Page 35 of The Green Card Baby Deal

Dawn heaved a deep sigh and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Chop these. I’ll sit here and supervise.” She handed the knife to Clara and traded places with her.

“What are we making?” Clara asked, happy to finally have a job to do.

“Stir fry,” Stan answered. “Dawn’s favorite lately, but God knows how long that will last.”

Dawn glared playfully. “That’s your baby’s fault, not mine.”

“I’ll be sure to give him a talking-to as soon as he’s born.”

Clara perked up. “Him?”

“Sta-an!” Dawn chided her husband by giving his name two syllables instead of one. Clara saw Stan smile while his back was turned. He really did love Dawn. Clara could only hope to find a relationship like that one day. For some stupid reason, she actually thought she’d had something like that with Luis, but clearly that hadn’t been the case. “We were going to tell everybody next week, remember?”

Stan’s cheeks turned red, but he managed to defend himself with an argument Dawn didn’t dare debate. “Clara’s not everybody, though. She’s one of us. Anyway, you can’t expect me to hold it in at home, too. I’m bound to crack eventually.”

“You already did,” Dawn said with a chuckle. Then she turned to Clara, who had stopped chopping mid-carrot. “All right, then. We had this whole thing planned where we were going to tell Mom and Dad, and you and—” She stopped short, but Clara knew what she’d been about to say.

“It’s okay,” she said to Dawn. She didn’t look at her sister when she spoke, not because she was angry, but because she knew the pained look on her face would make her words hard to believe. “He would be happy to know. You should tell him anyway. He’s still going to be the father of my child, and he wants to be in the baby’s life, so we’re going to have to find a way to enjoy each other’s company anyway.”

By the time they finished eating dinner, Clara was feeling better. She’d convinced herself she didn’t need love. There were loads of people who found meaning in other areas of life, and she was convinced she would become one of those people. After all, she was about to become a mother, and she was determined to be the best mother there was. While Stan finished clearing the table, Dawn took Clara to the living room, and the two of them cuddled up on the couch under Dawn’s fuzziest throw blanket.

“What do you want to watch today?” Dawn said, flipping through lists of movies she had available on her streaming services.

“Comedy or horror,” Clara answered. “I can’t do romance right now.”

Dawn laughed. “Evil Dead it is.” Then she called to the kitchen. “Stan! We’re gonna need some popcorn up in here.”

He called back over the sound of running water. “I thought you wanted to do things for yourself, huh?”

“I thought you wanted to spoil your pregnant wife, huh?” Dawn always won their flirtatious spats, Clara suspected by Stan’s own design.

“Fine, fine. One giant bowl of popcorn coming up.” He microwaved popcorn, brought them the bowl, and dimmed the lights.

“You’re the best, hubs.”

Stan leaned down and kissed Dawn on the forehead. “You two have fun. I’m off to bed. And, Clara, if he’s not crying his eyes out right now, he never deserved you anyway. Got it?”

He was gone a minute later, and Clara sank deeper into the overstuffed couch. She and Dawn had seen this series many times before, so there was no real need to pay attention to it, and that was probably a good thing because Clara wasn’t in the right state of mind to pay close attention to anything, let alone a zombie movie.

Dawn didn’t bother to pause the movie before she started her questions. “Okay, you’ve been acting weird all night, and I know you’re going through something. But I also know you, and I can one hundred percent tell when you’re hiding something from me.” She narrowed her eyes and leaned in while the movie played on in the background. “You’re hiding something.”

Clara bowed her head and hugged the blanket to her chest. “Fine. You’re right, I guess. I’ve been hiding something for a while, but it’s only because I didn’t feel like I could break a promise I made.”

“To whom?” Dawn asked.

“To Luis.” Clara closed her eyes. “My whole thing with him was never what it looked like. We had this arrangement.” She stopped a moment and turned to face her sister. “Oh, please don’t tell Mom and Dad. I really don’t need the lectures.”

Dawn arched an eyebrow “You know I won’t, Sis.”

“That day I found out that my fertility was declining? That was the day I met Luis. He had his own troubles that he thought a marriage would solve.”

Dawn crossed her arms and leaned back. She did not look happy. “Go on.”

Clara hesitated, but she’d been wanting to tell someone other than Luis for so long. Lately, it felt like everything she was going through, she was going through alone. In her life, she’d always had her family, especially her sister to fall back on, but not this time. For months it had just been her and Luis, and now she didn’t even have him anymore, and she needed to lean on someone. “It wasn’t like an indecent proposal or anything. We were attracted to each other, and we… you know… took comfort in each other that night. He told me he could pay for fertility treatments, and I told him I’d agree to marry him so he could stay in the country legally. But the thing is, he doesn’t need the marriage anymore.”

“So he pulled out? That bastard!”

“No,” Clara said. “No, you don’t understand. He swears he will hold up his end. While I don’t need fertility treatment anymore, he wants to take care of me and the baby. He just… told me we didn’t have to marry if I didn’t want to.”

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