Ready or Not

Eve Hatch, an administrative assistant at the Wildlife Fund of America (WFA), a New York City conservation nonprofit, discovers she is pregnant after a one-night stand with a bartender she met at a dog-friendly bar called Good Boy. Despite using a condom, her irregular periods delayed the realization, and she is already six weeks along when her OB-GYN confirms the news. Eve is single and has never seriously considered motherhood. She was an unplanned baby, born to older parents in Westbrook, Michigan, who died during her freshman year of college. Her three much-older brothers are scattered across the country, and her closest emotional anchor has long been her best friend Willa Balder, whose mother, Corinne, essentially helped raise Eve. When Eve instinctively reaches for her phone to call Corinne, she catches herself: Corinne has been dead for over a year.

When Eve tells Willa, the reaction is devastating. Willa goes silent, then says Eve does not even want kids. Willa's older brother Shep, staying in Willa's guest room after splitting with his longtime girlfriend Heather, is the first person to respond with warmth and genuine excitement. The next day Willa calls to acknowledge her poor reaction but asks for time. Eve does not yet understand the depth of Willa's pain: Willa and her husband, Isamu, have been trying unsuccessfully to conceive for two years.

Two weeks later, Eve plans to tell the baby's father, Ethan Rise, at Good Boy. Willa cancels, devastated by getting her period again, but Shep runs across two neighborhoods to accompany Eve. Eve tells Ethan she is pregnant, and he is visibly shaken, asking her not to look at him while he processes. As she leaves, Ethan chases her down to confess he now has a girlfriend, Eleni, who returned after their breakup, and that he cannot pursue a romantic relationship with Eve. On her stoop, Eve breaks down in Shep's arms, voicing her deepest fear: that she will go through this alone.

Eve and Ethan begin a tentative co-parenting dialogue. He wants to be involved but asks Eve to take the lead, which frustrates her. At Eleni's urging, Ethan questions Eve about her sexual history around the time of conception. Eve tells him he is the only person she slept with in the past year and offers a DNA test after birth. Despite this tension, he shows care in small ways, bringing Eve gel-lined slippers for her sore feet.

Eve and Shep grow closer through texting and shared outings. At the 12-week appointment, the nurse Eve has privately dubbed "Nurse Blank" for her impassive demeanor offers practical wisdom, advising that everything felt during pregnancy is seen through a "funhouse mirror." Eve finally learns the nurse's name is Louise.

Shep takes Eve to a holiday market, buying her a knit hat and feeding her noodles and pie. Before Christmas, he shows her a digital animation of Eve as a pregnant superhero. While hugging, they feel the baby kick for the first time. They fall asleep watching a movie, and Eve wakes at dawn feeling unmistakable longing for Shep, unsettled by the shift in her feelings.

Eve flies home to Michigan for Christmas and tells her brothers. She breaks down crying when Dustin, the eldest, asks about the baby's sex, realizing her brothers are the first people to ask about the baby rather than just the pregnancy. On Christmas morning, she visits Corinne's grave and feels an unexpected bloom of happiness. On New Year's Eve, Ethan presents a painting by his mother, proof he has told his family. The group celebrates at Good Boy together.

The second trimester brings energy and expanding horizons. Eve starts prenatal yoga, tells her co-workers, and begins wearing maternity clothes. Marla, a colleague pregnant with her fourth child, becomes a supportive lunch companion. At the 20-week ultrasound, Ethan inadvertently implies his involvement in childcare, then panics and admits he is terrified of making promises he cannot keep. Eve presses him for clarity, but his phone buzzes with a call from Eleni and the moment dissolves. Ethan then goes silent for weeks.

Eve's feelings for Shep intensify. At a movie, he holds her hand and draws pictures on her palm, including an arrow pointing toward her heart. They find an apartment for Shep near Good Boy, and he tells her his only criterion is that she feels comfortable there.

Ethan reappears, revealing Eleni found the ultrasound images and forbade him from contacting Eve. During a walk in Prospect Park, Eve tells him that the night they slept together, he seemed free and lighter than the guarded person she has come to know, suggesting his happiness came from being away from Eleni. Eve later realizes her own reckless energy that night stemmed from euphoria over Shep having just become single and moved to Brooklyn.

Eve tells Willa about her feelings for Shep. Willa warns her not to wreck her brother and challenges Eve's pattern of never knowing what she wants. Willa then confesses she lost a pregnancy at 11 weeks shortly after Corinne died, a grief she kept hidden. The two share a cathartic conversation about how their friendship must evolve. Eve asks Willa to be her birthing partner, but at the first class, Willa is overwhelmed and admits she cannot handle it.

The turning point arrives on a warm spring day. Watching children at a party in Prospect Park, Eve feels a fierce wish that the baby were already here. She speaks aloud: "I want you. I'm excited to meet you. I'm excited to be a mom." She calls Shep, and when he arrives on a bike with a baby seat already attached, she understands the depth of his commitment. Behind a tree, he kisses her. That evening, Shep reveals a lifelong love for Eve and that his dying mother, Corinne, urged him to tell her the truth. Late that night, Ethan shows up drunk and distraught, having just left Eleni after she demanded he cut Eve and the baby from his life. Through the bathroom door, Eve overhears Shep call her "the love of my life."

Energized by knowing what she wants, Eve tells her boss Xaria that her true ambition is to become a policy analyst, not a finance assistant. Xaria offers to help Eve pursue a graduate degree after maternity leave. Eve proposes moving into Shep's two-bedroom apartment near Good Boy and Ethan's home and floats a formal custody arrangement with Ethan, who has been attending birthing classes alone to prepare.

At 37 weeks, on moving day, Eve's water breaks. She conceals her labor for three hours while friends set up the apartment, then goes to the hospital with Shep and Ethan. Shep stays at Eve's side while Ethan coaches him on techniques from his birthing classes. Nurse Louise, Eve's prenatal nurse whom Shep has contacted, arrives on her night off. Eve gives birth to a girl. Ethan, in tears, notes the baby has red hair like his. Eve names her Miriam, meaning "wished for," and gives her the surname Hatch-Rise.

The novel closes in the new apartment, set up by Eve's brothers who flew in to help. Ethan's mother's painting hangs in the nursery. Shep hums to Miriam while walking her in slow circles. Eve reflects on the transformation pregnancy has wrought, from someone who never knew what she wanted to someone who claimed her desires fiercely: the baby, Shep, her career, her life. She whispers to Miriam that she is a love letter, existing because of the love of the people around her.