ONE

Cara’s POV

“Congratulations, Mrs. Stone. You’re two weeks pregnant.”

My eyes blurred out as I heard the words drop from Doctor Mary’s lips. The same happened with my ears. It was like my mind disappeared, and I was unable to hear or see anything anymore. I could still feel my body, glued to the seat in the doctor’s office. I could still perceive the smell of the mild antiseptic around me. I could feel the wave of cold from the air conditioning fastened to the wall behind the doctor.

But I couldn’t see or hear anything.

“Mrs. Stone.” Doctor Mary’s voice echoed out to me, gently—quietly. I was still too dazed to answer. Was this really happening?

“Mrs. Stone.” Doctor Mary called out again, her voice still distant and soft. A new kind of fear descended into me. What if I opened my mouth and it all went away? What if I woke up in my bed back home and found out it was all a dream?

“Mrs. Stone!” Doctor Mary’s voice became louder and clearer, bringing me back to the present—to the doctor’s office.

“Did you hear what I just said?”

I swallowed. Maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I had just heard what I wanted to hear.

“I said you’re two weeks pregnant,” she repeated, confirming that I hadn’t, in fact, hallucinated those words. “Congratulations!”

I swallowed again, staring at her, too overwhelmed to move. Some part of me was still struggling to believe this.

“It worked,” I finally said, feeling words start to come to my mouth. “The insemination worked.”

Doctor Mary gave me a bright smile, her eyes papered with joy. “Yes, Cara. The insemination worked.”

She reached for my hands across her mahogany table and squeezed them gently. “I’m so happy for you.”

Feeling Doctor Mary’s hands on mine convinced me once and for all that I wasn’t dreaming, that this was truly and incredibly real.

That after two years of struggling to get pregnant, I finally had a baby growing in my stomach.

“I still can’t believe this,” I said again, feeling the back of my eyes start to sting. I tried desperately to hold back the tears.

“Believe it, Cara, because I have the test right here,” Doctor Mary said, holding up a piece of paper. “And believe me, Cara, no one deserves this more than you.”

I was unable to fight back the tears anymore, and they started to stream down my cheeks. Doctor Mary had been there every step of the way. She was there when I came in with my husband, Henry, for the first time, and she’d been with us for every step of the journey ever since then. She knew about how I struggled and desperately tried to have a baby. She knew about almost every tear I shed after yet another failed attempt. She knew everything.

“Are you going to call Henry?” she asked, pulling me out of my momentary reverie. I gave her a quick nod and pulled out my phone. My hands continued to shake from overwhelming joy as I looked for my husband’s contact on my phone.

As I scrolled through my contacts, I continued to let the thought sink into me even further. Now that I was pregnant, I would have to confess to Henry that I got pregnant through artificial insemination. I would have to tell him that I had taken some of his semen sample to the hospital without his knowledge. I would have to tell him that I didn’t want him to know about it because I was afraid it wasn’t going to work. I tapped on his contact on my phone screen and placed the phone on my ear, feeling Doctor Mary’s excited eyes remain on me.

Of course, Henry had never given me any reason to feel even worse about myself. He was never worried about us not having children. For him, the love we had for each other was enough. I could practically hear his encouraging words as the ringing tone started to pierce my ear.

“You don’t have to keep tying yourself into a knot for children, Cara. I don’t care about kids. I have you. That’ll always be enough. I want you to remember that.”

He had been nothing but encouraging, and I had loved him even more over the years for that. However, I could always see the eagerness in his eyes when we went to the hospital. I had always seen him raise his eyebrows in anticipation whenever Doctor Mary came with a pregnancy test result, and I had seen his eyes fall every time it turned out negative. I had always known that he was only putting on a brave face and wanted a baby just as much as I did.

Maybe even more.

Now I was pregnant. It had truly happened, and for the first time, I couldn’t wait to put the joy back in his heart. He was going to be a father.

His line went straight to voicemail, and a mild frown crossed my face.

He wasn’t picking up.

Well, that was odd.