Page 59 of The Lookback

“I know that’s been hard for you, but it’s alright. I know how you feel about it.” He shifts me until he can see my face. “I know what it means to you, and I’ll support you however I can.”

He’s assuming I’ll terminate it.

Of course he is.

I’ve been really, really clear. I’ve been vocal. He knows me.

And he loves me anyway.

“I made a list,” I say. “I didn’t just drive over to tell you the second I found out.”

His half smile just makes him even more handsome. “I wouldn’t expect anything else. Actually, I’m a little surprised you’re telling me at all.” His hand slides down my arm and his fingers lace through mine. “I’m proud of you for that. Let’s go inside. We can talk.”

“But you’re not going to fight with me?” I blink. “Argue for the future of our baby?”

He sighs. “Would it make a difference if I did?”

I’m not sure. I don’t tell him about the socks.

“Your sister Abby would already have done that, I’m sure.”

I can’t help my wry smile. He knows me well enough to know that Abby already found out, and that she would have made a case for keeping it. “Abby was pretty good about it, actually.”

“It’s not like you’ve been close-mouthed,” he says. “We all know where you stand.”

It hurts, in that moment. Being pro-choice doesn’t mean I want to kill babies. It means I valuechoices.It means I think women should be able to choose.

“But that’s not what I’m doing,” I say. “I bought something.” I reach through the open door of my car and rummage around, shoving things down and back until my fingers brush against the soft, fleecy fabric. I pull the socks out and hold them up, triumphant. “I made a list, and there was nothing on the ‘keep’ side.” I clear my throat. “Except making you happy, and making Abby happy.” There’s no way he would understand otter and sock as logical reasons in that column. But I realize what he will understand.

“And makingmehappy.” I hold out the socks. “I thought maybe we should have the baby. If you want that, too, I mean.”

I worry he might whoop loudly enough to wake his parents or the neighbors. I worry he might stop breathing.

But I didn’t expect him to start sobbing. My big, strong, tough man starts to cry then, his hands reaching slowly toward the socks, as tears roll down his face. “Do you mean that?”

I didn’t. Not until this very moment.

But the way he was willing to support me without recriminations, without manipulation, without making me feel less. . . It was just what I needed to know. If he can act like that when I know he wants kids, if he can do what I need instead of what he wants, and if he can do it without making me feel bad, then maybe he and I can do this, together.

The world needs more families with fathers like him.

“I’m worried,” I whisper. “I don’t think I’ll be a very good mother.”

“Only the best mothers worry about that,” he says. “Trust me.”

“That’s almost exactly what Mandy said.” I’m crying now, too. I hate it. And I love it.

He slowly brushes my tears away with his thumbs. “How many people did you tell before me, exactly?” But he’s smiling. He’s smiling, and he’s crying, and he’s happier than I’ve ever seen him. “Just so I know what to expect.”

“The stupid Salt Lake Tribune said they can’t run the full-page article on it until tomorrow,” I say. “So there are lots of people around who don’t know yet.” I’m smiling too.

“It was the socks, wasn’t it?” David takes them from me. “You saw these adorable little socks, and you decided you had to have the baby.”

How does he know me so well?

“I’ll have some research to do,” he says.

“About what?”

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