Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 24377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 98(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 98(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Tess: Yes on the first part. Hopefully no on the second...
Cam: Everything ok?
Tess: Almost
Cam: ??
Tess: It’ll be okay in a few more minutes when I can read the results of the pregnancy test I just took
Cam: HOLY FUCK TESS WHAT
Tess: I got two tests to be sure. The first one was defective.
Cam: Defective like how?
Tess: It was positive, which has to be a mistake.
Cam: TESS OMG I JUST DIED
Tess: Relax. I’m 40. My womb is dry and shriveled. It had to be a mistake.
Cam: Um. Why are you taking a pregnancy test to begin with?
Tess: I’m almost three weeks late. Fingers crossed I’m in menopause.
Cam: Does Dom know?
Tess: omg are you kidding? He’d flip his shit if he knew I was even a day late.
She doesn’t respond right away. I fight my urge to look at the test, because the directions said not to. Instead, I open an app and start ordering our Chinese food.
Definitely extra sugar-covered donut things, because damn.
There’s a knock at the door.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
I look at the door. “What?”
“We have other customers waiting to use the restroom. Do you know...how much longer you’ll be?”
Oh, hell no. I’m not about to leave this bathroom until I can read that test result.
“As long as it takes for the diarrhea to stop. I had Indian for lunch, so I might be a while yet.”
There’s a few seconds of silence. “Okay. Um...okay. Take your time.”
I go back to my phone.
Cam: Sorry, Mae was spilling an entire box of Cheerios on the floor and I had to grab it. How much longer until you get the results?
I glance at the timer on my phone.
Tess: Three minutes.
Cam: Okay. Want to talk through both scenarios?
Tess: Not really. Hannah got into Wharton today.
Cam: I heard! She called me. I was a blubbering mess in the grocery store checkout line. I’m so damn happy for her.
Tess: Yeah, same.
Cam: Why are you doing the test in a gross public bathroom? Why not at home?
Tess: Because Dom would bust me with the tests. Or find them after. I don’t plan to ever tell him about this little scare.
Cam: LOL okay. Better buy some oversized shirts and really stretchy pants....
Tess: Not funny. Be supportive. It’ll be negative.
Cam: There are worse things, you know. I’m basically the old woman who lived in the shoe over here. Five kids. Constant chaos. But it’s our chaos.
I stare at the timer on my phone as it counts down the final thirty seconds.
Tess: Okay, it’s time.
I pick up the stick, my jaw dropping when I see a plus sign. Again.
Tess: WTF I have to go get more tests.
Cam: You’re pregnant. More tests aren’t going to change it.
I stare at myself in the mirror. I have crow’s-feet. I diligently pluck gray hairs out of my scalp more and more often. Women my age don’t have babies.
Just because I’m pregnant, that doesn’t mean I’m having a baby. But at this point, I do have to tell Dom.
Tess: I’m going home. Talk more later.
Cam: Are you sure you’re okay to drive?
Tess: I’m fine.
I’m not fine. By the time I walk in the door to my home almost an hour later carrying Chinese food, my eyes are red and swollen and my face is blotchy from ugly crying the entire way home.
The people at the Chinese restaurant were genuinely worried about me, seeing as I was practically sobbing in the pickup line.
“Hey, there’s my sexy wife,” Dom says merrily as he walks into the kitchen, his face falling as he looks at me. “Jesus, babe, what’s wrong?”
I take a deep breath, tears flooding my eyes. “I’m fucking pregnant, that’s what.”
His jaw drops and he just stares at me for a few seconds.
“Uh...wow. I don’t...are you sure?”
I walk over to the kitchen island and set the bag on it, opening it and digging for the sugar donuts.
“Two positive tests,” I say sharply. “So yeah. Pretty sure. I’m fucking forty and pregnant.”
I find the donuts and jerk the smaller bag out of the main one, glaring at him.
“Are you...mad at me?”
“Did you just take two pregnancy tests in a nasty gas station bathroom while people thought you were shitting your guts out? And then bawl in the pickup line at Hot Wok until people started asking if you were okay?”
“Uh...no. No, I did not.”
“Right. I fucking did.” I open the bag and pull out a donut, biting off half of it.
“And you don’t have to get an abortion, either.” I cry as I chew. “I do.”
He exhales heavily. “Babe, I’m sorry.”
“You should be. It was your stupid dick that got me in this situation.”
“I am very sorry about my dick.”
“Don’t patronize me!”
I walk into the living room with my bag of donuts and sit down on the couch. Dom follows me.
“What do you need from me?” he asks from the doorway. “Do you want to talk about it? Yell at my dick some more?”