Chapter Eighteen
In her entire life, Rose had never felt more like a cliché.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, she thought, clutching the toilet like it had the power to get her out of the mess she was in.
The overheads burned bright, and Rose felt the start of a migraine.
She called Poppy before she could do something stupid, like call Landon.
“What’s wrong?” Poppy’s clear, high voice cut straight through her spiral. She was grateful for it, though she’d been expecting her chirpy voicemail.
“Aren’t you at work?”
Rose could almost see Poppy waving her hand through the air to accompany the scoff she blew into the phone. “Your calls always come through. Aren’t you at work?”
“Yes,” Rose whispered. And though she was alone in the women’s bathroom, at any second, she might not be.
“So, what’s wrong?”
Rose pressed her fingers between her eyes to see if she could stanch the incredible pressure building. “I feel sick.”
“Did you really call me on a Tuesday to ask for permission to go home sick from work? If that’s true, then yikes. But I know that’s not true, so tell me.”
Not saying it out loud did not make it any less true, Rose reminded herself. “I’m nauseous.”
“And?”
“And I was nauseous yesterday. And the day before that.” Rose dropped her head back to the toilet, worried, again, that she was about to be sick.
“Like, you’re puking?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to make me tell you, or do you want to just say the damn thing.” Poppy’s words were harsh, but the tone was as comforting as she knew how to be.
“Fuck,” Rose said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Go take a test,” Poppy said. “This could still be nothing.”
Whatever was wrong with her, Rose was sure it was not nothing. “I can’t believe this. I’m so careful. So, so careful, sometimes I worry I’m not even fun in bed.”
Poppy laughed. “You’re definitely still fun in bed.”
“I feel dizzy,” Rose said, lying down fully on the bathroom floor. She fanned her face with her hands, aware it only made her look like more of a cliché.
“Listen,” Poppy said, “you need information. Go buy a test. Then go buy a bottle of red wine. The really good stuff, none of that ten-dollar-a-bottle swill. You can’t make decisions based on vibes and a little bit of puke.”
Rose held the phone as close to her face as it would go, then whispered, “It’s not supposed to happen like this.”
“Like what? You’re breathing into the phone like something out of a horror movie.”
Rose bit her lip so hard she drew blood. “Like this,” she said, well aware Poppy couldn’t see her gesturing at the bathroom. “I’m at a dead-end job with literally no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
“I really hate to break this to you, but you’re an associate director at a public benefit corporation.
Not only do you actually make money, but you also actually help underserved children get into college.
Don’t go broadcasting that you’re at a dead end, that is not going to go well for you in public. ”
“But I didn’t mean to end up here.” She hadn’t.
She’d needed a break, of course, once she’d really and truly set acting aside and mourned the life she thought she’d have.
Then she’d been so caught up with the wedding, and the planning.
They’d used Landon’s savings and the small inheritance her father had left her to put a down payment on a house, just outside of Boston, and that had distracted her for a time—an old farmhouse that needed so much love and care it felt like a child in its own right.
In all those years, she hadn’t given herself even a moment to question whether the first job she’d fallen into when she was at both her lowest and highest was the job.
And now even Rose could not deny that it was no longer just a job: It was a career. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Well, you don’t have to keep it.” Poppy said it so flippantly, like they were discussing an item on the brunch menu she wasn’t sure she would like. But she was right.
“Yeah,” Rose said. “Yeah. You’re right. I have options.”
“Options you don’t even need to think about until you take a damn test,” Poppy said, her patience clearly growing thin.
“Look, I love you. I more than tolerate—even like—that giraffe on stilts you married. If you’re pregnant and you want to keep it, I will love that baby so hard it will make your head spin.
But you don’t have to keep it. And if you don’t want to keep it, I’ll fly out to help.
Whatever you need, Rose. For life. That was the deal. ”
Rose was caught off guard by Poppy’s sincerity. Her throat closed up and her chest tightened, a welcome, albeit temporary, relief from the nausea. “I don’t remember making any deals with you.”
