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“The very one. You’re missing out.”
“As much as I’d appreciate you using yourwandon me,” I teased, “I think I’ll pass for now.”
“Go,” he said gently, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “It would be very messy if your mom’s head exploded.”
Dean disconnected the call with a promise to check in later, and again I tugged my pale purple T-shirt down over my leggings and let out a long sigh at just howpregnantI looked.
It was a warm day—spring was still a ways off—but even in March, we were getting some warmer, sunnier days after a colder-than-usual winter.
Cold winters made for excellent pregnancy hiders, as I’d learned. I could hibernate at home, watching movies and football underneath big fuzzy blankets, my handy puke bucket never very far from reach.
For a while, baggy sweatshirts and big coats were my friends, especially any time I went into town.
The double-edged sword of being from a well-known family in a very small town was that everyone knew your business. Sometimes that was good. We felt so taken care of, so loved when my dad was sick and when he passed away.
But with something like this? I snorted softly, rubbing a hand over my little bump.
“Can’t keep hiding forever, can we, nugget?” I asked quietly.
“Poppy,” my mom snapped, the sharp tone of her voice had me jumping. “Let’sgo.”
I stuck my feet into some slip-on shoes and wrangled the mess of hair into something a little neater as I skipped down the steps.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “Dean called while I was trying to decide whether big and baggy was a thing of the past.”
Mom eyed my bump with a wry grin. “I’m thinking yes.”
I sighed. “Let the rampant gossip begin, huh?”
She slung an arm around my shoulder. “Let them talk, sweetheart. The people who matter don’t mind, and the people who mind don’t matter.”
It was such a mom thing to say. But it helped, no matter how cliché of a statement it was. Inside the protective bubble of our family, this life curveball didn’t seem so daunting. I had a good-paying job that I loved, a roof over my head, and a mother who seemed to take this whoopsie of a pregnancy so well, I could only imagine it’s because it gave her a new little person to fret over.
We buckled ourselves into her car, and I eyed the clock nervously when I realized how close it was to my sixteen-week appointment. “Oh shit, no wonder you were yelling.”
“Mm-hmm. I don’t break out that tone for very much now that you guys are grown.”
I smiled, then gripped the handlebar above the car doorwhen my mom roared down the driveway, taking a corner with a squeal of the tires. “Easy, turbo. We’re not that late.”
“You heard the woman last time. They’ll reschedule you if you’re even five minutes past the start time.” She gripped the steering wheel, her eyes focused on the road. “I want to listen to my grandchild’s heartbeat for the first time, and I am not giving her the satisfaction of canceling us because I know she was just waiting to knock us down a peg.”
I snorted. “Is she part of that,those who mind don’t matterthing?”
Mom clucked her tongue. “Don’t sass me, young lady. I can still be bothered by someone clearly judgmental. I saw the way she eyed your belly when she came out of church last week even though it was hidden under your sweater. Don’t think I didn’t.” She cut someone off as we blew through a yellow light, and I tightened my grip on the handle. “And not like she’s perfect. She left her first husband for her son’s best friend. I oughta put her right back in her place one of these days.”
“Mother,” I said on a shocked gasp of laughter. “What would Dad say if he heard such things come out of your mouth?”
She let out a small snort. “He’d probably make some fuss about not having a violent reaction and extending grace, blah, blah, blah, but deep down, that man would have me going for the jugular if anyone was making you feel bad about yourself, and you know it as well as I do.”
Absently, I rubbed at my chest, trying to soothe the dull ache. It was getting easier to talk about him as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months. I’d had many nights where I laid awake wondering what he’d think of all this.
When I stared up at the sky and wondered if he somehow knew what was happening since he left.
Where I cried myself to sleep, because even though mybrothers gave good hugs, and my mom and my sisters were amazing and supportive, I’d never be able to hear my dad’s voice tell me that it would be okay while he wrapped me in his arms. That he’d love the little nugget no matter how much of a surprise they were.
I blinked away the sudden wetness in my eyes before my mom could see it because even though she was doing really well, it didn’t take much to tip her over into the cry-fest with one of us if we started it.
So I held it together. For me and for her.
