Page 58 of Mom Com

Her gray eyebrows rise when she spots the pregnancy tests, and during a personal episode I can only describe as brain implosion, I say, “Those are for my mom. Wish her luck.” And I don’t stop there. I continue because clearly I haven’t hit my limit of fuckery for the day. “I never imagined she wanted another, but I guess I’m just that much of a joy that she can’t stand the idea of me going to college. You know?”

“Oh,” Mrs. Lambert says, and her suspicion turns to shock.

We stop talking then. She gives me my receipt and I hightail it out of there, hoping and praying to every god in the universe that the CVS burns down, and Mrs. Lambert has a sudden urge to move back to France.

But the moment I get home I forget all about my crap performance, and instead, lock myself in my bathroom. I chug a coconut water and wait. It only takes four minutes before I get the urge. And seven seconds of peeing before my life takes a hard left.

Two effing pink lines.

I drop the thing on the ground like it was diseased, tearing into the second applicator. I tap my foot on the floor, chug another bottle of coconut water, and half an hour later I get exactly the same result. The nausea, which was forcefully present an hour prior is suddenly missing, leaving only shock and fear in its wake. I slide down onto the tiled floor, my back up against the cold bathtub, the pink lines on the sticks staring at me like harbingers of doom.

I don’t cry. I don’t know why really. I just sit there, still, waiting for it to go away, for me to blink and jump the rails into a parallel timeline, one where I wasn’t victim to that thirteen percent chance of condom failure I learned about in sex ed. I don’t pace. I don’t scream. And I don’t try to bury the tests in the bottom of the trash.

I sit there for so long that my butt goes numb on the tiled floor. And when my mom knocks, I don’t scramble, trying to clean up the bathroom. All I say is a dull, “Yeah?”

“Are you decent?” she asks through the wood.

But I don’t know how to answer that question. Am I? Have I lost my decency? Did I ever have it in the first place?

“Madeline? Are you okay in there?” she continues when I don’t reply.

No, Mom, I’m not, not even a little.

She jiggles the locked door handle. “Do you need my help?” she asks, her voice rising with worry.

Maybe it’s the offer of help, or maybe it’s that she sounds so concerned, but something inside me splinters, breaking my stillness and tumbling out in a mess of hot tears. Big heaving sobs. I stand up, my hands shaking. Please, Mom, help me.

I turn the lock, pulling open the door. Her eyes widen and her mouth makes an O. She assesses me for damage while my heart pours down my cheeks.

She pulls me close, wrapping me in her arms as I weep against her shoulder. She’s so warm; her arms are so secure—I wonder if I can stay here, if I can just bury my face in her neck, would it all go away?

“Where does it hurt? Do you need a doctor?” she asks, rubbing my back. “Tell me what’s—” But her voice stops there, just drops off a cliff, and I know that she’s seen the tests on the floor behind me.

She lets go of me, the cold seeping back into the space between us.

Her eyes move to my face. “Tell me those aren’t what I think they are.” Her voice is so low it’s barely audible. “Tell me you’re not...”

Mom can’t even muster the words. But she doesn’t need to and neither do I because there has never been anything more obvious. I’m pregnant.

She hesitates, moving incrementally forward as though she might pull me back to her, hold me like she used to when I was little. And as she moves toward me, my hands lift to meet her. “Please,” I hear myself whimper.

But she turns around, hand on forehead, moving instead to my bedroom. “How could you be so careless? How could you do this to our family?”

Our family,herembarrassment.

“I didn’t mean—” I start and stop.

She rounds on me, her expression a showcase of disappointment and fear. And I realize that I’ve finally done it, the thing she’s always been afraid of—I’ve disgraced her.

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands, and we stare at each other. Physically three feet apart but separated by miles in every way that counts.

“This is going to break your father’s heart,” she says, pressing her hand into her chest. “I can’t... I don’t know what to say to you. How could you?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” I say slowly, the cold moving from my body to my voice. “How could I look for affection outside this house? It’s a mystery,” I reply, and I don’t know why I say it. Maybe it’s because I’m overwhelmed and she’s making it worse, or because the thought of my father being disappointed in me is so awful that I resent her for saying it, or maybe I just want to hurt her the way she’s hurting me.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” I say, sniffling.