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He follows me. “Take it, Madelena. We need to know for sure.”
I shake my head. “It’s not possible. He gave me a birth control shot. There’s no way.”
But as I scan the specks of deep red and the splatter on his jaw, too, I think maybe there is a way. Maybe.
“No,” I say, the word sounding like a plea.
“Apparently he’s friends with Dr. Cummings, who is with my mother.”
“With your mother?”
“Dating. I guess that’s what you call it. I don’t fucking know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He told Cummings he was going to come over here. He was excited to see the house. Cummings relayed the information to my mother, and she paid Fairweather a visit. What he gave you wasn’t birth control.”
“What?” I stumble over the words I’m hearing as my brain highlights all the signs pointing to what I don’t want to know. To see. The nausea, light but consistent. The swollen breasts, their increased sensitivity. My appetite. But I shake my head again in denial. “He gave me the shot. You were here. You saw him do it.”
“It was a fertility injection.”
“Wh…” My throat is too dry to finish.
“Take the test, Madelena. Then we’ll know for sure.”
“Then what? What if I’m… What if I’m pregnant? Oh, God.” I drop to the edge of the bed.
Santos comes to sit beside me. He takes one of my hands in both of his. “Then we’ll deal with it.”
“Deal how?”
“Just take the test. Please. Maybe it’s negative.”
It won’t be. I know it as surely as I know my name. But I take the package from him, and he stands as I cross the room to the bathroom. I go in and close the door because I want to do this alone. I have to.
The instructions are simple: pee on the stick. One line means I’m not pregnant. Two means I am. A happy woman is pictured looking at her test. They don’t show the result she’s seeing though. I peel the first of two tests out of its package and sit on the toilet. I’m shaking as I pee, my heart pounding when I hold the test in the flow. When I’m finished, I set it on top of the box, and I don’t look at it as I wash my hands. I don’t look as I dry them. Instead, I perch at the edge of the tub and think.
We’ll deal with it, he said. I pull my sweater sleeves down into my palms and bite on a fingernail.
Deal with it.
I’m not supposed to get pregnant. I’ve always made sure I never would, no matter what happened. Not that I was sexually active, but I wasn’t taking any chances. How will Ideal with itif it’s two lines?
I get up, walk out of the bathroom and past Santos who hasn’t moved. I don’t look at the test. He walks into the bathroom and returns a moment later. He comes to where I’m standing at the window looking out over the backyard. It’s a huge property with a swimming pool that is covered over, dead leaves weighing down the tarp. Can’t have a pool without a gate around it with a toddler running around, I think, still nibbling on that fingernail. And farther back, the wooded area. How big is it? How much acreage? A child could get lost. This house is too dangerous for a child. This whole world is.
“We’ll do what you want,” Santos says, pulling me to him.
I don’t look at him, and I don’t need to ask him the result. I just bury my face in his chest and let him hold me. I don’t even cry. I can’t.
“I don’t understand why your mother would want this,” I say into his chest. “You have me. You have control of my father’s company. You practically own Avarice.” I draw back. “A child makes no difference, not in any way. I don’t understand why she would do this.”
He holds my face, wipes his thumbs over my cheeks. I guess I was crying after all. He pulls me to him again and rests his chin on top of my head. “I don’t know, Madelena. But you don’t need to worry about that. We’ll take care of it. If you want that.”
I turn my head, so my ear is to his chest. His heart is beating fast. I listen to the thud of it. He’s so strong. Strong enough for us both. For all three of us. The image of the other baby he lost comes to mind, the blurry sonogram image. I look up at him and he looks down at me.
“Would you have kept Alexia’s baby? I mean, you were so young, both of you. Would you have kept it?”
He nods without hesitation and looks as if he’s almost confused by the question. As if he or they hadn’t considered the alternative at all.
