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Shane clears his throat. “I am sorry to interrupt, but I need to sit down.”
He starts walking toward the kitchen table, looking a little pale. I move to the sink to fetch some water out of instinct. My head is spinning because I have no idea what is going through Shane’s mind. I was going to talk to him about Liv when we sat down, rehashing what went on years ago, but now I feel like I need to backtrack a bit to see why Shane seems so perplexed.
I walk toward the table and hand Shane the water. He takes a sip, nearly putting the cup on the table, when he decides to bring the cup to his lips again, this time taking a gulp of water to calm his nerves. I take a seat across from him, Liv looking around the kitchen for a snack in the fridge.
“I haven’t gotten your favorite snacks yet as I was planning a trip to the market tomorrow. I think the twins have something in the pantry you might like.”
She chuckles at that because she knows exactly where the kids hide their favorite snacks in the kitchen. She disappears into the pantry when I look over to Shane.
Shane’s gaze is on me, less angry and more puzzled now.
“Shane, what do you mean ‘we have a daughter together?’ Why do you sound surprised? Did you think I had lost the baby?”
Shane continues to stare at my questions back to him. He seems utterly lost right now, and I need to know what’s going through his head.
“For you to be asking me these questions, I would have needed to have been informed you were pregnant at some point. Did you tell me you were pregnant before we broke up, and I erased that from my memory?”
He’s asking and still looking incredibly confused. I’m joining in on this confusion because what he lacks in memory, I know all too well what happened all those years ago.
“Tell you I was pregnant? Yes, I told you, but not before you broke up with me. I told you immediately after I found out myself. I wrote you a letter telling you about the baby. I told you everything. I was honest from the start.
“And your response was as honest as I could ask for. It was brutal, but it was your truth, so I found a way to accept it. I won’t lie. I was mad. I was furious you would toss not only me, but your child aside like that, but I honestly thought you’d come around and apologize for your hateful words. I never heard from you again, and I felt, deep down, maybe that was for the better if you didn’t want to be a part of our lives.”
Shane is looking at me, each piece of the puzzle seeming to cause more alarm to cross his face.
“What do you mean by thehateful wordsI said to you? In what format did I communicate this hatefulness?”
He sounds genuinely interested in this answer, as if he didn’t experience it himself.
I must look at him with confusion because he continues, “Honestly, Becs, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Seeing Olive right now is the first time I am becoming aware of the fact that I am a father. Not only that, I became one in what looks like nearly twenty-five years ago. This is all news to me. I swear, on my soul, I had no idea of her existence or the fact that you ever became pregnant, until right now. Please tell me what happened so I can fill in the gaps, not only for you but for me. My heart is racing. I have a daughter I have never known about.”
He starts to run his hands through his hair, leaving it in disarray and not caring about it. He almost looks panicked, like the entire mess is starting to pull him under, at the realization that he missed out on his child’s life, and he had no idea.
I sit back, looking at him, and turn my head to the side, as if inspecting him. He is honestly clueless as to what is going on. I take a deep breath, calming my own racing heart. As we have been interacting, Liv has grabbed some food and a drink, sitting at the kitchen table, absorbing the conversation as it is being laid out in front of her.
So I begin to speak, taking this path down memory lane, which was one of the hardest times in my life because it was the moment I realized Shane wasn’t who I thought he was.
ChapterTwenty-Six
REBECCA
July 1998
I’m pacing the family room, figuring out how I am going to tell my mother that I am pregnant with Shane’s baby. I know my mom and her love for me. But I also know this news will be shocking because I am still trying to wrap my head around it myself. I’m biting my nails, a habit I gave up years ago, but one that brings enough comfort to keep me from completely losing my mind.
Grant is coloring with Laney in the kitchen. Beau and Ellie didn’t want me to drive home alone. Once they got me settled, they both felt it best to stay, even at a distance. They knew my mother was kindhearted, but if I needed moral support, they wanted to be near to offer it.
I hear her car coming down the street and park in the driveway. My mom’s a nurse and she was always very open with me about taking my birth control pill on time every day. I was always vigilant about that, and I never forgot a dose. I wasn’t like some of my classmates. I would overhear that they would miss and double dose the following day. I was always so good about it. But a few months back, I got a sinus infection and had to be placed on antibiotics. I remember because I had felt miserable, and the antibiotics were a lifesaver.
Little did I think beyond that and took the antibiotics and my birth control. I only learned today, after speaking to Ellie to figure out how this could have happened, that the antibiotics lessened the effects of the birth control. You think? Yeah, I’d say lessening the effects is an understatement. I would say failing is more like it. And now, here I am, leaving an indent in my mother’s floor due to the endless strides back and forth from this agonizing need to talk to her. I could have run to her at work and gotten this off my chest, but I needed to digest it first. So I did just that for the remainder of the day.
The front door opens, and my mom comes in, finding me standing still in the middle of the living room, looking at her with wide eyes. It doesn’t take long to see the alarm on my face. She comes running toward me, dropping her purse and keys on the floor in her quick movements.
“Becca, are you okay? Is it Grant? What happened?”
I shake my head, my lips pursed together, tears already forming in my eyes.
I drop my head and let it out, “I’m pregnant,” and fall into her arms, nearly collapsing as I do so.
