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  Her phone interrupted. “Your destination is on the right.”

  Cassidy exited the navigation and turned the car around, making a U-turn in the middle of the street. She traced her steps back through downtown Charleston and back onto the interstate.

  The world had transformed in such a short time, the hills now sunny and radiant, a different planet, and Cassidy thought of nothing but her uterus, searching and searching for the warmth she’d felt on the drive down, noticing every twinge and bracing for blood. Her mom had told her the story of her repeated miscarriages once, to Cassidy’s horror. Paloma had meant to show Cassidy how wanted she was. Instead the whole story had felt like a guilt trip: I wanted other children and all I got was you. Now Cassidy felt destined to repeat her mother’s history. She should have empathized more when Paloma had opened up.

  Cassidy drove straight to the health department, where inside, the waiting room was empty, and the same nurse who had confirmed Cassidy’s pregnancy led her straight back to the exam room and produced from a closet a wheeled ultrasound machine. Cassidy had not even taken off her coat, and as she lifted the puffy nylon, it bunched under her chin, making it difficult to see the screen.

  “I see a fetal pole and a sac.” The nurse paused for a moment, moving the wand through the jelly on Cassidy’s abdomen, pressing firmly at different angles. “And there’s some cardiac activity.” She smiled and Cassidy exhaled.

  “Thank you.” She jumped up before the nurse could hand her a wet washcloth and instead wiped the jelly from her stomach with her shirt and ran back down the hall and out to the car.

  She called Simon and started talking before he could finish saying hello. “I’m pregnant. I know, it was stupid. I should have told you I wasn’t on birth control or anything. I mean, you probably should have asked or used a condom or something, or maybe it was dumb that we hooked up at all, but—”

  “It wasn’t dumb.”

  Cassidy cringed. “But I’m pregnant and I went to Charleston for the abortion pill, but I realized I don’t want to get rid of it. I know it sounds crazy, but—”

  “It doesn’t sound crazy, Cass.” Cassidy realized Simon was crying.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m more than okay. This is . . . I don’t have words. What do you need? I’m here. We’ll do this together.”

  Cassidy paused, Simon’s joy sobering her. She’d given him the wrong idea. “I don’t need anything. Thanks, Simon. I’m totally good.”

  “You can stop camming. You know you don’t need to do that anyway.”

  Cassidy’s jaw clenched. “I like camming.”

  “Oh. I know. I just meant . . .”

  “Hey, Simon,” Cassidy interrupted. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up and started the car.

  The snow had mostly melted on the farm, but there was still enough to outline a dark bare rectangle where Paloma’s car usually rested. Inside, Cassidy took off her coat and shoes and went upstairs.

  She was good. It was true. From the second she had peeked over her coat to see a tiny pulsing on the ultrasound screen, the thoughts that had been tightening inside her chest for weeks had begun to unwind, the spiral turning the other direction, leaving behind a sense of calm and well-being. There was so much more to think about, so much more to figure out, but for now, she was overcome by a sense of relief and certainty. It flooded her body like alcohol, warming her. It cooled as she thought back to her conversation with Simon, but she told herself she would deal with him later. She would explain that it wasn’t personal. He would understand.

  Cassidy was at Walmart the next day, shopping for prenatal vitamins and trying to hold on to the feelings of excitement and possibility, when she crossed paths with a young mother who could not have been older than herself. Three kids buzzed around the scrawny sallow woman, who looked exhausted, overwhelmed, and something else that Cassidy recognized—lonely. Two of the children screamed and hit each other, then retreated to either side of their mom. The third, a baby, wailed in the car seat that swung from the mother’s elbow, its mouth opened wide in rage: Please pay attention to me.

  “Do you want me to whoop your ass?” the woman yelled, her face contorting, transforming into something ugly and sinister.

  The older kids ignored her and continued their bickering.

  “I swear, I will whoop both y’all,” she threatened.

  Cassidy watched, needing to know how the scenario played out. The saga continued, its players unaware of her investment.

