Three weeks later
The app notification said seven days late, and I nearly had a heart attack.
Admittedly, I’ve been busy since arriving home. My mother has me cleaning, fetching her things, and cooking food almost every minute of the day. In between times, I’ve applied for jobs, and I guess amongst the glut of notifications of “You’ve submitted your application” and “Thank you for your interest but your inquiry was unsuccessful” that I sadly swiped off my phone’s home screen, I must have missed the reminders about my period.
It’s not like I’m regular as clockwork, but I did bring up my breakfast yesterday morning. Probably it was that the milk was a bit sour. As I paid for the home test—just one, because it’ll be negative, I’m late because I’m stressed—embarrassment flushed down the back of my neck. It was like everyone in the shop knew I was single and had only had sex once.
“Emily!” My mother’s plaintive voice comes through the closed bathroom door.
“I’m in the loo! I’ll be there in a minute,” I call. Tension spreads over my forehead.
People spend years trying for a baby. There’s IVF and all that stuff because it’s often difficult.
I’m not pregnant.
But even as I think that, my mind is filled with a child who looks like my old boss. Markov Lunacharski. The man I gave my virginity to.
My heart does that pulsing thing, like it’s making a point.
I miss him.
I haven’t been able to listen to an audiobook since I left. I’ve told myself it’s because they’re expensive, and I need a job before I can indulge. But it’s not that. Not finishing books is for quitters, so there’s only one book available to me, and I know listening to Solene and Rovaj being happy and in love will make me leak from my eyes.
Again.
The basic testing kit says it takes a few minutes, and though it won’t have worked yet, I glance at the plastic wand as I wash my hands.
The second line has appeared immediately, with the enthusiasm of a toddler with a crayon.
Pregnant.
I scramble with the thin paper of the instructions, re-reading, but unable to see properly past the tears in my eyes. My heart bounces, and sheer joy wars with the urge to heave the contents of my stomach over my lap.
I’m pregnant with Markov Lunacharski’s baby.
Running my hand over my tummy, I can’t feel anything out of the ordinary, but my lips have pulled up and I could float away.
This is a beautiful disaster. The best thing that has ever happened to me, and showers bright sunshine through to my soul, and also a black-as-tar dread.
There was just a one in three chance of getting pregnant. It’s a miracle.
“Emily!” my mother yells again.
I snap a photo of the pregnancy test with my phone, and then stuff it into the box.
My dirty secret. My delicious secret. My hidden joy, and I want to be sure this is real by looking at the result later, when I’m in bed.
“You shouldn’t spend so long on the toilet. It’s not healthy,” she scolds when I go to her.
“Yeah.” But I’m not listening, and when she asks me to bring her a cup of tea, I almost run downstairs to put the kettle on with shaking hands.
I peek at the photo of the two lines on the test as the water boils. It’s still two lines.
I could see the doctor and ask to end the pregnancy, but I won’t, because in the part of myself that I keep under lock and key, hidden from everyone, I can admit that I wanted this.
Desperately.
Three months of spending time with Markov Lunacharski might not make me in love, but… Well. For a girl like me, inexperienced and alone, it feels a lot like love.
We had a connection.
I should let him know about the little life growing inside me.
I dunk the tea bag with unseeing eyes, and imagine going back to London, and my old workplace, somehow getting to see the head of the Mortlake mafia, and telling him I’m having his baby.
Could I email him? Because random emails are totally credible.
Right.
Even if I could get a message to him, what then? He’d think I got pregnant deliberately to trap him. Or maybe he wouldn’t say a word, and just pull his pistol out.
Mm. Death.
Perhaps not.
For now, at least, this is my secret.
