by Amy Brent
“I actually need to get clean,” I admitted and he leaned down to grab the shampoo and shower gel.
“Turn around,” he ordered, and I did as I was told and closed my eyes as I felt his hands begin to work their way carefully through my hair. This was bliss. I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than this in the whole world – my man, me, and nothing to do for the whole of this Saturday that was laid out in front of us like a gift. I couldn’t wait to see what we came up with.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I was laid out on the couch and staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore the various aches and pains that seemed to come part and parcel with being pregnant, when the call came.
Nate was out at work – I had practically insisted that he start showing up back at the office again, to make sure no-one tried to stage a takeover in his absence, and the Monday after our incredible encounter in the shower he finally took my advice and actually went in. I already missed him, which I knew was a little pathetic, but he had promised to bring me back takeout from an apparently amazing pizza place that was part of his new commute to work so I was looking forward to that, at least.
I reached for my phone, wondering if it might be one of the jobs I’d applied for, and my stomach flipped when I saw who it really was – Dad. I scrambled upright, as though he would tell me off for lazing around on the couch all morning, and stared at the name on the screen in front of me. Did I have to take this? Because I kind of desperately didn’t want to. The thought of him chewing me out again after the last time we’d spoke made my heart clench with discomfort. I knew that I would have to face up to this sometime, but the thought of doing it now, when I hadn’t had time to prepare my defences or get myself in order was…no. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t.
I stared down at the buzzing phone in my head and shook my head. I had to. Maybe he’d had some time to think about everything that had happened and was finally ready to offer me an apology for what had gone down that day? I hovered my finger over the “take call” button for a few more seconds, and then finally pressed it and lifted the phone to my ear. Okay, I could do this. I closed my eyes and breathed in deep and waited for it to begin.
“Hello?”
My eyes flew open again. That wasn’t Dad. That was Mom. I furrowed my brow, wondering if she’d called me by mistake when she’d been trying to work out Dad’s phone.
“Hello?” I replied, feeling a little stupid. Had I been expecting a call from her and forgotten?
“Baby,” she greeted me, but she more sighed the work than spoke it and I wondered how much Dad had already told her about what Nate had shared with him. It had seemed odd to me that Mom hadn’t bothered to get in touch herself, but I had just assumed that she had taken on the same party line as my farther and hadn’t bothered to call her.
“It’s so good to hear from you,” I blurted out before I could stop myself, even though I sounded so childish and so desperate that it made me cringe. I had been doing my best to pretend, in the last couple of weeks, that everything was alright and I wasn’t deeply unsettled by the notion that my family couldn’t stand to even talk to me. It had been easy to paper over the cracks, with everything going so well with Nate. But now that I heard my mother’s voice again, the pain reasserted itself and I felt this swell of sadness as I tried to make sense of it. I just missed them both so much and I didn’t know how I could get them to see my side of things.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t get in touch earlier,” she replied emphatically, taking me by surprise. “Your father only just told me…what happened. What he found out.”
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, and instantly bit my lip to keep from cursing again. I knew my mother hated it.
“No, don’t be like that,” she shot back. “I know – I know how your father dealt with it. I know it wasn’t exactly, uh, as kind as I might have hoped.”
“Yeah, you can say that again,” I murmured. I was pretty sure that every single thing he’d thrown at me in that conversation was etched permanently on to my brain. I was never going to forget it, no matter how hard I tried.
“And he’s been stalking around this place all week like a bear with a headache and a hangover,” she snorted with something close to laughter, and I giggled, a little giddily, in return.
“And he wouldn’t tell me what was going on,” she continued. “I had to coax it all out of him. I think, despite it all, he wanted to keep it your secret. He wanted you to tell me.”
“Well, at least that’s something,” I muttered to myself, pinching the bridge of my nose and squeezing my eyes shut again. I couldn’t believe I was actually in the damn midst of having this conversation with my own mother. None of it made any sense, not one bit, not one jot. I was trying so hard to wrap my head around it, and yet, it still felt as though I was floating slightly outside my body, trying harder than I ever had before to return to earth. I still didn’t know how she was going to react to this. Her voice was careful, like she didn’t want to give anything away before she was ready.
“But I eventually got it out of him,” she sighed deeply, as though it had been a trail that she would rather not go over in her head. “And I know, Nia, I know everything that Nate told your father.”
“And?” I prompted her. I couldn’t wait any longer. I just needed to know how much trouble I was going to be when this was all over.
“And, I think you’re a grown-up who’s made a decision that she thinks is right for herself,” She replied, as though it should have been obvious. I paused for a moment, mouth hanging open dumbly – if my mom had been there in front of me she would have told me that I was trying to catch flies, going around like that.
