“No.”
“I don’t mean a pregnancy test. If you’re coming down with something, I can pick up some . . .” He paused at the look on my face. “What’s wrong? Did you puke again?”
“No.”
“You look like you’re about to pass out, Lake. Why aren’t you in bed?”
True, my stomach was still queasy, but I doubted that was the reason I looked sick. “I took it,” I said. “The test.”
With a glance at the stick on the counter, he started to look a little pale. “Oh.”
“I just thought maybe—”
“You don’t have to explain.” Manning crossed the bathroom and came to sit next to me. I hadn’t realized I was gripping the lip of the tub until he put his hand over mine. “How do you feel?”
“Better with you here,” I said.
He kissed my temple, pausing there as he inhaled. “I’m proud of you. No matter what it says, it’s okay to want to this.”
“Will you look for me?” I asked.
“Sure.” He stood and took a few steps toward the counter, where he picked up the stick.
Seconds ticked by. “Anything?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“Let’s forget it.” My heart pounded. I could see his expression in the mirror, and I didn’t want to watch it turn from expectant to disappointed. I got up. “I don’t want to know.”
“Lake,” he said, a warning should I try to leave.
I got behind him, hiding from whatever face he was about to make. That wasn’t enough, so I pulled up his t-shirt, stuck my head under first, and drew it down around me.
“What’re you doing?” he asked.
“Just pretend I’m not here.” I hugged him from behind—in the dark, where I could hold onto the one thing that mattered—him. My Manning. My first love. My husband. The one thing that wouldn’t disappoint me, leave me, hurt me. I wanted more, but I didn’t need it. Emotionally, he was enough for me. Physically, he was big enough, too, a safe space for me to burrow into. I could’ve stayed pressed against his warm back forever. “I don’t want to know,” I repeated, my lips on his skin.
He covered my arm, lacing our hands through his shirt.
From his silence, I had my answer.
We made love nearly every day. It was the best we could do to move the stars. Maybe, this time, they simply refused to budge.
Manning’s torso expanded under me as he breathed. I traced the thin black triangle on his shoulder, touching each star. He didn’t know how to tell me the test was negative, but we’d been through this before.
“It’s okay,” I said. It wasn’t really okay, but I needed Manning to believe I could handle this. I needed to know I could, or else I’d give up on completing our family altogether. “Take me to the couch, Great Bear. You can carry me and put blankets over me and feed me soup. You’re so good at taking care of me.”
“It’s positive.”
“I know,” I said before he’d even gotten the words out—except what? My heart dropped to my feet, and I froze, my fingertip between stars. I didn’t move an inch, not even to breathe, in case I might disrupt the delicate synergy of a moment fate had decided to bestow on us. “Positive?” I asked, trying out the word.
“There are pink lines. Two of them. One is kind of faint, but . . . that’s positive?” He knew it was, we’d done this often enough, but it came out sounding like a question anyway.
I excavated myself from inside his shirt, pushing back strands of my hair as they went wild with static. “Are you sure?” I took the test from him. Even with the positive result in front of me, I shook my head. “It can’t be right.”
“Why not?”
The emotion in his voice made me look up. His clenched jaw and big brown eyes undid me. I didn’t want to let myself think this could be true, but Manning already believed it.
I closed my eyes. It was too early to get excited. There was a chance the test was faulty. I felt behind me for the tub so I could sit again. An unbidden tear slid down my cheek. “Manning . . .”
He kneeled in front of me. “I know.”
I shook my head. “I’m scared.”
“I’m not going to tell you not to be,” he said, taking my waist. “I’m not going to promise everything’ll be all right.”
“I don’t need you to.” I put my hands on his shoulders. “But I can’t flip on my excitement like a switch. I need time to absorb this.”
“I understand.” He ran a thumb up the center of my tummy, and I shivered. “First thing Monday, I’ll make us a doctor’s appointment.”
I tried to focus on his warm eyes that didn’t judge or dismiss my fears. On his familiarly briny, masculine smell. On the way all ten of his fingers loosened on me, as if he’d just realized what was growing beneath them. Because my gut told me I was growing. In that moment, I couldn’t believe I’d ever doubted it. “There’s a baby in there,” I whispered.