4. Nora
NORA
Seven weeks after Daniel leaves, I pee on a stick in the downstairs bathroom because apparently I have decided to ruin my own Tuesday before breakfast.
Not the upstairs bathroom. That one still feels like him.
His razor is gone. His toothbrush is gone. His expensive face wash is gone, because Daniel can abandon a marriage but not a skincare routine. Still, the room remembers him. The empty space on his side of the sink. The hook where his robe used to hang.
So I use the downstairs powder room, the one with the tiny sink and the bad light and the fancy soap Daniel's mother gave us three Christmases ago. It smells like rosemary and judgment.
I set the test on the back of the toilet. Then I wash my hands. Then I don't look.
Mature.
I stand there in my sleep shirt and socks, staring at the wallpaper while my heart starts doing something stupid in my chest. The wallpaper has little blue vines on it.
I chose it two years ago after Daniel said the powder room felt "unfinished," which was his polite way of saying the previous wallpaper looked like a haunted dollhouse.
He was right. He usually is, which is its own problem.
The timer on my phone has two minutes and forty-six seconds left.
I could leave. That's a real thought I have.
I could walk out of the bathroom, leave the test on the toilet, make coffee, answer the florist about Saturday's cake, and pretend this isn't happening until the test gives up and becomes someone else's problem.
Unfortunately, pregnancy tests don't respect denial. Neither do bodies.
My period is twelve days late. Twelve.
I've been telling myself it's stress. And travel sadness. And not enough food. And too much coffee. And the fact that I've been sleeping badly since Daniel left, which is a cute way of saying I sleep like a person being hunted by her own thoughts.
But this morning I opened the fridge, smelled the leftover chicken stock, and nearly died. Not literally. Emotionally, yes.
Then I cried because the grocery delivery substituted regular lemons for Meyer lemons. That one might be pregnancy. It might also be marriage. Hard to tell at this point.
The timer goes off. I jump like someone shot at me. I turn it off. Then I look.
Two pink lines. One dark. One lighter, but there.
There.
My body goes cold first. That surprises me.
I thought if this ever happened, I would cry or laugh or drop to the floor in a movie way. Instead, all the blood drains out of my hands. My knees feel loose. The little bathroom gets too bright and too small and too full of rosemary soap and impossible news.
"No," I say.
Then, immediately, because I am ridiculous and apparently rude to miracles, "Sorry."
The house is quiet. So quiet it starts to feel mean.
There should be another person here for this. There should be someone on the other side of the door saying, "Are you okay?" There should be Daniel's footsteps in the hall, too fast because he heard something in my voice. There should be his hand at the small of my back.
Nobody comes. Just me, the tiny sink, and two pink lines.
I take another test. Then another.
Because maybe the first one is wrong. Maybe the second one is wrong. Maybe I bought an entire box of lying sticks from a pharmacy that also sells seasonal candles and candy shaped like fruit.
The second test says pregnant. The third test says pregnant faster, like it's annoyed with me.
I line all three of them on the sink. Then I sit on the floor because standing feels ambitious.
I google "positive pregnancy test how far along" and immediately regret being born.
Diagrams. Lists. Warnings about foods I have definitely eaten in the last month. Women in forums asking calm questions and women asking panicked ones and women saying things like my husband cried when I told him.
I close the browser. Then I open it again. Then I close it.
Three positive tests. Three.
I put one hand over my stomach. There is nothing to feel.
I know that. I'm not one of those women in movies who touches her stomach five minutes after conception and starts glowing in loose linen.
But my hand goes there anyway. Low, barely touching. Like something might hear me.
The ache that has lived in that spot for weeks changes shape in my mind all at once. Not grief. Not just grief.
A baby. Daniel's baby. Our baby.
The word our almost takes me out. Because I want this. That is the horrible, beautiful, inconvenient truth.
I want this so much my bones hurt.
I wanted it before we started trying. I wanted it when we were timing sex like an unpleasant calendar appointment.
I wanted it when Daniel missed the right week because Singapore had meetings and Munich had investors and Chicago had some man with a tie and an opinion.
I wanted it after I told myself I was done wanting it.
And now it's here.
I need Daniel. The thought comes before pride can stop it. I hate that too.
Not because I shouldn't need my husband. A wife is allowed to need her husband. That is not weakness. That is the point, or it used to be.
I hate it because he is across the world becoming richer while I am sitting on cold tile with three positive tests and no one to hand one to.
I reach for my phone. My hands shake badly enough that Face ID gives up on me twice.
When it opens, Daniel's last text sits near the top.
Daniel: Landing in Singapore. Call you once I'm settled.
That was seven weeks ago.
He has called since then. He sends messages. He calls late. He asks about the house. He says he misses our bed, which is not the same as saying he misses me, but I try not to be petty about grammar when time zones are involved.
We talk. Sort of. Mostly he talks about the deal and I say I'm fine.
But he is not here. That is the whole thing.
I type:
Me: Can you call me when you wake up? It's important.
I stare at the words. Too much? Not enough?
The word important looks dramatic. It also looks accurate.
I add:
Me: Nothing bad. I just need to talk to you.
That is a lie.
Not the bad part, maybe.
I don't know if this is bad. It doesn't feel bad. It feels terrifying and holy and too big for my body.
I send it. Then I immediately want to unsend it.
The message goes through. Delivered.
I wait for the little read receipt. Nothing.
Right.
Singapore is thirteen hours ahead. It's night there. Or early. Or some time that belongs to him and not me.
It's six-thirty in the morning here.
He might be at dinner. He might be in a meeting. He might be asleep because billion-dollar deals apparently require men to become vampires with nicer shoes.
I put the phone facedown on the counter because if I look at it, I will become unbearable.
