Page 115 of Right Where I Left You

Mom keeps her voice low. “So this family emergency?”

I could tell her. I could say: Simon’s ex-girlfriend is pregnant, it might be his, and she is in the hospital, and he left us this morning to be with her. I could say that the boy they took in at seventeen—the one whose father was an abusive ghost and whose mother was a paycheck with a pulse—grew up and still doesn’t know how to belong to a functioning family. I could say that I am angry, and that I am also the person who told him to go, and I don’t know how to stop being angry that doing the right thing sucks so much.

“He’ll be here.” I repeat for what feels like the millionth time.

Mom looks at me for a long time. She loves him. That is the problem. They all love him. They took him in when he had nowhere else and they have never quite forgiven him for leaving me, and they have never quite stopped saving him a seat.

“If he’s hurt,” she says.

“It’s not that Mom.

Dad comes in with Theo on his hip, Theo’s cheeks flushed from running. “He wants to know if Uncle Chance can take him outside before we eat.”

“Jacket,” I say automatically.

Dad already has it. Of course he does. He glances at me, at Mom, at the space between us.

“Any word from Simon?” He asks.

“I was just about to text him for an update.” I say, pulling my phone out.

Unfortunately there’s not much, they’re not even in a room yet. Veronica is pissy, Simon’s irritated.

I’m starting to regret telling him to go. Maybe he should put more distance between them until we know for certain the baby is his. Especially if what he says is true—that Veronica is using this as a way to try and get back with him. But when I think about leaving another woman in the same situation I was once in, it makes my chest hurt. I had Simon around… sort of. And I had this family, loud and nosy and impossible to hide from. It was still extremely lonely. I don’t know what Veronica’s people are like, but I can’t imagine she has a great support system if she’s digging her heels into Simon this hard. You don’t cling like that when you’ve got somewhere else to land.

Mom is still watching me.

“Well?” she asks.

“He’s still dealing with stuff. He’ll be here when he can.”

Sophia appears with Jackson against her chest, a burp cloth over one shoulder, hair in a bun that has given up. “He spit up on three outfits already. Fair warning if you want to hold him.” She warns me.

“Noted.” I take the baby because a baby is a safer thing to look at than my mother’s face. Jackson is warm and unbelievably small and makes my ovaries scream for another of my own.

“You good?” Sophia asks, quiet enough that only I hear it.

“I’m here.”