79. Five Minutes
Five Minutes
Kiri
Three months into the North American tour, Natalia knows the machine almost as well as the rest of us.
She knows Ronan keeps sour candy in the outside pocket of his backpack and Rafe hides protein bars behind the tea because no one else looks there.
She knows which crew members need coffee before conversation, which venues have lighting worth arriving early for, and exactly how long she can point a camera at Liv before Liv starts threatening violence.
She slides into tour life without forcing herself into it. Helps when she can, disappears when people need to work, somehow makes every city look better online than it does through the bus window.
Elise has started asking her opinion before approving half the social content. Natalia pretends this is expected. I know better.
Tonight we’re playing Red Rocks, one of my favorite venues in the world.
I’ve been buzzing since I opened my eyes.
The sky is clear, the weather is perfect, and the morning started with sex so good I’m fairly certain I saw my next life.
I light sandalwood incense before I leave the hotel room as a thank you to the universe.
Natalia watches from the bed, wrapped in nothing but a sheet, her hair spread around her and one bare leg still exposed like she’s trying to make leaving impossible.
“Do you really believe?” she asks. “In Buddhism. Reincarnation. You never talk about it much, other than the temples your mom took you to and lighting incense sometimes.”
“I don’t know if belief has to be all or nothing,” I say. “I believe enough for it to mean something to me.”
She studies me for a moment.
“I like that answer.”
I lean over the bed and kiss her before I go, which almost turns into another hour of not going anywhere.
I return with two green-chile cheeseburgers, fries, and the chocolate shake she claimed she didn’t want but I know she really did.
The incense has burned down to ash and the room is unusually quiet.
“Nat?”
I set the food on the small table near the window. She isn’t on the bed. The bathroom door is open, but I can’t see her inside.
Nothing. My chest tightens. I step inside the bathroom and find her on the floor between the bathroom vanity and the wall, curled into herself with her knees pulled tight against her chest and her face buried in her hands.
My stomach drops so violently it feels like missing a step in the dark.
I’m beside her before I’ve registered moving.
“Kroppy.” I lower myself to the tile and reach for her. “Are you okay? What happened?”
She lifts her head. Tears streak her face and she looks so fucking frightened that every terrible possibility starts clawing through my head at once.
“What is it?”
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. She points toward the sink. I turn and see a small white stick resting beside the soap dispenser. For a moment, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. Then I do.
A pregnancy test.
Shit.
I push myself up, grab it, and stare at the little window.
Two lines. My heart stops, starts again, then tries to tear through my ribs.
Is that yes, baby? No, baby? Obviously yes, baby.
That’s why she’s folded into a ball on the bathroom floor.
Every panicked thought in my head starts shouting at once, but I force my face to remain still before I turn back to her.
“You have that implant thing, right?” I ask. “You said—”
“Yes, I have it.”
“But this says—”
“I know what it says.”
Her voice cracks.
I kneel beside her again. “Okay. Okay, come here.”
She lets me pull her into my arms. Her whole body is shaking.
“It was weird this month,” she says against my chest.
“What was weird?”
“I don’t know. My boobs hurt, and I felt kind of sick a few mornings. There’s usually at least something. Spotting or whatever. But this month there was nothing.”
“Can the implant fail?”
“Seriously?” She pulls back enough to look at me. “Everything in life, can fail.”
My gaze travels toward the ceiling.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
I’ve spent most of my life believing the worst thing I could ever become was a father.
I know how damage passes down. How anger can live in your body even when you swear you’ll never become the person who put it there.
My father is dead, and I still don’t trust that he isn’t waiting somewhere inside me.
But Natalia is trembling in my arms, so none of that matters right now.
I press my mouth to her hair and hold her.
“We don’t know anything except that test says positive,” I tell her. “Don't you still need to go to a doctor to confirm all that? Just breathe.”
“What if it’s right?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Her fingers clutch the front of my shirt. I rub my hand over her back until her breathing begins to slow. Then I let a small smile pull at my mouth.
“I mean, we might have pushed the implant beyond the limits of its engineering.”
She jerks away from me.
“Shut up, Kiri.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. That thing has been under historic pressure.”
She smacks my chest.
“All right. No more jokes.”
She settles against me again, muttering something about murdering me before the baby is born. Then she suddenly goes rigid.
