Page 32 of The Best Worst Thing

“Because I should’ve known,” Nicole said. “I should’ve protected you. I should’ve told you the minute I found out. I didn’t want you to think any less of us. Any less of Gabe.”

“You don’t need to clean up your husband’s mess for me,” Valerie said. “He can do that himself.”

Nicole’s frown, somehow, went slack. Did she miss the day at school when they passed out backbones? Or did everyone else grow them in their twenties, while she was already fused to Gabe?

“I understand if you don’t want to see us anymore. We don’t have to come to the appointments. The agency can update me.”

“It’s okay, Nicole,” Valerie said. “You didn’t do this.

I’m angry for you, not at you. I just needed a moment, that’s all.

This is a lot, you know? I promise, I’m not mad.

I’m just really sad for you. But this is not your fault.

You’re not the one who stepped out on their marriage.

You’re not the one sleeping with somebody else. ”

Nicole nodded. She ignored the yank in her ribs reminding her just how close she’d come. “I feel like such a failure. I wanted to be the kind of family you were proud to help. I don’t want you to think you did this for nothing. For bad people.”

Valerie put her hand on Nicole’s wrist. “Nobody thinks that. I don’t think that.”

Nicole eyed the TV. “Gabe’s mother does. She used to tell me maybe there was a reason I couldn’t have kids.”

Valerie’s nostrils flared. “I’m sorry, she told you what?”

“She’s a cruel woman. Never liked me. Never thought I was good enough for her firstborn son. But after a while, it’s like, maybe she’s right. If I were meant to be a mom, wouldn’t it have been easier? It’s hard not to think sometimes that maybe there was a reason it was so difficult.”

Valerie swiped through her phone, then held out a video and hit play.

It was a clip Nicole had sent that morning, when she took Valerie’s kids to the drive-through car wash.

In it, an off-camera Nicole shouted that the streamers of sherbet-colored soap sliding down the sides of Valerie’s minivan were, in fact, unicorn droppings.

The boys—screaming, cackling—covered their heads with board books while Nicole’s free hand crept on-screen, tickling their crew-socked ankles while they squealed with delight.

Nicole sniffled. “I would say that to an adult. It really does look like unicorn shit.”

Valerie shook her head. She didn’t even nod Nicole toward the swear jar. “You know what I think? I think you got dealt a lousy hand. I really think it’s that simple.”

Nicole shrugged, then wiped her face with a tissue from the ottoman.

“I don’t know if you remember this,” Valerie said, “but it took my mom a few years to have me. She had a few losses too. That’s why I’m an only.”

Nicole nodded. Of course she remembered.

“It always felt like a lot, knowing how bad she wanted me. That’s a lot to live up to, you know?

And then when she died, I was still in middle school.

All I have of her are memories. Of those first years, before she got sick.

Doing this kind of stuff. Going to the zoo.

Making breakfast. Driving through the car wash. ”

Nicole rolled her tissue into a wet little ball. “What was that like, for you and your dad?”

“He did his best,” Valerie said, “but it wasn’t perfect. The night I got my first period, I was thirteen. She was in hospice. I could hear him crying through the walls.”

“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine.”

Valerie pulled up a picture on her phone. In it, she was maybe six years old, sitting on a beaming woman’s lap in a carpeted play gym, each of them in matching aqua bike shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Scrunchies and sparkly bracelets and two identical sets of twinkling blue eyes.

Nicole’s voice choked. “You must miss her so much.”

“I do.” Valerie ran a few fingers over the screen. Over her mother’s face. “But I’m okay, you know? Life gets bigger around the grief. You learn to love the life you have. The gifts you’ve got. My boys. My friends. Young Patrick Dempsey.”

Nicole chuckled between a few tears as Valerie glanced at the photo again.

“Do you still feel her, ever?” Nicole said.

“I do. And I’m always trying to do things that bring me closer to her. Closer to God.”

“Like what?”

Valerie pulled Nicole’s hand onto her stomach and closed her eyes. “Like this.”

The exam room was dark, lit only by the flickering screen of a buzzing ultrasound machine.

Beneath the barely visible laminate cabinetry that lined the far side of the room was all the usual fertility clinic accoutrement: medical jars stuffed with sanitary pads, box after box of single-ply tissues, and pictures of miracle babies dressed as puppies and pumpkins and pirates.

“You’re going to feel a little pressure,” Dr. Akhtar said, pushing her free hand onto Valerie’s abdomen, then adjusting the angle of her wand from underneath the thin medical blanket covering Valerie’s stirruped legs.

