Not because I didn’t want this baby. Because Marcus had already walked away.
I called Marcus that night. He picked up on the fourth ring.
“Can we meet?” I asked. “Just to talk. There’s something you need to know.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“My mother’s coming,” he said.
“Marcus, please, this is between us.”
“She’s coming, or I’m not.”
I closed my eyes. “Fine.”
The café had those little round tables that made everyone sit closer than they wanted to. Diane arrived first, in a cream coat, her handbag placed precisely on the chair beside her. She did not look at me.
Marcus came in a minute later, thinner than I remembered.
He sat across from me and did not touch the water the waitress brought.
“You said there was something.”
I opened my mouth. I had rehearsed the words a hundred times in the car.
I’m pregnant. Two syllables and a whole life inside them.
A shadow fell across the table before I could speak.
A woman stood beside us. She looked like she was in her mid-50s, with gray hair cut sharp at her jaw.
She was not looking at Marcus or at me.
