“Apparently, it happens all the time. My client looked it up online and read story after story from women just like her. Women who thought they were done raising children, who were only beginning with another round,” Valerie said. “So many of the symptoms between pregnancy and menopause are thesame?” She glanced at Bethany, smiling. “I’m sure you’ve seen this with your patients before?”
But Bethany was a surgeon and didn’t often handle cases with menopausal or pregnant women. She raised her shoulders, her stomach spinning. She told herself to keep it together.
“It’s totally possible,” she said at last.
But all the while, a question began to stir in the back of her mind.
Was she not, in fact, entering menopause?
Was she, in fact, pregnant?
It couldn’t be. She was forty-five years old, and she and Rod had been careful. Or they’d been mostly careful. If she were honest with herself, she’d consider that night when they’d gone to Manhattan, when Rod had sprung for the all-inclusive spa resort and the four-hundred-dollar dinner and the enormous windows in their hotel room, which had glowed with all the lights of the city. Or there was that other time when all the kids had been out of the house, not returning for another twelve hours. There were other times, too.
Bethany was forty-five years old, which meant she thought she was responsible. She thought she knew her body better than anyone. But was it possible that she’d misread the clues? Was it possible that everything she’d been so afraid of in the past few days meant something else?
Her mother and sisters hadn’t noticed her change in mood. They’d swapped conversation topics from the client’s pregnancy to the client’s wedding. Valerie told them that several politicians and celebrities were on the guest list, and Esme joked that obviously, the baby would have “everything they want in the world.”
The back of Bethany’s neck was slick with sweat. She excused herself and went to the bathroom, where she googled what Valerie had mentioned: menopause or pregnancy? Just as theyhad with Valerie’s client, numerous stories popped up. Women were panicking because they weren’t sure if they were ready for a baby. One wrote I raised three boys. They’re seventeen, sixteen, and fifteen. I was looking forward to taking time off with my husband. I was looking forward to traveling. I hate to admit it, but this baby news is devastating to me. What do I do?
Bethany’s heart pounded. She reminded herself that this wasn’t necessarily her story. There was no way to know. But maybe against her better judgment, she began to rifle through Rebecca’s bathroom, praying that she had a spare pregnancy test lying around. How safe were Rebecca and Ben when it came to this? But she found nothing but tampons and pads and Q-tips, all the traditional fare of a bathroom.
When she returned to the veranda, the pizza boxes were splayed across the table, a welcome and cheesy distraction that, surprisingly, didn’t destroy Bethany’s stomach. She told herself to remain peppy, to stay in the conversation and not get distracted by her fears.
“It’s hard to believe that I still have another, like, seventeen years of motherhood,” Valerie said with a happy sigh. “You’re both almost done!”
“You’re never really done,” Esme told them. “Motherhood lasts forever! I think about you girls every night before I go to sleep. I worry about you endlessly. Your father does, too.”
Valerie laughed. “Dad cares about us, but I don’t think he cares about us that much.”
Esme swatted her playfully. “It’s true that mothers have something special. We grew our babies and long to be with them every moment. We long to see their every stage of life.” She reached over to squeeze Bethany’s hand. “I love you, sweetheart. I’m so excited for this next stage of your life.”
When Bethany returned home that evening, she found Maddie and Tommy playing video games in the living room,Phoebe in her room writing what she called a “one-woman play,” and Rod on his laptop, doing a bit of work. On the way home, she’d picked up a pregnancy test, and it was hidden in the paper bag lodged in the bottom of her purse. She kissed Rod, then dropped into the video game to try to defeat first Maddie, then Tommy. They swept the floor with her.
“Mom?” Maddie asked, still fixated on the screen as she twisted the controller around. “Will you sign those forms on the table? Tommy and I got jobs, but we need you to sign off on them. I guess because they’re sort of serious?”
Bethany raised her eyebrows. “What does sort of serious mean?”
“We’re lifeguards,” Maddie said. “At the beach.”
Bethany was surprised—and pleased—that her kids had gone out of their way to get summer jobs. They’d both taken lifeguard courses at the pool during the winter months, but she hadn’t known if they would pursue gigs of their own. Then again, having money as a teenager was a point of pride. Bethany had always liked having her own.
“That’s amazing, guys,” Bethany said, blushing with pride. She got up, signed their sheets, and read over everything Maddie and Tommy needed to know for their first days at work.
“We’ve already ordered our suits!” Maddie called, just when Bethany was going to ask.
Bethany’s head rang. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d had to remind Maddie and Tommy to do everything. She’d had to chase them for their laundry; she’d had to remind them to shower; she’d had to tell them to brush their teeth. Now? She had mini adults.
They were legally able to save people’s lives.
Slightly overwhelmed by the passage of time, Bethany took her purse upstairs and sat on the tiled floor of her bathroom with the door locked. She knew Rod would probably be at his laptopfor a little bit longer. She had time. But how could she bring herself to take the test?
She reminded herself that it probably wasn’t real, that she was probably not pregnant, that it was probably all in her head. Valerie had gotten to her. That was it.
Bethany was going to test herself, just to see. But once she knew for sure that she wasn’t pregnant, that this wasn’t a surprise baby, she could fully prepare herself for menopause.
Achingly, she opened the pregnancy test. She hadn’t taken one in maybe ten years, when Phoebe was a toddler, and Bethany had had a pregnancy scare. She hadn’t told Nick, although she knew he’d wanted more children. He’d wanted to extend his line. He’d wanted more boys.
Bethany took a breath and took the test. Clipping the cap back onto the stick, she hid it from herself and sat back down on the chilly floor. A shiver went through her body.