The familiar crinkle of a paper gown sent a shudder down Nicole’s spine. “Does that feel okay?”

“Yeah,” Valerie said, nodding as she grabbed Nicole’s hand. In the farthest corner of the room, Gabe watched on with his neck craned and his lips sealed. “Just cold.”

“Okay then,” Dr. Akhtar said. “Let’s have a look.”

Nicole’s stomach churned. She’d forgotten, these past few weeks, how desperately she’d wanted this.

She’d been so focused on the million things she’d thrown away for this moment that she lost sight of how much it might hurt to watch it slip through her fingers one last time.

But just when she was about to close her eyes, Dr. Akhtar rotated the screen and smiled.

“See that little flicker, right there?” she said as Nicole gasped and Valerie squealed, squeezing Nicole’s wrist. “That’s the heartbeat, girls. Everything looks perfect.”

Nicole left her body.

It wasn’t hers. She couldn’t speak or think or see.

“It’s just one?” Valerie said, voice hazy.

“Yes,” Dr. Akhtar said, words blurred. “It’s just the one. I know that can be disappointing, I know twins are exciting, especially after years and years of trying. But this is better. We want one safe baby, one safe Valerie. We want an easy, full-term delivery.”

Valerie gave Nicole another squeeze. Nicole—still somewhere else—nodded.

One baby.

One baby was good.

She could do one baby without Gabe, right?

Nicole turned to him just as he floated his hand a few inches toward her. He opened his lips, mouthed a few words, and tried to say something with his eyes. But none of it registered.

She could hardly remember how it felt to want this moment with him.

To want all of it: the dirty diapers, the sleepless nights, the waking up at the crack of dawn to a tangle of blue-eyed toddlers demanding hugs and kisses and chocolate-chip pancakes.

To want it all so badly she’d try anything, give up everything, become someone she barely knew.

To want it all so badly that, just six weeks ago, she’d begged Gabe to fly across the country and watch a woman who—in every reasonable version of Nicole’s universe—should’ve remained a stranger instead lend Nicole her body and bring this blinking, blueberry-size bundle of cells to life.

But she must have, because here the two of them were, barely speaking and living under separate roofs and staring at the proof.

Dr. Akhtar followed Nicole’s gaze to where Gabe stood in silence.

“Come on, Dad.” She nodded him toward the group while she printed a few pictures. “You ready to hear the heartbeat? Get over here. We won’t bite.”

Gabe hesitated, then took a couple of steps closer. He was maybe five feet from Valerie when she turned her head and frowned at him. He flinched, then took a step back.

And that was when it filled the room.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The unmistakable beat of a heart. Nicole’s own baby’s heart.

Three years of terror tore through Nicole’s bloodstream like wildfire—fast and hot and then, gone.

It left her body in a wail, a thousand days of hopelessness compressed into one final cry.

All while Valerie tightened her grip on Nicole, Gabe bowed his head, and Nicole disintegrated.

All while the baby’s heartbeat played on.

Sixty seconds, but it might as well have been forever.

“One hundred and seventy-two beats per minute,” Dr. Akhtar said, beaming as she switched off the sound. “I couldn’t feel better about this one.”

Nicole clutched Valerie’s hand again. Valerie wiped her face on the too-loose shoulder of her gown, then squeezed Nicole’s hand back. Gabe—watching the two women with damp eyes and closed lips—clasped his hands behind his neck and studied the floor.

“I know it’s been quite a road, Mom,” Dr. Akhtar said as she handed Nicole an envelope full of photos. “Congratulations.”

Nicole nodded, then pulled out a picture.

This was it: the glossy piece of cardstock that was supposed to make her world whole.

Except now, holding it between her trembling fingers, her pain didn’t wash away.

Her story didn’t rewind. Her life didn’t tidy itself up or put everything back where it belonged, back where it all seemed so perfect.

Instead, a sliver of her future flashed before her.

The images played out like slides on a projector, fuzzy and oversaturated and far too bright, but there all the same.

Board books and trips to the aquarium and a faceless, shrieking little thing chasing Nero around a living room Nicole did not yet recognize.

Laughter. Raw cookie dough. Sand, absolutely everywhere.

Bento boxes and boo-boos and birthday parties at unknown, grassy parks, and then, that was it. The glimpse dissolved.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

Nicole tucked the picture back into the envelope, slipped it in her bag, and cracked a smile.

There was only one problem. Her husband followed her right down the hall.