My hands are shaking so hard I can barely flick through the apps on my phone. Eventually I find my period tracker and hit the calendar icon. Day 29. Period due. The words are bright red, screaming at me.
My cycle has always been regular. Twenty-nine days long, no matter the month. You could set your watch by it. How did I not notice it was late? I grab my alarm clock. But it isn’t late! It’s only half eleven. It could still come tonight! I go back to the app and trace my finger backwards to the last fertile window. This time the letters are a soft pink. It spans a generous seven days, from 23 to 30 December. Christmas. John and me at home, on Stephenses night. Jesus Christ, how can this be happening?
I sink back into the pillow and try to listen to my body. When I was a teenager the period pain used to turn me green, and I’d have to be ferried home from school to Mammy by Sister Bernadette in her little Ford Fiesta. My symptoms have eased off somewhat over the past few years, but I still usually get cramps and an urge to watch Beaches and cry the day before it arrives. There has to be some mistake! Tameka and her blood machine are probably a scam. I hope she has a client survey I can fill in.
I hop out of bed and run to the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, I inspect the gusset of my knickers. Nothing. Then I wipe and check the paper. Still nothing. Fuck. And suddenly I have a horrible realisation: I don’t feel delighted. Whenever I thought of John and me having a baby, I presumed it would be a military operation. We’d be married for a start. Then we’d make the decision together, I’d come off the pill, and after three months max I’d be queuing for multipacks of babygros in the Next sale. And now here I am, possibly pregnant, and elated is not on the spectrum of emotions I’m feeling.
I check the time again. Quarter to twelve. That means it’s quarter to five back home. I pick up my phone, take a deep breath and hit dial. It rings, rings and rings. Then goes to voicemail. ‘Fucking turn on your bastarding ringer for once in your life,’ I scream into my empty bedroom. Someone on the street outside shouts something back and I jab the dial button again, cursing the shoddy glazing on my window.
‘Aisling, this is really weird, but you just popped into my head and I looked down at my phone and you were calling me! How insane is that?’
‘You’re already up? I thought I’d be waking you.’
‘Babe, I’m a big deal now. I had to come in for a Zoom with the Tokyo office. If you could see my outf–’
‘Sadhbh, are you alone? I need to talk.’ My voice is shaky.
I can hear the volume of the background music going down several decibels. ‘Of course. I’ll just close the door. Not sure if I mentioned that I have one now?’
She did mention it. About two hundred times. She’s thrilled to have put the tour-bus life and its lack of privacy behind her.
‘Did you do it?
‘Yeah, I handed in my notice but –’
‘Woohoo!’
‘No, that’s not why I’m calling. Sadhbh … I think I’m pregnant.’
There’s a weird muffling sound on the line. ‘Sorry, Ais, for a second there I thought you said you were preggo. Imagine!’
‘Sadhbh, I am.’
Silence.
‘Hello?’
‘Okay, have you actually done a test or is your period, like, five minutes late? I know how you get.’
‘I haven’t done a test myself …’
‘Well then!’
‘But I accidentally did. It was a blood test in work. And it says I’m pregnant.’
‘And, I don’t know how to ask this, it’s … John’s?’
‘Yes, it’s John’s! What do you take me for?’
‘I’m sorry! I know what the New York dating scene is like – I just wasn’t sure if you guys were completely exclusive now that he’s back living at home.’
For a second, I’m quite flattered that she thinks I might have John in BGB pining for me while I’m over here riding rings around myself.
‘I don’t know what to do, Sadhbh. When I was handing in my notice Mandy offered me a whole new job. It’s a big opportunity.’
‘I told you she’d do anything to keep you. I hope you stayed strong.’
‘No, this is a job at home. In Dublin. She wants to open a European headquarters. And she wants me to run the whole thing. It will be a lot of work but it could also be really amazing.’
‘Oh my God, Ais, that’s huge. You can stay with me! Don’s going to be away again for a while.’
‘Thank you so much, but I don’t know if I’m even going to take it. And then I find out I’m possibly pregnant on the same day? I feel winded. The timing would be just so, so bad.’
