(Before reading this chapter, you may want to read a description of the project here.)

It is Tuesday. Tuesday is when he comes to see her. She has opened the front door, leaving only the glass storm door between her anticipation and his arrival. When he comes, she knows he will not knock. He will open the door and call for her, his questioning “hello?” ringing down the hallway to where she waits in her office. She will shoo the dog from beneath her desk chair, and she will parade up the hall to him. She smiles to herself as she slides the brush through her hair. Tuesday, noonish, when her children are in school, and he can say he is going to lunch with a friend. Tuesday, when she can have him all to herself. Tuesday, when for one precious hour she does not have to pretend that she does not belong to him.

She had not intended for it to happen this way. She has known Jesse Pearson since college and though he had always been a close companion of hers, there were circles drawn around them which kept them apart. She had been a wife. He was the minister who had married them, and baptized their children, and eulogized her father. Though she wanted him with their family for birthdays and parties and holidays, she never imagined he would be hers. There had been late-night conversations through grad school when her insomnia was raging, movie outings and game nights and invitations to barbecues , but she knew he would never cross the line he had carefully laid between them. Even though she thought of him whenever she wanted to tell or be told a good story, or when she saw a funny meme, or when she wanted to discuss a new book she’d read, whenever she needed a friend, Jesse never tested if he could move the line of their friendship. He could not; and even if he had wanted, she could not have accepted anything else from him.

               And then, unexpectedly, her husband had died, killed in a head on collision with a drunk driver. Suddenly, dramatically, she was a widow, with two small children clinging to her legs as the officer on her doorstep explained to her what happened. Jesse had been the first person she had called, ahead of her own mother, because Jesse was a minister, and he knew how to sit with grief. He had sat with her and her grief for two years. Somewhere between the crying and the healing, the shock and the acceptance, she began to wonder. Would he have been as present for another church member had the crash happened to someone else?

               Pursuing that question had led her to where she was currently—which happened to be at the bathroom mirror, running a wand over her lips, the thick gloss oozing over them. She glanced at the clock. It was 11:58. Any minute now she would hear the storm door open, and he would call for her.

               Most Tuesdays, they would not actually eat lunch on their lunch dates. They would stay in the house—in the bed, really—until she was satisfied, and he was spent, and they were both happily drunk with contentment. He would dress lazily afterwards, as if he wanted to stay, and she would make him a peanut butter sandwich to eat in the car on the drive back to the church, tucking it neatly into a brown paper sack with a bag of chips and a granola bar, as if he was another one of her children heading to school. He would kiss her longingly before he went out the door, and she would watch as he got into his car, backed down the driveway and pulled away. That’s when the ache of pretending would always set in, and she would close her front door, as if she could keep it from infecting her.

Sometimes though, they would go out for lunch, because that was nice too, and she enjoyed the precious time with him to herself. She’d sip coffee if they went for brunch, or agua fresca if they went for tacos, or root beer if they went for barbecue. It was time where she didn’t have to hide her smiles or her flirting, time in which she could simply be with him without caring who knew. Time where she didn’t have to wonder what her boys would say if they knew she was thinking about what life would be like if they had a stepdad. Tuesdays were just for her and Jesse. She had the rest of the week to worry about everyone else—including the people at church.

No one at the church knew. They couldn’t. Though she wanted to come out of hiding, it was too scandalous. She had been instrumental in bringing him to the church ten years ago, when they were searching for a new pastor. Their friendship was well known. She was afraid what people might think of her and Jesse—or what they might think of her husband, Alan—if they came out of hiding. Besides, it had been such a long time now that if she did tell someone their secret, the scandal would be how long this relationship had been maintained in secrecy. In the beginning, she had told no one because it had been too soon after her husband’s death, and she was sure it would have cost him his job. They would have said it wasn’t right. That he had taken advantage of her. That he had abused his power. That he was predatory.

No one would have seen it the other way around.

About four months after Alan died, she called Jesse after a particularly difficult day. Her boys were young—only seven and eight—and they were not adjusting well to their new life with just a mother. They missed their dad, and she felt completely ill-equipped to help them through the trauma of losing him. She was ill-equipped to handle it herself. The afternoon had been filled with fighting and tantrums and meltdowns. She had locked herself in the bathroom and cried more than once. At 8 pm, she put on a movie for them, gave them each a melatonin gummy bear, and pulled a beer out of the fridge. She went to the living room, listening to the blessed quiet that had enveloped the house, and drank that first smooth sip from her bottle. She pulled her phone from her back pocket before sinking into the sofa, and before she had time to reconsider, she was calling him.

He picked up after one ring. “Hey Rebecca,” he said smoothly.

“I could really use a friend right now,” she said through a shaky voice.

There was no hesitation on his part. She opened the front door for him, leaving just the storm door between her and the night. When he arrived, he did not knock; he walked right in like he belonged there.

He did belong there, in a way. He had always belonged in her life.

She sat on the couch with him, and he distracted her with his big ideas for sermons that he might one day preach and all the interesting things he’d heard in podcasts that week and places he had been thinking of traveling if he ever had the money. She relaxed easily into his familiar presence, going through the bottles in the fridge with him until it was past midnight. He mentioned the time. She had leaned forward and whispered, “I don’t want you to go.”

She kissed him, and he tasted like the beer they had been drinking. It felt right, but it also felt wrong in the exact same satisfying way. She felt him melt into her, any surprise or resistance replaced with a hunger for her. She had been lonely for four months, but she knew that he had been lonely much longer than that. His kissing hastened, moving down from her mouth to her neck as she tucked her fingers into the front of his jeans, before his hands came around her, pulling her into his lap.

