AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He puts his hands up in surrender before continuing. “All I was going to say is…” But then he pauses, and a tense silence fills the space as we stare at each other. “Being a father is easy, if you try. Just look him in the eye. Don’t make him afraid of you. Listen to him when he talks. And tell him you love him. That’s it.”
I’m not taking parenting advice from my father. Ever.
But…him just advising me to do everything he didn’t do as a father does ring with truth.
Neither of us say anything for a while. We sit in tense silence.
“Time’s up,” the guard says as he steps behind me, putting a hand under my father’s arm.
We don’t bother with goodbyes or other sentiments. He puts the familiar scowl back on his face as he’s carted away from me.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I can finally put something behind me. Hearing Truett admit to what he did wrong as my father is just the first small step in healing, but it’s enough to take the step forward I need.
Third Trimester
Thirty-Seven
Sadie
My mother sets a gift bag on my lap. With over thirty people watching excitedly, I reach my hand in to retrieve a tiny white onesie covered in orange ducks. There’s a collective aww through the crowd as I hold it up to show everyone.
The onesie is so small it practically fits in my hand. It’s hard to believe somebody will be wearing this. I drape the onesie over my round stomach as I reach in to pull out the rest of the gifts in the bag. It’s a tiny bathrobe, a yellow baby towel and a pack of itty-bitty washcloths.
Smiling at the front of the room, I thank my aunt for the gifts—while silently wondering to myself why on earth a baby needs his own towels and washcloths in the first place.
I’m surrounded by gifts and diapers. There’s a cake by the window covered in yellow flowers. I tried to tell my mom I hate the color yellow. But she insisted that since I wasn’t going to find out if the baby was a boy or a girl, it was either yellow or gray.
Honestly, I would have preferred gray. I could have tried to explain to her that a boy can wear a pink onesie and a girl can wear blue pants. But it would have been futile.
Speaking of futile, my gaze scans the crowd once again. But of course, he’s not here. When Sage and Adam offered to host the baby shower in the rec room of his church for free, I agreed, knowing there’d be a small chance he could turn up.
You can take the girl out of hopeless, but you can’t take the hopeless out of the girl—or however that saying goes.
It’s been a little over a month since I left Luke’s house. Another professor has been covering his courses. I transferred out of his class, and I deleted his number from my phone to resist the temptation to call him back. In fact, the shower today is probably the first time I’ve even bothered putting on makeup since we ended things.
I did the right thing. I know I did.
But it still hurts.
I guess that’s the thing about being an adult that nobody really warns you about. Mature decisions suck. Indulgent immaturity is way more fun.
I’m just a little bitter that while I’m sitting here wallowing in self-pity, he’s probably packing up and getting ready for the adventure of his life.
I thought being excited about the baby would distract me from missing Luke, but during the first half of my pregnancy, Luke was part of this. It felt like we were on this journey together. So now every doctor’s appointment and kick from the baby just reminds me that he’s not here.
Once I’ve gotten through all the presents, I stand from my chair and stretch my arms up to the ceiling. This baby is taking up so much room already, I have no idea how I still have two months to go.
According to the baby books, he is roughly the size of a zucchini. Which is impossible because it looks like I’m carrying about a hundred zucchinis right now.
“You hungry?” Sage asks as she rests a hand on my back.
“No thanks, I’m good,” I reply. Faith is sleeping in a bundle against her chest, wrapped in a swathe of cotton. I’m a little jealous at how naturally Sage seems to be transitioning to motherhood. It helps that she has a supportive, loving husband and partner to carry the load.
Meanwhile, I’ll be doing this alone and struggling while still living at my parents’ house. My situation feels less like stepping into motherhood and more like being thrown off the side of a cruise ship with my ankles tied while taking care of a baby.
My excitement has turned into apprehension. Every day, my mother keeps asking if I want to go stroller shopping or to pick out a crib, and I have zero motivation to do any of that. I don’t want to set up a crib at my parents’ house.
Sage’s sister-in-law, Briar, approaches with her daughter Abby by her side. Something tightens in my chest being around these two. Sage is my best friend, and I really like Briar, but they’re each married to one of Luke’s brothers. And that reminder feels like an alarm going off inside me.
