Page 84 of Floored

My eyes welled up. "I'm so appreciative of everything I learned from you."

Atwood waved that off. "That's the beauty of teaching upper-level students. You don't need as much teaching; you need guidance to see the information you already know at a deeper level. Flesh out the layers of what's already up there," she said as she tapped her temple. "I don't know if you've given much thought to what you'll do when you finish, but I think you'd make a marvelous teacher, Lia."

"Really?"

"Really." She took a sip of tea, carefully set the cup back down. "You have the energy students would respond to. Give it some thought as you do your last couple of classes. Whenever you get back to them." She looked pointedly at my stomach.

"I should be able to finish the last two classes during the spring semester," I told her. "I'm not due until early June."

"I'm happy to hear that." She stood. "Is it inappropriate to ask for a hug before you go?"

I shook my head, getting up and walking easily into her embrace. She patted me on the back, brisk and firm. When she pulled back, her eyes were bright, but her smile shaky.

"Off you go. If I get weepy over every student that came through this office, I believe they'd revoke my tenure."

"Thank you for everything." I held my hands out, then let them drop by my sides. "This whole experience ... I'll never forget it. I could never repay you for the chance you gave me."

"Catherine is a lovely name for a girl," she said with a raised eyebrow.

I laughed. "I'll keep that in mind."

With a small wave as I left her office, I walked back to my flat from her office for the last time.

I'd never gotten a strong sense one way or the other whether I was pregnant with a boy or a girl, and as I took my time studying the buildings I'd gotten used to seeing, I started thinking about names.

Fourteen weeks in, and I found myself smiling at the thought of a little girl named after an English professor, despite how hard it was to acknowledge that I'd be doing things like that without Jude once I was home.

My phone had been quiet since I left his hotel room in London, which I expected, especially knowing he was playing regular matches, plus additional midweek games for various European cups that I still didn't really understand.

The distance between us was something I'd have to get used to. He said we'd talk once a week, and that was smart, but it might take me a while not to think about him as often in all those quiet days in the middle.

I found myself, as I did the final sweep of my flat and left the key with the building manager, making peace with the fact that it simply would've been too easy of a story if we'd ridden off into the sunset.

"Think about it," I told Isabel the next day as we settled into our seats on the first leg of travel. "This is the connection I needed to make."

She stretched her arms over her head and groaned. "I'm thinking ..."

"I avoided all this stuff, right? I avoided discussions and questions and worries because it felt easier, and I didn't want to face all the things that freaked me the hell out about becoming a mom. But what I needed was the discontent, right? It's like I put in my paper, and it's what Atwood was trying to get me to understand, about fixating on the past as a way to avoid facing the future. I needed the fuel to change. Getting pregnant wasn't a choice I made, but it was what I needed to change."

Isabel grinned. "Look at you, making big girl realizations."

"You do it too. The fixating thing."

Her mouth fell open. "I do not."

"Oh, please." I hooked my neck pillow over my shoulders and closed my eyes while people filed past us into their seats for the nine-hour flight to the East Coast. "You absolutely do, but that's not the point."

When she grumbled something under her breath, I ignored her.

"Remember when Claire and I were in like fifth grade, and we had to take something to school from our parents’ jobs?"

Isabel burst out laughing. "Like I could forget. You almost got suspended."

Glancing at her through tiny slits in my eyes, I tried not to smile. "I didn't almost get suspended."

"You took a poster-size picture of Paige's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover to a fifth-grade classroom. She was topless, Claire."

"And do you remember what Logan said to the principal when he came to pick me up that day?"

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