11:14. One more minute. My throat felt like it was closing up. I took a sip of water, forced it down past the tightness.
11:15. I pulled up his contact. The photo was still there, the one I'd taken on vacation two years ago. Marcus on the beach, squinting into the sun, actually smiling for once. I'd loved that photo. Loved the way he looked relaxed, unguarded—like the man I'd fallen in love with instead of the one he'd become.
My thumb hovered over the call button.
What if he yells at me?
What if he accuses me of lying?
What if he says he doesn't care?
I pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.
One ring. My heart stopped.
Two rings. I forgot how to breathe.
Then: “The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.”
That couldn’t be right.
The words didn't make sense at first. I pulled the phone away from my ear. Stared at the screen. Checked that I'd dialed the right contact.
Marcus. The same number I'd been calling for eleven years. The number I had memorized, could dial in my sleep, and had called thousands of times for reasons big and small.
I tried again. Slower this time, watching each digit appear on the screen. Maybe I'd hit the wrong button. Maybe my shaking hands had messed something up.
Same recording. Same flat, automated voice telling me the number didn't exist.
I tried a third time. A fourth. Each time, the same message. The same mechanical voice, polite and impersonal, informed me that the person I was trying to reach had ceased to exist.
He'd blocked me. Or changed his number entirely. Three weeks after ending an eleven-year relationship, and he'd erased me so completely I couldn't even tell him he was going to be a father.
I sat down on the edge of my bed. The phone slipped from my fingers onto the comforter. My whole body felt strange, disconnected, like I was watching myself from somewhere far away.
All that preparation. All those rehearsals. All that anxiety building up for days, keeping me awake at night, making my hands shake, and my stomach churn.
And he wasn't even there. Wasn't even reachable. Had removed himself so thoroughly from my life that my voice couldn't reach him, no matter how hard I tried.
He didn't want to hear from me. Didn't want any connection, any loose ends, any reminder that I existed. He'd cut me out of his life like something rotten, something to be removed and discarded and never thought about again.
Okay. I pressed my hands against my thighs to stop them from trembling. Okay. Fine. Email, then.
I opened my laptop with fingers that still weren't quite steady. Pulled up a blank message. Typed his work address from memory, the one I'd been using for over a decade.
Grace
Marcus, I need to talk to you about something important.
I stared at the words. They looked wrong. Too formal. Too cold.
Delete.
Grace
Marcus, I'm pregnant.
I sat back like the words had burned me. Too blunt. Too much all at once. I couldn't just drop that into an email with no context, no explanation, no preparation.
