Chapter 24: Two Lines

On a Tuesday in January I woke before the alarm and lay still, listening to the radiator.

Vincent slept on his side facing me, with one arm across my waist.

I eased out from under it without waking him.

In the bathroom, I shut the door and turned on the light.

The box was in the drawer under the sink, where I had hidden it two days ago, behind a spare toothbrush.

It was the twelfth one.

I had not told anyone I had bought it, not even Nonna, who knew everything.

I sat on the edge of the tub with it in my hand.

The tile under my feet was cold and white.

It was the same bathroom floor where I had sat month after month.

Vincent had held me there each time, saying, next month.

I had never thought I'd come back to it by choice.

I did what the box said, and set the stick on the sink, and sat with my hands pressed between my knees.

I did not watch.

I looked at the ceiling and counted the cracks in the plaster until I had counted forty.

Then I stood up and turned it over.

Two lines.

Both dark, side by side, with nothing faint about either of them.

I stared at it for a long time.

I had pictured this moment so often that I'd expected to cry, or shout, or call somebody.

I only stood there, shaking, with a laugh coming up my throat and no sound to put it in.

"Okay," I said to the empty room. "Okay."

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