Wait, she thought. Her name wasn’t there. Had the card been meant for her? Or for someone else?
Her pulse started to gallop; her stomach somersaulted. Quickly, guiltily, she shoved the card back where she’d found it, as if someone else was in the room, witnessing her intrusion. If the card wasn’t for her, she didn’t want Rex to think she’d been snooping.
Besides, there was nothing she could do about it.
Not a damn thing.
Except hyperventilate, which was what she started to do.
Sitting back down on the bed, she tried to ease her breathing. She wondered if she should see a doctor or call Taylor, the EMT. She decided to first go outside for fresh air.
Maybe this was what jealousy felt like. Maybe it was how Rafe had felt after the Kiera debacle. Maddie now felt guilty for not having tried harder to prop up her son.
But that didn’t matter now, either. She needed to be able to breathe.
Grabbing her things, she hurried down the stairs and outside. She paused on the sidewalk and took several short breaths of cool, fresh morning air. As she closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing, she was finally able to slow her thoughts,which helped her breathe more deeply and then feel a little better, very little, but at least it was moving in the right direction.
Making her way to her car, she decided to head for the hospital anyway. If menopause was responsible for her overreaction, she needed to get some medication or simply advice, something to help keep her body under control, “nip it in the bud,” as Grandma might say.
She wondered why first her father, now Grandma were kicking around in her current frazzled brain.
Maybe because they help calm you, she thought.
And they did. Until Maddie drove past the pharmacy at the Edgartown Triangle and she had a sudden, strong zap of intuition, followed by another flash of panic. After a quick gulp, she made an illegal U-turn and pulled into a parking lot, where she turned off the engine and, again, struggled to breathe normally.
Five minutes or more later, her strength regained, she got out of the car, walked into the store, and made a purchase. Then she swung a left out of the lot, and found her way to West Tisbury Road, heading back to Menemsha, not to the hospital. But when she was almost at the airport, she changed her plan again—because she could no longer pretend she was fine … without first losing her mind.
Pulling into the airport lot, she stopped the car, dashed into the terminal, and hurried into the restroom. Thankfully, the handicapped stall was vacant; there was more space in there, though she had no idea why she thought that should make a difference. Locking the stall door behind her, she sat on the toilet, ripped open the pharmacy package, and peed onto the wand of the pregnancy test.
Three minutes later, the result boldly announced:positive.
Chapter 18
Maddie had no idea how long she sat in the restroom stall at the airport, staring at the stripes on the wand. She kept thinking it must be a mistake. Surely these things weren’t perfect. She was forty-five years old—time for menopause, not motherhood. Wasn’t it? Maybe something got mixed up with her hormones and resulted in the wrong reading. Oh, sure, she’d read about “older” women getting pregnant, but those were tabloid stories, weren’t they? Either exaggerated or simply made up?
Then again, it could be why her black dress was too tight.
She had no clue when her last period was, but it definitely had been a while. September? October? She and Rex first had sex the day after Cranberry Day—four months ago—and only twice since then, both times in mid-December. Maybe the mysterious symptoms she’d felt in the fall had been this. But what were the odds that she’d gotten pregnant the first time with him? The first time for her in a very long time? It wasn’t as if she was a fertile Gen Z girl.
Rex, she thought. He was three thousand miles away, barely out of a coma, and might love someone else “so damn much.”
How would he react?
Her hands flew to her cheeks as she thought:My God, what should I do?
When she and Owen were married, she hadn’t needed a stick and a couple of blue lines to tell her she was pregnant: For nearly two years, they’d been trying to start a family. Maddie hadn’t felt at all nauseous—and she waited more than three months before seeing the doctor. After her appointment, and the positive results, she told Owen.
His face had turned crimson. He’d slammed down his wineglass, nearly cracking the stem. They were having dinner—seared scallops on a bed of baby spinach with pomegranate glaze. Among other things, he was a food snob, though, as it often did, the meal had come from his favorite restaurant, not her.
“When the hell did you plan to tell me?” His tone was a tick shy of shouting.
Maddie was shocked. She took a sip of ice water; she’d thought he’d be happy. Or at least grateful that she would contribute to his family’s privileged line.
“I … I wanted to be certain. Most miscarriages happen in the first trimester, so I …”
“So you were going to wait and tell me if you did? That you’d say, ‘By the way, dearest husband, I was pregnant but didn’t bother to tell you’?”
Too baffled to think of a comeback, she tossed her napkin onto the table, fled the dining room, grabbed her purse, and flew out the back door to her car. Though she knew Owen was self-centered, his reaction seemed over the top. Once out of the driveway, she drove to the Victorian, knowing that at least her father would be happy with the news.
