Chapter 7 Back to the Ground I Knew #3
"Thank you."
"Do you want me to stay?"
"No. I need to do this alone."
She pulls me into a hug. "Call me when you know. Whatever it says, call me."
"I will."
I take the bag inside and go straight to the small bathroom at the end of the hall. Before I step inside, I glance through the open back door. My mother is in the garden now, and I can hear my father with the goats. The house is quiet around me.
I lock the door and open the bag.
The instructions are simple enough. I've never done this before, never had reason to, but the diagrams are clear and the steps are straightforward. I follow them carefully, then set the test on the edge of the sink and wait.
Three minutes, the instructions say. Results in three minutes.
I sit on the edge of the bathtub and count my breaths. The bathroom is small and plain, nothing like the marble and tile of the estate. There's a crack in the ceiling that someone has painted over, and a small window with frosted glass that lets in light but no view.
Three minutes.
I think about Leon, still stranded somewhere overseas, still trying to get home to a wife who's already left.
I think about the table I set last night, the candles I never lit, the dinner I made that no one ate together.
I think about the television footage, Nadia's hand on his arm, the reporter's casual assumption that he let stand.
I think about the life we were supposed to build, the children we talked about having someday, the future that seemed so certain when we stood in front of the priest two years ago and promised each other forever.
Three minutes.
I look at the test.
Two lines. Clear and unmistakable. Two lines where there should only be one if my life were still simple.
I'm pregnant.
The word echoes in my head, strange and foreign and terrifyingly real. Pregnant. Carrying Leon's child. A Rosciano heir, growing inside me while I sit in my parents' bathroom after signing the papers to leave him.
My hands are shaking. I set the test down on the sink and press my palms against my face, trying to breathe, trying to think, trying to make sense of what this means.
Leon doesn't know. My parents don't know. No one knows except me and Gia, and Gia only knows that I took a test, not what it showed.
A Rosciano heir.
The thought settles into me slowly, taking shape.
Vera has spent two years making clear I don't belong in her world.
Every correction, every careful exclusion, every pointed silence when I entered a room.
And now, with Nadia positioned at every event, with the broadcast still fresh in my memory, I understand what she's been building toward.
But this changes things. A child isn't a wife who can be quietly sidelined. A child is blood, legacy, the continuation of a name Vera guards like territory.
I don't think she would hurt me. I don't think Leon would ever let that happen, and despite everything, I still believe he loves me.
But I also know how he handles his mother.
He smooths things over. He finds the path of least resistance.
He tells himself he's protecting me while Vera rearranges the world to suit herself.
If she knew about this baby, she would have opinions. She would have plans. I can almost hear her saying a child needs to be raised properly. Her house, her rules. Would she try to make me the visitor in my own baby's life?
No one has threatened that. No one even knows. Leon would want our child; I believe that as surely as I believe he loves me. But when his mother decides she knows best, will he finally tell her no?
I can't let that happen.
This child is mine. Whatever happens with Leon, whatever the separation becomes, I have to be able to speak for myself and for this baby without someone explaining away what I say.
I pick up the test and wrap it in toilet paper, then wrap it again, tucking it deep into the paper bag Gia brought. I'll dispose of it later, somewhere private. For now, I just need it hidden.
I go back to my room and close the door. My suitcase sits open beside the bed, the clothes still folded inside. The recipe notebook is on the dresser where I left it. The window looks out over the vegetable garden, the quiet rows of tomatoes and beans, the honest work of growing things.
I sink down onto the edge of the bed and press my hand flat against my stomach. There's nothing to feel yet, no curve or movement, just the same body I've always had. But something is there. Someone is there, small and secret and entirely dependent on the choices I make next.
"It's just us right now," I whisper to the room, to myself, to the child who can't hear me yet. "But I'm going to figure this out. I promise."
My hand stays where it is, warm against my belly. Outside, I can hear my father calling to the goats, my mother's voice answering from the garden. The ordinary sounds of a life that keeps moving forward.
I'm terrified. But this baby is mine too.
I press my palm a little closer, frightened by how much I already have to lose.