The pregnancy test is like my mother. It’s always there, waiting to pass judgment. Sometimes it tells you what you want to hear.

And sometimes you want to hurl it into the trash and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Three days ago, I was in my period pants, chowing through junk food, waiting for Aunt Flo to arrive and become the houseguest from hell for five days.

But so far, she’s no-showed.

I can’t get my hopes up. I just can’t. Living like this month by month–and this is only month two–is going to shred me.

So I am packing my purse with tampons, wearing a white skirt, and going to work.

Dec’s already at the office. My head hurts a little and my body aches, so maybe it’s only a matter of time before the biochemical dam of hormones in me releases and washes my womb out.

The alternative is more appealing, but hoping I’m pregnant is like walking around holding my breath. Not okay.

Dec uses a car service to get to the Grind It Fresh! headquarters in Fort Point, but I prefer to walk. If I were going to the office at five a.m. like he did this morning, I’d have a different approach, but I’m not a workaholic. Don’t get me wrong: I love my job. I love our company.

I also like living.

The streets are thronged with people coming out of South Station, peeling off to State Street, Congress Street, grabbing cabs and walking with purpose. It’s almost eight a.m. and this is no time of day for casual meandering. You have goals if you’re click-clacking along on the uneven pavement, walking past the fake Boston Tea Party ship, ignoring the water of the harbor that chops up in waves against rotted piers from old bridges that have been replaced by steel and determination.

I rush along, not because I’m in a hurry, but because human waves of mass movement act remarkably like ocean water. Move along with it. Resistance is futile. I can relax at the office.

Street people dot the walk, always catching my eye, ever tugging at my heart. Declan doesn’t even see them, it seems, but I can’t help it. From babies in carriages to students kissing on a park bench to an unwashed man with a long, messy beard and a mangy dog, begging for spare change, the walk to the office is a sensory stew for me. Sight, scent, sound, touch–everything but taste.

That gets covered as I walk into the storefront. Dave’s there, ready with my morning latte.

“You okay?” he asks, frowning.

“Huh?”

“You look peaked.” He says the word in two syllables. PEE-ked.

“Peaked? Dave, are you secretly a ninety-two year old woman wearing a plastic head scarf to protect your hair? Who says peaked?”

He pales slightly and flinches, then turns away. “Did Declan say something to you?”

“About what?” I’m honestly baffled.

He gruffly says, “Nothing,” one shoulder going up.

I’ve offended him, and I have no idea why, but he’s given me yet another clue: I am definitely PMSing if I’m upsetting him that much.

“Thanks,” I say, fighting instinct as I go up in the elevator to the fifth floor. Mumbled words, coming in a one-way conversational pattern, leak out from behind Declan’s closed door. I know he’s working on supply issues from Indonesia and Mauritania, so it’s anyone’s guess which time zone he’s talking to.

We designed our shared work space to be like a suite with our two offices, a galley kitchen, and a small dining area all opening off a common lounge. Separate bathrooms with showers. But we have one major rule: a closed door means no interruptions. My doorknob clicks with a finality that makes me sigh with relief.

The coffee helps, too.

Deep in my computer bag, there is a package with two pregnancy tests in it. I can’t bring myself to look. So I don’t.

A tickle in the back of my throat makes me sip the coffee, but a niggling fear slips in. That’s the feeling I get before coming down with something. Half the downstairs coffee shop staff has strep.

Oh, no.

The latte instantly soothes my throat, but not my worry. I’m staring at a pile of paperwork on my desk, my email has triple the amount, and I owe a ton of people quick phone calls or return emails. Approvals for major purchasing decisions have backed up. When Dec and I decided I’d be better at operations and he’d be better with the networking and business negotiation, I knew my life would revolve around thousands of small decisions that add up to bigger ones. Part of my job now is training and teaching people I delegate to. We’re still on-boarding new employees, and it’s a terrible time to try to have a baby, but when is the perfect time?

It’s a paradox. There is no such time.

Turning on my desktop, I reposition the two enormous screens and sip more coffee. No amount of caffeine is going to kick this exhaustion. My couch looks like a bed right now, and my eyeballs are swimming in my sockets. How can I be so exhausted, so early?

We’re here, says a small voice in my head, the image of the pregnancy test box plastering itself in my consciousness like a well-lit billboard on a dark night.

“No way. I’m not getting my hopes up,” I mutter as I take a sip of coffee, which goes sour in my stomach. Building a company together is tiring. I’m run down. My period is just a few days late.

Scrambling to justify not taking the damn test, I find my reasons shredding by the second, turning into threads that wave on the wind, mocking me.

There is no good reason.

There’s just... me.

When I get this way–and I don’t have words for it, just a feeling–I call Amanda or, now, Declan, to help me sort through the ephemeral emotional state called I Don’t Know.

What’s wrong? I Don’t Know.

Are you okay? I Don’t Know.

Can I do something to help? I Don’t Know.

It takes awhile, but with enough talking and doing, I Don’t Know can be broken down from the frozen chunk of ice that traps so many important pieces into a moving machinery of self, the ebb and flow of feelings eventually released from gridlock.

