Cassie Alexander - Deadshifted

I walked back into our cabin, blindly. I didn’t lock the balcony doors behind me, because really, we were six floors up and in the middle of the ocean. It wasn’t like we were expecting a visit from Batman. I took three steps in—and then I turned around and walked back and did lock the doors, because, well, who knew.

When I slid back under the sheets Asher moved to spoon me. “Why’re you so cold?” he murmured, and threw an arm across me to pull me close.

In the morning, the ship was bucking against the waves. I didn’t know if this was normal or not, but it felt as if the ocean were trying to throw the Maraschino off, and it was making me seasick.

Asher was already awake, reading a book beside me. “You ready?” he asked as I wiped the sleep out of my eyes.

“Not really. But let’s go.” I knew that you were supposed to use your first pee of the day for pregnancy testing, and I didn’t want to wait too long.

We got up and dressed, and the elevator we rode down was full of people. Many of them got off and immediately went to queue up at the guest services station, where I could see them handing out seasickness bags. Maybe somehow we’d gotten contaminated with norovirus, like I’d privately feared, after all those shows about “my cruise ship tried to poison me” on the news. Whatever it was, I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one who found the current motion disconcerting.

We reached the first floor alone, although I realized when we got there the ship was actually deeper than this—there must be floors underneath that were all engines, laundry, and rooms for the crew. The medical center was down the rightmost hallway. I walked through the open door into a small waiting room, with another open door beyond, and I peeked into it. There was a short examination bed, a desk, some cabinets, and a chair—and a man sitting in it with his back to me. I went back to Asher. There was only room for one of us in the medical room, really. “I appreciate the moral support, but you can stay here.”

“I’ll be right outside.”

I knocked on the doorjamb and took a step inside. “Hello?”

“We are not open yet,” the man said curtly, without turning around. There was a clock fastened to one wall; it was 7:45 A.M. ship time, which made it almost noon back home.

I didn’t want to wait, and more important I wasn’t sure how much longer I could not pee. “I just need a pregnancy test.”

He made an irritated noise, spinning around in his chair to look at me. He had brown skin, and an accent, and he made a pointed look at my ring finger. “Where is your husband?”

“Does that matter?”

He didn’t answer me.

I knew from having worked with people of different ethnicities that certain cultures had ways of acting, talking, or gesturing that could be perceived as rude from the outside when compared with one’s own cultural norm without that being their intended gist at all. I’d learned to look past a lot of that, because I knew it wasn’t personal, and because I realized it was mostly in my head.

However, as both a woman and a nurse, I could also identify a judgy doctor at twenty paces.

“Is it an emergency?” he asked archly, looking me up and down, as if I were unclean.

“No.”

“Then can’t it wait?”

“Look, I can pay you for it. I’d just like to know.”

“So you can drink,” he said, and I had a feeling it wasn’t just me he hated, but possibly his job, and possibly all Americans. I bet he did see a ton of alcohol poisonings on these trips—were I in his likely Muslim and abstemious shoes, that might bias me, too.

“Nope. Mormon,” I lied. Super-lied, come to think of it, seeing as I was asking for a pregnancy test, and I clearly wasn’t the Virgin Mary. “Look, I just want to know.”

He started going through the drawers of his desk. When those didn’t produce what he was looking for—probably a card with a disappointed-looking face that said YOU SHOULD HAVE WASHED YOUR HANDS BETTER! in twenty languages—he started looking in the cabinets above his desk, where the contents of each shelf were held in with slide-stoppers and/or bungee cord.

He produced a pregnancy test at long last from the back of one of these. If it was possible for one to expire, I’m sure this one would have. I’d seen less wrinkled packaging emerge on strips of gum that I’d lost in my purse.

“Do you know how to use it?” he asked again.

“Pretty sure I just pee on one end.”

“That might be the last one I have. So don’t come back here looking for more.”

“I won’t. I swear.”

He snorted to let me know what he thought of that. And then swiveled back around on his chair.

I emerged in the hall to find Asher speaking something that sounded like German to a crew member with a crew cut. He wrapped up their conversation quickly when he saw me, and the crew member gave me a courteous nod before leaving.

“Did they have one?” he asked once we were in the elevator, alone.

“Yeah. Was that German?”

“Nope. Afrikaans.” I hadn’t known that Asher spoke Afrikaans. That was my boyfriend, perpetually full of surprises. “How’d it go?”

I made a face. “I wish I’d taken you in with me instead.”

“Yeah—Marius was telling me the doctor was a prick. On the downlow, you know, countryman-to-countryman.”

“Well, he’s right. I almost had to promise him our firstborn to get this.” I held the test up. The wrapper was illegible. “What language is this in, polylinguist?”

Asher inspected it. “Cantonese?”

“Great.”

Asher grinned at me. “Even people in China want to know if they’re pregnant, Edie. I’m sure it’s fine.”

I inhaled deeply, girding my loins in a metaphorical sense. “Let’s go back to our room and see.”

I went into the bathroom alone. For having had to pee all morning, my bladder was now suddenly shy.

“It’s too late now,” I told myself. “Come on. Let’s just know already.” It was weird knowing that Asher was listening in outside. I leaned over and turned on the faucet.

My bladder couldn’t hold out forever, thank goodness. I did what needed doing, and then set the stick on a dry washcloth on the counter while I pulled up my clothing and washed my hands. And then I came out to show it to Asher. “It has two lines. What does that mean?”

“Wǒmen yǒu yīgè yīng’ér,” he said, looking smug.

I squinted at him. “Does that mean what I think it means? I’m going off the smart-ass look on your face, since I have no idea what you just said.”

Asher’s grin got even wider. “We’re going to be parents.”

“Oh, my God.” I leaned back against the closed bathroom door behind me. I’d sort of been hoping I was, but part of me was also hoping the other way too, just because I didn’t think I was ready to be a mom yet.

But maybe I was. I looked at the test again. “Oh, my God.”

“It’s good, right?” Asher looked at me, still grinning.

I looked at him beaming, so happy for me—for us. We would make it work somehow. I nodded wildly.

He laughed and engulfed me in his arms. “I never thought this would happen for me, Edie.” He kissed the side of my head and pressed me to him. “It’s crazy.”

“I know,” I said into his neck. This was it. We were going to be a family. The three of us. Asher inhaled to say something else, and the ship lurched to one side. So did my stomach. I put my hand on his chest. “Hold that thought.”

Morning sickness cinched it. Or seasickness that overlapped morning sickness. Either way, I was left wishing I’d smuggled Zofran on board.