“I HATE IT HERE! ” yelled Hayley. Her family and her were driving to their new home in California. She was still mad because she had to leave all of her friends from Houston. Her dad’s job had transferred him there.
“Why did you have to take this job,” she said. “I don’t fit in with anyone here!
“I didn’t make enough money with that old job,” he replied. ”I’m sorry if you are upset, but I did what I had to do to support you and your mom.” The mom said nothing, trying to avoid being part of the conversation. “I bet you’ll make tons of new friends in your new school.”
“Whatever,” said Hayley. She began looking out of the window and seeing that California looked beautiful with all of the palm trees and beaches. Maybe this isn’t so bad, she thought to herself. Then she turned around and saw the big poster her friends had made for her. She started to remember all the good times she had with her friends. Never mind.
The next day was her first day of school, and she had made no friends at school. She never even talked the entire day, but things started to change the second day. It seemed like a repeat of the first day, until the star of the basketball team appeared surrounded by a hoard of people. He was telling people about a party that he was having at his house. This is my chance to become popular, she thought to herself. At that moment, she found an invitation on the floor. Am I really that desperate? She looked around at her empty lunch table. Yep.
Later when she got home, she went to her parents to share the news of the party. Her parents did not like the idea of letting their daughter go to a party unsupervised in a place that they weren’t familiar with. “I’m sorry Hayley,” said her mom. ”We just don’t like the idea of letting you go to this party.”
“Why not,” replied Hayley. “I have had trouble making friends in this new place.”
“But there are other ways to make friends in this new place,” said her dad. ”It’s too dangerous in this unfamiliar place.”
“But…”
“No buts,” said her mom before she could finish her sentence. “Now got to your room and finish your homework.”
“You guys don’t let me do anything!” she yelled. She stormed of to her room and slammed the door behind her, but she wasn’t going to give up so quickly.
That night, while her parents were asleep, she snuck out through her window and called a cab to take her to the address of the party. What she found was completely unexpected. She had expected a couple of friends gathering in a house, drinking soda, and some of them dancing. Instead, she found a ton of strangers, the soda was replaced with alcohol, and everybody was dancing dirty.
She thought about taking a beer they offered her, but she turned it down and got some water instead. She felt so out of place. She went outside to get some fresh air. When she got inside, she took a sip of her water and started feeling funny. What’s wrong with me, Hayley thought to herself. It was just water. She kept getting dizzier and dizzier, until she collapsed, out cold. The last thing she saw was the police bust through the door.
She woke up in a bed. Was it all a dream? she thought to herself. Then she realized, it was a hospital bed. Then she looked up. Her parents! She waited for them to yell at her, but she got a hug instead.
“What happened?” said Hayley. “All I drank was a water.”
“It was drugged,” replied her mom. “Someone put a drug in it.”
“How did you notice I was gone?” she asked.
“I went into your room to look for a sheet of paper,” said her dad. “when I noticed you were gone, I called the cops. Found the invitation on the floor, and told them to look there first. If they had gotten there later, you could have been hurt.”
She looked at them, and realized all that her parents went through for her. She hugged them and promised never to disobey them again.
“How am I going to tell Evan?” My voice appeared in barely a whisper. In three years Evan’s career had exploded and he was really going places. He’d achieved his degree in business and loved everything about his job, but it was very demanding. It left him with late nights and half weekends to compensate for the lost time as a couple.
“How about this? Hey, sexy husband of mine! Guess what? We’re having a baby! Woot woot!”
“Hmm… yeah, that’s not quite what I had in mind.” I responded.
“So what do you think my name should be? Aunt Anna? Auntie Anna?” I shook my head and sighed, this would be what she thinks about, “Am I like going to be a godmother too? I could totally rock at that job!”
“You do realize what a godmother is, right?”
“Well yeah, but in case you and Evan don’t croak I still want the chance to spoil the brat silly!” She made it sound like that’s something I should have obviously known already.
“We’ll see Annalise, but you can spoil it just fine being an aunt.” I heard the front door being unlocked and knew that Evan had to on his way in, “Hey look, I have to go. Evan just got home. Please don’t breathe a word of this to ANYONE.” I stressed in a hushed tone, afraid Evan might catch onto my conversation before I had a chance to tell him myself.
“Cross my heart! Good luck, Liv!” She said with one last squeal before hanging up.
Evan entered the room and I stood up instantly, “Hey baby,” he said with his usual kiss on the lips. I cringed at the pet name, “How was your day?” Piz pranced into the living room already purring in excitement and Evan bent down in response, “Hey buddy! Good to see you too.”
Peering at the clock I noticed it was only 3:30. While I had the day off from work, it was very unlike him to get off early, “I’m doing fine… what brings you home this time of day?”
