Chapter 3

When I was younger, I wished my two older sisters were two older brothers. Brothers didn’t stick their noses in your business, or act like they knew so much by virtue of the fact that they were a few years older.

Okay, I was seven years younger than Dani, and nine years younger than Mari. Growing up, I’d seen them both as adversaries and the two people I wanted to impress. Which was why I put frogs in their beds or dyed their hair blue (makes sense, right?).

“Are you excited to start grad school?” said Mari serenely, her milky white hands resting on her burgeoning baby belly as we waited for our brunch entrees to arrive.

Mari was glowing, and it was almost to the point of being nauseating. Dani sat next to her, checking her phone, dirt under her fingernails. Mari had recently begun working as a freelance makeup artist and YouTuber, while Dani ran my family’s flower shop, Buds and Blossoms, with her fiancé, Jacob.

My stomach roiled. Apparently Mari was literally nauseating, because I definitely felt like my stomach was about to come out of my butt.

The nausea was probably from thinking about the fact that I’d slept with my advisor and I had no idea what the hell I was going to do about it.

Yeah, I wasn’t telling my sisters that tidbit.

Dani shot me a strange look. “Are you okay?”

“Totally.”

“So, are you excited?” pressed Mari in that older sister voice. You can’t ignore me was its underlying tone.

I almost felt badly for her husband, Liam. But Liam made me think of Lochlann, and oh God, I couldn’t puke here. Had I gotten the flu somehow? In September? Maybe it was cholera or dysentery. I’d blame Lochlann for either of those diagnoses.

I shrugged at Mari’s question. “Sure.”

Dani was still looking at me strangely. “You’re acting weird today.”

“Am I?”

“You’re so…” Dani tilted her head to the side, her curly hair gently waving in the breeze. “Calm.”

“I can be calm,” I shot back.

“The only time you’re calm is when you’re asleep, or when you were high on pain meds after getting your wisdom teeth out.” Mari chuckled. “You thought Oprah was going to bring you an elephant as a reward, remember?”

“You cried so hard when Mom told you Oprah wasn’t coming,” said Dani.

“I did not,” I grumbled, crossing my arms.

“But did you sign up for your classes? What are you taking? Not that I’d understand any of it.” Mari put up her hands, smiling wryly. “You’re smarter than all of us.”

At that, I sat up a little straighter and began to rattle off my classes. When my sisters’ eyes started to glaze over, I sat back and smirked. They might be older but there were some things I knew about that they’d never get, like my fascination with genes and all the nerdy things that made me so excited but had bored them both to tears.

“Jacob says hi,” said Dani as she texted one last message. “We’re doing a wedding tomorrow and the bride has been calling us both nonstop to make sure we won’t forget. Apparently at her first wedding, the florist showed up drunk and with a bunch of brown roses for her bouquet. She’s been a little intense about this second round.”

“Is that why she got a divorce?” I asked innocently.

Mari gave me the Older Sister Look. Dani, though, laughed.

“Worse,” said Dani. “Her husband left her to live in a hippy commune in Hawaii. Apparently he renamed himself Rainbow Sunshine Cloudmaker. Suffice to say, Meredith didn’t feel like joining him at the commune.”

Right then, our food arrived. I always ordered waffles and mimosas for brunch, but when I inhaled the scent of delicious, golden, crispy waffle, my stupid stomach turned upside down. Couldn’t a girl enjoy some waffles without it going badly?

Maybe I was just really, really hungry. I hadn’t eaten since last night, and it was close to eleven AM. I drank a big gulp of my grapefruit mimosa, the bubbles making me cover my mouth to hide a loud belch.

“Lovely,” said Mari as she began to eat her salad. “Always the lady.”

“I try,” I said.

I began to dig into my waffle, and for a moment my nausea disappeared. Mari began to talk about her baby shower in two weeks, which Dani and Mari’s sister-in-law, Niamh (pronounced Neev, because sure, why not?), were planning. Dani had asked me if I’d wanted to help, but I’d declined. What the hell did I know about babies or baby showers? I’d bring the booze. That was the most important thing, anyway.

“I really don’t want any games,” said Mari. “Just gifts and food.”

“Baby shower games are pretty stupid,” agreed Dani.

Sounds boring, I thought to myself as I shoveled waffle into my mouth.

“Liam and I haven’t agreed on a theme for the nursery yet. He wants to do something Irish, which I like, but I don’t want a bunch of creepy leprechauns in my baby’s nursery.” Mari shuddered.

“Does Liam want to scar your kid for life?” said Dani with a laugh.

I added, “Maybe he’s just really into Lucky Charms.”

“No, he likes the original Irish fairytales but they aren’t kid-friendly. He says he heard them growing up and look how he turned out. But since I’m pregnant, he always ends up doing what I say.” Mari patted her belly with a wide smile.

Was it weird that all this pregnancy talk made me uncomfortable? I drank more of my mimosa, hoping my sisters couldn’t see how bored I was. Which then made me feel guilty, because I loved my sisters and this was an exciting new chapter for Mari and Liam.

