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That made her mom smile. “You’ve only been a couple since Christmas. But you’ve known Dex for years. You know him, honey, and he knows you. And however that test goes, I think you ought to have that talk pretty soon, don’t you?”
“I guess.” If she wasn’t pregnant, she’d like to continue on the way they had been, instinctively knowing what they wanted, not needing the words. For a while, at least.
“You know, you were a surprise to your dad and me.”
Kelsey had heard lots of stories about her childhood, of course. She also knew that things between her parents had not been hearts and flowers when she was born. Her dad had been in prison. For beating her grandfather almost to death and disabling him for life—because her grandfather had hit her mom while she was pregnant.
That was why she’d been four years old when she’d first met her father. It was also why he gave her the charms she wore on a chain—and why she never took them off.
But she’d never heard this story. “I was?”
“Yeah. Your dad and I hadn’t been together much longer than you and Dex when I found out—and we hadn’t known each other before we were together. I wasterrified. I couldn’t imagine being ready to be a good mom, and I thought Mav and I should be a lot more settled before something so huge happened. But your dad, he was excited the second I told him, and he wrapped me up and reassured me. His happiness at the thought of you made me feel strong and ready. And I am sogladI didn’t let fear make my decision for me.”
“Daddy won’t be glad, if I am.” Goodness. He’d only barely—and grudgingly—accepted the presence of Dex in her life.
“Maybe not at first. He’s so protective of you, his instinct is to lash out at anything that isn’t just exactly what you want, exactly when you want it. But your dad as a grandpa? Come on. You know how he’ll be.”
Emotion washed over Kelsey and welled in her eyes. She could see it. Her father would be Santa and Dumbledore and the grandpa fromThe Princess Brideall rolled up together and stuffed in a kutte. “Perfect. He’ll be perfect.”
“Exactly.” Mom squeezed her hand. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears, too. “You’ll be okay, pixie. Whatever happens, whatever you decide, whatever Dex decides, you will be good.”
“Oh. My. God,” said the very last voice Kelsey wanted to hear right now. Hanna set three cups of gelato on the table. “Are youpreggers?”
Kelsey didn’t know whether to be upset or angry or what. So she laughed. She laughed so hard her eyes shed their tears. Mom laughed until she cried as well. Hannah plopped onto her chair and looked at them like they’d lost every single marble.
Her family was impossible. Absolutely impossible and annoying and so deep in her business she couldn’t even have a privatethought. And she loved them all madly.
~oOo~
Hannah pounded on the stall door. “Hurryup!”
Kelsey sat on the toilet and stared at the stick in her hand. She supposed she could have gotten up, put her clothes back together and gone out there to wait, but she needed the—disappointingly limited—privacy the stall offered.
“Kiss off, twerp. It takes as long as it takes, and nobody in here is as impatient as me.”
“What you meant to say isfuckoff. How can you be so old and not know how to say fuck? Are you Amish? Mom, did you adopt her from Amish people?”
“Hannah, enough,” Mom said. “Behave yourself or I’ll send you out.”
“It’s a public bathroom. I’m part of the public.”
Kelsey squeezed her eyes shut and wished her ears could do the same.
Finally, the timer on her phone buzzed. She had it perched on her leg, so it didn’t make any noise, just zapped her leg gently. She turned the stick over.
Everything around her faded to silence. The whole world shrank to the size of a toilet stall in the back of a drugstore. The whole world’s population shrank to one.
Make that two.
Kelsey burst into tears. She didn’t know if she was happy or sad or scared—all of them, probably—but she had to cry and couldn’t stop.
A much softer knock on the door. “Kelsey, come on. Let me in,” her mother said, using the voice she’d always used when she knew one of her babies needed comfort. “It’s okay, pix, it’s okay. You are going to be fine. Let me in.”
“Wowzer!” Hanna shouted. “You’re knocked up? Hah! Finally Miss Perfect fucks up! Alert the media!”
A new, strong wave of hysteria slammed Kelsey, and she wailed. Sitting on the toilet, her underwear at her knees, a test stick with two pink lines in her hand, Kelsey cried so hard she could barely breathe.
“Hannah!” Mom barked. “Out. Now. Go play with the blood pressure machine. You are not helping in here.”
