Baby & Bump (The This & That Series) (4 page)

             
My mother waved my words away like a fly. “Oh, shush. You’re not even married.”

             
My cheeks heated. “Last time I checked, they give home loans to single women, too.”

             
“I know, but you wouldn’t want to be a homeowner without a man around.” She gestured all around her. “It’s a horrible headache to have something need repair with no husband around to fix it.”

             
“Oh, come on. You just call Pastor Irm to fix it,” Darren said, not bothering to look up.

             
“I do not.” Embarrassment pinked my mother’s round cheeks.

My mother tried very unsuccessfully to hide
that she was in love with the pastor, and had been for a long time. Yet she was on every committee the church offered that required her to work directly with the pastor, and ate dinner with him at least twice a week.

My brothers and I referred to it as evidence. She referred to it as stewardship. We
all
silently agreed not to discuss it.

             
“Well, we could help Lexie if something went wrong,” Corbin said.

             
“That’s right.” Andrea smiled at me across the table. “What’s the point in having two carpenters in the family if you don’t use them?”

             
“But you didn’t get your first house until you’d married my Corbin.” My mother blinked a few times. “Would you really have wanted to do it alone?”

             
Andrea shrugged. “If that’s the way my life had turned out, then yes.”

             
My mom snorted. “It’s ludicrous. Come on, Lexie. Find yourself a good man. Someone much more mature than
that Nate
, and settle down. You’ll get a house and a gaggle of kids to care for.”

             
I ignored the way she’d said my ex husband’s name like it was dripping in acid and burning her tongue, and smiled patiently at her. “Did you just use the term ‘gaggle’?”

             
“Yes, I did.” She took another bite. “Now, let’s talk about you. What have you been up to lately, dear?”

             
All eyes rolled over to me, and I felt the sonogram pictures in my jeans pocket start to burn a hole. I was on the verge of dropping a double whammy on my family, and it was contributing to my nausea. My mother’s reaction, which I was predicting would be exceptionally theatrical, would be nothing compared to the disappointment on Corbin’s and Andrea’s faces.

             
“Well, like I said when I got here.” I swallowed, and avoided my mother’s probing eyes. “I went to the doctor today.”

             
“What for?” my mother demanded.

             
“That’s all you have to tell us?” Darren rolled his eyes. “Seriously. Get out more.”

             
“Can it,” I hissed. “So anyway, there’s something I need to tell you all.”

             
Corbin leaned forward, resting his elbows on the tabletop. “Are you okay?”

             
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in Jerusalem, she’s got cancer!” My mother pressed a hand to her ample bosom and choked on immediate tears. “I knew it.
I knew it
. When your dad had the aneurysm, I knew that it would strike one of you kids next. I just knew it.”

             
“She didn’t have an aneurysm,” Darren pointed out. “She’s sitting right here.”

             
“Then it’s cancer!” Mom bellowed.

Andrea jumped out of her chair and went to put her arm around my mom’s shoulders. “Shhh, Patsy. Relax. Lexie hasn’t even told us what she went to the doctor for.”

“Or what kind of a doctor she went to see.” Darren scoffed, grabbing another roll. “She could have gone to a woman doctor or something.”

My mother yowled. “Ovarian cancer!”

              My head flopped into my hands and I grit my teeth. “Seriously, Mom. I don’t have cancer, all right? Can you take a breath and let me finish my damn announcement?”

             
Her tears immediately stopped. “There’s no need for language.”

             
“Just… everybody relax, all right?” Corbin touched my arm, offering a one-shouldered shrug, as if to say,
our mom…what a looney, right?
“Go ahead, Lexie.”

             
Well, here goes nothing
, I thought to myself, my hand going into my jeans pocket, and holding the picture underneath the tabletop the same way my brother had tried to hide his phone. “Actually, Darren was right. I went to the
woman
doctor.”

             
“Really? Gross. Don’t share that with us,” Darren said around a mouthful of roll.

             
“Grow up,” Corbin said in his most fatherly voice, which he’d been perfecting since our own dad’s death thirteen years earlier.

             
“What’s going on?” My mother dissolved into fake tears again. “Ovarian cyst? I’ve had three myself, and they’re horribly painful. Endometriosis? Your Aunt Dory had that. Oh my word, I always knew one of you children would be sick, and I’d have to care for you. Don’t worry, dear, I’ll be here for you. You can move back into your room, and—”

             
I shook my head. “I’m not moving back in. I don’t have an ovarian cyst or endometriosis, either.”

             
“Well, for hell’s sake, what’s going on with you?” she demanded, pushing up her glasses and turning off her tears for a second time.

             
Darren sniggered. “No need for language.”

             
“Hush.” She swatted her napkin at him, and knocked a roll out of his hand.

             
Corbin took off his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I think we all just need to calm—”

             
“I’m pregnant.”

My voice seemed to echo, despite the walls being lined with plush toys. Maybe it just sounded that way in my head. I couldn’t be sure.

              All sound, all movement, in the house ceased, and every single pair of eyes locked on my face.

