4. CHAPTER FOUR
Hope waited until the house quieted to emerge from her room. Everyone else went off to add their bit of magic and expertise to the world. Dorothea settled in the great room with a worn copy of Pride and Prejudice while Aunt Bea probably painted in the hobby room.
Hope sidled into the kitchen for a fresh cup of coffee and one of Effie’s croissants.
It wasn’t that she wanted to avoid everyone, but it had been a rather abrupt pregnancy announcement, and she felt embarrassed by it.
It was an unsettling feeling. Usually, she didn’t like to hide behind shame or feel sorry for how she moved through the world.
She frequently took pleasure in being exactly too much for most people.
It was the circumstance of being a solitary bird, an odd duck.
Where others gathered friends, Hope gathered characters.
She was prone to living in the fantasies she wove and found little interest in making friends with living, breathing people.
However, the thought that nipped at her awareness while she savored the airy, buttery croissant was that it wouldn’t matter if she wanted it.
The world was not usually friendly with Hope Thatcher.
People found her eccentric and existential and ethereal.
All things she was proud to be, but that made barriers between her and the truly living.
Except in the case of her readers. They adored her and the world she created with her Web of Realms series. They took her weird and celebrated it.
Brayden did that too.
Hope took a pensive sip, letting the acidity of the coffee melt the decadence of the pastry.
She should have gone back upstairs and written.
She should have gone to tell Brayden about the baby.
Instead, she lifted another croissant from the basket and placed it on the bone china plate bedecked with paintings of wood thrushes and brambles.
The voracity with which she ate the second pastry left Hope with the realization that if she wasn’t careful, she might very well eat the Thatcher women out of house and home.
Hope thought Brayden would encourage it.
She believed once he knew about the pregnancy, he’d dote on her in more ways than he already did.
Their rare moments alone between her writing, his work and renovations, and the crazies that she lived with were filled with dinners out, foot rubs, and tender touches.
She could only imagine how he’d pamper her as a mother-to-be.
Hope’s hand drifted to her belly. It was all becoming so real. She’d read recently that she would soon feel the baby kicking. A terrifying and intriguing prospect.
It must have been the terror that appeared on her face because when Aunt Bea shuffled in, white hair piled on top of her head in a bun tied with a magenta bow, she said, “Heavens! Are you alright? ”
She scurried to the table and sat beside Hope, taking both of Hope’s hands in the wrinkled leather of her own.
“Yes, I’m sorry to frighten you. I was thinking about the baby starting to kick.” Beatrice let out an exaggerated sigh and squeezed Hope’s hands tightly.
“It hasn’t happened yet?”
“No, but it should soon, and I’m afraid I’ll hate it,” Hope confessed.
“I wish I could tell you what to expect,” Beatrice said, trailing off.
Hope offered her a warm smile. She may not have birthed any babies of her own, but Aunt Bea had been just as important to Hope and all the rest as they grew up.
“My only advice is to not let those next-generation Thatchers get under your skin.” She winked.
Hope’s smile was slow to rise. Those Thatchers were precisely the ones that she feared proving right.
Louisa, Ellen, Pamela, her mother. They all had such lousy experiences in their love lives and projected them onto her and Effie.
She feared they’d spoil her happiness with their worry, but it was more than that.
“I think I’m afraid of who I’ll be when the baby gets here. That I’ll lose what’s important to me now.”
Aunt Bea leaned back in her seat, and Hope could tell she was chewing over her words.
“Hm,” she mused. “I think the things that get lost along the way . . . the ones we put down and never remember to pick back up . . . those are probably things we outgrew anyway. The stuff that makes the heart sing demands to be picked up, even if it has to sit on the shelf a bit in wait.”
“And what if I never pick it back up?” It was too depressing a thought to consider, but it had wormed its way in almost as soon as the test read positive .
“Then I can only imagine it will mean you’ve found something that makes you even happier than writing.
But I don’t think you’ll stop. I can remind you to get to your laptop if you’d like .
. . and to go out with Effie and read vampire novels and sing in the shower.
You’ve got a lot of people that love you, my Hope.
They’ll remind you who you are, and I bet this baby will teach you a thing or two about yourself you never saw coming. Maybe this man of yours too?”
Hope leaned into Beatrice’s hand as she wiped the tear Hope hadn’t felt fall from her cheek. Aunt Bea was kindness untethered. “I think he will. I hope he will.” Hope looked down at her lap. Doubt and anxiety brewed in her belly despite the confessions of the morning.
“I have loved one man in my eighty-three years. I loved him and stopped looking, even after he was lost to the war in Vietnam. It is enough to know that it was real.”
“It’s been very real,” Hope whispered, the hint of a true smile on her lips.
“There’s no reason it shouldn’t continue as such,” Bea exclaimed, her chipper tone drawing a laugh from Hope. “Just give him grace if he is a little hurt that you waited so long to tell him?”
