Well, ten if you combine the five tests I’ve taken this morning.
Maybe they all came from the same faulty batch.
With a shuddering inhale, I flip over test number six–a different brand this time.
[Pregnant]
“This can’t be real,” I murmur aloud. “This is a joke. No, no,no.”
How did I miss this?
I’m diligent to the point of neurosis when it comes to tracking my cycle, so in tune with my body. I’ve never been so much as thirty seconds late on my period. Counting back the weeks on my fingers, I realize it’s been nearly two months since my last cycle.
I hadn't even noticed.
But there it is, clear as day–ten pink linesanda bolded “pregnant” for all the world to see. Except it’s actuallynotfor all the world to see.
The most important person isn’t here to see it. The father. My husband. The love of my life.
Because he’s dead. And I’m alone.
Those words have played on a loop in my head since the moment I left the funeral six weeks ago.
He’s dead.
And I’m alone.
Sliding down the wall onto the bathroom floor, I hug my legs close to my chest and rest my forehead on my knees, trying to keep my breathing steady.
“I’m all alone.” My whisper echoes through the bathroom with no one to hear it, and a wave of loneliness crashes over me so violently it threatens to swallow me whole.
But apparently every headache, every wave of nausea, every bit of the debilitating fatigue I’ve been attributing to grief, has actually been a tiny whisper to the contrary.
Straightening my legs out in front of me, my hands fall to my lower stomach, and my gaze follows.
“Maybe notallalone,” I say, my voice so small I hardly recognize it.
Pushing myself up off the cool tiles that Aaron picked out when we renovated our bathroom, I face myself in the mirror, hands finding my lower belly again, holding a bump that isn’t there yet.
But it will be.
“It’s you and me, Little One.”
It’s more of a declaration than anything. Not just an observation, but a promise to myself, and to my new precious cargo. We’re going to get through this together. I no longer have a husband, and this baby will never get to know their father.
But we’ll have each other. And that will be enough.
***
Biting my nails nervously, I listen to the phone ring once, twice, three times before finally–
“This is Jack.” His voice is gruff and serious, the way it always is when he answers his phone during working hours.
Let’s be honest, that’s how he answers his phone on or off duty.
“This is Abby,” I parrot back, the way I always do.
There’s a long pause before he speaks again.
