Chapter 4
Abby
Seven Weeks
Iwasn’t expecting how much lighter I would feel after finally telling someone, but I feel like I’ve been freed from the metaphorical shackles I’ve been dragging around for the last week. Once I let Jack in on the big news about Little One, telling everyone else felt infinitely easier.
“I can’t believe you didn’t call me immediately,” Ellie sniffs indignantly. “You’ve been growing a person for a whole week, and I have been none the wiser. And even worse, you told JACK.”
“What the hell is so wrong about telling me?” Jack asks, looking taken aback.
“It’s not about you, Jacky boy, you know I love you,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “It’s about the best-friendship betrayal.”
“I was having a bit of a meltdown, Ellie Bellie,” I say soothingly, waiting for the wave of theatrics to pass.
“I know,” she says, face softening. “Oh, my sweet ginger angel–we’re having a baby.”
“We’re having a baby,” I repeat back, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.
“Who is ‘we’?” Jack interjects, a bemused smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.
“Have you been living under a rock?” Ellie says in a patronizing tone. “We’re family.”
“It takes a village, Jack Robbit,” I respond, grinning when he rolls his eyes at the old nickname that’s never gone away. “Haven’t you heard?”
“What is he right now, like a lima bean?” Griffin says, eyes wide with awe as he stares at my stomach.
“Stop staring at my stomach, you’re freaking me out. And don’t compare Little One to a fruit or vegetable, I hate when people do that.”
“We’ll find a different scale then,” Ellie coos, leaning in close to my belly. “What size are you right now, tiny ginger angel?”
“We don’t know the baby will have red hair,” I say pragmatically. “And we don’t know if it’s a he, Griffin.”
“It’s a he,” he says, nodding like he’s said something wise and profound. “Definitely a he.”
“Well, I think she is going to be a perfect little ginger mini-you,” Ellie says defiantly, still very close to me.
I gently shove her away, reclaiming my personal space. My eyes meet Jack’s across the room as he rolls them playfully. I think he seems lighter, too. Like he needed someone to pull him out of his own grief the way Little One pulled me out of mine, even temporarily.
“You two fight like an old married couple,” he mutters.
“We are an old married couple,” they say in unison.
“You’re barely in your thirties.”
“Like we said,” Griffin says with an exaggerated sigh. “Ancient. Decrepit. One foot in the grave.”
“Sorry, babe, you’re not getting out of it that easily,” Ellie says with a smirk. “You’ve got at least another fifty years of this.”
“Unless you don’t,” I say quietly.
The room freezes, suddenly so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
“Abby, we’re sorry,” Griffin says, a horrified look on his face. “That was stupid, we were just–”
“I know, Griffin, it’s okay,” I say reassuringly, mustering a small smile. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. Thirty used to feel old to me, too.”
Until it didn’t.
“But not so old that we can’t keep up with our perfect, precious little girl,” Ellie says, breaking the tension and resuming baby talk directed right at my uterus.
“Boy or girl doesn't matter to me,” I say simply. “As long as Little One is healthy and happy.”
Ellie and Griffin launch into a back-and-forth about boy versus girl, and I lean back, the unexpected wave of grief receding slowly. Some days it’s ever-present and all-consuming. But days like today, when I have something else to focus on, it can hit me out of nowhere, like a rogue wave.
Jack catches my eye, brow furrowed in concern. I’m okay, I mouth at him silently. He nods once, still looking tense, but letting out the breath he was holding.
You are so loved already, Little One, I say silently to myself, gazing at the spot where I’ve folded my hands over my lower stomach. Listen to the way Uncle Griffin and Auntie Ellie are bickering over you.
Without warning, the front door slams open, shaking the window panes and echoing through the house.
“WHERE IS SHE?” David roars, barrelling down the stairs into the basement. He stumbles on the last step, sending himself catapulting into the back of the couch. He leaps to his feet as though nothing has happened and points at me accusingly.
