Yes. This is where she belongs.
I’m going to get in with her, but I want to get the hospital off our clothes as well.
I start gathering what she dropped on the way to the bathroom—her jeans, her shirt, her socks. I scoop them up quietly and head toward the laundry room.
On the way back, I pick up her purse where it landed by the entry table. It’s one of those with a clasp, not a zipper. When I lift it, the clasp shifts, and something slides forward inside.
A flash of pink.
Not lipstick. Not a pen.
My chest tightens so hard it’s immediate, recognizing it before my brain catches up.
I stop walking.
The pink edge sits right at the opening, like it’s been waiting there. I don’t move for a second, because I know what this is going to be before I see it fully, and because I know I shouldn’t.
I don’t go through women’s purses. It’s basic. It’s private. It’s hers.
But my hand is already there, fingers easing the clasp open the rest of the way. I reach in and pull it free.
A pregnancy test.
White plastic with a pink cap.
Two lines in the little window.
My throat goes dry.
For a second, the whole house feels like a million miles away. goes quiet in my head. I can still hear the faint hum of the fridge. I can still hear the droplets of rain on the window. But it’s all far away, like it’s happening in a different building.
Two lines.
Positive.
I stare at it until the lines blur, then I blink hard and stare again, like maybe my eyes are wrong.
They aren’t.
My grip tightens around the purse strap until the leather bites into my palm.
And suddenly the pieces snap together so clean it makes me feel sick. Makes me feel stupid for not putting it together sooner.
The bathroom. Bianca following her. Erica coming back with her face scrubbed raw, eyes red, trying too hard to hold herself together. The way Bianca looked different after—brighter. Like she was carrying a happy secret.
Erica’s been carrying it too.
And she didn’t tell me.
Not because she’s cruel.
Because she’s terrified.
Because her father was in septic shock.
Because she didn’t know if she’d be bringing me good news or dropping a grenade in my hands when her life was already a mess.
I stand there with her purse in one hand and the test in the other, my heartbeat slow and heavy.
