Elena didn’t cry.
She sat on the edge of the bathtub for a long time after the two lines had permanently appeared. She waited for the tears that ought to have come—like in the movies, or how she had imagined it happening for most women in this exact situation. But they didn’t come. Instead, something quieter and stranger set in: a kind of calm, as if her entire body had switched into the mode it adopted during a crisis with a supplier—analyzing, weighing options, mentally three steps ahead with prioritization, all before the emotional impact of the situation had fully hit her.
She picked up the test, wrapped it in a wad of toilet paper—like a piece of evidence she needed to hide—and tossed it into the bottom of the trash can, beneath a layer of other waste. It was an old habit from child
