Everything After(15)

Our lovemaking was exuberant. We laughed as we kissed each other, twisting the bedsheets as we flipped and turned.

“Let’s try this,” he breathed, rolling us over.

“How about this?” I propelled myself forward, wrapping my legs tight around his waist.

It was always like this with us, experimenting, learning, unafraid to try new things, to figure out what worked for us. He was the first person I’d ever slept with; I was the second person he had. We loved exploring what we could do, how we could bend, finding our limits individually and as a couple.

That day we ended with me on my back, my feet against his chest as he stood next to the bed, rocking inside me. We orgasmed at just about the same time, calling out to each other in unintentional harmony.

When he pulled out to slide off the condom, for some reason I’ll never know, my mind flashed back to that night in the green room. “We didn’t use one,” I said, stopping him as he started walking to the wastepaper basket. “At Webster Hall. We didn’t use one.”

I could tell he was searching his mind, too, trying to put together the pieces of the night. “It’s probably fine,” he said finally.

I was trying to remember the last time I’d gotten my period. I was terrible at tracking it. There were so many other things going on—school and music and him and just dealing with life as a twenty-year-old whose mom had died three years before and who still hadn’t completely dealt with the loss.

“When did we play with the guys at Prohibition?” I asked him, as he sat down on the bed next to me. I remembered adding a panty liner before that show, just in case the set went long.

He picked up his phone and looked at the calendar. “I think it was about a month ago. It was a Friday night.”

“Can you count the days?” I asked him, already feeling my heart flutter.

“Twenty-six,” he answered, after staring at the screen on his phone for a moment.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “I haven’t missed my period yet,” I said.

But it didn’t come the next day, or the day after, or the day after that, either.

I started to panic.





13



A few days later, Emily slept in.

“I’m surprised the smell of the coffee didn’t wake you,” Ezra teased, when he kissed her awake after leaving a partially filled mug on her nightstand.

“What coffee?” she asked, sleepily, trying to stretch out her back. It’d been aching all night. Probably just the ligaments of her uterus stretching, Ezra had said, when she’d mentioned it at dinner. He didn’t seem too worried about the spot of blood she’d seen in her underwear either. “It happens in a lot of pregnancies,” he said, though it had really freaked her out, sent her heart racing.

Still, Emily had let his reassurances wash over her. Convince her she was fine. Forget about what had happened last time. At just about this far along, too.

“Did you lose your superpower?” he asked. His voice was light, but Emily could hear an undercurrent of worry.

“I guess so,” she said carefully. “Maybe it was just a first-six-weeks-of-pregnancy thing.”

“Maybe it was,” he conceded. He ran his hand down her body from shoulder to toes, on top of the blanket. “I have grand rounds today,” he said, “so I should go, but you’ll call me if you need me?”

Emily sat up, her back still aching. “You’re worried about me,” she said.

“It’s probably nothing,” he answered. “I’m not a gynecologist.”

Then he kissed her one last time and headed out the door.

Emily got out of bed and took a shower. “Just be okay,” she whispered to the cells she hoped were still dividing inside her. Even though they couldn’t hear her, maybe they were somehow able to know what she was trying to say, somehow able to intuit the urgency with which she was saying it. “Keep growing. I want to hear your heart beat.”

In five days they were going to the doctor for an eight-week check-up. In five days, she would get her first glimpse, her first listen. She’d been imagining what that heartbeat would sound like—soft, legato, like a muted drum. She really wanted to make it to that appointment.

Emily and Ezra hadn’t talked about a name yet, what they were going to call this not-yet-a-baby, and all of a sudden it seemed important. She sent a text to Ezra. I want to name the baby after my mom, she wrote. Eden if it’s a girl, and Edward for a boy. Her mother’s name was Edie.

Okay, Ezra wrote back quickly. I love you.

As Emily got dressed, she kept up a steady one-sided conversation, the way she had with Zoe. “I love you already,” she said. “So does your dad. We want you to grow big and strong, with round cheeks and dimpled fingers. We’ll take such good care of you. I promise.”

Emily knew her words wouldn’t matter, but it was still a promise that felt important to make, whether anyone could hear her or not.





x



Your dad came into the bathroom with me and sat on the edge of my dorm’s bathtub while I peed on a pregnancy test I hadn’t wanted to buy. We had to wait for three minutes.

“‘Here Comes the Sun’ is three-oh-five,” he said.

So we sang together, quietly in the bathroom, and after the first few bars, I forgot to freak out, I forgot to be worried, I just listened to your dad’s voice and tried to match it with my own.