Page 4 of Where We Call Home

Another one of my mother’s brilliant life lessons.

Maybe that was the moment I started changing. Instead of processing emotions, I learned to bottle them up, lock them away. It was easier to push through than to sit in the uncomfortable.

But now? Now I couldn’t stop feeling. Every tiny inconvenience set me off like a ticking bomb. My body felt foreign. My emotions felt out of control. I had a sinking feeling that the bottle I’d spent my whole life carefully filling was about to burst.

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to rein it all in. One more attempt at the damn boots, and then I’d accept my fate of slip-ons and flip-flops for the foreseeable future.

But Texas summers only lasted so long, and fall was creeping in fast.

“Is everything okay, Sweetie?” My mom’s voice floated in as she stepped into mycloset—I mean, room.

“Yup. Everything isjust peachy,” I snapped, my voice laced with sarcasm. “Why can’t the baby grow the other way so I can still tie my damn shoes?”

With a defeated groan, I collapsed back onto my twin-size bed.

My mom chuckled softly, walking over and bending down to finish the task I couldn’t.

She had been unbelievably helpful through my pregnancy, more than I ever could’ve asked for. I didn’t know what I’d do without her.

She was also one of the mostselflesspeople I knew. But when it came to emotions, she buried hers as deep as I did. My dad had been the opposite, always talking things through, confronting feelings head-on.

“If you don’t deal with your emotions, they’ll rot inside you and make you all stinky.”

His words. Not mine.

Whenever I struggled, he was the one I’d turn to. But losing your father at ten years old does something to you. It changes the way you cope. Or, in my case, the way you don’t.

Now, I was emotionally stunted, a lifetime of feelings bottled up with nowhere to go. And this pregnancy? It was shaking up everything.

“You know, all you have to do is ask,” my mom said after tying my laces, giving the top of my boot a gentle pat.

“I know,” I muttered. “I just don’t want to give up all my independence yet. It’s only going to get worse.”

She sighed and sat beside me, lying back against the bed, her fingers finding mine, intertwining them.

We lay there in silence.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, I welcomed it.

“You’re going to be an amazing mom,” she whispered, still staring at the ceiling.

Just like that, the tears were back.

She knew how much I doubted myself. How much I worried I wouldn’t be enough—not that I’d ever told her. Call it mother’s intuition.

Most of the time, I was barely getting by. I’d worn the same carefree, unbothered face for so long, but underneath it? I was in a constant fight.

Now, my mind was a full-blown battlefield.

I needed this baby out of me.

I needed to stop crying over everything.

The hormones were as impossible to manage as the cravings. AndLord, have mercy, thecravings.

This baby wanted everything spicy. Hot sauce, red pepper flakes—if it didn’t make my mouth burn, it wasn’t good enough. Which was ironic, considering I’d spent my whole lifehatingspicy food.

“Thanks,” I sniffed, swiping at my nose with the back of my hand.

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