Page 79 of The Summer of ’98

“I’m just relieved to see that you’re okay.” I caught her hand before she could drop it. “Except for that bruise. Who did that? What happened?”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

She stared at the floor and nibbled on her lip, so I led her toward the bed and sat down, pulling her into my lap. “Start wherever you want, beautiful. I’m listening.”

She lifted a hand and caressed my jaw as she smiled with appreciation. Tears had given a glow to her green gaze. They shone brighter than usual. However beautiful they were, I would take their previous color in exchange for knowing that she wasn’t hurting.

“Well, I’ll put it simply,” she said. “I decided to keep the baby. And Momma wasn’t pleased,” she added, pointing to her bruised and scratched cheek. “That about covers it all.”

There was nothing casual about what she said but she’d delivered it almost flippantly. I stilled, staring at her as my heartbeat sped up a little. I didn’t know how to respond. She . . . she was still pregnant. That was the last thing that I had expected. But her mother had done that to her. Her mother had hit her. It made me sick.

“I’ve rendered you speechless,” she laughed. “I’d be proud of that but you’re not that vocal to begin with.”

“You’re still pregnant?”

She nodded and picked up my hand, placing it on her stomach. Her fingertips caressed the top of mine as she spoke. “I couldn’t do it. We made this baby with love. I fell in love with him or her whether I wanted to or not.”

There was more that I wanted to know. More questions to ask. But instead I gripped her waist and threw her down on the bed, hovering above her as I kissed her. Her soft hands clasped the back of my neck, her grip rough and urgent, and her legs wound themselves around my waist. She was back. Back here with me. Carrying our child who we would love and raise together because no matter what, I would stand by her and protect her and never let her down.

The door swung open. “Leroy I ha—”

Mom’s voice came to a stop as I peered behind me and felt Ellie still. She became so still that she didn’t even try to correct her position. It was like she was hoping she wouldn’t be seen if she just stopped moving.

I was about to move off Ellie when Mom sighed and gripped the door handle, leaving as she spoke. “Guess she can’t get more pregnant than she already is.”

When she was gone, I glanced down at Ellie, who had turned a bright red. We both laughed and the sound of her elated melody made me soar. Our mouths met again, tongues colliding. There were so many emotions that I wanted to express but couldn’t find the words, so I hoped that she understood how I felt through our kiss because our love had a language of its own and our bodies never failed to say what our mouths couldn’t.

Ellie

The outdoor furniture had been set for dinner that night. It was a beautiful evening, not too hot, not too cold. Noah, Eleanor, and Jacob were seated and waiting when Leroy and I stepped onto the back deck, hand in hand. It would be a lie to claim that I wasn’t nervous, but even so, I was comfortable back in this familiar setting. To be honest, I might have grown up in a two-bedroom home in Waco, but it was here where my heart rate was steadiest, where my walls were right down, where I felt I belonged.

Jacob smiled from the head of the table as we sat down. “Good to have you back, darlin’.”

His warm welcome rendered me speechless. It was still hard to comprehend the kindness that these people had shown me.

Noah gave me a subtle chin nod, but his attention, as well as Eleanor’s, was fixated on the small gash in my cheek. It didn’t hurt but it was blatant.

“You all right, sweetheart?”

“Actually, I’m great. Because of you. I seriously don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up. I’m—thank you. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, sliding a bowl of salad toward us. “You’re family. We love you and we want you to be happy and safe and healthy. You hear?”

More tears stung my eyes. I’d lost count of how often I’d cried in the last two weeks, but it was getting ridiculous. Hormones had to be the blame—there was no other reason for it. Well, aside from the copious amount of support I’d been shown here. Her words would have made me sob even if I hadn’t been pregnant.

“I was never going to say anything,” she continued. “Because it would have come across as pressure, but wow am I thrilled to be a grandmother soon. It’s hard being sixty-three and not even having the privilege of grandchildren.”

We both laughed and when I looked at Leroy, his face was so full of emotion that it almost winded me. He looked proud, in love, grateful. Eleanor wasn’t the reason that I’d changed my mind about keeping the baby, but it was a bonus to see how excited she was. There was no mistaking how blessed I was to have this level of love around me at a time like this. Women my age and older struggle with parenthood all the time and I knew that it would come with challenges, but I was in a place of privilege and I wouldn’t take that for granted. Not ever.

“So, I know an OB-GYN that could see you here in Castle Rock?” She offered. “She’s the best of the best. I can make the phone call if you’d like?”

Noah screwed up his face. “Do we have to talk about vagina doctors at dinnertime?”

Jacob lowered the fork that he’d been directing into his mouth and gave Noah a flat stare.

“Have you had a dating scan?” she continued, ignoring Noah, and I shook my head. “We’ll get one of those booked in at the radiologist as well. They do a few different things at the dating scan. Check the baby’s organs and that sort of thing.”

“I think I’m about eleven weeks along,” I told her, feeling a warmth in my cheeks. “I know when . . . it . . . you know . . . happened. So, I counted from my last period.”

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