It Started with a Pregnancy

by Christy Jeffries

  Rebekah started her car, the air-conditioning vents immediately blasting out the lingering scent of stale French fries and unbathed dog, and drove straight toward that old brick house on Second Avenue. She was already unwrapping the burger as she walked up to the weathered front porch.

  “Here, boy,” she said, awkwardly kneeling down in her dress and heels, the cold beef patty pinched between her thumb and finger as she held it out. “Or girl. Not that it matters what I call you. You’re probably just happy to have some food.”

  But the gray dog didn’t so much as growl.

  “You know, every single person at Furever Paws and probably half of the residents in this city have seen you running around on the streets. Do you know how many people have been trying to snatch you up and find you a good home? Are you still under there or did you go out on the town to scavenge your own lunch?”

  Still no response.

  Rebekah craned her neck toward the street to make sure some passerby wasn’t watching her as she attempted to negotiate with some stray animal who probably couldn’t understand a single word she was saying—and who might not even be there at all.

  “Look, I didn’t forget about coming back to feed you. It just took me a little longer to get here because I was in a complete daze.” Rebekah groaned impatiently. “I mean, if you had any idea what kind of shock I’ve just been through, you’d understand why I’m standing outside some abandoned house during the hottest part of the day blabbering on and on to a stinky dog that probably isn’t even under there anyway.”

  The muscles in her thighs began to protest her kneeling position, so she shifted until she could sit down on one of the porch steps. As much as she wanted to lure the dog out of hiding, she also didn’t want it to attack her. But there was no way to get the animal to trust her unless she let down her guard slightly.

  “I’m just gonna keep this yummy, all-beef patty right here next to me in case you wanna come out and have a little taste.” She wrinkled her nose at the plain, cold meat that didn’t look so appetizing to her without its bun or condiments. “I probably should’ve ordered the bacon cheeseburger. I bet you would’ve preferred that. But Grant was doing the ordering and I just sat there like a big dummy, too stunned to say a damn thing. I know, I know. You’re probably thinking that Grant was in just as much shock as I was about the twins. But at least he had his escape plan already in place, conveniently having to fly back to Jacksonville this afternoon for some important meeting tonight. I mean, I guess I should be glad the man is gainfully employed. After all, everything is going to cost twice as much now that we’re having twins.”

  The breeze picked up and she caught the now-familiar odor of stinky, wet dog, which meant the little pup must be close by. From what she’d heard, nobody had been able to get this close to the stray. Maybe if she kept talking, he or she would realize that Rebekah wasn’t much of a threat.

  “So, yeah. Grant took off. Just like he did the morning after we slept together. I’m not saying that he doesn’t have other responsibilities. It just seems like more than a coincidence that anytime things get too heavy, he always has an easy out and can pick up and leave whenever he wants. You should’ve seen him today in the doctor’s office. The second she told us it was twins, he stepped back from me so fast that he hit his head on a lamp and all but collapsed. It actually would’ve been hilarious if I wasn’t so damn scared myself, let me tell you.

  “I don’t care how hot the guy is. Or how my insides turn all gooey every time I see him. This attraction will wear off eventually.” Rebekah dug around inside the carry-out bag for a cold french fry. All this talking was finally bringing back her appetite. “But it certainly doesn’t bode well for our children if their father can’t even handle the first surprise of the pregnancy. Not that I handled it all that well myself.” She bit into the top half of the soggy fry. “Bleh.”

  She tossed the remainder to the dirt near the hole under the porch where she’d seen the dog scurry earlier today. She could’ve sworn she heard something rustling around down there, but it could’ve just as easily been a squirrel. Or a rat. Or a snake. Before Rebekah could think about what other critters might’ve burrowed their way under there, she heard the Bluetooth ringing from her car.

  She had no idea how long she’d been sitting here, but her mom had been calling her every day this week after school let out to make sure everything was ready for her class’s field trip to the animal rescue next Tuesday. At this point, it was almost like a regularly scheduled alarm, letting her know that it was close to four o’clock.

