18. TRUTH
TRUTH
The room was still dark, the kind of pre-dawn darkness that felt heavy and suffocating.
I’d been dreaming, something about water rising, about drowning, about reaching for something I couldn’t quite grasp.
And when I opened my eyes, it took me a full ten seconds to remember where I was and why my chest felt like someone was sitting on it.
Day fourteen.
Two weeks since the second transfer. Two weeks of waiting and hoping and obsessing over every twinge, every cramp, every moment of nausea that might mean something or might mean nothing at all.
I’d told myself I wouldn’t test early this time. Told myself I’d wait for the blood test at Dr. Beaumont’s office like I was supposed to. Told myself I wouldn’t put myself through the torture of staring at a stick and willing a second line to appear.
But my body had other plans.
I threw off the covers and padded barefoot to the bathroom, my hands already shaking before I even turned on the light.
The fluorescent bulb buzzed to life, harsh and unforgiving, and I caught sight of myself in the mirror—hair wild, eyes wide, looking like someone who hadn’t slept properly in weeks.
Because I hadn’t.
The pregnancy tests were in the cabinet under the sink where I’d hidden them three days ago. I’d bought a three-pack at the Walgreens on Claiborne, paid cash so there wouldn’t be a record, and shoved them to the back behind the cleaning supplies where Mama wouldn’t find them.
My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped the first one.
I sat on the closed toilet lid and read the instructions even though I’d already memorized them. Remove cap. Hold stick in urine stream for five seconds. Replace cap. Wait three minutes for results. One line: not pregnant. Two lines: pregnant.
Three minutes.
One hundred and eighty seconds.
The longest three minutes of my life.
I did everything the instructions said. Held the stick steady even though my hands wanted to shake. Replaced the cap with fingers that felt numb and disconnected. Set it on the edge of the sink and forced myself to look away.
The clock on my phone said 4:52 AM.
I counted the seconds in my head because looking at the test would make time move slower. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat, in my fingertips, in the soles of my feet pressed against the cold tile floor.
At ninety seconds, I couldn’t help it. I looked.
One line.
Pink and clear and unmistakable in the little window.
My stomach dropped. Here we go again. Another failure. Another month of?—
Wait.
I leaned closer, my breath fogging the plastic.
There was something else. Faint. So faint I thought maybe I was imagining it. A shadow of a line where the second line should be.
I picked up the test with trembling hands and held it directly under the light.
Two lines.
Faint, but there. The second line was lighter than the first, barely visible, but it was there. Real. Undeniable.
I stared at it.
Blinked.
Stared again.
The line didn’t disappear.
My hands started shaking harder. I set the test down on the counter before I dropped it, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps that didn’t feel like they were bringing in enough air.
It could be wrong, I thought. It could be a false positive. It could be?—
I grabbed the second test.
This time, my hands were shaking so badly I almost missed. But I managed, and I set the second test next to the first one and forced myself to wait the full three minutes. I watched the clock on my phone tick forward—4:55, 4:56, 4:57—each second stretching into eternity.
When I finally looked, there were two lines again.
Darker this time. Clearer. No question.
I took the third test.
Same result.
Three tests. Three sets of two pink lines. Three confirmations of something I’d been too afraid to hope for.
I was pregnant.
The word felt too big for my mouth. Too real. Too impossible and too inevitable all at once.
I sank onto the bathroom floor, my back against the tub, the three tests lined up on the tile in front of me like evidence in a trial I hadn’t known I was on.
The cold seeped through my pajama pants, but I didn’t move.
Couldn’t move. Could barely breathe past the tightness in my chest that felt like joy, terror, and relief all tangled together into something I didn’t have a name for.
I was crying before I realized it. Not the desperate, broken crying from two weeks ago when the tests had been negative. This was different. Softer. Deeper. The kind of crying that came from somewhere so far down, I hadn’t known it existed.
I pressed my hands against my stomach—still flat, still the same—and tried to wrap my mind around the fact that there was something there now. A cluster of cells. A possibility. A life.
A knock on the bathroom door made me jump.
“Baby?” Mama’s voice was rough with sleep and concern. “You okay in there?”
I opened my mouth to answer but nothing came out except another sob.
The door opened. Mama stood in the doorway in her robe and bonnet, her eyes going from my face to the tests on the floor and back again.
