Chapter 11: Two Lines

For two weeks after the kitchen, Timothy slept in his wing and I slept in the guest room with Milo.

We were very polite.

He said good morning with his eyes on his coffee.

I said goodnight with my hand on the banister.

On the thirty-third day, at six in the morning, I sat on the edge of the bathtub with a plastic stick in my hand and watched two pink lines come up.

I waited.

They didn't go away.

I read the box again, twice, and held the stick up to the window.

Two lines.

My hands were shaking so hard I had to set it on the sink.

I pressed my knuckles to my mouth.

It was what I had asked for. It was what I had gone down a dark shore road to a glass house to ask for.

The tears came anyway.

"Mama?"

Milo stood in the bathroom doorway in his dinosaur pajamas with Biscuit by the ear.

"Mama sick?"

"No, baby." I wiped my face. "Mama's okay."

"Mama crying."

"Happy crying."

He considered this and climbed into my lap.

I held him with my chin on his hair, and over his head, in the open door, I saw Timothy.

He wore a gray T-shirt and no shoes. His hair was flat on one side.

He looked at my face, then at the stick on the sink.

He didn't say anything.

He crossed the bathroom, crouched in front of us, and picked up the test with two fingers.

He looked at it for a long time.

"Two lines," I said.

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