  Rebekah stood up and brushed the dirt off her rear end. She set the burger down near her discarded french fry and grabbed her trash. “You win,” she told the little gray dog, or whichever other animal was under the porch. “I’ve gotta go call my mom back and tell her the news. Wish me luck.”

  There wasn’t even a yip in thanks as she made her way across the potholed driveway and toward her car. But as Rebekah pulled away from the curb, she caught a glimpse of gray fur darting out of the hole and then back under the porch.

  Apparently, the scruffy little mutt had been listening to her the whole time.

  * * *

  The following week, as the flight attendant made her safety presentation over the loudspeaker of the plane, Grant paid very close attention despite the fact that he could probably give the exact speech by heart. He’d flown so much recently, and the constant traveling was beginning to take its toll on him. Or maybe it was the added stress of knowing that he was going to be a father that had him feeling so shaky.

  As the plane accelerated down the runway, he performed the same ritual he always did at the beginning of a flight. He closed his eyes, rotated his neck, pushed back his shoulders, adjusted his arms, stretched out his fingers. Deep breath. Then he extended his legs as far as they would go in the business class row and rolled his ankles in counter-clockwise circles before finishing with the wiggling of his toes. Another deep breath.

  Repeat.

  It wasn’t that he was superstitious, but the familiar routine helped him to relax. He’d been a nervous flyer ever since he was eight years old. That had been the first summer he’d flown all by himself to visit his dad’s sisters in North Carolina and his plane had hit major turbulence. Then there was the summer he was ten and an unexpected hurricane diverted his flight and he’d been stuck at the airport in Nashville with only a handful of airline employees. He hadn’t confided his fears to anyone, mostly because he’d had such an amazing time on his aunts’ farm those years and knew that if anyone thought he couldn’t brave another flight as an unaccompanied minor, he might not get to visit again. Then his younger sisters began accompanying him and he’d been forced to become the brave knowledgeable brother.

  But he still didn’t like planes.

  So while he loved his marketing job and his amazing company, there were definitely days when he wished he could travel a lot less. When they finally reached cruising altitude, he powered on his tablet and read his downloaded copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

  “Is that book still around?” the passenger next to him asked.

  Grant had to blink a few times before he figured out what the middle-aged gentleman in the loud Hawaiian-print shirt had said.

  The guy nodded toward Grant’s iPad and said, “My wife made me read the same book way back when.”

  “Any advice you can give me?”

  “Yeah. No matter how well you plan, there’s always going to be something that comes up to throw you for a loop.” The man chuckled before adding, “After having twenty-eight newborns, I still get a curveball thrown my way every once in a while.”

  “You have twenty-eight kids?” Grant hoped his eyes weren’t completely bugging out of his head.

  “Well, technically, we just have one. A daughter. Smart as a whip and pretty as a peach. But my wife and I were foster parents and we used
to get all the calls for the newborns. So we’ve had a lot of babies in and out of our house over the years.”

  “By any chance, were any of them twins?”

  “Oh, boy. Is that what you and your wife are having?” the man asked, then glanced down at Grant’s bare ring finger.

  “My girlfriend,” Grant clarified. Okay, so technically, Rebekah wasn’t exactly his girlfriend, either. But some stranger on a plane didn’t necessarily need those kinds of specifics.

  Just then, a baby a few rows back began fussing and the man looked behind them. “Poor thing. Probably has plugged ears from the altitude. So, how far along is your girlfriend?”

  “Almost ten weeks. Here’s the ultrasound picture from our first appointment.” Grant swiped his finger across his tablet to go to his stored photos. He’d taken a screenshot of the printout Dr. Singh had given them, but since Rebekah hadn’t wanted to tell anyone yet, Grant hadn’t said a word to his family or to anyone at work.

  He didn’t realize how eager he’d been to finally show the picture to someone until the older man said, “Yep. There’s two of them, all right.”