“YOU!”
“Me?” I say, pointing to myself and raising my eyebrows. “What have I done this time?”
“You are growing my new best friend, and I can’t miss a single second of that!” He kneels in front of me, grabbing my forearms and staring intently at my midsection. “Do you hear me, fetus? We are going to be best friends. Funcle David is here, don’t you fret.”
“Good Lord,” Ellie says, and Griffin runs a hand wearily down his face. Jack sits slowly down on the chair he had half-risen from, eyes locked on me and looking a little pale.
David sure knows how to make an entrance.
“Well, I guess that would make sense,” Griffin sighs. “Since you’ll have the same maturity level. At least until he turns five.”
“She will be more mature than him straight out of the womb,” Ellie corrects.
“Whatever, dude,” David says, eyes still fixed as if he can see straight through to Little One. “Don’t listen to them, fetus. You and I are going to have so much fun together. We’ll be partners in crime.”
“Please don’t corrupt my child before they’ve even left the womb,” I laugh. “Let Little One be sweet for at least a little while.”
“Whatever you say, mama,” David says, grinning mischievously. “Whatever you say.”
***
My next stop was much more emotional. Dad immediately started sobbing, monologuing at length about how proud he is of me and how excited he is to be a grandpa.
“If you thought I spoiled you, just you wait until my grandchild gets here,” he said, beaming even through his tears. “Ol’ Pop Pop is going to give you the world.”
“Is that what we’re landing on?”
He looked at me aghast, as if any other suggestion would be ludicrous.
Pop Pop it is.
“But how are you doing, Red?”
The nickname I’ve had since childhood triggers a strange feeling–what kind of things will I call Little One? What would Aaron have called them? How many other things are going to slap me in the face when I realize he’ll miss out on them?
“I’m okay.” I’m unable to keep the emotion at bay as my voice cracks, tears immediately welling as they’re wont to do lately. “I just…Daddy, I never wanted to do this on my own.”
His face drops, sorrow filling his eyes in a way I haven’t seen since the aftermath of my stepmom walking out.
When she abandoned my dad and baby brother in the same way mom had abandoned me, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t bring a child into this world unless I was absolutely, unequivocally sure that I was doing it with a partner that wouldn’t leave me.
I didn’t consider that there’s more than one way to be left.
“And that’s not because of anything you did,” I emphasize. “You handled everything with so much strength, and I know you had no other choice, and I never felt any less loved for only having one parent. You were more than enough for me, you always will be.”
The tears spilling over onto my cheeks match his own.
“But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know how hard it was on you. And I just…I didn’t want that. And I feel so guilty about that, because I don’t want you to think I wish things were different.”
“I do,” my dad says in a strained voice. “I do wish it were different. I wish you and your brother both had known the love of a mother. I tried to be both but,” he pauses, swallowing hard. “But there’s something about a mom that’s irreplaceable.”
The sorrow in his eyes is suddenly replaced by something much more hopeful.
“And you, my darling Red, are going to make a great one. I hate that you’re doing this without Aaron, but I know that you’ll be ten times better at doing this alone than I was.”
“Oh, Daddy,” I say, crossing the room and climbing into his lap where he lounges in the recliner, feeling five years old again. “If I’m even half the parent you are, I’ll be happy.”
We fall into silence, my angel of a father stroking my hair until I feel strong enough to stand again.
After bracing myself, I went up the carpeted stairs to my brother’s room. He…well, there’s no other way to put it. He freaked the hell out.
“You have to give birth? Isn’t that going to hurt? How do you even take care of a baby?”
“Thank you, Nathan, that’s very helpful,” I said, unable to keep the irritation from my tone.
“Sorry,” he muttered in return. “A whole ass baby. That shit’s crazy.”
“A whole ass baby,” I say, nodding my head solemnly. “You’re going to be a whole ass uncle.”
The disgusted look that crosses his face is the last reaction I expected from him.
