Barnes & Noble. He pulls books off shelves and adds them to her arms one by one, urgent and delighted. Have you read Jack Gilbert? No? You must, it's a must. His wedding ring catches the light.
He is in rapture over the charred octopus. She is eating something she does not want to eat because she does not want to say that she does not want to eat it. This is what early love looks like from the outside.
The restaurant. The name badges. MARGO. TRACY. Something is happening to Margo's body during every single shift and Tracy has figured it out before Margo has let herself know it.
Four tests. All positive. She peeks over the edge of the counter at them like maybe if she approaches slowly they will have changed their minds.
She tells him at dinner. There is a fig salad on the table. He turns a color that does not occur in nature. The candlelight flickers. The restaurant continues around them, completely indifferent.
She walks out into the night. For a moment she feels like Shyanne — that haughty walk, those pantyhose legs, a woman who takes up space. Then she trips on the curb. The ocean is visible at the end of the street. Her car is parked too far away.
She calls Becca in New York. The laundry is attempting to escape the apartment. Nobody will engage with this on the terms she wants to discuss it. She is running out of terms.
The OB. The examination table. The stirrups. The cheerful bald doctor who is completely unbothered by all of this. Margo stares at the ceiling with the expression of someone doing something they did not entirely plan.
The screen. The grainy black smudge that is supposed to be a baby. It looks like a tiny deformed dove. The sound it makes is a mechanical whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. She starts crying and does not know why. She knows why.
The printout. Dangling from the machine. She reaches for it. This inadequate, grainy, barely-legible strip of paper. This is what she has. This is everything.
Outside, on the sidewalk, in the California afternoon. She makes the call to cancel. Her face is not anguished. It is certain. This is the moment she decides, and she decides it alone.
The ultrasound picture on the bedside table. The lamp. Margo watching it from the mattress. She does this for hours. It gives her nothing to hold on to. She holds on to it anyway.
The Goodwill. The strollers. Brown floral fabric from another era, crusted with the evidence of previous babies. They look like artifacts from a civilization that did not care about strollers. Shyanne is talking. Margo is staring. She wants an UPPAbaby more than she has ever wanted anything.
The register. The blue stroller beside her. She pays. Her chin is up. Inside her burns a blue flame of pride that she will not let anyone see and does not need anyone to see. She is doing this herself.