In my mother’s kitchen in Denver, cigarettes and dish soap cling to the air. Cheap lemon, burned down to something bitter. The linoleum is peeling at the edges, lifting in soft strips like it’s trying to leave. The window is cracked even though it’s winter, a habit she keeps no matter the season. Smoke out. Cold in.
She’s at the sink when I tell her. Cigarette balanced between two fingers, ashtray already full, the TV murmuring something forgettable.
“I’m pregnant.”
She doesn’t turn around.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
She flicks ash into the drain. Runs the water. Still doesn’t look at me.
“What,” she says. “Serious?”
Then she turns, slow and suspicious, eyes moving over me like she’s checking a car that’s been making a sound she doesn’t trust.
“Noooo way.”
She stares a second longer, then laughs once, sharp.
“Shit,” she says. “I’m gonna be a grandma.”
She takes another drag, exhales halfway, freezes.
“So,” she says, squinting. “Who’s the daddy?”
The question lands easy. Practiced. Like this is a riddle women pass down to one another, not because it’s important, but because it’s expected. Because men move through the story and women stay to clean it up.
Brooklyn. A hotel room the width of a thought. White sheets disturbed before we even touch them. His hand slides between my thighs, heat opening there like water finding a low place. It stays. His other hand closes at my throat, sure, not hard enough to leave a mark, just enough to remind me where the balance of power lives.
Sweat falls from him in small, careful drops, like he’s counting time with his body. When it’s over, he rolls away and checks his phone. I lie there staring at the ceiling, my pulse still loud in my ears, already rehearsing the version of myself who won’t bring this moment up again.
“Well?” my mother says, back in the kitchen. “You gonna answer me or what?”
I shrug.
“I don’t know.”
She snorts. “Figures.”
She’s always been good at spotting men who won’t stay. Better at spotting women who will. When I was a kid, she used to say it was better not to expect anything—expectations were how you ended up disappointed, broke, or both. She didn’t put my father on child support. Didn’t chase him. Didn’t talk about him much at all. Survival, to her, looked like silence and cigarettes and never asking for help twice.
“You gonna do it the hard way like me?” she asks now. “Not put that fucker on child support?”
I don’t answer. She doesn’t wait for one.
Another city, another room. The glow of my boyfriend’s monitor is blue and steady, his headset on, laughter breaking loose from him in quick bursts.
“Where the fuck were you?” he asks, eyes still on the screen.
“Just grabbing drinks,” I say. “With my coworker. That gay guy from California.”
“Mm,” he grunts. On the screen, a woman leans close to her camera, laughing. Her name blinks in the corner of the Skype window. He keeps his headset on.
“Next time don’t fucking disappear like that, it’s annoying. Text me.”
“I will”
I stand in the shower until my skin goes pink, watching everything slide away. Water carries the smell of him down the drain. I tell myself this is what adulthood looks like: choosing what to forget.
Back in Denver, my mother stubs her cigarette out too hard, grinding until the ember disappears.
“So?” she says. “You telling him or what?”
My mouth opens. Closes.
“I’m not going to tell him.”
She nods like this confirms something she already knew. Turns back to the sink. Opens the window wider, lets the smoke out, the cold rushing in.
“Well,” she says, striking the lighter again, “figure it out. And if you’re gonna be pregnant, no more of this sad-girl yogurt shit, you need to eat real food.”
Later still, my boyfriend sits on the edge of the bed, hands clasped, eyes somewhere far above my head.
“I can’t do this,” he says. “You should get an abortion.”
“I’m scared,” I say, though what I mean is: I can’t let this disappear.
He nods, relieved, like my fear has made his decision easier.
“I just—yeah. You’re overthinking it. Just do it for me, please.”
“What,” my mother says. “Is it that little bitch-boy from… wherever the fuck? France?”
“Montreal isn’t France.”
She waves the cigarette. “Same difference. That accent fools people but not me. I told you.”
She steps closer without asking. Lifts my shirt. Presses her palm flat against my stomach, firm, assessing—like she’s checking a car hood I brought in too late. Her hand is warm.
“Mmhmm,” she says. “It’s a boy.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I said what I said.”
She drops her hand.
“So?” she says again. “You telling him or what?”
There it is again. The insistence on him. As if naming a man completes the story. As if my body isn’t already doing the work regardless.
At the clinic, the screen comes alive. A spine curves like a hook. Limbs kick—resistant, already busy with something. The sound comes fast. Steady. Unbothered.
“Looks good,” the tech says.
Later, the doctor tells me the bleeding is stress-related. I nod. I don’t mention the texts.
When I check my phone, the messages have arranged themselves without me.
are you okay?
i got carried away.
you completely overreacted.
where the fuck are you?
Contact doesn’t end. It thins. A message. A call. Long gaps, then softness—just enough to test if I’m still there.
The day I find out, I sit in my car with the heater running, gel drying on my belly.
The tech has given me a small stuffed pink bear.
You won’t know this.
I type fuck you.
Delete it.
He doesn’t reply.
That night, my dog sleeps with his head against my stomach. His breath rises and falls. Rises and falls. Heavy. Certain. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t leave.
In the morning, my mother calls.
“So?” she says. “You figure it out?”
I look at my body in the mirror. The small, unmistakable curve. The quiet insistence of it.
My breath fogs the glass for a second, then clears.
“I think so,” I say.
She hums. “Good.”
I know what she means: good that I’ll manage. Good that I won’t expect help. Good that I’ll endure.
What I don’t tell her is that I’m not interested in her version of strength. I don’t want to raise a child inside a question mark shaped like a man. I don’t want to teach my daughter to disappear.
The window stays closed. The smoke stays outside.
***
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