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“You mean, we?”
“Of course ‘we’, silly.” She squats with her hands on my knees. “You’re my best friend. I’m not gonna let you go through this alone.” I wrap her up in the tightest hug I can handle before letting her go.
“What do we do?”
“First, we need a test. Before we make plans, we better make sure. Sathior’s not gonna like it.”
“Sathior’s gonna fire me. It’s just a matter of time.” The memory of Petra’s exit rings back in my mind. “I don’t want to be dragged out like that, Alice.”
“Then we need to make sure she doesn’t find out.” She sees the look on my face. “We’ll just have to get clever about covering you up, that’s all. But we won’t do anything, or even worry about it until we get a test to confirm it. I’ll go at lunchtime. Okay?”
“But-”
“No buts,” she says, dragging me back to my sewing desk. She puts the granola back in my face like the welcome distraction that it is.
“Don’t worry, Tania. We’ll figure this out.”
The rest of our shift passes slowly. Our blank stares and focus help us through the shift until meal break.
As we walk with the rest of the staff into the lunch room, Alice pauses at the sign-out desk. We’re allotted 2 sign-outs per year for doctor or family visits. Giving one up like this means as much to me as her determination to help. I don’t know what is coming, but at least I’m not alone.
I sit in the lunchroom watching the clock while I devour Alice’s food and mine. She finally emerges in the last five minutes before the break is over. It's just enough time to see if the worst has really happened.
“You know the drill,” she says after reading the pamphlet off to me from the bathroom. Sitting in my stall, I stare down thepale brown dividers wondering where I could possibly go from here.
“How long do we have to wait?”
“Three minutes.” She sighs. “I couldn’t afford the insta-read. But this will do. Even if it takes longer.”
Silence catches us for as long as she can stand. “Do you think it’s too late to, you know?”
“To opt out, you mean?” My voice echoes off the bathroom walls.
“Yeah,” I hear the hesitation in her voice.
“I haven't thought about it, but, no. It’s probably too late for that.” She says nothing, but I can tell she wants to. “I don't think I would though. Even if I could.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” I sigh, thinking about Garet, those fragments of time I still try to piece together. “I know it was only a day, but, I’ve never felt anything like it. If this is all I have to remember him by, then yeah. I want it. I really want it.”
“Well that’s good,” she says from opposite the stall. My heart drops into the pit of my stomach. This is it, the moment I already know everything changes.
Just like with the lottery, and arriving on Kalei, I’m bowled over with a feeling I've known a thousand times before. I’m no magician, no fortune teller. Just a woman with a heart and feelings, and a gut instinct that’s never wrong.
“You’re pregnant, Tania.” The small white stick passes into my hands with two blue unmistakable lines.
Two lines that mean everything in the world.
CHAPTER 16
GARET
It’s been days since we explained the mission to Brigid, and she’s been searching for Arn ever since. As expected, he’s being kept in the maximum-security wing, but she still isn’t sure what cell or condition he’s in.
Danel limps next to me in the yard and takes a heavy seat. “Any leads yet?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