“What, you don’t want to be an uncle?”
“Are you kidding me?” he asks exasperatedly. “Of course I do. I just realized that to get pregnant, you had to have sex. I don’t want to think about that.”
“Nate, I’ve been married for five years. You can’t just now be realizing that.”
“I think my brain blocked it out,” he shudders. “Like how you suppress memories when something traumatic happens to you? The thought of my sister doing…that is beyond traumatizing.”
“Well I’m so sorry to burst your bubble, but married people do have sex.”
“Can we stop talking about this please? You’re freaking me out,” he groans, hiding his face in his pillow.
“You’re the one that brought it up, dweeb,” I point out.
Nathan might be a full decade younger than me, but that didn’t stop us from bickering the way all siblings do.
Dad always made sure that I never felt like I needed to be a surrogate mom, which gave me ample time to be an annoying older sister.
Once he got past the shock and the perks of being an uncle dawned on him, his tune changed drastically. By the time I left, he was already on the internet, searching for the best t-ball starter kit and ‘How To Be An Uncle For Dummies’.
And I was thanking my lucky stars that Little One will have two of the most wonderful men in the world in their corner.
***
My last stop was one I’d been putting off for as long as possible.
I don’t know why it filled me with so much anxiety–Alan and Andrea have always been exceedingly kind to me, and never treated me like anything less than their own daughter.
But with every step up the walkway to my in-laws’ house, my heart sank further and further.
Inhaling a shaky breath, I knocked on the door. Alan answered it, his face weary, shoulders curved inward under the weight of grief that we’d all become much too familiar with.
“My dear Abby,” he said with a sad smile, reaching up to stroke my cheek. “Come in. Andrea is in the sitting room.”
She was looking out of the window without really seeing, wrapped in a dark shawl with her graying hair pulled up into a bun.
As we walked in, she turned to face us, and my heart nearly split in two at the dark shadows under her eyes.
Those same shadows have stared back at me every time I looked in the mirror for nearly a month and a half.
I’ve only really begun sleeping again because the first-trimester fatigue has been coming on strong. A blessing and a curse, really.
“Hi, Andrea,” I said quietly, sinking in next to her on the deep, padded couch. “I’m sorry I haven’t come over sooner.”
“It’s okay, dear,” she said, patting me on the hand. “We haven’t come over either. It’s funny, isn’t it? How it feels like an eternity has passed, and yet somehow also no time at all?”
I nodded silently, fully understanding what she meant.
“Well,” I said slowly, “I wanted to come by today because I have some news to share with you.”
“Are you okay?” Alan asked, brow furrowing in concern.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Nothing is wrong. The opposite, in fact.”
Taking in a deep breath, I gave them the news I’d been dreading sharing with them.
“I know this must be a shock,” I said quickly. “And please know that I don’t expect anything from you. I just wanted you to know.”
“Expect anything from us?” Andrea said, looking confused.
“Like, monetarily or anything,” I replied. “Or coming to appointments, or anything like that. I can’t imagine how this must feel, God knows I’ve had so many complicated feelings about it, and–”
“Abigail Thompson, I want you to listen to me right now,” Alan interrupted.
“Our son may be gone,” he choked out. “But that doesn’t mean you stopped being our daughter.
Baby or not, we are always going to be your family.
Expect anything from us? It will be a joy and a privilege to love you and our grandbaby. And to support you in any way we can.”
He rose from his rocking chair and joined us on the couch, and the three of us held each other and cried together until none of us had any tears left.
“I love you so much,” I said, my voice sounding odd through my stuffy nose. “And I want this Little One to know their grandparents–the incredible people that raised their father. So much of him came from you, and that’s a bond you’ll share forever. And I am so thankful for it.”
After much more hugging and crying, I left their house and made my way back to my own. Now that everyone knows, the reality has truly set in. Little One won’t just be a blend of Aaron and me, but the entire sum of everyone who has ever loved us.
How lucky we both are.