  The woman’s hand snatched a pair of dirty overalls and she hit the oldest child, probably six or seven, hard on the side of the head. He yelped and then quieted, sulking. She reached out then for the other child, maybe four. The little girl bolted and cowered at the end of the aisle.

  “Don’t you run from me, Savannah, you little brat.” The mom approached the child and towered over her. She lifted her hand high and hit the girl on the bottom in a swooping practiced arc. The little girl collapsed on the tiled floor, sobbing, other shoppers rolling their carts by as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Cassidy could not tear her eyes away from the young mom, whose face was both vindicated and ashamed. She turned to her baby, who had quieted, as if scared she would be next. The woman’s face softened, and she gazed at the infant sadly. How long before I have to beat you? Cassidy imagined her thinking.

  She could see herself in this young woman—her loneliness in the midst of upheaval, her desperation for one minute where things were not in a state of chaos.

  How do I know? she wondered, the thought a wrecking ball to the backs of her knees. How do I know I won’t be just like her?

  Cassidy’s Chucks squeaked as she pivoted, striding out of the monolithic store without the vitamins. Though Paloma was waiting at the farm for her car, Cassidy sat frozen, her hands resting flat on the front of the steering wheel. When she started to shiver, she put the key in the ignition and took out her phone. There, waiting for her, was a message from Noeli, a dumb video of a cat’s meows replaced by someone saying “Hey.” It was the first she had heard from her friend in days, since before the trip to Charleston. She must have driven by Stone Tower just slowly enough to catch their Wi-Fi and let the message come through. Cassidy chuckled, put the phone in the center console, and leaned her head back and giggled, the sounds morphing into slightly maniacal laughter. Her body shook with it, until the convulsions turned into loud sobs.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” she said out loud, squeezing the steering wheel so hard that her nails cut into her palms. “Fuck!”

  It wasn’t that people were wrong about West Virginia. The stereotypes were all around her. Here was the poor mother beating her children. There was the racist old man. She was angry at all of them herself. But now she saw them as people. She was angry at them because she knew they could do better. Outside, people reduced them to this. They didn’t see the old man put his arm around his friend. They didn’t see way the mom looked at her baby. No one saw that Cassidy could have been one of them too. That they could have been, themselves.

  Cassidy picked the phone up again and saw she had a full bar. Before she could talk herself out of it, she called Noeli. She didn’t want to message somebody. She didn’t want to distract herself with dumb videos or with errands or with whatever else. She needed to hear someone’s voice—someone outside of the whole mess.

  “Hey,” Noeli said, picking up after the first ring. “I found a subletter!”

  Cassidy’s mind could not register the relief she knew she should feel. “I’m pregnant.” She giggled again. “I’m, uh. I’m having a baby.” She was full-on laughing again, and Noeli was silent.

  “Holy shit,” she said finally.

  “Yep.” Cassidy sounded alarmingly jovial.

  “You said you’re, uh. You’re having the baby?” Noeli asked carefully.

  “Yes.” Cassidy sto
pped laughing.

  Noeli didn’t argue. She didn’t try to talk Cassidy out of anything. She sat listening, her quiet presence tangible even through the phone.

  “But I’m freaking out. It’s Simon’s and—”

  “I figured.”

  “He said he’s in love with me. And I shouldn’t have given him the wrong idea by sleeping with him and now he really thinks—”

  “How was that?”

  “I’m definitely a lesbian. But now he’s all excited about the baby and it’s even more of a mess. I am literally about to be a young single mother in West Virginia, and I saw this mom at Walmart just now—”

  Noeli cut her off. “Did you just say you were in Walmart?” She said the name as if testing an unfamiliar language.

  “It’s the only big store here.”

  “Go on.” Noeli sounded amused.

  Cassidy launched into the story of the woman and her three kids.

