Good morning, Aricia –
Sorry to disappear on you. My brother called. Take the test, process, and we’ll talk later. I hope you have a wonderful day today, beautiful. Last night was perfect. Again, I’m sorry but I had to leave. Business. – PC
What business could have required Peter getting only a couple hours of sleep? I take the pregnancy test off his nightstand and scurry to the bathroom like an irresponsible college student after a one night stand and not a grown ass woman.
1 hour later
My House
I let Peter into my head and between my legs again. I’m acting like a twenty-one year old and not a woman who spent most of her adult life in a committed relationship. My ass throbs from what happened between us in that hotel room. Peter’s palm felt so good and I could just turn my brain off after being a boss who handles literally everything all damn day. I know that I canavoid him, but I can’t avoid the nagging thoughts he put in my head.
Should I take another test? How can I be sure until I take another test?
This time, I buckle and text Rana.
Me: I took a pregnancy test.
Rana: WHAT. HAPPENED.
Rana: I’M COMING OVER.
Me: I can just text you
Rana: DO NOT. I AM BRINGING WINE.
I didn’t expect her to respond to my request that quickly, but I appreciate Rana’s commitment to supporting me through this midlife crisis that I never signed up for. I won’t be having the wine – pregnant nor not.
But…
Ican’tbe pregnant. As I sit there on my Pottery Barn couch with my knees pulled up to my chest, a strange thought roots at the back of my mind.
What if the reason we didn’t have a kid all those yearswasn’tme? We stopped discussing kids long ago and I never put kids before my career, so I allowed the years to pass by and never thought too deeply about whether I would have children or not. Passively over the years, Kennard convinced me that I must have had a fertility issue.
We were never actively trying, so I never got it checked out but… What ifhehad a fertility issue? What if everything down there was working just fine for me all along and my body was just waiting for active swimmers capable of crossing that finish line.
I can’t blame my next wave of nausea on morning sickness this time. I wonder if I avoided thinking about it because it was just anotherthingfrom my past that I didn’t want to face. What about now? What if I’m pregnant? How the hell will I face that?
Rana texts me constant updates about her journey to the closest CVS pharmacy to pick up a pregnancy test. She gets me the most expensive one, which I don’t think is necessary, but I appreciate her commitment to the best results. She turns her location on as she drives to my new place, so I can watch Rana’s little icon zoom through traffic until she’s in my driveway.
She lets herself in with her fingerprint and screams, “ARICIA! I AM LOSING MY MIND.”
I guess it’s asking too much to expect her not to make a big deal out of this.
“The worst part about it is I can’t even have a glass of wine to take the edge off until I know.”
“How long have you suspected? Is Kennard the father?” Rana’s wide brown eyes glimmer with curiosity and fear. I feel suddenly grim as I’m hit with the realization of just how real this situation with Peter has become.
Luckily, there isn’t a chance that Kennard is the father at this point. I had my suspicions about his little mistress Inessa for a long time and made excuses on the rare occasions he tried to sleep with me. The only man I’ve been with since my husband died is Peter Corsini. The mobster who just hired my firm to defend his cousin’s manslaughter case.
This doesn’t just seem like a conflict of interest – it’s dangerous. But anyone who has to deal with grief and a metricfuckton of bullshit at once knows that you can be forgetful and irresponsible, and so unlike yourself. I feel like I just gaslit myself for years into thinking of Aricia Plant as a confident, independent woman who could handle shit.
And I might have let a random Italian one night stand knock me up.
“Kennard’s not the father. I don’t even know if I’m pregnant.”
Rana reaches into her large black Coach tote bag for the brand new pregnancy test still sealed in the plastic. She brought a back up. It’s like she knows what I saw earlier because she can see the results haunting me. I hate that her tone changes when she speaks.
“Are you going to tell him?”