Hope glanced at Beatrice, a bit of guilt in her gaze. “I will,” she promised, but she still knew that love sometimes wasn’t enough. Her family reminded her of it constantly.
Hope nervously combed her fingers through her waist-length curls.
She slowed her pace. Her knee-high suede boots scuffed on the sidewalk as she pivoted back from whence she came.
She halted. Summoning her nerve, she spun around once more.
Her dark floral skirt fanned out around her.
It was a loose smock-style dress that she wore under a lightweight wool coat.
It was one of her favorites, and it had the added benefit of hiding the weight she’d gained in her lower belly.
If she was being honest, she’d popped in the last week or so.
Hope counted it as a miracle he hadn’t noticed a difference that morning.
But she needn’t flaunt how long she kept his baby a secret while she shared the news.
The crisp spring air prickled her lungs. The cacophony of birds back from their winter retreats was a welcome distraction to the worst-case scenarios on loop in her head. She doubted she’d be able to write a word, let alone twelve hundred, as was her goal for the day until she unburdened herself.
The brick storefronts of Market Square gave way to old Colonial houses and mills made into apartment buildings as she turned onto Islington Street.
Brayden was a few months away from finishing renovations on a beautiful home that was built in the early 1700s.
It had needed a lot of love, especially since it had to be restored from its abysmal time as a funeral home.
Soon, the iconic house on the corner of Islington and Bridge Street would be restored to its incomparable splendor.
Hope let herself imagine them raising their baby there together, in the home he’d always dreamed of owning.
Daydreams of picnic afternoons in the backyard and walking to Market Square for dinner lifted some of her fear.
Hope could clearly envision pushing a stroller to their favorite tapas bar on humid summer nights and snuggling on the couch for a movie as she came upon the rickety white picket fence that lined the front yard of the house.
Brayden should be inside.
He’d been using his lunch hour to meet with the few subcontractors he had hired to do the electrical and plumbing work. It was just about finished now, and he’d been very excited.
Hope hesitated.
In that moment, both truths existed—Brayden being overjoyed about the baby, and Brayden not wanting anything to do with fatherhood.
She knew which she believed to be more likely, which she yearned for.
But the reality was that one would become the truth as soon as she uttered the words, I’m pregnant .
As minuscule a chance the latter seemed, it was enough to quicken Hope’s pulse.
Until she remembered that morning.
Brayden dropping in on her and their proclamations of love were just what she needed.
He always managed to do that, instinctively knowing when to show up for her, even if he never knew how much it encouraged her.
They loved each other. This was good news she brought to his door. Nerves had no place here. Only joy.
Hope charged through the front gate and up the stone walkway.
The barren landscape needed tending. Last spring, cosmos bloomed all around the front yard.
Then, her favorite flowers seemed like a sign that she and Brayden were meant to be.
She’d seen no other explanation for the traditionally annual blossoms to have welcomed her here after their first month of dating.
A genuine smile made her cheeks ache as she reached the door.
It vanished the instant a leggy redhead with sumptuous lips and eyes the color of milk chocolate stepped out to meet her. Hope did her best not to gawk.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
Hope was confused. How was this woman acting like she belonged? Hope was the one who picked the tile for the primary bathroom, the one who had imaginary picnics in the backyard. “I’m here to see Brayden,” Hope said, trying to un-ruffle as she went for the door. The redhead stepped in front of her.
“He’s not here right now.” There was a sharpness to her tone and her eyes burned into Hope. The air was suddenly too thick. “Why are you here?”
“I just—“
“Oh, you must be the designer he’s been raving about. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Chloe.”
“Chloe?” Hope choked out as if her morning sickness flared up. Chloe’s eyes narrowed. Hope didn’t want to know more. She couldn’t quite fill her lungs.
“Brayden’s wife?” Chloe insisted, clearly pained by Hope’s ignorance.
Hope recovered as best she could, but the crushing weight at her chest threatened to topple her into the dying rose bushes.
Bile burned at her throat, and she thought she might vomit all over Chloe’s perky chest. Everything went silent.
Had her heart stopped? She had to get out of there.
“Right, Chloe. I’m sorry. I have so many clients this spring that it’s a little hard to keep everyone straight.
Especially when I’ve only spoken with your . . . your husband.”
Chloe’s face brightened, while Hope’s turned to ash. “No apologies necessary! I’m glad he’s been using you to make decisions around here while I’ve been away.”
“Using me. Yes,” Hope echoed. She turned her wrist over, pretending to check the time. She couldn’t stomach another second on this stoop. “You know what? I had our meeting time wrong. I’ll—I’ll have to reschedule with him.”
“Anything I can help you with?” Chloe chimed, her face wholly unreadable.
“No. Sorry to bother you,” Hope said and fully meant it. She hurried off the steps and out into the street, turning left toward Market Square. She needed to be surrounded by people, happy, living people who wouldn’t remind her just how disappointing men could be.