Rebecca Serle - In Five Years

“How is Aaron?” I ask.

She smiles dreamily. “He’s great; he’s excited. I mean it’s sudden, of course, but he seems really happy. We’re not twenty-five anymore.”

“Right,” I say. “Are you guys going to get married?”

Bella rolls her eyes and hands me a pair of socks with tiny anchors on them. “Don’t be so obvious,” she says.

“You’re having a baby; it’s a legitimate question.”

She turns to me. Her whole body focused now. “We haven’t even discussed it. This seems like enough for now.”

“So when’s the doctor?” I ask, switching gears. “I want to see that sonogram pic.”

Bella smiles. “Next week. They said not to rush coming in. When it’s this early, there isn’t much to do anyway.”

“But shop,” I say. My arms are full of small items now. I shuffle toward the register counter.

“I think it’s a girl,” Bella says.

I have an image of her, sitting in a rocking chair, holding an infant wrapped in a soft pink blanket.

“A girl would be great,” I say.

She pulls me in and tucks me to her side. “Now you have to get started, too,” she says.

I imagine being pregnant. Shopping in this store for my own tiny creation. It makes me want a cocktail.

On Sunday, I go over to her apartment. I ring the bell twice. When the door finally opens Aaron is there, or at least his head is. He pulls the door back, and I’m met with at least a dozen packages—boxes and baskets and all sorts of gifts—littering the entryway.

“Did you guys rob a department store?” I ask.

Aaron shrugs. “She’s excited,” he says. “So she’s shopping?” I watch his face closely, looking for signs of judgment or hesitation, but I find none, only a little amusement. He’s dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, no socks. I wonder if he’s moved some stuff in yet. If he will. They’ll have to live together, won’t they?

He kicks a box to the side and the door swings open. I enter and close it behind me. “Congratulations,” I say.

“Oh, yeah, thanks.” He’s stacking a garment bag on top of an Amazon delivery. He stops. He stands, tucks his hands into his pockets. “I know it’s pretty soon.”

“Bella has always been impatient,” I say. “So it doesn’t totally surprise me.”

He laughs, but it seems more for my benefit. “I just want you to know I really am happy. She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

He looks right at me when he says it, the same way he did at the beach. I blink away.

“Good,” I say. “I’m glad.”

Just then Bella’s voice floats in from the other room. “Dannie? Are you here?”

Aaron smiles and steps to the side, holding his arm out for me to pass.

I follow the sound of her voice down the hallway, past the kitchen and her bedroom and into the guest room. The bed has been pushed to the side, the dresser placed into the center of the room, and Bella, in overalls and a head scarf, is painting white marshmallow clouds on the walls.

“Bells,” I say. “What’s going on?”

She looks at me. “Baby’s room,” she says. “What do you think?”

She stands back, putting her hands on her hips and surveying her work.

“I think you’re ahead of the curve for the first time in your life,” I say. “And it’s freaking me out. Isn’t the nursery usually a month seven project?”

She laughs, her back to me. “It’s fun,” she says. “I haven’t really painted in a long time.”

“I know.” I go to stand next to her and lob an arm over her shoulder. She leans into me. The clouds are off-white and the sky a pale salmon color with shades of baby blue and lavender. It’s a masterpiece.

“You really want this,” I say, but it’s not really to her. It’s to the wall. To whatever beyond has brought forth this reality. For a moment, I don’t remember the future I once saw. I am overcome by the one that is solidly, undeniably present here.

Chapter Eighteen

David and I are supposed to meet with the wedding planner next Saturday morning. It’s now mid-September, and I’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that if I do not choose flowers now I will be using dead leaves as centerpieces.

The week is crazy at work—we get hit with a ton of due diligence on two time-sensitive cases Monday, and I barely make it home except to sleep all week. I take out my phone as I walk to the elevators the following Friday night to tell David we may need to push the meeting—I’m desperate for some sleep—when I see I have four missed calls from an unknown number.

Scam calls have been rampant lately, but they’re usually marked. I check my voicemail on my way downstairs, hanging up and re-trying when I get down to the lobby. I’m just passing through the glass doors when I hear the message.

“Dannie, it’s Aaron. We went to the doctor today, for the baby, and— Can you call me? I think you need to come down here.”

My heart plummets to my feet as I hit call back immediately with shaking hands. Something is wrong. Something is wrong with the baby. Bella had her doctor’s appointment today. They were going to hear the heartbeat for the first time. I should have protected her. I should have stopped her from buying all those clothes, making all those plans. It was too soon.

“Dannie?” Aaron’s voice is hoarse through the phone.

“Hey. Hi. Sorry. I was . . . where is she?”

“Here,” he says. “Dannie, it’s not good.”

“Is something wrong with the baby?”

Aaron pauses. When his voice comes through, it breaks at the onset. “There’s no baby.”

I toss my heels into my bag, pull on my slides, and get on the subway down to Tribeca. I always wondered how people who had just been delivered tragic news and had to fly on airplanes did it. Every plane must carry someone who is going to their dying mother’s bedside, their friend’s car accident, the sight of their burned home. Those minutes on the subway are the longest of my life.

Aaron answers the door. He’s wearing jeans and a button-down, half untucked. He looks stunned, his eyes red-rimmed. My heart sinks again. It’s through the floorboards, now.

“Where is she?” I ask him.

He doesn’t answer, just points. I follow his finger into the bedroom, to where Bella is crouched in the fetal position in bed, dwarfed by pillows, a hoodie up and sweatpants on. I snap my shoes off and go to her, getting right in around her.

“Bells,” I say. “Hey. I’m here.” I drop my lips down and kiss the top of her sweatshirt-covered head. She doesn’t move. I look at Aaron by the door. He stands there, his hands hanging helplessly at his sides.

“Bells,” I try again. I rub a hand down her back. “Come on. Sit up.”

She shifts. She looks up at me. She looks confused, frightened. She looks the way she did on my trundle bed decades ago when she’d wake up from a bad dream.

“Did he tell you?” she asks me.

I nod. “He said you lost the baby,” I say. I feel sick at the words. I think about her, just last week, painting, preparing. “Bells I’m so sorry. I—”

She sits up. She puts a hand over her mouth. I think she might be sick.

“No,” she says. “I was wrong. I wasn’t pregnant.”

I search her face. I look to Aaron, who is still in the doorway. “What are you talking about?”

“Dannie,” she says. She looks straight at me. Her eyes are wet, wide. I see something in them I’ve only ever seen once before, a long time ago at a door in Philadelphia. “They think I have ovarian cancer.”

Chapter Nineteen

She says a lot of things then. About how ovarian cancer, in very rare cases, can cause a false positive. About how the symptoms sometimes mimic pregnancy. Missed period, bloated abdomen, nausea, low energy. But all I hear is a humming, a buzz in my ears that gets louder and louder the more she talks until it’s impossible to hear her. Her mouth is opening and all that’s coming out are a thousand bees, zinging and stinging their way to my face until my eyes are swollen shut.