Page 124 of No Merciful Corruption

“I’m late.”

She frowns and checks the time on her watch. “Diego isn’t meeting us for lunch until⁠—”

“No, Leticia…” I scour the weeks and count backward.

Four, five, six…

I look up from the calendar. “I mean I’m late.”

She doesn’t understand at first but when she does, the gummy worm she was chewing falls out of her mouth.

“Oh.”

“I…I hadn’t realized…” She abandons the cart and comes up beside me as if the calendar holds some secret she simply must be privy to. “We were so busy traveling and then when we got back…it must’ve slipped my mind.”

“How late are you?” She asks. “Maybe it’s just your body readjusting.”

“Late. Too late.”

The calendar slips from my grasp as I back away from the display, palm pressed against my forehead. “I…I can’t be…it can’t…there’s no way.”

Lettie abandons me and her cart and starts darting through the store. After a minute or two, sensation finally returns to my legs and I comb through each aisle in search of her. I find her in the family planning section

“No…” I shake my head profusely. “We can’t.”

“We have to!” she insists and drops to her haunches. She starts piling every test on the shelf into her arms.

“I’m not ready.” I bury my face in my hands. “Lettie, stop. I don’t want to know.”

Lettie ignores my pleas and makes her way to the register. The teenage girl working there is ennui made flesh and bone. The speed at which she scans each box is maddening and so I run up the total in my head based on the number of tests and take out a wad of euros from my wallet. Anything to make this go faster.

“Is there a bathroom here?” Lettie asks.

“No.” the girl answers without looking up.

“She’s going to vomit and it’s either going to be here in your aisle or in the bathroom.” Lettie counters. “So let me ask again. Where⁠—”

“In the back, far left side, behind aisle twenty.” She answers in a monotone voice. “Do you want a bag or⁠—”

Lettie grabs however many boxes she can carry and deposits the rest in my arms before pushing me in the direction of aisle twenty.

“Lettie, your brother and I haven’t talked about this yet.” Dread settles like a pit in my stomach. “What if…what if he doesn’t want⁠—”

Her eyes widen. “Are you crazy? My brother is going to be thrilled.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. He’ll be doing cartwheels and jumping jacks and—hey!” She snaps at a worker about to enter the bathroom. “Excuse us, we were here first! Can’t you see she’s potentially pregnant?”

I press a hand against my forehead. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Be sick later.” She tosses the bathroom door open and throws me inside. “Now start peeing!”

* * *

“Maybe we should’ve waited and done this at home.” I say.

Lettie glances up at me from where she’s perched on the edge of the sink, legs crossed, and dragging a file across a chipped nail. “And risk being seen with contraband? Absolutely not! For all we know the tests could come out negative and then we will have caused a fuss for no reason.”