CHAPTER 20
GRACE

I wanted to tell him I was pregnant. I really did. After seeing that dollhouse and how proud he was of it, every single part of me wanted to tell him. Harper had raced into the kitchen with her new doll as we sat at the table that night, and I watched as Ryan got on the floor and played with her. They acted out this whole story Harper was telling that kept darting every which way, and not once did Ryan laugh at her.

He was present for every second of it, and it melted my heart.

But that was the thing. Harper had always been around that night. Minus the five or so minutes we had at the kitchen table, she was there under our feet or wanting to play with Ryan, and it was wonderful. It warmed a place of my heart I had shut off from the rest of the world after Grant died. However, talking about my pregnancy wasn’t an appropriate topic to address in front of Harper. She would start asking questions and it would make her nervous. I wouldn't be able to have an adult conversation with Ryan because she would be too focused on the fact that Mommy’s belly was growing a person.

And I wanted Ryan to have a chance to be as vulnerable as I had been when I first found out.

If we talked alone about it and he reacted poorly, Harper wouldn’t have to witness that. She thought the world of him, and it would break her heart to watch him walk out. She wouldn’t understand what was going on and she would probably cry after him, and it would cause too much stress for everyone involved.

But even if he didn’t react poorly, Ryan needed the time and the space to be able to process and vent and ask questions if he wanted.

Which was something Harper wouldn’t understand at such a young age.

Then, there was telling my mother. I already knew how she would react. Exactly like she had with Harper. She would scold me and tell me how irresponsible I had been. How I was throwing this or that away, despite the fact that she had me at a young age as well. My mother had been a pregnant teenager and traded a life at college for a life of motherhood. She and my father tried the best they could to make a family work, but they were young and dumb.

He left us behind when I was only three years old, and that was the one thing my mother was hell-bent on teaching me.

That getting pregnant at a young age was a waste of a woman’s life.

When I called her with the news that Grant and I were pregnant, she was livid. I would come away with student loans she had co-signed for and no degree to show for it. I wouldn’t be hirable because of the lack of a Bachelor’s Degree and I would be stuck in dead-end jobs if Grant didn’t step up to take care of me. I kept trying to tell myself she was simply talking from experience, worried her daughter would be abandoned with a child, just like she was at nineteen years old.

But it created a giant rift between us for almost two years.

A rift that didn’t even start healing until after Grant died in battle.

I knew she would judge me this time around. At least Grant and I had been together for a year or so when we got pregnant. She didn’t like Ryan already, and thought he was hiding something. And now after being with him for only three weeks, I was accidentally pregnant again.

She would have a field day with that, and I was scared it would create a rift between us again. I was scared it would rip Harper’s grandmother out of her life, at a time when she was a really important person in my daughter’s young life.

The worry over telling my mother frightened me so much that it sent me to the bathroom to throw up.

Harper was playing in her room and I tried to keep the noise down. I didn’t want her walking in on me while I was sick. I was wrapped around the toilet seat heaving up the sandwich I’d had for lunch when I heard that voice.

That judgmental, grating voice.

“What in the world?”

My eyes panned over to my mother as she stood in the doorway. Didn’t the woman fucking knock? I sighed before my stomach rolled again, and I stuck my head back into the toilet.

“Grace Addison, what in the world is going on?” my mother asked.

“Not feeling well,” I said.

“Why not? I wasn’t aware you were sick. Did Harper bring something back from school?”

I wretched again as my mother got down on her knees beside me.

I felt her gather my hair from the nape of my neck. Her hand was so comforting and it caused me to start crying. She wouldn’t be as comforting when she knew why I was throwing up.

The advent of my emotions must have sent her Spidey sense into overdrive.

“Grace, what’s going on?” my mother asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just sick.”

“This isn’t just sick, Grace, because you don’t just cry like this.”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

I winced in pain as my hand went to massage my breast, but I stopped before my fingers touched my skin.

“Does your chest hurt?” she asked.

“Mom, stop it. Please,” I said.

“Grace, I demand you tell me what’s going on.”

I sat back from the toilet and ripped my hair from her hand.

“I’m not telling you anything,” I said.

“And why not?”

“Because I know you and I know how this ends, and I’m not ready for it yet.”

“Yet? What do you mean?”

I watched her reaction slowly change as my face crinkled with more tears.

“I cannot believe this,” she said.

“Mom, keep your voice down. Harper’s in the next room.”

“How in the world could you have been so reckless?” she asked.

“Mom, stop it,” I said.

“Grace, I told you he was up to no good. He’s lying to you and now you’ve—you’re—”

I stood to my feet and wiped my face off on a towel. I couldn’t handle this. I couldn’t take my mother’s judgment. The last thing I needed was her coming unglued and Harper overhearing the conversation.

If anything, I would protect Harper from this.

