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She nods, clearly agreeing with me. “How much time do you think will be enough?”
“I don’t know.” I can see where she’s going with this. This is what I’ve been avoiding these past few weeks, not letting myself see all the ramifications this pregnancy will have. Now I understand why Jake was concerned by all the changes our lives will go through and why it took him a while to wrap his head around it. I skipped that step, wanting to focus on a healthy pregnancy. “I want to be there for all the things I missed with Ryan.” First smile, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, and first word.
She closes her eyes and tips her head back for a second, taking a deep breath. When she meets my gaze again, she gives me a sad smile. “Okay, Han, we have three decades of friendship, and I’m not going to start bullshitting you now. I know if I’ve been thinking about this, there’s no way you haven’t.” She reaches out and takes my hand. “You didn’t get to be a mom the first time around. Even if Jake wasn’t in the picture, three months will never be enough for you. Hell, you’d sell your house and move into an apartment if it meant you could spend the next two years raising this baby full-time. Even when you and Gordon were together, you planned to take at least the first six months. It might be time to reassess. Maybe you don’t need the promotion. Not right now, anyway. Maybe you put it off for a few years, or indefinitely.”
“But I’m on my own.” I swallow down the anxiety that comes with this discussion. All things I know I need to deal with but haven’t yet.
“But you don’t have to be,” she says gently.
“Jake and I just started dating. We’re not even close to the merging-our-lives stage.”
“And you probably won’t be if you stay here and he stays in Seattle. But what is that going to look like in the long term? He raised Queenie on his own. How happy do you think he’ll be trying to part-time parent from across the country? How happy will you be?”
I drag my hand down my face. These are the things that keep me up at night. The thoughts I keep pushing aside because I don’t want to face the truth. Maybe I’m more like my mother than I realized. “Not very.”
“I think maybe the promotion is masking the bigger issue, which is you really looking at the whole picture. I know what you’re scared of, Hanna, and I’m not saying you need to make this decision tomorrow, or that you should, but you need to consider what the future looks like after this baby is born. So you’re going into this with eyes wide open.”
“I’m afraid to start planning beyond doctor’s appointments because of what happened the last time,” I tell her.
“I know. And I empathize completely. Your fears are legitimate. But you can’t keep doing that when the decisions you make now will affect your future. You’re past the first trimester hurdle, which is a big deal. I know there are more genetic tests coming up, and those are scary, too. But I think you need to figure out the point where you feel safe, and then you need to start making decisions with Jake, as a team.”
“Maybe after the amniocentesis and the second trimester blood tests?” It’s framed more as a question than a statement.
“If that’s what it takes to make you feel safe, okay. But you and I both know you were half in love with him for months, so I’m not sure putting it on hold for a few more weeks really makes sense.”
“I guess I want some kind of control over some part of this, and Tennessee and the people here are currently the only consistent, stable thing I have to hold onto.”
“It’s hard when you’re at the mercy of your own body. But setting up roadblocks is only going to make your relationship with Jake that much more of a challenge.” She props her cheek on her fist and sighs. “I haven’t forgotten how sad you were after the wedding. Maybe you didn’t want to admit you were heartbroken, but I could see it.”
“I wanted to do the right thing.”
“Ryan is an adult. And sure, this might be hard for him to come to terms with, but what if you and Jake are right for each other? You’ll never know if you’ve got one foot in and one foot out. From what I’ve seen, he’s the type of man who would sideline himself because he doesn’t want to take this baby away from you. He already knows what you’ve been through with Ryan. He’s seen how hard it’s been. And so have I. Hell, it’s why you ended up in Tennessee in the first place.” Her voice is soft and it cracks at the end.
