Chapter 61 Rebecca

Eloise’s broken engagement had cracked over Rebecca’s head like a dinner plate.

The fancy kind of plates she and Tom had been gifted for their wedding and hadn’t used yet because Rebecca was scared to break

them. But sometimes it didn’t do any good to wait to use good things. Sometimes you should use them right away, before they

broke themselves.

Rebecca didn’t express her disappointment as vocally as Gigi, nor with as much volatility, but it was a blow, especially when

she’d pored over Clyde’s books and let herself think he might become something of a father figure. It now felt like wasted

time, for both herself and her mother. Since the breakup, she’d spent hours on the phone with Eloise and with Gigi. Their

reasonings for why the engagement failed didn’t totally match up, but the outcome was the same: Clyde was gone, and they were

hurting.

“I need to think of something to cheer up my mom,” Rebecca told Tom over a Moroccan fish dinner the day Clyde had purportedly

left Mackinac. “Gigi too.”

“Why don’t we tell your mom about the baby?” Tom suggested.

“It’s still not quite three months yet,” Rebecca said. But she decided Tom was right, so she FaceTimed Eloise from the beach

the next afternoon, a fresh collection of Petoskey stones drying on her towel.

“I nearly committed to moving to Scotland with a grandchild on the way?” Eloise yelped. “How could you have let me? My intuition was telling me to stay, I could feel it. And here it

is, the proof in the pudding.”

Eloise babbled on with joy and then put Nonni on the phone so Rebecca could share the news twice over. “I thought you looked

a little fuller when you came over the Fourth,” Nonni said. “Didn’t I say that, Eloise?”

When Rebecca explained that she wasn’t even three months along, Nonni hastily said she only meant that Rebecca was “a little

rounder in the face, only because of how wide you were smiling.”

“Something could still happen with the pregnancy,” Rebecca cautioned. “It’s still early.”

“Either way, you’re carrying a baby,” Nonni said. “I love my Penelope so much even though we never got to take her home from

the hospital. Your pop felt that way too. Whenever people asked how many children we had, we said two. One heaven-side and

one earth-side.”

Rebecca hadn’t thought about it this way. That whatever happened, no one could take away that she held this child inside of

her today, that she had been for the past ten weeks. This baby was always going to be hers.

In the background, Gigi was boasting about how she already knew the news, how Rebecca had told her first. “I’m getting to

name the baby too,” Gigi said.

There was too much excitement for anyone to find much critique in this, though Rebecca knew they would later.

“Tom and I are coming to Mackinac for a fall weekend soon,” Rebecca said. “Apple cider and donuts and all that. We’re bringing

our friends.”

Next-door neighbor Kaley and her husband were coming. Rebecca’s maid of honor, Maggie, and her husband were coming too, flying up from North Carolina. She was excited to get them all together, to blend the different chapters of her life.

“But don’t be pushy about having us move back,” Rebecca went on. “We’re very happy in Traverse City.”

It wasn’t even a stretch to say that these days.

Kaley’s endorsement seemed to have done the trick, and Rebecca and Tom found themselves at the center of the neighborhood

social scene. That, combined with a writing workshop Rebecca had started going to every Wednesday at the local library, had

helped cure her ennui. She was still terrified of having people judge her writing, but she no longer found that a good enough

reason not to write. Reading Clyde’s books had stoked her own literary ambitions. She didn’t need to be in a PhD program,

though maybe she would enroll in one down the line. She could start writing now and see where it led. Tom joined the class

when he could, too, and they had turned over a new creative stone in their marriage.

“I won’t ask Mr. Townsend to take you around and show you houses,” Eloise promised.

Nonni made a strange grunting sound. Rebecca had long suspected something might be going on between her grandmother and Liam.

“Though if you want to buy, you might want to do it soon,” Gigi said. “Real estate is about to skyrocket under my leadership.”

“Like I told Gigi,” Rebecca said with a smile, “moving back is in our five-year plan.”

“Five years!” Eloise exclaimed as if Rebecca had said five hundred.

“Eloise,” Nonni chided.

Eloise quickly put her hands over her mouth. “Sorry, sorry, not my place. It’s so nice to see you thriving.”

And she sounded like she really meant it.

“Does your dad know?” Eloise went on. “About the baby?”

Rebecca noted how she said your dad , not Dad , like she usually did. A layer of distance inserted, a signal that the divorce papers carried some weight. “Do you really think I would tell him before you?”

Eloise looked gratified. “Tell him when you’re ready. He’ll be thrilled.”

“He’ll probably spiral into an existential crisis about how old he’s getting and disappear to Bali,” Rebecca said. “You don’t

have to defend him, you know.”

“I’m not defending him ,” Eloise said. “I just want my girls to get what you both deserve from that relationship. You only get one father.”

“Almost got two,” Gigi said. “If you hadn’t vetoed Clyde.”

Gigi could smile, showing how far she’d already come. It was good that she had the election to pour herself into. It seemed

to be electrifying her the way that unsavory relationships and illegal substances used to.

“Dad has my number,” Rebecca said. “He can call if he wants to know about my life.”

It was a big shift for her. Boundaries drawn, in sand, not stone, but they were boundaries nonetheless. There was some sadness

as the distance set in, but Rebecca reflected on how the distance had already been there. She was just acknowledging it now,

respecting it. She would always give her dad the chance to close it if he wanted to.

Eloise and Nonni began rattling through the long list of baby things they had hoarded for this very day (strollers and onesies,

toys and picture books, car seats and diapers). “I think I’ve still got some freeze-dried formula in the basement,” Nonni

said.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s still good,” Gigi said dryly. “Okay, are you ready to hear the baby’s name?” She didn’t wait for Rebecca

to reply, just blurted it out. “Jenkins! That’s the name!”

There was a beat of silence.

Eloise pinched her face.

“Jenkins isn’t a first name,” Nonni said.

“Who says it can’t be?” Gigi said.

Rebecca’s first reaction was to roll her eyes, tell Gigi to please take this assignment more seriously. But the longer the name sank in, the more Rebecca liked it. If it was a girl, she could go by Jenny.

Tom was a fan too, when she told him that evening on the way to their writing workshop. “Jenkins is an ideal name for a pro

athlete!” he said. “Or an artist,” he added quickly.

“Or an artist,” Rebecca agreed happily.

Your “Jenkins” proposal has officially been approved , Rebecca texted Gigi.

I knew you’d find a way to get back at me for changing my name when I got married.

This is it , Gigi replied. This is my retribution.

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