Page 37 of Burden to Bear

And now, as I watched her make the final trek to her front door, I realized just how big of a mistake I made.

Because it became clear very quickly just how much my decision had impacted Mia. I didn’t need her explanation to know what was going through her mind. She refused to listen to what I had to say, obviously believing the worst was the case.

I had a feeling Mia thought my hesitancy to have dinner with her tonight had to do with what I’d learned from her today. News of her pregnancy didn’t bother me; it didn’t make me not want to spend time with her or get to know her any less. I was still just as interested in her. Sure, it came as a shock, because there hadn’t been any prior indication from her that she was pregnant, but that didn’t mean I suddenly wasn’t attracted to her.

I still thought she was fantastic, and I knew I had barely scratched the surface of who she was.

It took a tremendous amount of willpower not to go after her, but judging by how upset she already seemed to be, I didn’t think that pushing it now would be a wise idea.

I had every intention of clearing the air, though, because the last thing I wanted was for Mia to believe the worst about why I’d declined her request to have dinner together tonight.

If it had been any other day, I wouldn’t have hesitated to cancel my plans. Unfortunately, tonight was not a night I could simply reschedule. It was my mom’s birthday, and my brother and I were taking her out—along with Izzy—to celebrate. This dinner had sort of become a tradition for us once we were old enough to make it happen for her.

My parents had divorced when Chris and I were still kids—I was thirteen at the time. While I could look back at it now and realize that everyone did the very best they could at the time, especially given the circumstances, the reality was that, as a teenager, I hated not having my parents living together. I hated being a teen who didn’t have his dad around all the time and needing to split time between both homes. I hated my family being broken apart.

Once I was old enough to drive, things got a little bit better. While most of our time had been spent with our mom, if Chris or I wanted extra time with our dad, she didn’t stop me from taking the car and driving us to his place for a few hours.

And now that we were all grown and on our own, we made the time during special occasions to get together with each of them. It made the holiday season a little chaotic, but I still held out hope that one day we’d all be able to be together. My mom and dad had done a good job of not pitting Chris and I against the other parent, so I believed I had a reason to be optimistic. Izzy had certainly softened both of them in recent years, and they’d managed to make it to and through her birthday parties without incident.

The moment Mia disappeared behind her door, I stepped back into my house and closed my own door. For the next little while, I fought the urge to run after her immediately. I did things I’d been meaning to do around the house just to keep myself occupied.

And when it was time, I got myself ready for dinner with my family.

By the time I hopped into my truck to head to the restaurant, I felt no better about the situation with Mia. As I backed out of my driveway, I realized it was probably a mistake to not have immediately cleared things up with her. The best thing to do might have been to give her an hour, allow her to pull herself together, and head over to explain myself.

I didn’t.

And if I attempted to do it now, I was going to be late.

So, I had no choice but to accept the wave of regret that washed over me. When it came to what I wanted, especially with Mia, I needed to make better choices.

For now, for tonight, I’d focus on my family and the celebration I was having with them.

Tomorrow, I was going to fix things with Mia.

“Did you see Mia today?”

I’d just barely gotten myself seated at the dinner table with my family after wishing my mother a happy birthday when my niece took over leading the discussion.

Her eyes were pinned on mine. “What?”

“Did you see Mia today?”

“Mia? Who’s Mia?” my mom asked.

“She’s Uncle Brock’s new neighbor, Nana. And she’s so pretty and fun.”

Suddenly, I had three sets of eyes on me—Izzy’s were curious, my mom’s were questioning, and my brother’s were amused. He didn’t hesitate to share more details to make the situation worse. “Izzy’s been talking about Mia nonstop since I picked her up from your house last weekend. She keeps asking when she can come back for a visit. I thought the interest would die down within a day or so, but it hasn’t been that way at all.”

I let out a sigh of disappointment at the thought of what Mia was doing now, about how upset she’d been today. Not wanting to have the conversation enter negative territory, I settled my attention on my niece and smiled reassuringly. “I did see her today. In fact, guess what she did?”

Izzy’s eyes widened as she leaned in excitedly. “What?”

“She baked cookies this morning and brought some over for me to try,” I shared.

I didn’t think it was smart or necessary to point out that Mia had brought the entire batch over for me. My mom and Chris would have read more into that at this point, and the only way to clear it up would be to explain the reason for that in front of Izzy. It would have been one thing for me to tell my brother about Mia’s pregnancy in confidence, but to expect Izzy to keep things private was an unreasonable expectation for an innocent five-year-old.

Clearly believing there was more to the story I wasn’t sharing, my mom asked, “Did you help her with something? Is that why she brought you cookies?”

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