The test was cheap.
Three for twelve dollars from the corner store off Cascade. I don’t even know why I bought it—maybe the nausea, maybe the ache in my chest that wouldn’t go away even after the tears dried up. Or maybe deep down, I already knew.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKvYAoyQUsn
Two lines.
Bold. Bright. No hesitation.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkxykxI3hB9
Pregnant.
With a dead man’s baby.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOu2Yzi9xw1
I sat on the bathroom floor in my robe, legs shaking, eyes red. I couldn’t stop staring at the damn test like it was gonna change its mind. I’d buried Davon three weeks ago. His suit still hanging in our closet. His toothbrush still next to mine. His cologne still lingering in the air like he was just in the room a minute ago.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhaLwUQYnwR
But he was gone.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWZgPGTwVxg
Just… gone.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWPnRlOwADu
No warning. No slow decline. One minute we’re arguing about how I forgot to pick up his dry cleaning, and the next, I’m getting a call from Grady Memorial saying he collapsed in the parking lot outside some apartment complex I ain’t never heard of.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2SPBLXncVY
Stage four stomach cancer.
That’s what the doctor said. Quiet, like I was gonna break into pieces right there in front of him.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcR80HGoTKx
“Did you say stage four?” I remember whispering. “What happened to one through three?”
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyYjSfota4j
He’d known. That’s the part that cut the deepest. My husband knew he was dying and didn’t say a word. Not a warning. Not a heads-up. Nothing. Just worked, came home, fucked me like nothing was wrong, and planned a future he knew he wouldn’t be around for.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsYXmkbDd7D
I thought that was the worst part—until the funeral.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbEdlTca396
That’s when she showed up.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT5U95d7XmC
Keisha.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0WT3YFc33U
She didn’t say her name. She didn’t need to. I recognized her from an old fight. Five years ago. Curly weave. Gold hoops. Nails like claws. She had the audacity to cry. Loud, too—like her heart broke deeper than mine. Like he wasn’t my husband and my pain wasn’t louder than hers.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡynDsyDutzX
People whispered. I ignored it. Until her mother pulled me aside in the church basement and said the thing that cracked my whole world open:
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF7llwfhfBi
“They both gone now. You don’t gotta hold onto the hate, baby. God saw them both.”
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRXyDXjd7MM
“Both?” I asked. “What you mean both?”
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1E0b4NkMSV
Her eyes dropped. “Keisha passed the same night. Same hospital. Same damn cancer.”
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOcEbEtM3bu
I couldn’t breathe.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsc6YATDTIv
The same night.
The same damn hospital.
The same disease.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8OtHAH1qIu
It made sense now. Why he had those random disappearances. Why he was always tired. Why he started sleeping in sweatshirts in the middle of summer—covering the weight he was losing, the bruises I thought were from work. He wasn’t just hiding sickness…
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgr4jwd48ra
He was hiding her.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe1LGVQZhYM
I was sharing a dying man with another woman. And we both didn’t even know how close the end really was.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAyCzyK0Pws
Now here I am.
Pregnant by a man I didn’t even fully know.
Carrying the child of a liar. A lover. A man who was mine… and also not mine at all.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdVpMhiMCaU
And still… I loved him.
Even when I hated him.
Even when the truth burned through every memory like acid.
23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCwMrsUJPLF
I pressed my hand to my stomach, and for the first time, I whispered out loud, “It’s just us now, baby.
and then Add to home screen.