Page 70 of Once Upon A Small Town Secret
I press my lips together so I don’t cry. “They measured six weeks, two days. There was a heartbeat.” My voice goes breathy on the word, like I’m afraid I’ll scare it away by saying it too loud.
Mom’s eyes flick to mine, shining. “Oh, my baby,” she says, and her is wobbly. “Are you on a prenatal? And did they give you anything for the nausea?”
“I bought a prenatal today,” I say. “And some ginger chews. The doctor mentioned B6 and doxylamine if I need it.”
“Good.” She tips her head the way she does when she’s ticking off a checklist in her head. “You’ll let me pick up crackers for your nightstand? Lemon ices? I can make those little honey-ginger cubes you liked whenever you were sick growing up.”
My throat goes thick. “I have crackers already, but the rest… yes, please.”
She turns her attention to Ben, not unkind, just direct. “Where do you stand, Ben? Not big-picture—right now. What do you need to be the person my girl can lean on?”
I feel him draw a careful breath. “I’ll be where she asks me to be,” he says. “At appointments, with boxes, fixing things. Lifting things.” His mouth tugs, self-mocking. “I don’t really know, to be honest.”
Mom holds his gaze for a long beat. Whatever she’s looking for, she finds enough of it to nod. “Okay.”
The quiet space fills with sounds of the river and birds and the distant roar of someone’s mower. Mom smooths a corner of the quilt, then looks at me again, excitement slipping through her composure in a brief, delighted smile.
“Your dad is going to be… well. You know your father.” Her eyes crinkle. “He’ll immediately start Googling ‘college funds.’”
A startled laugh escapes me. “That sounds right.”
Her expression sobers, the kindness never leaving. “Do you want me there when you tell him? Or do you want to tell him alone? I can run interference. Translate Don-ese.”
“I want you there,” I say, relief prickling behind my eyes. “All three of us will be.”
“Done.” She reaches over and squeezes my knee. “And Jason?”
Ben shifts almost imperceptibly.
“We know we can’t wait forever,” I say. “It’s just—early. And he…” I swallow. “He’ll need time.”
Mom purses her lips, no doubt thinking of her lifetime of experience with Jason. “He’s your brother. He’ll react like a brother before he reacts like anything else.”
She glances at Ben. “And he’s Ben’s brother, which is a different kind of complicated.” Then she sobers. “We’ll have to be careful, but if we do it right, all should be fine.”
She turns her attention back to me, and the excitement shows again, quick and contained. “I have to make a quilt,” she says suddenly.
“A quilt?” Ben asks, like he’s trying out a word in a foreign language.
Mom nods again, definitively. “Yes. Every baby should have a quilt. I made one for Paige and one for Jason when I waspregnant with them.” She flicks me a quick smile. “It’s my tradition, and my grandbaby will have one.”
The word “grandbaby” must trigger something in her because her eyes fill.
Her mouth wobbles and she presses her fingertips to it, a laugh slipping out on a sob. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she says, blinking fast and failing spectacularly. “I wasn’t going to do this.”
My own throat burns. I stand, and she’s already up, meeting me halfway between the chairs. She folds me in, the way she always does—firm and warm and comforting. I breathe in lavender and laundry soap and the faint clean scent that is just my mom, and for a second all the noise in my head quiets.
“My grandbaby,” she says into my hair, voice thick and happy and terrified all at once. “Sweetheart.” She leans back to look at me, palms on my cheeks, thumbs catching tears I didn’t realize had slipped free. “You’re going to be such a good mother.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” I whisper, truth spilling easier with her hands warm on my face. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“No one does at the beginning,” she says simply. “We learn. We lean.” One of her hands slides to my shoulder; the other reaches past me and catches Ben’s sleeve, tugging him closer. “That includes you.”
Ben looks startled and a little wrecked. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, soft, and then, quieter, “Thank you.”
She gives his forearm a squeeze, the kind that says more than words. Then she sniffs, swipes the heel of her hand under one eye, and pulls herself back together with that brisk little inhale that means a list is forming.
“All right,” she says, reclaiming the chair and the quilt draped over it like she needs something to touch. “A quilt. I’m thinking light and bright—river blues and whites with a lemon print if I can find one that isn’t garish. Maybe stars to scatter the whole thing. Your brother had a little baseball nine-patch—do you remember?—and you had the pinwheel with the tiny daisies that bled in the wash because I was a rookie and didn’t prewash.” She winces, fond. “I’ve learned since.”