“Are you serious?” I whispered, even though I wanted nothing more than to slam the phone down and claim that as the victory it was and make sure I didn’t give her space to say anything else that might contradict the words that had just come out of her mouth.
“Of course I am,” she promised me. “And…and I know your father might seem like he’s being unreasonable with this stuff, but he has his reasons for it, trust me.”
I fell silent. I wanted to know what those reasons were. I knew I should have just pulled back a couple of notches, that I should have left it there and taken it as a win, but after the way my father had spoken to me I knew there was a depth to this story that I was wildly intrigued by.
“Why?” I asked, trying to ignore the voice at the back of my head that was telling me asking that question was the dumbest idea I’d ever had in my life. Mom let out another long sigh, the static bursting into crackles in my ear. I wished she was there in front of me, so I could hug her and tell her how much this meant to me. For the time being, though, this would have to do.
“If you tell your father that I told you any of this, I will come down there and kick your butt myself,” she warned playfully, and I held a hand up even though she couldn’t see me.
“Hey, it’s cool, I can keep my mouth shut,” I assured her, more intrigued than ever now. I waited for her to continue, leaning back in my seat, staring at the ceiling.
“When the two of us first met, it wasn’t…it wasn’t very long until I got pregnant with you,” she explained. “I think a few months, at the most, by the time we found out.”
“A few months?” I gasped. I had never really put the numbers together in my head, counting back from my parents’ anniversary and my age, but they slotted together a little too closely now I thought of it.
“Yeah, it was pretty out of the blue,” she admitted, a light chuckle in her voice. “I can laugh about it now but at the time – at the time I’d never dealt with anything so scary in my entire life. And I don’t think your father ever entirely got over the shock of it, you know?”
“Holy crap,” I muttered again, this time not really caring about my language and if she deigned to tell me off about it. I was too interested in this story, the story of how I came to be.
“And I guess that when you came to him – or when Na
te did – telling him everything that had happened between you,” she continued. “He was just…he must have gone back to that time in his life in his head. I know he was so scared when I got pregnant and it took him so much to stick around and be the man he knew he should be for me. I supposed he was worried that Nate wouldn’t be that man for you.”
“He will be,” I replied softly, a smile curling up and on to my face. “I’m pretty certain of that.”
“He better be,” Mom replied sharply, making me laugh. But she fell silent again and I knew she was thinking once more, going over everything that she’d gotten out of my father, everything she’d heard from me.
“I think that was the moment when he made the transition from childhood to adulthood,” she went on. “And maybe…maybe that’s the problem here. Maybe that’s why he reacted so badly to you and Nate, because he sees this as his little girl slipping away from him. He finally sees that you’re growing up, I think, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.”
“So he dealt with it by screaming down the phone at me?” I replied. I was still a little bitter about the way he’d spoken to me that day, and I knew that I wouldn’t soon forget it, no matter how much Mom tried to mitigate the damage.
“Yeah, trust me, I already chewed him out for that,” she assured me. “And he’s not going to do anything like that again, let me tell you.”
“Thanks,” I replied, the word feeling small for the level of gratitude that I was trying to convey.
“You’re welcome,” she replied briskly, in that Mom way she had. And then she paused once more, as though trying to think of the best way to phrase what was about to come out of her mouth.
“Nate,” she began, slowly at first, like she was worried I would get spooked and hang up the phone if she came at me too aggressively. “He’s a good man, isn’t he?”
“He’s the best,” I gushed before I could stop myself. “We’ve been through a lot the last few months but he’s – he’s been honest with me about everything and I trust him.”
“Do you love him?” She asked, and I paused, asking the question myself for the first time, and the answer was utterly obvious.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Good,” she responded at once, her voice brisk and crisp, as though that was all she needed to hear. “I trust you, baby. And you know that I’m going to come down and visit soon to help you get everything set up, right?”
“What do you mean?” I frowned, and I could practically hear her rolling her eyes at the other end of the line.
“All the baby stuff! A nursery, a changing station…” She explained. “Goodness, you’re lucky that I’m not mad at you too or else this baby would come out of there with nothing prepared for it!”
“I’d have prepared something!” I protested, but honestly, I was just happy to know that I had my Mom on board with all of this. The thought of facing down this pregnancy without her was terrifying, but she was making it clear that she was totally and firmly on my side with all of this.
“Yeah, sure,” she teased, and then paused for a moment – I knew she wasn’t quite down with the serious stuff yet and I couldn’t say I blamed her. It had been a tough few weeks for me and I needed all the assurances I could get my greedy little hands on.
“Your father will come around, Nia,” she promised me. “You just need to give him time. And I know that – I know that it’s hard, but he loves you and he wants you to be happy. You just need to give him a little space to get where I am.”
“I know,” I replied softly, and felt this sudden lump in my throat. She was being so good to me, better than she had any right to be considering I’d just landed a surprise pregnancy on her. I loved her so much and I couldn’t wait to get to baby planning alongside her.