“What?”
Natalia tears herself out of my arms and crawls toward the small trash can beneath the sink.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
She starts throwing tissues, cotton pads, and pieces of packaging onto the floor.
“I need the wrapper.”
“For what?”
“The expiration date.”
She digs deeper.
“Kroppy—”
“Be quiet or I'll make you regret it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She finds several torn strips of foil and starts fitting them together across the tile like pieces of a treasure map. I watch in silence. Finally, she sits back on her heels and stares at the tiny printed numbers. Her mouth falls open.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“It’s expired.”
I crawl closer. “Expired?”
“It expired almost a year ago.”
“Pregnancy tests expire?”
“Everything also expires, Misiu.”
She looks at me like I’m the dumbest and most adorable creature ever placed on this earth.
“Right,” I say.
“It’d been in my purse forever. I’ve never had a reason to use it.”
“So it could be wrong?”
“It could be.” She fumbles for her phone. “I need another test. Shit. I need a couple just to be sure.”
I take the phone from her before she can start typing with shaking hands. I hook my hands beneath her arms and lift her.
“What're you doing?”
“Putting you somewhere that isn’t a bathroom floor.”
I guide her to the bed anyway and sit her against the pillows. Then I grab a bottle of water from the minibar and twist off the cap.
“Drink.”
“You’re acting like I’m pregnant already.”
“I’m acting like you’re a crocodile who might bite my hand off if I don’t take care of you. Do you want food?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fries?”
“Maybe.”
“Shake?”
She considers it. “Yes.”
I pass her the bottle first, then the shake.
“I’ll get new tests. You stay here, eat something, and try not to convince yourself of anything until we know.”
I lean down and kiss her forehead.
“Let me do this.”
Some of the fight leaves her face.
“Fine. I’ll send you a picture of the kind I want.”
The pharmacy is ten minutes away. I spend the entire uber ride waiting for panic to take over. It should. I should be terrified. I should want to throw up every time I pass a parent pushing a stroller. My hands should be shaking while every memory of Dad reminds me why I never wanted this.
Instead, beneath the fear for Natalia, there’s something strangely calm.
At a crosswalk, a man carries a baby against his chest. The kid has one tiny fist wrapped around his shirt and a round cheek pressed beneath his chin.
Before I can stop it, I imagine a little girl staring up at me with Natalia’s enormous brown eyes.
“What the fuck?” I mutter.
Inside, the family-planning aisle has more pregnancy tests than any reasonable society should need.
Digital. Rapid. Early response. Pink dye.
Blue dye. Two packs. Three packs. Tests claiming to know six days sooner than the body carrying the kid.
I pick up the exact brand Natalia sent me.
Then another. Then one of every kind on the shelf.
I add condoms because I’m not taking any further chances with modern science if she's not pregnant after all, not after seeing her reaction.
By the time I reach the counter, I have two full baskets. The clerk looks at the tests, then at me. His eyebrows climb.
“Can’t be too certain with these things,” I say.
He scans them without answering. A woman in line behind me snorts.
On the way back to the hotel, I’m more confused than I was when I left.
A baby would change everything.
Touring. Recording. Sleep. The relationship we’re still learning how to have in public.
Natalia’s work. Her family. My family. She’s twenty-three.
She has an entire life she hasn’t gotten to live yet, and I refuse to become another man who turns her body into a cage because of what he wants.
But the thought of the baby itself doesn’t feel like a cage. That’s the problem.
It doesn’t feel like the end of my life.
It feels like another version of it.
When I return with two bags full of tests, Natalia stares at them. Then she starts laughing. A full-body, gasping laughter that bends her over on the bed. She reaches into one bag and pulls out three different boxes.
“This is the craziest thing you’ve ever done. There are twelve tests in here.”
“Seventeen.”
She looks up at me. She laughs for another full minute before standing and choosing one of the digital tests. At the bathroom door, she turns back.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
She kisses me, then closes herself inside.
Five minutes.
That’s all it takes for an entire life to build itself in my head.
Rithy holding a baby like he’s been handed unstable explosives, then refusing to give her back to anyone, insisting that Uncle Rithy is her favorite.
Rafe buying a tiny leather jacket. Ronan teaching her words we’ll spend years trying to make her forget.
