Page 98 of A Good Book

Our baby has a strong heartbeat. I think it’s a boy. I don’t know why, but I do. Have you thought about names?

I haven’t told my parents because I want you to be the first to know. So I’m patiently waiting for your reply. However, when the semester is over, I’ll have to move back home, and I suspect I’ll have a noticeable bump by then. Right now, I just look full in the middle. Enough to make my jeans tight so I’ve been wearing elastic waist leggings and sweatpants.

How’s it going with learning ASL? I’m getting so much better at it, but my instructor said it will take a year to learn enough signs to have extensive conversations, and another year or two after that before I’m good at it.

I love you. XO

Gabby

I wasn’thappy that Ben refused to open my letters or reply, but I knew that eventually he would miss me so much that he would cave and read them. Hope was enough to keep me going, passing my classes (just barely), and eating healthy for our baby.

And nothing could have prepared me for the gut-wrenching feeling of losing that hope.

“How was the camp?” Mom asked when we talked on the phone the first Saturday morning in April.

“Uh, it was fine. How are you and Dad?” I quickly changed the subject.

“We’re good. We miss you.”

“Miss you too.” I curled the phone cord around my finger. I hated lying (even if by omission) to my parents. “How’s Ben? I haven’t heard much”—anything—“from him recently.”

Mom made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Oh, well, he’s working now. He’s back at the store in the meat department, but he doesn’t have to tend to the counter or have interaction with customers. Carmen said when he’s not working, he still spends hours in his room. But …”

“But what?”

“Well, um …”

“What?” I repeated.

“I guess I should just prepare you. He has a friend he’s been doing things with occasionally.”

“Oh, that’s good. Right? Someone he works with?”

“No. It’s someone who just moved to town. They met at church.”

“Oh, even better. Is he our age?”

“She’sactually twenty-three. And she’s a substitute teacher at the school for now, but Agnes Kline is retiring at the end of the year, so Ben’s new friend will teach the third grade full-time in the fall. Her name is Laurel, and her father is deaf. She knows ASL. Carmen hopes she’ll convince Ben to learn it.”

At some point, all the tears broke free. There were no sobs, not so much as a peep, but my eyes hemorrhaged emotions. Pain mixed with pregnancy hormones.

“Gabby?”

I swallowed hard and cradled the phone between my ear and shoulder to wipe my face. “Yeah?”

“Just making sure you’re still on the line and we didn’t get cut off. Carmen didn’t know if I should tell you about Laurel since you and Ben had a rough moment over Christmas break. But I told her you’d be happy for him. We all just want him to get better and adjust to his new way of living without hearing. It’s not like you wouldn’t want him to make new friends.”

Friends …

Ben’s history with female “friends” involved sex. I was his only platonic female friend until he kissed me in the hallway.

I rested my hand on my stomach. “A friend,” I murmured. “Good for him.”

Benjamin Ashford was a cruel asshole, and had I not been pregnant with his baby, I would have vowed to never speak to him again.

But—and it was a bigbut—I was having his baby. It wasn’t a secret I could keep forever. And I wanted nothing more than to sneak into his house and steal all the letters that I knew were unopened. Except the first few I sent him. He deserved every nasty word in those.

“Any boys we need to know about? Are you being good?”

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