I laugh, despite myself.

“Hannah, you can do this. And one day soon, you’re not going to imagine how you ever found meaning in your life before you did.” Maybe she’s right.

“What if your dad fires me before I’m even hired? ‘Hi. Hello. You gave me this job when you thought I wasn’t pregnant, and now you’re stuck with me.’ ”

“This is why you puked at dinner,” Gabby says.

“Should have been your dad’s first clue.” To be honest, it probably should have been my first clue.

“Would you listen to yourself? We’re talking about my dad. The man who picked up the boutonnieres for our dates to the prom. My dad once sat there with a pair of tweezers pulling tiny pieces of glass out of your foot when you dropped my mom’s favorite crystal vase.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” I say.

“But that’s my point. My dad loves you. Not like ‘Oh, I’m telling you my dad loves you.’ I mean, he has love in his heart for you. My father loves you. Both my parents do. They like being there for you. My dad’s not going to fire you when he finds out you’re pregnant. He and my mom are going to jump for joy and tell everyone who will listen that the generation of grandchildren is finally arriving.”

I laugh.

“Also, he can’t fire you for being pregnant. It’s illegal. That’s Human Resources 101.”

The minute she says “human resources,” I remember talking to Joyce. I remember her telling me I have insurance and maternity leave. For a flash, I almost feel as if Gabby is right. That things will be OK.

“OK,” I say. “So I still have a job.”

“And you still have me, and my parents, and Mark, and . . .” She looks at the dog and smiles. “And Charlemagne.”

“I have to call Michael and tell him, right?”

“Yes? No?” she says. “I have no idea. But I’ll think about it with you. We’ll weigh the pros and cons.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And we will come up with an answer. And then you’ll do it.”

She makes it sound so easy.

“And Ethan might not leave me?”

“He might not,” she says, although I can tell by her voice that she has less confidence in this one. “But I can tell you, if he does, it’s because it wasn’t meant to be.”

“You think things are meant to be?” I ask her. For some reason, I think I’ll feel better if things are meant to be. It gets me off the hook, doesn’t it? If things are meant to be, it means I don’t have to worry so much about consequences and mistakes. I can take my hands off the wheel. Believing in fate is like living on cruise control.

“Are you kidding? I absolutely do. There is a force out there, call it what you will. I happen to believe that it’s God,” she says. “But it pushes us in the right direction, keeps us on the right path. If Ethan says he can’t handle the fact that you’re pregnant, he’s not the one for you. You were meant for someone else. And we will handle that together, too. We will handle all of this together.”

I close my eyes briefly, and when I open them, the world seems a little brighter. “So what do I do now?”

“Tomorrow morning, we’re getting you prenatal vitamins and making an appointment to see an OB/GYN so we can figure out how far along you are.”

“It would have to be at least eight weeks,” I tell her. “I haven’t slept with Michael in a while.”

“OK,” she says. “So we know that. Still, we’ll make the appointment.”

“Oh, no,” I say out loud. “I had a beer. Last week at the bar.”

“It’s OK,” I hear her say. “It’s going to be fine. It happens. You weren’t wasted. I saw you.”

I am a terrible mother. Already. Already I am a terrible mother.

“You’re not a terrible mother if that’s what you’re worried about,” Gabby says, knowing how my brain works almost better than I do. She picks Charlemagne up off my lap and gestures for me to get up. She leads the two of us into my bedroom. “It happens. And it’s OK. And starting tomorrow morning, you’re going to learn all the things you have to stop doing and all of the things you have to start doing. And you’re going to be phenomenal at all of it.”

“You really think that?” I ask her.

“I really think that,” she says.

I put on my pajamas. She gets in on one side of the bed. Charlemagne lies down with her.

“She’s a cute one, this little Charlemagne,” Gabby says. “How did she end up at my house?”

I laugh. “It’s a long story,” I say. “In which I make a snap decision that I now realize was probably hormone-driven.”

Gabby laughs. “Well, she’s precious,” she says. “I like having her around.”

I look at Charlemagne. “Me, too.”

“I hate Mark’s stupid dog allergy,” she says. “Let’s keep her in here all night and see if he itches. I bet you he won’t. I bet you it’s all in his head.”

I laugh and get into bed next to Gabby. She holds my hand.

“Everything is going to be great, you know,” she says.

I breathe in and out. “I hope so.”

“No,” she says. “Say it with me. Everything is going to be great.”

“Everything is going to be great,” I say.

“Everything is going to be great,” she says again.

“Everything is going to be great.”

You know, I almost believe it.

Gabby turns the light off.

“When you wake up in the middle of the night, terrified because you remember that you’re pregnant,” she says, “wake me. I’m here.”

“OK,” I say. “Thank you.”

Charlemagne snuggles up between the two of us, and I wonder if maybe it’s actually Gabby, Charlemagne, and me who were meant to be.

“Mark and I have started talking about when to have a baby,” she says.

“Wow, really?” Even though I’m actually having a baby, I can’t quite wrap my brain around people having babies.

“Yeah,” she says. “Maybe soon. I could hurry up and get pregnant. We could have kids the same age.”

“We’d force them to be best friends,” I say.

“Naturally,” she says. “Or maybe I’ll just leave Mark. You and I could raise your baby together. That way, I don’t even need to have one. Just me and you and the baby.”

“With Charlemagne?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “The world’s most adorable lesbian couple.”

I laugh.

“Only problem is, I’m not attracted to you,” she says.

“Ditto,” I tell her.

“But just think of it. This baby would be raised by an interracial lesbian couple. It would get into all the good schools.”

“Think of the pedigree.”

“I’ve always said God made a mistake making us straight women.”

I laugh and then correct her. “I’m trying to believe that God doesn’t make mistakes.”

Henry checks some stuff and puts the clipboard down.

“Dr. Winters says we can try the wheelchair,” he tells me. His voice is solicitous. As if we’re doing something taboo.

“Now?” I say. “Me and you?”

“Well, the female nurses can’t bench-press as much I can. So yeah, I’ll be the one lifting you into the chair.”

“You never know,” I say. “Maybe every single one of those nurses can bench the same as you, and you don’t know because you never asked.”

“Well,” he says, “regardless of who can bench-press what, it’s my job to lift you. But before I do, we’ve got some stuff to cover.”

“Oh,” I say. “OK, go for it.”

He tells me it may hurt. He tells me it’s going to be an adjustment. We can’t do much at first, just get into the wheelchair and learn to move around a bit. Simply moving into the chair initially might wear me out. Then Henry starts unhooking me from a few of the machines that have come to feel like my third and fourth arms. He leaves the IV in. He tells me that while I’m in the hospital, that’s coming with us.