Gram followed me from the table as Lily stayed in her seat, and I felt my skin grow hot and my fingers start to tingle as she began to speak. “You’re further along than three months, darlin’. My guess is close to four. Not sure how you didn’t seem to have any morning sickness, but we’ve been watching you, baby girl. You’re getting thicker around the middle, not to mention your boobs.”
“What?” I asked, my head feeling light. “How long have you been watching me? I don’t understand.”
“Since about two weeks after Cody left. Something seemed different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”
“Why haven’t you said anything?” My breath grew frantic as tears built in my eyes. “You just talked about me behind my back instead?”
“You had to figure it out on your own, baby girl.” She took a step toward me, but I backed away. “I wasn’t sure at first, and then after you’d calmed down and seemed to be taking it easy here, I thought you’d figure it out.”
“How the hell would I figure it out?” I yelled, wrapping my arms around my waist and digging my fingernails into my arms to anchor myself. “I haven’t had a period in three fucking years! It’s not like I could miss one and think, ‘Oh shit, Cody knocked me up!’”
“You’re twenty-one years old, Farrah. Forgive me for believing that you’d know your own body,” she answered, turning back toward the table where Lily was wringing her hands.
I watched her sit back down at the table as if nothing had occurred, and my mind finally calmed. It wasn’t her fault. Not at all. Did I wish she would have told me sooner? Of course. While I hadn’t smoked with Lily or had anything to drink in over four months, I also hadn’t been taking vitamins or any of that other shit that Callie had done when she was pregnant with Will. Shit. What foods were off-limits? Had I eaten anything I wasn’t supposed to?
As if like magic, my breathing slowed down to normal. It was as if this new development had wiped out any other concerns I’d had because there wasn’t room in my mind for them. If Gram was right and I was pregnant, I had things to do. I needed to prepare. Shit, I was almost halfway done being pregnant already. I needed to go to the doctor; could I go to the doctor while we were hiding out?
My mind whirled with plans and questions as I stood silently in the middle of the kitchen, and after a while Lily stood from the table and gently led me back to my chair.
“You just sit right down and finish your dinner,” she ordered softly, kissing the side of my head as I sat.
I ate like a robot, silently and without any extra movements until I’d cleared my plate. It wasn’t until I was finished that the most pressing issue made itself clear in my mind. I looked up and met Lily’s kind eyes across the table, and had to clear my throat before speaking.
“Do you think you could go to the drugstore and get me a test? Just so we know for sure.”
“We’ve got two in the bathroom cabinet,” Gram answered for her, reaching out to pat my hand. “Let’s have some ice cream first.”
She wasn’t in any hurry because she knew without a doubt that I was carrying her great-grandchild.
And had been for months.
Chapter 28
Farrah
After peeing on a pregnancy test to prove Gram and Lily right, we spent most of the night curled up on her couches talking. They assumed that I was keyed up because of the baby, and I guess it was partly true. But neither knew about my worry over Cody, or what I imagined happening while Gram knitted and Lily painstakingly sewed together small quilt pieces by hand. I’d been so immersed in my own little world while I was at Lily’s that I hadn’t noticed until that night that Lily’s quilt pattern was tiny, and Gram’s projects were being finished quickly.
They were making things for the baby. Things I’d seen Will use but had never connected to the old women sitting next to me. Tiny beanies and booties and quilted pieces done in soft colors . . . all for a tiny little baby who hadn’t even made its arrival yet. It made me want to cry, or smile, or learn to do some of it myself. It made me ache that I’d never had things like that, precious little baby items that took hours to make and were given with love.
It was close to four a.m. before Lily and Gram headed off to bed, and I followed them and said good night from my doorway. But I didn’t sleep. I crawled into bed and wrapped myself in my quilt, just lying there thinking until I saw the sun rise through my window. I was antsy with an emotion that I couldn’t name, and after a couple of hours, I wasn’t able to stay in bed any longer.
I dragged my quilt behind me as I walked quietly through the house, and ended up on the back porch in one of Lily’s rockers. The rhythmic sound the curved rockers made against the wooden porch soothed me as I rocked back and forth, trying to imagine being a mother. My own mother had been so horrible that before I’d met Gram, I would have assumed that I’d screw it up somehow. I’d had no role model for good parenting, and the thought of doing some of the things my mother had done to me to my own child made me shudder.
Thankfully, as an adult I’d had a couple of really good role models. Both Callie and Gram had taught me a lot about being a parent, whether you gave birth to someone or not. Unfortunately, that train of thought brought me back to the anguish on Vera’s face when she’d described losing me to Natasha. I couldn’t imagine just giving up on my child, or even think about Will going missing. What was it that made a person just stop looking? I didn’t understand it, not at all, but I think knowing that I was carrying my own child gave me a small glimpse into how I’d feel if it were suddenly gone.