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The following Monday,Mary Elizabeth lifted her hand to knock on Tessa’s door, but before she could make contact, the door swung open.
“Get in here,” Tessa ordered.“The suspense is killing me.”
Killingher?Mary Elizabeth thought as she hurried into Tessa’s home.The house was the farthest down the row of Babe homes, with Rayna Jo’s next door.Thankfully she had already left for work and her husband, Richard, was never home.
“What took you so long?”
“Adam decided to work from home this morning, and I couldn’t think of a good excuse to leave.”
“You couldn’t just tell him I wanted some girl time?”Tessa asked.“It is my day off.He knows that.”
Had she been thinking clearly, that might have worked, but instead she’d waited for him to finally leave for an errand before rushing out the door.“I’m here now.Where is it?”
“Kitchen table.”
Mary Elizabeth hurried through the house with Tessa hot on her heels, but after setting her keys on the table and picking up the large envelope, all she could do was stare at it.
“Seriously?”Tessa asked, eyes wide.
“I’m just… I need a minute.Once I open this, everything could change.”Mary Elizabeth could feel Tessa’s impatience, but she needed a moment to breathe.
Finally she grasped the tab between her finger and thumb and yanked, opening it up and removing the papers within.
The ink blurred in front of her eyes and she blinked, struggling to focus.Tessa’s voice sounded like it came from a tunnel, and the room swirled a bit as Tessa’s arms wrapped around her and her friend shoved her into a chair.
“MeMe?MeMe!”
Mary Elizabeth shook her head and lifted trembling fingers to her temple.“Dizzy.”
“So I gathered,” Tessa said, concern heavy in her tone.“Just breathe.Nice and easy.Slow breaths.In and out.Oh, honey, you’ve gotta calm down.It’ll be okay.Whatever that paper says, it’ll work out.You’ll see.Just breathe and sit tight while I get a cool cloth.”
It took several minutes and a baggie of ice placed on the back of her neck before Mary Elizabeth felt like herself again.
She unclenched her fist and attempted to smooth the now wrinkled sheets.“What does it say?You read it,” she said, handing it off to Tessa.
Tessa took the paper and gasped softly.
“Well?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
“It says…it’s a boy.”Tessa knelt down beside Mary Elizabeth’s chair, her hand covering Mary Elizabeth’s and squeezing tight.“You were right, MeMe.You have a son.”
Hours later Mary Elizabethreturned home, her legs feeling every bit as quivery and numb as when Tessa had shoved her into the chair.
Tessa had broken out the tequila and found some margarita mix, and then the two of them had alternated between talking and sipping for hours.
It hadn’t worked.Mostly because the shock was thick as pea soup, and even though a part of her hadknownthe truth all along because of Bryson’s uncanny resemblance to Dean, it was still a doozy of a revelation.
One she wasn’t sure how to handle now that sheknew.
Had she hoped it wasn’t true?Why hadn’t she come to a decision before now?Decided one way or the other what she would do if the results had been…well, accurate with her thinking.
“There you are,” Adam said from the living room.“I was about to put a call out to the Babes to ask if they’d seen you.”
She turned to look at him, the envelope clutched in her hand.
“I thought we could fire up the grill tonight.I picked up some steaks on the way home and— Hon?Are you okay?”
She shook her head, at a loss.Unable to speak due to the sheer weight of it all.
