Preview of Little Pieces of Me
Preview of Little Pieces of Me by Alison Hammer
Excerpted from the book LITTLE PIECES OF ME by Alison Hammer. Copyright © 2021 by Alison Hammer. From William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
Three days later, I’m lying in bed with my eyes closed, listening to the familiar sounds of Jeff’s morning routine. He’s always up earlier than I am, but today he’s up before the sun to catch a flight to San Francisco for work.
I hear the soft click of his suitcase handle and open an eye, smiling at the sight of him. “Have a safe flight.”
“I was trying not to wake you,” he whispers, as if it’s not too late.
“And leave without a good-luck kiss?”
“Never.”
The expensive mattress Jeff insisted we splurge on for the new apartment doesn’t budge as he sits down beside me. Even in the dark, he looks handsome. I reach up my hand and caress his smooth, freshly shaven cheek. His blue-gray eyes sparkle as my hand drifts behind his neck, bringing him down for a kiss.
“Don’t forget about me,” I say between kisses.
“I’ll only be gone a few days.” He tries to get up, but I hold on tighter. “I’ll miss my flight.”
“Fine,” I say with a sigh, and release my grip.
“Go back to sleep,” he whispers, rolling his suitcase out the bedroom door. “I love you.”
“Love you more,” I say through a yawn. I used to hate cheesy couples before I became half of one. My thirties and the first year of my forties were a string of casual flings—and one on-again-off-again guy I couldn’t quite shake. I thought I wasn’t good at relationships, but it turns out those just weren’t the right relationships. They weren’t with Jeff.
I flip my pillow to the cool side and snuggle back under the covers, grateful there isn’t anywhere I have to be today. Both a benefit and a curse of unemployment.
The sound of an ambulance screaming down State Street twenty-six floors below wakes me again. I reach for my phone to check the time. Ten minutes after ten. If Jeff hasn’t landed in San Francisco yet, he will soon.
I curl back under the covers with my phone to get caught up on what’s happened with the rest of the world since I’ve been sleeping. I quit out of the apps and open my email in case the recruiter who ghosted me last week wrote back to apologize.
There are thirty-five new messages: six from various job search sites I signed up for, eight trying to sell me clothes I shouldn’t be spending money on, three daily deals, twelve emails on a thread with Maks and Margaux about happy hour plans, five from various food delivery services, and one email from FamilyTree.com.
The FamilyTree email is promotional, trying to get me to upgrade my account to the paid version. I open it out of curiosity but quickly delete it. They really should have hired my old advertising agency when we pitched the business a few years ago.
We would have done a better job designing the email to get more engagement—their version doesn’t even have a call-to-action above the fold. At least I got a free DNA kit out of the project in the name of research.
I scroll back in my inbox, remembering the email about a new leaf. I find it and skim the information, dismissing it when I see it’s a parent-child connection. I delete the email and get out of bed.
It must be a mistake on their end—I would know if I’d ever had a child. I shake off the thought as I slip out of Jeff’s T-shirt and turn on the shower, the water almost as hot as it will go. I stand there for a minute, enjoying the rhythmic pressure on my scalp before reaching for the conditioner.
While the curl-conditioning treatment sits, I squeeze more than the recommended quarter-size amount of body wash onto my loofah. I scrub my stomach, which is soft and flabby despite never having carried a baby. I can’t imagine how FamilyTree could make such a big mistake—that I could have a baby in the first place, much less one who was born in 1955. That would make him sixty-three, the same age as my parents.
I stiffen as the thought settles in my mind. My parents.
I drop the loofah and step out of the shower, conditioner still in my hair and soapy suds on my skin. I wrap a towel around myself and open my laptop. With shaking fingers, I pull up the “new leaf” email from the virtual trash can, where the words are written in black and white. They aren’t saying I had a child.
They’re saying I am the child.
Preview of Little Pieces of Me by Alison Hammer