“It worked,” I managed to say. My voice sounded strange. Broken and whole at the same time. “Mama, it worked.”
She didn’t say anything. Just came into the bathroom and sat on the floor next to me, her movements slow and careful like she was approaching something fragile. She picked up one of the tests, held it up to the light, and studied the two pink lines.
Then, she pulled me into her arms.
“Thank you, Jesus,” she whispered into my hair. Her voice was thick with tears. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I buried my face in her shoulder and let myself cry harder. Let myself feel all of it—the relief, the fear, the overwhelming weight of what this meant. Mama held me tight, one hand rubbing circles on my back the way she used to when I was little and couldn’t sleep.
“I have to call Dr. Beaumont,” I said when I could finally speak again. “I need to—I need to make sure. I need a blood test. I need?—”
“You need to call that man,” Mama interrupted gently.
I pulled back to look at her. “It’s five-thirty in the morning.”
“And?” Mama raised an eyebrow. “You think he’s sleeping? You think he hasn’t been waiting for this call?”
I looked down at my phone. The screen was still lit up, showing 5:34 AM in bright white numbers.
“He’ll want to know,” Mama said. Her voice was firm but not unkind. “Whatever else is going on between you two—and don’t tell me there’s nothing, because I got eyes—he’ll want to know about this.”
My thumb hovered over Amai’s name in my contacts. My heart was still racing, my hands still shaking, and I didn’t know if I could form coherent words if he answered.
But Mama was right.
He’d want to know.
I pressed call.
He answered on the second ring.
“Well?” His voice was rough, like he’d been awake for hours. Like he’d been waiting.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
“Two pink lines,” I whispered.
Silence.
Long enough that I thought maybe the call had dropped. Long enough that I started to panic, started to think maybe I shouldn’t have called, maybe it was too early, maybe?—
“You’re sure?” His voice was different now. Quieter. Careful.
“Three tests.” I looked down at them lined up on the bathroom floor. “All positive.”
Another silence. Then I heard him exhale—a long, shaky breath that sounded like he’d been holding it for weeks.
“Thank you.” His voice cracked on the words. Actually cracked. Like something inside him had broken open. “Truth. Thank you.”
Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks. “I didn’t do anything yet. I just—I took the tests, and they’re positive, but I don’t know if it’ll stick, I don’t know if?—”
“You did everything.” He cut me off, his voice fierce now. Certain. “You went through hell for two weeks. You let them put needles in you. You trusted me when you had no reason to. You did everything.”
I pressed my free hand against my mouth to muffle the sob that wanted to escape.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. The words came out small and broken. “Amai, I’m so scared. What if I lose it? What if my body can’t…. What if I mess this up?”
“Then we’ll deal with it together.” His voice was steady now. Solid. The kind of steady that felt like an anchor in a storm. “But right now? Right now, you’re pregnant. And that’s enough.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. Wiped my face with the back of my hand. Tried to breathe past the tightness in my chest.
“I need to see Dr. Beaumont,” I said. “I need a blood test to confirm. I need to make sure the levels are?—”
“I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“Amai, it’s not even six in the morning. The clinic doesn’t open until?—”
“I don’t care what time the clinic opens.” His voice was firm. Final. “I’m calling Dr. Beaumont right now. She’ll meet us there. One hour, Truth. Be ready.”
The line went dead.
I sat on the bathroom floor, phone still pressed to my ear, staring at the three positive tests and trying to process what had just happened.
Mama was watching me with knowing eyes.
“He’s coming to get you,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“In an hour.”
She nodded slowly. “That man doesn’t do anything halfway, does he?”
I thought about the way his voice had cracked when I told him. The way he’d said thank you, like I’d given him something precious. The way he promised we’d deal with it together if something went wrong.
“No,” I said quietly. “He doesn’t.”
Mama stood up, her knees popping, and held out her hand to help me up. “Then you better get dressed. And eat something. You’re eating for two now.”
The words hit me all over again. Eating for two. There was a baby inside me. Amai’s baby. A life we’d created through needles, hormones, hope, and sheer stubborn determination.
I looked down at my still-flat stomach and felt something shift inside my chest. Something that felt like the beginning of love. Or maybe just the beginning of understanding what love could become.