him. “This is awful.”
He goes very still. “You said you wanted kids.”
“Someday! Jesse, I’m twenty--five. I only just started to get respect as the chief of the department. Leaving now to have a baby would ruin my career.”
“First off, this is 2026, and being pregnant does not mean that you become a trad wife. Second, you may be twenty--five, but I’m forty, and I’d really like to play hockey with my kid before I need a knee replacement.”
I rub my temples. “This is not how it was supposed to happen.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s exactly how it’s supposed to happen,” Jesse says.
“I’m on birth control!”
“Which is not a hundred percent effective,” he points out. He takes a tentative step toward me. “How far along?”
“Eleven weeks.”
I can see him doing the math. Right now, anyway, in the state of Rhode Island abortion is legal until viability—-around twenty--four weeks. Jesse struggles to meet my gaze. “So, then, you want to . . .” His voice trails off. He can’t say the words any more than I can.
I shake my head. “I don’t want to. But, Jesse—-I have no idea how to do this.”
Jesse folds his arms around me. “My mom used to say that’s the dirty little secret of parenting. No one knows how to do it, much less do it well.” He draws back, tenderly running one hand down my long braid. “You already take care of all of Rhode Island, Mol. What’s one more tiny human?”
“I killed our only houseplant,” I remind him.
I wonder how my mother felt the day she learned she was pregnant. If she was scared like me, or elated like Jesse.
“We’ve got this,” Jesse says softly, confident. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
It is this—-knowing I’m not alone, which is the specter that’s always haunted me—-that lets me relax into Jesse’s arms. And on the heels of that comes another realization: This baby is already a part of me. I’ll never have to be alone again.
Which is both exhilarating and terrifying, just like any other unexpected event that blindsides us.