Chapter 1 | Liz

Chapter 1

Liz

N ot Pregnant. Well, that’s direct. Digital pee sticks give no fucks when it comes to a woman’s emotions. There’s no agonizing over whether that second line is there or not, whether the fact that it’s your fifth instead of first pee of the day makes a difference. It’s simple. Pregnant. Or Not.

I drop the test into the garbage pail and turn my back on it before slowly washing my hands. Now is not the best time to be pregnant. I know that. My husband fired his top account manager almost four months ago, and since then, his occasional business trips have turned into monthly outings. Julian hasn’t traveled so much since our post-grad days. With film festival season coming up, it’s exhausting. I can’t imagine dealing with this while hormonal. What a disaster that would be. And yet disappointment weighs on me. I can’t deny it. Will there ever be a right time for me and Julian? I bury the answer that’s crawling its way to the surface. Just because we haven’t found the right time yet doesn’t mean it will never present itself. And maybe a surprise baby is exactly what we need to find the time—to put our family and our future above work and passions and every other thing we use to keep us from really trying.

Because sometimes, I want a baby so desperately it hurts. There was that miscarriage in our first year of marriage, and honestly, we weren’t ready. But new birth control and poor timing and bad luck had other ideas, at least for a few weeks. After that, trying again didn’t seem appealing. I wanted to bask in the honeymoon stage. Five years later, my biological clock is all but screaming at me. Not that I’m old at thirty-four by anyone’s definition except my obstetrician’s, but I can’t shake the nagging feeling that maybe it isn’t meant to be. Not me and Julian—the baby part.

Or maybe it’s time to be a bit more proactive. I search for ovulation trackers on my phone. We agreed not to go overboard, to let this foray into family planning be casual—let’s have a lot of sex and see what happens. It works for Julian, and I am by no means complaining. Our sex life hasn’t been this good since the first months of our engagement. But it can’t hurt to pay more attention to my cycle. It has never been normal. The negative test and my week-late period proves that. My doctor said I most likely don’t ovulate when I’m supposed to, so knowing when I do could be quite beneficial. And it’s not like I have to pee on sticks every day like my sister-in-law. I can plug in some data from my last periods and see when it’s time to turn up the charm. No harm done.

Before I can even open the app store, Julian’s photo pops up on my screen. I let it ring so I can stare at his photo for an extra second. It’s my favorite shot of him. We’re on our honeymoon, and he’s happy and relaxed and sun-kissed. He’s my Julian.

“Hey, babe,” I say. He’s supposed to be flying home today from a conference in St. Louis. The weather forecast was clear as of a few hours ago, but it’s possible something cropped up.

“Are you home?” He sounds distracted, and the bustle of the airport crowds the line.

“I am.”

“Perfect.” The clatter around him quiets, and I know he’s walked into a private area or lounge. “I need you to mail something for me today.”

“Sure. Flight delayed?”

“Yeah, there’s a gnarly thunderstorm happening right now.” He pauses, and I hear a few key clicks from his laptop. “I got a day pass to one of the lounges while I wait.”

“Your boss will love that.” I walk out of the bathroom without another glance at the test. Tomorrow, I will go back to the tried-and-true pink lines. At least the anxiety comes with hope. I debate telling Julian about the test, but aside from the sex part, he’s not particularly interested in the intricacies of conception. Sometimes I wonder how long it would take him to notice if I didn’t get my period, if the lack of the tampon box would be a glaring admission or an oversight. “Long delay?” I ask when he doesn’t respond to my quip about his employer.

“A few hours, maybe.”

That’s not too bad, considering. I stopped planning anything for Julian’s homecomings after his first few trips since we inevitably fall into bed and miss our reservation.

I flip on the light in Julian’s office. The room is familiar but distinct. This is his space. It smells like him and looks every bit the creative genius lair that it is. I can’t remember the last time I came in here. Julian needs this space to shut out the rest of the world and delve into his fictional ones. It’s a trait I learned to accept long ago.

“What am I looking for?”

Papers litter the surface, sticking out at weird angles in one section and neatly stacked in another. It isn’t like Julian to be messy with his work or forget to drop something in the mail. An inkling of worry gnaws at me. I swallow it.

“It’s an entry form for the Norfolk Screenplay Contest,” he says, his voice perfectly normal.

Maybe the mess is just a mess, a consequence of his new schedule. Not everything means something deeper, I remind myself. I shuffle through the papers, finding only manuscript and screenplay pages, a few bills I hope he paid or we’re about to be in big trouble, and a calendar.

“There should be a check clipped to it and a pre-labeled envelope.”

My eyes hit on it as soon as he finishes his sentence. “Got it. I’ll make sure it goes out today. Anything else?” I scan the calendar. It’s small and not the notebook he uses to keep his travel schedule aligned with contest deadlines and festivals. There are only a few Xs in the last week of the month—almost a week’s worth—and then an outlined star on one day and a colored star a few days later. I recognize the date that has the colored star but can’t place it.

“Actually, if you don’t mind, could you send me a few files while you’re in there?”

I perk up at the request. Julian is so tightly wound he never lets anyone touch his work. He almost never works on his films outside of this office. It’s his weird creative tic, and while it can be annoying, most of the time I love him even more for his passion.

A garbled voice sounds across the line, and Julian sighs loudly. I know I’m destined for a solo dinner now. Maybe I’ll try that new place on Wilton Avenue or see if I can get a facial and pedicure at the spa. It’s been ages since I treated myself, and something must be done about my cuticles before flip-flop season.