But that means I have to ask for help.

And right now, I want to be alone.

Hopeful, I let myself touch my belly, the warmth from my hand radiating up under my ribs for a split second of comfort, of expectation. Is someone with me? Am I not as alone as I think?

“This is ridiculous,” I mumble. “I’ll wait until I’m five days late. It’s too early now. I’d just waste the tests.” Squaring my shoulders, I sit at my desk and grab a stack of papers, half reading them.

And two minutes later, I’m one hundred percent not reading them.

“Fine. I’ll pee on the damn stick,” I say to no one, everyone, the baby, the non-baby. “And it’ll say not pregnant, and then I’ll knock on Declan’s door and cry and ruin my day. Happy now?”

I have no idea who I am talking to, but whoever it is, I’m not being very nice.

Fishing the tests out of my bag, I storm over to my bathroom, hike up my skirt, pull down my panties, and just pee. Closing off the part of me that cares is impossible at this point.

Please please please please please.

I set the test on the counter, right myself, wash my hands, and gently close the door. My desk chair feels extra hard against my spine as I settle back in and start to sort through papers, organizing them into meaningless subgroups. Two minutes. For the next two minutes, I will just work and check emails, answer quick requests and–

“Hey, there.” Declan violates our policy, opens my door, and walks up to me, planting a peck on my cheek. “Glad you’re here,” he calls over his shoulder as he walks behind me.

“Where are you going?”

A drill starts up, pneumatic and loud, through the open office door.

He thumbs toward it. “That. Some minor renovations in my office.” He frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You seem tired.”

“You know. PMS.”

“Right. So, um...” He leans against the edge of my desk. “Nothing?”

“Not yet.”

A tiny pain in my breastbone sprouts as he smiles. “Then maybe...?”

“I don’t know.”

A hand on my shoulder, then he moves to go to the bathroom. In a panic, I look at the clock. Not quite two minutes.

“I just need to use your bathroom, honey, while they repair the tile in mine,” he says before I can stop him, the bathroom door closing with the sound of all the answers to all the big questions in the universe.

My pulse lives under my tongue, crouched there, coiled and ready.

A toilet flushes. Water runs.

And then Declan doesn’t come out.

Can your skin explode from the heart pushing blood through the body too fast? If so, that’s how I am going to die.

The time display on my computer screen moves forward.

Two minutes.

My bathroom door opens.

“Shannon?” My name is a question, a calling, a magic spell, a lifeline. He’s holding the test, a bewildered look turning my insides into taffy, pulled long and hard with purpose.

“That’s, um, I– ”

“You’re pregnant.”

“I’m what?”

Improbable tears shine in his green eyes. “You’re pregnant.” He holds the stick out to me. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I just took the test! I was waiting to find out and you went into the bathroom before the two minutes were up and oh my God–what did you just say?”

“You’re pregnant.”

“I’m pregnant?”

“You are.”

In the space between rushing heartbeats, I find a stillness, a calm that takes over my body, the air, the sunlight, those green eyes watching me with so much love that shines only for me.

No.

Not anymore.

For me and one other.

He seems hesitant, leaving space between us, offering me the first move. I take it, in his arms, his freshly shaved cheek against mine, the scent of soap and laughter filling me. Vibrations of excitement come from him in the way he grips me, our mutual elation so strong.

“We did it,” he whispers. “We’re having a baby.” He drops to his knees and presses his cheek against my belly, hands on my ass, riding up to the small of my back. “Our baby is in there.”

“Our baby is smaller than a grain of rice,” I say, the unreality growing stronger.

“But he’s there.”

“He?”

“He. She. They,” he says, laughing, the rumble of his words shooting through me.

Fiddling with the test, I stare at the words. PREGNANT, it says.

“I need to take it again to make sure,” I tell him, pulling away.

“Is there a high rate of false positives?”

“No. I’m just that insecure.”

“Don’t. Don’t be. You’re young, you’re healthy...” His hand cups my belly. “...and now you’re pregnant. With my baby. I put a baby in you.”

“You put a baby in me.”

“I really liked putting a baby in you.”

Finally, we kiss. It’s more intense, more gravid, the tender touch of tongues a kind of passion that is new. We’re not two people anymore, struggling to find the threads that connect us. We have a conduit, one our bodies made, one my body needs to carry the rest of the way on the journey to birth.

Love is infinite. You can use it to create more.

How do I know?

We just did.

Declan breaks the kiss first. “We have to tell everyone,” he says, grinning like a fool.

“You just want to make sure Andrew knows you beat him.”

“What? No.”

I give him a look.

“No. Really.” He halts. “Unless you don’t want to tell people.”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Some people like to wait.”

A dark cloud rushes in. I don’t want to think about that.

“No,” I say firmly. “Let’s tell them. But,” I add, pulling him back to me by his lapels, “can we keep it a secret between us just for a little longer?”

“We can do whatever you want. Whatever you need. Shannon, I’m here. I’m here with you for the rest of my life.” He touches my belly again. “Forever.”