16. Sloane
Sloane
Eden’s in her element, striding through Soho like she owns every kebab shop and graffiti mural, while I trail behind with Becca and Bella, who have made it their personal mission to sample every porridge-themed breakfast within walking distance of our hotel.
I’d worried about the final days of this trip.
About the letdown after the seaside magic of Eden’s grandparents’ cottage.
About the comedown from watching our found family thrive in a honey-thick nostalgia I didn’t realize I’d missed.
But London is a whole different beast: less sentimental, more electric.
I can’t help but love it, even as my feet are plotting a mutiny against me.
Tonight, we splurged on West End tickets—Jenna’s treat, because “it’s culture, babes, you’re practically investing in your own children.” She somehow wrangled us all into matching t-shirts that say “GAY FOR THEATRE.”
We’re crammed into the narrow velvet seats, a rainbow of mismatched denim and American accents, when I notice it for the first time: Jenna and Kiera, sitting side by side, absolutely at ease.
Kiera’s got one arm slung over Jenna’s shoulder, and Jenna’s just…
leaning in. Like she belongs there. Like she’s finally, finally home.
I squeeze Eden’s hand, and she squeezes back, not looking over but grinning like she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
After the curtain call, we spill out onto Shaftesbury Avenue, high on applause and overpriced ice cream.
The city is still wide awake, neon reflections rippling in puddles.
Becca insists we walk back to the hotel “the long way,” so we parade down the Thames, arms linked, shouting lyrics from the show until Bella tells us we’re going to get arrested for “musical disorderly conduct.”
I lag behind a little, watching everyone.
Meena and Arin dart ahead, daring each other to jump from one paving stone to another without touching the cracks.
Pia and Becca are arm in arm, heads bent close.
Even Bella—who I can’t imagine ever being truly relaxed—is laughing, letting herself be tugged along by the current.
And Eden, walking right next to Jenna, is glowing in the city light, all sharp angles and soft pride.
Back at the hotel, the kids crash first, followed by a mass exodus to the rooms’ showers.
I wind up alone in the lounge, scrolling through the day’s photos, trying to decide which ones to send to Eden’s mom.
I hear footsteps, and then Jenna drops onto the couch next to me, a bag of crisps in one hand and her phone in the other.
“You looked like you were having a moment,” she says, mouth already half full.
“Just sorting photos.”
She sighs a little drunkenly. “You know, I was really scared to leave. Like, the day I flew over here? Kiera had to drag me onto the plane. I thought I’d be homesick. Or that I’d…I don’t know, lose something. But I didn’t.” She waves the bag of crisps as if to illustrate. “I just found more.”
I want to say something profound, but my mind offers up nothing but a mental slideshow of Eden at every age: as a sullen teenager, as a grungy college student and now as someone’s slightly overbearing, deeply adored wife. And soon, someone’s mother.
“Eden’s always been good at making places feel like home,” I say, which feels like both an understatement and a secret superpower.
Jenna grins. “She’s good at making people feel like they belong.”
I nod, and for once, I don’t try to deflect or minimize or joke it away. I just sit with the truth of it. The belonging. The wild, improbable fact that we all found each other and stuck, like mismatched fridge magnets that somehow tell a story.
She stands, stretches, and yawns. “I’m off to snuggle Kiera before she falls asleep and I lose my toehold in the power dynamic.”
She saunters off, leaving me with the dregs of my tea and a heart so full I can barely sit still.
I go to our room, where Eden is waiting, sprawled across the bed, reading a battered copy of The Secret Garden she found at a thrift store.
She looks up, and in that look is every bit of the life we’re building, every random, messy, perfect piece of it.
“Hey,” she says, like it’s the first time tonight.
“Hey,” I reply, crawling in beside her.
She wraps an arm around me, pulling me close. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, and it’s the simplest, truest answer I’ve got.
We fall asleep with the city humming outside, the future pressing close, not as a threat but as a promise. I dream of nothing at all, which feels like a kind of miracle.
In the morning, we pack up and trudge to the airport, our suitcases heavier with trinkets and our heads full of stories. It’s just as harrowing as the journey here. The next time we fly transatlantic, it will be without the cohort of manic friends.
We finally get through security and passport control.
The kids are running riot around the waiting area with Pia looking on with equal parts affection and exhaustion.
I still need to have a sit-down with her and get all the gossip about Bryce.
I love how she did the dramatic announcement and then told us all to fuck off when we asked for details. Typical P!
Eden is sharing an earbud with Bella and I can hear they are listening to something headache-inducing. Becca has gone to find some Doritos because she’s gone more than forty-eight hours without any. As for me, I’m just sitting back and taking it all in.
When we get home, normal life will resume.
I’ll go back to the office, and Eden will go back to painting.
I’ve still got decisions to make about work, but I’m so tired at the moment I wouldn’t trust my judgement.
No, I’m just going to sit in the chaos of my family for a little longer before reality comes calling again.
My whole body tries to dissolve on the flight home.
The baby, the seat belt, the recycled air—which I swear is a breeding ground for COVID.
Not to mention the relentless war between hydration and the certainty of peeing every seventeen minutes—I am an exhausted, doughy bag of hormones by the time we land in Denver.
We say goodbye to the girls and kids, all of us too tired to be enthusiastic. Eden makes a plan to have coffee with Bella tomorrow, and I make a vague plan to message Becca soon. All I want is to sleep.
