My lips and throat are suddenly as dry as a piece of too-burnt toast. I lick my lips then nervously nibble on the inside of my cheek. I can’t think of the just-right words to say. If we were older, if I had more time to prepare, I’d have the right thing to say. But that’s not the case now, is it?
“I’m not acting weird, Dec. I’m...I’m acting...pregnant.” There I said it!
Declan’s expression has the likeness of a white blank page. Okay, blank isn’t necessarily bad. This can go more than one way. Maybe he’s just speechless, at least he’s not...
Oh, no! He is.
His tensing hands stroke the temples of his forehead like he’s trying to knead a piece of hardened cement. When he’s finally done with the painful looking process, he looks at me with flaring nostrils and protruding eyes. The color of his face has gone from a flawless, healthy hue to a terrified, transparent sallow.
“You’re what?”
I flinch back in my chair, as if I’ve been slapped by the tone of disgust in his question. “I’m pregnant, Declan. You’re going to be a father.”
Declan shoves himself away from the table, flying out of his chair. He paces the floor between the kitchen and the dining room. At this rate, he’ll wear out the finish on the hardwood floors.
“Mia, how could this happen? We’re not ready for this. Why...why would you do this?”
Um, what? “Are you kidding me, Declan? You think I did this on my own? Hello, it’s called sex and we’ve been having an awful lot of it. I went off the pill because I was waiting for your health insurance to kick in for the new prescription and if you recall you were the one who shot down the idea of condoms.”
“Because who the fuck wants to use condoms with his wife? You’re the woman, Mia. You were supposed to take care of this kind of thing. We can’t have a baby now. Not yet. We’re not ready. We’re too young!”
This is exactly how I didn’t want this to go, even though I had the same impulsive, initial reaction to the news. But just like me, he’s bound to come around. Right?
I make the trip across the room to my irate husband, taking his hands in mine, trying to calm him down the way Grace calmed me down. “Babe, you’re wrong. Everything happens for a reason. This is a good thing, you’ll see.”
He allows me to hold on for a second, giving me reason to believe that we’ll be okay. But then he throws my hands down, raising his arms in rejection. “No, you’re wrong. How can you say this is a good thing? We can’t have a baby yet.” Declan wears a horrifying look of disgust.
How can someone so sweet and caring be this tortured by the idea of procreating with the woman he vowed to love until the day he dies?
“I can’t do this right now, Mia. I don’t want a baby. I don’t want to be a father right now. I have no idea how to raise a kid, how to provide for a family.” He pauses, but I can tell that his mind is still reeling.
Finally he spits it out without actually finishing, leaving me to figure out the rest. “You need to...”
I’m suddenly very protective of my blossoming Cara. It’s not like I have another choice right now. She’s planted her budding root in my womb, which made its way right to my heart in the matter of hours.
“I need to what? If you think for a second we’re getting rid of this baby, you’ve lost your mind. I’m not some knocked-up teenager, Declan. We are a married couple. We have careers, a house. Yes, we’re young. Yes, this is sudden. But we have family and friends who will support us and help us get through it.”
Get through it. Like I’m talking about a death or a tragedy and not a newborn life. I want to be angry at him, but the overpowering joy of imagining his parents and mine as doting grandparents, Connor as an excited uncle and Grace as an overzealous aunt—these are all precious images. I can’t help but smile.
“What the hell are you smiling about? I’m not kidding, Mia. I’m not ready for this. It’s too fast. This is all too fast.”
Whoa, buddy. All. Too. Fast. The three words resonate in my ears like a deafening gong. So I repeat them, this time as a question; and I’m fearful of the answer. “All too fast? Define all.”
He doesn’t even hesitate or try to spare my feelings. “This. All of it. Everything. We’re still kids ourselves. We were stupid to think we could play house and it would all just fall into place. For Christ’s sake, Mia, I just graduated college. I’m not even twenty-two years old!”
It’s hard to wrap my brain around what he’s just said. I’ve never seen this side of him…all cynical, uncertain, hesitant. All along Declan’s been the one convincing me that we could do this. “You weren’t worried about how old you were when you proposed to me at the Alibi on stage in front of all of our classmates, were you? Then it all seemed romantic, it seemed right. But now that we’re about to solidify this marriage, take the next logical step, you think you’ve made a mistake?” Life as I know it feels like it’s come to a disastrous ending. The apocalypse, Armageddon, Judgment Day…whatever you want to call it. “God, Declan, why didn’t you tell me this before you put that ring on my finger two months ago? You are such a coward. And an asshole!”