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“Thank you. I’ll call my mother and let her know. I have to run an errand on my way home. I’ll text when I leave here.”
TheClarks, as Tony referred to them, loved Tony.
“A decent boy! Someone with a good job, who respects his parents! It’s an answer to my prayers,” Alice Clark cried, while her husband, Emmett, shook his head.
“Alice, you’re gonna have a heart attack. Relax. He could be an ax murderer for all you know.”
“Da, he’s not an ax murderer,” Caitlin said, laughing.
Tony arrived at three to pick up Flynn, who smiled a huge toothless smile as soon as Tony came into his field of vision. “He turned his head when he heard your voice,” Caitlin said. “How cute is that?”
Emmett gently elbowed his wife. “Maybe heisan answer to a prayer.”
“I told you,” Alice whispered.
On the way to Bridget’s apartment, Tony glanced in the rearview mirror from time to time, aware he wouldn’t be able to see the baby because his little seat was backwards.
“I’m getting a mirror,” he said out loud.
Swinging by the department store, he went inside carrying Flynn in his arms and, in the baby department, found exactly what he wanted, a baby backseat car mirror. “I knew they must make something like this.”
After strapping Flynn in, he positioned the mirror and installed it on the headrest in back so that when he looked in his rearview mirror, he could see the baby.
“There. Now we can see each other.”
At home, the first thing he did was heat up a bottle and get into the rocker to feed Flynn. Closing his eyes, he was so relaxed, he dozed off. At five, Bridget came home. She could see Tony and the baby sleeping in the chair, so she quietly put her packages down and tiptoed in. They were so sweet! Her heart swelled with happiness. It was that omen again; she wouldn’t be pregnant, couldn’t be so soon.
The unanswered question was should she share her concerns with Tony and allow him to be part of the test’s result? Or go through it alone and hopefully have nothing to tell him?
Anxiety would answer for her; he was sleeping so peacefully, do the test and get it over with. Then if there was anything to tell him, they could deal with it later.
She went into the bathroom and, familiar with the procedure, did the test, setting it on the sink on a piece of toilet tissue, and waited.
Pregnant.
Taking a deep breath, she was glad she knew because now she could plan. Planning was key. She wouldn’t be able to work more because she had Flynn now. She had to think of his well-being as part of the plan.
Peeking in on Tony, although she trusted him, what if he bolted? It had happened before, stories she’d heard of loving boyfriends who, faced with an unplanned pregnancy, ended the relationship when abortion wasn’t an option. She believed in choice for others, but she had no choice.
“You’re not having it,” Randy had said.
“Oh, you’re wrong. I’m having it.”
But she didn’t love Flynn’s father. She loved Tony, unable to imagine life without him. It was unlikely he’d give her an option. That was not who he was. But the devil in her wanted to imagine what she’d do if he said it.Get rid of it or else. Could she be with someone like that? Never.
“Hey, you’re home!”
Sitting on the edge of her bed, she looked up at handsome Tony holding her baby.
“I have something to show you,” he said, as proud as could be. “Come with me.”
She followed him out of the apartment, down the steps to his truck. “Look! A baby mirror.”
“That’s so cool. I wanted one of those.”
“I got one for your car, too,” he said. “And a shade thingy and an alarm so I can never forget he’s in there when I get out of the truck and a bunch of other stuff.”
“Oh, how scary,” she said, shuddering. “Thank you so much for caring.” Standing on tiptoes, she kissed his cheek.
