CHAPTER 196: Positive

POV: Maya Castellano

She’d taken the test alone.

Kofi was asleep. She’d woken at midnight and she’d lain in the dark counting backward the way she’d learned to count since the hospital, since the loss, since Dr Okafor had said your body is healing, give it time.

She’d counted backwards and then she’d gotten up very quietly and gone to the bathroom and taken the test she’d bought three weeks ago.

She looked at it now.

Two lines.

She sat on the bathroom floor and called Selene.

“How far,” Selene said.

“I don’t know,” Maya said. “It's early and the line is faint.”

“Faint still means positive,” Selene said.

“I know what faint means,” Maya said. “I just—” She stopped. “Last time I didn’t know. I found out in a hospital. I found out and lost it at the same moment.” She looked at the test in her hand. “This time I know first. I found out first.”

“Yes,” Selene said. Her voice was careful and soft. The voice she used when something required gentleness without softening the truth.

“I don’t know if that’s better or worse,” Maya said.

“It’s different,” Selene said. “That’s all it is right now.”

“I’m scared,” Maya said.

“I know,” Selene said.

“Really scared,” Maya said. 

“I know the difference,” Selene said. “And it’s okay. Being scared is exactly right.”

Maya looked at the test.

“Should I wake Kofi,” she said.

“What do you want?” Selene asked.

“I want to tell him,” Maya said. “I want to tell him right now. I don’t want to carry this alone for even one night.”

“Then wake him,” Selene said.

“What if it’s nothing,” Maya said. “What if I wake him and get his hopes up and it’s—”

“Maya,” Selene said. “Wake him.”

She paused.

“Okay,” Maya said. “Okay.”

“Call me first thing tomorrow,” Selene said. 

“First thing,” Maya agreed.

She hung up and sat on the bathroom floor for another moment then she stood up and went back to the bedroom.

“Kofi,” she said.

He was awake immediately. “What’s wrong,” he said.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said.

He looked at her hand.

At what she was holding.

He sat up slowly and looked at it for a long moment.

Two lines.

He looked at her.

“Maya,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“Is this—”

“Yes,” she said.

He put his hand over his mouth briefly.

Then he reached for her.

She sat on the edge of the bed and he put his arms around her and she put her face against his shoulder and they stayed like that for a long time in the dark bedroom with the test on the nightstand between them.

“Are you okay,” he said into her hair.

“Scared,” she said.

“Me too,” he said.

“Really scared,” she said.

“Me too,” he said again.

She pulled back enough to look at him.

“I'm scared and—” He stopped.

“Say it,” she said.

“Grateful,” he said. “Is that the right word?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly the right word.”

Dr Okafor confirmed it at nine the next morning.

She was already six weeks gone and everything looked exactly as it should for six weeks.

Maya sat on the examination table and looked at the screen, she felt something she hadn’t felt the first time.

A heartbeat.

“There she is,” Dr Okafor said.

“She,” Maya said immediately.

Dr Okafor smiled. “We don’t know yet.”

“She,” Maya said again, more certain .

Kofi’s hand found hers on the table.

They told Selene and Avalon in person at noon at the apartment, Maya walked in with Kofi.

Selene looked at Maya’s face the moment she walked in.

“Maya,” she said.

“Six weeks,” Maya said. “It’s confirmed and the heartbeat is strong.”

Selene crossed the room and pulled her sister into a hug that lasted longer than most and meant more than any of the words either of them could have said.

Elena, in Avalon’s arms, watched with Nene’s expression.

Over lunch Maya said: “I’m terrified.”

“Good,” Selene said.

“That’s what you said last time,” Maya said.

“It’s still true,” Selene said. “The scared ones are always better at it.”

“Evelyn Walsh’s line,” Maya said.

“Evelyn Walsh is right about most things,” Selene said.

Maya looked at Elena in the carrier on Selene’s chest.

“She’s going to have a cousin,” Maya said.

“Yes,” Selene said.

“Close in age,” Maya said.

“Very,” Selene said.

“They’re going to be chaos,” Maya said.

“Absolute chaos,” Selene agreed.

“Good chaos,” Maya said.

“The best kind,” Selene said.

Kofi and Avalon were at the other end of the table talking quietly.

Maya watched them.

“What are they talking about?” Selene asked.

“The Nexus office redesign probably,” Maya said. “Or the foundation. Or something structural.” She looked at them. “They talk about structures constantly.”

“They understand each other,” Selene said.

“They do,” Maya said. “Which I find both gratifying and slightly alarming.”

“Why alarming?” Selene asked.

“Because Avalon Pierce and Kofi Asante agreeing on things means nobody is going to win an argument in this family ever again,” Maya said. “They’ll just present a unified load-bearing position and we’ll be structurally outmanoeuvred.”

Selene laughed.

“There it is,” Maya said.

“Don’t,” Selene said.

“The laugh,” Maya said. “I’ve missed it.”

“I laugh all the time,” Selene said.

“Not like that,” Maya said. “Not the real one.”

Selene looked at her sister.

“It’s been a long few weeks,” she said.

“Yes,” Maya said. “It has.” She looked at Elena. “But look where we are.”

Selene looked around her seeing she was surrounded by love and loved ones.

“Yes,” Selene said. “Look where we are.”

That evening after everyone had gone Selene stood at the kitchen window with Elena against her shoulder.

Avalon came and stood behind her.

“Maya,” he said.

“She's six weeks pregnant," she said. 

“Good,” he said.

“She’s terrified,” she said.

“She should be,” he said. “It means she understands what she’s taking on.”

“That’s what I said,” she said.

“We think alike,” he said.

“We do,” she said. “It’s alarming.”

He put his arms around her from behind, careful of Elena between them, and rested his chin on her shoulder and they stood at the window the way they’d stood a hundred times before.

“Jonathan Reeves,” she said.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

Elena made a sound.

They both looked at her.

She was looking at the city lights with the focused assessment of someone conducting important research.

“She’s studying it,” Avalon said.

“She studies everything,” Selene said.

“She’ll have opinions about it by morning,” he said.

“She already has opinions,” Selene said. “She’s just compiling them.”

He smiled against her shoulder.

Her phone buzzed.

A message from the unknown number.

Jonathan Reeves.

One line.

I heard about your daughter. Elena. I’m sorry for what I did to her name. She deserved better than what I made her.

Selene read it.

Showed Avalon.

He read it and was very quiet for a long moment.

Then he took the phone.

Typed one line back.

Yes. She did.

He handed the phone back.

She looked at what he’d written.

“That’s all,” she said.

“That’s everything for now,” he said. “