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The Ingles bag sits on the bath mat where I dropped it, the plastic still holding the cold from the car. I drove forty minutes into the next county, past two closer stores, because Marla Finch's great-niece runs the pharmacy counter on Main Street. I'd rather chew glass than become the town's newest headline before I even have the facts myself.

My period app says seven days late. It was the first notification my eyes landed on this morning, a cheerful little seven in a pink circle. The Plan B box said my period could run up to a week late, so I gave it the whole week just to give it time.

I pull the pregnancy test box out. It's a digital two-pack that spells the answer out in words, because I don't trust myself to squint at lines at nine at night and make a life decision based on whether one of them is faint or not.

I take the first test, set it on the edge of the sink, and start a three-minute timer on my phone.

Then I look for something to do, because standing here staring at a plastic stick is not going to make the stick tell me anything faster than it will otherwise.

There's an old toothbrush in the drawer under the counter, bristles splayed out flat. The grout along the tub has been gray in the corners for months, and I’ve been ignoring it in the specific way you ignore things that are technically fine. I kneel on the tile and start scrubbing.

The grout gives up a little. I work the corner where the caulk meets the wall, and it smells like old soap and whatever's under the sink.

The timer goes off, and I flip the stick over.

Pregnant

"Cool. Great. Love that for me," I say to the stick. What the fuck?

I take the second test, because evidently I need a second opinion from the identical machine that gave me the first one. I know that's not logic, but I do it anyway.

I start another timer and scrub the other corner while it runs, this time even more aggressively. My knees ache against the tile.

The timer buzzes. I pick up the stick, praying for the "Not" this time. My prayers go unanswered.

Pregnant

Kneeling there with a wet toothbrush in my hand. The tub is clean in two corners now, but not the rest. I look at the two clean corners of the tub and the two dirty ones. Clearly, I can't leave it like that.

After a solid hour of cleaning all of the grout, and then scrubbing the water scale off the faucet and handles, there’s nothing left to scrub.

I stand up, snatch both tests off the sink in one hand, and walk down the hall to my office, with the ring light I use for bank calls and the desk against the far wall. I stand in the doorway and measure that wall in my head. I set the two tests side by side on the desk, turn on the light, and make sure there is definitely not a "Not" on either stick. The bright light confirms I didn't miss it.

Then I turn off the light and carry both tests back to the bathroom. I sit on the closed toilet lid with them, one on each knee, and stare.

I'm pregnant.

There should probably be more happening inside me than there is. Panic, maybe, or crying. I always imagined when this happened to someone else there was some dramatic need to call somebody.

Instead, I put my hand low on my stomach.

"Okay," I whisper. The word comes out steadier than I expect. I know what I'll do. That part isn't complicated. Everything around it is, especially how this will change my life.

Mom is the first person I think of calling, and I immediately know I'm not doing that over the phone. Shipley would answer before the first ring finished, but then I would have to say it out loud.

And Carson. I look toward my phone on the sink. What exactly am I supposed to text?

Hey, cowboy. Remember Christmas?

I almost laugh.

He needs to know. I know that much. But I don't even have a doctor yet, or know how far along I actually am, when they'll want to see me, or anything beyond the two plastic sticks sitting on my knees.

At twelve-fifteen the next day, I shut my office door with my hip because both hands are full. I've got a phone in one with the number pulled up on the screen, and a mug of ginger tea I'm not drinking in the other.

The saltines are in the bottom drawer with the sleeve peeled back. I slide the drawer shut with my knee. I sit down and hit call before the tea gets cold enough to give me a reason to put it off longer while I go heat it up again.

It rings three times before a woman answers. Her tone is bright and tired at once, in the voice of somebody who has said the same seven words forty times since eight this morning.