She didn’t listen to his sermon the next day. His words went right over her as she stewed with a mix of shame and excitement in the pew.

That’s when they had decided on Tuesdays. She never had work meetings on Tuesdays. Plus, the scheduled time with him made it easier to live the rest of the week. She had not had anything to look forward to for what felt like a long time. Tuesday gave her a reason to keep going.

She is finished with the lip gloss, and as she leaves the bathroom, she hears the storm door open. Her heartbeat quickens. “Rebecca?” he calls. She hears him move through the house, up the hallway to her office. She moves through the bedroom and out the doorway, towards where she knows he will be standing, peering into the office one room over. He hears her and he turns.

“You look nice,” he says, leaning against the doorframe.

The moment is wonderfully normal, and she almost wishes she didn’t have to destroy it with what she has planned. “I want to show you something,” she says.

“Okay,” he says, coming forward as she backs away from him into the bedroom. He is smiling, knowingly. He is already slipping off his shoes and closing the door as she makes her way around the bed, back to the bathroom door. She glances at him, and almost changes her mind, but she knows she can’t. It has to be done. She can’t wait any longer.

“Just sit here,” she says, patting the edge of the bed, the edge of what she still considers her side, despite sleeping alone in this bed every night since Alan died.

Jesse gives her a questioning look. “Okay,” he drawls, slowly edging his way towards her. He sits in the place she has indicated, folding his hands and placing them in his lap. “Do you have a surprise for me?” He seems so perfectly handsome, his features brightening with happiness as he looks at her.

She feels like a snake. She forces a coy smile to her face. “I’m going to go in here,” she says calmly, pointing at the bathroom doorway, though inside she is raging with anxiety. “I’m going to pee on a stick,” she continues, watching the smile melt from his mouth. “And then after we wait two minutes, we’ll find out if you’re going to be a dad.”

Jesse opens his mouth to answer, to protest, to inquire, but nothing comes forth. She watches as emotions slide through him, as fear finally settles over his features. “Okay,” he whispers.

She leaves the door to the bathroom open so he can hear her, so he’ll know exactly when she’s done. She pulls down her pants and sits on the toilet, spreading her legs to hold the test between them. She’s shaking so badly she gets urine on her hand. When she’s finished, she caps the test, and places it face-down on the bathroom sink. She washes her hands quickly, wishing she could also wash away her nerves. She buttons her pants and returns to the bed.

Jesse is sitting perfectly still, his face like a wall, staring into nothing. She sits beside him, glancing at the clock. It is 12:02. She leans into him, pressing her face against his neck. His posture softens. He takes one of her hands in his own. She squeezes it, and his grip tightens.

She tries to pray, but she doesn’t have any words. She wonders if Jesse is trying to pray, and if he is, what he is asking for.

She looks at the clock. It is still 12:02. She feels like she will burst out of her skin. She wonders if she needs wait the full two minutes. Sometimes an answer will be evident immediately. Wasn’t it almost immediately evident when she had the boys? She can’t remember that long ago. She can barely remember what it was like to be married. All she can think about is the man sitting next to her, clutching her, and how she is certain she has cost him everything. There is no way they can hide this the way they have hidden everything else.

If, she reminds herself. If.

It is 12:03. If this test is positive, then she’ll worry. For now, there is still another minute of not knowing. She spends that minute in silence, thinking of all the other reasons her period might be late. Stress? She’s certainly had enough of that. Maybe she didn’t write down the last date correctly. Maybe she’s having early on set menopause. Maybe she had her period last week and she just forgot. Maybe she’ll stand up and feel the first trickles of it, and then she’ll feel so silly for having worried about it, for taking up part of her Tuesday lunch date with Jesse to force him to sit on her side of the bed and wait for this result. All these things she tells herself because she can’t pray and she can’t think and she can’t face a future in which she is not married to her minister and yet still carrying his baby.

It is 12:04. She stands up. Jesse releases her. She snatches the test off the bathroom counter, but she doesn’t look at it. She covers the result window with her hand as she gingerly sits down on the bed again. Jesse smooths his hair back and she can hear his nervous breathing. She scoots closer to him, wanting to cling to him, wanting him to somehow intervene, wanting a miracle.

“Ready?” she asks. He nods and she uncovers the test.

There is a dark blue cross in the result window. The cross bar is darker than the control line. There is no denying it and there can be no mistaking it either.

She doesn’t say anything. She waits for Jesse to say something, but he is equally silent.

She lays the test on the bedside table. She can’t look at him. “I’m sorry,” she mutters, tears stinging.

“For what?” he asks smoothly, tenderly. He sounds like a fresh batch of cookies singing on the pan—warm and comforting, and deliciously soft.

She looks at him, not understanding. “You’re happy?”

He kisses her. “I’m going to be a dad,” he explains.

“You’re going to get fired,” she counters, in disbelief.

He knows this too. She can see it in his eyes. “Maybe not,” he replies.

Rebecca wants to believe him, but she’s not sure. Maybe there is room for grace and forgiveness, but she has known enough church people to know that sometimes, grace and forgiveness are the last things they want to give. Church is filled with wonderful things, like community and reverence and peace and times when the veil between this world and the next becomes amazingly thin. Yet, it is also filled with moralizing, grudges, bitterness and self-righteousness. She tries to imagine how her friends, her mentors, her family, might react when they find out, but she can’t imagine anything other than disappointment. She fears that shaming and shunning will be the response.

There is one thing she knows for certain though. Tuesdays—and every other day for that matter—are never going to be the same again.