The Best-Kept Secret by Kimberla Lawson Roby

Author:Kimberla Lawson Roby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

After leaving the church, Charlotte drove about thirty miles to a small pharmacy in a rural area to purchase a pregnancy test. She didn’t want to chance running into someone from the church. Once home, she removed the white tube from the package. At first, she debated whether she should wait until tomorrow, but with Curtis teaching Bible study tonight, she figured it was better to get this over with. It was better to find out what was what as soon as possible.

She pulled out the instructions, read them, and then saturated the feltlike tip with urine for five seconds. It would take only three minutes to see the result, but her stomach was already stirring. Her hands had been shaking during the whole process, and she’d almost dropped the tube in the toilet.

Charlotte leaned against the bathroom vanity with her eyes closed, praying that she wasn’t pregnant. She hadn’t seriously prayed about much of anything in a long while, but now she had no other alternative. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in God, because she did. But she just didn’t see a reason to pray all day every day the way a lot of people she knew did. The way her mother and Aunt Emma had done for years. When Charlotte was a child and was adamant about things she didn’t feel were necessary, her grandmother would say, “Chile, just keep on livin’. If you do, you’ll end up seein’ and doin’ a whole lot of things you never thought you would. I’ll be gone on to glory, but one day you’ll realize what I mean.”

And how right her grandmother had been. Before marrying Curtis, she’d sworn she would never commit adultery. But she had. Before marrying Curtis, she’d sworn that she would never lie to the man she married. But she had.

Before today, she’d sworn that she would never have an abortion.

But now, she would go back on her word again. She would do so because the end of that test tube was as pink as pink could be. She was definitely pregnant, and there was no way she could have a baby. Not when she couldn’t guarantee who the father was. Not when there had been many weeks when she’d had sex with Aaron more than with her own husband. And she could blame only herself, because the reason she hadn’t wanted Aaron to use any protection was that she’d wanted to feel the real him inside her. She hadn’t wanted anything getting in the way of that. She’d wanted to feel him skin to skin in the most natural way possible. Plus, she hadn’t been worried because she’d been taking the pill ever since Matthew was born. Sometimes she missed one here and there, but she always made up for it the following day. Her mother had told her that being careless would eventually catch up with her, but Charlotte hadn’t thought it was a big deal. She hadn’t thought she would ever get pregnant again.

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