“Anyway,” She raised her voice again, as though blowing away the cobwebs of that conversation. “That’s quite enough of that, don’t you think?”
“Agreed!”
“So, when can I come down to get in your way?” She asked playfully. “Get your calendar out. I’m not waiting much longer.”
I pulled up the calendar app on my phone and grinned to myself. It was incredible how one phone call could make you feel all kinds of better about the situation that you found yourself in. Thank God for my mother, because with just five minutes of conversation, she had pulled me back down to Earth and reminded me how much I loved being a part of this family. And how much I couldn’t wait to welcome a new member into it.
Epilogue
“Where’s Nate?” Mom asked as she came bustling out of the kitchen once more, wiping her hands down on her apron and patting a strand of hair back behind her ear; she had stopped dyeing it, even though I had never known she had, and the grey was starting to come in. I thought it suited her. She certainly liked it, calling it her “grandmother” look. Even though it was still a few weeks until her first grandchild was coming into the world.
“I think he’s round the back with Dad?” I replied, getting to my feet to come help her in the kitchen, but before I could do anything meaningful she had all but shoved me back down into the seat and placed her hand on my shoulder to make sure that I didn’t move a damn muscle.
“Stay where you are,” she warned me, and I knew that there was no point in arguing with her. Ever since I had gotten pregnant she had all but fought to make sure that I did as little as humanely possible at every turn. I knew she was just trying to be helpful, but sometimes it felt more annoying than anything else – I was still an adult, and I could still take care of myself when the time called for it.
But I wasn’t going to start that argument again with her now – not when her and Dad had flown all the way up and across the country to make sure they could spend Thanksgiving with the two of us.
It was the first time I could remember spending Thanksgiving anywhere other than our family home, back in the house that I’d grown up in. But I guessed Mom took one look at me the last time the three of us had had a video-chat and had decided that I was in no damn shape to be getting on a plane and flying across the country to see them, even if Nate had offered up the use of his private jet to get me there; I was enormous and felt like every time I moved the ground shuddered beneath me, so I wasn’t even sure that an aircraft with me in it would get off the ground long enough to deposit me down at their place. After much back and forth and attempts by me to convince them that I could manage the train without too much trouble, I eventually reneged on my stance and let them come down to visit for the holidays. And now that I had, I was glad that I gave in, because the thought of having to travel when every part of me felt as though it was either going to fall off or explode was hideous.
I had to admit, though, that it was weird to have my Mom bustling around inside my kitchen. Sure, I’d only lived in this place a couple of months, but it was still my home and it was odd to have someone else in there, to lose some of my dominion over the place.
I had moved out of that little apartment of mine reluctantly, because even though I knew it was in no way, shape, or form equipped for raising a baby in, it was still my place, the first and only place I had lived by myself and the first place that Nate and I had ever really made a home for the two of us. He had sold his apartment, basically telling me that he didn’t need use of his bachelor pad for a moment longer, and I had been giddy with excitement when he had moved a couple of suitcases worth of belongings to my place. But, as the baby stuff started to add up, we had to concede that we needed somewhere bigger and closer to his work so he didn’t have to spend all his time on the commute every day. And we found it, the perfect place for the two of us. I had fantasised about a place like this since I was little, but had never truly believed that someone like me would ever be able to come up with the money for it. It was an old-fashioned townhouse, strikingly beautiful from the outside with the black metalwork and white exterior, and inside it had this wonderfully retro feel that was belied by the modern accoutrements that Nate and I had gone out of our way to
make sure were part of the place. Sure, it might have rather undercut the twentieth-century feel of the place to have a microwave, but I sure as hell wasn’t spending hours slaving over a hot stove cooking every single one of his meals from scratch and he would just have to find a way to get used to that.
As I sat in our gorgeous living room, feet up on the puff that sat in front of my chair, I could still remember vividly the first time the two of us had laid eyes on the place. He had wrapped his arms around my waist, laying his hands on my stomach as he often did, as though he was reminding himself just what we were doing this for.
“I think this is the place,” I murmured to him, and a smile a mile wide cracked over his face; we had been looking for weeks and nothing had felt quite right, but as soon as I walked through the door into this house I knew it was the place for us. It just had that feel to it already. I could see our kid running between rooms, trying to catch my attention or his, to show us something they had drawn or written or invented.
“I think it is too,” he agreed, and I closed my eyes and leaned up against him. Part of it was relief, because I had been worried that my pregnancy hormones would have rendered even the most perfect place irritatingly flawed in my eyes, but it was more than that. Being here with him, in this house that we were going to raise our child, maybe our children, in…it overwhelmed me, threatening to knock me straight back off my feet. I was glad he was there to catch me. He always was. He always would be.