I paced the small bathroom instead. Three steps to the door. Three steps back to the sink. The tile was cold under my bare feet. The faucet dripped. Somewhere in the house, a floorboard creaked, the old bones settling the way they always did.
One minute.
I thought about the life I'd imagined for myself. The life I'd imagined with Marcus. We'd talked about it once. Years ago, before the visits got shorter and the calls got less frequent. Children, eventually. Two, maybe three. A family to fill the empty rooms of the B&B, the way Gran had always hoped. I'd pictured Sunday mornings with little feet running down the hallway, Marcus making pancakes while I handled the guests, our kids growing up the way I had—learning to bake and fix leaky faucets and love this old house.
That dream had faded so slowly I hadn't noticed it dying. Marcus stopped talking about someday. Stopped asking what I wanted. And I'd stopped bringing it up, afraid of the answer I'd get.
Now, someday was here.
And Marcus was gone.
Not like this. Never like this.
Two minutes.
My stomach churned. I pressed my hand against it, still flat, still unchanged. If I were pregnant, something was growing in there right now. Cells were dividing, multiplying, becoming something. Someone. The thought made my head spin.
I gripped the edge of the sink and stared at my reflection. Pale face. Dark circles under my eyes. I looked like someone waiting for bad news.
Three minutes.
I turned the test over.
Two lines.
Pink and definite, appearing within seconds. No ambiguity. No room for doubt. No merciful single line telling me this was all just stress, just my body playing tricks, just a false alarm I could laugh about later.
Two lines.
I blinked. Wiped my eyes. Looked again.
Still two lines.
My legs went weak. I sat down on the closed toilet lid, the test still in my hand, and tried to remember how to breathe. The bathroom seemed too small suddenly. The walls were too close. The air was too thick.
Maybe it was wrong. Maybe the test was defective. Maybe I'd done something incorrectly—held it at the wrong angle, waited too long, not long enough.
I grabbed the second test. Different brand. Different packaging. Hands shaking so badly that I could barely tear it open. I fumbled with the wrapper, dropped the cap, and nearly dropped the whole thing in the toilet.
Take a breath. Start again.
I took the test. Set it on the sink beside the first one. This time I watched. Couldn't look away. Couldn't do anything except stand there, frozen, while the seconds ticked by and the result window slowly, slowly filled in.
One line appeared first. The control line, the instructions said. Means the test is working.
Then, faint at first, growing darker with each passing second, the second line emerged.
Two lines.
Pink and definite, appearing within seconds. No ambiguity. No room for doubt. No merciful single line telling me this was all just stress, just my body playing tricks, just a false alarm I could laugh about later.
Again.
Positive.
Pregnant.
The room didn’t spin. The house didn’t collapse. Nothing dramatic happened at all.
