Chapter 25
GEORGIA
It’s been one month since I left Jumayah, and I still wake up expecting to hear the desert wind against canvas, the distant sounds of the excavation team preparing for the day’s work.
Instead, I hear the ocean. The familiar crash of waves against the Maine shore.
The sound that’s supposed to mean home. It’s strange, though, how quickly another place, another land came to feel like my home.
This cottage now just feels like a spot I’m staying in, a hotel I can’t quite get comfortable at.
“Mama! Mama up!”
And there’s Ella, my alarm clock, standing in her crib with her hair sticking up in every direction.
“Good morning, baby girl.” I lift her out, breathing in her sleep-warm smell. “Let’s get you changed and make some breakfast.”
The cottage is chilly this morning. Autumn in Maine means layers and hot tea and the heat clicking on in the early hours. I get Ella dressed in warm clothes and carry her to the kitchen.
I’ve started taking consulting work again. Three clients this week, all remote. Back to the kind of work I can do from my couch in sweatpants while Ella is either at Lois’s or taking a nap. It’s fine. It pays the bills. It uses my expertise.
It’s also mind-numbingly boring compared to being in the field.
I push that thought away and focus on breakfast. Setting Ella in her high chair, I give her some dry cereal to keep her occupied while I cook. As the oatmeal bubbles on the stove, I find myself reaching for my phone. It’s become a routine. A compulsion. Every morning while I cook, I check.
I pull up the browser and type what I’ve typed every day for the past month: “Jumayah excavation lovers’ tomb.”
Nothing new.
“Calvin Aarons archaeological discovery.”
Still nothing.
“Ancient burial chamber Jumayah announcement.”
The same results as yesterday. And the day before. And every day since I got home.
No announcements. No press releases. No headlines about the discovery Calvin was so desperate to share with the world.
Why? It doesn’t make sense. He was adamant about immediate publicity. About proving his grandmother’s stories were real. About showing his father he was right. So, why, weeks after we found the tomb, is there still complete silence?
Maybe he did hire another archaeologist and they’re still working on preliminary documentation. Maybe he realized the announcement would be more impactful with complete findings.
The lid on the saucepan starts to bang violently, and I realize the oatmeal is threatening to boil over.
“Mama got distracted,” I mutter, more to myself than Ella. “I should be paying attention while I’m cooking, not being on my phone.”
I turn down the heat and put my phone away. It doesn’t matter why Calvin hasn’t made his announcements. I’m not part of that project anymore. What he does or doesn’t do is none of my business.
“Here we go,” I say in a sing-song voice. “Breakfast is served.”
I start spooning oatmeal into Ella’s plastic bowl, and suddenly a wave of nausea hits. It comes fast and overwhelming, making my mouth water in that awful pre-vomit way. I set the pot down carefully, my hands shaking.
“Mama will be right back,” I tell Ella.
She yells after me, angry that she’s secured in her high chair, but I have something more immediate to take care of. In the bathroom, I make it to the toilet just in time to vomit into the bowl.
I stay on the floor next to it, waves of nausea still rolling through me as I will them to pass.
This has been happening all week. Nausea that comes out of nowhere. It’s in the mornings, in the afternoons, sometimes at night. The stress after everything that happened with Calvin is still wreaking havoc on my system.
“Georgia?”
It’s Lois’s voice from the front door. She has a key for emergencies and for mornings like this when she’s coming to watch Ella.
“In here,” I manage weakly.
She appears in the bathroom doorway, taking in the scene with one glance. “Oh, honey. Still feeling rough?”
“Uh-huh.” I flush the toilet and rinse my mouth at the sink. “I thought it was just stress, but…”
“Have you eaten anything this morning?”
“Not yet. I was making oatmeal when…” I gesture vaguely at the toilet.
“Come on. Let’s get some food in you. That’ll help.”
She guides me back to the kitchen where Ella has stopped shouting and is now making a mess with her dry cereal. Lois serves us both oatmeal then pulls eggs from my fridge.
“Protein helps with nausea,” she says, cracking eggs into a pan. “Trust me on this.”
I eat the oatmeal slowly, testing my stomach. It stays down. When Lois sets scrambled eggs in front of me, I’m skeptical, but I eat those too. And miraculously, I start to feel better. The nausea recedes. My stomach settles.
“See?” Lois says with satisfaction. “Food helps.”
But her words trigger something in my memory. Protein helps with nausea. That’s what I learned when I was pregnant with Ella. The morning sickness was awful for weeks, but eating protein—eggs, cheese, nuts—always made it at least a little better.
Morning sickness.
My hand freezes halfway to my mouth, the fork full of eggs suspended in air. When was my last period? I try to remember. Before we left for Jumayah? No, I had one there. I remember dealing with it in the desert, the inconvenience of it all. That was… when?
Wait…
My period should have come last week. Maybe the week before.
And it didn’t.
The fork clatters onto my plate.
