Page 77 of Ivory Oath

But of course I peed on it. I remember because it happened less than three minutes ago! Because while I was peeing on it, I thought to myself, You’re being ridiculous. Of course you’re pregnant. You don’t need to be doing this.

My heart is pounding loudly enough that it’s all I can hear as I dump the rest of the tests on the counter.

Every pregnancy is different.

I only had morning sickness for a few days this time. That’s fine. Normal, even.

Though all of the nausea did happen while I was being held captive. On the sliding scale of normal or not, being kidnapped and chained to a bed is definitely less normal.

The nausea could have been stress or dehydration, I guess… But that still wouldn’t explain the positive pregnancy test I got in the motel. The same test I wedged between the mattress and the wall in the cell Trofim had me locked in.

I don’t feel quite as ridiculous as I pee on the last two tests and plop them on the counter next to the first.

A lack of symptoms is why I went down the first internet rabbit hole. Can a healthy pregnancy have no symptoms, I typed.

Turns out, for ninety percent of women, the answer is no.

Thirty seconds pass and nothing. I can see the test working, but there’s no little pink line.

Why isn’t there a little pink line?

I stand at the sink, frozen, for the entire three minutes. As the timer winds down, I cling to the pitiful hope that the last fifteen seconds will change something. That the tests will magically show that I’m pregnant with Mikhail’s child and everything is fine and I’ve been worried for days over nothing.

But deep down, I know the truth.

I think I’ve known for a while.

That doesn’t stop a sob from tearing out of my chest. I shove my hand over my mouth to stifle the sound and slide to the floor.

I stay there for a long time, crying until I’m all emptied out.

No one comes to check on me.

No one’s even around to notice I’m gone.

“Where’s Daddy?” Dante grumbles, kicking the toe of his shoes into the tile with every step. He’s been walking in a circle around the dining room table for twenty minutes.

On lap one, he stepped on only the grout lines. Lap two, he jumped from tile to tile and screamed if he even got close to the grout. Now, he’s shuffling his feet, shoulders slumped.

He looks how I feel.

“He’s working.” I’ve answered this question a lot this afternoon. He’s only asking because I haven’t been great company.

“Then can you play with me?”

“I already told you, I can’t. I’m busy.”

“You’re just sitting there,” he mumbles. “That’s not busy.”

If he had any idea how much energy it took to drag myself off the bathroom floor and sit up in this chair, he wouldn’t be saying that.

But I never even told Dante I was pregnant. Mikhail brought it up a few times at the cabin, but I didn’t want to overwhelm him. I was waiting for the right time to share the good news.

Now, I’m waiting for the right time to tell Mikhail that it was all some cosmic joke.

For the first time in days, I don’t care that it’s dinnertime and Mikhail isn’t home yet. It’s easier if he stays away. I’m terrified that the moment he walks through the door and I see his smiling face, I’ll fall to pieces.

It shouldn’t be this hard. I was barely pregnant. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. I technically don’t know if it was anything at all.

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