Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
“Women are basically sorceresses.”
During the following days, reality hit hard.
I was eight weeks pregnant, fighting nausea with ginger and overwhelming tiredness with naps.
I was bracing myself to tell Adam and Dad, but after work I usually fell asleep on the living room sofa before I managed to talk to them or make it to my bedroom upstairs.
But I always seemed to wake up with a blanket someone wrapped caringly over me.
Paul fell off the face of the earth. He didn’t come to work for two weeks: no contact, no drunken messages, radio silence. Mia learned through the ever-reliable office gossip that he was in Portland on a “mental health break” but planned to come back. I couldn’t imagine what that meant.
“Would it be the worst thing if he were out of the picture?” she said, thinking loudly.
Mia didn’t start with small talk. She never did when it mattered.
We sat on my patio, Nanaimo’s old town humming to the north, with mountain peaks visible in the distance ahead, leaves and acorns swirling down from the trees as they were pushed by the cool autumn air.
Two mugs of tea were cooling between the questions she was, rightly, challenging me to answer.
Conversations that Paul, in his brokenness, had deprived us of.
I didn’t reply at first. Because—honestly?—I didn’t know the answer. I never expected a fairytale. I had one shot at flying, one shot at what I thought was love—neither landed the way I hoped. At least, not yet.
I let out a shaky breath. “I keep thinking… if Paul was simply present, no love, no relationship. Just present. Maybe all this would feel easier. You know, he had this stupid aura that used to make me calmer, ironically. But I know that’s bullshit now.
It would probably sting more if he were around. ”
“Yeah,” Mia agreed gently. “And this isn’t about him anymore. At least now it’s you and only you who decides what to do and how to move forward—he removed himself from that equation. So… where’s your head at?”
I knew what she meant. The other choice I’d been circling for days without landing. I stared out at the skyline, fingers wrapped around the mug like it could steady me and give me the answer like a magic eight ball.
“I saw the heartbeat last week,” I said quietly, surprising even myself by leading with that.
Mia let the words settle, as if she understood that the information was a decision in the making.
“I remember,” she murmured. “That changes things.”
“It shouldn’t. Change things,” I admitted. “It’s just… a flicker on a screen, a blip, a quarter of an inch, but it didn’t feel that way.”
Mia nodded, pulling her knees to her chest. “It’s wild, isn’t it? Two hearts in one body. Women are basically sorceresses.”
“With every passing day, the choice is going to be harder, won’t it?
It’s this weird connection that’s building in me, this voice buzzing in my head, impossible to ignore.
The possibility of… life. On the other hand, and it may sound horrible, I have to be realistic.
No partner, no place to myself yet. Dad has enough problems of his own; he’s not fully mobile.
Adam will be in California soon. Dream of flying postponed, again—just when I started feeling I could be ready, saved up enough for redoing my license.
I barely have enough energy to stay awake after work. ”
She glanced at me then and stopped me mid-thought. “You think I’m here to tell you what’s practical? Or what I would do?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m here to remind you that either choice is going to hurt.
I can’t imagine existing without Talia. Kids don’t always bring happiness, but they give life meaning.
But you need to feel you want that kind of meaning, at this moment in time, in this situation,” she said, blunt but kind.
“And you’re allowed to sit with that, you don’t have to be brave today—maybe tomorrow, though, before you get all the feels. ”
We sat in silence for a while, watching the clouds drift like they had all the time in the world.
“I don’t know what I want, yet,” I whispered eventually. “But I know I don’t want fear making the choice for me.”
Mia reached over, squeezing my hand once before letting go. “Then you’re already ahead of most people.”
I didn’t plan when to tell them, and there was undoubtedly no right moment to drop a bomb like that between reheated dinners and background weather reports, especially since they didn’t know half of the story.
They barely knew there was a guy. Somewhat.
So it just… came out. Adam was halfway through complaining about how stupid the idea of homework is, when I cut in.
“I’m pregnant.”
Silence. Heavy, immediate and deeply uncomfortable for all. Adam blinked at me, like I’d spoken in a language he didn’t understand. Dad set down his fork, slower than necessary.
“Wait… what?” Adam’s voice cracked, eyebrows shooting up. “That guy sneaking out of our place at night? And not even bothering to show up to meet us when it mattered? You’ve got to be kidding me. Where the hell is he now?”