  “Cass, do you seriously need me to reassure you that you aren’t going to beat your kids?” Her voice was dry but comforting, and as soon as Cassidy heard it from her friend’s mouth, she knew how ridiculous it sounded. She laughed again, this time in relief.

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “Can we get back to the bigger issue, i.e., that you had sex with a man?”

  “Are you hungry?” a voice asked in the background on Noeli’s side. It sounded like Lupe, Noeli’s fickle fuck buddy’s judgmental vocal fry prominent even in an innocuous question.

  “Hey, I have to go,” Noeli said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Cassidy assured her, flustered at the abrupt change in Noeli’s attention.

  “Okay, cool. I’ll call you soon so you can figure out the paperwork for the apartment.”

  “Okay,” Cassidy said, forcing herself to sound put together. “Bye.” She hung up.

  Cassidy took a deep breath and put the keys in the ignition. She had to return the car. She had to tell her mom. But she had to tell Grandma Jane first.

  At Serenity, Cassidy pushed the door to the entryway open tentatively. She was here alone now, and she took her time sanitizing her hands and signing in. As she walked toward Jane’s room, she imagined her grandmother’s possible responses. Would she be disappointed? Would she cry?

  Jane smiled as Cassidy entered, and set her crossword book in her lap, the cover folded back to keep her place. Cassidy rolled a wheelchair in front of Jane’s recliner and sat down. She reached out and took Jane’s hands in her own, like her grandma had done so many times with her.

  “I’m having a baby,” she said, smiling a little in spite of her nerves.

  “Oh, Cassidy, that’s just wonderful! Come here.” Grandma Jane motioned for Cassidy to come closer. Cassidy stood, letting the wheelchair roll backward. It felt like the car on the ice.

  She knelt before the recliner, feeling oddly like a churchgoer. This was her religion, Grandma Jane’s love. Cassidy placed her head in Jane’s lap and her grandmother stroked her hair, her long fingernails scratching her scalp.

  “After I got pregnant, my daddy told me, ‘Jane, come on home.’” Cassidy breathed in the scent of fabric softener on her khaki slacks. “There was never anything but love with them. With Grandma and Granddaddy,” Jane continued. “You know I love you being here, Cassidy. I love you just like that.” She sighed. “And you know I love the idea of a baby. But you have to be sure you want to be here. You have to be really sure about everything.”

  Cassidy lifted her head and met Jane’s pale blue eyes. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Jane held Cassidy’s chin in her palm and took a deep breath. “It’s okay, darling. It’s okay. I didn’t keep the first baby.”

  Cassidy’s mouth fell open. “That baby wasn’t Daddy?”

  Grandma Jane shook her head and pressed her mouth shut, trembling. “I’m still ashamed, darling. I did what I had to do, but old feelings stay with you, no matter how things change. But you don’t have to feel ashamed, Cassidy, no matter what you do. I want you to know that.”

  Cassidy nodded. “I want the baby, Grandma. But I don’t know if I want to stay here.”

  Jane gripped Cassidy’s chin tighter. “You don’t have to feel ashamed of that, either.”

  Back at the farm, Paloma was rushing to get dinner on the table. “I told Margaret I’d be there by now,” she said. “May wants to smudge my room to clear the space. I know it’s a little woo-woo, but it’s important to her.” She sat down.

  “Sorry.” Cassidy sat, then picked up her fork and examined its prongs. A log fell in the woodstove. “I’m having a baby,” she said as she speared a piece of tofu.

  “Excuse me?” Cassidy wasn’t sure whether Paloma really hadn’t heard her or if she was angry.

  Cassidy brought the tofu to her mouth and chewed it slowly without tasting. She swallowed. “I’m having a baby.” She lifted her chin to meet Paloma’s gaze.

  Paloma sat, stunned and speechless, a state Cassidy could not remember seeing her in before. She dropped her fork to the table. “Oh, Cassidy. I’m so glad you’ll be here. That you’ll be home.”

