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“Turkey? Tryptophan?”
“Ha! Yes. I’ll be glad when the leftovers are gone.”
“As soon as we get home, everything goes in the trash,” she said. “Tonight, it’s pizza.”
A parking spot freed up and he pulled into it. “Do you want me to go in with you?”
“Will you feel weird?”
“I’ll do it for Mike,” he said. “Mike’s baby. So we can tell him we went in together.”
“Aw, thank you. Yes, come in. I guess if I’m pregnant, the memories have to start now.”
“True, you don’t want to have to dig back in time. Get a journal now to keep notes.”
He’d do it, too, but not tell her. He doubted he’d ever have children. You had to have a wife to have a family, and while he listened to Aisling talking as they walked into the store together, he thought maybe his role was always going to be that uncle he’d thought of. The time to enjoy the process was now, not wait in case romance and marriage happened for him.
“Christmas music? Give me a break.”
“It’s time. A month away,” he replied.
Following her through the drugstore reminded him of grocery shopping with her; she didn’t browse like women were supposed to do, but got right down to business. Above their heads a large red sign proclaimed Feminine Products.
“Am I allowed to go down that aisle?”
“Yes, silly,” she said, grabbing his arm.
A vast array of pregnancy tests filled the shelves at eye level.
“Must be a top seller,” he said, teasing. She backhanded him in the gut.
“Read the labels,” she instructed. “I want the most accurate one.”
“Look! This brand is on sale.”
“I don’t think now’s the time to scrimp,” she said. “I don’t want there to be any doubts.”
He reached for a box with the wordearlyin two-inch letters. “What about this one? It says you can use it before you miss your period.”
“Okay, that’s a good one,” she replied. “I already missed one, so it will be doubly accurate. Get two.”
They wandered around for a while longer, filling the basket with Christmas candy. “It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Why wouldn’t Christmas candy be out already?”
“I want candy canes and chocolate Santas,” Aisling said, reaching for bags of the stuff.
At the cash register, Devon insisted on paying. “For Mike,” he said. “I know he’d want me to do this.”
“I think so, too. I feel his presence right now. What about you?”
He didn’t at that time, but it wasn’t always the case. Mike was dead. Devon would do what was right for Mike’s wife and baby.
“Sure. I always feel Mike around me,” he answered somewhat truthfully. “Do you think Mike knows about the baby?”
“We’re not sure there is a baby. But I’m not sure he’d know. I don’t know if I believe that. It’s okay to say you think he knows or that you feel his presence, but anything more than that? Like that he really knows what’s happening with me, or approves? I’m not sure.”
It was their turn and the cashier rang up the pregnancy tests and placed them in a bag.
“Congratulations,” she said, smiling.