Shakily, I brought the picture of my kidney-bean-like baby out from under the table, and placed it next to the pot of still-hot cheddar ham soup.
It felt like my mother’s house had slipped into a time/space continuum. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. I was pretty sure nobody was breathing, either.

             
Darren was the first to break the unbearably uncomfortable silence. “Finally someone else is the family screw up.” And with that, he stood up, tucked his cell phone into his pants pocket, and kissed the top of my mother’s unmoving head. “Thanks for dinner, Ma.”

             
As soon as the backdoor shut behind him, my mother blinked a few times, as if coming out of a trance. Her cheeks were the exact same shade of pink as her circa nineteen eighties glasses lenses, and her forefinger came down onto the tabletop with a definitive thump.

             
“Where did you get this picture?” she asked hoarsely.

             
“My obstetrician. Dr. Haybee.” My eyes flicked over to Corbin, who’d put his hand over his wife’s, and was now looking down at the remainder of his soup with an ill expression.

             
You’re not the only one, buddy
, I lamented silently.

             
“I thought you saw
my
gynecologist.” My mother’s voice was low and precise. “Nobody told me you’d switched.”

             
I sat up straight in my chair and laced my fingers together. “No, Mom. I’m going to see Dr. Haybee through my pregnancy. Candace loves him, and he’s friends with Brian.”

             
“You’re going to see him through…” She pressed her lips together. “Your pregnancy?”

             
One nod. Slow and steady. “Yes, Mom. My pregnancy.”

             
Her eyes flicked to my unadorned ring finger. “Did you get married to someone and not tell me?”

             
I almost laughed. Almost. “Of course not.”

             
“Who’s the father?”

             
This was the first time I’d heard my big brother’s voice since dropping the bomb, and it sounded positively deadly.

             
I looked at him. “There is no father.”

             
“I’m not playing games with you,” he repeated carefully, apparently in full-on protective older brother mode. “Who is the father?”

What next, the shotgun and a forced engagement?
I straightened my shoulders and jutted my chin out. This was going to be a hard bone for my friends and family to stop chewing on. That much was clear already. “There is no father. He isn’t in the picture. He won’t be in the picture. You should erase him from the scenario completely. I have.”

             
“He sure as hell will be, once I’m through with him,” Corbin growled.

             
I did my best to return my big brother’s icy stare. “No. He won’t. And the subject is off limits from now on.
Is that clear
?”

             
We had a silent stand off lasting for around ten seconds before my mother stood up. Her chair fell backwards into a Cabbage Patch Kid wearing denim overalls. “Alexandria Patsy Baump! You mean to tell me that you’re knocked up and not even going to marry the father!?”

             
“Yes.” My voice was shaking. Tears started to fill my eyes like a clogged gutter. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

             
“What am I going to tell the Disciples of Christ Committee? Or the Bible study class? They’re not going to let me stay in the presidency if I’ve got an unwed daughter who’s having a child all alone! What kind of an example will that be?” She started pacing, knocking down two more dolls and not even bothering to pick them up. She was really upset with me this time. “What will Pastor Irm say? It’s bad enough that you’re divorced, now you’re going to be some sort of single mother?”

             
“Mom,
you’re
a single mother.” My voice came out shriller than I would have preferred.

             
“Because my husband was taken from me by the good Lord, not because I exercised poor judgment on a lonely night!” she shrieked, throwing her arms out.

My head jerked backwards like I’d been slapped.

Andrea gasped, her first sound in a good five minutes.

             
“Okay, that’s enough. Mom, sit down, so we can all talk about this.” Corbin took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes again. “Aw, hell, Lex. I thought you were going to say you had cancer.”

             
My mouth dropped open. “You wanted me to have cancer?”

             
Andrea jumped in, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Of course he didn’t. I think we should start at the beginning. So…how far along are you?”

             
I drew in a shaky breath. “Ten weeks and a few days.”

             
“And you’ll raise the baby yourself?” There was a spark of jealousy in her brown eyes, but she kept it at bay and forced a small smile.

             
“Yes. I’m…” I looked at my mother, and my tears finally spilled over. “I’m happy. I know it’s crazy, and I know it will be difficult. But when Nate left me, and Marisol and I started the catering business, I honestly thought I would never be a mother.” My hands went to my flat tummy. “This is my chance, you guys.”

             
My mother watched me with a frown. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. You have no idea how hard it is to raise a child with two parents, let alone one. You’re being foolish.”

             
“You know what?” I stood up from the table, taking my picture back, and tucking it into my back pocket. “I’m ready to learn. I’m ready to be responsible for someone other than myself. And…” I wiped my nose on my napkin. “I really hope you’ll all support me.”

             
I looked down at Corbin and Andrea, who both looked like they’d fallen off their ladders at work and had the wind knocked out of their lungs. “I never meant to hurt you guys. I didn’t plan for this to happen.”

             
Corbin nodded. “I know, Lex.”

             
I turned my gaze to my mother. “I’m gonna go now. I feel like I’m going to hurl, and I think you need some time to process this.” I started towards the door, and nobody made a move to stop me. Just as I was about to turn the handle, I looked back at my mother, who was still standing at the end of the table with a hand pressed to her chest.