13. TRUTH #2
By the time Mama knocked on my door to tell me dinner was ready, I’d read seventeen articles and was no closer to understanding what my body was doing.
“You coming?” Mama asked, leaning against the doorframe.
“Yeah,” I said, sitting up too quickly. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“You alright?”
“I’m fine.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t push.
“Dinner’s getting cold,” she said instead.
I followed her to the kitchen, my hand still pressed against my abdomen like I could feel something happening if I just paid close enough attention.
Day Three
I woke up at 2 AM drenched in sweat.
My heart was pounding, my mind racing, my body convinced something was wrong even though I had no evidence to support that.
I reached for my phone.
The screen lit up the dark room, harsh and blue.
I typed: early pregnancy symptoms before missed period
The results were maddeningly vague.
Fatigue, nausea, breast tenderness, mild cramping, mood swings.
I had all of those.
But I’d also had all of those during the hormone injections.
So, what did it mean?
I clicked on a forum thread titled DID YOU KNOW BEFORE YOUR BLOOD TEST?
Scrolled through hundreds of responses.
I just knew. I felt different.
I had no symptoms at all and still got a positive.
I was convinced it worked and then it didn’t.
I was convinced it failed and then it worked.
I closed the app.
Opened it again five minutes later.
Typed: implantation cramping vs period cramping
Read for another hour.
Learned nothing useful.
By the time the sun came up, I was exhausted and wired and no closer to knowing whether the embryo had implanted or not.
Day Four
Mama caught me in the kitchen staring at my phone.
“What you looking at?” she asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Nothing,” I said too quickly.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Mm-hmm.”
She sat at the table across from me, her eyes sharp and knowing.
“You been walking around here like a ghost,” she said. “Barely eating. Barely sleeping. Staring at that phone like it’s gonna tell you something.”
“I’m fine, Mama.”
“You keep saying that.”
I looked up at her.
She was watching me with the kind of expression that said she knew exactly what I was doing and exactly how pointless it was.
“You can’t control this, baby,” she said quietly. “You did what you had to do. Now you gotta wait.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I didn’t answer.
Because the truth was, I didn’t know how to wait.
Didn’t know how to sit in the uncertainty without trying to solve it, analyze it, predict it.
Mama sighed. “You’re gonna drive yourself crazy,” she said.
“I’m fine,” I repeated.
She shook her head.
“Alright, baby. You keep telling yourself that.”
She stood, took her coffee, and left me alone in the kitchen with my phone and my spiraling thoughts.
Day Five
I needed a distraction.
Something that required focus. Something that would keep my mind busy enough that I couldn’t obsess over every twinge in my abdomen.
I opened my laptop.
Stared at the screen.
And then I remembered: I had money now.
Real money.
The kind of money that could make more money if I was smart about it.
I’d always been good with numbers. Good at seeing patterns. Good at calculating risk.
Back when Phillip and I were together, I’d dabbled in day trading—small amounts, nothing serious. But I’d been good at it. Made a few hundred here and there before Phillip told me it was a waste of time, and I should focus on “real work.”
I hadn’t touched it since the divorce.
But now?
Now I had $50,000 sitting in my account.
And I had time.
And I needed something—anything—to keep my mind from eating itself alive.
I logged into my old trading account.
Transferred $10,000.
And got to work.
The first few hours were slow.
I watched the market open. Studied the trends. Identified stocks that were undervalued, overvalued, poised for movement.
My body was exhausted—bone-deep tired in a way that made even sitting upright feel like effort.
But my mind was alive.
I made my first trade at 10:47 AM.
Bought low on a tech stock that had dipped overnight but showed strong fundamentals.
Watched it climb.
Sold at 11:32 AM.
Profit: $487.
It wasn’t much.
But it was something.
And for the first time in days, I felt like I had control over something in my life.
I kept going.
Bought. Sold. Analyzed. Adjusted.
By the time the market closed, I’d made $3,200.
I stared at the number on my screen.
Felt something loosen in my chest.
This—this—I could do.
Day Seven
I made $15,000 in one day.
Fifteen. Thousand. Dollars.
I sat back in my chair and stared at the screen, my heart pounding, my hands shaking slightly.
I’d identified a pharmaceutical stock that was about to announce FDA approval for a new drug. The signs were there if you knew where to look—trading patterns, volume spikes, analyst upgrades buried in footnotes.
