by Portia Moore
“I found out some things that made me see it differently,” I say quietly.
“You did?” He looks at me curiously. “Before or after you showed up at the house?”
There’s enough of a smile on his face that I know he isn’t annoyed. “I’m sorry about that,” I say, embarrassment swallowing me whole. “I can sort of fly off the handle sometimes. I’m working on it, I promise,” I tell him with a small smile that sort of resembles the one he has. “With this accident I realized I could have lost the opportunity to know you, if you’re open to that.” His blue eyes sparkle at me.
“I’d like that a lot.” He takes my hand and it doesn’t feel awkward or forced like how I would have thought, but he doesn’t hold it long.
“I talked to my mom,” I say, trying to kick the tenseness out of my voice.
He grimaces.
“I’m so mad at her.” I shake my head, looking down at my hands. “I always thought you just bailed. That you didn’t want to help her, or see us. That you just left and never looked back. And now I find out that that’s not true, and she kept us away from you all of those years. It’s so hard for me to understand how she could do that. And I’m furious with her. I feel so robbed.”
“Don’t be angry with your mom,” he says gently, reaching for my hand again, and I look up sharply. It’s not the reaction I had expected from him. I’d expected commiseration. I thought he’d be just as angry as I am.
“What?” I blink, confused.
“Look, I can’t exactly say that I regret what happened. I love Alice very much, and the family we have together. Us meeting each other was very much by chance, and it felt like…I don’t know…fate. Like the universe was pushing us together, or something like that nonsense. I was too young then to say no to it, and I can’t say that I wish I had. But what I do regret,” he continues quickly, “is that I hurt your mother, and I hurt you girls. I should never have cheated. I should never have lied to her. I should have come straight out and told her that our marriage wasn’t working, that I wasn’t happy, that we had made a lifelong decision too young and too quickly. I should have done the right thing and ended my marriage before pursuing anything with Alice. But I didn’t, and I’ve spent my whole life regretting that.”
“What does that have to do with her lying to us?” I ask, sharpness creeping into my voice. My emotions are all still raw, too close to the surface, and I try to push them down.
He sighs. “Madison, I cheated. I betrayed your mom, the two of you, and the family we had together. It was wrong, and I don’t blame her for being angry or for reacting the way she did. Your mother was a passionate woman when she was younger.” He laughs, shaking his head. “It was part of what attracted me to her, to be honest.”
“So you think it was okay?” I’m struggling to wrap my head around how I should feel.
“Look, there’s right and wrong on both sides of this. I spent my years being angry, furious, hurt…but I can’t blame her for how she reacted. It was the wrong decision but I know she thought she was making the right one. You kids got caught up in the crossfire of it, and that was terrible, too. We both should have done things differently.”
I let out a long breath and try to grab hold of the forgiveness that he’s discovered. I’m still angry, hurt, and feel betrayed, but holding on to it isn’t going to do much, especially if he’s moved past it. And if anything, this accident shows that holding on to grudges and hate isn’t important when things like this happen.
“So we…what do we do? Just put the past behind us and start fresh?”
He smiles at me, covering my hand with his again. “I’d like that very much, Madison. We’re never all going to be a happy family again. Your mother wants nothing to do with me, and honestly, I can understand that. I’m happy with my life now, too. But I want you to be a part of it—and your sister too. Don’t hate your mom, there’s no point in holding a grudge over something that happened so long ago. We’re all different people now.” He shakes his head. “This accident was an eye-opener, for sure. Life is way too short.”
He’s right. It makes me think of the other things that life is too short for, like being afraid of losing the man you love because of a mistake you made with no idea of the consequences it would have.
As if he heard Alex in my thoughts, my dad raises one eyebrow. “So I’m going to be a dad for a minute here, and ask who that guy on the doorstep was with you. Kristen said she knows him, but all she would say is that he works with both of you.”
I flush a little, and think back to all those years that I would have done anything to have an overprotective dad. That was better than not having one at all. “Well, I don’t work with them anymore. But yeah, we all used to work for the same catering company. He’s my boyfriend now. We met a while back in Miami, and then out of nowhere again in New York. Kind of like it was fate.” I grin at him.
“He’s a good guy?” My dad frowns. “Is it serious?”
I nod. “He’s the best. And yeah, it is.”
“Marriage-serious?”
“We’ve talked about it,” I admit. Just the thought of marriage sends a flood of anxiety through me all over again, and I hate it. I want to be excited about the idea of marrying Alex, the only man I’ve ever really felt that I could. But there’s so much that could go wrong.
“Hopefully not too soon.”
I laugh at that. “Don’t worry, it won’t be soon. He’s the only person I’ve ever been able to see myself maybe marrying someday, though. I had a boyfriend a while back who was going to propose. That terrified me…commitment, I mean, used to terrify me. But I guess they weren’t the right ones,” I say, shrugging.
My dad frowns. “I’m sorry, Madison. I’m sure the way I handled things with Alice and your mom…especially with how young you were…” He shakes his head. “It had to have affected you. I was too selfish back then to think about it, though. I can’t ever tell you how sorry I am for that.”
