CHAPTER 6
“You’re moving in with us.” Sarah’s grip tightens even further around my forearm. She’s taking the sudden, life-altering news as she normally does—by attempting to take control. It’s our way.
“Sar, you’re being ridiculous. I have my own apartment. You and Caleb don’t even want your own kids.” I sigh out through my nose, chewing my lip. “Plus, I don’t even know what I’m going to do yet.”
“You’re going to keep it, Win. We both know that.”
She’s probably right.
The moment I left the office—before I’d even worked up the courage to tell Sarah—I took a prenatal vitamin and added the reminder to my phone, hitting repeat for the next nine months without another thought.
But I could delete that reminder. Easily. I could.
“I should consider it, right? An abortion?” I ask.
“Have you?” Sarah asks, her tone free of judgement.
“Not yet.”
We sit in silence, our eyes on each other absently.
I begin drafting a list in my head entitled reasons to not have this baby. And while Sarah shouldn’t be such a snob, she is right. My apartment building is trash. There’s been pretty much every kind of vermin imaginable, and when they manage to get rid of one, another always seems to show up.
My neighbours are loud and inconsiderate. The train passes at four every morning, so loudly that the walls shake. And there’s mould growing under the kitchen sink that my absentee landlord claims is “healthy bacteria like yoghurt.” But kids have grown up in worse. Sarah and I did. And we turned out fine… ish.
I also add my job to the baby-don’t list. The café pays slightly above minimum wage, and I’m fairly certain that parental leave in Canada is about 50 percent of your normal income. I don’t know if I could reasonably live off that. Money is tight as it is. If I did need to get a new apartment, it would probably mean paying more for rent, and then I’d have even less money to work with. On top of that, I’d have another mouth to feed, a second body to clothe, and diapers to buy.
But our moms always got by on next to nothing. And growing up without money builds character. I think. I hope.
Of course, there’s the factor of the other parent. Bo, even from our brief evening together, didn’t strike me as the type of guy to leave the mother of his child high and dry. But ultimately, I don’t know him at all. And I didn’t really intend to ever get to know him. That’s sort of the whole point of what we did. Still, maybe he’d help? I’d have to tell him first. Which would mean having to see him again. Something he may not be interested in.
Something, which is another reason for concern, I am interested in.
I struggle to think of any reasons that I can’t dismiss after a little thought. And, clearly, I know what side of the debate my heart is on when I’m desperate to not think of another reason against keeping the pregnancy.
Hesitantly, even inside the privacy of my own thoughts, I allow myself to say it. I want to have this baby. Deep down, in an I-know-it in-my-bones type of way, it feels right. So I think it again. And again. Testing my reaction to it each time. Waiting for a hint of panic or a rush of fear. But nothing comes. Just… resolve. A tiny kindling of excitement, actually.
I’ve always known I wanted a kid or two. It was the life partner I haven’t been so sure about since Jack. Maybe this is the way to get the best of both worlds. An accidental baby for an intentionally independent life.
“I’m keeping it,” I say out loud, hoping it feels right. Nodding, I repeat myself, a touch more certain. “I’m going to have the baby.”
“You sure?” Sarah asks gently.
“Yes.” I look at her, smiling for the first time since I got the news, though tears still sit lodged in the corners of my eyes.
“Win?” she asks, twisting her lips from a soft smile to unease. “I’m trying to find a delicate way to ask this, but… who’s the dad?”
Ah, yes. The elephant in the room. Well, in the car. The elephant in the car. “I have a confession to make,” I say, wincing.
She sits up straighter, putting two tight fists around the steering wheel, though the car’s still parked. “Ooh, what did you do?” she whispers, her eyes lit with mischievous curiosity. “Is it an affair? Is he much, much older? A mafioso? Your childhood best friend? Oh, wait—that’s me.”
She reads too much, and it’s addled her brain.
“It happened on Halloween,” I confess.
“Oh my god.” Her whole face comes alive. “You fucked someone at my party?” She gasps. “Your baby was conceived in my house?” She laughs, tilting her head back as if it’s all too much. “How did you sneak a guy up there? Sneak him out? Is this how our mothers felt when we were in high school? You are in so much trouble, young lady!”
“The guest bedroom was out of condoms,” I whine, throwing my head back against the passenger seat’s headrest.
“See, you make fun of me, but this is why I take restocking so seriously.”
“Maybe focus on the life-changing toiletries next time and not the six extra bottles of travel-sized shampoo in your drawer.”
“Caleb and I like to mess around in there sometimes and pretend we’re at a hotel—sue me. Wait, this means the baby daddy is another friend of ours. Who is it?” She leans forward, her intense eyes attempting to pierce through my soul.
“A friend of Caleb’s that I hadn’t met before. Bo?”
“Who the fuck is Bo? Caleb doesn’t have friends I don’t—oh my god,” she gasps again. “You slept with an intruder!”
I glare at her. “Listen, he said he knew Caleb through a mutual friend and…” I feel guilty, knowing this is similar to how I’ve been identified in the past and not loving that fact, but it is the easiest identifiable feature. “He has a prosthetic leg.”
“Wait,” she laughs dryly, “Robbie?”
“No!” I cry out. “The friend Caleb wanted me to hook up with?”
“He’s going to love this.” Sarah beams. “I haven’t even met the guy.”
“I fucked a guy named Robbie?”
“You’re having a kid with a guy named Robbie, babe.”
“The with part is tentative.”
“You’re going to have to tell Robbie. You know that, right?”
“Stop calling him that.”
“You know you’re going to have to tell Bo, right?” Sarah says sternly.
“Yes,” I grumble.
“Soon?”
“Sure.” I throw my hands up before crossing them in front of my chest.
We both fall back into our seats, letting out a long breath at the same time. I stare out the moonroof and watch the withered, empty branches of a tree above us blow in the wind. We’re due for snow tomorrow, and yet my brain is stuck in July. Next July, that is.
“I’m due July twenty-fourth,” I say diffidently.
“We have plenty of time,” Sarah says, reaching across the centre console for my hand, tugging me toward her and lowering her head to my shoulder. I let my head fall on top of hers. Neither of us turns away from the view above us.