‘Oh, Ais, I wish I was there. You poor thing, dealing with this by yourself. You need to piss on a stick to be sure, though.’
‘Will it even show up, though, if my period is literally due today?’
‘Hang on a sec … I’m googling it here. Okay, it might show up tomorrow if you get one of those early detection ones. And according to this thing I’m reading, if it doesn’t, it could be a false negative. Keep testing. I think this article is for people who are, you know, trying.’
‘I suppose I’ll get a test on my way to work then.’
‘And it says to use morning urine for best results. Whatever best results is.’
‘Morning urine. Got it.’
‘Are you going to tell John?’
I mull it over. Am I? Even if I am pregnant, I could make this all go away next week and accept Mandy’s offer and everything would be so easy. He’d never be any the wiser.
‘Things are so good between us now. I’m just afraid this will …’
‘Ruin it?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What’s Majella’s take?’
‘I haven’t told her. I literally just found out. You’re the only one who knows.’
‘You rang me first? Ais, I’m flattered.’
‘You know I told you herself and Pablo were trying?’
‘Oh yeah, right. You nearly ruined my Thanksgiving dinner.’
‘Well, it’s not exactly happening for them. She’s getting pretty worried that it’s taking so long.’
‘Ais, no.’ I can hear a wobble in her voice and I’m afraid it’s going to set me off. ‘Poor Maj, she must be stressed.’
‘I know – it’s early days, though. In terms of interventions, I mean. But I couldn’t exactly ring her up and be like “Boo hoo, I think I’m pregnant”, you know?’
‘Totally.’
‘How did you feel the time you had the … crisis pregnancy?’
‘Oh, Aisling, that was completely different!’
‘I know, but how did you feel?’
‘Initially? Complete and utter shock. Devastation. I just knew I wasn’t going to have that baby. Every single cell in my body was telling me not to go through with it. I would have swum the Irish Sea to that clinic if I had to. And wasn’t it a good job I did? I love the life I have now. A baby would not fit into it. That’s what I keep telling Don.’
‘I think I’m in shock myself.’
‘Of course you are. But just because you’re in shock doesn’t mean you don’t want to have a baby with John.’
That hadn’t dawned on me. ‘Really? Do you think so?’
‘Aisling, you’re my friend, so I’m saying this with love: you’re a control freak. My educated guess is the reason you’re panicking is because you hadn’t planned on getting pregnant.’
Well, she’s right about that. ‘We’ve only just become boyfriend and girlfriend officially! We haven’t even talked about having kids down the line.’
‘But when you were together for so long before, it must have come up. Even hypothetically?’
‘I suppose it probably did. No, yeah, I know John wants kids someday. Back then he did anyway. He might have changed his mind for all I know.’
‘And do you?’
I haven’t actually thought about that recently. But I do, I’ve always known. Maybe not the football team I was planning when I was in my twenties, though. That seems mad now. ‘Yeah. When the time is right.’ I think of Maj and Pablo. ‘If I’m lucky enough, that is.’
‘So maybe, just maybe, you will want to have this baby once you get used to the idea. You’re not even a day late. Very Aisling.’
‘Sadhbh! I’m in my hour of need here.’
‘What I mean is that if you’re pregnant you’re only four weeks gone. You’ve loads of time to decide.’
I place my palm on my lower belly. It feels warm and soft. Could there really be a part of John growing inside me? ‘If it was you, would you tell Don?’
She harrumphs. ‘Don would be delighted. He’s still trying to wear me down.’
‘He hardly wants you to have a baby right now? He’s always on the go. And you’ve just started your new job.’
‘No, but he wants me to say I’d be into it at some stage.’
‘Oh God, I’m sorry to hear that. You’d tell him, though, would you?’
There’s a pause. ‘Yeah, I would. I tell him everything. How could I not?’
She’s right, of course. If things are going to work between me and John, I have to be honest with him.
‘And, Ais, if you do decide you want to have an abortion, I will do everything I can to support you. You know that, yeah? I’m here for you.’
‘Thanks, Sadhbhy.’
‘Call me again any time. No matter what you do, it’ll all be okay.’
‘I hope so.’
When my head touches the pillow I fall into the deepest sleep I’ve had in ages.