This is fine. He'll call. He'll see it, and he'll call, and I will tell him.
Maybe he will be shocked. Maybe he'll go quiet first. Daniel often goes quiet when something hits him hard. Other people read it as coldness. I know better. Sometimes.
Then he'll say my name in that low voice. Then he'll say, "I'm coming home."
I clean up the tests because apparently I am going to be the kind of pregnant woman who sanitizes evidence. I put them in the drawer beside the extra hand towels.
Then I make coffee and don't drink it. That feels like my first maternal act. Noble. Sad.
Honey & Rye isn't a shop anymore, but the name still exists because I couldn't let it die completely.
I take custom orders out of a commercial kitchen across the river in Jersey City, close enough to my parents that my mother can pretend she is not checking on me.
Weddings. Office events. Birthday cakes for people who have very serious opinions about buttercream.
It isn't what it was, but it's mine enough to keep me from disappearing completely.
Most days.
Today I have three positive tests in a drawer and a husband who has not called.
At nine, I text again.
Me: Are you awake?
Delivered. Nothing.
I hate myself for watching. I watch anyway.
By ten, I decide he is in a meeting and I am fine.
By eleven, I decide he has seen it and can't call yet and I am still fine, but with worse posture.
By noon, I eat four crackers and half a banana because the internet says nausea can get worse if you don't eat, and the internet is bossy but sometimes correct.
By one, my phone buzzes.
I grab it so fast I almost knock over my water.
Not Daniel. Welling Global posted a new carousel.
I don't know why I still get the alerts. That's not true. I know exactly why.
Because I turned them on the first week Daniel was gone.
Because Welling posts more photos of my husband than my husband sends me.
That's a sentence so pathetic I hope nobody ever finds it written down.
I shouldn't open the post. I tap the picture.
The first photo is a skyline. Singapore at night. Glass towers. Water. Lights bright enough to make money look romantic.
I swipe.
Second photo: Daniel at a conference table, sleeves rolled up, expression focused. Marcus Chen is beside him. Davis is across from him. Charlotte stands behind Daniel's chair with a folder in her hand.
Behind his chair. Not beside. Behind. Like she belongs there.
I swipe again.
Third photo: Daniel and Charlotte laughing. Not polite laughing. Real laughing.
His head is turned toward her. Her hand is on his arm. His hand is at her back, not low, not scandalous, not anything anyone could point to and say there, that's wrong.
But it's there. His hand. Her back. Their faces close enough that the rest of the room blurs behind them.
I stop breathing. Then I breathe too much.
Daniel looks tired. Happy tired. The kind of tired he used to look after a long day at the bakery when he would come by near closing and steal broken cookies off the cooling rack.
I haven't seen that face in months. Charlotte has it.
Maybe she doesn't. Maybe this is a fraction of a second. Maybe a photographer caught the only warm moment in a twelve-hour workday.
Maybe.
I swipe again.
Fourth photo: a rooftop dinner. Daniel sits between Charlotte and Marcus. Charlotte leans toward him, her smile easy, her shoulder almost touching his. Daniel is looking down at something on her phone.
Of course he is. Her phone. Not mine.
I scroll to the comments. Because I have learned nothing.
Someone writes: Power team.
Someone else writes: Welling Asia is in good hands.
Then: Daniel and Charlotte always look so sharp together.
Sharp. What a useless word.
I want to throw my phone.
I don't, because it's expensive and I'm not currently in a billionaire mood.
Instead I put it facedown on the island and press both hands to my eyes.
This is when I should call him. Not text. Call.
I pick up the phone. I call. It rings four times. Then voicemail.
Daniel's voice comes through, calm and close and recorded before Singapore, before the fight, before he left me in the hallway with his suitcase and my stupid hopeful heart.
"This is Daniel. Leave a message."
I hang up. I can't leave this on voicemail.
I can't tell him he's going to be a father in a recording he might play between meetings, with Charlotte beside him holding a folder and laughing like she knows where he keeps the good parts of himself.
I can't. So I don't.
At four, I check the Welling post again. Terrible idea. Worse the second time.
There is a new comment from someone named Elise Welling.
Daniel and Charlotte making Singapore look effortless.
Elise is Daniel's aunt. She owns pearls the way other people own socks and once told me that Honey & Rye smelled "quaint," which rich people use when they want to say poor but have manners in public.
Making Singapore look effortless.
I press my palm against my stomach.
"Your family is dramatic," I whisper down at nothing.
Then I cry. Not cute crying. I cry with my mouth open and my nose running and my hand on my stomach like I can somehow shield the baby from my own feelings.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm happy. I am. I'm so happy you're here."
That makes me cry harder. Because I am.
Under everything, under the fear and the humiliation, under the anger, under the stupid photo of Charlotte's hand on my husband's arm, I am happy.
There is a baby. My baby. Ours, if Daniel remembers there is an us.
At three, my mother calls.
I let it go to voicemail because if I answer, she will hear one syllable and drive over with soup and questions and possibly a priest. We are not even Catholic. That would not stop her.
So I get up and bake.
This isn't as noble as it sounds. It's a trauma response with butter.
I drive to the commercial kitchen and make lemon shortbread for an order that isn't due until Friday. I weigh flour. I zest lemons. I press dough into neat rectangles because neat rectangles are easier than feelings.
For two hours, I don't check my phone.
That is a lie. I check it seventeen times.
No Daniel.
At six, I sit on a metal stool in the kitchen with the oven heat on my face and the phone in my lap. My back aches. My breasts hurt. The smell of butter makes me hungry and sick at the same time.
I think, very calmly, I might have to do this by myself.
The thought should scare me. It does. But not as much as the next one.
Maybe I already am.