“Sure.” I turn my attention to the computer. “Which ones?”

“Umm... The Eternity dailies for April 5?”

The folder for that film and date is huge. It was a full-day-and-night shoot. “All of them?”

“Nah, maybe the first twenty?”

I pull them into the file-transfer program I know he prefers. For a modern, tech-savvy marketer, Julian is oddly wary of the cloud.

“Oh,” he says, his voice taking on a sheepish tone. “There’s also an entry form on my desktop for submission to a festival. Can you email that to me?”

I scan the few files on the screen before I find it and pull it into an email. “What are you submitting this time?”

“ Cruises Are for Teenage Lovers ,” he says, and he’s obviously grinning on the other side of the line.

A blush creeps up my cheeks, taking the rest of my worries with it. Cruises Are for Teenage Lovers is the beginning of our story, literally. Julian used his skills to make a series of short films, each one highlighting a part of our life together. Cruises is the first film—my wedding gift—and tells the story of our first kiss on the deck of a ship. Nothing but ocean and stars and the wind surrounded us. I knew, even then, that my life would never be the same. Not in that teenage, awestruck, every-kiss-is-life-altering way but deep in my soul. He kissed me that night, and in that moment, I saw the future laid out in front of me, and even if I wanted to, I knew there was no going back. Julian Madden stole my heart with a single kiss.

I never knew how that night and that kiss felt to Julian. Not really. But Cruises told the story from Julian’s perspective. And in his eyes, I was beautiful.

“Did you get the files?” I ask after refreshing his inbox for the second time. It’s definitely in the sent folder. My eyes scan the page, narrowing at the email address—[email protected]. Not his normal email address. Or his work email. Or any email I’ve ever seen before in my life.

“Yes.” His answer comes slowly, too slowly. “Thanks, babe. I’ll let you know when I board.”

I hang up, and though I know it’s wrong, I scan the contents of the sent folder. Every nerve in my body is on edge. My shoulders slump in on themselves, and I lean closer to the screen, as if he’s going to walk through the door and accuse me of spying on him. This is all sorts of wrong. I don’t snoop on my husband. But he’s never had an email address you didn’t know about before, the devil on my shoulder remarks. I shush her. Maybe he wanted to keep his professional and personal personas separate. Maybe he got tired of being confused for a woman with his Jules.Madden email. It is probably nothing. My head throbs a denial.

I click back to his inbox. There’s an appointment reminder for Dr. Montague, our old marriage counselor. We haven’t seen her in years. Counseling was my condition when Julian proposed. He had bailed on our relationship twice, more than that if you counted micro-breakups, and then after a year of silence, he showed up at my door with a ring.

The sessions weren’t romantic, and at the beginning, I thought maybe they were showing us that we weren’t meant to be together. But eventually, after a lot of honesty and tears, they brought us to a good place. Of course, no one knew we were in counseling. So our long engagement garnered a lot of attention and complaints. Our families and friends wanted to know when we were going to set a date after a month, three, six—it was unbearable. To everyone else, we have that movie love story, the fairytale, the rom-com. But a kiss and a doorway proposal don’t fix a relationship. They don’t atone for the betrayal of leaving in the first place. I smiled and nodded, and eventually, I started believing in the romance of it all too. Maybe we were fated. Maybe it was destiny. Didn’t I know from that first kiss that there was no going back?

And now here I am clicking through every single email from this address. There are no promotional emails, the first giveaway that this is not a work or personal email replacement. The only emails are from Dr. Montague’s office and someone named Sheila Sampson. My teeth spear my bottom lip, and an awful thought assaults my brain. Julian uses this address for emails he doesn’t want me to see. Fuck.

I move the cursor to x out the window. I don’t want to see this. If I close the window now, I can go about my day, and none of this is real. If I close the window now, we can go back to being the happily married couple trying to make another life.

But no. I can’t close the window. I have to know. The most recent email is dated only three days ago. All the fucking fucks. Subject: Going to ASMR? That’s where he is now, with a convenient flight delay. Email body: Had a great time at SRC. Would love to see you in St. Louis. I scroll to his reply. Drinks Thursday night?

I massage my temples. How is this happening? What is even happening? The emails might be a smoking gun, but they are hardly conclusive evidence. Before I can overthink it, I open the Weather Channel site and type in St. Louis—thunderstorms all day. My shoulders relax about a centimeter, but at least he isn’t lying about the rain.

The search bar goads me now that I’m already prying into my husband’s secret email. It begs me to find out how long Madden.Julian and ssampson123—that’s really her email address—have been communicating. My fingers linger on the keys. Type. Delete. Type. Delete. Type. I hit Enter. A dozen or so— fourteen , my mind screams—pop up. They’re spaced out over the last several months and cover almost all of Julian’s trips. Their schedules aren’t completely in sync, and they don’t email outside of arrangements, which is really smart if you’re having an affair. No paper trail, digital or otherwise. Disappointment washes over me. I want definitive proof either way. This sad collection of emails proves nothing and makes me feel like the bad guy.

I pull out the calendar I found earlier from its hiding spot. Why not? I’m already in too deep. The longer I look at it, the more the pattern emerges. I almost have it—all the dates seem familiar—but I can’t touch the answer.

My phone rings, and I flail at the unexpected sound. Pete. My manager. Oh, fuck . Did I seriously lose an hour peeping on my husband and miss my most important meeting of the day? The meeting I’m supposed to be running.

I palm my face and hit the answer button. “Pete, I’m so sorry. Signing on now.”