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Some disasters meander or stroll into our lives at an easy pace. A leaky dam, a slow-moving storm, or a crack in a foundation all creep up nice and easy. If we’re paying attention, we see the trouble coming and can dodge, bob, and weave, or duck to avoid calamity.

Consequently, I’m now good at rolling with the punches, picking myself up, and moving forward. I don’t dwell on the past too much anymore. Eyes forward is my new motto.

But as I clutched the little white pregnancy stick and stared at the test strip, willing a minus sign, I wasn’t sure how I’d handle this jam. A baby wasn’t like an expensive pair of shoes that needed returning, a bounced check, or a really bad hair perm. A baby was forever.

And ever.

Threading fingers through my dark hair, I fought back the nausea and allowed a groan to rumble in my chest as I thought about my boyfriend, Gordon.

We’d broken up last year. It had been a bitter, sad breakup, leaving me far more wounded than I could have imagined.

I’d tried to move on with life, but regrets over Gordon always lingered.

A few months ago, we’d both landed back in Alexandria, trying to rebuild broken careers, and somehow, we’d found our way back to each other.

There were days when our rekindled love touched on miraculous.

However, in a bid to be mature and thoughtful about our newfound love, we’d not reestablished relations, if you know what I mean.

No nooky. No sex. We were going slow. Didn’t want to upset the applecart.

Friends-before-lovers kind of situation, because the first time we’d been together, the sexual attraction had been hot and furious.

Couldn’t-keep-our-hands-off-each-other kind of sex.

We were intimate by the second date and had moved in together after a month.

Gordon had asked me to marry him by month six, and by month nine, I’d freaked out over the looming commitment and pushed the self-destruct button on us.

This time the theme was slow and easy.

Don’t get me wrong: since our reunion, sex had been on both our minds, big, big time. Old sparks still flickered bright and hot.

However, Gordon was the one staying strong, suggesting we nurture a friendship before we jumped into bed. I didn’t like it, but I understood. Gordon wanted me to be sure enough about him as a friend as well as a lover.

A simple concept except for the fact I’d just peed on a pregnancy stick.

Gordon and I had officially broken up last year and officially gotten back together four weeks ago.

A muddled middle filled the months we’d been apart, and partway through our separation—exactly four months ago—I’d made a less than wise choice I’d thought was forgotten forever.

I stared at the still-white window of the stick.

If it went nuclear pink, it meant I was about four months pregnant.

I didn’t need a calendar or any fancy guesswork to know the day.

March 21. It was my last night in my Washington, DC, apartment.

The financial management company I’d worked for had gone under overnight, a casualty of the mortgage market.

The job prospects were slim, so I’d yielded to pressure from my mother and agreed to come home for a few months and manage the family bakery.

My newly widowed sister struggled with the job, and in Mom’s mind it could be a win-win for everyone.

I was not thrilled about the move. I loved my family, but the bakery held bitter memories of a birth mother who had abandoned me at the shop when I was three years old.

My last night in Washington wasn’t happy. Self-pity brimmed as I pined for the past and dreaded the future.

To cheer myself up, I’d invited friends over for a final goodbye.

The six of us had gathered to mourn the demise of our beloved company and to toast my bright, albeit underemployed future.

Bonded by grief and loss, we clung to ties doomed to fray even as we swore we’d lunch, text, and talk all the time.

We were more than friends, we’d said after I’d opened the sixth bottle of wine. We were family .

Yada, yada, yada.

One key acquaintance, now to my great regret, lingered longer than the rest. Roger Traymore.

We’d both been tipsy as we’d argued over the roots of our company’s demise.

We’d both fought hard to save the company.

Worked crushing hours. Endured difficult meetings with clients and watched others buy us out and cut us loose.

In those hazy drunken moments, we both understood each other.

We were kindred spirits. And our momentary bond had translated into sex.

Not super-great sex, but in the big picture the sex didn’t matter.

What mattered was the condom had broken.