“Gone,” I said. “Portland. Probably for good. I haven’t seen him in weeks, not since I told him.”
Adam’s face flushed with anger. “What kind of asshole?” He stopped himself, running a hand through his golden brown hair. “I mean… you’re you. How does anyone walk away from you?”
I almost smiled, but it got stuck somewhere in my chest.
“That’s life, Adam, it happened, and it is what it is now.” I had nothing smarter to say.
“Life… Holy shit, am I going to be an uncle??”
“Slow down, future uncle. That’s exactly what I wanted to talk about—the reality check. I need to create a list to see how much we can save, if it’s possible. You know, to keep… it.”
Dad cleared his throat that second, drawing both our attention.
“This is all… a lot to take in.” He said simply, his expression unreadable. My minimalist dad.
Awkward silence. Just forks clinking on plates, and even Adam went quiet.
“I know, Dad, I know it’s not…” I interrupted when I saw my dad’s face, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks.
“My daughter is having a baby…” he muttered.
Before I could say anything else or try to turn this around, Dad stood up slowly, shakily, from his chair, took his crutches, and walked toward me, struggling, but with purpose.
“Alicia.” He stopped. Took a pause, caught his breath, hugged me so tight I could barely catch mine. And then he continued: “This is the best day of my life.”
His hug, his tears, and what he said hit hard: he was so strong in his frailty, saying the only necessary words, no more, no less, and it was the most reassuring thing I’d felt in days.
This is what love should feel like, I thought.
When the emotions settled—as much as they could—Dad shifted into his usual mode: worry disguised as practical questions.
Was I eating enough protein? (“You’ve lost weight.
”) Was my doctor any good? (“Healthcare’s a mess these days. Worse than when your mother had you”).
We still discussed finances and practicalities, the part that was most stressful for me: how much I could still save from work at Tommo, the insurance I was still receiving after the accident, Dad’s small pension, the bills I was now covering, and the repairs that needed to be done around the house.
Adam said that he’d adjust his ambitious plan of smoking weed and meeting women at Stanford, and might get “one of those jobs or selling a kidney” to cover his food and accommodation.
The plan we were drafting wasn’t foolproof to say the least, but for the first time, I felt somewhat in control, and the future didn’t look like a wall .
It looked like a path, dangerously uneven but ultimately mine.
Later in the evening, Adam stated he had had enough feelings for one day and disappeared upstairs.
It was just me and Dad. He seemed lost in thought, back in memory land.
After a while, he reached into the drawer beside his chair and pulled out an old, worn bookmark: the one Mom used to keep in her novels.
He turned it over in his hands before offering it to me.
“Your mother kept this when we found out about you,” he said quietly. “Said it reminded her that stories don’t always go the way you plan—she stopped flying for more than two years, and then for another year when we had Adam—but they’re still worth telling.”
“That’s stories, Dad. What about dreams?”
“They evolve, like mine. Or you fight for them, like Mom. Or you choose your own, beautiful path. You’re already braver than any of us were at your age.” The lump in my throat nearly choked me.
“Whatever you decide,” he said, voice steady now, “we’re here, honey.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding for weeks, fingers brushing over the frayed edges of the bookmark. “Thanks,” I whispered, the weight of their quiet support and this evening settling over me.
Just before I excused myself to go to my bedroom and call it a night, he asked if I thought the gentleman was a good person. I opened my mouth, but no words came.
After a pause, I said, “He’s… complicated.” Dad gave a knowing nod, like he understood. I wondered whether Mom was like that when they met. That’s the only cliché thing I could say, maybe because I didn’t know if I was measuring Paul by who he was… or who I once hoped he could be.
Dad interrupted my chain of thought and added, as if something heavy was weighing on him: “That’s not all. Just give me a hand here.”
I helped him walk cautiously toward a closed cabinet, his slippers making that familiar, squeaky sound against the floorboard.
He reached all the way up to the highest shelf, stretching uncomfortably, and took out a small, faded pink shoebox.
No décor, no dust—just an inconspicuous box hidden in plain sight. One name on it: Marianne.
Mom.
“It’s all yours. And Adam’s. You can open it now—or whenever you feel ready.”
“I’m ready, Dad.” I took out the first, creased, and obviously reread letter while trying to comprehend what truth was I about to unfold.