Chapter 40 Nancy
FORTY
NANCY
Three Years Later
“She’s very happy about this outfit.” I laugh, feeling the baby kick as I run my hand over the tiny gingham onesie.
Karl’s hand is on my belly half a second later. “You’ll be in it soon enough, baby girl,” he coos, making me melt.
If this is how I am with him talking to my belly, I don’t know how I’m going to survive seeing him talk to an actual baby. And not just any baby, our baby. It’s probably a good thing I’ll be in the hospital because they’ll probably have to revive me constantly.
“It’s basically baby couture,” Celeste says, rolling her eyes. “Our mother was quite insistent that I let you know, as it has very specific washing instructions.”
Flipping the tag over, a laugh bursts out of me. “Who buys a newborn dry-clean-only clothing?” It’s super cute, but I have a feeling it’s going to be stored under our bed in a certain Northern Reflections bag I’ve never felt the need to pull out.
“Why does this exist?” Celeste’s boyfriend, Luke, asks. “My nephew would destroy that before it even got on his body. How do we not get something like that as a gift?”
“I’ll tell her,” my sister insists.
This is the third year my sister has joined us for Christmas morning.
It is the first time Luke has joined her.
While he’s in the horse world, he’s on the western side of things, a fact that nearly ended our mother.
I wasn’t sure at this point what was worse, me marrying a dairy farmer or my sister falling for a cowboy.
At least Celeste was still riding, still competing, and making the barn look good.
But then again, my sister thrives on the back of a horse, under pressure, in a way I never did.
“She asked if you had room for a pony here,” my sister whispers while we’re walking up the lane to the main house. “I told her that was something she should maybe ask you in a couple of years.”
I sigh and run my hand over my belly. “I’m not going to stop her from riding if that’s what she wants to do, but it won’t be for a few years. And even if she wants to ride, our mother isn’t going anywhere near her when she’s on a horse.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I told her I’d be her instructor,” she assures me.
“That kid is going to learn how to stay on a horse but have fun doing it. After all, you were able to find the fun in it again.” She’s right.
But half the fun is watching Karl try to stay balanced in an English saddle.
I’m not sure he’s going to stick with it, but I know he puts his enjoyment of it second because he sees mine.
Slipping my arm through Celeste’s, I pull her closer to me.
Still amazed how far we’ve come over the last few years.
My parents have come around somewhat. Hell, my mother doesn’t sneer at Karl nearly as often, and they had us over for dinner before they left for Europe this year.
I know my sister has played a part in that, although I don’t know how she managed it.
Perhaps she threatened to quit or jump ship to a competitor's barn. Either way, I’m fairly confident my daughter is going to have two sets of grandparents to be spoiled by.
“Thank you,” I whisper, fighting through the lump of emotion that has lodged itself in my throat.
“For what?”
“Being the buffer.”
She shrugs. “I figured you did it for long enough. The least I could do was step in for a bit. I feel just as protective over her as you do.” She nods down to where my coat bulges. “Gotta protect that little light for as long as possible.”
It took two years of trying to get to this point.
Two years of desperately hoping we’d get to hear a heartbeat.
Two years of crying in the shower, hiding my pain from the man who held my hand in a vise grip at every appointment and then on the long drive home.
Two very long years of feeling like a failure because I couldn’t seem to stay pregnant.
My body refusing to cooperate over and over again.
And then, a heartbeat. I’d cried then, not tears of joy though. I was terrified because the thought of not hearing it again was crushing. Seeing Karl’s face fall as he valiantly tried to put on a brave face for me was something I never wanted to witness again.
For the first three months, he practically supervised every move I made, and if he wasn’t with me, Elizabeth was.
Karl didn’t even like the idea of me using a knife, something I had to put my foot down about.
There was being a protective, doting husband, and then there was being a paranoid, smothering husband.
I hadn’t cried tears of joy until I felt her kick. Karl had come home to find me curled around my stomach on the bed sobbing, and he panicked. Which was fair, but then I’d pulled him down onto the bed, taken his hands, and placed them over where she was auditioning for Riverdance.
The elation on his face was seared into my memory.
“How long?” he asked in wonder.
“An hour.” I laughed. “It’s the weirdest feeling.”
“I bet,” he said, tapping back after every little flourish of her feet. “Feels like Morse code.” He grinned.
“Oh? You know Morse code, husband?”
“I may just,” he teased, his fingers moving in a sporadic pattern of taps.
“What did you just say?”
He gave a couple of taps. “I can’t”—tap, tap—“wait to”—tap, tap, tap—“meet you.”