I had a dream

I'm starting to get superstitious. Or maybe I always was superstitious, and I've only lately started accepting it. I indulge in magical thinking. I reach out for talismans.

A couple of weeks ago, I spotted. Just once. And it came with twisting back pain. Those two things could mean most anything - that I'm 39 and in perimenopause, for instance, or that I slept wrong, or that I was working too hard at Christmas. Whatever. But I noticed the signs. I marked them down, to myself.

Christmas came and went, and I thought about it. I thought - I bet this is it. I posed for pictures with my family, thinking about one day saying to someone, see? You were there. We just didn't know it yet.

We went to Las Vegas. On the plane a baby sat in front of me, arms waving like a little anemone, and hours later, after we arrived at the house and I was going through my shoulder bag looking for tip money, I pulled out a pink rubber pacifier. Surprised, I laughed aloud. The baby had dropped it, and I'd carried it away. In the same moment that I knew it was just a coincidence, I also decided it was a sign. I resolved to keep it, if my suspicions were right. To wash it off. See? I imagined explaining to someone, later. Pointing to it in the bourgeois display cabinet where we keep silly things and curiosities. Know where I got that? Fate, that's where.

I decided to drink as much as I usually would on this vacation, because after all, I didn't officially know anything yet. And this would probably be my last chance. For how long. A year? Basically. Long enough, anyway. I smiled and cheersed with rum, and we took a picture around the table on New Year's Eve, all of dressed in our best and smiling big. My breasts look unusually lush in that picture. See? I imagined saying to someone, later. You can tell.

We went to Vegas instead of the tropics because one of us was planning to be pregnant then, and she was afraid of Zika. She wound up getting divorced instead. Wouldn't that be ironic, I thought to myself. I composed the email to her, in my mind. You're not going to believe this, but.... And then a picture of the stick.

So when my due date came and went, I wasn't surprised. Nervous, maybe. Wow, I thought, was I right? The signs are all there. I felt different. Moods different. Soreness different. Absent, in fact. Waiting.

Another day came and went. We flew home. I wore a tight new sweater dress, and poked at my soft belly when in the airplane bathroom, sinking my finger into my flesh, through the fat to the gentle give of muscles underneath. What's in there? I wondered to myself. I tallied months up on my fingers. Five months at Figawi - just showing. Good for one liners in the joke tent. Then arrival at the end of September, give or take. I wondered if there were a way to be in Marblehead for it. To be home. All summer, and then L would take fall off, and we could hunker down, and go back to New York organized and nearly conscious. Ready.

That night, I fell asleep. I dreamt. I dreamt about peeing on the stick, and watching it, and the stick said "yes." I was happy. I was excited. Is this really it? I wondered to myself. Can this be real? But it wasn't real, because I was dreaming. I woke up, unsure. Still dark, but getting light. The stick was a dream. But I had one. Should I take it.

I didn't want to. I knew it had all been a dream. If it's true, I reasoned, it will be true if I use the stick or not. Same as if it's not true. I went back to bed.

I woke up in deep, gnawing pain. All day, all last night, keeping me awake, and all today.

I still feel it.

More pain than I anticipated. But I guess that's been true of this entire process. Always more pain than anticipated.