“The day you got married, remember?” Poppy said.
“I know you and Landon technically exchanged vows, but I had to stand up there next to you in the worst updo of my entire life wearing shoes that gave me blisters I am still recovering from. That ‘for better or worse’ stuff? That was about me and you.”
Rose took a long breath in through her nose. This was why, no matter what Landon had become for her, Poppy could never be replaced. And though she rarely tried to spare Rose’s feelings, it only made the moments she displayed genuine kindness and affection hit that much harder.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll take the test. I’ll buy the wine.”
“And then you’ll call me.”
“Then I’ll call you.” She put a hand on her chest. “Hey,” she said. “You’re the best friend in the cosmos.”
“Ditto.”
Rose sat in the kitchen on one of the tall island chairs, arms pressed against the cool white marble counter.
She hadn’t wanted white marble, or white cabinets for that matter.
She’d thought they would stain and show all the dirt.
It was one of many decor battles Landon had won easily—the benefits of having an interior designer for a mother, she supposed.
But Rose was right about one thing: The cabinets did show all the dirt.
She flipped the First Response box over and over in her hands and stared at the grime that had collected throughout the week: pasta sauce and coffee stains and green curry.
It made her angry that she didn’t have the energy to do anything about it.
The house was big enough for a baby; that much was obvious.
Landon had wanted a three bedroom despite Rose’s protestation that they wouldn’t need that much extra space.
“An office and a guest room,” he’d said smoothly.
“We need space if we want friends to visit.” The ‘and what if’ was implied.
Rose had told him years ago that she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to be a mother, and while her surety wavered at times, she’d made sure Landon was okay with the idea of a childless life before they’d exchanged rings.
Sometimes, in dark moments, she wondered whether Landon had agreed because he knew he could wear her down the same way he’d chosen the color of the cabinets.
A lock turned in the front door, and Rose’s heart leaped into her chest. “Home!” Landon called out, as he always did, cheerfully stating the obvious to ensure she did not think an intruder had breached their security system.
“In here!” Rose called back, her voice leading him to the kitchen.
Her heart kept time with the clip of his shoes on the refinished hardwood floors. On any other day, she would have scolded him for not taking them off at the front door. Then he was there, behind her, wrapping her up in his long arms and planting a kiss on her head.
“You’re home early,” he said.
Rose had planned to use words, but now that the moment was here, it was all she could do to hold up the box and let Landon come to his own conclusion.
“Oh,” he said, taking it from her. “Oh, wow. You think—”
“I didn’t want to take it alone.”
“No, no, of course,” he said. There was something in his voice he was trying very hard to disguise. Rose suspected it was excitement, but she appreciated the work he was doing not to make the moment about him.
She placed her hands over her eyes, now cool from the marble that had soaked up the chill of the old house. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
“It’s okay,” he said, choosing the two words that finally sent Rose up and over the edge she’d been standing on all day.
“It’s not okay,” she said. “This could not be any further from okay.”
“Sorry,” he said quickly, “I shouldn’t have—”
“I never wanted this.”
“I know—”
“And I was so fucking careful.”
“We both were—”
“I just—”
“Hey, hey,” he said, pulling her in close and tucking her head right next to his heart, still beating remarkably calmly given the situation. “If it would help to get angry at me, you can. I can take it. But I promise you that we’re in this together.”
Rose was angry at him, she realized. She wanted someone to blame so desperately, and she couldn’t conjure the face of the nurse practitioner who’d inserted her IUD all those years ago.
Landon seemed the safest bet. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
The anger wedged right up against a deep sadness that she would do anything not to activate.
“We’re not going to make decisions without information.” There was the practical man she’d married. For every problem she invented, he had a ten-point plan to solve it—but it always began with an audit. “Do you want me to come in there with you?”
That was an easy one. “Yes.” She didn’t want to be alone a moment longer than she could help it.
“Come on, then.” He held out his hand, and she grabbed it, letting him do most of the work of holding her up. “Upstairs.”