  Paloma stood and rushed around the table in a swoop of scarves and maxi skirt. She bent toward her daughter and hugged her, tight. Cassidy remembered telling her mom when she had first gotten her period. She’d been scared then, too, and had a vague sense that Paloma might be mad at her. She had waited until they were making their way down the driveway to a school awards ceremony.

  “I think I might have gotten my period,” Cassidy had said. Without a word, Paloma had stopped the car, gotten out of the driver’s seat, opened the back door, and given her a hug. “Congratulations,” she whispered before returning to her seat and continuing their drive.

  Now, as then, Cassidy realized she needed to adjust the story she told herself about her mom. She was hard to please, yes, but she could be good about the big things.

  In Paloma’s embrace, Cassidy felt nothing but love, just as Grandma Jane had described, but still, as Paloma went back to her dinner, no longer annoyed, no longer in a rush, her grandmother’s words rang in her ears. As Paloma gushed about having a grandchild, about the circle of life, about the wonder of women’s bodies, Cassidy thought of her grandma. You have to be really sure.

  “And without even trying,” Paloma wondered aloud, shaking her head.

  Was Cassidy as happy as her mom that she would be here?

  “Fertility is the closest thing to a miracle that exists in this world,” Paloma said. Outside, the spoon chimes tinkled.

  Was this really her home? Her dad was gone. Her mom was moving out. What about when Grandma was gone? She shook the thought from her head and focused on Paloma’s lips.

  “It’s early, but oh, Cassidy. I’m so excited. Who is the father? I can’t believe I didn’t think to ask.”

  “Simon.”

  “Of course it’s Simon!” Paloma put a hand to her heart. “But I thought you liked women?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I understand.” Paloma nodded serenely. “Life usually is.” Her phone rang from the kitchen and she rose to retrieve it. She returned a moment later, beaming. “Speak of the devil. He’s subscribed us to the CSA at no charge.”

  “Wow,” Cassidy said through a mouthful of tofu. “That’s really nice.”

  “What a sweetheart,” Paloma said. “He called me Mom. He’s a good egg, Cassidy.”

  Cassidy blinked and swallowed, but she didn’t answer.

  Paloma

  “It’s so nice you’ll have the house. So much space for the baby.”

  Paloma thought of the Žižkov apartment she’d moved into after her wedding, how every morning, Ken had packed his charms and headed to Charles Bridge, just as the neighbor next door set Dvořák’s Symphony no. 9 on the record player. He’d returned each evenin
g with a few crowns to the sounds of Rusalka. Paloma, for her part, went diligently to the fakulty, prepared lessons, taught classes, and graded papers while humming the Czech composer’s melodies, then came home to sweep, scrub, and cook to the folky rhythms of Slavonic Dances blaring through the thin wall. She was not betraying her feminist values, she told herself, because she wanted, for herself, to make the space homey. It would be more of a betrayal to become an archetypical nagging wife, to demand that Ken change his free-spirited ways.

  Her teaching money was enough to live on—not extravagantly, but enough. When her fellowship expired in August, just a few months away, she planned to apply for a full-time position directly through the university.

  “I broached it with Jan,” she told Ken, laying out the potatoes and cabbage she’d purchased from a student who grew them in her garden. Next door, Rusalka ended and Serenade for Strings in E Major began.

  Ken studied Paloma. “What did he say?”

  “That it should be no problem. I’m the only one who’s stayed on for so long. He’ll talk to the department head himself.”

  “What if you stopped when your fellowship was up?”

  “Why would I do that?” Paloma laughed. “And what? We’d live on your income?”

  Ken looked hurt. “Well, what if we had a baby?” He wasn’t joking.

  “I’m twenty-five. And we’d have no money.”

  “And I’m thirty-four,” Ken said. “You’ve known from the outset it’s what I wanted.”

  “I didn’t know there was such a timeline for it!” Paloma took the two potatoes to the sink to scrub, turning her back to Ken.

  “I don’t want to be an old father,” Ken said. “I want my mom to know my children. What if we want more than one?”