Ma rocking a fat grandbaby in her arms. A child sitting on the kitchen counter while Natalia and Ma argue about dough.
Little hands the same warm shade as mine, covered in flour.
Ma singing to her in Khmer. Natalia rolling her eyes because I’ve bought the kid another instrument she’s too young to play.
Me standing in a doorway, looking at all of it.
Proud.
Not afraid. Well, maybe a little afraid, but there anyway.
What the fuck is happening to me?
The bathroom door flies open. Natalia’s smile answers before she does.
“It’s negative.”
She runs toward me and jumps. I catch her automatically, my arms locking beneath her as she wraps her legs around my waist.
“It’s negative,” she says again, laughing into my neck. “Holy shit, it’s negative.” Relief moves through me because it moves through her. I hold her tighter.
“That’s good.”
“So good.”
“Yeah. Great.”
She kisses my cheek, my mouth, anywhere she can reach. And while I’m happy because she’s happy, I feel that imagined world disappear.
Ma’s smile.
Rithy holding the baby.
Those big brown eyes looking up at me.
Smoke after a flame.
I set Natalia gently on her feet.
“I’m taking every test in those bags for the rest of the day,” she says. “Then I’m calling my doctor and getting this implant checked.”
“Good idea.
“And you’re wearing condoms until we know it’s working.”
“Absolutely. Already bought some earlier.”
She studies me as I start unpacking lunch. The fries are cold now, but that's never stopped her before.
“Kiri.”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
I do. Her brows pull together.
“Why do you look disappointed that I’m not pregnant?”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
I shrug and reach for the burger. She takes it from my hand, puts it on the table, then grabs my wrist and drags me toward the bed. I sit against the headboard. She climbs in beside me and curls against my chest, one arm across my stomach. For a while, I run my fingers through her hair.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’d never thought about it as a real thing before.”
“A baby?”
“A baby with you.”
She goes still. I stare at the ceiling above us for a moment, then lower my gaze back to her.
“In those five minutes, it didn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen.”
Her fingers move slowly against my shirt. Then her mouth curves.
“I guess it would fit you anyway. You’re already kind of a daddy.”
I give her a long look. My brows lift as she traces one finger lazily over my chest. She knows exactly what she just did, that innocent expression only makes it worse.
“I kind of liked hearing you say that.” I narrow my eyes at her. “Not sure what that says about me.”
Her smile turns wicked before she leans in and kisses me, slow enough that I feel it everywhere. When she pulls back, I shake my head.
“You enjoy the practicing-for-a-baby part way too fucking much.”
“That part is extremely important.” Natalia looks back at me, and the teasing slips from her face, her expression turning serious. "Just because we aren't doing this right now doesn’t mean it’s never.”
My hand stills in her hair. She looks nervous saying it, but she doesn’t look trapped.
“I have things I want to do first,” she says. “Things I want us to do. I want more time where it’s just us and I can go somewhere without packing diapers or wondering whether a baby is about to ruin couture. But someday?”
“But someday?” Her expression softens at the strange hope creeping into my voice, like she hears it before I even understand what it means.
“I like the idea. Someday.”
“Ma would lose her mind over a grandbaby,” I say. “Can you imagine how happy she’d be?”
Natalia nods, tucking herself back against my chest.
“Mama would lose her mind for the first ten minutes because it’s me, her baby, ruining my life. Then she’d start planning outfits for the christening.”
“Ma would argue about the christening.”
“Mama would win.”
“You haven’t seen Ma when she wants something.”
“I’ve watched them fight over dumplings. There would be blood.”
I laugh quietly, feeling each breath move through the space between us.
“I want a baby as fat as you were in those pictures.” She pinches my side before I can object. “You had wrists like dinner rolls.”
“I was a healthy baby.”
“You were huge.” She smiles. “I want an adorable squishy one I can bite.”
I laugh and kiss the tip of her nose.
“Of course you do.”
I keep running my hand through her hair, imagining something I spent years refusing to let exist. A future that doesn’t end with me becoming my dad, and a home where no one fears the door opening. A child who knows my hands only as something that holds, carries, fixes, catches.
“So,” I say after a while. “If we did decide to, in the future—I mean, only if you wanted, maybe. I was just—”
Natalia lifts her head.
“If we had a boy someday…” My throat tightens, but I don’t look away.
“Maybe we could name him Piotr.”