Page 36 of Christmas in His Arms

I clenched my jaw and accepted my debit card back from the cashier along with the receipt, and Judy stood staring at me as if I were going to respond. I nodded at the cashier, said, "Thank you," and then walked out the door.

My chest burned with emotion, and I barely made it back to Mom's car before the tears started. People were horrible and cruel and mean, and little towns like this only seemed to collect them in hordes. They congregated like flies on a pile of dog shit, except my life wasn't that pile of shit. I was a human with emotions and I was tired of being the brunt of their gossip.

I was still crying when I got home. The way people thought they could judge me made me feel so angry, I couldn’t think straight. But when I walked in and Mom saw me crying, she stopped me. My heart was a little panicked over it, but I needed my mom more than anything. We weren't the closest, but when your heart is hurting, it's always your mom you want.

I set my bags by the front entryway and shed my coat, and Mom was there, saying, "What's wrong, baby? Are you okay? Did something happen?"

She glanced out the front window and returned to my side, ushering me toward the couch with a hand in the small of my back. I didn’t see Dad, which meant he was probably napping or something. I slumped onto the cushion and cried into my palms.

"Hey, shh," she soothed, rubbing my back as she sat beside me. "Tell me what's wrong, Carrie."

I sniffled and blubbed for a bit, and when I got control of myself, she pressed a tissue into my hand. I blew my nose and wiped my eyes, and the only thing I could even think of to use as an excuse for my crying was the one thing I never wanted to tell her. It was inevitable, too, as inevitable as Ryan finding out. My parents were going to be grandparents. They had to find out somehow.

"I'm pregnant," I blurted out, and then I sobbed more. Not because the idea of having this baby was traumatizing. Yes, I would be a single mom living hundreds of miles away from my parents. But the idea of being a mom had grown on me. I wanted this baby. I wanted the little human who would love me simply because I existed. The real reason I cried was that I had to do all of this without Ryan—have the baby, face the gossip, hear the backlash of my parents… All alone.

"Oh, dear," she breathed, but her hand didn't stop rubbing my back. She didn't pull away in anger or have a harsh reply. I sat there crying while she rubbed my back, and it only made me cry harder. I thought she'd snap at me, but she was comforting me. "Baby, it's going to be okay."

I used another tissue to wipe my face again and looked up at her. "Why aren't you shouting at me?" I was so confused and baffled. She wasn't acting like my mother. She was acting like a stranger, or even like a friend.

"Well, Carrie, you're a grown woman. Of course you're going to have urges…" I cringed. It was like listening to the sex talk all over again, but she wasn’t yelling so I kept an open mind. "And just because some of us didn't get caught, didn't mean we didn’t do it."

I sat thoughtfully for a moment realizing she meant she'd gotten pregnant with me before she was married to Dad. She was trying to relate to me, and while that was comforting, what was more comforting was her lack of anger. There wasn’t a trace of frustration or disappointment in her eyes. Only compassion.

"How are you so calm, though? I'm going to be a single mom in a big city." I sucked in a few breaths and swiped at my eyes again. My entire face felt puffy and hot. My eyes were tired of crying. I didn't ever want to cry again, except happy tears.

"Well, you don't have to be alone in a big city, you know. You could move back home." Mom smiled softly, and I knew she was doing that mom thing where she badgered me to move back home closer. Then she softened, her shoulders relaxed, and she said, "But if anyone can do it, it's you, baby. You've done so many amazing things already. This is just motherhood. You're going to be a natural."

My own smile returned, though I didn't know for how long. Ryan was always on my mind. I knew if I had to tell Mom and Dad about him, this would've been a very different conversation. But that ship had sailed. Nothing would ever happen between me and Ryan again. I just wished I had a chance to explain everything that happened. I didn’t want him to think I had lied to him about not getting pregnant. He didn't even give me a chance to say it wasn't his. God only knows what he was thinking.

"Alright, let me get some tea, and I'll show you how to keep that morning sickness in check.” She was already on her feet moving toward the kitchen, and I felt a lot more relaxed. It must've clicked immediately that my illness for the past few weeks wasn't my having the flu. I appreciated how intuitive Mom was, but I prayed that intuition didn't connect the dots that linked me to Ryan, especially since that was over.

When she came back with tea, we talked about pregnancy and motherhood. I confessed to the poor choice of having a one-night stand and what that meant for me and my baby. In my whole life, I never thought I'd connect with my mother like this at all, let alone over something I thought could've been so much different. None of this was happening the way I thought, none of it but Ryan. That happened pretty much how I expected it to. Now I just had to heal from it.

And this tiny baby would help me do just that.

When Mom and I tired of talking, I went to my room to rest. I sat down and decided to nap, but before I drifted off to sleep, my phone rang. I sat up and answered, not recognizing the number.

“Hi, this is Carrie.”

“Ms. Bennett? This is Tammy Sutton from Ogilvy in New York. Is now a good time?”

My heart froze when I heard those words, and despite having looked forward to this call for weeks, I suddenly felt nervous. I didn’t know if I wanted this.

“Yes, now is fine.” I bit my lip anxiously and listened as she went on.

“Ms. Bennett, we received your resume for our job posting here at our New York branch. We have a few interviews to go through with you, but our lead team has already made the decision that if you’re as amazing in person as you are on paper, we want you here. We don’t know how we’ve never heard of you. Are you open to scheduling an interview?”

My heart stopped and tears welled up in my eyes. They were both happy and sad tears. My heart was torn right down the middle. I couldn’t believe the good that was happening hand in hand with the bad.

“Uh, yes…” I set up an interview with them and hung up the phone, then curled into a ball and thought of Ryan. Chicago was a short flight away, or a six-hour drive. New York was an eighteen-hour drive. It took me farther from Mom and Dad, and Ryan too. Ryan—whom I had no chance with ever again, but still, being that far away from him would hurt.

I cried myself to sleep that afternoon, wishing I’d have just been honest with him from the beginning. But hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I wasn’t a superhero. Now, the best opportunity of my life was also the worst possible thing for my heart, and all I could do was cry.

28

RYAN

My reflection in the mirror wasn't pleasant. My eyes were stormy, dark circles ringing them. I looked like a haggard old drunk who hadn't seen the light of day in months. My hair refused to obey me, and wild silver rebels stuck up odd angles. I tried to tame it with gel and gave up after a few minutes. The fact that I'd let my grooming and self-care habits slip was only evidence of how deep my depression had gotten. I'd spent the past ten days in my home without leaving.

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