Page 68 of Our Final Encore

A tiny smile plays on my lips. Tacos have always been my favorite food. Our first official date was spent sharing a plate of tacos. “That sounds good,” I say.

He drives to the nearest Mexican restaurant. Luckily there’s one on nearly every corner in north Texas, so it doesn’t take long. I’m starving now, my stomach grumbling. My morning sickness hasn’t been as bad this week, thankfully, but now I have near constant hunger pangs.

I order three chicken tacos, and immediately start inhaling the chips and salsa as soon as they’re placed in front of me.

“So I was thinking we could buy a travel system today. We can look at cribs, too, while we’re there.”

I flick my eyes up at him from my chip that has a mountain of salsa and queso piled on top of it. I’m a bit taken aback by his words. “Already?” I shove the chip in my mouth, too hungry to pause my eating for too long.

“Yeah, I mean we might as well start getting prepared, right?”

I feel like we’re both ignoring the elephant in the room: who is going to pay for all of this? It’s no secret that I don’t have a lot of money, but I really have no idea what Alex’s financial situation is. Was he raking in the dough while on tour? I figure he wouldn’t have gotten a job if he were sitting on piles of money, but who knows.

“We don’t have to buy all of it today. I just figured we could get an idea of prices and start planning things.” Our waiter brings our meals out to us and the smell of fresh fajitas makes my mouth water instantly.

After we makeour way back to the store after lunch, we pick out a stroller and car seat combo, well he mostly lets me pick it out, but he agrees that it looks good. We bring it up to the front, along with a few gender-neutral onesies. This was the first time I’ve gone shopping for anything baby related, and seeing all of the cute, tiny baby clothing did make me excited, I can’t lie.

“That’ll be $205.16,” the cashier announces.

Alex slides around me, and before I can say or do anything he pulls his card out and pays. I stand there feeling a bit awkward as he loads everything back into the cart, then I follow him as he pushes it out the door.

“Mister money bags, huh?” I go for a light, humorous tone, but I worry it may have come off more intrusive or jealous than anything.

He chuckles. “Hardly, but staying with my dad for free has helped me save a bit.”

I point in the direction of my car and he leads the way, I use my fob to pop the trunk as we get closer. “Yeah, living with family definitely makes life more affordable.”

As he loads the stuff into my trunk, his eyes flick over at me. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually.”

“About what?”

“Our living situations.” He closes the trunk, one hand still holding onto the red shopping cart.

“What about them?”

“I mean, neither of our houses seem to be ideal places to raise a kid. I was just thinking, maybe we should consider other options.”

My brow arches. “Maybe you have money to rent a fancy apartment somewhere, but I don’t. And plus my grandma needs me.”

As stupid as it sounds, the thought of living with Alex still sends a thrill through my veins. That was teenage Opal’s dream, to move out and start a life together.

But now? Shacking up together just seems crazy.

He sighs and turns around to push the cart back where it goes right as my phone starts buzzing in my purse.

My mom’s photo and name flashes across my screen. I’m a bit surprised to see it. Although we’ve been talking more sinceI told her about the pregnancy, it’s still rare to hear from her randomly in the middle of the day.

“Hello?” I hold the phone up to my ear.

“Opal?” Mom asks, her voice cracking slightly. There’s something distinctly unusual about the tone of her voice that immediately puts me on edge.

“What’s up?”

“Mom…Sh-she had a stroke, I think,” she stutters. “She’s at the hospital. They just called me, I guess I was her first emergency contact on the list. I’m driving there now.”

My stomach dips. “What? Oh my god.” Panic engulfs me, a wave of adrenaline shooting through my veins that makes my limbs feel numb and my lungs incapable of catching my breath.

Of course this would happen the one time I’m almost an hour away from home. Guilt settles into every crevice of my body. Even though I know logically I couldn’t have stopped her from having a stroke, I still feel like a horrible granddaughter anyway, like it’s somehow my fault.

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