Anyway, as pathetic as it is when she really thinks about it, she has no idea what she’d do without her big brother, annoying as he may be most of the time.
“I need you,” she says, her breath hitching, when he picks up.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Cramps, I don’t know. Something’s not right.” She grunts again.
“Did you call your doctor?”
“Answering service. Told me to go to the ER if the pains didn’t stop in the next thirty minutes.”
“How long ago was that?”
She pauses, glances at the television, at an old episode of Law & Order. She tries to remember if this is a different episode than the one that was on when she called the doctor. She decides it is. “An hour, I think?”
“Call an Uber. Go now,” Oliver says, falling effortlessly into his big-brother role. “I’ll meet you there.”
“OK,” she says. And she does.
* * *
When Oliver rushes into the ER ninety minutes later, Caroline has been there for more than an hour. She has spent the time secretly diagnosing everyone else in the waiting room. A young boy with swollen eyes and a red nose, clutching his elbow and sitting next to what appears to be his grandmother (easy: broken arm). An elderly man dozing in a wheelchair (disorientation—possible ministroke), sitting next to a younger man with the same facial structure but less wrinkles staring intently at his phone (his son, there for support). A woman in strappy heels and bright pink lipstick slumped in a chair on the far side (genital warts: is that an emergency?).
She waves Oliver over.
“You OK? Have you seen the doctor?” he says, concern all over his face.
“Still waiting. But I feel a little better. I haven’t had a cramp in a few minutes.”
Oliver studies her. “Are you sure it’s not something you ate? Maybe just a little indigestion or something. That’s supposed to get worse with pregnancy, right?”
“Oh, you’re a doctor now?” she says, instantly annoyed, even though she, too, thought earlier it might be indigestion. “No, Oliver, I obviously don’t think it’s a little indigestion. I have been in a severe amount of pain. Can you try to be less condescending, please?”
He holds up his hands in deference. “Sorry. You’re right. Do you need anything? What can I do?”
“Just sit down. Wait with me.”
So he does. He sits, propping his elbows on his knees, his heel jiggling with impatience. Caroline sniffs the air. “Is that you?”
Oliver glances down at his T-shirt. “Yeah,” he says. “Been holed up in my apartment on a four-day writing jag. I panicked when you called—no time to shower.”
She wrinkles a nose. “I hope I’m having a girl. Boys are so gross.”
He shrugs. She picks up a magazine from the table beside her. Flips through it.
“How’s work?” he asks.
“Good,” she says, looking up from the page she was reading. “Busy. This parade has taken on a life of its own. Hope Springs has so much tourism money that the budget is huge. I just bought six hundred thousand Christmas lights.” She grins, thinking how charming the town square is going to be after the parade, and shares more details with her brother: A real festive atmosphere, complete with hot chocolate stands and a bona fide choir singing carols and a firework display.
“Fireworks?” Oliver says. “Isn’t that more of a Fourth of July thing? New Year’s?”
“They’re celebratory,” Caroline says. “For any holiday, really.”
“Well, not any holiday. No one sets off bottle rockets on Easter.”
“Honestly, Oliver.” And then: “Ouch.” She puts a hand on the left side of her burgeoning stomach.
“You OK?” he asks, sitting up straighter.
“Yeah,” she says, exhaling. And then she glances at Oliver. His knee is still jiggling and he’s glancing around as if he’s expecting someone else to show up—and that’s when it hits her, all at once.
“Ollie.”
“Yeah?”
“You looking for someone?”
“What? No.”
“You sure? Because if I was sleeping with Mia, I’d be awfully anxious I’d run into her husband.” She’d been suspicious ever since she ran into them downtown the other night, even though Oliver said it was nothing.
His eyes shoot to hers. “What? Keep your voice down. I am not sleeping with Mia.”
“Then what are you doing? I know something’s going on.”
Oliver holds her gaze for a beat and then drops it, along with his shoulders. “It’s complicated.”
“I knew it,” she says. “And after you gave me all that shit, too, about Richard. What was it you said? An affair always ends like the Titanic—it goes down and takes everybody else with it.” If she’s being honest, she is experiencing a small perverse pleasure that her brother’s proving to be a complete hypocrite, but mostly she’s sad. Oliver isn’t a choirboy by a long shot, but still, he’s good, decent. He didn’t even cheat at Monopoly when they were kids. And there is a dearth of good, decent men in the world—she should know.
“I just—it’s driving me crazy, to be honest, Care. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Oh, Ollie,” she says, and she can see that it’s true. And she doesn’t say it out loud, but she thinks it’s probably a good thing that Oliver is going to Finland in September with that weird volunteer farming organization he loves.
Oliver remains lost in thought when Caroline is called back by the nurse, and she leaves him sitting there forlornly, wishing there was something she could do.
But in the exam room, all thoughts of her brother disappear as she stares at the grainy ultrasound screen. Dr. Leong wands her, asking her questions, but all Caroline can do is gape. She’s looking at a baby. A real live baby, with a round head and a tiny nose and little fingers on each hand. It’s not her first time seeing it, of course. But before, it looked a little bit like an alien creature, and for some reason her brain didn’t make the connection—or chose to completely ignore—that this creature was actually in her stomach. Dr. Leong pats her leg, jolting her out of her reverie. “Everything looks just fine, Mom. Maybe a few less chili dogs next time?”
Mom.
Mom.
Caroline rips the paper gown off with more force than necessary and pulls her T-shirt on over her head. When she reenters the brightly lit waiting room, she finds Oliver. “C’mon,” she says to him. “We can leave.”