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I stop in my tracks. “There’s…nothing.”
“You’re such a bad liar, Dana. You’ve always been a bad liar.”
“I pretended to date Drew for weeks in Maldives.”
Gillian snorts. “Please, that wasn’t pretending. That was preparing. You’re with him now, aren’t you?”
I swallow a big glob of something. Anxiety or nerves or…I don’t know. My face is growing hotter by the second, not just because of the heat in the kitchen. And my eyes are starting to prick with tears of…ugh, I don’t even know.
“Dana, what’s going on?” Gillian asks, all of her attacking energy dropping to make way for tenderness.
I tip my head back to avoid crying. “God, I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“Seriously, Dana, you’re scaring…”
Gillian trails off as I undo the cardigan and reveal the T-shirt. She stares at it with quirked eyebrows. “Mom?”
God, this was so stupid. We should have just announced it at dinner and then we wouldn’t have to deal with this corny T-shirt thing at all.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Etsy.”
“Why?”
I stare at my sister. “You don’t get it?”
Her face starts to transform, eyes widening. “I might, but I don’t want to assume something that’s–”
“Your assumption is correct.”
Her hands fly up to her mouth. “No.”
“Yes.”
I see her lips burst into a smile. “No!”
I smile back. “Yes!”
“Dana, you’re–”
“Shh! Not so loud!”
Gillian keeps her hands pressed to her lips and starts jumping up and down excitedly, exclamations buried in her sealed mouth. She embraces me with all the thrust and intensity of her five-year-old self, and I laugh as she spins me in a circle with excitement.
“Who else knows?”
“Just you. And Drew, obviously.”
“Oh, my god…” Her eyes twinkle with tears. “You’re going to be a mom, Dana,” she whispers.
Her uttering those words gives way to my tears. “I am.”
And then we’re both crying, sobbing excitedly. Gillian was the first of us all to be a mother. Years ago now, by accident (although nothing about Stella is an accident now). For once, the script is flipped. She’s the one who can take care of me. And I already feel it in the way she’s holding me, celebrating with me.
She’s proud of me.
The door flies open. “How’s dinner going?” Kira chirps and then stops in her tracks when she sees the scene. “What’s going…”