  The baby’s cries picked up volume and a whiny toddler joined in. Several passengers near them adjusted their earphones or sent the mother of the fussy children pointed looks.

  “Excuse me,” the man said, unsnapping his seat belt and standing up. Grant had to rise to let the man pass. Since Grant hated the views from window seats, he always asked to be assigned to the aisle. He remained on his feet, observing Hawaiian Shirt Guy speak quietly to the young mother before gently taking the baby into his arms. The crying immediately ceased and the young mom was able to focus her attention on the toddler next to her.

  Grant sat back down, then watched in awe the rest of the flight as this miracle stranger did a bouncing/rocking motion while pacing up and down the aisle until the baby rested its chubby cheek against the man’s shoulder and fell soundly asleep. When it was time to begin their descent, the mom worried that transferring the finally calmed child might wake her up so Grant slid over to the window seat—after shutting the shade—allowing the man to take the aisle seat closer to the mom. Hawaiian Shirt Guy made it all seem so effortless as he gently shifted the baby to his other shoulder, then sat down and got his seat belt back on without so much as an eye flutter from the tiny girl now drooling all over the palm tree fronds printed on his shirt.

  “Have you thought of writing a book of your own?” Grant asked his seatmate when the plane touched down.

  The older guy just laughed. “The thought has crossed my mind a time or two.”

  “Or you could give private lessons,” Grant suggested. “I’d pay anything to learn how to do that.”

  “You’ll figure it out on your own, son. Just the fact that you want to get it right already speaks volumes about the kind of father you’ll be.”

  As the rest of the passengers raced each other to reach the overhead compartments and line up for the exit, the tiny girl with black curls and a lopsided pink headband finally opened her eyes. Grant prepared his ears for a sudden shriek that was sure to come when the baby realized that neither the man in front of her nor the one holding her was her mother. But the baby quickly smiled at him, revealing one tiny white tooth in her otherwise gummy grin, and Grant felt his heart turn into a puddle.

  Would his own children ever smile at him that way? Would their mother?

  The man beside him stood up and passed the baby off to a very grateful mom, but Grant remained in place, a million thoughts running through his head. What would being a father really be like? His own dad had set the bar pretty high when it came to being an amazing parent, but Moose Whitaker had passed away right after Grant graduated high school and was no longer around to offer that sound advice he’d always happily dished out. Whether it was an intimidating wave or a midterm exam in calculus, Moose had always known the right thing to say to inspire Grant to conquer his biggest challenges.

  He was so lost in thoughts about parenthood, he didn’t realize the plane had emptied and the flight attendants were letting the cleaning crew aboard. He yanked his carry-on suitcase from the overhead bin and made his way to the rental car desk. The clerk on duty greeted him by name and Grant realized that his visits to North Carolina were coming with increasing frequency.

  During the forty-five-minute drive to Spring Forest, he made several work-related calls and told himself that as long as he still handled his job duties, it didn’t matter how much time he spent out of the office. Which was a good thing since, with all of Rebekah’s upcoming doctor’s appointments and birthing classes and whatever else people did to prepare for a baby, he’d be racking up even more frequent flyer miles.

  Speaking of which, he should probably come up with another excuse to give his aunts for why he was in town again so soon. The truth was that he wanted to check on Rebekah, but he couldn’t very well tell them that. Hell, he couldn’t even tell Rebekah that.

  When he turned into the parking lot at Furever Paws, his eyes immediately landed on the same Hawaiian-print shirt that he’d sat next to on the plane. Certainly, it couldn’t be the same guy, he told the knot of tension forming in his belly.

  But, sure enough, as Grant exited his car, he recognized the man who was now standing near an older-model Subaru Outback and tearing into a pack of Claritin. His former seatmate swallowed some pills and then grabbed a floppy hat out of his back seat before waving at Grant. “I hope you didn’t follow me all the way out here to ask for more baby advice.”

