Marin woke up in a panic.
Last night, just before going to bed, she looked through her calendar to decide what weekend she’d leave in August. The calendar must have played on her subconscious overnight, setting off the alarm bell she’d somehow failed to notice in all of the drama of the past two months.
She’d missed her period. Two periods.
Her exhaustion took on new meaning. What if it wasn’t just the emotional strain after all? She dressed quickly, planning to go to Adams Pharmacy, the only drugstore in town as far as she could tell. She hoped it was open early.
“Marin!” Her mother poked her head into her room. “Amelia just told me at breakfast that you’re staying? I’m literally packing to go. When were you going to tell me?”
“Not now, Mom. I have to run out for a few minutes. Just—hang tight for a half an hour. I’ll be right back.”
She hurried down the stairs.
Outside, the day was bright and cloudless, warmer at early morning than it had been on most of the other days. She was sure Amelia was already beachcombing.
She turned right, toward the pharmacy. It wasn’t until she spotted the white clapboard building that she began to feel nervous. The place looked so old-fashioned, it felt unseemly to be searching for a pregnancy test. A blue plaque outside read ADAMS PHARMACY, ESTABLISHED 1869 BY DR. JOHN M. CROCKER. PURCHASED IN 1875 BY JOHN D. ADAMS. OLDEST BUSINESS IN CONTINUOUS OPERATION IN ONE LOCATION IN PROVINCETOWN.
She wondered, if in that long history, anyone had ever been more distraught than she felt in that moment walking through the door. She was going to bet not.
Marin, panicked, felt a wave of nausea. Or maybe that was the pregnancy. Stop it, she told herself. Think positive. Or, rather—not positive. Think negative! Negative test results.
The old-timey pharmacy limited her buying options. Instead of the dozen pregnancy-test varieties she would have had to choose from at CVS or Duane Reade, Adams had only one—First Response. One line, she wasn’t pregnant; two lines, she was pregnant. Simple enough.
She was so out of sorts she nearly shoved it into her handbag and just walked out, but she remembered to pay at the last minute. That’s when she literally bumped into Kelly.
“What are you doing here so early?” Kelly said, before noticing what Marin was holding. Kelly’s mouth formed a silent O.
“I don’t know yet, okay? Just please don’t say a word!”
Kelly raised a small white prescription bag. “One big secret deserves another.”
Blythe was beyond frustrated with her daughter.
One minute Marin couldn’t wait to leave Provincetown; the next she was suddenly staying for the entire summer. And she didn’t even have the courtesy to tell Blythe herself! She’d had to hear it from Amelia, who, when she realized Blythe didn’t know, could only look at her with pity. After weeks of punishing rudeness, this was adding insult to injury.
And where had she run off to this morning like the proverbial bat out of hell? Just wait, she’d said. As if Blythe had any choice. She would wait, if only to tell Marin that she could do what she wished with the rest of the summer, Blythe was leaving. She’d already checked the ferry schedule and booked a flight from Boston.
She paced impatiently in Marin’s bedroom.
“What are you doing in here?” Marin asked when she walked in, clutching her handbag to her chest as if expecting Blythe to snatch it away.
“Waiting—like you asked me to. But I’m leaving in an hour.”
“Just—sit, okay? Sit on the bed, and just…I’ll be right out.”
Marin ducked into the bathroom and closed the door. Blythe sighed, crossed her arms, and perched on the edge of Marin’s bed.
Marin emerged a few minutes later and sat next to her mother wordlessly.
“As I was saying, Marin. I’m leaving in an hour. You’ll be officially unburdened by my presence and can enjoy your summer.” She stood to leave.
Marin looked up at her, her big dark eyes wide with emotion.
“I’m pregnant.”
Marin walked along the water’s edge, just close enough to the ocean so it licked her feet when the tide rolled in.
It was the hottest morning so far, but still she wrapped herself in a lightweight cardigan. She felt raw and vulnerable and would have hidden beneath a full-length ski coat if she could justify wearing one. The sweater had a hood and she pulled it over her head, though the breeze kept blowing it off. As she strolled, she hugged her midsection, newly aware that it wasn’t perhaps as flat as it had been two months ago. And no, she wasn’t imagining it; her jeans had gotten tighter.
As angry as she had been at her mother all this time, she had to admit her mother had taken the news well and had jumped into action. She made Marin an appointment to see an obstetrician in Hyannis on Tuesday.
She didn’t know how she would wait. The drugstore test told her she was pregnant, but it couldn’t tell her how many weeks pregnant. And the answer to that question was everything; timing was the only clue for Marin to guess who the father was.
She hated to admit it, but there had been a brief window when she was still sleeping with her fiancé and also hooking up with Julian. It had been such a confusing time, she had mentally edited it out of her own history. But now there was no denying it. The baby might have been fathered by either Greg Harper or Julian.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she brushed them away. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for herself. She didn’t deserve it.
“Hey—Marin!”
Rachel plodded toward her as quickly as the soft sand terrain would allow. Her long hair waved out behind her, and she held her ubiquitous flip-flops in one hand.
Marin wanted to tell her she needed time alone, but from Rachel’s determined pace and her less-than-pleasant facial expression, she doubted she’d get off that easily.
Rachel stopped in front of her, out of breath. Perspiration beaded at her hairline. It was hot already. Marin had barely noticed before now.
“You have some nerve,” Rachel said.
“I’m really not in the mood for this, so could you be a little more specific?”
“You tell me that I’m chasing Luke just so I back off and you can go after him!”
“Oh my God, that is ridiculous.”
“Really? Like you didn’t make a beeline for him the second we got to the pier last night? How long did it take for you to throw yourself in his arms?”
“Rachel, you have this all wrong. I have zero interest in Luke, and he has zero interest in me. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have much interest in you either. But that’s not my bad. So if you want to keep wasting your time and making yourself miserable, be my guest. But if you don’t mind, I have bigger things to worry about right now. And I came out here to be alone.”
Rachel crossed her arms, shaking her head slowly. Marin turned her back to her and walked off.