I’d been too drunk to worry, but when the sun rose, we’d sobered enough to realize the gravity of it all.

Instead of acknowledging what had happened, I’d been as anxious for him to leave as he was to go.

And on the heels of more empty promises of friendship, we’d scattered like two rats from a sinking ship.

He took a job teaching in China, and I moved home across the Potomac River to Alexandria, Virginia, to my parents’ bakery, which also teetered on financial oblivion.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Long story short, if the white stick turned pink, not only was I starting my fourth month as the Union Street Bakery manager, but I was entering my second trimester.

Pregnancy. Knocked up. Bun in the oven. Damn it.

Clutching the stick, I walked across my attic apartment located atop the bakery, then set it on my nightstand. Sitting on my squeaky bed, I buried my face in my hands. Don’t borrow trouble. Don’t borrow trouble.

Glancing up, I surveyed my tiny attic apartment.

My parents had converted the third-floor space into a room when I was a kid.

They’d cleared out the junk, finished the walls, and added a bathroom.

Not hugely spacious but okay for me now.

Since my return I’d whitewashed the walls and added a desk for papers and a chest of drawers to stow clothes.

There wasn’t a lot of storage space, but I didn’t need much now.

I’d saved one all-purpose black dress but had sold my other DC clothes weeks ago for quick cash to pay the bakery’s electric bill.

There was a small television in the corner.

It wasn’t attached to cable, but I’d bought a digital converter, and on a good day it broadcast four channels.

My red bike hung above my desk on twin hooks, a rag rug warmed the floor, and blue thrift store curtains covered the two dormer windows.

In the corner, I’d also squeezed in another twin bed that doubled as a couch.

No kitchen, but the bakery in the basement had all the cooking power I needed.

My attic was not huge, but it worked for me.

For me.

Not me and a baby !

I sat on my sofa bed, unmindful of the squeaky spring poking my backside, and switched on my nightstand light so I could stare at the strip under the bulb’s glare.

The white had turned a very faint pink tint, but it wasn’t exactly dark pink.

And I was certain it was supposed to be a dark pink.

The back of the box said a pink plus sign indicated positive results.

It didn’t say faint pink or a little bit pink .

No such circumstance as a little bit pregnant.

“How pink is pink enough?”

Damn. With a groan I curled up on the side of the bed and stared at the stick, willing it to fade to white.

It hadn’t occurred to me until yesterday to buy a pregnancy test. I’d been walking by the Potomac River on the trail, trying to settle my stomach and doing my best to figure out when I’d had my last menstrual cycle.

I’d missed last month and the month before, but with the job loss and the transition, I chalked the delay up to stress.

Unlike my sisters’ cycles, mine weren’t totally regular, so I didn’t get too worked up.

I’d considered talking to Mom, but she was like my sisters.

Like clockwork. Her biology wasn’t mine.

The fact was, no matter how much we loved each other, I was the daughter she’d adopted and not birthed.

When I was three, my birth mother had abandoned me in the bakery’s outdoor patio.

It had been Easter time, and the place had been a crush of tourists and regulars enjoying our very decadent hot cross buns.

Sheila McCrae, the hippie bakery shop owner, had spotted me sitting alone.

She’d stopped her frenetic collection of dishes and trash to make sure my mom was close.

After several minutes, she’d realized my mother wasn’t hovering close or standing nearby with a watchful eye on me.

I was alone. My birth mother had vanished, leaving no traces or clues.

There’d been a police investigation, but she had gone.

Sheila had folded me into her family as effortlessly as she folded whipped egg whites into a batter, and life had gone on for both of us as mother and daughter.

Though Mom loved me like her biological daughters, we didn’t share genetics.

The only person to ask would have been my birth mother, whom I’d met for the first time months ago.

Our recent reunion wasn’t exactly storybook.

She’d been clear she didn’t want a relationship.

She’d rebuilt her life with a husband and two young sons, and there was no room in it for me.

She’d given me some biological information and had said she’d answer questions.