I woke up and turned my head over towards the clock. It was 7:30 a.m. I was surprised I managed to sleep that late. I’d tossed and turned the night before. Besides being anxious about what I was doing this morning, I missed Jack lying beside me and I couldn’t sleep through the night. I grabbed my phone. There was nothing since the text he had sent last night at 9:00 telling me goodnight. I scrambled out of bed and made my way to the bathroom.

I had set out the pregnancy test sticks by the toilet. I realized after doing much research last night that it would be impossible to take all five tests at once because you had to pee on the sticks for five seconds each. I didn’t think I could manage to get all of them completed in one pee, but I was going to try. I didn’t want any mistakes. I rubbed my eyes and looked in the mirror and thought to myself, here goes nothing. I sat down on the toilet and grabbed the first test and peed and counted to five. I quickly grabbed the next test and did the same thing. By the third test, I only managed to count to three before I couldn’t pee anymore, so that one would be iffy, I thought to myself.

I laid the three tests on the counter and then washed my hands and went back into the bedroom and set the timer on my phone for three minutes. It felt like three hours. When the timer went off, I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I made my way back to the bathroom. I looked down at the tests. My stomach lurched. The first one had a line. The second one had a plus sign. The third one was digital and said ‘pregnant’ across the screen. I grabbed all three and tossed them in the trash. I could immediately feel tears falling down my cheeks as stumbled back in the bedroom and fell back on the bed.

All three were positive. How could it be possible? I took that little pill religiously every morning. Tears rolled down my face as I remembered Jack telling me that he was afraid to have sex with Tiffany without a condom because he didn’t trust her to not get pregnant on purpose. Jesus, what if he thought that about me? How was I going to tell him? We weren’t ready for this yet. I didn’t even know if he wanted me here. I sobbed out loud and rolled onto my side. I laid there for a few minutes longer and then grabbed my phone. Maybe the tests were wrong, I thought. I dialed my doctor’s office and they weren’t open yet. I had to wait another half hour, which I spent dwelling on how I might tell Jack this news.

I held my phone up and looked at it. It was exactly 8:00 a.m., 9:00 in New York. I dialed the doctors’ office. As soon as they picked up, I put on my bitchiest voice possible, “This is Claire Hawkins. I need to speak to Dr. Hannaway immediately.”

The receptionist cleared her throat, “Just a moment, I’ll put you through to her nurse’s voice mail.”

I cringed. “No. No voice mail. Do you understand? This is Claire Hawkins. I need you to go find Dr. Hannaway immediately and put her on the phone. Do not put me into voicemail. Go find the doctor and tell her I’m on the phone. Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry, we are not permitted to— “

I cut her off. “Give me your name.”

“Jane Snyder.”

“Jane Snyder, if you value your job, you will go find Dr. Hannaway immediately and tell her that Claire Hawkins is on the line. I’m not going to ask again, do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am”

While I listened to the ‘hold’ music, I felt like the biggest bitch. I had never used my name to get special treatment, but if there were ever a day to do it, it was today.

A couple of minutes later Dr. Hannaway answered, “Claire, this is Dr. Hannaway, is everything alright?”

“Thank god. No. I’ve just taken three pregnancy tests and they all say positive. I need you to tell me that it is possible that they are wrong.”

Dr. Hannaway was silent for a moment.  I could hear the clicks of a keyboard on the other side of the phone. “Claire, if you have taken three different tests and have gotten the same result, I would have to tell you that it is extremely unlikely that they are wrong.”

Tears began flowing down my cheeks again. “How is that even possible? I have taken the pills you prescribed every morning at the same time every single day. I have never missed one. This can’t be right.”

“Claire, have you taken any antibiotics?”

“No. I haven’t taken any other medication. Just the pills.”

I heard the clicking of the keyboard again. “Claire, I’ve pulled up your chart. It looks like when these were prescribed you indicated that you were not sexually active and didn’t have plans to be sexually active in the near future. It also indicates that you requested the pills to regulate your menstrual cycle, not to prevent pregnancy.”

“What? I asked for birth control. You said they were birth control pills.”

“They are Claire, but they are the lowest dose available. But listen Claire, not any pill is one hundred percent effective, but to be honest, I would have a prescribed a different type if I had known you wanted them to prevent pregnancy. Shall I transfer you back to the receptionist, so you can make an appointment?  I would think you’d like to come in so that we can discuss your options.”

“No thank you,” I whispered as I hung up the phone. Jesus. I couldn’t believe it was true. I curled up in a ball on the bed and cried for another thirty minutes.

My phone dinged. I looked at it. It was text from Jack. “Leaving Nashville in 30 minutes. See you around 11. I have something I need to talk to you about.”

Okay, so I basically had two and half hours to figure out what the hell I was going to tell Jack and as of that moment, I didn’t have a clue. I wished that I had someone to talk to. My thoughts immediately went to Sarah. I picked up my phone and texted her and found out that she was on her way into town to buy groceries. I could have called her. I could have told her I needed her. There was no doubt in my mind that she would turn around and come right back here. But for some reason, I couldn’t ask her to do it.