“No, it’s okay. I get it.” I’m starting to feel as if I really do. I think of Jackson and Alex, and how I’m keeping my own secret from Alex because I don’t want to destroy his family or his happiness. But I want my own happiness, too. Of course, if things were black and white, the right thing to do would be just to tell the truth. But I’m learning more and more that life is rarely black and white.
And what happened between my parents wasn’t black and white, either.
“I’m glad you’re here now,” my dad says quietly. “And that you and Kristen seem to have made up. I was afraid to hope for anything like this to ever happen. How is Melissa?”
I press my lips together. “She’s good,” I say finally. “I think she feels differently than I do.”
“She was always her mother’s little girl, even as a child. You were my kid.” He laughs. “I know you probably shouldn’t tell me too much, but how is she? Is she with anyone? Is she happy? What does she do now?”
I hesitate. I’m not sure how it will make him feel to know she’s getting married and probably isn’t going to invite him, so I keep it simple. “She’s with a nice guy—he’s not my favorite person, but I think he’s good for her. And she has a catering business. It’s really successful and she does a great job. She is happy. She’s always been the more stable of the two of us.”
“And what do you do for work?”
“I run my own graphic design business. And lately I’ve been doing some social media consulting. I like being freelance, it gives me more freedom.”
“So all of my girls are successful.” He smiles. “I’m proud of all of you. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell Melissa that herself, one day.”
“I hope so too.”
“I know we’ve lost a lot of time together, but I hope you’ll come back and visit. I hope we can start to fix the things that went wrong in the past.”
I can feel tears threatening as I lean forward to hug him, careful of the IV and his ribs. “Of course,” I say, my voice choked with emotion. “I
’ll be back soon. And we’ll make up for lost time.”
20
I’ve missed my fucking period!
And it’s no wonder with everything happening—my dad in the hospital, my new truce with Kristen, trying to make amends with my mom and Melissa, and Alex’s family drama. I open up the period tracker app on my phone and stare at the little red notification that reminds me my period is about to start. That was supposed to have been over a week ago.
I immediately set my phone down, my thoughts going a million miles a minute.
I go through all of the reasons why I might be missing it. Stress…sure, even though that’s never bothered me before. I haven’t been eating well thanks to numerous dinners out with family recently. My diet has been all over the place. I’ve gained a few pounds, I haven’t been going to the gym.
I want kids with Alex. I do. The idea of a small miniature version of one of us running around our apartment fills me with a warm glow. All of the things I was once so terrified of—commitment, marriage, family…I want those things with him. But right now, it seems impossible to have. The convoluted knots of all of the secrecy surrounding my past with Jackson feel like they’re growing tighter and tighter.
As soon as it’s lunchtime, I practically bolt out of the door. There’s a drugstore not far from my office, and I look around nervously as I head to the aisle with the pregnancy tests, hoping against hope that I don’t see anyone else I know. Fortunately, the store is mostly empty, and I quickly grab a box with two tests in it, and head to check out. The clerk gives me a sympathetic look when she sees the expression on my face, but says nothing as she hands me the bag.
It’s nothing, I tell myself over and over. I haven’t had any morning sickness. I’m not craving any weird food. I’m just sick or something. My body is stressed. All day I come up with every reason I can think of why I’m not pregnant, while the bag with the tests feels as if it’s burning a hole through the lining of my purse.
I can’t tell Alex—if it really is nothing, as I keep hoping, there’s no reason to scare him. I briefly wonder if the news might excite him, but I can’t imagine how. Even without him knowing about Jackson, this isn’t a good time for either of us. Kids are far in the future—or they were supposed to be.
All night, I’m sleepless. I lay next to him wide awake, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing next to me, and I try to imagine our lives with a baby. The changes in my body, the sleepless nights like this one, the hours of feeding and calming and caring for another living being. It’s terrifying—I can barely take care of myself, let alone another human.
It’s nothing. I repeat it over and over in my head like a mantra. In the morning, you’ll see.
Alex is already gone when I wake up the next morning. He’s working an early brunch event, and won’t be home until later afternoon.
Alyssa hasn’t made it home, and the apartment is quiet and still. I left a message for my supervisor the night before letting him know I was sick, and wouldn’t be coming into work today. It’s just me in the empty apartment, and I swing my legs out of bed and reach for my purse, fishing inside of it for the plastic drugstore bag.
I feel like a prisoner going to execution as I walk to the bathroom. It’s a matter of seconds to take the test, and all I can do after that is set it on the counter and wait. I tell myself over and over that it’s going to be negative, as if by repeating that and staring at the white object lying starkly on my bathroom counter, I can will that into existence.
Nothing about this would be good timing.
Nothing.
So I stare at the little strip, and will it to be negative. I’ll do anything, I think. Just don’t make me deal with this, too. I let out a deep breath and grab the test and staring back at me are two little pink lines in the window of the test.
I sink to the floor of the bathroom, holding it tightly in my hand.
It’s wrong, I’m freaking myself out for nothing.
