Page 12 of Forever Full Circle
She rolled her eyes, but the gesture lacked heat. “I’m not contagious. It’s stress.” Something in his gaze made her pulse tick up, an old reflex that went back to their earliest days—when he’d wait her out, patient as a saint, until she told him what was actually bothering her.
She broke eye contact, pretended to fuss with a crumb on the counter. “Fine. If I’m still feeling gross next week, I’ll call Dr. Lieberman.”
Daniel nodded. “Good.”
She looked up, expecting him to let it go, but instead, he pushed off the counter and took a step closer.
“Can I ask a stupid question?” he said, low.
Emily tensed, sudden and sharp. “You can ask me anything.”
“Is there any chance you could be… you know… pregnant?”
For a moment, the kitchen was silent except for the getting-slimy aquarium, the fridge, the white noise of her own blood. She let the question hang, unsure whether to laugh or bite his head off.
“Pregnant?” she echoed.
Daniel gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s just—you’re acting like you did with Charlotte, before we knew. The tiredness. The—” He gestured to the bathroom, tactful. “The rest of it.”
“I’m almost thirty-eight, Daniel. My uterus is basically a dust bowl.”
He smiled. “Still. Stranger things have happened.”
She almost made a crack about immaculate conception, but something in his expression—hopeful, worried, not quite letting go—stopped her cold. She sat at a stool at the island, feeling her knees wobble.
“I haven’t even missed—” she started, then stopped. Tried to count the weeks in her head, but the last month was a blur of guests, party planning, late nights, and too many takeout dinners. “I mean, maybe? But probably not. Probably nothing.”
Daniel nodded, then said, “You want to be sure?”
She thought about it. The idea seemed both ridiculous and faintly terrifying. She hadn’t planned for another baby. Hadn’t even let herself think about the possibility since Charlotte. It wasn’t supposed to happen now, not at this age, not with Roy sick and Chantelle maybe leaving, the old lighthouse up for sale. She pressed her hands together, staring at the small white half-moons at the base of her nails.
“Maybe,” she said quietly. “Just to be sure.”
He tilted his head toward the bathroom, and they both hustled in. Daniel shut the door behind them. The bathroom cabinet Emily opened was a museum of half-used hygiene: stray floss picks, travel-sized toothpaste, a bottle of cough syrup with dust caked over the cap. Emily dug through it with shaking fingers, cursing the ghost of her past self for stashing every “just in case” item but never organizing. Her hand closed around a slim white box, wedged behind expired Advil and a dried-up tube of Retinol. Pregnancy Test—digital, two-count, but only one left.
She held it up, checking the fine print on the side: “Best by: 03/25.” Technically expired. Maybe it didn’t matter. She remembered reading somewhere that these things lasted forever, the reagents outliving the shelf life.
Emily looked at Daniel, who said, “Worth a try.”
She unwrapped the test, hands trembling so badly she almost dropped it in the sink. She read the instructions twice, even though she could recite them in her sleep: wait three minutes for the control line to appear, five for the result. If two lines, pregnant. If one, not. Simple as that.
Emily perched on the edge of the toilet, peed on the stick, then set it on the edge of the sink, watching as the liquid crept up the window. She turned away and sat on the closed toilet, pulled her knees to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them.
In her head, she tried to count backwards—when had her last period started? She worked the math again, and it still didn’t add up—shouldn’t she have noticed sooner? She’d been so busy, she could have missed anything.
Tick, tick, tick.She glanced at the clock. Two minutes and twelve seconds. It felt like an hour.
She stood, paced a tight circle on the bathmat, then stopped to stare at her own reflection. Her face looked pinched, the hollows under her eyes more pronounced than she remembered. She could see the worry lines as physical things, embossed above her eyebrows. She pressed her palm to her stomach, as if expecting to feel an answer there, but it was flat and unyielding, no different than yesterday.
She looked again at the test, expecting nothing, hoping for nothing. But the window showed two clear lines, side by side, as bold and unmistakable as a red light at an intersection.
Emily stared. Blinked. Stared again. The instructions had said faint was still a yes, but this wasn’t faint—it was screaming at her, bright and alive, a message from her own body that she wasn’t done yet.
For a long minute, she just breathed, in and out, until the panic receded enough for her to think.
Pregnant. At thirty-eight.With an inn to run and a father she might have to lose and a whole renovation project for the lighthouse on the line. She let out a sound—half laugh, half sob—and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. The test shook in her grasp. She looked at it again, hoping for a different answer, but it was as stubborn as she was.
Daniel looked over her shoulder and gently eased the test from her grip. He inspected it, and then set it down with exaggerated care on the counter. He looked at her again, face a strange mix of alarm and awe. “Well, damn,” he said, and she almost laughed.