Eden drives us home in a haze. Having slept for precisely zero of the last twenty-four hours, she looks sunburned and euphoric and alive, which I find both annoying and unfair.
I spend most of the drive watching her profile, the soft jaw and the stubborn chin, and biting back the urge to ask her, for the thousandth time, if she’s really okay.
I could see she struggled to leave Jenna and her grandparents.
I think she’s starting to understand where her mom is at nowadays.
When we finally stumble into the house, still full of unpacked suitcases and the faint scent of our absence, Eden drops the bags and stretches. “Do you mind if I go to the studio? I’m not going to sleep if I go to bed. I’m totally wired.”
“You do you, baby,” I reply with my eyelids already trying to close on me.
I consider going into the clinic because I’ve got emails coming out of my ass, but the thought of talking to another human makes my skin crawl. I don’t think I’d actually make it back to the car, to be honest.
Instead, I collapse facedown onto our bed and sleep for hours, waking up only to the sound of Eden’s Spotify playlist thumping through the floorboards. I fall unconscious again within seconds. My body completely depleted of energy.
The next morning I wake before sunrise, my head full of dreams I can’t quite hold on to.
I take a hot shower, just to feel my body again, and that’s when it happens: a sudden, sharp cramp, low and deep.
It’s not the familiar stretchy ache of a growing uterus, not the dull background throb I’ve learned to ignore.
This is something else, something wrong.
I look down and see blood on the shower floor.
Not a lot. But enough. Too much. The rest of the world narrows to a single, shrieking frequency.
I scream for Eden. It comes out wet and broken, more animal than human, but she’s there in seconds, banging into the bathroom with her hands covered in dried paint and her face twisted in a fear I’ve never seen before.
“Sloane, what—”
I just point because I can’t make words. Hell, I can barely breathe. The blood is already swirling down the drain.
Oh, God no!
I hear the shower door open, but I can’t move. Eden coaxes me out and wraps me in a towel.
“It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay,” she says over and over, as if she says it enough the universe will make it true.
My mind is swirling, and I can’t make sense of what’s happening.
We drive to the ER in silence. I’m numb, somewhere between detached and desperate, hyperaware of every shift in my abdomen, every phantom tug.
Eden doesn’t stop talking, but I barely register the words.
She’s making plans, backup plans, plans for the plans, asking if I’m dizzy, if I’m cold, if I want her to call anyone.
I don’t want to call anyone. If I say it out loud, it might be real.
The admitting nurse has the nonchalant calm of someone who’s seen every variety of disaster. She gives me a cup, a gown, a blood pressure cuff. Eden hovers, pacing the room until a tech comes to wheel me off for an ultrasound, and then she’s right there with me, gripping my hand like a lifeline.
The ultrasound tech is a woman named Monique, with soft eyes and a gentle voice. “We’ll take a look, see what’s happening,” she says gently, which is all I want and all I dread.
The screen comes on. I’ve seen enough of these to know what to expect: the grainy black-and-white, the pulsing blob. But for a second, nothing. Just static. My heart stops.
Then—“There,” Monique says, and points. A tiny flicker. The baby looks like a comma. But the comma has a heartbeat.
Eden makes a sound that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob. I start crying, for real, not the neat, cute tears but the ugly, snotty kind, and Eden buries her face in my hair, shaking.
“Everything looks okay,” Monique says. There’s the faintest shadow of concern in her voice. “Sometimes this just happens, but we’ll have you see the doctor before you go.”
Back in the exam room, I pull on my clothes, my hands shaking so hard I can’t get the buttons right. Eden helps. She’s silent now, which is somehow worse.
The doctor is brisk, efficient, and looks about twelve.
“Your labs and scan are reassuring, but I recommend pelvic rest and lots of hydration. Call if you have more pain or heavy bleeding. We can offer Progesterone shots, but I prefer waiting first.” She gives me a pamphlet called “First Trimester Concerns,” which is just the right shade of bland to make me want to set it on fire.
We walk out of the hospital into the thin white sunlight. I want to run, to curl up, to throw up. Instead, I just lean into Eden’s side and let her guide me back to the car. It’s not until we’re home that I realize I haven’t spoken in hours.
I turn to Eden, who’s watching me with eyes so wide I could fall into them. “We almost—” I start, but the sentence snaps off. I can’t say the words.
She grabs my hands and squeezes. There is a look of pure determination and strength in her eyes. “But we didn’t,” she says. “We didn’t, Sloane.”
I nod, but it doesn’t feel like a win. It feels like a countdown. Like I’ve been handed a bomb that might go off at any minute, and my job is to walk carefully and pretend it’s all fine.
The rest of the day passes in a blur. Eden cancels her coffee date with Becca and makes me soup. I don’t ask whether she’s told our friends. I’m guessing not, because I’m sure they’d be banging down our door by now.
I camp out on the couch, half-watching home improvement shows and googling every possible cause of first-trimester bleeding, even though I already know them all. The baby is the size of a blueberry. I picture it curled up and stubborn, refusing to go anywhere yet.
That night, Eden falls asleep with her head on my lap, arms wrapped around my waist. I stroke her hair and try to remember how to breathe.
I wonder if this is what parenthood is: loving something so much that you’re terrified, all the time, that the universe is going to take it away.
I don’t know how to stop being afraid. Maybe you don’t.
Maybe you just keep going, one day at a time. Maybe that’s the point.