Jack and I drove in silence, his hand on the back of my head, gently massaging my hair. The rosary beads that hung from the rear-view mirror swayed back and forth. We pulled into the parking lot of the pharmacy, narrowly avoiding a collision with a sunken-eyed, scrawny teenager who sprinted away as though freshly escaped from some mental asylum.
“Methadone clinic,” Jack reminded me.
Inside, the fluorescent lights hit my eyes and I could feel a tension headache beginning in my temples, so I pressed my fingertips into them, digging in. It hurt in a good way. The colours, the people, the bright lights, the choices, it was all too much. White flashes began creeping in.
Jack could always tell when a panic attack was coming. He grabbed my hand. “It’s fine, little one. This will just take a second.”
We made our way through the store, excusing ourselves as people stepped out of the way. Soap, shampoo, razors, toothbrushes, condoms, lubricants. We arrived in the family-planning aisle, both of us staring dumbly ahead. First Response, Clearblue, e.p.t.
“This one has two in it,” Jack said, pointing. “Let’s get it, in case one’s a dud.”
“Alright,” I said, grabbing the box and heading for the cash.
The curly-haired cashier was hardly tall enough to see over the counter. She struggled to scan the item as she open-mouth chewed a stick of gum. “$20.68, please.”
Jack pulled some bills from his wallet as she bagged the box, blowing a bubble with her pink gum. The bubble popped and shrunk. She sucked it back into her mouth, handing him change and a brown paper bag folded over on top. “Have a nice day.”
“You too.”
As we made our way to the car, another methadone-clinic teen, this one with a teardrop tattoo on his face, asked if we had any change. Jack gave me the paper bag so he could dig in his pocket. He located a couple of coins and passed them to the kid.
We drove to the apartment in silence. I counted the traffic lights.
Nineteen.
Jack wanted me to take the test right away. I sat on the sofa and opened the box, reading the instructions in their entirety as he shifted canvasses around, holding them up to the light and examining them. Once, twice, and a third time. My eyes scanned the words—four, five, six times. I balled up the paper and stuffed it back in the box.
“It says you should take it first thing in the morning.”
“Okay.” He was separating the pieces into three piles. “So you’ll take it when you get up tomorrow?”
I nodded.
I wanted to savour this time. I didn’t want anything to be certain just yet.
I woke up at five o’clock and had to pee. I carefully removed Jack’s arm from around my shoulder and climbed out of bed, making my way to the bathroom. It was still dark outside, so I switched on the light and grabbed the pregnancy test from the cupboard below the sink. I opened the box and turned it upside down, allowing the plastic-encased contraption to slide into my hand. I used my teeth to tear it open, digging in the box for the crumpled instructions:
Place directly below the stream of urine for five seconds.
It sounded easy enough. I pulled down my underwear and sat on the toilet, placing the pregnancy test between my legs, and started to pee. It was harder to manoeuvre than I’d thought.
“Fuck,” I muttered as I peed on my hand.
The instructions said the results would take a couple of minutes. I put the cover back on the testing strip and laid it flat on the counter. I lathered my hands with soap and rinsed them in the sink, wiping them with an indigo hand towel that hung nearby. The smell was overwhelming, so I paced back and forth in the bathroom, trying not to throw up, reciting the words that I had long ago memorized from the framed poem on our wall.
One day at a time,—this is enough.
Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone;
and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come.
Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be
worth remembering.