I’d gone all in.
And it paid off.
The stock jumped 18% in four hours.
I sold at the peak.
Walked away with a profit that would’ve taken me six months to make at Magnolia Gardens.
Mama knocked on my door.
“You eating today?” she called.
I blinked.
Realized I hadn’t moved in hours.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
But I didn’t move.
I just sat there staring at the number on my screen, feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Smart.
Capable.
Powerful.
Like maybe I wasn’t just a body being paid to carry someone else’s child.
Like maybe I was more than that.
Day Five (Again)
My phone buzzed.
I grabbed it immediately, my heart jumping.
Amai: How are you feeling?
I stared at the text.
It was the first time he’d reached out since the transfer.
Five days of silence.
And now this.
I typed back: Tired.
The response came almost immediately.
Amai: That’s normal.
I frowned.
Typed: How do you know?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Amai: I’ve been reading.
I stopped breathing.
I’ve been reading.
He’d been researching.
Looking up pregnancy symptoms.
Learning what to expect.
Not because he had to.
But because he cared.
I stared at the text for a long time.
Felt something crack open in my chest.
This wasn’t clinical.
This wasn’t contractual.
This was something else entirely.
I didn’t know what to say.
So, I just typed: Thank you.
The three dots appeared again.
Then disappeared.
No response.
I waited.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Twenty.
Nothing.
I set the phone down.
Told myself it didn’t matter.
Told myself he was busy.
Told myself this was just part of the arrangement—he checked in, I responded, we moved on.
But it did matter.
And I hated that it mattered.
Day Nine
The pattern continued.
He’d text. I’d respond. He’d go silent.
Sometimes for hours.
Sometimes for a whole day.
And every time my phone buzzed, my heart would jump, hoping it was him.
And every time it wasn’t, something in my chest would sink.
I started checking my phone obsessively.
Between trades.
During meals.
In the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.
Waiting for his name to appear on my screen.
Wondering what he was doing when he wasn’t texting me.
Wondering if he was texting someone else.
The thought made my stomach twist.
Does he have a woman?
The question sat in my mind like a stone.
I had no right to ask.
No right to care.
This was a contract.
A business arrangement.
What he did with his personal life was none of my business.
But it felt like my business.
It felt like it mattered.
And I hated that I couldn’t ask.
Hated that I had no claim to him.
Hated that I wanted one.
Day Twelve
My phone buzzed at 11 PM.
I grabbed it.
Amai: You sleeping?
I typed back immediately: No.
Amai: How are you feeling?
Anxious. Exhausted. Hopeful. Terrified.
I typed: Okay.
Amai: Blood test is in two days.
I know.
Amai: You ready?
I stared at the question.
Was I ready?
Ready to find out if this worked?
Ready to find out if I was carrying his child?
Ready to find out if the last two weeks of waiting and hoping and obsessing had been for something or for nothing?
I typed: I don’t know.
The three dots appeared.
Stayed there for a long time.
Then: Me neither.
And just like that, the distance between us collapsed.
Because he wasn’t just the man paying me to carry his child.
He was the man waiting with me.
Hoping with me.
Terrified with me.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.
Didn’t know how to name it.
Didn’t know how to protect myself from it.
I just knew that whatever this was—whatever we were becoming—it was already too late to stop it.
The contract had been signed.
The embryo had been transferred.
And somewhere in the space between professional and personal, we’d crossed a line neither of us could uncross.
I set my phone down.
Pressed my hand against my abdomen.
And waited.
Day 14 - The Test
I didn’t sleep.
Not really.
I’d been lying in bed since midnight, staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows shift as cars passed on the street outside.
Every time I closed my eyes, my mind started calculating—fourteen days since transfer, implantation window closed three days ago, hCG levels should be detectable by now if it worked, if it took, if my body did what it was supposed to do.
At 4:47 AM, I gave up pretending.
I threw back the covers and padded barefoot down the hallway to the bathroom, the old floorboards creaking under my weight.
The house was silent except for Mama’s soft snoring from her bedroom and the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
I closed the bathroom door as quietly as I could and flipped on the light.
The fluorescent bulb flickered twice before catching, flooding the small space with harsh white light that made me squint.