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“Okay,” I said, unsure of where all this was going.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I’m pregnant.”
There was a pause, and I blinked a few times, wondering if I’d misheard her.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “It was pretty smooth sailing for the first couple of months when I didn’t know at all. But things have been rough the last week. My doctor thinks I might be suffering complications. We have discussed options, and she thinks I have a little bit of time to figure out how to proceed, but not a ton. I need to know what you think about it. I don’t need to know right now. You can take some time. I understand.”
I grinned. “I don’t need time,” I said.
“What?” she asked, a moment of worry crossing her face.
“I don’t need time. I know exactly how I feel. We’re having a baby!”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she looked stunned.
“Are you sure?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Almost like she didn’t believe what she was seeing and hearing.
I nodded. “I am,” I said. “Absolutely. I have hidden away from the idea of a family for so long. But this last week, especially while I was gone, I realized something about myself. A family is all I’ve ever really wanted. A strong, real family. Us. Together.”
She smiled widely, and then it faltered. She looked down into her tea and then back up to me.
“I am so glad to hear you say that,” she said. “But I need to know if you are still okay with me. Because this doesn’t change my hesitation about marriage and everything.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s fine. I love you, and we can do whatever is right for us.”
The smile on her face spread from ear to ear. Tears tumbled down her cheeks and collected at the corners of her lips.
“I love you too,” she said.
I took her into my arms, moving her tea to the table beside her. Kissing her head, I rubbed her arms and held her tight.
We curled into the couch and finally relaxed. Holding each other in the silence, we slowly slid down so we were lying together on the couch and softly drifted off to sleep.
16
ALLISON
I turned in the mirror so that I was standing sideways to look at how far my belly poked out. It was official. I had popped.
Every day for the last two months, it seemed, I’d been waiting for that day. So did Ryan, with a glee that was as adorable as it was consistent. He would wake up every morning to marvel at my stomach, waiting for the day when I would finally have a baby bump. Until then, I just felt like I looked fat, even though Ryan assured me I didn’t.
Now there was no denying it. The tiny, round beachball in my stomach was impossible to ignore. There was a baby in there, and though the bump was smaller, it sent Ryan into a fit of happiness that involved dancing with me in the living room and doing yet another Internet search on the size of the baby and what we should expect coming up.
We spent the night at my place that night, so it was easier for me to get up and moving in the morning. I tried telling Ryan that I didn’t feel that different, and while I got tired easier, I also had bouts of extreme energy, where I felt like I could do ten times what I used to. At worst, it evened out to what I was beforehand. But he was insistent that we make it as easy on me as possible and had enlisted his friends, who I had slowly begun to think of as my own friends, as last-minute calls if I needed to move furniture.
Decorating was the last big step on the house, and as I woke up that morning, it was on my mind. There were ideas I had for the bed and breakfast that I was saving, but temptation made me think about using them in my home. I had to force myself not to do it, though, and think of something different.
The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all done, as was the guest room. Our bedroom still needed a bit of work, but it was mostly fleshing out the furniture. I had been rather picky about a bedroom suite, and Ryan was being extremely patient as I tried to find the absolute best bargain for what I wanted. That meant it was being piecemealed out, with me grabbing things from resellers and off social media over the course of the past two months.
I had long since decided that I was going to be happy living there as long as I needed to. Whenever the day came that I could open a bed and breakfast, then I would find someone that could rent this place and love it as much as I did. The house had grown on me in ways I never expected, and while some of that was nostalgia that kept coming to me in waves as we worked on the place, others were actual memories of a time when my father and grandparents occupied that house with me.
