Chapter 13 No News Is Good News #2
It took a moment or two for the reality of those words to settle in. Una leaned back, baffled.
“A… A baby?”
“Aye,” Kyla laughed. “I’m pregnant. It’s early days, and I’m hoping I won’t vomit like this all the way through. The healer thinks not.”
Una gave an incredulous laugh, reaching out to take her friend’s hand. “I can’t believe it. So soon!”
“Aye, I thought I had a few years more of marriage before a baby came,” Kyla laughed, but there was an undercurrent of nerves in her voice.
“Does Thomas know?”
Kyla nodded. “He’s thrilled but afraid, just like me.
I mean, I’ve chosen a terrible time. Now, of all times!
When we’re on the run, we’re at risk of death, at risk of starving, of everything.
My father could still get his hands on me…
” she trailed off, shuddering. “I dread to think what he’d do to me or to my babe. ”
“Don’t think of that now,” Una said instantly. “Ye say yer timing is bad, but there’s naught can be done about it now. But a baby, Kyla! Ye are going to have a baby!”
Kyla broke into a smile. “I cannot believe it. Me! A mother!”
They giggled together, voices high and bright, and for a moment, Una wasn’t a once-slave-turned-warrior. She was just a lass, laughing with her friend about some good news.
“Are ye happy about the news? Really, truly happy?”
Kyla nodded eagerly. “I am. At first, I was terrified. And like I said, it’s early days. Thomas is thinking of names already, and truly, I cannot think that far ahead. It’s… It feels like a dream.”
“I can imagine.”
Kyla drew up her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
She stared wistfully out of the window. For a moment, they sat in companionable silence.
Una leaned back, staring up at the strip of blue sky she could see through the window.
Heavy clouds scudded across the blueness. There’d be rain later.
“I never thought of having babes,” Kyla said at last, her voice small.
“I suppose I always thought that my father would catch me or that I would somehow die before I could fall in love. I never dreamt I would meet a man like Thomas. I never dreamt I’d marry.
And I’d never dreamt…” she trailed off, her hand floating down to press over her belly.
There was barely a hint of a curve there, no sign at all that a tiny life was growing inside her. And yet Una knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was true.
A baby, she thought wonderingly.
“Did you ever imagine ye would have a babe of yer own?” Kyla asked, her voice cutting through Una’s thoughts.
Una swallowed. “I never thought of it,” she answered, honestly enough. “I never dared. While I was a slave at Keep Dickson, I barely imagined that I would live to see the year, the next month, the next day. I certainly never thought about a future.”
“Did ye imagine falling in love?” Kyla asked, leaning forward and resting her chin on the top of her knees.
Una shook her head. “Never.”
That was true, wasn’t it? She’d never imagined being in love. What was the point? Love didn’t live in Keep Dickson, everybody knew that. Marriages were arranged by the Laird and arranged solely for the benefit of the clan.
Una let herself imagine it for the first time in longer than she could remember.
She imagined a wedding day—her wedding day—hand in hand with a man who she loved.
In her imagination, she stared down at his hand, watching long, strong fingers wrapped around hers.
She didn’t let herself look up. She knew whose face she’d see if she looked up.
She imagined a life growing inside her. A baby.
Now, Una wasn’t a fool. She knew that birthing a baby and raising a child were nothing easy.
She’d seen women laboring to give birth, screaming and bleeding.
She’d watched harried new mothers stumble through life, exhausted and terrified of doing something wrong.
She’d seen parents try—and fail—to marshal their unruly offspring, shouting and yelling, racing after toddlers who seemed to run faster than a grown man. It was almost funny.
Yes, raising bairns was hard, but Una knew that it would be.
Weren’t the best things in life hard to do, though?
“I would like to have a family,” Una said, all in a rush. She gave a wry smile once she’d said it. “I think I would.”
At that moment, a distant door opened, and voices drifted their way. Kai appeared first, hand in hand with Astrid. Thomas appeared, flushed and eager, and hurried towards Una and Kyla.
“He was going to tell them today,” Kyla whispered, beaming. “About the baby.”
Astrid released her husband’s hand, breaking into a light run to reach them first.
“Wonderful news about the babe, Kyla!” Astrid said breathlessly. “I was so thrilled to hear of it.”
“Aye, so was I,” Kai responded, grinning. “We need a wee bit of good news.”
Thomas approached last, reaching out for his wife’s hand. Kyla smiled up at him, her eyes soft, and he looked back at her with an expression of such earnest adoration that Una had to look away.
“I know the timing is bad—” Kyla began, but Astrid interrupted.
“Think nothing of that,” she said firmly. “We are happy. All of us. This new life, it… it means something. It’s an omen, if ye believe in that sort of thing. It means that change is coming. We’re going to take care of ye, Kyla.”
“Aye,” Una chimed in. “Dinnae fret, lass.”
“Hard not to fret at a time like this, I imagine,” Kai chuckled.
He glanced over at Una and smiled. She smiled back, and it felt like understanding between them.
Perhaps we’ve turned a corner at last.