“I never wanted this.”
“I know—”
“And I was so fucking careful.”
“We both were—”
“I just—”
“Hey, hey,” he said, pulling her in close and tucking her head right next to his heart, still beating remarkably calmly given the situation. “If it would help to get angry at me, you can. I can take it. But I promise you that we’re in this together.”
Rosewasangry at him, she realized. She wanted someone to blame so desperately, and she couldn’t conjure the face of the nurse practitioner who’d inserted her IUD all those years ago. Landon seemed the safest bet. “What are we going to do?” she whispered. The anger wedged right up against a deep sadness that she would do anything not to activate.
“We’re not going to make decisions without information.” There was the practical man she’d married. For every problem she invented, he had a ten-point plan to solve it—but it always began with an audit. “Do you want me to come in there with you?”
That was an easy one. “Yes.” She didn’t want to be alone a moment longer than she could help it.
“Come on, then.” He held out his hand, and she grabbed it, letting him do most of the work of holding her up. “Upstairs.”
The bathroom was the only room in the house where Rose had not budged an inch. The walls were a deep, dark blue with white trim, the hardware on the double vanity sink a chalky black. The clawfoot soaking tub sat underneath a wide bay window with a view of the meadow behind their house, the sunflowers swaying in the wind as late as September. In adulthood, with the joyful chaos of their wedding behind them, Rose found her life had grown rather small: work, home, bed, paired with occasional travel and drinks on the weekends with friends. The bathtub was her refuge. There was nothing she loved more in the fading days of summer than pouring a glass of bright pink wine, drawing a bath, and melting into a good book, pretending for an hour or so she was someone else, somewhere else. Though that wasn’t why she’d told Landon she’d needed the bathtub. Landon didn’t find their lives small in the slightest. He had everything he’d ever wanted—he told her as much at the end of each day, no matter how mundane, and especially on the days when they melted into each other. He had no need for a bathtub. Not like Rose did.
Landon turned the faucet on the tub and let the water run through his fingers until it reached the perfect temperature before stopping the drain. He had a way of anticipating her needs that still thrilled her, sometimes. “I’ve only ever seen this in the movies, to be honest,” Landon said, sheepishly.
“First pregnancy scare, huh? That makes two of us.” Rose sat on the toilet seat cover and fiddled with the box, wrapped so tightly in plastic she eventually gave up and used her teeth as scissors.
“How long does it take?” His voice betrayed emotion again—that trace of excitement he couldn’t quite hide.
Rose squinted at the tiny letters on the side. “Five minutes.” She pulled off the plastic applicator. “Turn around,” she instructed.After more than a decade together, they had seen it all, but there was something about this moment that felt off-limits. She wasn’t sure she had ever felt more vulnerable. Or maybe the word she was looking for was ridiculous. It felt vulnerable and ridiculous, peeing on a stick.
“What did Poppy say, when you called her?”
“I didn’t tell you that, did I?”
“You didn’t need to.”
Rose placed the protective plastic covering back over the pee-soaked stick and set it beside her on the vanity. “Same thing you did, really, with more swearing and less patience.”
“Sounds about right.”
“She told me to buy a really good bottle of red wine. She said she’d fly out if I needed her.”
Landon cocked his head. “Do you want me to grab a bottle from the basement?”
“No,” Rose said. “It’ll just make me more anxious.”
“Can I turn around?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Landon said, eyes flicking to the life-changing hunk of plastic. “Five minutes.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and set a timer. “Let’s get you in this bath.”
Rose crossed the long bathroom to him and let him lift her shirt over her head. She pulled off her pants and he trailed light kisses down her arms, unclipping her bra from behind and pressing her to him. “That’s how we got into this mess,” she said, but Landon only smiled.
“In,” he said. Rose let him help her down into the deep soaking tub. It was oily and sudsy and smelled like mint and eucalyptus. She dunked her head under the warm water and held her breatha moment longer than was comfortable. When she broke the surface, she rubbed her eyes and kept them shut. Then, Landon’s hands were in her hair, massaging lavender shampoo into her scalp, scratching the sides of her head so hard she felt the tingle all the way in her toes.
“That feels good.” She held the side of the tub with both hands and leaned back, into him.
“Good,” he said. “Just focus on my hands.”
