“I’m sorry, Mary,” he says, completely sympathetic. “Ness was sick the first trimester, too.”
“Only the first trimester?” This gives me hope.
“Yeah, after that it got a lot better.”
“How many weeks is in a trimester?”
The question seems to surprise him, but he wipes the look off his face before I can snipe at him that I can’t know everything about pregnancy like he apparently does. “Twelve.”
I groan, dropping my head into my hand again. “Five more weeks of this?”
“It seemed to go fast,” he says. I think he’s lying by the tilt in his voice and general wince. “But I wasn’t the sick one.”
“I need your help to make me not feel so sick. Symptom management, if there’s nothing we can do to heal it completely.”
“Why didn’t you ask Willa? She’s the go-to for this stuff.”
“Because she would tell Vanessa.”
“Who would be the perfect person to know because she is actively pregnant!”
I should have known he would be unreasonable.
“No, because she would get all intense and call Maxim, telling him he needed to do more to protect me or she’d kill him.”
“You haven’t toldMaxim?” he asks, voice too loud.
“No. I need a few days to figure some things out.”
He blinks at me, one hand on his hips, the other holding his bagel with his usual dramatic flare. “For instance?”
“For instance, not being so sick. He’s already stressed about my safety, if he knows I’m this sick, he’ll be even more of a menace.” It’s a half lie, but it’s better than admitting I’m avoiding that there is something else growing in me that’s oddly shaped like big, unwieldy feelings.
“God forbid a man care about his wife’s health.”
I glare at him, regretting my choice to bring him in on this. I could probably have gone another few weeks with the lemon wedges and scheduling in my fifty-five minute naps every day, but if this lasts beyond the first trimester, I might actually go mad.
“Just give me four days before you tell her,” I beg. He gasps, affronted by this very reasonable demand.
“Two,” he counters.
“Three.”
He pulls that face he has, both eyebrows raised, eyes wide like he’s warning me not to push it. He remains the least threatening living thing on the planet, though, so I amalwaysinclined to push it.
I slump my shoulders. “Please, Nate,” I say, voice little, because I’m fucking queasyagain.
“What have you been able to keep down?” he asks, resigned.
I slide the bottle of green juice in front of him and he eyes it.
“Just this, basically. Saltine crackers are okay but then I eat too many and throw up. Fruits on their own make me feel very, super bad, and meat is a no go. Yesterday I ate three tortillas throughout the day and felt mostly fine but I was too fatigued to train, and then I threw up anyway.”
Nate unscrews the lid and smells the drink, not displeased with what he finds. He gets a glass down from the shelf and pours me a glass, rifles through a few drawers as if he owns the place, then sticks a metal straw in it before putting it in front of me.
“If you can eat, you should. Whatever you can keep down is good, have you been Googling things?”
I nod reluctantly. “Everyone has something to say.”
