Page 60 of Accidental Irish Daddy

“Come now,” she says. “Let’s get some water.”

She gets a glass and fills it with tap water, then brings it over to me, brushing my hair away from my face. I take a sip and start to feel marginally better.

“What’s got you so spooked?” she asks me. “Whatever it is, it can’t be so bad.”

“Oh, Martha…” I say, sniffling. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I…I’m in so much trouble.”

“Well, what is it, dear? What’s wrong?”

I swallow, trying to find the words. There’s no way to say it but to say it, I guess. “I’m pregnant.”

“Oh…oh, my.” She pauses. I imagine she’s trying to put the math together. Finally, she says, “Don’t be offended, dear, but I feel like I should ask, given the nature of your arrangement with Grant. It is his, right?”

I nod. I’m not offended. It’s a fair question, and I put it together a while ago that Martha had us figured out anyway.

She sighs and says, “Well, well. That is a bit of a pickle you’re in. Does he know?”

I sniffle and shake my head.

“Oh, you have to tell him.”

“No,” I say. “I can’t tell him, Martha. I can’t imagine what he’ll do if I tell him.”

She studies my face for a moment. “You look so frightened. Do you think he’ll hurt you if he finds out you're pregnant?”

“Not physically,” I say, and she nods sagely.

“You think he’ll reject you. Maybe reject the baby. I see.”

“He spends long hours at the office running a multi-million-dollar company,” I say. “He’s struggling with his sobriety and his grief and…” I sniffle. Now that I’m saying it all out loud, I think I’m getting to the heart of my fears here.

“And he doesn’t love me,” I confess. “If he doesn’t love me, how can he love this baby?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. One doesn’t have anything to do with the other. He can be a good father to your child without being your beau. You do know that, don’t you?”

I don’t respond to that. I can’t. I don’t know what more to say.

She tsks.

“But that’s not what you want, is it? You want him to love you back.”

I utter a mirthless and hollow chuckle. “I’m not the girl that men like him choose,” I say. “I’m not a long, leggy model or a woman with her own fortune-five-hundred company. I’m just…I’m just a girl from the wrong side of the tracks in stripper heels and a stupid dream of being a nurse. I’m nothing.”

She shakes her head. “You’re more like him than you think you are,” she tells. “I think if you gave him a chance…”

She stops herself, looking down at her tea for a long moment before she continues to speak. “Listen, the bottom line is that you can’t keep something like this from him. No matter what he might say or do when he finds out. He has to know that you’re pregnant. It wouldn’t be right otherwise.”

“What if he doesn’t want us?”

“I don’t think that will happen,” she says, resting a hand on mine. “But on the very unlikely chance that it does, then, in the very least, you’ve given him the opportunity to rise to the occasion. That’s all you owe him, you know? An opportunity. If he does decide he doesn’t want to be in this child’s life, then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime—”

“We?” I say, wiping my eyes. “You…you would help me?”

“Of course, I will, dear,” she says brightly. “As much as you’ve done for this family? You’ve been present for us, so the least I can do is be present for you.”

She pats me on the hand, then gets up and starts making another cuppa. “Whatever happens,” she says, “You won’t be alone. You have my word on that.”

I smile up at her and, I have to admit, I do feel a little better.

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