Because Lisa has a paper to write, I’m back at the kids’ school at two forty-five and listen to them bicker the entire drive home while I mindlessly grip the steering wheel.

There’s going to be another child. Another baby Laurens, but the baby won’t be a Laurens, as that’s Daniel’s name. What would the baby be, then? Whiting, my maiden name, or Carson, Kai’s last name?

I laugh and the sound is strangled, and I feel hopeless, helpless. I can hardly keep my head above water now, how on earth will I manage with a newborn? How will I do it all on my own?

William mutters something unintelligible in the backseat and Jessica shouts, and suddenly they’re both hitting each other. Howling. Screaming. I swerve over, pull onto the shoulder of the road, and fling myself around. “What is the matter with you two?”

“William hit me.”

“Jessica bit me.”

“He started it.”

“She wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“I—”

“Stop it! For God’s sake, stop it!” I scream above their raised voices, shouting so loud that it throbs in my chest, hurts my throat, stuns them into silence. “Stop it right now!” Then my voice breaks and silence fills the car and I see their shocked faces in the rearview mirror.

I lay my forehead against the steering wheel and shudder with tears that I don’t let fall. How can I have another child when I can’t even manage the two I have?

When I can barely keep my company going? When my customers call and call and leave frustrated messages that nothing is moving as fast as they’d like?

When Daniel doesn’t speak to me and my friends barely see me and I feel so sad again, so lonely and alone?

I didn’t feel lonely with Kai. I didn’t feel bad with Kai. I felt good and strong and funny and beautiful, but he’s not real, Hawaii’s not real. It was just an escape, a fantasy 2,600 miles away, and I can’t escape. Can’t run away. Must face my responsibilities, must be a grown-up, must see an OB and find out when the due date would be….

At home, the kids settle quietly at the kitchen counter to do their homework, and I make them a snack. While both do their math, I go upstairs to my office and call and make an appointment with Dr. Montgomery, the doctor who delivered both Jessica and William and whom I haven’t seen in years, since I can get my annual exam from a nurse practitioner.

The receptionist is able to get me in to see Dr. Montgomery a week from today. A week later I pee into a cup, get a blood draw, and then wait for the doctor to visit me in my paper gown in the examination room.