I rolled over again and closed my eyes as the tears continued to flow. I don’t know how long I laid there before falling asleep. The doorbell woke me. I was startled at first but then realized where I was and remembered my situation. I quickly looked at my phone. It was a little before ten o’clock, Jack wouldn’t be back for another hour. I looked down at myself. I was a mess. I was wearing baggy sweatpants and a tank top with no bra. I quickly grabbed one of Jack’s work shirts that was lying on his dresser and put it on and headed towards the stairs. I had no clue who could be at the door. Deliveries never came until the afternoon and Ted and Sarah both let themselves in.

I unlocked and opened the door just wide enough to put my head through. “Can I help you?” I asked the stunning redhead standing on the porch.

“Hi.” She said, flashing a bright smile. “Is Jack around?” 

I took a quick appraisal of her. She was about my height, but she was wearing tall wedge sandals. She had on a short dark red silk dress that seemed more appropriate for a nightclub than for day wear. The dress had a deep v-neck that exposed a lot of cleavage. My eyes drifted to the Louis Vuitton Neverfull slung over her shoulder. Her left hand was gripping the strap and my eyes moved passed the gold Rolex on her wrist and her manicured nails to the stunning ring on her left ring finger. It was princess cut—at least five carats. Her crimson hair was curled, falling on her shoulders and her makeup was flawless. Her big round dark brown eyes sparkled as she continued to smile at me.

I cleared my throat, running a hand over the back of my head, feeling the tangled mess in the back of my hair. “Umm—Jack’s not here actually. He’s on his way back from Nashville, can I tell him you stopped by?”

She held out her right hand to me, “I’m Tiffany Johnson.”

I reluctantly took her hand as my heart dropped. I looked down at my own hand, realizing I was in desperate need of a manicure. I had cut my bare nails short and the thumbnail on my right thumb was chipped from gardening and I had even bothered to file it.

It was her. It was Jack’s Tiffany. I was sick to my stomach. Why today? I thought to myself and then managed to pull myself together and respond. “Yes. Jack has mentioned you, I’m Claire Hawkins. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too!” She said in an overly cheerful, overly fake voice. “Jack and I must’ve gotten our wires crossed this morning. I expected him to be home by now.” She cooed. “You don’t mind if I just come in and wait for him, do you?”

Of course, I minded. What the hell? I suspected she was full of shit, but she mentioned that they had talked earlier that morning. I couldn’t know for sure, so I just opened the door and let her in. She practically pushed me down as she walked passed me. I watched her take appraisal of the place before she headed towards the kitchen and threw her Louis Vuitton on the kitchen island and took a seat at one of the barstools. She sat down and started playing with the massive diamond on her finger. “So, Claire, you have to tell me, how do you know my fiancé?”

I stood in the kitchen facing her, wrapping Jack’s shirt tighter around me wishing I could suddenly disappear. I cleared my throat again, “I’m doing some consulting for the farm.”

“Oh, that’s right. I think he mentioned you, you’re the super smart girl who’s looking at his books?”

I shivered and then felt nauseous. “Did you say fiancé? Jack mentioned that you two had split up a couple of years ago.” What the fuck is going on?

She giggled. “We did. You know he and I were first loves. That’s what we do, break up and get back together. I think when we saw each other in Nashville last night, we both knew it was time to stop that and just realized that we were meant to be together. He mentioned he was going to talk to you when he got home. I hope I haven’t caused any problems?” She giggled again but didn’t wait for my response. Apparently, it was a rhetorical question. “Did he tell you Claire, that he built this house for me?” She said as she looked around.

“Yes.” I managed to squeak out as I started to shake. Tears were stinging the backs of my eyes but there was no way in hell I would let that bitch see me cry. I needed to get away, I needed to process.

“MEN!” She huffed. “I can’t believe he’s brought in all of this shit furniture from that old house. I’m going to have to redecorate this whole damn place.” She said laughing.

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, without success, but I managed to steady my voice, “If you’ll please excuse me Tiffany, I need to go upstairs and change, I have someplace I have to be.”

“Of course, sweetie, I’m sorry I kept you.”

Her voice was syrupy sweet, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I ran up the stairs, through the bedroom door and into the bathroom. I vomited in the toilet and went straight to the sink to rinse out my mouth. I looked in the mirror. There was mascara from last night smeared under my eyes. My face was pale. My hair was matted. I was a complete mess. I didn’t want to believe it. But she had said the one thing that made me realize it was the truth, ‘he mentioned that he was going to talk to you when he got home.’ He had told me earlier in his text that he needed to talk to me about something. It was Tiffany that he wanted to talk to me about.

There was no time to shower. I quickly brushed my teeth, cleaned the makeup out from under my eyes, and then brushed my hair and put it in a ponytail.  I think I was in shock. I needed to cry, but I couldn’t let myself, not until I was safely away from there.

I quickly changed into jeans, a white t-shirt, and a light cardigan sweater. I pulled on my work boots and made my way across the hall to Jack’s office. There was an empty cardboard box in there.  I stopped at his desk and wrote him a note and placed it on top of my report. A tear managed to slip down my cheek and I quickly wiped it away, begging God to keep the tears away for just a little longer. I pulled up flights to Boston on my phone and booked the next one. I would need to haul ass if I wanted to make it. I sent a text to Ted.

I ran back across the hall and filled my suitcase with everything that would fit in it. I grabbed an empty duffle bag from Jack’s closet and filled it with everything I could. I piled the rest of my clothes in the cardboard box and left it sitting in the closet. I looked at the red cowboy boots sitting next to the box and turned around and walked out.