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“Why?”
“I have to get some things to stay with you for the next couple of days,” I said. “It was a surprise for me when I came over last night.”
“Okay,” she said.
I put on something for her to watch and did my best to mix up the pancakes and get them cooked quickly. I didn’t even bother with trying to make them into anything. I just wanted to get it done and get them on the plate.
“You hungry?” I asked Lucy.
“Yes!” she cried, rushing out into the kitchen to sit at the table. I cut up the pancakes before I put them on her plate, and while she wasn’t happy about it, I at least avoided having to explain to her that I wasn’t in the mood to make teddy bears.
“Where’s yours?” she asked when I didn’t sit down.
“I’m not hungry this morning,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
I bit my tongue. I wasn’t in the mood to answer a billion questions, but she was too innocent to read the mood in the room. Not to mention, she had no idea of the way I felt nor of the argument I had had with her father the night before. To Lucy, life was just as good as ever, and she wasn’t sure why I didn’t feel the same.
“Sometimes I’m not hungry when I wake up,” I said. “I’ll get something to eat when we get to my house.”
“Pancakes?” she asked.
“Probably not,” I told her with a laugh. “I have other things there, though.”
“Okay,” she said.
I checked my phone several times as I cleaned up the mess from breakfast. I knew Colorado was two hours behind, but Alex wasn’t the kind of guy to sleep in very often, and he wasn’t on vacation, either. He was out there because of some work emergency, so the odds of him being in bed long at all were slim.
I wondered if he felt similar to how I was feeling that morning.
I could ignore the pregnancy symptoms, but I had a feeling of guilt lingering in the back of my mind, along with something of a headache that threatened to get worse. I had a sneaking suspicion it had everything to do with the fight he and I had had, and I wanted to believe he would feel just as shitty this morning as I did.
But I wasn’t going to text him. I worried anything I might say could be misconstrued and wind up being another fight, which I didn’t want to happen.
“Are you finished?” I asked Lucy when I saw her just scooting the remainder of her pancake around on the plate.
“Yeah,” she said. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He had to go away on a trip for a couple of days,” I said. “Remember he told you last night?”
“When is he going to come home?” she asked.
“Soon,” I said. “But right now, you and I have to go do an errand. Let’s get you ready for the day, and we can go.”
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Almost,” I said.
I honestly didn’t plan on doing much with myself that morning. Although I had gotten into the habit of keeping my hair down, I wasn’t in the mood to style it, so I simply pulled it back into a ponytail as I was doing before I started seeing Alex. I didn’t care to do my makeup at all, and as I pulled on the same outfit I had worn to dinner, I promised myself I was going tochange into something far more comfortable as soon as we got to my place.
I checked my phone again on our way out the door, wondering why I hadn’t heard anything at all from Alex. I knew he was busy, but it was starting to get under my skin that he hadn’t even checked in to see how Lucy was doing. Even if he knew she was in good hands, I still expected he would at least text that morning.
I shoved the anger down, forcing myself to stay in the moment as I drove to my place.
“Hey,” I said when we got inside. “Do you want to watch some cartoons on my TV?”
“Why?”
