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The baby was due in two weeks and my body showed no sign of it trying to enter the world anytime soon. My cervix had not begun to thin. Yancy was holding on by a thread. She had told my sisters that we were to throw a party in her honor the night of the funeral. No wake. Private funeral then a party. Drink and be merry. They accepted this without hesitation unable or unwilling to think about that part of our lives to come, a time without Yancy. No one wanted to deal with our mother’s impending death.
The humid evening was causing a fine sheen of perspiration to form on my upper lip. I sat in the front porch swing at two in the morning. I found that most nights I couldn’t sleep for the largeness of my belly or the happy dance my child decided to do throughout the night. We didn’t know what sex the baby was and we were growing anxious for this to be over. Gently, I rocked back and forth. The screen door screeched in protest of being opened. The hinges needed oiled. A lot of things needed done around the house now but no one seemed to notice or care. Our lives revolved around Yancy and her care.
“I knew that I would find you here,” Kerry said crossing the porch bare-chested in shorts that hugged his slender hips.
“I can’t sleep.”
He laid his hand on my stomach and leaned over whispering conspiratorially, “Come out would you? You’re causing your mother discomfort.”
“Do you think it is a boy or a girl?”
“Yes,” he replied grinning at me mischievously.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Which do you think it is?” I asked mildly frustrated at him.
“I don’t care.” Kerry gazed at me long and hard. “I just want you both to be well.”
I smiled at him and then snuggled into his arms. “We need to talk about a name.”
“Why don’t we see what it is first?”
I chuckled. “All right. Baby McCoy it will be until we see what sex it is but I still think it is a boy. He’s going to be a kicker for the Detroit Lions.”
Kerry chuckled
having been on the receiving end of several kicks from our unborn child. “Uh Gab, speaking of McCoy children our oldest wants to know when or if we are going to get married.”
Really? Interesting.
Smiling I looked at Kerry, my eyes dancing. “Are we?” I asked somewhat mischievously.
“What?”
“Going to get married,” I clarified. Kerry had never asked me to marry him. Before when I had Keegan or now pregnant with this child.
Scandalized he replied, “Of course we are. Why would you think we wouldn’t?”
Glancing up into his face. A face I loved with all my heart. I never doubted his love or commitment to me. I explained, “You have never asked me to marry you. Even when I was pregnant with Keegan you said you would never leave me. You would always be there for me,” I repeated the words he had said to me so long ago, “but you never actually said you would marry me.”
He seemed to be thinking about it for a moment. Lost in thought. Thoughts from the past. Thoughts of our future. Finally he said, “I guess I thought it was given then as it is now. I was just waiting for things to settle down with your mom. It didn’t seem like the appropriate time.” He sounded uncertain.
Haughtily, I said, “Nothing Mr. McCoy is a given. You know I’m Yancy’s daughter.”
“Yeah, I know. That is what scares the shit out of me.”
He slid down to the porch on one knee. Kerry was gazing up at me with love pouring from his eyes. He took one of my hands in his, kissed the palm causing a flurry of tingling throughout my body.
“What are you doing?” I asked touched and feeling just a little sentimental at his gesture.
“I’m asking you to marry me,” he replied still gazing long and hard into my eyes. “I will get you a ring as soon as possible.”
“I’m saying yes,” I replied leaning over my protruding stomach, straining to reach him until I finally kissed his lips.
“We’ll tell Keegan in the morning.” He sounded so earnest.
“Let’s go to bed Silly. You know they say if you make love at this stage of the game it hurries up the labor?”
