“J?” He knocked on the bathroom door. Zoë sat at his feet, setting one paw on the door as if she, too, were concerned. Jacinda was in there taking a pregnancy test. After six unsuccessful months, the eager excitement of this moment had been twisted into the anxiety of impending heartbreak. For the past couple of months, she’d locked herself in the bathroom alone to do the test. She didn’t like him to see her cry.

“I’ll be out in a minute. I just...I’ll be out.” Her voice was full of tears. And today was her goddamn birthday, too. Fuck.

“Ah, baby.” He set his forehead on the beveled wood. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t answer, but he didn’t expect her to. “Okay. I love you.” He bent down and picked up the cat. “Come on, Zozo. Let’s leave her be.”

What a shitty way to start her birthday. For six months they’d been fucking bareback and going at it like rabbits, and still nothing. Six months was the mark her doctor had set for starting to discuss ‘interventions’—beginning with him jacking off into a plastic cup to see if it was him, and her getting all sorts of painful shit done to see if it was her.

He didn’t know if he was down for all that, as badly as he wanted to know their child. But his part was nothing, so if she wanted to go through it, he’d stand with her.

Back out in the kitchen, while Zoë picked at the tuna flakes in her bowl, Apollo stood and stared at the cinnamon rolls he’d baked from a tube for her birthday breakfast. A little box of pink birthday candles sat on the counter beside the plate of rolls; now he wasn’t sure he should bother. The past couple of months, she’d been pretty bleak on the day she got her period.

It had seemed, when he’d gotten up, like it would be such a great day, too. April had been warm from the start, and they’d slept with the windows open that night. Now, birdsong and sunlight filled the kitchen, and the filmy yellow curtains she’d hung in the windows billowed in a soft breeze. Zoë jumped up and sat on the sill, watching the birds. The day had seemed designed as a birthday gift.

Now it all felt like it had been designed to mock her.

While he stared at the pink candles and wondered if he should use one, Jacinda came into the room and leaned against the fridge. Wearing only his shirt from the day before, her hair still mussed from sleep, she looked small and vulnerable. She’d been crying, he could tell, but her smile was genuine enough. Jacinda didn’t cry easily, but about this, her tears had become frequent.

“Hey. What’s that?”

“Birthday breakfast. Courtesy of the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

“Thank you. That’s so sweet.” She came to him and circled her arms around his waist.

He held on and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll do whatever you want. When you’re ready, you just say the word, and we’ll do whatever it takes, if you want. Or we’ll keep on like we are and just be us. Whatever you want. I’d like kids with you, but I got everything I’ll ever need when I married you. I love you.”

“I love you. You’re the best man I’ve ever known.” She tipped her head back and looked up at him, and her smile went wide. “I have a present for you.”

“What? Why? It’s your birthday.”

One hand came loose from his waist, and she held up a plastic stick between them.

He stared at the white plastic, the pink cap, the two pink lines in the tiny window. He’d been so sure that the news was disappointing, it took him a couple of blinks to understand what he was looking at. She’d sounded sad behind the bathroom door. She’d obviously been crying. But she was pregnant? Wasn’t that what she wanted?

“I don’t...what?” He lifted his eyes past the stick and focused on his wife. Her eyes were dark pools of unshed tears, but that smile blazed bright.

“It happened,” she whispered, and then broke into sobs.

“Hey, hey,” he crooned and pulled her close. “I don’t understand...isn’t this good news?”

A leaden shadow lifted from his shoulders when she nodded. “I just...” She sniffed and pulled back, composing herself, wiping her cheeks with the palm of the hand that still held the stick. “I didn’t know it until I saw that pink line finally fucking happen, but I think I’d given up. It’s like I can’t believe it.” Her eyes narrowed. “You see it, right? It’s there?”

He took the stick from her and gave the window in it a careful study. “Yeah, baby. You’re pregnant.” The words in the air struck him at last, and he grinned. “J! You’re pregnant! It’s a baby, baby! Happy birthday!”

Sobs took her over again, but this time he understood them for joy. He lifted her up and spun her around. She laughed through her tears and locked her arms around his neck.

As he pressed soft kisses over her cheeks and lips, tasting the salt of her happy tears, she murmured, “Can I ask a favor?”

“It’s your day, Jacinda,” he answered between kisses.

“Can we go back to bed? I love that you made me breakfast, but I just want to lie in your arms for a while until my heart slows down.”

There was a present, too, a good one. Zoë sat on the dining room chair with it, chewing at its press-on bow. But the best present had already happened, and everything else would keep. They had all the time in the world.

“Anything you want.” He set his lips against the pulse of her throat and felt its frantic fluttering. An urge struck him then, and he lifted her high above his head, until her belly was before his face. His shirt had bunched up under her arms, exposing the firm, sleek skin under which the seed of his child had taken root. “I love you,” he whispered and kissed her belly.

Her muscles tightened and twitched as she began to cry again. Cradling her in his arms, he carried her out of the kitchen and back to bed.

Susan Fanetti is a Midwestern native transplanted to Northern California, where she lives with her husband, youngest son, and assorted cats.

She is a proud member of the Freak Circle Press.

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