Page 35

"Based on measurements, I'd put you right around sixteen weeks," the tech says, tapping through screens. "So you're about four months along."

Four months.

New Year's Eve.

There's no other math that works, no other night in the last year I've let a man anywhere near me. And the tech just confirmed the exact thing I've spent four months refusing to consider could happen from agreeing to go to an apartment above a hardware store with a cowboy's hands touching every inch of me.

"Would you like to know the sex? We can usually get a good look this far along," she states.

Some numb, autopilot part of me nods.

She moves the wand, studies the screen a second, and smiles. "It's a girl."

A girl.

Another crack opens wide in my chest just like when I found out about Jagger. But this one is different. There's grief and joy tangled together so tight, I can't tell which one's winning. I press the back of my hand against my mouth and let the tears come, unable to not hear the heartbeat still echoing through the room. Nor can I escape the tiny, stubborn girl on the screen who has no idea her mother is currently falling apart over her.

The rest of the appointment I barely remember. Somehow, I grip the wheel hard and end up at my parents' house. When I realize where I'm at, I sit in the driveway for another five minutes before I trust my legs enough to walk up the porch steps without buckling.

Mama opens the door before I can, wiping flour off her hands. "I wondered if you were coming in," she chirps, then her smile falls. She drops the dish towel and puts her arms around me. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"I'm not hurt." My voice trembles straight down the middle. "Mama, I need to sit down."

She pulls me inside, sits me at the same kitchen table where I've done my homework, cried over boyfriends, and eaten a thousand bowls of her chicken and dumplings.

She puts both hands flat on the table like she's bracing for whatever's coming. "Talk to me."

It all comes tumbling out. Carla's black glitter dress, a cowboy saloon, and a man who danced like he had all night and nowhere better to be. I tell her about the kiss at midnight, and the walk through the snow to the apartment above the hardware store.

I watch her face carefully for judgment I don't find, not even a flicker of it, just steady attention and the occasional slow blink like she's bracing herself for whatever comes next.

So I keep going. I tell her about waking up alone, then Carla telling me he was newly engaged, and the drive away from that town where I told myself it was one bad decision in my life. Then I cry harder, explaining how much time I've spent thinking about a faceless girl named Phoebe from California with a big ring on her finger.

Mama continues to listen quietly, and when there's nowhere else to go, I have to say it. My voice barely holds together. "And today, I found out I'm pregnant. Four months, Mama. I'm four months pregnant, and it's his. I didn't even know until an hour ago because I was too busy pretending my whole life hadn't gone sideways to notice my own body telling me it had."

Mama reaches across the table and takes both my hands in hers, the way she used to when I was small and scared of thunderstorms. She squeezes them and says, "Okay."

"Okay?" I let out something between a laugh and a sob. "That's all you've got? Okay?"

"I'm getting there." She squeezes my hands again. "Boy or girl?"

"Girl." The word comes out watery, and my heart cracks open all over again. Saying it out loud to my mother makes it more real than the ultrasound screen ever did. I stutter, "I'm-I'm having a girl."

Her eyes fill, and she doesn't bother blinking them back. She lets the tears roll while she keeps holding onto my hands like she's afraid I'll float off the chair if she lets go. "A granddaughter."

"Mama."

"I know, I know." She wipes her cheek with the back of one flour-dusted hand, leaving a pale streak along her jaw that would make me laugh any other day. "I'm not saying it isn't a lot or you didn't just have the worst afternoon of your life. But you're having a baby, Lainey. She's going to be loved within an inch of her life whether her daddy knows about her or not."

That last part sits between us heavier than anything else she's said. I admit, "I don't know what to do about him."

"What do you want to do about him?"

"I don't know that either." I press my palms against my eyes until spots bloom behind them. "He's engaged, Mama. He's got some woman whose whole life is built around him with a ring on her finger. They're probably picking out china patterns. If I show up now with this, I don't just wreck my own life. I wreck his fiancée's too. And she didn't do anything wrong. She doesn't deserve to find out the man she's marrying has a daughter with a stranger from New Year's Eve. Does she?"

My mother's quiet a minute, turning my statement over the way she turns over every decision, slow and careful, never rushing toward the answer just because it's the fastest one available. Then she says, "You don't owe that man anything, you know. Not after what he did, leaving you in a strange bed without even a goodbye."

"I know."