“I just missed my wife,” He said with a smile that reached his eyes. I forced a smile. Not that I was unhappy to see him, I was hoping I’d have a couple of hours to get this all figured out. He grabbed me in an embrace that took the breath out of me and ended it with a kiss, “Let’s go out tonight. What do you say?”
“I was just thinking a night in sounded even better. Besides, we have stew cooking in the crockpot.”
“I thought something smelled good,” He hung up his coat then started into the bedroom to change out of work clothes, “So then you, me, our kitties and some DVR catch up tonight? Sound like a date?”
“Sure thing lovely,” I sat down on the bed and began to pet Willow, she leaned back in response and began pawing at my hand playfully.
“Alright, what’s going on with you?” Evan turned towards me giving me a look that said he saw right through my façade, “And don’t you say ‘nothing’.”
“Oh it’s no big deal, really. Anna called right before you got home and said she wouldn’t be home for Christmas. It’s just been hard since she’s never around anymore,” I lied as smoothly as possible.
“It’ll be alright. Sure your parents will be disappointed but we’ll make the best of it like we always do,” He tried to reassure me and walked into the bathroom.
“Yeah I know. She wasn’t here last year either though.”
“Uh huh…” he said through the closed door. Then it hit me, the test was in there, sitting right on top of the trash, “And you’re sure that’s all that’s going on?”
“Uh yeah, I’m sure,” Keeping my fingers crossed.
The bathroom door opened with Evan standing there, holding up the pregnancy stick, “I’m thinking maybe-“
“Okay, okay. We need to talk!” I blurted out.
“Olivia, are we?” His voice was excited to my surprise.
“Pregnant,” I finished the sentence flatly, “I’m pregnant.” Evan threw the stick behind him and picked me up, twirling me in circles to the point of nausea, “No, no stop it!”
“This is great! Oh my God, I’m going to be a dad. We’re finally doing this!”
“What do you mean this is great?” I backed away from him, thrown off by his reaction, “Nothing about this is great.”
“What? Why would you say such a thing?” He remained calm through the anger, trying to keep this from becoming a fight.
“I work 28 hours a week and you work at LEAST 40. We hardly have time for each other, much less a child!” Many arguments had begun brewing about his recent work schedule, we knew something had to change but he was waiting for the breakthrough.
“Then quit.” Evan replied simply.
“I can’t do that!”
“And why not? Olivia, you said to me three years ago when we were about to say our vows that when we had kids, you wanted to be in a place that you could stay home to give them the love they deserved rather than having to send them to daycare for foreign influence.”
“That didn’t mean now! Besides, we can’t afford to live that way!”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. What do you think I’ve been doing all these years? Working for the fun of it? The only reason we’re still in this condo rather than a larger house is because you never showed me any signs of wanting to move. Have you looked at our bank accounts recently? You should since you work there.”
I knew he was right. We weren’t exactly rolling in the dough by any means but compared to many of our friends we knew we were doing just fine. And I liked our condo; it was low maintenance and just enough space for the two of us.
“Okay, I get it. But we can’t raise a child here.” I got quieter, calmer as my panic was beginning to subside.
I sat down on the edge of the bed hesitantly and Evan did the same. Willow got up to greet me. Rubbing her head from my arm then crawling over to Evan’s. She settled in between us, not taking sides.
“Then we’ll move. Lovely, there isn’t one problem that you’re going to point out to me that I’m convinced we can’t solve.”
“But it isn’t time yet…”
“Are you still stuck on that 30 years old before babies nonsense? Haven’t you realized that sometimes God has bigger and better plans than the ones that we set up for ourselves?”
“You know I’m a control freak,” I pouted, “I always thought it would be planned and we’d have that ‘big deciding moment’ where we just knew it was the right time.”
“Obviously it is the right time or else we wouldn’t be blessed the way we have been. We’ve always talked about raising children. Remember? We would have one boy and one girl. The boy would be named Lucas. He’d have all my good qualities and musical abilities. The girl would be Evelyn, Eevee for short. She would be the princess with all of your beauty and passion to change the entire world for the best.” He ran his hands through my hair, looking me in the eyes with a smile, “Just think about it, we get to spend the next few months looking for a new house, getting settled in and then creating the perfect baby room for little Eevee or Luke. We’re out of school, we’re on our feet, now is as good of a time as any to get started.”
“Yeah… I guess you’re right,” Half a smile lifted as Evan got off of the bed and onto one knee in front of me.
“Look at me,” He said as he grabbed my hand, “This is me, this is my hand. This is me promising you that everything will turn out alright.” Evan gave me a gentle squeeze then stood up, prompting me to get up as well. I rose and then fell into his embrace for the first time today feeling some relief, “Now come on, isn’t the stew ready? I’m starving.”
