She rests the plastic stick upside down on the sink as carefully as possible, as though disturbing it might disrupt the chemical reaction of hormones in the pregnancy test and somehow change the result. Then, just as gently, she lowers the toilet lid and perches on the edge.
Five minutes. That’s all she has to wait. It scuttles by like a mouse when you’re having fun, but she knows how leaden time becomes in this particular situation. She’s been here too many times. She’s tried distraction – scrolling mindlessly through Instagram (bad idea. Baby photos and smug pregnancy announcements everywhere); counting the mosaic tiles on the walls (4,820); and muttering prayers. She’s even tried watching the test continually, waiting for that second pink line to bleed through the stark white window, on one occasion even convincing herself that she could see it. But it was just a trick of the light. No matter how she passes the time, it always ends the same way. Tears. An argument with Gav, because he never says or feels the right thing. Another month stretching out like a desert before her.
It occurs to her that she could just never turn the test over. What if she were to sit here, in this state of limbo, for eternity? Neither pregnant nor not pregnant. Or both pregnant and not pregnant simultaneously, in a Schrödinger’s-Cat-style alternative universe.
The door handle depresses with a clunk.
“Babe?” Gav’s voice is gravelly with sleep on the other side of the door. Dammit, she doesn’t want him to know she’s doing this. They promised to have a break from ovulation and pregnancy tests this month. Because what is it they say – ‘they’ being mostly Gav’s meddling mother? Once you relax, boom! That’s when the magic happens.
“Hang on!” she calls to him.
The five minutes is up. In one swift movement, she stands and turns the test over.
The sight of it sends a jolt through her body. Oh God. Two lines.
Two ugly, gaudy pink lines.
Finally, it has happened. The result that Gav has dreamed of but she has been dreading. She can’t be a mother. She’ll be awful at it.
She barely has time to lift the toilet lid before the vomiting starts, coming in wave after wretched wave.
“You ok? Open the door.”
Still clutching the pregnancy test, she stumbles to the door. Then she stuffs it into her dressing gown pocket and lets Gav in.
He throws his arms around her.
“You did a test, didn’t you?” he whispers into her hair. “Bad news?”
“Yes,” she sobs. Gav won’t know the difference, but these are not the guilty tears of relief that she’s used to. These are tears of trepidation.
He will not ask her any more questions. Of this, she is certain. Of everything else, she is completely in limbo. She reaches into her pocket and turns the test over and over in her hand, folding herself as tightly as she can into Gav’s cuddle.
