A Hope for Emily

I smile my sympathy even as a sudden realization blazes through me. PMS. I haven’t had my period in…

I sit back, trying to remember when it was; I’m always regular, and I track my cycle with an app on my phone. But as I sit there I realize I haven’t had my period in over two months, since right after Emily first went into palliative care. Two months. How could I have missed it? After all my ovulation monitoring and test taking, how could this have slipped my mind?

Hope unfurls inside me, along with panic. James and I are barely speaking. I’m in Italy with Rachel. And anyway, I’ve probably missed my periods because of stress.

I can’t actually be pregnant now.

“Eva?” Rachel leans forward to look at me in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes. Sorry. I was just…” I push the thoughts away. I can’t tell Rachel about that; I can barely think about it. “Why don’t we go to the modern art museum?”

Rachel shakes her head. “No, I should really get back. But you go ahead, if you want to.”

Is that her subtle way of telling me she wants to be alone with Emily? I decide to take it as such, not because I want to see the modern art, but because I want to take a pregnancy test.

I part ways with Rachel at the Piazza Maggiore, and then spend fifteen frantic minutes looking for a farmacia. I finally find one on a side street so narrow it’s more like an alley; the shop has old fashioned bow windows and a cheery, balding man at the till who doesn’t speak a word of English.

“Avete…” I manage, thanks to an hour on Duolingo on the plane. Do you have. But when it comes to pregnancy test, my knowledge fails me. “Un testo di…” He stares at me blankly. My phone only works with wifi while abroad, so I can’t even search for the right words now. “Un testo,” I say again, and he shakes his head, seeming sorrowful.

Desperate now, I gesture to my front, rounding my hand as if I have a lovely big bump. The man stares at me as if I’m crazy and then his expression brightens.

“Ah! Ah! Test di gravidanza!”

I nod, even though I don’t if that’s right or not, and he bustles behind the counter, appearing seconds later with a slim white box. The words might be in Italian, but oh, how I recognize its shape.

“Si,” I say excitedly. “Si, si!”

He grins, all benevolent bonhomie, and I hand over my euros. “Buona fortuna, signora!” he says with a vigorous nod. “Buona fortuna!”

I am still smiling as I take the box in its white paper bag back to the guesthouse. I am already imagining how I might tell this story to my son or daughter one day, about how I found out I was pregnant. How I found out about them. Just the thought makes me press one hand to my middle, as if I can feel a tiny little baby fluttering in there.

I may not even be pregnant, I remind myself. Stress can be a huge contributing factor to infertility, and I have definitely been stressed. Really, it would be no surprise at all that I’ve missed a couple of periods due to all the worry and uncertainty I’ve felt.

And yet just as Rachel has been hoping for a miracle while telling herself she isn’t, so am I.

There’s no point reading the directions, because they’re in Italian, and anyway I’ve been here so many times before. Pee on a stick, wait, one minutes or three, the more lines the better.

I sit on the edge of the tub in the tiny square of a bathroom, the test turned over so I can’t watch the dye flow through the window. I’ve made that mistake before, incredulous hope withering away as the promising lines fade and blank.

Three minutes has never seemed so long, every tick of the clock in beat with my heart. Dare I hope…? What if I am?

Finally with fingers that feel numb, I turn the test over. It takes me a second to focus on that precious little window and what it is telling me.

Two lines. Two lines.

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I let out a sound, I’m not sure what, something between a sob and a laugh, with a huff of disbelief in there, as well.

I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.

I think of all the wine I’ve drunk over the last few months, and then I think of James being so cold to me, and then of Emily lying so still in a bed. The look on Rachel’s face, the look on the statue of Mary’s face. Mothers longing for, and grieving, their children.

I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant again, finally. It’s wonderful and incredible and so very terrifying.

With the stick still in my hand, I feel the warm, salty tears trickle down my face.

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