  Grant’s lips tightened as he looked around to see if anyone had heard the man’s words. “No, actually, my aunts own this place.”

  Please don’t ask about the woman I told you was my girlfriend.

  “Oh, Bunny and Birdie are your aunts? My daughter thinks the world of them. In fact, I’m meeting her and my wife here for lunch.” The man jerked a thumb at the big yellow school bus lumbering into the driveway. “And there’s my wife now. Our daughter arranged for this field trip for my wife’s first-grade class and neither one of them thought I’d make it back from my book tour in time to help chaperone. Good thing our plane landed early, huh?”

  The man walked over to the bus that was idling on the edge of the property before Grant could ask him who his daughter was. But he didn’t have to.

  Because, just then, Rebekah came walking up from the side of the building, her wide smile indicating she hadn’t yet seen Grant frozen between the two cars. The bus’s engine shut off right as she began speaking.

  “I didn’t know you were coming.” She threw her arms around the man’s shoulders, nearly knocking off his floppy hat. “I hope you brought some extra-strength allergy medicine with you, Daddy.”

  Chapter Six

  “I need to talk to you,” Grant whispered to Rebekah as she passed out clipboards to the parent chaperones who were herding the schoolchildren into groups named after animals.

  Thankfully, she had on her sunglasses and nobody could see her squeeze her eyes shut at the sound of his voice. His breath was so close to her ear, she nearly shuddered. “What are you doing here, Grant?”

  “I wanted to get some pictures of the new picnic area so I could add it to the brochures I’m creating.”

  “What brochures?” Rebekah’s smile fell. “I never authorized the money for any new brochures.”

  “We can talk about that later.” His voice was still low and laced with an edge of desperation. “Right now, I really need to speak to you about...you know.”

  “Here you go.” She handed a clipboard to another parent chaperone and forced a smile, trying to pretend that the father of her babies wasn’t standing directly behind her while her own parents were only a few feet away. “Your group will be called the Ducks and your tour guide is going to be Hans, the silver-haired gentleman over there wearing the purple shirt.”

  As the Duck group headed off, Rebekah l
ooked anywhere but at Grant and spoke through clenched teeth. “Now is not a good time to talk about...you know. Not only am I working, but it just so happens that those are my parents over there.”

  “That’s exactly why we need to talk about—”

  “Here you go.” She cut Grant off again as she reached out to hand another clipboard to a man who had lost all control over six girls, who were now running in circles and trying to play tag. “Your group will be called the Frogs and your tour guide is going to be—”

  “I don’t want to be a frog,” a little girl with box braids said.

  “Why can’t we be called the unicorns?” another little girl with a blond ponytail right above her forehead asked. “See? I already have a unicorn horn and everything.”

  “I’d rather be a Tyrannosaurus rex,” a third girl said, pushing a pair of blue-framed glasses up on her nose. “A T. rex could probably eat a unicorn, you know.”

  “Could not,” the blonde retorted, putting her hands on her hips.

  The remaining three girls stopped their impromptu game of tag to join in the argument of dinosaurs versus mythical creatures and Rebekah decided right then and there that she would never organize another field trip again. She tried to wave her mom over, hoping the experienced Mrs. Taylor would be able to get her students to stop their bickering. But her mother was several yards away, introducing the other two teachers to Doc J, who would be giving the classes a tour of the vet clinic.

  “Technically...” Grant raised his voice, stepping directly into the center of the fray “...T. rexes are carnivores, which means they only eat meat. And unicorns are made out of rainbows and fairy glitter and wouldn’t be at all tasty to a meat-loving T. rex. Fairy glitter is way too sweet. Bleh.” Grant made a shuddering sound and all the girls laughed. He winked at Rebekah before continuing. “Since there were no such things as dinosaur dentists back then and a T. rex’s arms were obviously too short to get a toothbrush into those hard to reach spots, eating a unicorn wouldn’t have been at all worth the risk of so many cavities.”