Aiden went to get tea and bagels half an hour ago. Then an hour ago. Then two hours ago. Then two hours and forty-five minutes. Where the hell can he be? I crawl out of bed and force myself to go out to the living room. Brie is sitting in front of the television watching a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills marathon. I think that show is crap and yet I can’t not watch it. It was one of Caroline’s favorites and it’s one of my all-time guilty pleasures.

Where could he be? As my nausea subsides, my worry about Aiden increases. I’m not one to worry unnecessarily. At least, I try to keep my worries at bay. But this time, I have a bad feeling about everything. It came over me about twenty minutes after Aiden left and hasn’t disappeared since.

I call his phone for what feels like the tenth time since he left. This time I don’t ask him to call me back.

“Listen, if you needed to go to work or something, that’s fine. I’m totally okay with it. Just please call or text and let me know. For some reason, I got really worried. I don’t know, maybe it’s all the pregnancy hormones. Just let me know what’s going on.”

I pace around my room. When I hear Brie out in the kitchen, I meet her there.

“So…you and Aiden?” Brie gives me a wink over her buttered toast. “How’s that working out?”

I shrug and smile.

“Pretty good from what I heard last night.”

I blush. I didn’t realize that we were loud enough to hear. Brie must sense my embarrassment.

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” she says, waving her hand.

Brie and I are close, but not close the way sisters are often portrayed in sappy movies. For some reason, we were never the type to lay around at night gushing about what this or that guy said to us. Or gal, for that matter. I sort of suspect that Brie may be a lesbian, but because we’re not that close, I don’t feel comfortable bringing it up.

“We were sort of celebrating something,” I say after a moment.

“What?”

“Aiden asked me to marry him.”

“Okay…” she says slowly. “I thought that he had already asked you that?”

Oh, that’s right. She knows about the previous failed engagement. Not everything, but enough.

“Well, he asked again,” I say.

“Does he know about the baby?”

“Of course, he does. I told him about it and…he was actually much more excited about it than I thought he would be.”

“Oh, that’s great, Ellie.”

“I think so,” I say and go into the long-winded account of what happened. How I told him. What he said. What I said. How he asked me to marry him. She listens carefully and then throws her arms around me.

“I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m genuinely surprised. I mean, I really didn’t expect to be a basket-case about this whole thing. What do you think? I feel like such an idiot.”

“An idiot? Why?”

“I don’t know. Just feel sort of stupid. I mean, I should be more excited about having a baby.”

“You’re just young. And you’re thinking of the way that it’s going to affect your life in a negative way. But maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe you should think about all the good that will come out of it. All the fun.”

“That’s the problem,” I say. “I don’t really have any experience with kids. I mean, I don’t know any babies. Aiden doesn’t have much family and we never had any babies around. It’s just a weird thing to imagine having a baby when you have no personal experience with one.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

Brie is also not exactly the mothering type. But then again, maybe that’s not a requirement. Actually, I know for sure that it’s not a requirement to be a mother. But are those skills something you should acquire in order to actually become a good mother? Probably. And will they come naturally? Or is there some sort of class I should take?

I graduated from Yale and there wasn’t one course in the catalog about anything like this. Perhaps, that’s the tragedy since most of the kids I went to school with grew up in terrible homes. Not terrible as in abusive, but terrible in that they felt neglected and ignored. It’s amazing how many well-off people provide for their kids and offer them a semblance of care, but aren’t really there for them in the way that their kids want them to be.

Or is this just a function of growing up? Do all children, to some degree, feel disappointed by their parents? Perhaps, that’s what it means to become an adult. You become one when you realize that your parents aren’t perfect; you accept the fact that they have disappointed you in some way, however minuscule and insignificant on the surface, and you forgive them anyway.

“Ellie, I have to tell you something,” Brie says. She has a serious look on her face. So, serious in fact, that I think that something might actually be wrong.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a very long time. But I just didn’t know how to come right out and say it.”

“Okay,” I say. “You can tell me anything.”

“I’ve been thinking that I don’t think I want to be identified as a ‘she’ anymore. I mean, I’m not entirely sure if I want to be called a ‘she’.”

I nod. I don’t really know what she’s talking about. I guess she gets that from the expression on my face so she explains.

“I don’t know if I want to transition to being a man, but I’m thinking that maybe I do. So…for now…I just want to be a called ‘they.’”

“‘They?’ Instead of ‘she’?” I ask.

“Yep.”

“But not ‘he’?”

“No, not yet. I have been thinking about this for a bit. I definitely don’t want the ‘it’ pronoun, but also don’t want to be called ‘he.’ Not yet. But I don’t exactly feel like a ‘she’ either.”

I nod. I don’t really understand, but I’m here for her. She’s my sister after all.

“Have you told mom yet?” I ask. Out of the two of them, I think she’s the one who will most likely have an issue with this whole thing. She’s not one to adapt to change easily.

“No,” Brie says. “I wanted to run it by my big sister first.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. Flattered actually. But you know that telling me isn’t exactly the same thing as telling Mom, right? There’s no rehearsal for that.”

“Yes, I know.” Brie hangs her head.

“Maybe tell Mitch.”

“No, he’ll just go and tell her and then I won’t be able to control how it comes out. He’s not one for paying attention to details, you know that, right?”

“Unfortunately, I do,” I say with a smile.

“So…what about you? What do you think?”

“I don’t really know. I mean, I don’t really know anything about this, Brie. But to tell you the truth, I’ll call you whatever you want to be called. If you don’t feel like the pronoun ‘she’ applies to you anymore, then who am I to say otherwise?”

Tears start to well up in Brie’s eyes. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen her cry. It was probably when our dog, Charlie, died.

“Brie, don’t cry. Please. I’m here for you.”

“Why do you think I’m crying, Ellie? Because you’re here for me.”

Tears run down my cheeks as we hold each other tightly. I haven’t felt this close to her in…I can’t remember how long. Actually, I’m kind of surprised that she came to me with this.

“You know, for a second there, I thought you were going to come out of the closet to me,” I say. “Are you…are you into women?”

“I am,” Brie says. “But I’m also into men. I’m not sure I’m ready to make a statement definitively one way or another yet.”

“I get that.”

“What about you? Have you ever been with a girl?” Brie asks.

“I kissed a girl once. In college. At a party. We were both very drunk and people were cheering us on,” I say. “Agh, I’m so embarrassed.”

Looking back, I’m actually embarrassed by the fact that I did it because of the audience, not because I kissed a girl.

“What about you? Have you ever been with a girl?” I ask.

“Yep. Dated one actually. She just broke up with me.”

“Oh, no. How long were you together?”

“A few months. Not long. But we spent every minute together practically, so it feels much more significant.”

I nod. “Well, I’m really sorry about the break up. Those are always hell.”

Brie and I sit on the couch and gossip the way that sisters do, the way that we have never gossiped in our lives. It’s an amazing feeling. Fun and fulfilling. We talk and talk and never run out of topics. She opens and finishes a bottle of Pinot Grigio while I stick to Coke.

And then, my phone rings. It’s Aiden.

“Hey, where are you?” I ask.

“Hi, Ellie,” an unfamiliar voice on the other line says. “My name is Officer Paulson. I have to tell you something.”