I was supposed to go to Murray Hill right after my dad’s, but I didn’t. The loft was a short cab ride, and I could make it in time.

I ran in, slammed the door, and stripped my coat and scarf, leaving them in piles on the floor. Kicked off one boot. Took a step. Kicked off the other boot. Unbuttoned my pants. Got into the bathroom. Ripped the package open. Skimmed the directions, which were printed in four-point type. Yanked my pants down all the way, sat on the bowl, and peed right onto the stick.

What do you want?

I knew what I wanted. I wanted to have a baby before I got cancer. I wanted to just do that one thing, then they could remove every body part that made me a woman. They could turn me into a flat-chested Barbie doll. I was all right with that. Take it. If it made me live, just take it.

And what about Adam? What about the knot of conflicting feelings we both had? What about the compounded opposites? The love that flicked off like a light switch for one of us just as the other’s flicked on? It was a disaster. A complete disaster. I couldn’t bring a child into the mess we’d created.

I sat on the toilet with my hand trapped between my closed thighs. I couldn’t look.

What did I want?

Was it important to know before I looked at the stick? The result wouldn’t change.

But I had to know what to hope for. I had to believe something before I knew something. How else would I know how to feel?

I didn’t want to be pregnant. I didn’t want a baby now. Of the dozen reasons a woman could miss a period, I didn’t want it to be the most likely. Anything but. I wasn’t ready. We weren’t ready.

“One line. Just please, give me one line.”

I opened my legs and lifted the stick to eye level. The wet, grey wave had passed the first line in the little window and made its way to the other side in a serrated procession, passing where the second line should have been, to where it never would be, to the edge.

No happy second line appeared.

One pink line.

Not.

Pregnant.

A sob shot out of my lungs like cannon fire. I threw the stick in the trash as if I could break it. It just made a cracking noise against the plastic bag. So ineffective. Everything was ineffective. Everything I tried to do was a goddamn joke. Even the things I didn’t try failed. Even when I was handed everything in life I barely made it work and here I fuckingwasinthisfuckingbathroom—

I stood and kicked the bottom of the pail. It upended and spilled toward me, dropping a couple of cotton swabs by my socked feet and a failed pregnancy test on my foot. I kicked it off, lost my balance with my pants around my knees, and fell ass-first on the bathroom floor.

Tears came. Breaths hitched. I had a decent amount of snot happening. I let it go for a long time, but no matter how hard I cried, I couldn’t touch the bottom of the pool.

I stayed there, curled up, and cried. I pulled out all the stops. I dipped deep into the well of pain to find I was emptying the ocean with a slotted spoon.

* * *

My phone dinged. It was getting dark, and I was still on the bathroom floor. My back pocket was folded under my waistband, tucked somewhere behind my knee. I wrestled the phone out.

I was mad at him. I was mad that he’d given me a broken baby last time and hadn’t gotten me pregnant this time. I was mad that he didn’t love me enough to be a father to the non-baby. Or that he would be a fine father, but not on terms I understood. I was mad that I loved the wrong parts of him, and that I felt closer to a sadist than a kind man. I was mad that he’d opened me up and I couldn’t close the wound without him. I was mad that I could only really cry when he hurt me.

I wasn’t ready to tell him why I’d run to the loft, but I felt the compulsion to explain.

Lies. The marriage had collapsed on an underpinning of lies, and there I was, trying to set that same foundation again.

My reasons were irrelevant. Lies were lies.

Dominant voice through the text. I sat up on the tiles. My eyes throbbed from crying, and the muscles around my mouth hurt from an hour in the weeping grimace.

Was it wrong that I wanted to please him? That in my misery, the idea of satisfying him was comforting? In obeying him, giving him that pleasure, I could soothe my own pain. I could stop worrying about the future for a few hours and do nothing but make him happy.

I scrambled up and got my pants back on. I put the test and the bathroom junk back in the garbage can. I had this. I pulled my hair out of its clips and brushed it down, taking a good look at my face.

My eyes and lips were swollen and puffy. The whites of my eyes were webbed with hot red. He’d know. He’d ask. I couldn’t lie to his face. I’d tell him about the failed pregnancy test, and he’d be relieved. I wouldn’t be able to bear it.

Apparently my curiosity was about to be sated. Well, that would be a nice distraction.

If I just focused on pleasing him for one night, I might not be sad tomorrow. I could let it all go, and tomorrow I could be the adultingest adult in New York City. I could tell my husband, lover, Dom, ex, everything, and he could soothe me or not. I’d have it under control by then. I’d be able to see a way forward.

We had cold packs in the freezer. I took the softest and pressed it to one eye, then the other as I went about the house, gathering a long slate-blue dress and matching shoes. Navy lace garter. His pearl collar, just in case. I pressed the pack to my eyes the whole ride to Murray Hill.