There were two of them in the package. I scramble to my feet, dropping the first one in the trash. This one will give me the right answer. I grab a jug of water out of the kitchen and pour it down my throat. I turn on music and bounce around a little almost like a boxer preparing for a fight.
I’ve got this!
I hurry and squeeze as much urine out as I can and wait for what seems like the longest five minutes of my life. I grab the test again and before I look, shake my arms and legs to calm my nerves.
Two pink lines.
Shit!
I toss it into the trash too and grab my purse, hurrying out of the apartment. I half run to the store and buy three more boxes—six tests in total.
The cashier gives me that same sympathetic expression that I got yesterday, only this one has more concern in it. I’m sure I’m far from the only woman in her mid-twenties that she’s seen come in here half-crazed, buying every test on the shelf to try to get a different answer than the one she’s already gotten.
As soon as I’m home, I chug as much water as I can possibly drink. I’m determined to take all of them, as if it’s a test I can pass if I just study hard enough. As I drink glass after glass, I think of all the women who want a positive result from something like this, and I feel horrible for wanting a different answer. I think of Alex, and wonder what he’s going to say if it’s really true. Will he be happy? Upset? Afraid?
I think of Jackson, and the secret, and I want to curl up into a ball. If I could, I would sink into the floor and disappear.
Over the next hour, I take every single one, and every single one comes up with two pink lines. So happy looking, as if they’re telling me good news.
Eight pregnancy tests can’t be wrong.
Welp, this is it.
I’m pregnant.
Me, Madison James, has a freaking human inside of her. I look at my stomach cautiously as if someone is in there looking back. I touch it almost hesitantly. What the hell am I going to do? I have to tell someone. I should tell Alex…no, I have to wait. I fight the urge to call my mom and tears come to my eyes. I should tell Alex but what do I tell him? What would this mean? I need to wrap my own head around this first.
I spend the rest of the day going back and forth between the bed and the couch in the living room, Googling things like “false positive pregnancy results” and “pull-out method failure rate” and “how many days a month can you get pregnant.” I search baby sites, too, looking at cribs and strollers and onesies. Yet all I can think about is how much this will drain what little savings we have.
Alex’s dream of a bar will be pushed much further into the future, if we do this. And how can we not? I’m almost certain what Alex’s answer will be. He’ll want us to keep this baby but will ultimately leave the decision up to me. Or would he, after everything that happened with Holly? I can’t imagine us with a baby…but I also can’t imagine taking the steps to stop this in its tracks. This is Alex’s baby…our baby. It’s a bad time, and nothing about it makes sense. Except it does.
A few hours before Alex comes home, I’m finally able to force myself to put down my phone, peel myself off of the couch, and get into the shower. I run my hands over my stomach as I stand under the hot water; it’s still as smooth and flat as ever. There’s no hint that anything is there. Logically I know that won’t happen for a while, but it’s hard to believe that it ever will, looking down at the body that I’m so familiar with. Will I even feel like myself, once I start to change?
My whole life is about to change.
And I’m not ready for any of it.
21
And I thought keeping the secret about Jackson was hard.
It’s all I can do that night not to tell Alex. I’m so freaking paranoid every time he looks at me I swear that he’s going to figure it out or I’ll blurt it out. He comments at dinner that I’m unusually quiet, but I shrug it off as just being tired. It’s been a long week after all—work, my father recuperating, all of that.
The one bright spot
is that after my shower, I get a text from Kristen telling me that my father is out of the hospital and heading home. I told her that I would give him some time to recuperate before I try to come visit, but I know I want to go soon. If there’s anything the accident showed me, it’s that I don’t always have as much time as I think I do.
Alex looks amazing as he always does, just wearing a pair of joggers and nothing else. His dark hair is messy and bright green eyes still take my breath away. I could wake up to him every single day and never get tired of it. I can’t help but wonder what the little peanut inside of me would look like. Would it have my smile? Alex’s dimples? Alley comes out of her hiding place and I pick her up and snuggle against her.
“You okay?” he asks with an adorable lopsided grin. I put Alley down and he pulls me towards him, eyeing me curiously. And I swear it takes everything in me to not tell him right then. I decide I’ll tell him soon. I’ve been looking up babies and stuff and they say the first twelve weeks are fragile and after that you’re out of the danger zone. I’ve made up my mind to not tell him until then. When I know we’re in the clear, it’s nothing for him to be worried about until then.
“Yeah,” I tell him, giving in to his kiss, feeling his heart beat against mine. When his lips leave mine and find my neck I gather my willpower to push him away and he gives me a mischievous grin.
“I can’t be late,” I tell him and give him a quick kiss on the cheek before hurrying out.
Halfway down the sidewalk on my way to the subway stop, I freeze in my tracks. I suddenly feel acutely aware of all of my decisions. Should I be hurrying through crowded New York streets, in dirty subway tunnels, in a tube of recycled air trapped with dozens of other people? Everyone says the first few months are the most dangerous. What if something happens? What if I get sick? Should I call an Uber?