Maybe I just didn’t get it. I didn’t get the appeal of giving up your life, your dreams, your identity, for a baby.

I didn’t know if it was the last bite of waffle or the second mimosa but the nausea returned full-force as we waited for the check. I started sweating profusely, and as I was about to run to the bathroom, that terrible heaving feeling took over.

I reached a nearby flowerpot filled with pansies and mums right before I puked up my waffle, my mimosas, and probably a kidney in the process. Nearby patrons gasped; I heard chairs squealing against the floor. Then I felt a gentle hand pulling my hair back as I vomited a second, then a third time. By the time I was done, I was sweaty, swearing, and mad that I’d just wasted a perfectly good waffle.

“Are you okay? Sit down.” Dani directed me to a chair; Mari handed me a glass of water. I drank the entire thing in practically one gulp.

Mari put a hand to my forehead. “You don’t seem like you have a fever.”

“It’s probably cholera,” I joked.

“You’d have a fever then, you dork.” Dani handed me another glass of water.

It took a lot of persuasion on my part to convince my sisters that the nausea had passed, and I could go home without them clucking and fussing over me.

I wondered if I’d gotten food poisoning—but didn’t it take longer than that? I did feel better, though. Maybe it had been the waffle? Or I’d drunk my mimosas too fast?

“How was brunch?” asked my roommate, Naoko, as I collapsed into a chair next to her. Naoko Tsushima was a senior, about to earn a degree in music. Her specialty? The tuba. Considering she was all of five feet tall, I still didn’t know how she could manage an instrument that large. A flute would’ve made more sense.

“I puked my guts up,” I said.

Naoko paused The Great British Baking Show episode she was watching. “Wait? Literally or figuratively?”

“Literally. Well, literally-ish. My actual guts are still inside me.”

Naoko made a face. “Um, TMI. Also: why? Or what was it from?”

I sighed. “No idea. I’m guessing food poisoning.”

“While you were eating? Or from food you ate last night?”

I shrugged. “I mean, what else could it be? I feel fine now. I don’t have a fever. I can’t imagine it’s the flu, right?”

Naoko scrunched her nose up. “If you have the flu, I’m dousing you in Lysol.” Pressing play on her show, she added with a chuckle, “You’re probably pregnant.”

I didn’t even register her comment until I saw a commercial for baby wipes ten minutes later. I wondered if Mari was going to get fancy organic wipes for my niece or nephew. She was going to use cloth diapers, which sounded like a huge pain to me.

Then, a thought: could I be pregnant?

I pushed that thought down so hard, so fast, that I refused to examine it again. Except, it followed me the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.

Lying on my bed after the sun had set and listening to a super cheery podcast about how humanity was destroying the planet at an alarming rate, I couldn’t get rid of the idea.

There was no way, though. Lochlann had used a condom. I’d seen him put it on and take it off afterward, so it wasn’t like he’d tried to stealth me. Plus, my periods had always been irregular, so I could go six weeks before it appeared. When had I last gotten it, though?

I couldn’t remember.

By the time I was peeing on a pregnancy test, sitting in a one-room stall at the one drugstore open at this hour, I could only see Lochlann’s dumb, handsome face in my head.

I had to wait two minutes. I washed my hands three times just for something to do. I checked my phone, only to see Mari posting something on Facebook about doulas or midwives or whatever new pregnancy thing she was researching.

I ended up staring at the graffiti on the wall. One message read, Steve is gay. The next: we’re all a little gay, it’s okay. The third was just a drawing of a very long penis with a smiley face at the tip.

When I saw the pregnant message, I tossed the stick away like it was on fire. And because my life was just so awesome, it landed with a nice plinking noise in the toilet bowl.

“Are you done yet?” a man’s voice called through the door. “Are you dead?”

“I have diarrhea!” I yelled. “You don’t want to use this one!”

“It’s the only one in the store, lady!”

I was already trying to figure out how I could fish out the pregnancy test without touching gross toilet bowl water. But I didn’t exactly carry a scoop or tongs for this particular issue. I could leave the test, but the thought of the guy on the other side of the door seeing it made me want to die inside.

Stress tends to make us fucking idiots—me especially.

I reached inside the bowl, fishing out the test, only to realize I’d been so distracted and intent on getting the test out that I’d forgotten to roll up my sweatshirt. It was now dripping wet and I couldn’t take it off because I had nothing on underneath it.

“I need to piss, lady!” the asshole yelled as he banged on the door.

After grabbing the test and stuffing it into my back pocket, I wrenched open the door, my sweatshirt dripping water onto the floor. The asshole and I stared at each other for a long moment in silence.

“I clogged the toilet,” I said finally, as if I needed to explain my red, sweaty face, my wet sweatshirt, or the water on the floor.

“Whatever, lady.” But he tiptoed around me and then locked the door behind him so quickly that I let out a startled laugh.

I went home and peed on the second test in the box. Then the third. I lined up all three positive pregnancy tests on the bathroom counter and pressed my forehead against the cool mirror.

I was pregnant with my professor’s baby, and he didn’t even remember having sex with me.