Chapter 5: Ninety-Nine Point Nine

The result came at 6:14 that evening, by email, with a red line across the top.

We were in my apartment above Pomeroy's Bakery.

I had not planned that.

Nathaniel had said, "We should read it somewhere private," and I had said my place.

Because I was not going to read it in his mansion, with his mother's fountain going.

So a billionaire stood in my kitchen, in a chauffeur's jacket, ducking under a lamp.

Polly sat on the counter eating dry cereal from the box.

Downstairs, Dee was pounding dough loud enough to rattle the floor, which was her way of saying she could hear every word.

"Open it," Nathaniel said.

"You open it. It's your phone."

"The lab sent it to you."

I opened it on mine.

I read it standing up.

Probability of maternity, 99.99 percent.

Then I read it sitting down, on the floor, with my back against the fridge.

Polly stopped chewing.

"Is it good?" she asked.

"It's the best thing," I said, and my voice came out thin. "It's the best thing that ever happened to me."

"I told you."

"You did. You told everybody."

She slid off the counter and climbed into my lap, cereal box and all.

Her curls smelled like a cheap pink shampoo, and I put my face in them and stayed there.

I did not cry loudly.

I just let it run down my face while she patted my cheek with a flat, sticky hand.

"There, there," she said. "It's okay. You found me."

Nathaniel stood in the middle of my kitchen with his arms hanging.

He looked like a man trying to rebuild a building from the roof.

"Polly," he said, hoarse. "Go downstairs and ask Miss Dee for a cookie."

"Is that a tax?"

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