“We need to talk,” my mother said.

“No. Ryan and I need to talk. You need to knock before you enter,” I said.

“Your door was unlocked. I knew something was wrong the moment I turned the door knob.”

“You still knock, Mom!”

“Stop trying to distract me. We need to talk. Have you been to the doctor?” she asked.

“I can’t do this right now,” I said.

“Does he know?”

“Mother, stop it. Harper is here in her room and I’m not having this conversation with you. I need to have it with him first.”

“First? Him? I’m your mother, Grace. With as much as I taught you about my life as a young mother, you seem to want to go against—”

“This isn’t about you!”

I pushed by my mother in the bathroom doorway and marched out into the hallway. I reached for Harper’s door and closed it as her head whipped up. I turned on my heels toward my mother as her eyes grew wide, my body standing between her and my daughter’s bedroom.

“It wasn’t about you the first time and it’s not about you now,” I said.

“Something is wrong with Ryan.”

“You don’t like him because you don’t like any man who comes into my life. He probably reminds you of Dad somehow, or something Dad did, or he wears Dad’s type of coat or his damn cologne. What you need to stop doing is butting in where you’re not wanted,” I said.

“Not wanted? Who was the first person you called when you got pregnant with Harper?” she asked.

“Amy,” I said.

“Wait, what?” she asked.

“Yes. The first person I called was Amy. Because I knew how you would react. While you were yelling at me over the phone, she was already in Texas holding my hand and getting me to a doctor for prenatal care. If you respect my life and the life I’ve made for your granddaughter at all, you will back the hell off until I can talk to Ryan.”

Then I stormed into my room and shut the door in her face.

I sat down on the edge of my bed and put my face in my hands. My mother was insistent on always arguing about things. If they didn’t fit her exact mold, then it wasn’t right. I sat there and cried, wondering what the hell I was going to do.

A soft knock at my door pulled me from my trance before Harper’s voice came through the door.

“Mommy? Can Grandma stay for dinner?”

I sighed as I wiped the tears from my face.

“Of course she can, honey. What would you like to eat?”

“Grandma says you might like some soup and crackers. Could I have mac and cheese?”

“We’ve had that twice this week. What about some peanut butter toast and raisins?”

“With cereal?” she asked.

“Of course with cereal. Breakfast for dinner is the best,” I said.

“Could Mr. Ryan come over for food?”

I looked over at my cell phone and wondered if he would.

“I could call him and ask,” I said.

“Please?”

“I’ll ask just for you, sweetheart.”

“Yeah! I’m gonna go help Grandma make dinner.”

I listened to the excited footfalls of my daughter as she bounded down the hallway.

Reaching for my cell phone, I picked it up. Maybe Mom wouldn’t mind taking Harper out for ice cream after dinner so I could talk with Ryan before she opened her big mouth and said something herself.

The phone was ringing in my ear as another knock came at my door.

“Grace?”

“Amy?” I asked.

“Auntie Amy!” Harper said.

“Hello?” Ryan asked.

“Ryan?”

“Grace? That you?”

“Figured I’d crash your place for dinner,” Amy said, as she opened my door. “What’s your mom cooking?”

“Your mother’s cooking?” Ryan asked.

“Ho-hold on,” I said. “Amy, when did you get here?”

“Just now. Did you know your front door’s unlocked?” she asked.

I groaned as I sighed into the phone.

“Grace, are you okay?” Ryan asked.

“Apparently, I went from being alone for dinner to having a houseful. Would you like to come over and experience the craziness?” I asked.

“That Ryan?” Amy asked.

“It is,” I said.

“Hey, Ryan!” Amy said.

“Is Mr. Ryan coming?” Harper asked.

“Tell Amy I said hello and tell Harper I’m on my way.”

“Great,” I said breathlessly. “I’ll tell them.”

“Do I need to get you anything? You sound like maybe you don’t want company,” he said.

“No, no, no. I um—could use the emotional support, honestly. Mom’s in a bit of a mood.”

“Ice cream sound like a good enough support?” Ryan asked.

“Tell him to make it double fudge,” Amy said.

“Can you hear him?” I asked.

“Your phone is ridiculously loud,” Amy said.

“I’ll be there with double fudge and strawberry,” Ryan said.

“Then I’ll see you soon,” I said.

“Does Amy know?”

My mother appeared in my doorway as I clenched my jaw.

“Uh oh,” Amy said. “Hey Harper. Why don’t you and I go play in your room until dinner’s ready?”

“Can Mr. Ryan play when he comes?” Harper asked.

“Ryan’s coming?” my mother asked.

“Yes, because it’s my life and my house and I want him here,” I said.

Then I pushed myself off my bed, pushed through the crowd at my door, and made my way into the living room.

I couldn’t wait for this damn dinner to be over with.