“Georgia?” Lois’s voice sounds distant. “What’s wrong?”
“I…” My hand goes to my stomach. “My period. It’s late. I didn’t realize until just now. I’ve been so distracted…”
Lois sits down slowly across from me. “How late?”
“A week. Maybe more. I should have gotten it…” I count backward frantically. “It’s been almost a month.”
We stare at each other.
“Oh, Georgia,” she breathes.
My mind is spinning. Pregnant. I might be pregnant. With Calvin’s baby.
We were careful. Mostly. Except that first night, we weren’t. And then a few other times when we were too caught up to think about consequences.
Apparently, consequences don’t care if you’re thinking about them or not.
“I have tests,” I say suddenly. “Pregnancy tests. From two years ago, I think? When I moved here, I just packed everything from my medicine cabinet without going through it. I never throw anything away…”
I’m already moving, leaving Ella with Lois, heading to the bathroom. To the cabinet under the sink where I shoved all the moving boxes I never properly unpacked.
It takes me three tries to find the right box—“medicine cabinet miscellaneous.” I dig through old prescriptions, expired sunscreen, half-used bottles of lotion.
And there, at the bottom, I find a box of pregnancy tests with two tests inside.
Hands shaking, I check the expiration date. They’re good for another year.
“Do you want me to…?” Lois has appeared in the doorway, Ella on her hip.
“Stay. Please. I can’t.” My voice breaks. “I can’t do this alone.”
“You’re not alone, honey. We’re right here.”
“Okay. I’ll be right out.”
I lock myself in the bathroom and take both tests. Two minutes each. The instructions are burned into my memory from last time, when I suspected I might be pregnant with Ella.
Once I’ve peed on them and washed my hands, I set them on the counter and open the door, letting Lois see me but keeping Ella at a distance. She doesn’t need to see me like this, all shaking, terrified, on the verge of tears.
As we wait, Lois keeps up a steady stream of cheerful chatter with Ella, pointing out things through the window, asking Ella to get her things. But her eyes keep flicking to me.
The two minutes feel like two hours, and when enough time has passed, I can’t look quick enough.
The tests are positive. Both of them.
The floor feels unsteady beneath me, and I reach out to grip the doorframe, trying to breathe. The whole room is shifting, and I don’t know which way is up and which way is down.
“Georgia?” Lois sets Ella down with her toys and comes to me. “What do they say?”
“Positive. Both of them.” The words come out flat. Shock, probably. “I’m pregnant.”
Lois pulls me into a hug, and I let her, but I feel numb. Disconnected.
“Come sit,” Lois guides me to the couch. “Just breathe for a minute.”
“I can’t do this,” I hear myself say. “I can’t be a single mother to two kids, Lois. I barely manage with Ella. How am I supposed to—”
“You’ll do it the same way you’ve done everything else,” Lois says firmly. “One day at a time. With help from people who love you.”
“But it’s not just about managing. It’s about…” I press my hands to my face. “It’s about giving them the life they deserve. Two kids, no father, just me struggling to work and parent and keep everything together. That’s not fair to them.”
“Georgia—”
“And I refuse to go back to Calvin just because of a baby.” The words burst out. “I won’t be with someone out of obligation. I won’t trap him or trap myself in a relationship. I’ve seen what that looks like, and it’s miserable for everyone involved.”
“Who said anything about going back to him?”
I take a deep breath. “No one,” I admit.
But there is a part of me that hasn’t let him go, that keeps trying to convince me to text him.
She takes my hand. “You’re pregnant. And you might not want to hear this, but Calvin deserves to know. Not because you owe him a relationship, but because it’s his child too. He should have the chance to decide what role he wants to play.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“And if he doesn’t want to be involved, then you raise this baby the way you’re raising Ella. With love and strength. And you’ll be fine, because you’re Georgia Halford and you’ve never needed anyone to complete you.”
I look at Ella, playing with her blocks, completely oblivious to how her world is about to change. A little sister or brother. Another sibling she’ll have to share me with.
And I think about Calvin. The way he was with Ella by the end. Patient, playful, genuinely caring. Could he be that way with this baby? Could he step up, learn, become the father this child deserves? Or would he let me down like everyone else has?
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whisper. “Tell him. Face him. Risk everything all over again.”
“You don’t have to decide today. You have time.”
But even as she says it, I know that’s not true. Every day I wait is another day of lying by omission. Another day of keeping a secret that will only get harder to share. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to tell him, whether I’m ready or not.
I rest my hand on my stomach, where a tiny cluster of cells is growing into a person. Half me, half the man I fell in love with in the desert. The man who learned how to care for my daughter but couldn’t learn how to choose me.
“What am I going to do?” I ask no one in particular.
Ella toddles over and climbs into my lap, sensing something is wrong. “Mama sad?”
“No, baby. Mama’s just… surprised. But it’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
I hold her close and hope I’m telling the truth.