Becca's Baby

“Of course,” she said, instilling confidence where she felt none. “What?”

“Promise you won’t make a big deal of it—not at first, anyway?”

“I promise.” Becca took a deep breath, bracing herself.

Sari stood, urging her out of her chair. “Come on.”

Following her sister through the house and back to the master bedroom, she asked, “Where’re we going?” But the question was mostly rhetorical. She didn’t really expect an answer.

Heart pumping, stomach churning a little, Becca allowed herself to be pulled along. Her mind raced ahead, wondering what was in store, arming herself. Had Sari decided it was time to get rid of Tanya’s things? The ones she kept in a box on her bedroom shelf?

“Okay,” Sari said, stopping as they reached the bathroom. She opened a cupboard, took out a familiar-looking box. “Here,” she said, handing it to Becca.

Staring down at the home pregnancy test, Becca wondered for a second if her sister had lost her mind. Becca’s pregnancy was already confirmed. And more than obvious. Why would—

“I want you to tell me how to use this,” Sari said, her voice shaking, “and then wait with me until I know.”

“Until…” Becca looked up. “You?” she asked, tears springing to her eyes.

Sari wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I don’t know,” she said tensely. And Becca remembered her promise not to make a big deal of things. Instantly she understood why. If Sari was wrong…

“Okay, it’s really very simple,” she said confidently, as though they were baking bread, as though the outcome was no more important than a loaf of bread. She opened the box, showed Sari the simple steps and sent her off.

And spent the next couple of minutes praying harder than she probably ever had.

Sari’s face was pinched and white when she opened the bathroom door a couple of minutes later.

“I don’t think I can handle the wait,” she said, and burst into tears.

Pulling her sister into her arms, Becca sat with her on the end of the bed. “What if I’m wrong?” Sari cried. “I’ve gotten my hopes up, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I just can’t seem to help it.”

“Does Bob know?” Becca asked. Her brother-in-law loved kids as much as Will did.

“No.” Sari shook her head. “Not until I’m sure. I don’t want to disappoint him.”

Becca thought back over the many similar tests she’d taken in the past twenty years, the times she’d cried herself to sleep on the bathroom floor when the result had been negative. She could certainly understand Sari’s reaction. And her fear.

“How late are you?”

“Two months.”

“You’ve been keeping this to yourself for over a month?”

Sari nodded. “Seemed kind of silly to get everyone worked up when it was probably just my nerves freaking out on me,” Sari said. “Bob and I have been trying ever since we had Tanya, and nothing’s ever happened. Why should now be any different?”

Given her own situation, Becca had no answer to that. “Maybe the scarring from your problems with Tanya’s birth has thinned enough to allow fertilization.”

“Does scarring do that?” Sari asked, sniffing.

Becca thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said.

“But it might.” Because Sari was listening and Becca was grateful for the distraction the topic was offering her younger sister, Becca went on to outline a couple of incidents she’d heard about involving scars that had changed over the years. Her college roommate who’d cut her hand washing a glass. A friend of their mother’s who’d been burned.

“Oh, Bec,” Sari interrupted her suddenly. “I want this soooo badly…” Her voice broke and she started to cry again.

Recognizing that Sari’s tears were, at least in part, a release of the tension she’d endured for the past month, Becca just kept an arm around her and let her cry.

“Aren’t you a little bit afraid? Of being pregnant?” she asked when Sari finally quieted.